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language that may fall in his way. They have no business here; they do not accord with that ftring of the foul which is here to be ftruck.

As it is abfolutely effential to all imitations of the antient ballad, that the story on which they are founded, with all its circumstances and manners, fhould be perfectly natural, and appropriated to our own foil, I cannot include feveral pieces of the paftoral kind under the title of ballads, though very nearly refembling them in point of fimplicity and ftyle of compofition. Paftoral poetry is a native of happier climates, where the face of nature, and the manners of the people are widely different from those of our northern regions. What is reality on the foft Arcadian and Sicilian plains, is all fiction here; and though by reading we may be fo familiarized to these imaginary scenes as to ac

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quire a fort of natural tafte for them, yet, like the fine fruits of the fouth, they will never be fo far naturalized to the foil as to flourish without borrowed warmth and forced culture. The juftice of this obfervation is fufficiently proved, by the ill fuccefs of those attempts in the mixed pastoral, where the rude fpeech and rough manners of our English hinds have been engrafted upon the foreign poetical character of the shepherd fwain. This gave occafion to Pope's well known ridicule of Phillips; and it is this incongruity of character which is the foundation of the burlefque in Gay's fhepherd's week, in which fome natural strokes of beautiful fimplicity and the real pathetic are defignedly paired in fo odd a manner with humour and parody, that one is at a lofs whether to take it as jeft or earnest-whether to laugh or cry. Indeed this effect is alfo produced in his two dramatic burlefques, the Beg

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gar's Opera, and What d'ye call it; for how ludicrous foever the general character of the piece may be, when he comes fo near to hanging and fhooting in good earnest, the joke ceafes; and I have observed the tolling of St. Pulcre's bell received by an audience with as much tragical attention and fympathetic terrror as that in Venice preserved.

No attempt to naturalize pastoral poetry appears to have fucceeded better than Ramfay's Gentle Shepherd: it has a confiderable air of reality, and the descriptive parts, in general, are in the genuine taste of beautiful fimplicity. Yet the fentiments and manners are far from being entirely proper to the characters, and while fome defcend fo low as to be difguftful, others are elevated far beyond The real character of a Scottish or English shepherd is by much too coarse

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for poetry. I fufpect I suspect Ramfay gains a great advantage among us by writing in the Scotch dialect: this not being familiar to us, and fcarcely understood, foftens the harsher parts, and gives a kind of foreign air that eludes the critic's feverity. Some writers, in aiming at a natural fimplicity of fentiment, have funk into fillinefs, and have given their characters not only the innocence, but the weakness of a child. In that admirable piece of burlefque criticism, the Bathos of Scriblerus, are fome ludicrous inftances of puerility of fentiment and expreffion from Phillips's paftorals, and, I confefs, this fault, to me, appears palpable in a piece which, by being introduced to notice in the Spectator, is univerfally known and admired-I mean the paftoral fong of Colin and Phoebe.

THERE is one point in which a pastoral writer of any country may venture to fol

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low nature exactly and with a minute nicety: this is in the fcenery and defcription. Natural objects are scarcely ever disgusting, and there is no country fo unbleffed as to be unprovided with an ample store of beauties, which must ever please in an accurate reprefentation, independently on all fashion or peculiarity of taste. It is unpardonable in a poet to borrow these from any fountain but nature herself, and hereby he will most certainly avoid the mistakes and incongruity of imagery, which they are so apt to fall into who defcribe from ideas gained by reading rather than obfervation. The preservation of propriety in this respect is of capital importance. in description, fince nothing fo effectually ruins the beauty of picturesque scenery, as the introduction of any circumstance which tends to falfify it. It awakens the mind from her dream of fancy, and the "baseless fabric of the vision" instantly vanishes

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