Characters, a delightful Fable, or any Moral, do well to make it of no
greater Extent than a Song or Ballad. Where there is nought to delight
but the Sentiments, (for they aim at neither the soft nor the sublime
Language) a Reader cannot attend to more than a hundred Lines; but where
the Mind is engag'd and concern'd for the Issue of the Story, and eager
to know the Event, 'tis insensibly drawn on, and haveing some Aim in
View, is much less weary'd, tho' led on to a greater Extent.




CHAP. III.

_That the Pastoral Action must not be very little and minute; also that
several Under-actions must run thro' the Poem_.


A Third Quality, laid down as necessary to constitute a Fable wholly
perfect, was this, That as there must be but one Action, that Action
may not be any trifling, silly Circumstance of a Shepherd's Life. As
one Swain's telling the other how poor and bare he is grown. Or one
complaining to the other, that his Flock has had some Mischance, or the
like; which is as much as can be gather'd out of the Pastorals form'd
after the ordinary Way. For if you take the Actions of any of 'em,
divested of the Ornaments of Poetry, and the constant Repetition of the
pleasing Words, Grove, Breeze, Mead, &c. you will find nothing, even
nothing at all in any of 'em.

So that, tho' these Pastorals mostly may have Actions, nay, and Unity
of Action; yet are they Actions no more proper for a Poem, than a