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son why we are so much charmed with the pretty prattle of children, and even the expressions of pleasure or uneasiness in some part of the brute creation. They are without artifice or malice; and we love truth too well to resist the charms of sincerity.

A third reason is our love of the country. Health, tranquillity, and pleasing objects, are the growth of the country; and though men, for the general good of the world, are made to love populous cities, the country hath the greatest share in an uncorrupted heart. When we paint, describe, or any way indulge our fancy, the country is the scene which supplies us with the most lovely images. This state was that wherein God placed Adam when in Paradise; nor could all the fanciful wits of antiquity imagine any thing that could administer more exquisite delight in their elysium.

PASTORAL POETRY, PAPER II. No. 23.

HAVING already conveyed my reader into the Fairy or Pastoral Land, and informed him what manner of life the inhabitants of that region lead, I shall, in this day's paper, give him some marks, whereby he may discover whether he is imposed upon by those who pretend to be of that country; or, in other words, what are the characteristics of a true Arcadian.

From the foregoing account of the pastoral life, we may discover that simplicity is necessary in the character of shepherds. Their minds must be supposed so rude and uncultivated, that nothing but what is plain and unaffected can come from them. Nevertheless we are not obliged to represent them dull and stupid, since fine spirits were undoubtedly in the world

before

before arts were invented to polish and adorn them. We may therefore introduce shepherds with good sense, and even with wit, provided their manner of thinking be not too gallant or refined. For all men, both the rude and polite, think and conceive things the same way (truth being eternally the same to all), though they express them very differently. For here. lies the difference: Men, who by long study and experience have reduced their ideas to certain classes, and consider the general nature of things abstracted from particulars, express their thoughts after a more concise, lively, surprising manner. Those who have little experience, or cannot abstract, deliver their sentiments in plain descriptions, by circumstances, and those observations which either strike upon the senses or are the first motions of the mind. And though the the latter gives

former raises our admiration more,

more pleasure, and soothes us more naturally. Thus a courtly lover might say to his mistress :

With thee for ever I in woods could rest,

Where never human foot the ground hath prest;

Thou e'en from dungeons darkness canst exclude,
And from a desert banish solitude.

A shepherd will content himself to say the same thing more simply :

Come, Rosalind, Oh! come; for without thee

What pleasure can the country have for me?

Again, since shepherds are not allowed to make deep reflections, the address required is so to relate an action, that the circumstances put together shall cause the reader to reflect. Thus by one delicate circumstance Corydon tells Alexis that he is the finest songster of the country:

Of seven smooth joints a mellow pipe I have,
Which with his dying breath Damætas gave:
And said, 'This, Corydon, I leave to thee,
For only thou deserv'st it after me.'

As in another pastoral writer, after the same manner a shepherd informs us how much his mistress likes him:

As I to cool me bath'd one sultry day,
Fond Lydia lurking in the sedges lay.

The wanton laugh'd, and seem'd in haste to fly,
Yet often stopp'd, and often turn'd her eye.

If ever a reflection be pardonable in pastorals, it is where the thought is so obvious, that it seems to come easily to the mind; as in the following admirable improvement of Virgil and Theocritus:

Fair is my flock, nor yet uncomely I,
If liquid fountains flatter not. And why
Should liquid fountains flatter us, yet show
The bordering flow'rs less beauteous than they grow?

A second characteristic of a true shepherd is simplicity of manners, or innocence. This is so obvious from what I have before advanced, that it would be but repetition to insist long upon it. I shall only remind the reader, that as the pastoral life is supposed to be where nature is not much depraved, sincerity and truth will generally run through it. Some slight transgressions, for the sake of variety, may be admitted, which in effect will only serve to set off the simplicity of it in general. I cannot better illustrate this rule. than by the following example of a swain who found his mistress asleep :

Once

Once Delia slept, on easy moss reclin'd,

Her lovely limbs half bare, and rude the wind:
I smooth'd her coats, and stole a silent kiss;
Condemn me, shepherds, if I did amiss.

A third sign of a swain is, that something of religion, and even superstition, is part of his character. For we find that those who have lived easy lives in the country, and contemplate the works of nature, live in the greatest awe of their Author. Nor doth this humour prevail less now than of old. Our peasants as sincerely believe the tales of goblins and fairies, as the heathens those of fauns, nymphs, and satyrs. Hence we find the works of Virgil and Theocritus sprinkled with left-handed ravens, blasted oaks, witchcrafts, evil eyes, and the like. And I observe with great pleasure, that our English authors of the pastorals I have quoted have practised this secret with admirable judgment.

I will yet add another mark, which may be observed very often in the above-named poets, which is agreeable to the character of shepherds, and nearly allied to superstition; I mean the use of proverbial sayings. I take the common similitudes in pastoral to be of the proverbial order, which are so frequent, that it is needless and would be tiresome to quote them, I shall only take notice upon this head, that it is a nice piece of art to raise a proverb above the vulgar style, and still keep it easy and unaffected. Thus the old wish, God rest his soul,' is finely turned:

6

Then gentle Sydney liv'd, the shepherd's friend:
Eternal blessings on his shade attend!

ON

ON PASTORAL POETRY, PAPER III. No. 28.

THEOCRITUS, Bion and Moschus are the most famous amongst the Greek writers of Pastorals. The two latter of these are judged to be far short of Theocritus, whom I shall speak of more largely, because he rivals the greatest of all poets, Virgil himself. He hath the advantage confessedly of the Latin, in coming before him, and writing in a tongue more proper for pastoral. The softness of the Doric dialect, which this poet is said to have improved beyond any who came before him, is what the antient Roman writers owned their language could not approach. But besides this beauty, he seems to me to have had a soul more softly and tenderly inclined to this way of writing than Virgil, whose genius led him naturally to sublimity. It is true that the great Roman, by the niceness of his judgment, and great command of himself, hath acquitted himself dexterously this way. But a penetrating judge will find there the seeds of that fire which burned afterwards so bright in the Georgies, and blazed out in the Eneid. I must not, however, dissemble that these bold strokes appear chiefly in those Eclogues of Virgil which ought not to be numbered amongst his Pastorals, which are indeed generally thought to be all of the Pastoral kind; but by the best judges are only called his select poems, as the word Eclogue originally means.

Those who will take the pains to consult Scaliger's comparison of these two poets, will find that Theocritus hath outdone him in those very passages which the critic hath produced in honour of Virgil. There is, in short, more innocence, simplicity, and whatever

else

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