Hodge-podge. 'Tis not enough therefore, for the forming a pastoral
Language to use Old-Words; a Writer must set down, and by true Pains and
Industry constitute a Language entirely of a piece and consistant;
in performing which the choicest Old-Words will be of some little
Assistance.

If I might advise you, Cubbin, I would have you always write Pastorals
in either such a Language as this, entirely uniform and of a piece, or
else to write in a strong polite Language. Never write any single thing
in a low and mean Language. Polite Language is only faulty with respect
to it's being in Pastoral; but low Language is in it's own Nature
faulty. The first is only unnatural; the latter is stupid and dull.
Therefore unless you resolve to go quite thro', never weaken or enervate
your Pastoral Language at all. Unless you resolve to add Simplicity
and Softness, to supply the place of Strength, never rob it of it's
Strength. It had better have strength and Sprightliness and Politeness
than Nothing.

The best Way is that which Sir _Philip Sidney_ has taken, to suppose
your Swains to live in the _Golden-Age_, and to be above the ordinary
Degree of Shepherds, for Kings Sons and Daughters, were then of
that Employ. And upon this Supposition to make 'em talk in a polite,
delightful and refined Dialect. By this Means you will disable the
Criticks at once.

But perhaps some may expect that I should vindicate the Use of
Old-Words, on my own Account. But for that Reason I am the more careless
in touching the Subject; because I would leave the World to a free and
unbias'd Judgment of what I have done. Nor is this an Age, indeed, to
begin to vindicate Old-Words in. The Method has been approv'd of in all