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done by chance than on defign, and fometimes is best shewn by inference; left by too much study to seem natural, we destroy that eafy fimplicity from whence arises the delight. For what is inviting in this fort of poetry proceeds not fo much from the Idea of that bufinefs, as of the tranquillity of a country life.

We must therefore ufe fome illufion to render a Pastoral delightful; and this confifts in expofing the best fide only of a fhepherd's life, and in concealing its miferies". Nor is it enough to introduce fhepherds difcourfing together in a natural way; but a regard must be had to the fubject; that it contain fome particular beauty in itself, and that it be different in every Eclogue. Befides, in each of them a defign'd fcene or profpect is to be presented to our view, which fhould likewife. have its variety h. This variety is obtained in a great degree by frequent comparisons, drawn from the most agreeable objects of the country; by interrogations to things inanimate; by beautiful digreffions, but those short; sometimes by insisting a little on circumstances; and laftly, by elegant turns on the words, which render the numbers extremely sweet and pleafing. As for the numbers themselves, though they are properly of the heroic measure, they should be the smootheft, the most eafy and flowing imaginable.

8 Fontenelle's Difc. of Paftorals. h See the forementioned Preface.

VOL. I.

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It is by rules like these that we ought to judge of pastoral. And fince the inftructions given for any art are to be delivered as that art is in perfection, they must of neceffity be derived from those in whom it is acknowledged fo to be. It is therefore from the practice of Theocritus and Virgil (the only undisputed authors of Paftoral) that the Critics have drawn the foregoing notions concerning it.

Theocritus excels all others in nature and fimplicity. The fubjects of his Idyllia are purely paftoral; but he is not fo exact in his perfons, having introduced reapers i and fishermen as well as fhepherds t. He is apt to be too long in his descriptions, of which that of the Cup in the first paftoral is a remarkable inftance. In the manners he feems a little defective, for his fwains are fometimes abufive and immodeft, and perhaps too much inclining to rufticity; for inftance, in his fourth and fifth Idyllia. But 'tis enough that all others learnt their excellencies from him, and that his Dialect alone has a fecret charm in it, which no other could ever attain.

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*Stefichorus, it is faid, wrote paftorals alfo.

* ΘΕΡΙΣΤΑΙ, Idyl. x, and ΑΛΙΕΙΣ, Idyl. xxi.

P.

† The 10th and 21ft Idyll. here alluded to, contain somę of the most exquifite ftrokes of nature and true poetry any where to be met with, as does the beautiful defcription of the carving on the cup; which, indeed, is not a cup, large paftoral veffel or cauldron. Vas paftorilium ampliffimum.

but a

very

Virgil,

Virgil, who copies Theocritus, refines upon his original and in all points, where judgment is principally concerned, he is much fuperior to his master. Though fome of his fubjects are not paftoral in themselves, but only seem to be fuch; they have a wonderful variety in them, which the Greek was a ftranger to*. He exceeds him in regularity and brevity, and falls fhort of him in nothing but fimplicity and propriety of ftyle; the firft of which perhaps was the fault of his age, and the last of his language.

Among the moderns, their fuccefs has been greatest who have most endeavoured to make thefe ancients their pattern. The moft confiderable Genius appears in the famous Taffo, and our Spenfer. Taffo § in his Aminta has as far excelled

all

He refines indeed fo much as to make him, on this very account, much inferior to the beautiful fimplicity of his original.

* Rapin, Reff. on Arift. part ii. refl. xxvii.-Pref. to the Eck. in Dryden's Virg.

P.

The Aminta of Taffo is here erroneously mentioned by Pope as the very first pastoral comedy that appeared in Italy: And Dr. Hurd alfo fell into the fame mistake. But it is certain that Il Sacrificio of Agoftino Beccari was the firft, who boasts of it in his prologue, and who died very old in 1590; which drama was acted in the Palace of Francefco of Efte. Such a mistake is very pardonable in fo young an author, and very different from the grofs and unfcholar-like blunder of Trapp, who tells us in his fourteenth Lecture, that all the eclogues of Calphurnius and Nemefian, who flourished under Diocletian, were entirely loft,

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all the Paftoral writers, as in his Gierufalemme he has out-done the Epic poets of his country. But as this piece feems to have been the original of a new fort of poem, the Paftoral Comedy, in Italy, it cannot fo well be confidered as a copy of the ancients. Spenfer's Calendar, in Mr. Dryden's opinion, is the most complete work of this kind which any nation has produced ever fince the time of Virgil'. Not but that he may be thought imperfect in fome few points. His Eclogues arė fomewhat too long, if we compare them with the ancients. He is fometimes 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 ftanza is not ftill the fame, nor always well chofen. This last may be the reafon his expreflion is fometimes not concife enough for the Tetraftic has obliged him to extend his fenfe to the length of four lines, which would have been more clofely confined in the Couplet.

I will juft add, that the famous Critic, Jafon de Nores, who wrote fo well on Horace's Art of Poetry, condemned the Paftoral Drama. And that the above-mentioned Il Sacrificio was acted at Ferrara 1550, and the Aminta 1573, and the Pastor Fido before Cardinal Borghefe 1590. It is obfervable, that Pope does not mention the Comus of Milton, the most exquifite of all paftoral dramas.

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In the manners, thoughts, and characters, he comes near to Theocritus himself; tho', notwithstanding all the care he has taken, he is certainly inferior in his Dialect: For the Doric had its beauty and propriety in the time of Theocritus; it was ufed in part of Greece, and frequent in the mouths of many of the greatest perfons: whereas the old English and country phrases of Spenser were either entirely obfolete, or spoken only by people of the loweft condition. As there is a difference betwixt fimplicity and rufticity, fo the expreffion of fimple thoughts should be plain, but not clownish. The addition he has made of a Calendar to his Eclogues, is very beautiful; fince by this, befides the general moral of innocence and fimplicity, which is common to other authors of Pastoral, he has one peculiar to himself; he compares human Life to the feveral Seafons, and at once exposes to his readers a view of the great and little worlds, in their various changes and aspects. Yet the fcrupulous divifion 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 fome of his Eclogues (as the fixth, eighth, and tenth, for example) have nothing but their Titles to diftinguish 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,

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