These advocates for the golden age lay down other principles, not very consistent with their general plan; for they tell us, that, to fupport the character of the fhepherd, it is proper that all refinement should be avoided, and that some flight in- ̧. stances of ignorance should be interfperfed. 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 our fhepherds in their primitive condition, we may give them learning among their other qualifications; and if we fuffer them to allude at all to things of later 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 divinities, and transmitted to fucceeding ages the arts of life. Other writers, having the mean and defpicable 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 spoken, 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 coarfeness of diction. Spenfer begins one of his paftorals with studied barbarity; Diggon Davie, I bid her good-day: VOL. V. R What What will the reader imagine to be the fubject on which speakers like thefe exercife their eloquence? Will he not be fomewhat disappointed, 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 perfonis, because perfons of all ranks inhabit the country. It excludes not, therefore, on account of the characters necessary to be introduced, any elevation or delicacy of fentiment; thofe ideas only are improper, which, ⚫ not owing their original to rural objects, are not pas toral. Such is the exclamation in Virgil, Nunc fcio quid fit Amor, duris in cautibus illum I know thee, Love, in defarts thou wert bred, Alien of birth, ufurper of the plains. DRYDEN. which Pope endeavouring to copy, was carried to till greater impropriety: I know thee, Love, wild as the raging main, Sentiments like thefe, as they have no ground in nature, are indeed of little value in any poem; but in pastoral they are particularly liable to censure, because it wants that exaltation above common life, which in tragick or heroick writings often reconciles us to bold flights and daring figures. Pastoral being the representation of an action or pasfion, 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 lofe 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 disputable kind, because though the scene lies in the country, the fong being religious and hiftorical, had been no lefs adapted to any other audience or place. Neither can it well be defended as a fiction, for the introduction of a god seems to imply the golden age, and yet he alludes to many subsequent transactions, and mentions Gallus the poet's contemporary. It seems neceffary to the perfection of this poem, that the occafion which is fuppofed to produce it, be at least not inconfiftent with a country life, or less 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 pastoral 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 perfon, whom, when once the poet has called a shepherd, he has no longer any labour upon his hands, but can make the clouds weep, and lilies wither R 2 wither, and the sheep 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 pafs their days in retreats diftant from the theatres of business, are always leaft likely to hurry their imagination with publick affairs. The facility of treating actions or events in the paftoral style, 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 muft naturally be expected to make 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 neither paffion nor reafon could have dictated, fince the change which religion has made in the whole fyftem of the world. NUMB. 38. SATURDAY, July 28, 1759. A Auream quifquis mediocritatem Diligit, tutus caret obfoleti Sordibus tecti, caret invidendâ The man within the golden mean, Where fordid want and forrow dwell HOR. FRANCIS. MONG many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral state of the world, it has been observed that happiness, as well as virtue, confifts in mediocrity; that to avoid every extreme is neceffary, even to him who has no other care than to pass through the present state with eafe and fafety; and that the middle path is the road of fecurity, on either fide of which are not only the pitfals of vice, but the precipices of ruin. Thus the maxim of Cleobulus the Lindian, μirgo, gro, Mediocrity is beft, has been long confidered as an univerfal principle, extended through the whole compass of life and nature. The experience of every age feems to have given it new confirmation, and to fhew that nothing, however fpecious or alluring, is pursued with propriety, or enjoyed with fafety, beyond certain limits. |