"Let Nature change, let Heav'n and Earth deplore, "Fair Daphne's dead, and Love is now no more!

'Tis done, and Nature's various Charms decay; See gloomy Clouds obfcure the chearful`Day ! Now hung with Pearls the dropping Trees appear, Their faded Honours.fcatter'd on her Bier. See, where on Earth the flow'ry Glories lie; With her they flourish'd, and with her they die. Ah what avail the Beauties Nature wore? Fair Daphne's dead, and Beauty is no more! For her, the Flocks refuse their verdant Food, Nor thirsty Heifers feek the gliding Flood. The filver Swans her hapless Fate bemoan, In fadder Notes than when they fing their own. Echo no more the rural Song rebounds, Her Name alone the mournful Echo founds, Her Name with Pleasure once the taught the Shore, Now Daphne's dead, and Pleafure is no more! No grateful Dews defcend from Ev'ning Skies, No Morning Odours from the Flow'rs arife. No rich Perfumes refrefh the fruitful Field, Nor fragrant Herbs their native Incense yield. The balmy Zephyrs, filent fince her Death, Lament the ceafing of a sweeter Breath. Th' induftrious Bees neglect their golden Store; Fair Daphne's dead, and Sweetness is no more! No more the mounting Larks while Daphne fings, Shall lift'ning in mid Air fufpend their Wings; No more the Nightingales repeat her Lays, Or hush'd with Wonder, hearken from the Sprays: No more the Streams their Murmurs fhall forbear, A fweeter Mufick than their own to hear; But tell the Reeds, and tell the vocal Shore, Fair Daphne's dead, and Mufick is no more! Her Fate is whifper'd by the gentle Breeze, And told in Sighs to all the trembling Trees K 3

The

The trembling Trees, in ev'ry Plain and Wood,
Her Fate remurmur to the filver Flood ode
The filver Flood, fo lately calm, appears

Swell'd with new Paffion, and o'erflows with Tears;
The Winds and Trees and Floods her Death deplore,
Daphne, our Grief our Glory now no more.

Here you fee all the Harmony of Numbers, and Beauty of Poetry. It is, notwithstanding, a very great Pity, that Mr. Pope did not, inftead of writing Paftoral fo young, defer it to be one of his laft Works; for Paftoral Poetry (we dare boldly affert) is the most difficult of all, and never fo well conducted as when it is Dramatick: This Mr. Wallh feems thoroughly fenfible of, when he fo earneftly perfwades Mr. Pope to write a Paftoral Comedy. It was this high, harmonious Verfe, made Sir Richard Steele fay, it was not Paftoral, but fomewhat better; allowing at the fame Time, that Mr. Phi lips had wrote in a Stile truly Paftoral, which evidently fhews the Partiality of Sir Richard to that Author: For when he writes on the fame Subject in his third Paftoral, fpeaking of the Death of Albino, (under which Character he endeavours to figure the young Duke of Gloucester, the only Child of Queen Anne) we fhould be gladly inform'd, whether he has not aimed as high as Mr. Pope, though, to be fure, his Strain is widely different. Give Attention, Reader, to his Attempt:

Can we forget how ev'ry Creature moan'd,
And fympathizing Rocks in Eccho groan'd,
Prefaging future Woe, when, for our Crimes,
We loft Albino, Pledge of peaceful Times ?
The Pride of Britain, and the darling Joy
Of all the Plains, and ev'ry Shepherd Boy.

No

No joyous Pipe was heard, no Flocks were seen,
Nor Shepherds found upon the grally Green;
No Cattle graz❜d the Field, nor drunk the Flood;
No Birds were heard to warble thro' the Wood.
In yonder gloomy Grove ftretch'd out he lay,
His beauteous Limbs upon the damping Clay;
'The Rofes on his pallid Cheeks decay'd,
And o'er his Lips a livid Hue difplay'd:
Bleating around him lye his penfive Sheep,
And mourning Shepherds come in Crowds to weep;
The pious Mother comes, with Grief oppress'd;
Ye, confcious Trees and Fountains, can atteft
With what fad Accents and what moving Cries
-She fill'd the Grove, and importun'd the Skies,
And ev'ry Star upbraided with his Death,
When in her Widow'd Arms, devoid of Breath,
She clafp'd her Son. Nor did the Nymph for this
Place in her Dearling's Welfare all her Bliss,
And teach him young the Sylvan Crook to wield,
And rule the peaceful Empire of the Field.

