_Once_ Delia _lay, on easy Moss reclin'd, Her lovely Limbs half bare, and rude the Wind_, &c. This also is of the same kind of SOFT. _A Girland deckt in all the Pride of May, Sweet as her Breath, and as her Beauty Gay_, &c. But Instances were endless. In Opposition to this kind of Soft, I shall quote out of _Spencer_ some Passages which have the truest Softness. For such that Author has, beyond any in the World, tho' perhaps not very often. He begins his last Pastory thus. _A gentle Shepherd sate besides a Spring, All in the shadow of a bushy Breer_, &c. And his first he begins thus. _A Shepherd's Boy (no better do him call)_ &c. His Pastoral named _Colin Clout's come home_, begins thus. _The Shepherd-boy (best known by that Name) Who after TITYRUS first sang his Lay, Lays of sweet Love, without Rebuke or Blow, Sate, as his manner was, upon a Day_, &c. These Lines of _Spencer_ and those of _Philips_, both contain agreeable Images and Thoughts, yet are they as different as _Milton_ and _D'Urfey_. I shall only make one Observation on this difference. Namely, that in the soft and beautiful Lines of _Philips_, each Word, only signifies a soft and beautiful Idea; As _Breath, Waters, Flow, Gently, Soft_, &c. but in _Spencer_ the sound also is soft. Had such an Author dress'd this inimitable Thought of _Philips_, the Line would have glided as smooth and easy off the Tongue, as the Waters he mentions, do along the Meadows. SECT. II. _That no Language is so fit for Pastoral as the English_. I have before observed, that this softness is effected, among other things by little Words; yet I cannot help observing here, that our Language is infinitely the finest of any in the World for Pastoral, and it's abounding so much in little Words is one Reason of it. The Pomps and Stateliness of the Latin Lines could not have been made proper for Pastoral, unless entirely alter'd, and 'tis not likely that a Genius daring enough to do that would engage in Pastoral. The _Romans_ had not a Particle, as we have, before their _Substantives_; As _A_ and _The Tree_. Seldom used a Word before the Verbs; as _He goes_, _They go_. Nor had they our _Doth_ and _Does_; without which no _Englishman_ could form a Pastoral Language. As the sweet Simplicity of that Line, I have just quoted, is occasion'd by nothing else. _A Shepherd-boy (no better do him call_.)