There is nothing the writers of this kind of poetry are fonder of than descriptions of pastoral presents. Philips says thus of a sheep-hook,

Of season'd elm; where studs of brass appear,
To speak the giver's name, the month and year.
The hook of polish'd steel, the handle turn'd,
And richly by the graver's skill adorn'd.

The other of a bowl embossed with figures,
-where wanton ivy twines,

And swelling clusters bend the curling vines;
Four figures rising from the work appear,
The various seasons of the rolling year;

And what is that which binds the radiant sky,
Where twelve bright signs in beauteous order lie.

The simplicity of the swain in this place, who forgets the name of the zodiac, is no ill imitation of Virgil: but how much more plainly and unaffectedly would Philips have dressed this thought in his Doric!

And what that bight, which girds the welkin sheen,
Where twelve gay sigus in meet array are seen.

If the reader would indulge his curiosity any further in the comparison of particulars, he inay read the first pastoral of Philips with the second of his contemporary,

and the fourth and sixth of the former with the fourth

and first of the latter; where several parallel places will occur to every one.

Having now shown some parts in which these two writers may be compared, it is a justice I owe to Mr. Philips to discover those in which no man can compare with him. First, that beautiful rusticity, of which I shall only produce two instances, out of a hundred not yet quoted;

() woful

O woful day! O day of woe, quoth he,

And woful I, who live the day to see!

That simplicity of diction, the melancholy flowing of the numbers, the solemnity of the sound, and the easy turn of the words, in this dirge (to make use of our author's expression, are extremely elegant.

In another of his pastorals a shepherd utters a dirge not much inferior to the former in the following lines:

Ah me, the while! ah me, the luckless day!
Ah luckless lad! the rather might I say;

Ah silly I! more silly than my sheep,

Which on the flow'ry plains I once did keep.

How he still charms the ear with these artful repetitions of the epithets; and how significant is the last verse! I defy the most common reader to repeat them without feeling some motions of compassion.

In the next place I shall rank his proverbs, in which I formerly observed he excels. For example:

A rolling stone is ever bare of moss;

And, to their cost, green years old proverbs cross.
He that late lies down, as late will rise,
And, sluggard-like, till noon-day snoring lies.
Against ill luck all cunning foresight fails;
Whether we sleep or wake, it nought avails.

Nor fear, from upright sentence, wrong.

Lastly, his elegant dialect, which alone might prove him the eldest born of Spenser, and our only true Arcadian. I should think it proper for the several writers. of pastoral to confine themselves to their several counties. Spenser seems to have been of this opinion; for he hath laid the scene of one of his pastorals in Wales,

where,

where, with all the simplicity natural to that part of our island, one shepherd bids the other good-morrow in an unusual and elegant manner;

Diggon Davy, 1 bid hur God-day;
Or Diggon hur is, or I mis-say.

Diggon answers,

Hur was hur while it was day-light;

But now hur is a most wretched wight, &c.

But the most beautiful example of this kind that I ever met with, is a very valuable piece which I chanced to find among some old manuscripts, entitled A pastoral ballad;' which I think, for its nature and simplicity, may (notwithstanding the modesty of the title) be allowed a perfect pastoral. It is composed in the Somersetshire dialect, and the names such as are proper to the country people. It may be observed, as a further beauty of this pastoral, the words nymph, dryad, naiad, faun, cupid, or satyr, are not once mentioned through the whole. I shall make no apology for inserting some few lines of this excellent piece. Cicily breaks thus into the subject, as she is going amilking:

Cicily. Rager, go vetch tha kee, or else tha zun

Will quite be go, bevore c'have half a don. Roger. Thou shouldst not ax ma tweece, but I've a be To dreave our bull to bull tha parson's kee.

It is to be observed, that this whole dialogue is formed upon the passion of jealousy; and his mentioning the parson's kine naturally revives the jealousy of the shepherdess Cicily, which she expresses as follows:

Cicily.

Cicily. Ah Rager, Rager, chee was zore avraid

When in yond vield you kiss'd the parson's maid.
Is this the love that once to me you zed,

When from the wake thou brought'st me ginger

bread?

Roger. Cicily, thou charg'st me false I'll zwear to thee,
Tha parson's maid is still a maid for me.

In which answer of his are expressed at once that 'spirit of religion,' and that 'innocence of the golden age,' so necessary to be observed by all writers of pastoral.

At the conclusion of this piece, the author reconciles the lovers, and ends the eclogue the most simply in the world:

So Rager parted vor to vetch tha kee,

And vor her bucket in went Cicily.

I am loth to show my fondness for antiquity so far as to prefer this antient British author to our present English writers of pastoral; but I cannot avoid making this obvious remark, that both Spenser and Philips have hit into the same road with this old west country bard of ours.

After all that hath been said, I hope none can think it any injustice to Mr. Pope that I forbore to mention him as a pastoral writer; since, upon the whole, he is of the same class with Moschus and Bion, whom we have excluded that rank; and of whose eclogues, as well as some of Virgil's, it may be said, that, according to the description we have given of this sort of poetry, they are by no means pastorals, but 'something better.'

INSTANCE

INSTANCE OF PEDANTRY, No. 24.

Jack Lizard was about fifteen when he was first entered in the university; and being a youth of a great deal of fire, and a more than ordinary application to his studios, it gave his conversation a very particular turn. He had too much spuit to hold his tongue in company; but at the same time so little acquaintance with the world, that he did not know how to talk like other people.

After a year-and-haif's stay at the university, he came down among us to pass away a month or two in the country. The first night after his arrival, as we were at supper, we were all of us very much improved by Jack's table-tall. He told us, upon the appearance of a dish of wild-fowl, that according to the opinion of some natural philosophers they might be lately come from the moon. Upon which the sparkler bursting out into a laugh, he insulted her with several questions relating to the bigness and distance of the moon and *tars; and after every interrogatory would be winking upon me, and smiling at his sister's ignorance. Jack gained his point; for the mother was pleased, and all the servants stared at the learning of their young master, Jack was so encouraged at this success, that for the first week he dealt wholly in paradoxes. It was a common jest with him to pinch one of his sister's lapdogs, and afterwards prove he could not feel it. When the girls were sorting a set of knots, he would demonstrate to them that all the ribbands were of the same colour; or rather, says Jack, of no colour at all. My lady Lizard herself, though she was not a little pleased with her son's improvements, was one day almost.

angry