nothing but fimplicity and propriety of style; 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 most endeavoured to make these 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 out-done the Epic poets of his country. But as this piece feems to have been the original of a new fort of poem, the Pastoral 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 most complete work of this kind which any nation has produced ever fince the time of Virgil. Not but that he Not but that he may be thought imperfect in fome few points. His Eclogues are somewhat too long, if we compare them with the ancients. He is fometimes too allegorical, and treats of matters of religion in a paftoral style, as Mantuan had done before him. He has employed the Lyric measure, which is contrary to the practice of the old Poets. His Stanza is not still the fame, nor always well chofen. This last may be the reason his expreffion is fometimes not concife enough: for the Tetraftic has obliged him to extend his sense to the length of four lines, which

"Dedication to Virg. Ecl. P.

would have been more clofely confined in the Couplet.

In the manners, thoughts, and characters, he comes near to Theocritus himfelf; tho', 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 perfons: whereas the old English and country phrases of Spenser were either entirely obsolete, or spoken only by people of the loweft condition. As there is a difference betwixt

fimplicity and rufticity, fo 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 the general moral of innocence and fimplicity, which is common to other authors of Paftoral, he has one peculiar to himself; he compares human Life to the feveral Seafons, 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 exhausted before, entirely to omit it: whence it comes to pass that some of his Eclogues (as the fixth, eighth, and tenth for example) have nothing but their Titles to distinguish them. The reason is evident, because the year has not that va

riety in it to furnish every month with a particular description, as it may every season.

Of the following Eclogues I fhall only say, that these four comprehend all the subjects which the Critics upon upon Theocritus and Virgil will allow to be fit for pastoral: That they have as much va riety of description, in respect of the several fea fons, as Spenfer's: that in order to add to this variety, the several times of the day are obferv'd, the rural employments in each season 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 some good old Authors, whose works as I had leisure to study, fo I hope I have not wanted care to imitate.

SPRIN G.

THE

FIRST PASTORAL,

OR

D A M O N.

To Sir WILLIAM TRUMBAL.

IRST in thefe fields I try the fylvan strains,

FIR

Nor blush to sport on Windfor's blissful plains: Fair Thames, flow gently from thy facred spring, While on thy banks Sicilian Muses fing;

REMARK S.

Thefe Paftorals were written at the age of fixteen, and then past thro' the hands of Mr. Walsh, Mr. Wycherley, G. Granville afterwards Lord Lanfdown, Sir William Trumbal, Dr. Garth, Lord Hallifax, Lord Somers, Mr. Mainwaring, and others. All these gave our Author the greatest encouragement, and particularly Mr. Walsh, whom Mr. Dryden, in his Poftcript to Virgil, calls the beft Critic of his age. "The Author (fays he) feems to have a particular genius for this kind of Poetry, and 66 a judgment that much exceeds his years. He has taken very

Let vernal airs thro' trembling ofiers play,

And Albion's cliffs refound the rural lay.

5

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

REMARK S.

"freely from the Ancients. But what he has mixed of his 66 own with theirs is no way inferior to what he has taken from "them. It is not flattery at all to say that Virgil had written "nothing fo good at his Age. His Preface is very judicious " and learned." Letter to Mr. Wycherley, Ap. 1705. The Lord Lanfdown about the fame time, mentioning the youth of our Poet, fays (in a printed Letter of the Character of Mr. Wycherley)" that if he goes on as he has begun in the Paftoral way, "as Virgil first tried his ftrength, we may hope to fee English "Poetry vie with the Roman," &c. Notwithstanding the early time of their production, the Author efteemed these as the moft correct in the verfification, and mufical in the numbers, of all his works. The reafon for his labouring them into fo much softness, was, doubtlefs, that this fort of poetry derives almost its whole beauty from a natural ease of thought and smoothness of verfe; whereas that of most other kinds consists in the strength and fulness of both. In a letter of his to Mr. Walsh about this time we find an enumeration of feveral niceties in Verfification, which perhaps have never been strictly obferved in any English poem, except in thefe Paftorals. They were not printed till 1709. P.

gen

Sir William Trumbal.] Our Author's friendship with this tleman commenced at very unequal years; he was under fixteen, but Sir William above fixty, and had lately refign'd his employment of Secretary of State to King William. P.

IMITATIONS.

VER. 1. Prima Syracofio dignata eft ludere verfu,
Noftra nec erubuit fylvas habitare Thalia,

This is the general exordium and opening of the Paftorals, in imitation of the fixth of Virgil, which some have therefore not improbably thought to have been the firft originally. In the beginnings of the other three Paftorals, he imitates exprefly those