By chance, beneath the Covert of an Oak, That whisper'd with the Breezes, Daphnis sate; And Corydon and Thyrsis to one Place Together drew their Flocks; Thyrsis, his Sheep; His milch Goats, Corydon.
But then it ought to be elegantly simple, for the Plowmen should appear in their Holyday Garments. Thus we see Shepherds and Shepherdesses introduced upon the Stage; and tho' they bring Crooks in their Hands, and Straw Hats on their Heads, yet their Dress is nearly rural, and above the Habit of the Vulgar. In Virgil we have frequent Examples of this polite Rusticity, in those Places, especially, where Love is concern'd. I shall only produce one, out of many, where Damon, desperately in Love with the fair, but cruel Nisa, vents his Passion in these Words:
[249] Sepibus in nostris parvam te roscida mala (Dux ego vester eram) vidi cum matre legentem; Alter ab undecimo tum me jam ceperat annus, Jam fragiles poteram à terra contingere ramos: Ut vidi! ut perii! ut me malus abstulit error!
Thee, with thy Mother, in our Meads I saw, Gathering fresh Apples; I myself your Guide; Then thou wert little; I, just then advanc'd To my twelfth Year, cou'd barely from the Ground Touch with my reaching Hand the tender Boughs: How did I look! how gaze my Soul away! How did I die! in fatal Error lost!
How unartful the Complaint, but yet how lovely?
Tho' the Style of Pastoral is humble, it is not sordidly mean, nor slovenly careless, neither resembling the Diction of Comedy, which is almost Prose; nor of the bantering Satire, which is one Degree farther from it: But is sweet, pleasant, and easy; elegant with Plainness, and but poetically low:
[250] O tantum libeat mecum tibi sordida rura, Atque humiles habitare casas, & figere cervos!
O! were but thy Delight with me to dwell, In lowly Cottages, and rural Shades By thee despis'd! to drive the Kids a-field With a green Wand, and shoot the flying Deer!
Antique Phrases, Ænigma's, Proverbs, superstitious Fables, are no unbecoming Ornaments of this Sort of Poetry.
It generally consists of Dialogue, in which some little dramatical Action ought to be represented, a rural Scene described, Interlocutors under different Circumstances, and a certain Plot carried on to a Conclusion. For 'tis not to be imagin'd, as many, now a-days do, that every Dialogue between two Shepherds, full of the bleating of Flocks, is a proper Pastoral. No, 'tis a Thing that requires more Labour, Art, and Judgment, than we are generally aware of: Nor is any Kind of Poem less tolerable, if ill, or even moderately perform'd. Who can bear those Crowds of Pastorals, as they are inscrib'd, that are daily publish'd in Latin and English, upon the Death of Princes, or Friends? They are all cast in the same Mould; read one, you read all. Daphnis asks Thyrsis the Reason of his Grief, whether he has lost a Goat; or Amaryllis, or Neæra, has been unkind to him. The Answer is, his Sorrow is owing to no such Cause; but that Pan, or Phyllis, or any one else is dead. Say you so, says Daphnis, I thought all along that Pan had been immortal, or Phyllis, I am sure, deserv'd to have been so. They then join in celebrating, alternately, the Praises of the deceas'd. Birds, Sheep, Woods, Mountains, Rivers, are full of Complaints. We are told how the croaking Raven foreboded the dismal Event; Oaks were riv'd with Thunder; every Thing, in short, is wondrous lamentable, and in the most emphatical Sense miserable.