ter some more distinct and exact idea of this kind of writing. This may, I think, be easily found in the Paftorals of Virgil, from whofe opinion it will not appear very fafe to depart, if we confider that every advantage of nature, and of fortune, concurred to complete his productions; that he was born with great accuracy and feverity of judgment, enlightened with all the learning of one of the brighteft ages, and embellifhed with the elegance of the Roman court; that he employed his powers rather in improving than inventing, and therefore must have endeavoured to recompenfe the want of novelty by exactnefs; that taking Theocritus for his original, he found paftoral far advanced towards perfection, and that having fo great a rival, he must have proceeded with uncommon caution.

If we fearch the writings of Virgil for the true definition of a paftoral, it will be found a poem in which any a tion or paffion is reprefented by it's effects upon a country life. Whatioever therefore may, according to the common courte of things, happen in the country, may af ford a fubject for a pastoral poet.

In this definition, it will immediately occur to thofe who are verfed in the writings of the modern criticks, that there is no mention of the golden age. I cannot indeed easily difcover why it is thought neceffary to refer defcriptions of a rural state to remote times, nor can I perceive that any writer has confiftently preierved the Arcadian manners and fentiments. The only reafon, that I have read, on which this rule has been founded, is, that according to the cultoms of modern life, it is improbable that shepherds should be capable of harmonious numbers, or delicate fentiments; and therefore the reader must exalt his ideas of the paftoral character, by carry ing his thoughts back to the age in which the care of herds and flocks was the employment of the wifelt and greatest

men.

fices; from whence they very readily concluded, fince characters must necef farily be preferved, that either the ten

Thefe reafoners feem to have been led into their bypothefis, by confidering paftoral, not in general, as a reprefentation of rural nature, and confequently as exhibiting the ideas and fentiments of thofe, whoever they are, to whom the country affords pleasure or employment, but fimply as a dialogue, or narrative of men actually tending fheep, and bufied in the lowest and most laborious of

timents muit link to the level of the

fpeakers, or the fpeakers must be raised to the height of the fentinents.

In consequence of thefe original errors, a thousand precepts have been given, which have only contributed to perplex and confound. Some have thought it neceffary that the imaginary manners of the golden age thould be univerfally preferved, and have therefore believed, that nothing more could be admitted in paftoral, than lilies and rofes, and rocks and freams, among which are heard the gentle wh.pers of chatte fondnefs, or the loft complaints of amorous impatience. In paftoral, as in other writings, chastity of fentiment ought doubtlets to be obferved, and purity of manners to be represented; not because the poet is confined to the images of the golden age, but becaufe, having the fubject in his own choice, he ought always to confult the iutereit of. virtue.

Thefe advocates for the golden age lay down other principles, not very confiftent with their general plan; for they tell us, that, to fupport the character of the fhepherd, it is proper that all refinement fhould be avoided, and that fome flight inftances of ignorance fhould be interfperfed. Thus the thepherd in Virgil is fuppofed to have forgot the name of Anaximander; and, in Pope, the term Zodiac is too hard for a ruftick apprehenfion. But if we place our fhepherds in their primitive condition, we may give them learning among their other quali fications; and if we fuffer them to allude at all to things of latter existence, which perhaps cannot with any great propriety be allowed, there can be no danger of making them speak with too much accuracy, fince they converfed with divinities. and tranfmitted to fucceeding ages the arts of life.

Other writers having the mean and defpicable condition of a fhepherd always before them, conceive it neceffary to degrade the language of pastoral, by obfolete terms and ruitick words, which they very learnedly call Dorick, without reflecting, that they thus become authors of a mangled dialect, which no human being ever could have spoken; that they may as well refine the fpeech as the fentiments of their perfonage, art

that

that none of the inconfiftencies which they endeavour to avoid, is greater than that of joining elegance of thought with coarfeneis of diction. Spenter begins one of his paftorals with studied barbarity

Diggon Davie, I bid her good-day:
Or, Diggon her is, or I miffay.
Dig. Her was her while it was day-light,

But now her is a moft wretched wight. What will the reader imagine to be the fubject on which fpeakers like these exercife their eloquence? Will he not be fomewhat difappointed, when he finds them met together to condemn the corruptions of the Church of Rome? Surely, at the fame time that a fhepherd learns theology, he may gain fome acquaintance with his native language.

Paftoral admits of all ranks of perfons, because perfons of all ranks inhabit the country. It excludes not, therefore, on account of the characters neceffary to be introduced, any elevation or delicacy of fentiment; thofe ideas only are improper which, not owing their original to rural objects, are not paftoral. Such is the exclamation in Virgil

Nune feio quid fit Amor, duris in cautibus illum
Ifmaris, aut Rhodope, aut extremi Garamantes,
Nec generis noftripuerum, nec fanguinis, edunt.
I know thee, Love; in deferts thou wert bred,
And at the dugs of favage tigers fed;
Alien of birth, ufurper of the plains.

DRYDEN.

which Pope endeavouring to copy, was carried to till greater impropriety:

I know thee, Love, wild as the raging main, More fierce than tygers on the Lybian plain; Thou wert from Ætna's burning entrails torn; Begot in tempefts, and in thunders born!

