-Yet, O Arcadian swains, Ye best artificers of soothing strains! Tune your soft reeds, and teach your rocks So shall my shade in sweeter rest repose. my woes, O that your birth and business had been mine; WARTON. Discontented with his present condition, and desirous to be any thing but what he is, he wishes himself one of the shepherds. He then catches the idea of rural tranquillity; but soon discovers how much happier he should be in these happy regions, with Lycoris at his side: Hic gelidi fontes, hic mollia prata, Lycori: Here cooling fountains roll thro' flow'ry meads, And in thy arms insensibly decay. Instead of that, me frantick love detains, 'Mid foes, and dreadful darts, and bloody plains: Far from your country, lonely wand'ring leave Seek the rough Alps where snows eternal shine, } WARTON. He then turns his thoughts on every side, in quest of something that may solace or amuse him: he proposes happiness to himself, first in one scene and then in another: and at last finds that nothing will satisfy : Jam neque Hamadryades rursum, nec carmina nobis Far from cool breezes and refreshing streams. WARTON. But notwithstanding the excellence of the tenth pastoral, I cannot forbear to give the preference to the first, which is equally natural and more diversified. The complaint of the shepherd, who saw his old companion at ease in the shade, while himself was driving his little flock he knew not whither, is such as, with variation of circumstances, misery always utters at the sight of prosperity: Nos patriæ fines, & dulcia linquimus arva; Nos patriam fugimus: tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra, We leave our country's bounds, our much-lov'd plains ; You, Tit'rus, in the groves at leisure laid, WARTON. His account of the difficulties of his journey, gives a very tender image of pastoral distress: En ipse capellas Protenus æger ago: hanc etiam vix, Tityre, duco: And lo! sad partner of the general care, WARTON. The description of Virgil's happiness in his little farm, combines almost all the images of rural pleasure; and he, therefore, that can read it with indifference, has no sense of pastoral poetry: Fortunate senex, `ergo tua rura manebunt, Et tibi magna satis; quamvis lapis omnia nudus, Non insueta graves tentabunt pabula fætas, Hinc tibi, quæ semper vicino ab limite sepes, Happy old man! then still thy farm 's restored, WARTON. It may be observed, that these two poems were produced by events that really happened; and may, therefore, be of use to prove, that we can always feel more than we can imagine, and that the most artful fiction must give way to truth. I am, SIR, Your humble servant, DUBIUS. NUMB. 95. TUESDAY, October 2, 1753. IT -Dulcique animos novitate tenebo. And with sweet novelty your soul detain. OVID. T is often charged upon writers, that with all their pretensions to genius and discoveries, they do little more than copy one another; and that compositions obtruded upon the world with the pomp of novelty, contain only tedious repetitions of common sentiments, or at best exhibit a transposition of known images, and give a new appearance to truth only by some slight difference of dress and decoration. The allegation of resemblance between authors is indisputably true; but the charge of plagiarism, which is raised upon it, is not to be allowed with equal readiness. A coincidence of sentiment may easily happen without any communication, since there are many occasions in which all reasonable men will nearly think alike. Writers of all ages have had the same sentiments, because they have in all ages had the same objects of speculation; the interests and passions, the virtues and vices of mankind, have been diversified in different times, only by unessential and casual varieties: and we must, therefore, expect in the works of all those who attempt to describe them, such a likeness as we find in the pictures of the same person drawn in different periods of his life. t |