As milk-white Swans on filver Streams do fhow
And filver Streams to grace the Meadows flow; a
As Com the Vales, and Trees the Hills adorn,
So thou to thine an Ornament was born.

Since thou, delicious Youth, didft quit the Plains,
Th' ungrateful Ground we till with fruitlefs Pains:
In labour'd Furrows fow the Choice of Wheat,
And over empty Sheaves in Harvest sweat :
A thin Increase our woolly Subftance yields,
And Thorns and Thiftles overfpread the Fields.

What wants there here of the Arcadian Stile. This also must be pronounced to be no Paftoral, but fomething better; that is, Sir Richard Steele means finer Verfes, too high for Shepherds Notes: Nay,

this Poet foar'd fo high in his Paftorals, that he has afpired to rob the Canticles: doda

• Breath foft, ye Winds; ye Waters gently flow Shield her ye Trees; ye Flowers around her grow; Ye Swains, I beg you, pafs in Silence by ;

My Love in yonder Vale afleep does lie.

In the Song of Solomon, from which he has tranflated it, our Verfion has it, Chap. ii. Verfe 5, "I "charge you, Oye Daughters of Jerufalem! by the "Roes and by the Hinds of the Field, that you not fir "not up nor awake my Love, 'till he pleafes." We would by no Means be understood to blame this Liberty, more especially in this Place, the Song of Solomon being most beautifully Paftoral; we rather take an Opportunity to encourage Poets, to adorn their Verfes with Flowers from that Eastern Gar den, and make no Scruple, thinking it is thereby profaned, for it is indeed thereby the more honour'd. And certain it is, the aforementioned Song of Solomon is fitlier imitated by Paftoral Writers, than many Poets pretending to have touch'd on the Strains of Shepherds. Lefs pleafeth me Mr. Philips, (notwithftanding much Sound be in the Verfe) where he laments the Death of Stella: Such courtly Lines are meet for Perfonages, more than ruftick Swains and Youths, who have spent great Travail in Education, might wail in fuch Guife;

Unhappy Colinet! What boots thee now

To weave fresh Garlands for the Damfel's Brow?
Throw by the Lilly, Daffadil, and Rofe;
One of black Yew, and Willow pale, compofe,
With baneful Henbane, deadly Night-fhade dreft;
A Garland, that may witnefs thy Unreft.

My

My Pipe, whofe foothing Sound could Paffion move,
And first taught Stella's Virgin Heart to love,
Untun'd, fhall hang upon this blafted Oak,
Whence Owls their Dirges fing, and Ravens croak:
Nor Lark, nor Linnet fhall by Day delight,
Nor Nightingale divert my Moan by Night;
The Night and Day fhall undiftinguish'd be
Alike to Stella, and alike to me.

Let us fee how these three Writers of Paftoral Dialogue have defcribed their favourite Shepherdeffes, or Miftreffes. We fhall, in Order as they were wrote, begin with Mr. Philips.

Mild as a Lamb, and harmless as a Dove, True as the Turtle, is the Maid I love. How we in fecret love, I fhall not fay; Divine her Name, and I give up the Day.

Here is enough Simplicity, and rather too much.; for the Shepherd is very thoughtless to rifque his Prize that he contends for, on Hobbinol's gueffing his MiArefs's Name, and then after faying, that fhe is as harmless as a Dove, it is too much Sameness to fay in the very next Line, that she is as true as a Turtle, that might have been well exprefs'd in one Line;

As true and harmless as the Turtle Dove.

And to speak the Truth, the Turtle Dove had been pretty well flown by most Pastoral Writers. And herein lies one of the greatest Difficulties in these Sort of Compofitions, to avoid common-place Epithets, or else to introduce them in a Manner which may feem new. Upon this Head we cannot overpraife Mr. Pepe, who fpeaketh himself in his own fine Phrafe, instead of the Shepherd's :

Strepen