sung by the Spartan virgins in the eighteenth, does not lose sight of the country: and the inscription on the bark of the plane-tree is expressly said to be in the Doric, or rustic dialect;

But we will run thro' yonder spacious mead,
And crop fresh flow'ry crowns to grace thy head.
Mindful of Helen still, as tender lambs,
Not wean'd as yet, when hungry mind their dams,
We'll first low lotus pluck, and crowns compose,
And to thy honour grace the shady boughs:
From silver boxes sweetest oils shall flow,

And
press the flowers that rise as sweet below;
And then inscribe this line, that all may see,
Pay due obedience, I am Helen's tree.

CREECH.

The eighteenth is a short copy of verses on Cupid's being stung by a bee, which is far from being out of the reach of a country poet. The nineteenth is bucolical enough. A rough neatherd complains of the pride and insolence of a city girl, who refused to let him kiss her, and treated him in a most contemptuous manner. He appeals to the neighbouring shepherds, and asks them if

they are not sensible of his beauty: his beard is thick about his chin, like ivy round a tree; his hair spreads like smallage about his temples; his white forehead shines above his black eye-brows; his eyes are more blue than those of Minerva; his mouth is sweeter than cream; his voice is sweeter than a honeycomb; his song is sweet; he plays on all sorts of rural pipes; and all the women on the mountains admire and love him, though this proud minx has despised him. He gives her to understand, that Bacchus fed a heifer in the valleys; that Venus was passionately fond of a herdman on the mountains of Phrygia; that she both loved and lamented Adonis in the woods. He asks who was Endymion? was he not a herdman, and yet the Moon fell in love with him, as he was feeding his kine, and came down from heaven to embrace him. Rhea lamented a herdman, and Jupiter was fond of a boy that fed cattle. The dialogue between the two fishermen, in the twenty-first, cannot indeed be said to be Arcadian; for Arcadia was a midland country: but as Sicily is an island, it was natural enough for a Sicilian herdman to relate a dialogue between two neighbours, whose business was on the sea shore. But the twenty-second is a hymn, after the manner of the ancient Arcadians, in praise of Castor and Pollux :

Ὑμνέομες Λήδας τε καὶ αἰγιόχω Διὸς υἱω,

Κάστορα, καὶ φοβερὸν Πολυδεύκεα σὺξ ἐρεθίζεν.

The desperate lover in the twenty-third may easily be imagined to belong to the country, though the narration of his passion is very tragical. We cannot affirm any thing with certainty concerning the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth; as the end of one and the beginning of the other is wanting. They are however both in praise of Hercules; and therefore belong to the Arcadian poetry; as does also the twenty-sixth, in which the death of Pentheus is related, who violated the orgies of Bacchus. The dialogue between Daphnis and the shepherdess, in the twentyseventh, is a complete scene of rural courtship, and must be allowed to be a true pastoral. In the twenty-eighth Theocritus himself presents a distaff to Theogenis, the wife of his friend Nicias, a Milesian physician; a proper present, no doubt, to be sent out of the country, and a subject worthy of a rural poet. The twenty-ninth is concerning love, the common subject of most pastorals. The thirtieth is in lyric measure, and the subject of it is the boar that wounded the shepherd Adonis, the favourite of Venus.

It appears plainly, from this review of the Idyllia of Theocritus, that the Greek poet never intended to write such a set of poems, as the modern critics call pastorals. They were poems on several occasions, written by a Sicilian herdman, or by one who assumed that character. The greater part of them are of the dramatic kind, each Idyllium being a single scene, or dia

logue between the several sorts of herdmen, their
wives, or neighbours. Some of them are narra-
tive, the poet speaking all the while in his own
person. The rest are poems in praise of gods
and heroes. The scene is generally laid in Sicily,
that country being famous for the stories of the
shepherd Polyphemus and the herdman Daphnis,
and at the same time the native place of the
poet; who nevertheless sometimes lays the scene
in other countries, where he happened to travel.
The language is plain and coarse, the Doric dia-
lect being almost constantly used, which greatly
increases the rusticity of these poems.
We may
observe, that the pronunciation of the Dorians
was very coarse and broad, and sounded harsh
in the ears of the politer Grecians, from a pas-
sage in the fifteenth Idyllium, where a citizen of
Alexandria finds fault with the Syracusian gossips
for opening their mouths so wide when they
speak;

Παύσασθ ̓, ὦ δύστανοι, ἀνάνυτα κωτίλλοισαι
Τρυγόνες· ἐκκναισεῦντι πλατειάσδοισαι ἅπαντα.

Hist, hist, your tattling silly talk forbear,
Like turtles you have mouths from ear to ear.

The good women are affronted, and tell him, that as they are Dorians, they will make use of the Doric dialect;

Μᾶ, πόθεν ώνθρωπος; τί δὲ τὶν, εἰ κωτίλαι εἰμές ;
Πασάμενος ἐπίτασσε· Συρακοσίαις ἐπιτάσσεις;
Ὡς δ ̓ εἰδῆς καὶ τοῦτο, Κορίνθιαι εἰμὲς ἄνωθεν,

Ὡς καὶ ὁ Βελλεροφῶν· Πελεποννασιστὶ λαλοῦμες·
Δωρίσδεν δ ̓ ἔξεστι, δοκῶς τοῖς Δωριέεσσι.

And who are you? pray what have you to say,
If we will talk? Seek those that will obey.
Would you the Syracusian women rule?
Besides, to tell you more, you meddling fool,
We are Corinthians, that's no great disgrace,
Bellerophon himself did boast that race.

We speak our language, use the Doric tone,
And, Sir, the Dores, sure, may use their own. CREECH.

This rusticity of the Idyllia of Theocritus seems to have been well adapted to the age and country in which that poet lived; and to have given the same kind of pleasure, which the Scottish songs give to us, merely by being natural. There are indeed, amidst all this rusticity, many sentiments of a most wonderful delicacy, which are highly worthy of imitation: but at the same time we meet with many others, which are most abominably clownish, and even brutal. Hence Quintilian, who allows Theocritus to be admirable in his way, yet thinks his muse too rustic and coarse for politer ears°.

This poet however had continued in full possession of the rural crown about two hundred years, when VIRGIL became his rival; a genius formed to excel in wit all those who had gone before him. That great master of writing knew

• Admirabilis in suo genere Theocritus, sed Musa illa rustica et pastoralis non forum modo, verum ipsam etiam urbem reformidat. Lib. x. cap. 1.