nishes.

An ingenious critic has inftanced

this fault from Milton's Comus, where in the spirit's address to Sabrina, after very properly wishing.

May thy brimmed waves for this
Their full tribute never miss,
Summer's drought or finged air
Never scorch thy treffes fair,

He adds

May thy billows roll afhore
The beryl and the golden ore,

And here and there thy banks along
With groves of myrrh and cinnamon;

which have no propriety when applied to an English river. It gives me pleasure to inftance the oppofite beauty. Michael Drayton, an old English poet, in a pasto

ral

ral fong entitled Dowfabel, defcribes his fhepherdess in the following comparisons.

Her features all as fresh above,
As is the graffe that grows by Dove,
And lyth as laffe of Kent:

Her fkin as foft as Lemfter wool,
As white as fnow on Peakifh Hull,
Or fwanne that fwims in Trent,

He goes on in the story

This mayden in a morn betime

Went forth, when May was in her prime, To get fweet cetywall;`

The honey-fuckle, the harlocke,

The lily and the lady fmocke,
To deck her fummer hall.

It is impoffible for description to be more lively, or more confiftently proper. C 3

THAT

THAT there is ftili room for novelty in this walk has lately been agreeably shown in the paftorals of Mr. Smith, the landfcape painter, which, however unequal and deficient in harmony and correctness, have infinitely more merit than Pope's melodious echoes of echo. Mr. Smith's pieces will alfo illuftrate my former remark, that the manners and fentiments of our rural vulgar cannot be rendered pleafing fubjects for poetry; for where he paints them most naturally they are least agree

able.

THIS then appears to be the rule of tafte for modern paftoral writers-to be general in character and sentiment, but particular in description. The poetical fhepherd and shepherdess are characters of great uniformity; for, the originals having been long extinct, all have copied after the fame models. The paffion of love is the

eternal

eternal fource of paftoral fentiment, and however various it may be in its nature, all its changes and intricacies muft surely be at length explored, after it has in fo many ages and countries exercised the utmoft abilities of human genius.

NOTHING therefore remains to produce novelty, but a variation of circumstances, whether relating to the fubjects of the paffion, or the accompanying scenery. The pastoral fong formed upon the ballad model, is capable of being made the most pleasing piece of the paftoral kind. The fimplicity of language gives it an air of nature and reality, though the fictitious character be entirely kept up; and throwing the fubject into a little tale, gives an opportunity of novelty in description from the variety of incidents. When the story has a tender and mournful turn, the ballad fimplicity has a peculiarly happy effect.

C 4

fect. Perhaps the English alone, of all the moderns, have known how to unite the moft perfect fimplicity with real elegance and poetical expreffion; and it is to be hoped we shall never want tafte to relish the beauties of this kind that we are poffeffed of. The little collection of ballads and paftoral fongs here offered, contains some of the sweetest flowers of English poetry.

BAL