fpeakers, or the speakers must be raised to the height of the fentiments..

In confequence of thefe original errors, a thoufand 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 ftreams, among which are heard the : gentle whispers of chafte fondnefs, or the foft com'plaints of amorous impatience. In 'paftoral, as'in other writings, chaftity of fetitiment ought doubtlefs to be obferved, and purity of manners to be. teprefented; not because the poet is confined to the images of the golden age, but because, having the subject in his own choice, he ought always to confult the intereft of virtue.

These advocates for the golden age lay down other principles, not very confistent with their general plan; for they tell us, that, to fupport the character of the shepherd, it is proper that all refinement should be avoided, and that some slight inftances of ignorance fhould be interspersed.. Thus the fhepherd in Virgil is fuppofed to have forgot the name of Anaximander, and in Pope the term, Zodiack is too hard for a ruftick apprehenfion.. But if we place aur fhepherds in their primitive condition, we may give them learning among their other qualifications; and if we fuffer them to al-. lude at all to things of latter exiftence, which, perhaps, cannot with any great propriety be allowed,. there can be no danger of making them fpeak with too much accuracy, fince they converfed with divi-.

nities,

nities, and tranfmitted to fucceeding ages the arts of life.

Other writers, having the mean and despicable condition of a fhepherd always before them, conceive it neceffary to degrade the language of paftoral, by obfolete terms and ruftick words, which they very learnedly call Dorick, without reflecting, that they thus became authors of a mangled dialect, which no human being ever could have fpoken, that they may as well refine the fpeech as the fentiments of their perfonage, and that none of the inconfiftencies which they endeavour to avoid, is greater than that of joining elegance of thought with coarfenefs of diction. Spenfer begins one of his paftorals with ftudied 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 speakers like these exercise 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 persons, 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

are not pastoral.

Virgil,

Such is the exclamation, in

Nunc fcio quid fit Amor, duris in cautibus illum
Imarus, aut Rhodope, aut extremi Garamantes,
Nec generis noftri puerum nec fanguinis, edunt;
*^' I know thee, Love, in defarts thou wert bred,

And at the dugs of favage tygers fed;

Allen of birth, ufurper of the plains,

DRYDEN..

which Pope endeavouring to copy, was carried to ftill greater impropriety.

I know thee, Love, wild as the raging main,
More fierce than tygers on the Libyan plain;
Thou wert from Etna'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 Paftoral they are particularly liable to cenfure, because it wants that exaltation above common life, which in tragick or heroick writings often reconciles us to bold flights and daring figures.

Paftoral being the reprefentation of an action or paffion, by its effects upon a country life, has nothing peculiar but its confinement to rural imagery, without which it ceases to be paftoral. This is its true characteristick, and this it cannot lose by any dignity of fentiment, or beauty of diction. The Pollio of Virgil, with all its elevation, is a compofition truly bucolick, though rejected by the criticks; 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 scene lies in the country,

L.6

the

the fong being religious and historical, had been no less adapted to any other audience or place. Neither can it well be defended as a fiction, for the introduction of a god feems to imply the golden age, and yet he alludes to many fubfequent tranfactions, and mentions Gallus the poet's contemporary.

It seems neceffary, to the perfection of this poem, that the occafion which is fupposed to produce it, be at least not inconsistent with a country life, or lefs likely to intereft those who have retired into places of folitude and quiet, than the more bufy part of mankind. It is therefore improper to give the title of a paftoral to verses, 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 person, 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 fheep 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 harvests. Those who pass their days in retreats diftant from the theatres of bufi nefs, are always leaft likely to hurry their imagina tion with publick affairs.

The facility of treating actions or events in the paftoral stile, has incited many writers, from whom more judgment might have been expected, to put the forrow or the joy which the occafion required into the mouth of Daphne or of. Thyrfis, and as one abfurdity must naturally be expected to make

way.

way for another, they have written with an utter difregard both of life and nature, and filled their productions with mythological allufions, with incredible fictions, and with fentiments which neiother paffion nor reafon could have dictated, fince -the change which religion has made in the whole fyftem of the world.

*

製造

NUMB. 38. SATURDAY, July 28, 1750.

› Auream; quifquis médiocrițatem
"Diligit, tutus caret obfoleti
Sordibus tecti, caret invidenda
“Sobrius autá.

The man within the golden mean,
Who can his boldeft with contain,
Securely views the ruin'd cell,
Where fordid want and 'forrow dwelly
And in himself ferenely great,
Declines an envied room of ftates.

MONG many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral ftate of the world, it has been bbferved that happiness, as well as virtue, confifts in medio crity; that to avoid every extreme is neceffary, even to him who has no other care than to pass through the prefent ftate with ease and fafety; and: that the middle path is the road of fecurity, on Weither fide of which are not only the pitfals of vice, but the precipices of ruin.

AM
Aination have drawn between the

Thus the maxim of Cleobulus the Lindian, μtrov äpsov, Mediocrity is beft, has been long confidered as an univerfal principle, extended through the whole compass of life and nature. The expe-.