in ancient poetry, a kind of poem relating to shepherds and country affairs, which, according to the most generally received opinion, took its rise in Sicily. Bucolics, says Varro, have some conformity with comedy. Like it, they are pictures and imitations of ordinary life; with this difference, however, that comedy represents the manners of the inhabitants of cities, and bucolics the occupations of country people. Sometimes, continues he, this last poem is in form of a monologue, and sometimes of a dialogue. Sometimes there is action in it, and sometimes only narration; and sometimes it is composed both of action and narration. The hexameter verse is the most proper for bucolics in the Greek and Latin tongues. Molochus, Bion, Theocritus, and Virgil, are the most renowned of the ancient bucolic poets.