Milton's Comus, the most elegant pastoral drama in any language: and, with Guarini's Pastor Fido, and Bonarelli's Filli di Sciro1, was frequently represented by the Italian nobility in gardens and groves, having no other scenery, than what the places, in which they were represented, naturally afforded2.

Among the British, pastoral attained little of excellence from the days of Spenser, Drayton, and Browne, to the time, in which Bloomfield wrote his Richard and Kate, the poor Blacksmith, and the Miller's Maid. Affectation had long been substituted for passion; and delicacy and elegance for that exquisite simplicity of language and sentiment, which constitutes the charm of this delightful species of poetry. Phillips is but an awkward appropriator of Virgil's imagery; and an unsuccessful imitator of Spenser's phraseology. As a pastoral, Milton's Lycidas, too, notwithstanding the applause, that has been heaped upon it, is frigid and pedantic; while his Epitaphium Damonis, boasting many agreeable passages, merely denotes the elegance of an accomplished scholar. Pope is too refined; his versification too measured; and his ideas

Du Bos calls Fontenelle's Plurality of Worlds an eclogue. The descriptions, says he, and images, drawn by the personages, are very suitable to the character of pastoral poetry: and among those images there are several, which Virgil himself would willingly have adopted.-Vid. Crit. Reflex. i. c. 22. That astronomy is a subject well adapted to pastoral is certain; since the first astronomers were shepherds.

'We are assured by Rosinus, that plays were acted under the shades of trees, long before they were performed in theatres. It is certain, that shepherds used to sing and recite their pastorals in those situations; and hence Cassiodorus derives the word Scena. In Greece they were frequently performed in the open air, and in the day-time.

little more than derivations from the more polished and courtly passages of his Mantuan and Sicilian masters. He addresses the genius of the Thames, rather than of the Avon; and adapts his sentiments, more to the meridians of Hagley and Stowe, than to the meadows of Gloucestershire, or the vales of Devon.

III.

The Gentle Shepherd of Fletcher, however, may be placed in competition with its prototype by Guarini: the pastoral songs of Burns, and other Scottish poets, are equal to those of any other age or nation: and the four pastorals of Shenstone are even superior to any in Pope, in Virgil or Theocritus. But none surpass the mild and captivating Gessner; whose simplicity and tenderness have power to animate the bosom of age, and to refine the passions of the young. Superior to the rural poets of France and Spain, of England, Scotland, and Italy, he united the elegance of Virgil to the simplicity of Theocritus; and decorated Nature, by adopting the manners of the golden age. His Death of Abel is almost worthy the pen of Moses; his First Navigator combines all the fancy of the poet, with the primeval simplicity of the patriarch; and his Idyls are captivating to all, but the pedant and the sensualist. It was his family, which rendered the genius of Gessner so irresistibly gaging. His wife and his children animated his heart; and he dipped his pen, as it were, in their bosoms. While we are reading, we seem to be gazing on the pictures of his imagination; but we are, in reality, witnessing passages in his life. One of his daughters chances to visit a poor woman out of charity. Gessner is

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impressed with her intention, and immediately writes an idyl, in which one Zephyr says to another, " Why flutterest thou here, so idly among the rose bushes ?”. "A maiden will soon pass along the path: she is as lovely as the youngest of the Graces. At peep of dawn, she repairs with a well-filled basket to the cot, which stands on yonder hill. See! That is the cot; the mossy roof of which is now gilded by the rays of the sun. In that cot dwells a female, afflicted with sickness and poverty. She has two infants, both of whom would weep with hunger by the side of her bed, did not Daphne afford them relief and consolation, every day. She will return by this very path; her cheeks glowing with pleasure, and tears of sympathy gemming her eyes. In this rose bush I wait till I perceive her coming. When she issues from the cottage, I fly to meet her, laden with perfumes. I fan her cheeks, and kiss the dewy pearls from her eyes. This is my employment."

IV.

In this manner, Gessner rendered all the more agreeable incidents of domestic life subservient to his genius. Upon recovering from a fit of illness, he composed his idyl of Daphnis and Chloe; in which, depicting the anxiety of children, at the dread of losing their father, they indicate their affection, by offering a sacrifice of all they possess; accompanying their offers with language the most innocent and engaging.

Something analogous occurring in the canton of Zurich, Gessner wrote that history of the wooden leg, which he calls a Swiss Idyl; but which is infinitely superior to any idyl in Theocritus, or any bucolic in Virgil.

What was Gessner's wish? All that a delicate imagination might desire to possess! A cottage overhung by walnut trees; doves flying among the boughs; a bee garden, hedged with hazels; and, at each corner, a bower formed of vines. Behind the garden a meadow; and before it a grove of fruit-trees: in the midst of which a small lake, in the centre of which an island, containing an arbour. On the south side of the orchard a vineyard; and on the north a field waving with corn. "With such an habitation," says the poet," the richest of monarchs, when compared with myself, would be comparatively poor."

V.

The first pastoral poem, exhibited on the stage, was the Arethusa, by Lollio; the second, the Sacrificio, by Beccari; the third was Lo Sfortunato, by Arienti; the fourth the Aminta; and the fifth Il Pastor Fido. So much was the Aminta admired, that, within a few years after its first appearance, Italy had no less than eighty dramatic pastorals; few of which, however, possessed merit ; except Bonarelli's Filli di Sciro, and Ongaro's Alceo. The first pastoral comedy is said by some to have been written by Tansillo; by others the honour is given to Politian.

Fontenelle considered pastoral the oldest species of poetry; because the occupation of a shepherd was the oldest employment. Hence Boileau personified it, as a nymph at a feast of shepherds, adorned with ornaments, gathered from the fields and meadows. Much more plausible is the idea of Fontenelle, than that of Rapin; who fancifully endeavours to trace the origin of the pastoral drama to the Cyclops of Euripides!

"Nothing," says a celebrated traveller, "delights me

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so much as the inside of a Swiss cottage. All those I have visited convey the liveliest images of cleanliness, ease, and simplicity; and cannot but strongly impress on the observer a most pleasing conviction of the peasant's happiness." With such models constantly before him, it is no subject for astonishment, that Gessner should be capable of painting such exquisite companion pieces. But for a man, bred in the school of dulness, as a country town invariably is; associating with players; and residing, for the principal part of his life, in all the dust and poison of a city, how much is our wonder and admiration excited, when we read the delineations of pastoral manners, drawn in several dramas of that creator of worlds, and delineator of passions,-Shakespeare. That a master, so skilled in the minute anatomy of the heart, should be capable of divesting himself of all that fatal knowledge to sound "wild wood notes," worthy of the reed of Tasso, is, of itself, a singular phenomenon; and proves our English bard to be superior to Euripides.

As Colonna was walking, one day, in Mecklenburgh Square, he met the poet Bloomfield. They had not seen each other for two or three years; and Colonna engaged him to breakfast the next day. As they were talking over their coffee, Colonna inquired of his guest, whether he had been engaged lately in any literary pursuit ? “No,” returned Bloomfield, "my health has been declining; and my anxieties have prevented me from attending to literary labour of any sort. To write," continued he, " we must be tranquil!"-" Ah!" returned Colonna, "to write, with any degree of effect, we must, indeed, be tranquil. And yet, after all, it is misfortune, which gives that solemn tone to the feelings, which impresses the mind so