Front matter (continued 2)

But tho you must be sparing in your Descriptions, yet your Comparisons must be frequent, and the more often you use them, the better and more graceful will be the Composure; especially if taken from such things, as the Shepherds must be familiarly acquainted with: They are frequent in Theocritus but so proper to the Country, that none but a Shepherd dare use them. Thus Menalcas in the eighth Idyllium:

And Damœtas in Virgil’s Palæmon,

And that in the eighth Eclogue,

And such Comparisons are very frequent in him, and very suitable to the Genius of a Shepherd; as likewise often repetitions, and doublings of some words: which, if they are luckily plac’d have an unexpressible quaintness, and make the Numbers extream sweet, and the turns ravishing and delightful. An instance of this we have in Virgil’s Melibœus,

As for the Manners of your Shepherds, they must be such as theirs who liv’d in the Islands of the Happy or Golden Age: They must be candid, simple, and ingenuous; lovers of Goodness, and Justice, affable, and kind; strangers to all fraud, contrivance, and deceit; in their Love modest, and chast, not one suspitious word, no loose expression to be allowed: and in this part Theocritus is faulty, Virgil never; and this difference perhaps is to be ascrib’d to their Ages, the times in which the latter liv’d being more polite, civil, and gentile. And therefore those who make wanton Love- stories the subject of Pastorals, are in my opinion very unadvis’d; for all sort of lewdness or debauchery are directly contrary to the Innocence of the golden Age. There is another thing in which Theocritus is faulty, and that is making his Shepherds too sharp, and abusive to one another; Comatas and Lacon are ready to fight, and the railing between those two is as bitter as Billingsgate: Now certainly such Raillery cannot be suitable to those sedate times of the Happy Age.

As for Sentences, if weighty, and Philosophical, common Sense tells us they are not fit for a Shepherd’s mouth. Here Theocritus cannot be altogether excus’d, but Virgil deserves no reprehension. But Proverbs justly challenge admission into Pastorals, nothing being more common in the mouths of Countrymen than old Sayings.

Thus much seem’d necessary to be premis’d out of RAPIN, for the direction and information of the Reader.

ERRATA.

p. 13. l. 15. read

the wind.

p. 15. l. 16. read

fight.

p. 60. l. 4. read

Shoes.

p. 95. l. 17. read

whilst all.

p. 112. l. 9. read

of my Love.

Transcriber’s Note: The errata listed above appear to belong to the Creech translation of Theocritus, not included in this reprint. A few misprints in the Rapin text were corrected for this e-text. The corrections appear like this.

Rapin's Discourse of Pastorals was first published in Latin, with his eclogues, under the title: Eclogae, cum dissertatione de carmine pastorali. Parisiis, apud S. Cramoisy, 1659.

The English translation by Thomas Creech, prefixed to his translation of the Idylliums of Theocritus, appeared in 1684. A second edition "to which is prefix'd, The Life of Theocritus. By Basil Kennet", was printed at London for E. Curll, at the Dial and Bible against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street, in 1713, and a third edition, also printed for Curll, appeared in 1721.

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