dissertations on pastoral poetry, after due encomium on the merits of the Sicilian bard, few authors, save Virgil, Spenser, Pope, Gay, and Phillips are noticed, all, except the second, translators, imitators,or parodists, rather than original writers in this branch of poetry. If rural life no longer present us with shepherds singing and piping for a bowl or a crook, why persist, in violation of all probability, to introduce such characters? If pastoral cannot exist without them, let us cease to compose it; for to Theocritus these personages were objects of hourly observation, and the peasants of Sicily a kind of improvisatori. I am persuaded, however, that simplicity in diction and sentiment, a happy choice of rural imagery, such incidents and circumstances as may even now occur in the country, with interlocutors equally removed from vulgarity or considerable refinement, are all that are essential to success. Upon this plan the celebrated Gessner has written his Idyllia, compositions which have secured him immortality, and placed him on a level with the Grecian. By many indeed, and upon no trifling grounds, he is preferred, having with much felicity assumed a medium between the rusticity of Theocritus, and the too refined and luxuriant imagination of Bion and Moschus, preserving at the same time the natural painting of the Sicilian, with the pathetic touches and exquisite sensibility of the contemporary bards. "One of the most harmonious and beautifully plaintive passages perhaps in the whole compass of Grecian poetry, may be drawn from the "Epitaph on Bion" by Moschus; the comparison between vegetative and human hie, which, though in some measure foreign to the purport of this paper, I cannot avoid indulging myself and my readers in quoting, with the addi tion of a couple of versions, and one or two of the most happy imitations; they cannot fail of being acceptable to feeling and to taste. Though fade crisp anise, and the parsley's green, • And vivid mallows from the garden scene, • Slumber, to wake no more, one long unbroken sleep!, • POLWHELE." 'Forgotten, Forgotten, soon its vernal huds renews And from short slumbers wakes to life again. 'GISBORNI.' "The same sentiment may be found in Catullus, Horace, Albinovanus, Spenser, &c. but none have equalled doctors Jortin and Beattie, in imitating, and even improving on this pensive idea. Hei mihi! lege ratâ sol occidit atque resurgit, • Lunaque mutatæ reparat dispendia formæ ; 'Rursus nocte vigent: humiles telluris alumni, Cum Zephyri vox blanda vocat, rediitque sereni 'JORTIN.' Ah, why thus abandon'd to darkness and woe, And thy bosom no trace of misfortune retain. 'Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to mourn; O soothe him, whose pleasures like thine pass away Full quickly they pass-but they never return. Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky, 'The moon half extinguish'd her crescent displays; She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze. "Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more; 'Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn, • Kind nature the embryo blossom will save. But when shall spring visit the moulderin urn! 'O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave e! 'BEATTIE. "The "The beginning of the quotation from Jortin, and the two first stanzas from Dr. Beattie, are beautiful additions to the original idea. The lines of Beattie indeed flow with the most melancholy and musical expression, steal into the heart itself, and excite a train of pleasing though gloomy association. "Closing, however, this long digression, let us return to our subject, and here we may observe, that some time before the age of Spenser, a model of pastoral simplicity was given us in a beautiful poem entitled "Harpalus," and which is introduced by Dr. Percy into his "Reliques of ancient English Poetry." Had Spenser attended more to the unaffected ease and natural expression of this fine old pastoral, he would not, I presume, have, interwoven theology with his eclogues, nor chosen such a barbarous and vulgar jargon to convey the sentiments of his shepherds in. Few poets exceed Spenser in the brilliancy of his imagination, and there is a tender melancholy in his compositions which endears him to the reader; but elegant simplicity, so necessary in bucolic poetry, was no characteristic of the author of the "Fairy Queen." In every requisite for this province of his divine art, he has been much excelled by Drayton, whose "Nymphidia" may be considered as one of the best specimens, we have of the pastoral eclogue. The present age seems to have forgotten this once popular poet; an edition indeed has been published of his "Heroical Epistles," but various other portions of his works, and more especially his "Nymphidia," merit republication. "After the example of Tasso and Guarini, whose "Aminta" and "Pastor Fido" were highly distin guished in the literary world, Fletcher wrote his "Faithful Shepherdess," a piece that rivals, and, per haps, excels the boasted productions of the Italian muse. Equally