{6} And from this head I think the dignity of _Bucolicks_ is sufficiently cleared, for as much as the Golden Age is to be preferred before the _Heroick_, so much _Pastorals_ must excell _Heroick_ Poems: yet this is so to be understood, that if we look upon the majesty and loftiness of _Heroick_ Poems, it must be confest that they justly claim the preheminence; but if the unaffected neatness, elegant, graceful smartness of the expression, or the polite dress of a Poem be considered, then they fall short of _Pastorals_: for this sort flows with Sweet, Elegant, neat and pleasing fancies; as is too evident to every one that hath tasted the sweeter muses, to need a farther explication: for tis not probable that _Asinius Pollio_, _Cinna_, _Varius_, _Cornelius Gallus_, men of the neatest Wit, and that lived in the most polite Age, or that _Augustus Cæsar_ the Prince of the _Roman_ elegance, as well as of the common Wealth, should be so extreamly taken with _Virgils Bucolicks_, or that _Virgil_ himself a man of such singular prudence, and so correct a judgment, should dedicate his Eclogues to those great Persons; unless he had known that there is somewhat more then ordinary Elegance in those sort of Composures, which the wise perceive, tho far above the understanding of the Crowd: nay if _Ludovicus Vives_, a very learned man, and admired for politer studies may be believed, there is somewhat more sublime and excellent in those _Pastorals_, than the Common {7} sort of Grammarians imagine: This I shall discourse of in an other place, and now inquire into the Antiquity of Pastorals. Since _Linus_, _Orpheus_, and _Eumolpus_ were famous for their Poems, before the _Trojan_ wars; those are certainly mistaken, who date Poetry from that time; I rather incline to their opinion who make it as old as the World it self; which Assertion as it ought to be understood of Poetry in general, so especially of _Pastoral_, which, as _Scaliger_ delivers, was the most antient kind of Poetry, and resulting from the most _antient_ way of Liveing: _Singing first began amongst Sheapards as they fed their Flocks, either by the impulse of nature, or in imitation of the notes of Birds, or the whispering of Trees._ For since the first men were either _Sheapards_ or _Ploughmen_, and _Sheapards_, as may be gathered out of _Thucydides_ and _Varro_, were before the others, they were the first that either invited by their leisure, or (which _Lucretius_ thinks more probable) in imitation of Birds, began a tune. Thro all the Woods they heard the pleasing noise Of chirping Birds, and try'd to frame their voice, And Imitate, thus Birds instructed man, And taught them Songs before their Art began. In short, tis so certain that Verses first began in the Country that the thing is in it self evident, and this _Tibullus_ very plainly signifies,