THERE are not, I believe, a greater number of any sort of verses than of those which are called Pastorals; nor a smaller, than of those which are truly so. It therefore seems necessary to give some account of this kind of Poem; and it is my design to comprise, in this short paper, the substance of those numerous dissertations the critics have made on the subject, without omitting any of their rules in my own favour: you will also find some points reconciled about which they seem to differ, and a few remarks which, I think, have escaped their observation.

The original of poetry is ascribed to that age which succeeded the creation of the world; and as the keeping of flocks seems to have been the first employment of mankind, the most ancient sort of poetry was probably Pastoralt. It is natural to imagine, that the leisure of those ancient shepherds, admitting and invit

*Written at sixteen years of age. P.

+ Fontenelle's Discourse on Pastorals. P.

ing some diversion, none was so proper to that solitary and sedentary life as singing; and that in their songs they took occasion to celebrate their own felicity. From hence a poem was invented, and afterwards improved to a perfect image of that happy time; which, by giving us an esteem for the virtues of a former age, might recommend them to the present. And since the life of shepherds was attended with more tranquillity than any other rural employment, the poets chose to introduce their persons, from whom it received the name of Pastoral.

A Pastoral is an imitation of the action of a shepherd, or one considered under that character. The form of this imitation is dramatic, or narrative, or mixed of both*; the fable simple, the manners not too polite nor too rustic: the thoughts are plain, yet admit a little quickness and passion; but, that short and flowing: the expression humble, yet as pure as the language will afford; neat, but not florid; easy, and yet lively. In short, the fable, manners, thoughts, and expressions, are full of the greatest simplicity in nature.

The complete character of this Poem consists in simplicity +, brevity, and delicacy; the two first of which render an eclogue natural, and the last delightful.

If we would copy Nature, it may be useful to take this idea along with us, that Pastoral is an image of what they call the Golden Age: so that we are not

*Heinsius in Theocr. P..

†Rapin de Carm. Past. p. 2. P.

Theocritus excels all others in nature and simplicity. The subjects of his Idyllia are purely pastoral; but he is not so exact in his persons, having introduced reapers and fishermen as well as shepherds. He is apt to be too long in his descriptions, of which that of the Cup, in the First Pastoral, is a remarkable instance. In the manners he seems a little defective: for his swains are sometimes abusive and immodest, and perhaps too much inclining to rusticity; for instance, in his Fourth and Fifth Idyllia. But it is enough, that all others learned their excellencies from him, and that his dialect alone has a secret charm in it, which no other could ever attain.

Virgil, who copies Theocritus, refines upon his original; and, in all points where judgment is principally concerned, he is much superior to his master. Though some of his subjects are not pastoral in themselves, but only seem to be such, they have a wonderful variety in them, which the Greek was a stranger to†. He exceeds him in regularity and brevity, and falls short of him in nothing but simplicity and propriety of style; the first of which, perhaps, was the fault of his age, and the last of his language.

Among the Moderns their success has been greatest, who have most endeavoured to make these Aucients their pattern. The most considerable genius * CEPISTAL, Idyl. x. and AAIEIE, idyl. xxi. P. Rapin Ref. on Arist. part. ij. Ref. xxvii.---Pref. to the Ecl. in Dryden's Virg. P.

appears in the famous Tasso, and our Spenser.--Tasso, in his Aminta, has as far excelled all the pastoral writers, as, in his Gierusalemme, he has outdone the epic poets of his country. But as this piece seems to have been the original of a new sort of poem, the Pastoral Comedy, in Italy, it cannot so well be considered as a copy of the Ancients:--Spenser's Calendar, in Mr. Dryden's opinion, is the most complete work of this kind which any nation has produced ever since the time of Virgil*.--Not but that he may be thought imperfect in some few points. His eclogues are somewhat too long, if we compare them with the Ancients; he is sometimes too allegorical, and treats of matters of religion in a pastoral. style, as the Mantuan had done before him. He has employed the Lyric measure, which is contrary to the practice of the old poets. His stanza is not still the same, nor always well chosen. This last may be the reason his expression

sometimes not concise enough: for the Tetrastic has obliged him to extend his sense to the length of four lines, which would have been more closely confined in the couplet.

In the manners, thoughts, and characters, he comes near to Theocritus himself; though, notwithstanding all the care he has taken, he is certainly inferior in his di lect: for the Doric had its beauty and propriety in the time of Theocritus; it was used in part of Greece, and frequent in the

* Dedication to Virg. Ecl. P.

mouths of many of the greatest persons; whereas the old English and country phrases of Spenser were either entirely obsolete, or spoken only by people of the lowest condition. As there is a difference betwixt simplicity and rusticity, so the expression of simple thoughts should be plain, but not clownish. The addition he has made of a Calendar to his Eclogues is very beautiful: since by this, besides the general moral of innocence and simplicity, which is common to other authors of Pastoral, he has one peculiar to himself; he compares human life to the several seasons, and at once exposes to his readers a view of the great and little worlds, in their various changes and aspects. Yet the scrupulous division of his Pastorals into months, has obliged him either to repeat the same description in other words, for three months together, or, when it was exhausted before, entirely to omit it: whence it comes to pass, that some of his Eclogues (as the Sixth, Eighth, and Tenth, for example) have nothing but their titles to distinguish them. The reason is evident, because the year has not that variety in it to furnish every month with a particular description, as it may every season.

Of the following Eclogues I shall only say, that these four comprehend all the subjects which the critics upon Theocritus and Virgil will allow to be fit for Pastoral; that they have as much variety of description, in respect of the several seasons, as Spenser's: that, in order to add to this variety, the