Hunters, and the like, belong to this kind of Poetry: which according
to the Rule that I have laid down cannot be true for, as I before
hinted nothing but the action of a {28} Shepherd can be the Subject of
a Pastoral.

I shall not here enquire, tho it may seem proper, whether we can
decently bring into an Eclogue Reapers, Vine-dressers, Gardners,
Fowlers, Hunters, Fishers, or the like, whose lives for the most part
are taken up with too much business and employment to have any vacant
time for Songs, and idle Chat, which are more agreeable to the leisure
of a Sheapards Life: for in a great many Rustick affairs, either the
hardship and painful Labor will not admit a song, as in Plowing, or
the solitude as in hunting, Fishing, Fowling, and the like; but of
this I shall discourse more largely in another place.

Now 'tis not sufficient to make a Poem a true _Pastoral_, that the
Subject of it is the action of a Shepherd, for in _Hesiods_ *erga* and
_Virqils Georgicks_ there are a great many things that belong to the
employment of a Shepherd, yet none fancy they are Pastorals; from
whence 'tis evident, that beside the _matter_, which we have defin'd
to be the action of a Sheapard, there is a peculiar _Form_ proper to
this kind of _Poetry_ by which 'tis distinguish'd from all others.

Of Poetry in General _Socrates_, as _Plato_ tells us, would have
_Fable_ to be the _Form_: _Aristotle_ Imitation: I shall not dispute
what difference there is between these two, but only inquire whether
Imitation be the _Form_ of _Pastoral_: 'Tis certain that _Epick_
Poetry is differenc't from _Tragick_ only by {29} the manner of
imitation, for the latter imitates by _action_, and the former by bare
_narration_: But _Pastoral_ is the imitation of a _Pastoral_ action