The fables of the Aminta and Pastor Fido, drawn from a state of society which never had an existence, are, for that reason, incapable of exciting any high degree of interest; and the mind cannot for a moment remain under the influence of that deception, which it is the great purpose of the drama to produce.
The characters or persons of the Italian pastorals are coy nymphs and swains, whose sole occupation is hunting wild beasts, brutal satyrs who plot against the chastity of those nymphs, shepherds deriving their origin from the gods, stupid priests of these gods who are the dupes of their ambiguous will, and gods themselves disguised like shepherds, and influencing the conduct and issue of the piece. The manners of these unnatural and fictitious beings are proper to their ideal character. A dull moralizing chorus is found necessary to explain what the characters themselves must have left untold, or unintelligible.
The persons of the Scotish pastoral are the actual inhabitants of the country where the scene is laid; their manners are drawn from nature with a faithful pencil. The contrast of the different characters is happily imagined, and supported with consummate skill. Patie, of a cheerful and sanguine temperament; spirited, yet free from vain ambition; contented with his humble lot; endowed by nature with a superior understanding, and feeling in himself those internal sources of satisfaction, which are independent of the adventitious circumstances of rank and fortune. Roger, of a grave and phlegmatic constitution; of kind affections, but of that ordinary turn of mind, which is apt to suppose some necessary connection between the possession of wealth and felicity. The former, from native dignity of character, assuming a bold pre-eminence, and acting the part of a tutor and counsellor to his friend, who bends, though with some reluctance, to the authority of a nobler mind. The principal female characters are contrasted with similar skill, and equal power of discrimination. Peggy, beautiful in person as in mind, endowed with every quality that can adorn the character of woman; gentle, tender-hearted, constant in affection, free from vanity as from caprice; of excellent understanding; judging of others by the criterion of her own innocent mind, and therefore forming the most amiable views of human nature. Jenny, sensible and affectionate, sprightly and satirical; possessing the ordinary qualities of her sex, self-love, simulation, and the passion of conquest; and pleased with exercising a capricious dominion over the mind of a lover; judging of mankind rather from the cold maxims of instilled prudential caution, than from the native suggestions of the heart.—A contrast of characters strongly and skilfully opposed, and therefore each most admirably fitted to bring the other into full display.
The subordinate persons of the drama are drawn with equal skill and fidelity to their prototypes. Glaud and Symon are the genuine pictures of the old Scotish yeomanry, the Lothian farmers of the last age, in their manners, sentiments, and modes of life; humble, but respectable; homely, yet comfortable. The episode of Bauldy, while it gives a pleasing variety, without interrupting the principal action, serves to introduce a character of a different species, as a foil to the honest and simple worth of the former. It paints in strong colours, and exposes to merited reprobation and contempt, that low and sordid mind, which seeks alone the gratification of its own desires, though purchased by the misery of the object of its affection. Bauldy congratulates himself on the cruel disappointment of Peggy's love;—"I hope we'll a' sleep sound, but ane, this night;"—and judges her present situation of deep distress to be the most favourable moment for preferring his own suit. His punishment, as it is suitable to his demerits, gives entire satisfaction.
The Aminta, and Pastor Fido, abound in beautiful sentiments, and passages of the most tender and natural simplicity; but it is seldom we find a single page, in which this pleasing impression is not effaced by some affected and forced conceit. Nothing can be more delicately beautiful, or more agreeable to the true simplicity of pastoral, than Amyntas's recounting to Tircis the rise of his passion for Silvia. The description of their joint occupations and sports, till love insensibly arose in the breast of Tircis; the natural and innocent device he employed to obtain a kiss from Silvia; the discovery of his affection, and his despair on finding her heart insensible to his passion, are proofs that Tasso was a true poet, and knew [how] to touch those strings, with which our genuine feelings must ever harmonize. In elegant and just description he is equally to be admired. The scene in which Tircis describes the lovely Silvia bound naked to a tree by a brutal satyr, and released by Amyntas, whose passion she treated with scorn, is one of the most beautiful pieces of poetic painting. But, when Amyntas, unloosing his disdainful mistress, addresses himself to the tree, to which she was tied; when he declares its rugged trunk to be unworthy of the bonds of that beautiful hair, which encircled it, and reproaches its cruelty in tearing and disfiguring those charming tresses, we laugh at such despicable conceits, and lament that vicious taste, to which even a true poet found himself (we presume against his better judgment) so often compelled to sacrifice. So likewise when, forgetting nature, he resorts to the ordinary cant of pastoral, the language and thoughts of Theocritus and Virgil, and even superadds to those common-places, the false refinement, which in his age delighted his countrymen, we turn with dissatisfaction from his page. If we compare him, where the similarity of the subject allows a comparison, with the Scotish poet, how poor does the Italian appear in the competition!
Thus, let the first scene of the Aminta, between Silvia and Daphne, be compared with the scene between Jenny and Peggy, in the Gentle Shepherd. The subject of both is the preference between a single and a married life:
By a similar strain of argument, Linco, in the Pastor Fido, endeavours to persuade Silvio to love, whose sole delight is in the chase, and who tells his adviser, that he would not give one wild beast, taken by his dog Melampo, for a thousand beautiful nymphs. Linco bids him "See how all nature loves, the heavens, the earth, the sea; and that beautiful morning star that now shines so bright, she likewise loves, and shines more splendid from her amorous flame: see how she blushes, for now perhaps she has just left the stolen embraces of her lover. The woods, and all their savage inhabitants, the seas, the dolphins. the huge whales, &c., &c."
How poor is all this refinement and conceit, when compared with the language of truth and nature! When Pegg, in the confidence of a wamr and innocent heart, describes to her copanion the delights of a mutual passion, the enjoyments of domestic bliss, and the happiness arising from the exercise of the parental duties and affections; contrasting these with the cold and selfish feelings of determined celibacy, it is nature that speaks in every line, and the heart yields its warmest sympathy, as the judgment its complete conviction:
| PEGGY. |
| Sic coarse-spun thoughts as thae want pith to move My settl'd mind; I'm o'er far gane in love. Patie to me is dearer than my breath; But want of him I dread nae other skaith. There's nane of a' the herds that tread the green Has sic a smile, or sic twa glancening een. And then he speaks with sic a taking art, His words they thirle like musick thro' my heart. How blythly can he sport, and gently rave, And jest a feckless fears that fright the lave! Ilk day that he's alane upon the hill, He reads fell books that teach him meikle skill. He is—but what need I say that or this? I'd spend a month to tell you what he is! |