is not fo exact in his persons, having introduced reapers and fishermen as well as fhepherds. He is apt to be too long in his defcriptions, of which that of the Cup in the firft paftoral is a remarkable inftance. In the manners he seems a little defective, for his fwains are fometimes abufive and immodeft, and perhaps too much inclining to rufticity; for inftance, in his fourth and fifth Idyllia. But it is enough that all others learned their excellencies from him, and that his dialect alone has a fecret charm in it, which no other could ever attain.

Virgil, who copies Theocritus, refines upon his original; and in all points where judgment has the principal part, is much fuperior to his mafter. Though fome of his fubjects are not paftoral in themselves, but only feem to be fuch, they have a wonderful' variety in them, which the Greek was a ftranger to. He exceeds him in regularity and brevity, and falls fhort of him in nothing but fimplicity and propriety of ftyle; the first of which perhaps was the fault of his age, and the laft of his language.

Among the moderns, their fuccefs has been greatest who have moft endeavoured to make thefe ancients their pattern. The moft confiderable genius appears in the famous Taffo, and our Spenfer. Taffo in his Aminta has as far excelled all the paftoral writers, as in his Gierufalemme he has outdone the epic poets of his country. But as this piece feems to have been the original of a new fort of poem, the Paftoral Comedy, in Italy, it cannot fo well be confidered as a copy of the ancients. Spenfer's Calendar, in Mr. Dryden's opinion, is the moft complete work of this kind which any nation has pro duced ever fince the time of Virgil. Not but he may be thought imperfect in some few points. His Eclogues are fomewhat too long, if we compare them with the ancients. He is fometimes too allegorical, and treats of matters of religion in a pastoral ftyle, as the Mantuan 3. had

had done before him. He has employed the Lyric meafure, which is contrary to the practice of the old poets. His ftanza is not ftill the fame, nor always well chofen. This last may be the reafon his expreffion is fometimes not concise enough: for the tetrastic has obliged him to extend his fenfe to the length of four lines, which would have been more clofely confined in the couplet.

In the manners, thoughts, and characters, he comes near Theocritus himself; though notwithstanding all the care he has taken, he is certainly inferior in his dialect: for the Doric had its beauty and propriety in the time of Theocritus; it was ufed in part of Greece, and frequent in the mouths of many of the greatest persons : whereas the old English and country phrafes of Spenfer were either entirely obfolete, or fpoken only by people of the lowest condition. As there is a difference betwixt fimplicity and rufticity, so the expreffion of fimple thoughts fhould be plain, but not clownish. The addition he has made of a Calendar to his Eclogues is very beautiful; fince by this, befides that general moral of innocence and fimplicity, which is common to other authors of Pastoral, he has one peculiar to himfelf; he compares human life to the feveral feafons, and at once expofes to his readers a view of the great and little worlds, in their various changes and aspects. Yet the fcrupulous divifion of his Paftorals into months, has obliged him either to repeat the fame description, in other words, for three months together; or when it was exhaufted before, entirely to omit it: whence it comes to pass, that fome of his Eclogues (as the fixth, eighth, and tenth, for example) have nothing but their title to distinguish them. The reafon is evident, becaufe the year has not that variety in it to furnish every month with a particular description, as it may every feafon,

Of the following Eclogues I fhall only say, that these four comprehend all the fubjects which the critics upon Theocritus

Theocritus and Virgil will allow to be fit for Paftoral: that they have as much variety of description, in refpect of the feveral feasons, as Spenser's: that in order to add to this variety, the feveral times of the day are obferved, the rural employments in each feafon or time of day, and the rural fcenes or places proper to fuch employments; not without fome regard to the feveral ages of man, and the different paffions proper to each age.

But after all, if they have any merit, it is to be attributed to fome good old authors, whofe works as I had leisure to study, so I hope I have not wanted care to imitate.

SP

R I N

G.

THE

FIRST PASTORAL*.

F

To Sir WILLIAM TRUMBAL.

IRST in these fields. I try the fylvan strains,
Nor blush to sport on Windfor's blifsful plains:
Fair Thames flow gently from thy facred spring,
While on thy banks Sicilian Mufe's fing;
Let vernal airs thro' trembling ofiers play,
And Albion's cliffs refound the rural lay.

You, that too wife for pride, too good for pow'r,
Enjoy the glory to be great no more,

And carrying with you all the world can boast,
To all the world illuftriously are lost!

O let my Mufe her flender reed infpire,
Till in your native + fhades you tune the lyre:
So when the Nightingale to reft removes,
The Thruíh may chant to the forsaken groves,
But charm'd to filence, liftens while fhe fings,
`And all th' aerial audience clap their wings.

5

10

15

* Thefe Paftorals were written in the year 1704, when our Author was fixteen years of age, but not printed till 1709.

Sir William Trumbal was born in Windfor Foreft, to which he retreated after he had refigned the poft of Secretary of State to King William III.

VOL. I.

C

Soon

Soon as the flocks fhook off the nightly dews *,

Two Swains, whom Love kept wakeful, and the Mufe,
Pour'd o'er the whitening vale their fleecy care,
Fresh as the morn, and as the feafon fair:
The dawn now blushing on the mountain's fide,
Thus Daphnis fpoke, and Strephon thus reply'd.

DAPHNIS.

Hear how the birds, on ev'ry bloomy spray, With joyous mufic wake the dawning day! Why fit we mute, when early linnets fing, When warbling Philomel falutes the spring? Why fit we fad, when Phosphor fhines fo clear, And lavish Nature paints the purple year?

STREPHON.

Sing then, and Damon shall attend the ftrain,
While yon' flow oxen turn the furrow'd plain.
Here on green banks the blushing vi'lets glow;
Here western winds on breathing rofes blow.
I'll stake yon' lamb, that near the fountain plays,
And from the brink his dancing fhade furveys.

DAPHNIS.

20

25

30

And I this bowl, where wanton ivy twines,
And fwelling clufters bend the curling vines :
Four figures rifing from the work appear,
The various seasons of the rolling year;
And what is that, which binds the radiant sky,
Where twelve bright figns in beauteous order lie?

35

40

DAMON.

Then fing by turns, by turns the Mufes fing,
Now hawthorns bloffom, now the daifies fpring,
Now leaves the trees, and flow'rs adorn the ground;
Begin, the vales shall ev'ry note rebound.

*The scene of this Paftoral a Valley, the time the Morning.

STREPHON.