stepped into the middle of the ring. He had an angling-rod in his hand, a pannier upon his back, and a poor meagre wretch in wet clothes carried some oysters before him, Being asked whence he came, and what he was? he told them he was come to invite Amaryllis from the plains to the sea-shore; that his substance consisted in sea-calves, and that he was acquainted with the nereids and the naiads. Art thou acquainted with the naiads?' said Menalcas: to them then shalt thou return.' The shepherds immediately hoisted him up as an enemy to Arcadia, and plunged him in the river, where he sunk, and was never heard of since,

Amyntas and Amaryllis lived a long and happy life, and governed the vales of Arcadia. Their generation was very long-lived, there having been but four descents in above two thousand years. His heir was called Theocritus, who left his dominions to Virgil. Virgil left his to his son Spenser, and Spenser was succeeded by his eldest-born Philips,

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE

PASTORALS OF POPE

AND PHILIPS, PAPER VI. No. 40.

I DESIGNED to have troubled the reader with no further discourses of Pastorals; but being informed that I am taxed of partiality in not mentioning an author whose Eclogues are published in the same volume with Mr. Philips's; I shall employ this paper in observations upon him, written in the free spirit of criticism, and without apprehension of offending that gentleman, whose character it is, that he takes the

greatest care of his works before they are published, and has the least concern for them afterwards.

I have laid it down as the first rule of pastoral, that its idea should be taken from the manners of the Golden Age, and the moral formed upon the representation of innocence; it is therefore plain that any deviations from that design degrade a poem from being true pastoral. In this view it will appear that Virgil can only have two of his Eclogues allowed to be such: his first and ninth must be rejected, because they describe the ravages of armies, and oppressions of the innocent; Corydon's criminal passion for Alexis throws out the second; the calumny and railing in the third are not proper for that state of concord; the eighth represents unlawful ways of procuring love by enchantments, and introduces a shepherd whom an inviting precipice tempts to self-murder, As to the fourth, sixth, and tenth, they are given up by Heinsius, Salmasius, Rapin, and the critics in general. They likewise observe, that but eleven of all the Idyllia of Theocritus are to be admitted as pastorals; and even out of that number, the greater part will be excluded for one or other of the reasons above mentioned. So that, when I remarked in a former paper that Virgil's Eclogues, taken all together, are rather select poems than pastorals, I might have said the same thing, with no less truth, of Theocritus. The reason of this I take to be yet unobserved by the critics, viz, "They never meant them all for pastorals :' which it is plain Philips hath done, and in that particular excelled both Theocritus and Virgil.

As simplicity is the distinguishing characteristic of pastoral, Virgil has been thought guilty of too courtly a style: his language is perfectly pure, and he often forgets he is among peasants, I have frequently won

dercd

dered that, since he was so conversant in the writings. of Ennius, he had not imitated the rusticity of the Doric, as well by the help of the old obsolete Roman language, as Philips hath by the antiquated English; for example, might he not have said quoi instead of cui; quoijum for cujum; volt for vult, &c. as well as our modern hath welladay for alas, whilome for of old, make mock for deride, and witless younglings for simple lambs, &c.? by which means he had attained as much of the air of Theocritus, as Philips hath of Spenser.

Mr. Pope hath fallen into the same error with Virgil. His clowns do not converse in all the simplicity proper to the country: his names are borrowed from Theocritus and Virgil, which are improper to the scene of his pastorals. He introduces Daphnis, Alexis, and Thyrsis on British plains, as Virgil had done before him on the Mantuan: whereas Philips, who hath the strictest regard to propriety, makes choice of names peculiar to the country, and more agreeable to a reader of delicacy; such as Hobbinol, Lobbin, Cuddy, and Colin Clout.

So easy as pastoral writing may seem, (in the simplicity we have described it,) yet it requires great reading, both of the antients and moderns, to be a master of it. Philips hath given us manifest proofs of his knowledge of books; it must be confessed, his competitor hath imitated some single thoughts of the antients well enough, if we consider he had not the happiness of an university education; but he hath dispersed them here and there, without that order and method which Mr. Philips observes, whose whole third pastoral is an instance how well he hath studied the fifth of Virgil, and how judiciously reduced Virgil's thoughts to the standard of pastoral; as his con

tention of Colin Clout and the Nightingale shows with what exactness he hath imitated Strada.

When I remarked it as a principal fault to introduce fruits and flowers of a foreign growth in descriptions where the scene lies in our country, I did not design that observation should extend also to animals, or the sensitive life; for Philips hath with great judgment described wolves in England in his first pastoral. Nor would I have a poet slavishly confine himself (as Mr. Pope hath done) to one particular season of the year, one certain time of the day, and one unbroken scene in each eclogue. It is plain Speuser neglected this pedantry, who in his pastoral of November mentions the mournful song of the nightingale :

Sad Philomel her song in tears doth steep.

And Mr. Philips, by a poetical creation, hath raised up finer beds of flowers than the most industrious gardener; his roses, lilies and daffodils, blow in the same

season.

But the better to discover the merits of our two contemporary pastoral writers, I shall endeavour to draw a parallel of them, by setting several of their particular thoughts in the same light, whereby it will be obvious how much Philips hath the advantage. With what simplicity he introduces two shepherds singing alternately:

Hobb. Come, Rosalind, O come, for without thee
What pleasure can the country have for me?
Come, Rosalind, O come: my brinded kine,
My snowy sheep, my farm, and all is thine.

Lang. Come, Rosalind, O come; here shady bow'rs,
Here are cool fountains, and here apringing flow'rs,
Come, Rosalind, here ever let us stay,

And sweetly waste our live-long time away.

Cur

Our other pastoral writer, in expressing the same thought, deviates into downright poetry:

Streph. In spring the fields, in autumn hills I love,
At morn the plains, at noon the shady grove,
But Delia always: forc'd from Delia's sight,

Nor plains at morn nor groves at noon delight.
Daph. Sylvia's like autumn ripe, yet mild as May,
More bright than noon, yet fresh as early day;
Ev'n spring displeases when she shines not here:
But blest with her, 'tis spring throughout the year.

In the first of these authors, two shepherds thus innocently describe the behaviour of their mistresses:

Hobb. As Marian bath'd, by chance I passed by;

She blush'd, and at me cast a side-long eye:
Then swift beneath the crystal wave she try'd
Her beauteous form, but all in vain, to hide.

Lang. 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.

The other modern (who it must be confessed hath a knack of versifying) hath it as follows :

Streph. Me gentle Delia beckons from the plain,

Then, hid in shades, eludes her eager swain; But feigns a laugh to see me search around, And by that laugh the willing fair is found. Daph. 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 variance are her feet and eyes!

There