in Tragedy, but there is no necessity, because he must use a Number
sufficient to please, that therefore he must fall into that fault. Yet
for mine own part, I had rather see too much, than too little Action, as
I cannot help preferring a faulty Writer before a dull One.

But a Poet of Genius will diversify and adorn his Fable, as much as he
lawfully may; and as for the Simple, he will draw such soft and tender
Characters, as will furnish his Poem with enough of that, and of the
most delightful Kind. The generality of Pastoral Writers seem to
think they must make their Pieces simple, by divesting them of all the
Ornaments of Poetry; and the less and more inconsiderable Sketches they
are, the more Simple they are. A strange Conception sure of Simplicity.
While their Sentiments are false almost in every Line; either in their
own Nature; or with respect to Pastoral; or to the Person speaking; or
some other foreign Cause. But I shall always wave the being particular
in such Cases as these. To point at Faults directly, I think the
Business of a Carper, not a Critick.




CHAP. IV.

_Of the Moral; and what kind of Moral Pastoral require's_.


The fourth Quality that a Fable ask's, to render it compleat, is a
Moral Result. I need not trouble you with a Proof of a Moral's being
necessary; 'tis plain that every Poem should be made as perfect as 'tis
capable of being, and no one will ever affirm a Moral to be unnatural in