that none but men are to be introduced, and even those men must never ftir from their fields, but be perpetually piping to their flocks and herds. The fixteenth is a complaint of the ingratitude of Princes to Poets, who alone can render their great: actions immortal. He obferves, that not only the Lycian and Trojan heroes, but even Ulyffes hime felf, would have been buried in oblivion, if their fame had not been celebrated by Homer. But amidst these great Heroes, Theocritus does not forget his paftoral capacity, or omit to mention the fwine-herd Eumaeus, and the neatherd Philoetius; Tel it bne ovol ni bilon • Ἐσιγάθη δ' ἂν ὑφοράς Εύμαιος, καὶ βουσὶ Φιλοίτιος αμφ' αγελαίαις Theocritus feems indeed to rife above his paftoral ftile, in the feventeenth Idyllium, wherein he celebrates the praises of Ptolemy Philadelphus. But may not a country poet be allowed to fwell a little, when his heart is inlarged, by contemplating the virtues of a great Prince, under whose protection he lives? a Prince fo powerful, that no hoftile fleet or army dares invade his country, difturb the farmer, or injure the cattle; Aaos - Λαοὶ δ ̓ ἔργα περιστέλλουσιν ἕκηλοι. Πεζὸς ἐν αλλοτρίαισι βοαν ἐστάσατο κώμαις. «The farmer fearless plows his native soil ; "No hoftile navies prefs the quiet Nile: None leaps afhore, and frights the labʼring swains; «None robs us of our focks, and fpoils the "plains.” CREECH. The Epithalamium on the marriage of Helen, fung by the Spartan virgins, in the eighteenth, does hot lofe fight of the country: and the infcription on the bark of the plane-tree is expressly faid to be in the Doric, or ruftic dialect ; *Αμμες δ' ἐς δρόμον ἦρι καὶ ἐς λειμώνια φύλλα "But we will run thro' yonder fpacious mead, "Not wean'd as yet, when hungry mind their dams, "We'll "We'll first low lotus pluck, and crowns compofe, "And to thy honour grace the fhady boughs: "From filver boxes fweeteft oils fhall flow, "And prefs the flowers that rife as sweet below; "And then infcribe this line, that all may fee, “ Pay due obedience, I am Helen's tree. CREECH... The eighteenth is a fhort copy of verses on Cupid's being ftung by a bee; which is far from being out of the reach of a country poets The nines teenth is bucolical enough. A rough neatherd complains of the pride and infolence of a city girl, who refused to let him kifs her, and treated him in a moft contemptuous manner. He appeals to the neighbouring fhepherds, and asks them, if they are not sensible of his beauty: his beard is thick about his chin, like ivy round a tree; his hair spreads like fmallage about his temples; his white forehead fhines above his black eye-brows; his eyes are more blue than thofe of Minerva; his mouth is sweeter than cream; his voice is fweeter than a honey-comb; his fong is fweet; he plays on all forts of rural pipes; and all the women on the mountains admire and love him, though this proud minx has defpifed him. He gives her to understand, that Bacchus fed a heifer in the valleys; valleys; that Venus was paffionately fond of a herdman on the mountains of Phrygia; that she both loved and lamented Adonis in the woods. He afks who was Endymion? was he not a herdman, and yet the Moon fell in love with him, as he was feeding his kine, and came down from heaven to embrace him. Rhea lamented a herdman, and Jupiter was fond of a boy that fed cattle. The dialogue between the two fishermen, in the twenty-firft, cannot indeed be faid to be Arcadian; for Arcadia was a midland country: but, as Sicily is an ifland, it was natural enough for a Sicilian herdman to relate a dialogue between two neighbours, whofe bufinefs was on the fea fhoar. But the twenty-second is a hymn, after the manner of the ancient Arcadians, in praise of Caftor and Pollux: Ὑμνέομες Λήδας τε καὶ αἰγιόχω Διος υἱώ, Κάστορα καὶ φοβερὸν Πολυδεύκεα πὺξ ἐρεθίζενε The defperate lover, in the twenty-third may eafily be imagined to belong to the country: though the narration of his paffion is very tragical. We cannot affirm any thing with certainty concerning the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth; as the end of one, and the beginning of the other is wanting. They are however both in praise of Hercules; and therefore belong to the Arcadian poe try: try: as does alfo the twenty-fixth, in which the death of Pentheus is related, who violated the Orgies of Bacchus. The dialogue between Daphnis and the Shepherdefs, in the twenty-feventh, is a complete scene of rural courtship, and must be allowed to be a true Paftoral. In the twentyeighth Theocritus himself prefents a distaff to Theogenis, the wife of his friend Nicias, a Milefian physician; a proper prefent, no doubt, to be fent out of the country, and a fubject worthy of a rural poet. The twenty-ninth is concerning Love, the common fubject of moft Paftorals. The thirtieth is in Lyric meafure, and the subject of it is the boar that wounded the fhepherd Adonis, the favourite of Venus. It appears plainly, from this review of the Idyllia of Theocritus, that the Greek Poet never intended to write fuch a fett of poems, as the modern Criticks call Paftorals. They were Poems on several occafions, written by a Sicilian herdman, or by one who affumed that character. The greater part of them are of the Dramatic kind, each Idyllium being a single Scene, or Dialogue between the feveral forts of Herdmen, their wives, or neighbours. Some of them are Narrative, the Poet fpeaking all the while in his own person. The rest are Poems in praife of Gods and |