possessing the elegant simplicity which characterises the "Aminta," it has at the same time a richer vein of wild and romantic imagery, and disdains those affected prettinesses which deform the drama of Guarini. This Arcadian comedy of Fletcher's was held in high esti mation by Milton; its frequent allusion, and with the finest effect, to the popular superstitions, caught the congenial spirit of our enthu siastic bard. The" Sad Shepherd". of Jonson likewise, Browne's "Britannia's Pastorals," and Warner's "Albion's England. may be mentioned as containing much pastoral description of the most genuine kind. Of the singular production of Warner, there is, I believe, no modern edition, yet few among our elder poets more deserve the atten tion of the lover of nature and rural simplicity. Some well-chosen extracts from this work are to be found in the collections of Percy and Headley, and his" Argentile and Curan" has been the mean of enriching our language with an admirable drama from the pen of Mason. Scott too, in describing his favourite village of Amwell, where sleeps our bard by fame 'forgotten,' has offered a due tribute to his memory. Numerous passages estimable for their simple and pathetic beauty might be quoted from his volume; the following will convince the reader, that har mony of versification also, and a terseness and felicity of diction, are among his excellences. G4 'She most lovely scenery, such as mingling with the circumstances of his amusement, and the detail of appropriate incident, would furnish very delightful pictures, and in the genuine style of bucolic poetry. Fletcher and Brown have in this manner rendered their eclogues truly interesting, and even Isaac Walton, though no poet, has in his "That pleasing little poem, "The Fishermen" of Theocritus, probably first suggested to Sannazarius the idea of writing piscatory ec-' logues, who has been followed with much success by Phineas Fletcher and Brown. Whatever may be thought of the employment, as suited to the eclogue, of those who live on the sea-shore and subsist by catching the produce of the deep," Complete Angler" introduced it will readily be allowed that our rivers at least fertilize the most rich and romantic parts of our island, and that they display to the fisher lingering upon their banks the some inimitably drawn pastoral scenes; what can be more exquisite than the following description? 'Turn out of the way, a little, good scholar, towards yonder high 'honey honey-suckle hedge; there we'll the kind we have in England, and Shenstone's ballad in four parts, though not equal in merit to the former, has yet long and deservedly been a favourite with the public. In artless expression of pas'sion, however, in truth of colour, ing, and naïveté of diction, nothing can rival the Scotch pastoral songs; they originated in a country abounding in a rich assemblage of rural images; smooth and lofty sit and sing, whilst this shower falls so gently upon the teeming earth, and gives yet a sweeter smell to the lovely flowers that adorn these verdant meadows. Look, ' under the broad beech-tree, I sat • down, when I was last this way · a-fishing, and the birds in the adjoining grove seemed to have a friendly contention with an echo, 'whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow tree, near to the brow hills,' says Dr. Beattie, speaking "of that primrose hill; there I sat of the southern provinces of Scotviewing the silver streams glide land, covered with verdure; clear silently towards their centre, the streams winding through long tempestuous sea; yet sometimes and beautiful vallies; trees proopposed by rugged roots and peb.duced without culture, here stragble stones, which broke their waves and turned them into ⚫ foam and sometimes I beguiled time by viewing the harmless lambs, some sleeping securely in gling or single, and there crowding into little groves and bowers; with other circumstances peculiar to the districts I allude to, render them fit for pasturage, and fa 'the cool shade, whilst others sport-vourable to romantic leisure and ⚫ed themselves in the cheerful sun; and saw others craving comfort 'from the swollen udders of their bleating dams. As I thus sat, these and other sights had so fully "possest my soul with content, that tender passions. Several of the old Scotch songs take their names from the rivulets, villages, and hills, adjoining to the Tweed near Melrose; a region distinguished by many charming varieties of I thought, as the poet has hap-rural scenery, and which, whether • I was for that time lifted above earth. As I left this place and entered ⚫ into the next field, a second pleasure entertained me; 'twas a handsome milk-maid, that had ⚫ not yet attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any fears of many things that will ⚫ never be, as too many men too ' often do; but she cast away all 'care, and sang like a nightingale.' "In the pastoral song and ballad the moderns, and particularly the Scotch and English, have greatly excelled; Rowe's "Despairing Shepherd" is the sweetest poem of |