But now again no more the woodland maids,
Nor paftoral fongs delight-Farewell, ye fhades-
No toils of ours the cruel god can change,
Tho' loft in frozen deferts we fhould range;
Tho' we should drink where chilling Hebrus flows,
Endure bleak winter's blafts, and Thracian fnows;
Or on hot India's plains our flocks should feed,
Where the parch'd elm declines his fickening head;
Beneath fierce-glowing Cancer's fiery beams,
Far from cool breezes and refreshing ftreams.
Love over all maintains resistless fway,
And let us love's all-conquering power obey.

WARTON.

But notwithstanding the excellence of the tenth paftoral, I cannot forbear to give the preference to the first, which is equally natural and more diverfified. The complaint of the fhepherd, who faw his old companion at ease in the shade, while himself was driving his little flock he knew not whither, is fuch as, with variation of circumftances, mifery always utters at the fight of profperity:

Nos patriæ fines, & dulcia linquimus arva;

Nos patriam fugimus: tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra,
Formofam refonare doces Amaryllida fylvas.

We leave our country's bounds, our much lov'd plains;

We from our country fly, unhappy fwains!

You, Tit'rus, in the groves at leisure laid,
Teach Amaryllis' name to every fhade.

WARTON.

His account of the difficulties of his journey, gives

a very tender image of pastoral distress:

En

- En ipfe capellas

Protenus ager ago: hanc etiam vix, Tityre, duco :
Hic inter denfas corylos modo namque gemellos,
Spem gregis, ah! filice in nuda connixa reliquit.

And lo fad partner of the general care,
Weary and faint I drive my goats afar !
While scarcely this my leading hand fuftains,
Tir'd with the way, and recent from her pains ;
For 'mid yon tangled hazels as we paft,
On the bare flints her hapless twin fhe caft,
The hopes and promife of my ruin'd fold!

WARTON.

The description of Virgil's happiness in his little farm, combines almost all the images of rural pleafure; and he, therefore, that can read it with indifference, has no fense of pastoral poetry :

Fortunate fenex, ergo tua rura manebunt,
Et tibi magna fatis; quamvis lapis omnia nudus,
Limofoque palus obducat pafcua junco,

Non infueta gravis tentabunt pabula fœtas,
Nec mala vicini pecoris contagia lædent.
Fortunate fenex, his inter flumina nota,
Et fontes facros, frigus captabis opacum.
Hinc tibi, quæ femper vicino ab limite fepes,
Hyblais apibus florem depafta faličti,
Sæpe levi fomnum fuadebit inire fufurro.
Hinc altâ fub rupe canet frondator ad auras;
Nec tamen interea rauca, tua cura, palumbes,
Nec gemere aëria ceffabit turtur ab ulmo.

Happy old man then still thy farms restor'd,
Enough for thee, fhall bless thy frugal board.
What tho' rough ftones the naked foil o'erspread,

Or marshy bulrush rear its wat'ry head,

No foreign food thy teeming ewes fhall fear,
No touch contagious fpread its influence here.
Happy old man! here 'mid th' accuftom'd ftreams
And facred springs, you'll fhun the fcorching beams;
While from yon willow-fence, thy pasture's bound,
The bees that fuck their flow'ry ftores around,
Shall fweetly mingle, with the whispering boughs,
Their lulling murmurs, and invite repose :
While from steep rocks the pruner's fong is heard;
Nor the foft-cooing dove, thy fav'rite bird,
Mean while fhall ceafe to breathe her melting strain,
Nor turtles from th' aerial elm to plain. WARTON.

It may be obferved, that these two poems were produced by events that really happened; and may, therefore, be of ufe to prove, that we can always feel more than we can imagine, and that the most artful fiction must give way to truth.

I am, SIR,

Your humble fervant,

DUBIUS.

NUMB. 95. TUESDAY, October 2, 1753.

Dulcique animos novitate tenebo.

And with sweet novelty your foul detain.

OVID.

T is often charged upon writers, that with all

IT

their pretenfions to genius and discoveries, they do little more than copy one another; and that compofitions obtruded upon the world with the pomp of novelty, contain only tedious repetitions of common fentiments, or at beft exhibit a tranfpofition of known images, and give a new appearance to truth only by fome flight difference of drefs and decoration.

The allegation of refemblance between authors, is indisputably true; but the charge of plagiarism, which is raised upon it, is not to be allowed with equal readiness. A coincidence of fentiment may eafily happen without any communication, fince there are many occafions in which all reasonable men will nearly think alike. Writers of all ages have had the fame fentiments, because they have in all ages had the fame objects of speculation; the interefts and paffions, the virtues and vices of mankind, have been diversified in different times, only by uneffential and cafual varieties; and we must, therefore, expect in the works of all those who attempt to defcribe them, fuch a likenefs as we find in

is, indeed, in all his paftorals a strain of verfification which it is vain to feek in any other poet; but if we except the firft and the tenth, they seem liable either wholly or in part to confiderable objections.

The fecond, though we should 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 pleasing defcription, or one paffage that strikes the imagination or awakens the paffions.

The third contains a contest 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 instead 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 disproportion, 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