Page images
PDF
EPUB

Whose taste exact each author can explore,
And live the present and past ages o'er:
Who free from pride, from penitence, or strife,
Move calmly forward to the verge of life:
Such be my days and such my fortunes be,
To live by reason, and to write by thee!

45

50

Nor deem this verse, tho' humble, thy disgrace;

All are not born the glory of their race:
Yet all are born t' adore the great man's name,
And trace his footsteps in the paths to fame.
The Muse who now this early homage pays,
First learn'd from thee to animate her lays:
A Muse as yet unhonour'd, but unstain'd,
Who prais'd no vices, no preferment gain'd:
Unbiass'd, or to censure or commend,

Who knows no envy, and who grieves no friend;
Perhaps too fond to make those virtues known,
And fix her fame immortal on thy own.

55

59

VOL. I.

Н

WALTER HARTE.

[ocr errors]

PASTORALS,

WITH

A DISCOURSE ON PASTORAL.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCCIV.

Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes;
Flumina amem sylvasque inglorius !—VIRG.

A

DISCOURSE

ON

PASTORAL POETRY'.

THERE are not, I believe, a greater number of any sort of verses than of those which are called Pastorals; nor a smaller than of those which are truly so. It therefore seems necessary to give some account of this kind of Poem; and it is my design to comprise in this short paper the substance of those numerous dissertations that Critics have made on the

Written at sixteen years of age. P.

To

This sensible and judicious discourse, written at so early an age, is a more extraordinary production, than the pastorals that follow it in which, I hope, it will not be deemed an injurious eriticism to say, there is scarcely a single rural image to be found that is new. The ideas of Theocritus, Virgil, and Spenser, are indeed here exhibited in language equally mellifluous and pure; but the descriptions and sentiments are trite and common. this assertion, formerly made, Dr. Johnson answered; "That no invention was intended:" he therefore allows the fact, and the charge. Our author has chiefly drawn his observations from Rapin, Fontenelle, and the preface to Dryden's Virgil. A translation of Rapin's Discourse had been some years before prefixed to Creech's Translation of Theocritus, and is no extraordinary piece of criticism. And though Hume highly praises the Discourse of Fontenelle, yet Dr. Hurd thinks it only rather more tolerable than his Pastorals. I much wonder our author did not allude to the elegant lines on Pastoral Poetry at the beginning

« PreviousContinue »