lineates the sentiments and actions of his shepherds with great address. No pastoral writer has been more happy in striking the due medium between refinement and rudeness; and the use he makes of the Doric dialect, so admirably suited to the rusticity and simplicity of his characters, is none of the least marks of his merit.

2. Virgil succeeds Theocritus both in time and merit. Several of his pastorals are finished with good taste, simplicity, and propriety. No writer excels him in painting delicate sentiment, for which this kind of composition affords frequent opportunity.

Example 1. Nothing can be more simple and natural than the following lines:

"Tityre, dum redeo, brevis est via, pasce capellas;

Et potum pastas age, Tityre; et inter agendum
Occursare capro, cornu ferit ille, caveto."

Example 2. Again :

"Hic gelidi fontes : hic mollia prata, Lycori:

Hic nemus hic ipso tecum consumerer ævo."
"Parta meæ veneri sunt munera; namque notavi
Ipse locum, aëriæ quo congessere palumbes."

Example 3. The two last lines are beautifully translated and improved by Shenstone :

"I have found out a gift for my fair,

I have found where the wood-pigeons breed:
But let me the plunder forbear,

She will say 'twas a barbarous deed."

Obs. 3. Not above the half, however, of ten eclogues, which Virgil has left, can properly be said to deserve the name of pastoral. Several of them, particularly the first and ninth, have little of that, character. The third, fifth, seventh, and eighth only, can be said to belong strictly to this species of poetry: and though even in them the sentiments are sometimes too refined, yet they are never quaint or affected.

4. Pope has imitated, and almost translated, Theocritus and Virgil. His pastorals, accordingly, have little merit, but that of the versification. He has scarcely ventured to advance a single sentiment, of which he had not received a hint from the Sicilian or Roman poet. The subsequent examples will illustrate this remark. Example 1. Virgil, with much simplicity, expresses a beautiful sentiment in the following lines :

"Malo me Galatea petit, lasciva puella,

Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri."

Example 2. Pope diminishes the effect of this thought, by adding to it an air of prettiness and conceit.

"The sprightly Sylvia trips along the green,
She runs, but hopes she does not run unseen.
While a kind glance at her pursuer flies,

How much at varience are her feet and eyes!""

Scholium. Pope wrote his pastorals when very young, which furnishes a good apology for their defects.

581. Among all the various poets, ancient or modero, who have attempted pastorals, Shenstone is entitled to the greatest praise. Neither Theocritus nor Virgil is, perhaps, to be compared with him, in combining the capital requisites of this kind of writing; for no author in this line has introduced with more success whatever is simple, tender, and deli

cate.

Obs. Even Shenstone's own works in this line are not equally meritorious. He degenerates sometimes into flatness and insipidity; but no language can furnish a performance of its kind superior to his pastoral ballad, in four parts, on Absence, Hope, Solitude, and Disappointment. No quaintness, no affectation, no false refinement, no indelicacy; all is nature, innocence, and elegance. The whole poem deserves high praise: as a short specimen, we shall present the following lines, from the part denominated Hope.

"One would think she might like to retire
To the bow'r I had labour'd to rear;
Not a shrub that I beard her admire,
But I hastened and planted it there.
Oh! how sudden the jessamine strove
With the lilac to render it gay;
Already it calls for my love,

To prune the wild branches away.
I have found out a gift for my fair,

I have found where the wood-pigeons breed;
But let me the plunder forbear,

She will say 'twas a barbarous deed:
For he ne'er could be true, she averr'd,
Who could rob a poor bird of its young;
And I lov'd her the more when I heard
Such tenderness fall from her tongue."

582. The favourable reception which pastoral poetry has obtained from all polished nations, and the picture it is supposed to exhibit of the happy, but fabulous times of the golden age, have prompted some eminent authors to attempt to improve it. They have retained the pastoral characters, occupations, and manners, and to these have added importance interest, by moulding them into a beautiful and picturesque sentimental comedy. As a farther enhance

and

ment of its merit, they have made music contribute liberally to adorn it, and have introduced a number of tender characteristic songs, in which the shepherds and shepherdesses signify to one another their hopes and wishes, accompanied with correspondent airs of melody.

Obs. 1. Few entertainments can present an assemblage of so many captivating objects, beautiful pictures of nature; the charms of music, which touch the heart; characters pleased, cheerful and happy, engaged in those simple cares and attachments, which occupy human life, without fatigueing it; and which, being dictated by innocence and restrained by virtue, gently agitate, without distracting the mind. Attempts of merit of this sort have accordingly been honoured with the warmest approbation.

2. Italy furnishes two eminent specimens which all Europe has read and admired. The Amynta of Tasso, and Pastor Fido of Guarini. Both display vivid pictures of nature, and of rural manners. The fables are interesting, and happily conducted ; the characters are thrown into many delicate and tender situations. Many of the scenes are beautiful, and wrought up with much sensibility, that the reader receives a very exquisite amusement.

