_Of gentlest Blood that ever Shepherd bore_, &c.

Such beautiful Turns of Words as these are extremely scarce in
_Spencer_; but he has not one but what is inimitably fine and natural.

Let us now see the two Phrazes which _Creech_ has happen'd upon.
Whose Language I have observ'd to be infinitely the best of any of our
Pastoral writers, next to Spencer. This is one of them. A Shepherdess
says to a persuading Swain.

_You will deceive, you Men are all Deceit;
And we so willing to believe the Cheat_.

The other is this, to Diana; when she consents.

_I liv'd your Vot'ry, but no more can live_.




CHAP. III.

_The Tender in Pastory distinguish'd from that in Epick poetry or
Tragedy_.


'Tis strange to me that our Pastoral Writers should make no Distinction
between their SOFT when they write Pastories, and when they write Epick
Poetry. This in _Philips_ is the Epick Softness, or what we call the
Beautiful sometimes in Epick Poetry in Opposition to the Sublime.