There are no persons whom it becomes better to lengthen a little their Narrations with Circumstances than Lovers. They ought not indeed to be absolutely needless or too far-fetch'd; for, this would be tedious, though it may be natural enough; but those that have but a half relation to the Action which is talk'd of, and that show more passion than they, are considerable, can never fail to please. So when, in one of Monsieur de Segrais's Eclogues, a Shepherdess says,
The Songs which Lysis and Menalcas sing
Please ev'ry Swain, and make the Vallies ring;
But I like better those which near This Tree,
My Jealous Shepherd lately made for me.
The Circumstance of the Tree is pretty, only as it had been needless for any other but a Lover. According to our Idea of Shepherds, Tales and Narrations become them very well; but for them to make Speeches, such as those in Astræa, full of general Reflections, and Chains of Arguments, is a thing which I do not think their Character allows.
It is not amiss to make them give descriptions, provided they be not very long. That of the Cup which the Goat-herd promises to Thyrsis, in Theocritus's first Idyllium somewhat exceeds the Bounds: Yet, according to that Example, Ronsard, and Belleau his Contemporary, have made some that are yet longer. When their Shepherds are about describing a Basket, a Goat or a Blackbird, which they make the Prize of a Pastoral Combate, they never have done: Not that their Descriptions are sometimes without great Beauties, and are writ without admirable Art; far from this, they have too much of it for Shepherds.
Vida a Latin Poet of the last Age, and of great Reputation, in his Eclogue of Nice, whom I take to be Victoria Colonna, the Marquess of Pescario's Widow, brings in the Shepherd Damon giving a Description of a Rush Basket which he is to make for her. He says, that he will represent in it Davalos, that is the Marquess, dying, and grieved that he does not die in Battle; some Kings, Captains, and Nymphs in Tears about him, Nice praying the Gods in vain, Nice fainting away at the News of Davalos's Death, and with difficulty recovering her Senses by the means of the Water which her Women throw on her Face; and he adds that he would have expressed many Complaints and Moans, if they could be exprest on Rush. Here are a great many Things to be show'd on a Basket! Neither do I relate them all; but I cannot tell how all this can be exprest on Rush, nor how Damon, who owns he cannot express on it the Complaints of Nice, is not at a Loss to display on it the Marquess'sGrief