93. The Gentle Shepherd, a Scottish pastoral comedy, of Allan Ramsay, is admired by every reader of taste and genius. The author has exerted much pains to avoid the reprehensible qualities of his two rivals, and every candid critic must allow that he has been successful.

Obs. 1. That he might suggest an apology for the greater liberality of sentiment which he has ventured to throw into the charac→ ters of his principal shepherd and shepherdess, he has supposed them to inherit a genius superior to their station, communicated from their parents, who possessed a more elevated rank, but who, from political misfortunes, were obliged to permit their children to be educated in concealment and obscurity.

2. In every other view, his pastoral is entitled to much praise. The fable is well conceived, naturally and regularly conducted. The characters are distinctly marked; they are numerous, and properly varied. Their occupations, sentiments, manners, are all the most picturesque, local, and characteristic, that can be supposed. Simplicity, innocence, cheerfulness, rustic sports and merriment, rude prejudices, opinions, and fears, are beautifully and pertinently interspersed. The situations of the principal characters are delicate and interesting, and deeply engage the attention of the reader. The great change of fortune, and the consequent happiness they enjoy from the accidental discovery of their birth and

opulence in the course of the action, terminate the performance, by suggesting the most pleasing and satisfactory frame of mind, the reader could wish to possess. The music is national, tender, simple, and the diction is perfectly suited to the characters. It is finished in the true Doric taste, soft and expressive, neither too refined, nor too gross and unpolished.

3. Dr. Blair was the first who prejudiced the public taste against the Gentle Shepherd. Barron has followed him in this, as indeed in almost every other thing the doctor said. But let it be observed, that the Gentle Shepherd is a national pastoral; the locality of its manners and language, make it such; they constitute its chief ingredients of national merit; they increase its interest by circumscribing its reputation among the people for whom it was written. "Had its manners been general, its language pure English, and its scenes Arcadian, it would have had less characteristic beauty, but it might have merited the applause of Europe*." Indeed! There are hills add dales, woods and streams, and sentient natures, in Britain; and Arcadia could boast no more. At all events, there is one national pastoral in the world; or, in other words, the glory of this species of poetry hath not fallen with the genius of Greece.

584. Of all the moderns, M. Gessner, a poet of Switzerland, has been the most successful in his pastoral compositions. He has introduced into his Idylls (as he entitles them) many new ideas. His rural scepery is often striking, and his descriptions are lively.

Obs. He presents pastoral life to us, with all the embellishments of which it is susceptible; but without any excess of refinement. What forms the chief merit of this poet, is, that he writes to the heart; and he has enriched the subject of his Idylls with incidents which give rise to much tender sentiment. Scenes of domestic felicity are beautifully painted. The mutual affection of husbands and wives, of parents and children, of brothers and sisters, as well as of lovers, are displayed in a pleasing and touching manner.

CHAPTER IV.

LYRIC POETRY,

585. LYRIC poetry, to which we now proceed, included, in ancient times, every poetical composition accompanied with music, whether of the voice or of instruments.

Blair.

Illus. 1. It was called lyric, from the lyre, with which it was commonly attended; and it acquired the name of ode, because it was also designed to be sung. It is a short, occasional, animated effort of genius.

2. The author may assume any tone he chooses; he may be sublime, familiar, gay, serious, passionate, moral, tender, or witty with equal propriety, and he may even intermix several of these strains in the same poem.

3. Panegyric, however, is the principal field it has occupied in all ages; for the praise of the gods, and of heroes, have furnished more odes than all other subjects put together.

Example 1. The Psalms of David were Lyric productions, and were sung in the celebration of the Jewish worship.

2. The Odes of Pindar were composed in praise of the gods, or heroes, or victors in the games of Greece.

3. Some of those of Horace are dedicated to the honour of the gods, others form elegant complimentary addresses to his country, to eminent individuals, or to friends.

Obs. Modern times have not been so prolific in this species of composition, as those of antiquity; they are not, however, destitute of some very conspicuous specimens.

586. Lyric poetry is susceptible of different ornaments, suitable to the nature of the subjects it treats, It admits sometimes the boldest and warmest figures of imagination and passion; at other times, it delights in the playful and pleasant images of fancy and feeling. Sometimes the expression is ardent, concise, and vehement ; at other times, it is simple and diffuse; but at all times it must be pure, picturesque, and

correct.

Obs. 1 The style should be more finished, perhaps, than that of any other species of poetry; for the attention of the reader is neither powerfully nor long diverted by the sentiment. He soon turns it toward the expression; and he is so scrupulous, that he will not excuse the slightest impropriety. The capital characteristics of the ode, then, are magnificence, or passion or ingenuity in the thought, and perfect elegance in the style.

2. Greece has left some conspicuous monuments of lyric composition, in the odes of Pindar, Sappho, and Anacreon; the first remarkable for vehemence and sublimity; the two last for sensibility, pleasantry, and vivacity..

3. Horace is the only Roman poet of the lyric tribe whose works have descended to modern times; and, it seems, we have little reason to regret the loss of the rest, for, if we may rely on the opinion of Quinctilian, Horace alone merited immortality.

587. No modern poets have composed volumes of