Critics upon Theocritus and Virgil will allow to be fit for paftoral: That they have as much variety of description, in respect of the feveral feafons, as Spenfer's that in order to add to this variety, the several times of the day are obferv'd, the rural employments

in

and in the hands of Milton, does it with a peculiar and irresistible charm. Subordinate poets exercise no invention, when they tell how a fhepherd has loft his companion, and muft feed his flocks alone without any judge of his skill in piping but Milton dignifies and adorns these common artificial incidents with unexpected touches of picturesque beauty, with the graces of fentiment, and with the novelties of original genius. It is faid, "here is no art, for there is nothing new." But this objection will vanish, if we confider the imagery which Milton has raised from local circumftances. Not to repeat the ufe he has made of the mountains of Wales, the Ifle of Man, and the river Dee, near which Lycidas was ship wrecked; let us recollect the introduction of the roman. tic fuperftition of Saint Michael's Mount in Cornwall, which overlooks the Irish feas, the fatal scene of his friend's difafter.

"But the poetry is not always unconnected with paffion. The poet lavishly describes an ancient fepulchral rite, but it is made preparatory to a stroke of tenderness. He calls for a variety of flowers to decorate his friend's hearfe, fuppofing that his body was present, and forgetting for a while he was drowned: it was fome confolation that he was to receive the decencies of burial. This is a pleasing deception: it is natural and pathetic. But the real catastrophe recurs. And this circumftance again opens a new vein of imagination.". -Poems of Milton, fecond edition, Robinson, 1791, p. 35. T. WARTON.

REMARKS.

The Difcourfe on Paftoral Poetry is certainly, as Dr. Warton obferves, a fenfible and judicious performance. But Pope's de finition of Paftoral is too confined. In fact, his Paftoral Difcourse seems made to fit (if I may say so) his Pastorals For the fame reafon he would not class as a true * Paftoral, the most interefting of all Virgil's Eclogues:-I mean the firft; which is

* See his account of Pastoral in the Guardian.

founded

in each season or time of day, and the rural scenes or places proper to fuch employments; not without fome regard to the feveral ages of man, and the different paffions proper to each age,

But

founded on fact, which has the most tender and touching ftrokes of nature, and the plot of which is entirely paftoral, being the complaint of a Shepherd obliged to leave the fields of his infancy, and yield the poffeffion to foldiers and ftrangers. The characters, and every image, are taken from rural life, the landscape part is picturefque, and the story interefting and affecting.

Pope fays, because it relates to foldiers, it is not paftoral: but how little of a military caft is feen in it :- the foldier is mentioned, but only as far as was abfolutely neceffary, and always in connection with the rural imagery, from whence the molt exquifite touches are derived.

En queis confevimus agros!

Barbarus hæc tam CULTA NOVALIA miles habebit?

Barbarus HAS SEGETES?

Pope's pastoral ideas, however, with the exception of the Meffiah, feem to have been taken from the leaft interefting and poetic scenes of the ancient Eclogue: the Wager, the Contest, the Riddle, the alternate praises of Daphne or Delia, the common-place complaint of the lover, &c. The more interefting and picturesque fubjects, therefore, were excluded, as not being properly paftoral according to his confined definition.

We cannot help making an obfervation here, that in defining paftoral, critics in general fhould not have taken notice of one I think the most effential adjunct to this fpecies of poetry; that is, the PICTURESQUE. Paftoral feenery is indeed required by all : we have a shepherd, a grove, and a river; but what is more strikingly picturefque is scarcely ever confidered as effential.

Let us look at the great Father of the Paftoral: in what does he excel all others?" In fimplicity and nature," I admit with Pope; but more particularly in one circumftance, which feems to have efcaped general attention, and that circumftance is the PIC

TURESQUE.

Pope fays, he is too long in his descriptions, particularly of the Paftoral Cup, Idyl. 1. Was not Pope a profeffed admirer of paint

ing,

But after all, if they have any merit, it is to be attributed to some good old Authors, whose works as I had leisure to study, fo I hope I have not wanted care to imitate.

ing, aware that the defcription of that Cup contains touches of the moft delightful and highly finifhed landscape? The old fisherman, and the broken rock, in one fcene; in another, the beautiful contraft of the little boy weaving his rush-work, and fo intent on it, that he forgets the vineyard he was fet to guard; we see him in the fore-ground of the piece: then there is his fcrip and the fox eyeing it afkance; the ripe and purple vineyard, and the other fox treading down the grapes, whilst he continues at his work and, as is beautifully exprefs'd,

:

-μελεται δι ετε τι πηξης

Ούτε φυτων τοσσηνόν, όσον περι πλεγματι γαθεί

Idyll. I. line 54.

Add to these circumftances the wild and beautiful Sicilian fcenery; and where can there be found more perfect landscapes in the works, which thefe pictures peculiarly refemble, of Vernet, or Gainsborough Confidered in this view, how rich, wild, and various, are the landscapes of the old Sicilian! and we cannot but wonder that fo many striking and original traits should be paffed over by a " youthful bard," who profeffed to select from, and to copy, the ancients.

SPRING:

THE FIRST PASTORAL,

OR

DAMON.

TO SIR WILLIAM TRUMBAL.

FIRST in these fields I try the fylvan strains,

Nor blush to sport on Windfor's blissful plains: Fair Thames, flow gently from thy facred spring, While on thy banks Sicilian Mufes fing;

Let

REMARKS.

of fixteen, and then paffed

These Pastorals were written at the age through the hands of Mr. Walfh, Mr. Wycherley, G. Granville afterwards Lord Lanfdown, Sir William Trumbal, Dr. Garth, Lord Hallifax, Lord Somers, Mr. Mainwaring, and others. All thefe gave our Author the greatest encouragement, and particularly Mr. Walsh, whom Mr. Dryden, in his Postscript to Virgil, calls the best Critic of his age. "The Author (fays he) feems to have a particular genius for this kind of Poetry, and a judg. ment that much exceeds his years. He has taken very freely from the Ancients. But what he has mixed of his own with theirs is no way inferior to what he has taken from them. It is not flattery at all to say that Virgil had written nothing fo good at his Age. His Preface is very judicious and learned." Letter to Mr. Wycherley, Ap. 1705. The Lord Lanfdown, about the fame time, mentioning the youth of our Poet, fays (in a printed Letter of the Character of Mr. Wycherley), " that if he goes on as he hath begun in the Pastoral way, as Virgil first tried his strength, we

may