us; and we may conjecture, with great probability, that it was fometimes the devotion, and fometimes the entertainment of the first generations of mankind. Theocritus united elegance with fimplicity; and taught his fhepherds to fing with so much ease and harmony, that his countrymen despairing to excel, forbore to imitate him; and the Greeks, however vain or ambitious, left him in quiet poffeffion of the garlands which the wood-nymphs had bestowed upon him. Virgil, however, taking advantage of another language, ventured to copy or to rival the Sicilian bard: he has written with greater splendor of diction, and elevation of sentiment: but as the magnificence of his performances was more, the fimplicity was lefs; and, perhaps, where he excels Theocritus, he fometimes obtains his fuperiority by deviating from the paftoral character, and performing what Theocritus never attempted. Yet, though I would willingly pay to Theocritus the honour which is always due to an original author, I am far from intending to depreciate Virgil; of whom Horace juftly declares, that the rural muses have appropriated to him their elegance and sweetnefs, and who, as he copied Theocritus in his defign, has resembled him likewife in his fuccefs; for, if we except Calphurnius, an obfcure author of the lower ages, I know not that a fingle paftoral was written after him by any poet, till the revival of lite rature. But though his general merit has been univerfally acknowledged, I am far from thinking all the productions of his rural Thalia equally excellent: there is, indeed, in all his paftorals a ftrain of verfification which it is vain to feek in any other poet; but if we except the firft and the tenth, they feem liable either wholly or in part to confiderable objec tions. The fecond, though we fhould forget the great charge against it, which I am afraid can never be refuted, might, I think, have perifhed, without any diminution of the praife of its author; for I know not that it contains one affecting fentiment or pleafing defcription, or one paffage that ftrikes the imagination or awakens the paffions. The third contains a conteft between two fhepherds, begun with a quarrel of which fome particulars might well be fpared, carried on with sprightliness and elegance, and terminated at last in a reconciliation: but, furely, whether the invectives with which they attack each other be true or falfe, they are too much degraded from the dignity of paftoral innocence; and inftead of rejoicing that they are both victorious, I fhould not have grieved could they have been both defeated. The poem to Pollio is, indeed, of another kind: it is filled with images at once fplendid and pleasing, and is elevated with grandeur of language worthy of the first of Roman poets; but I am not able to reconcile myself to the difproportion, between the performance and the occafion that produced it: that the golden age fhould return because Pollio had a fon, appears fo wild a fiction, that I am ready to fufpect the poet of having written, for fome other purpofe, what he took this opportunity of producing to the publick. The The fifth contains a celebration of Daphnis, which has ftood to all fucceeding ages as the model of paftoral elegies. To deny praise to a performance which fo many thoufands have laboured to imitate, would be to judge with too little deference for the opinion of mankind: yet whoever fhall read it with impartiality, will find that most of the images are of the mythological kind, and, therefore, easily invented; and that there are few fentiments of rational praise or natural lamentation. In the Silenus he again rifes to the dignity of philofophick fentiments and heroic poetry. The addrefs to Varus is eminently beautiful: but fince the compliment paid to Gallus fixes the tranfaction to his own time, the fiction of Silenus feems injudicious; nor has any fufficient reafon yet been found, to juftify his choice of thofe fables that make the subject of the fong. The feventh exhibits another conteft of the tuneful fhepherds and, furely, it is not without fome reproach to his inventive power, that of ten paftorals Virgil has written two upon the fame plan. One of the fhepherds now gains an acknowledged victory, but without any apparent fuperiority, and the reader, when he fees the prize adjudged, is not able to difcover how it was deferved. Of the eighth paftoral, fo little is properly the work of Virgil, that he has no claim to other praise or blame than that of a tranflator. Of the ninth, it is fcarce poffible to difcover the defign or tendency: it is faid, I know not upon what authority, to have been compofed from frag ments ments of other poems; and except a few lines in which the author touches upon his own misfortunes, there is nothing that feems appropriated to any time or place, or of which any other ufe can be difcovered than to fill up the poem, The first and the tenth pastorals, whatever be determined of the reft, are fufficient to place their author above the reach of rivalry. The complaint of Gallus difappointed in his love, is full of fuch fentiments as difappointed love naturally produces; his wishes are wild, his refentment is tender, and his purposes are inconftant. In the genuine language of despair, he fooths himself a-while with the pity that shall be paid him after his death; Tamen cantabitis, Arcades, inquit, Montibus hæc veftris foli cantare periti Yet, O Arcadian swains, Ye beft artificers of foothing ftrains! Tune your foft reeds, and teach your rocks my woes, O that your birth and business had been mine; WARTON, Discontented with his prefent condition, and defirous to be any thing but what he is, he wishes himself one of the shepherds. He then catches the idea of rural tranquillity; but foon difcovers how much happier he should be in these happy regions, with Lycoris at his fide: Hic gelidi fontes, hic mollia prata, Lycori: Here cooling fountains roll thro' flow'ry meads, Inftead of that, me frantick love detains 'Mid foes, and dreadful darts, and bloody plains: Seek the rough Alps where fnows eternal fhine, } WARTON. He then turns his thoughts on every fide, in queft of fomething that may folace or amufe him: he proposes happiness to himself, firft in one scene and then in another; and at last finds that nothing Avill fatisfy: Jam neque Hamadryades rurfum, nec carmina nobis P But |