it has made you excell your self.


SECT. 4.

_Cautions for the avoiding some Faults which_ Theocritus, Ovid, Spencer,
Tasso, &c. have fallen into in their Descriptions_.

The generality of our narrative Poets under their general Descriptions,
bring in the Descriptions of particular and lesser Things. This is very
faulty. I might Instance In _OVID_, _SPENCER_, _CHAUCER_, &c, but there
is an Example of this so very flagrant in _TASSO_, that I can't forbear
mentioning it, as I think 'tis the most monstrous one I ever saw, and
these Observations relate alike to Epick Poetry and Pastoral. This
Author has occasion in the Thirteenth Book of his Hierusalem to describe
a Drought, which he does In Six and Fifty Lines, and then least we might
mistake what he's describing tell's us in Eight Lines more, how the
Soldiers panted and languished thro' excessive Heat, then in Eight more
describes the Horses panting and languishing; then in Eight more gives
us a Description of the Dogs, who lay before the Tents also panting and
languishing, and so on.

This is what I mean by bringing one Description within another; and 'tis
the greatest of Faults. We lose all thoughts of the general Description,
and are so engaged in Under-ones, that we have forgot what he at first
propos'd to describe.

Another Observation I would make, is, that a Pastoral Writer should be
particularly careful not to proceed too far, or dwell too minutely on
Circumstances, in his most pleasurable Descriptions, which we may term