What will the reader imagine to be the fubject on which speakers like these exercise their eloquence? Will he not be fomewhat difappointed, when he finds. them met together to condemn the corruptions of the church of Rome? Surely, at the fame time that a fhepherd learns theology, he may gain fome acquaintance with his native language.

Paftoral admits of all ranks of perfons, because perfons of all ranks inhabit the country. It excludes not, therefore, on account of the characters neceffary to be introduced, any elevation or delicacy of fentiment; thofe ideas only are improper, which, not owing their original to rural objects, are not paftoral. Such is the exclamation in Virgil,

Nunc fcio quid fit Amor, duris in cautibus illum
Ifmarus, aut Rhodope, aut extremi Garamantes,
Nec generis noftri puerum, nec fanguinis, edunt.

I know thee, Love, in defarts thou wert bred,
And at the dugs of favage tygers fed;

Alien of birth, ufurper of the plains.

DRYDEN.

which Pope endeavouring to copy, was carried to ftill greater impropriety:

I know thee, Love, wild as the raging main,
More fierce than tygers on the Libyan plain;
Thou wert from Ætna's burning entrails torn ;
Begot in tempefts, and in thunders born!

Sentiments like thefe, as they have no ground in nature, are indeed of little value in any poem; but in paftoral they are particularly liable to cenfure, because it wants that exaltation above common life,

which in tragick or heroick writings often reconciles us to bold flights and daring figures.

Paftoral being the reprefentation of an action or paffion, by its effects upon a country life, has nothing peculiar but its confinement to rural imagery, without which it ceases to be paftoral. This is its true characteristick, and this it cannot lofe by any dignity of fentiment, or beauty of diction. The Pollio of Virgil, with all its elevation, is a compofition truly bucolick, though rejected by the criticks; for all the images are either taken from the country, or from the religion of the age common to all parts of the empire.

The Silenus is indeed of a more difputable kind, because though the fcene lies in the country, the fong being religious and hiftorical, had been no lefs adapted to any other audience or place. Neither can it well be defended as a fiction, for the introduction of a god feems to imply the golden age, and yet he alludes to many fubfequent tranfactions, and mentions Gallus the poet's contemporary.

It seems neceffary to the perfection of this poem, that the occafion which is fuppofed to produce it, be at least not inconfiftent with a country life, or less likely to intereft those who have retired into places of folitude and quiet, than the more bufy part of mankind. It is therefore improper to give the title of a pastoral to verfes, in which the speakers, after the flight mention of their flocks, fall to complaints of errors in the church, and corruptions in the government, or to lamentations of the death of fome illustrious perfon, whom, when once the poet has called a shepherd, he has no longer any labour upon his hands, but can make the clouds weep, and lilies wither,

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wither, and the fheep hang their heads, without art or learning, genius or study.

It is part of Claudian's character of his ruftick, that he computes his time not by the fucceffion of confuls, but of harvests. Those who pass their days in retreats diftant from the theatres of business, are always leaft likely to hurry their imagination with publick affairs.

The facility of treating actions or events in the paftoral ftyle, has incited many writers, from whom more judgment might have been expected, to put the forrow or the joy which the occafion required into the mouth of Daphne or of Thyrfis, and as one abfurdity must naturally be expected to make way for another, they have written with an utter difregard both of life and nature, and filled their productions with mythological allufions, with incredible fictions, and with fentiments which neither paffion nor reason could have dictated, fince the change which religion has made in the whole fyftem of the world.

NUMB. 38. SATURDAY, July 28, 1750.

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MONG many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral state of the world, it has been obferved that happiness, as well as virtue, confifts in mediocrity; that to avoid every extreme is neceffary, even to him who has no other care than to pafs through the present state with eafe and fafety; and that the middle path is the road of fecurity, on either fide of which are not only the pitfals of vice, but the precipices of ruin.

Thus the maxim of Cleobulus the Lindian, pérgov agirov, Mediocrity is beft, has been long confidered as an univerfal principle, extended through the whole compafs of life and nature. The experience of every age feems to have given it new confirmation, and to fhew that nothing, however fpecious or alluring, is pursued with propriety, or enjoyed with fafety, beyond certain limits.

Even the gifts of nature, which may truly be confidered as the moft folid and durable of all terreftrial advantages, are found, when they exceed the middle point, to draw the poffeffor into many calamities, eafily avoided by others that have been lefs bountifully enriched or adorned. We fee every day women perish with infamy, by having been too willing to fet their beauty to fhew, and others, though not with equal guilt or mifery, yet with very fharp remorfe, languishing in decay, neglect, and obfcurity, for having rated their youthful charms at too high a price. And, indeed, if the opinion of Bacon be thought to deferve much regard, very few fighs would be vented for eminent and fuperlative elegance of form; "for beautiful women," fays he, "are feldom of any great accomplishments, because they, for the most part, ftudy behaviour rather than virtue."

Health and vigour, and a happy constitution of the corporeal frame, are of abfolute neceffity to the enjoyment of the comforts, and to the performance of the duties of life, and requifite in yet a greater measure to the accomplishment of any thing illuftrious or distinguished; yet even these, if we can judge by their apparent confequences, are fometimes not very beneficial to thofe on whom they are moft liberally bestowed. They that frequent the chambers of the fick, will generally find the fharpeft pains, and moft ftubborn maladies, among them whom confidence of the force of nature formerly betrayed to negligence and irregularity; and that fuperfluity of ftrength, which was at once their boast and their fnare, has often, in the latter part of life,

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