action, and tis not a representation of the Person but the Action.

From all which we may gather this definition of Pastoral: _It is the
imitation of the Action of a Sheapard, or of one taken under that
Character_: Thus _Virgil's Gallus_, tho not really a _Sheapard_, for
he was a man of great quality in _Rome_, yet belongs to _Pastoral_,
because he is represented like a Sheapard: hence the Poet:

{20} The Goatherd and the heavy Heardsmen came,
And ask't what rais'd the deadly Flame.

The _Scene_ lys amongst Sheapards, the _Swains_ are brought in, the
_Herdsmen_ come to see his misery, and the fiction is suited to the
real condition of a _Sheapard_; the same is to be said for his
_Silenus_, who tho he seems lofty, and to sound to loud for an oaten
reed, yet since what he sings he sings to _Sheapards_, and suits his
Subject to their apprehensions, his is to be acknowledged _Pastoral_.
This rule we must stick to, that we might infallibly discern what is
stricktly _Pastoral_ in _Virgil_ and _Theocritus_, and what not: for
in _Theocritus_ there are some more lofty thoughts which not having
any thing belonging to Sheapards for their Subject, must by no means
be accounted _Pastoral_, But of this more in its proper place.

My present inquiry must be what is the _Subject Matter_ of a
_Pastoral_, about which it is not easy to resolve; since neither from
_Aristotle_, nor any of the _Greeks_ who have written _Pastorals_, we
can receive certain direction. For sometimes they treat of high and
sublime things, like _Epick Poets_; what can be loftier than the whole
_Seaventh Idyllium of Bias_ in which _Myrsan_ urges _Lycidas_ the
Sheapard to sing the Loves of _Deidamia_ and _Achilles_. For he