Sentiments like thefe, as they have no ground in nature, are indeed of little value in any poem; but in pastoral they are particularly liable to cenfure, becaufe it wants that exaltation above common life, which in tragick or heroick writings often reconciles us to bold flights and daring figures.

Pastoral being the reprefentation of an action or paffion, by it's effects upon a country life, has nothing peculiar but it's confinement to rural imagery, without which it ceafes to be paftoral. This is it's true characteristick, and this it cannot lose by any dignity of fentiment, or beauty of diction. The Pollio of Virgil,

with all it's elevation, is a compofition truly bucolick, though rejected by the critick; for all the images are either taken from the country, or from the religion of the age common to all parts of the empire.

The Silenus is indeed of a more difputable kind, because though the icene lies in the country, the fong being religious and hiftorical, had been no less Neither can it well be defended as a ficadapted to any other audience or place. tion, for the introduction of a god feems ludes to many fubfequent tranfactions, to imply the golden age, and yet he aland mentions Gallus the poet's contemporary.

It feems neceffary to the perfection of this poem, that the occafion which inconfiftent with a country life, or lefs is fuppofed to produce it, be at least not likely to intereft those who have retired into places of folitude and quiet, than therefore improper to give the title of a the more bufy part of mankind. It is paftoral to verfes in which the speakers, after the flight mention of their flocks, fall to complaints of errors in the church, and corruptions in the government, or to lamentations of the death of fome illuftrious perfon, whom, when once the poet has called a fhepherd, he has no longer any labour upon his hands, but can make the clouds weep, and lilies wither, and the theep hang their heads, without art or learning, genius or study.

It is part of Claudian's character of his ruftick, that he computes his time, not by the fucceffion of confuls, but of harveits. Thofe who pafs their days in retreats diftant from the theatres of bu finefs are always leaft likely to hurry their imagination with publick affairs.

The facility of, treating actions or events in the paftoral ftyle has incited many writers, from whom more judgment might have been expected, to put the forrow or the joy which the occasion required into the mouth of Daphne or of Thyrfis; and as one abfurdity must naturally be expected to make way for another, they have written with an utter difregard both of life and nature, and filled their productions with mytho logical allufions, with incredible fictions, and with fentiments which neither paffion nor reafon could have dictated, fince the change which religion has made in the whole fyftem of the world.

N° XXXVIII.

Ho

A

of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral ftate of the world, it has been obferved that happiness, as well as virtue, confifts in Mediocrity; that to avoid every extreme is neceffary, even to him who has no other care than to pafs through the prefent ftate with eafe and fafety; and that the middle path is the road of fecurity, on either fide of which are not only the pitfalls of vice, but the precipices of ruin.

Thus the maxim of Cleobulus the Lindian, irpov pov Mediocrity is 'beft,' has been long confidered as an univerfal principle, extended through the whole compafs of life and nature. The experience of every age feems to have given it new confirmation, and to fhew that nothing, however fpecious or allur ing, is purfued with propriety, or enjoyed with fafety, beyond certain limits.

Even the gifts of nature, which may truly be confidered as the most folid and durable of all terrestrial advantages, are found, when they exceed the middle point, to draw the poffeffor into many calamities, eafily avoided by others that have been lefs bountifully enriched or adorned. We fee every day women perish with infamy, by having been too willing to fet their beauty to fhew; and others, though not with equal guilt or mifery, yet with very sharp remorfe, languishing in decay, neglect, and obfcurity, for having rated their youthful charms at too high a price. And, indeed, if the opinion of Bacon be thought to deserve much regard, very few fighs would be vented for eminent and fuperlative elegance of form: For beautiful ♦ women,' fays he,, ' are feldom of any

FRANCIS.

great accomplishments, because they, for the most part, ftudy behaviour ra⚫ther than virtue.'

Health and vigour, and a happy conftitution of the corporeal frame, are of abfolute neceffity to the enjoyment of the comforts, and to the performance of the duties of life, and requifite in yet a greater measure to the accomplishment of any thing illuftrious or diftinguished ; yet even these, if we can judge by their apparent confequences, are fometimes not very beneficial to thofe on whom they are most liberally bestowed. They that frequent the chambers of the fick, will generally find the fharpest pains, and moft ftubborn maladies, among them whom confidence of the force of aature formerly betrayed to negligence and irregularity; and that fuperfluity of ftrength, which was at once their boast and their fnare, has often, in the latter part of life, no other effect than that it continues them long in impotence and anguish.

Thefe gifts of nature are, however, always bleffings in themfelves, and to be acknowledged with gratitude to him that gives them; fince they are, in their regular and legitimate effects, productive of happinets, and prove pernicious only by voluntary corruption, or idle negligence. And as there is little danger of purfuing them with too much ardour or anxiety, because no skill or diligence can hope to procure them, the uncertainty of their influence upon our lives is men tioned, not to depreciate their real value, but to reprefs the difcontent and envy to which the want of them often gives occafion in those who do not enough fufpect their own frailty, nor confider M