might be white as fnow; and, though their iniquities have been multiplied without number, revile the hand, that would blot them from the Regifter of Heaven. No. XCII. Saturday, September 22. 1753. Cum tabulis animum cenforis fumet honefli. Bold be the critic, zealous to his trust, To the ADVEnturer. HOR. SIR, In the papers of criticism which you have given to the public, I have remarked a fpirit of candor, and love of truth, equally remote from bigotry and cap-. tioufnefs; a juft diftribution of praife amongst the an-; cients and the moderns; a fober deference to reputation long established, without a blind adoration of an-. tiquity; and a willingness to favour later performances, without a light or puerile fondness for novelty. G S D I fhall, therefore, venture to lay before you fuch obfervations as have risen to my mind in the confideration of Virgil's Paftorals, without any inquiry how far my fentiments deviate from established rules or common opinions. If we furvey the ten paftorals in a general view, it will be found, that Virgil can derive from them very little claim to the praise of an inventor. To search into the antiquity of this kind of poetry, is not my prefent purpose that it has long subsisted in the east, the Sacred Writings fufficiently inform 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 shepherds to fing with fo much ease and harmony, that his countrymen, defpairing 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 fplendor of diction, and elevation of fentiment: 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 pastoral 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 Mufes have appropriated to him their elegance and sweetness; and who, as he copied Theocritus in his defign, has refembled him likewife in his fuccefs; for, if we except Calphurnius, an obfcure author of the lower ages, I know not that a fingle pastoral was written after him by any poet, till the revival of literature. 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 first and the tenth, they feem 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 perished, without any diminution of the praife of its author; for I know not that it contains one affecting fentiment or pleafing de fcription, or one paffage that ftrikes 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 pleafing ;; and is elevated with grandeur of language, worthy of: the first of Roman poets: but I am not able to reconG. 6. cil No. XCII. cile myself to the disproportion between the performance and the occafion that produced it: that the golden age should 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 purpose, what he took this opportunity of producing to the public. The fifth contains a celebration of Daphnis, which has flood to all fucceeding ages as the model of pas toral elegies. To deny praise to a performance which fo many thousands have laboured to imitate, would be to judge with too little deference for the opinion of mankind: yet whoever shall read it with impartiality, will find, that most of the images are of the mythological kind, and, therefore, eafily invented; and that there are few fentiments of rational praise or natural lamentation. In the Silenus he again rifes to the dignity of philofophic fentiments and heroic poetry. The addrefs to Varus is eminently beautiful: but fince the compliment paid to Gallus fixes the transaction to his own. time, the fiction of Silenus feems injudicious; nor has any fufficient reafon yet been found, to justify his choice of thofe fables that make the subject of the fong. The feventh exhibits another contest of the tuneful fhepherds and, furely, it is not without fome reproach. to his inventive power, that, of ten pastorals, Virgil has, written two upon the fame plan. One of the shepherds now gains an acknowledged victory, but without any apparent fuperiority; and the reader, when he fees the prize adjudged, is not able to discover how it was. deferved. Of Of the eighth pastoral, so 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 discover the defign or tendency; it is faid, I know not upon what authority, to have been compofed from fragments of other poems; and except a few lines in which the auther touches upon his own misfortunes, there is nothing that seems appropriated to any time or place, or of which any other use can be discovered than to fill up the poem. The first and the tenth paftorals, 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 disappointed love naturally produces; his wishes are wild, his refentment is tender, and his purposes are inconstant. In the genuine language of defpair, he fooths himself a-while with the pity that shall be paid him after his death: -Tamen cantabitis, Arcades, inquit, -Yet, O Arcadian fwains, Ye best artificers of foothing ftrains! Tune your foft reeds, and teach your rocks my woes, So fhall my fhade in fweeter reft repose. O that your birth and business had been mine; WARTON |