Agreeable Thoughts may be also reckon'd among the Natural, the Soft, and the Tender; all which in the general Acceptation, are also taken for Wit. This Speech of Eve's to Adam in the Paradice Lost, has an Agreeableness which cannot be match'd in the most Tender of our Lyrick or Elegiac Poets:
With thee conversing, I forget all Time,
All Seasons and their Change, all please alike:
Sweet is the Breath of Morn, her Rising sweet
With Charm of earliest Birds, pleasant the Sun
When first on this delightful Land he spreads
His orient Beams, on Herb, Tree, Fruit and Flow'r,
Glistring with Dew: Fragrant the fertile Earth
After soft Show'rs, and sweet the Coming on
Of grateful Evening mild: Then silent Night
With this her solemn Bird, and this fair Moon,
And these the Gems of Heaven, her starry Train.
But neither Breath of Morn, when she ascends
With Charm of earliest Birds; nor rising Sun
On this delightful Land, nor Herb, Fruit, Flow'r,
Glistring with Dew, nor Fragrance after Showers,
Nor grateful Evening mild, nor silent Night
With this her solemn Bird; nor walk by Moon,
Or glittering Star Light, without thee is sweet.
To speak poetically one would think every Verse was turn'd and polish'd by the Loves and the Graces. Indeed all the Conversation between the first Bridegroom and his Bride, in this Poem, is exquisitely agreeable and tender, except the very Incident of the Fall.
I take the Verses in Waller, address'd to Amoret, to be of the agreeable Kind:
Fair, that you may truly know
What you unto Thyrsis owe;
I will tell you how I do
Sacharissa love, and you.
Joy salutes me, when I set
My blest Eyes on Amoret;
But with Wonder I am strook;
While I on the Other look.
If sweet Amoret complains,
I have Sense of all her Pains:
But for Sacharissa I
Do not only grieve, but die. &c.
I could give many Instances of agreeable Thoughts but of Dryden's Fables, especially that of Cymon and Iphigenia, which had been taken notice of long enough before the Spectator was thought of; and I do not think it fair, that he should engross all the Beaux Endroits, because he printed them first. The Rusticity of Cymon, and even his Stupidity, has something in it very agreeable in the Image, which is the pure Nature that we meet with there:
It happen'd on a Summer's Holy-day,
That to the Greenwood Shade he took his Way;
His Quarter-Staff, which he cou'd ne'er forsake,
Hung half before, and half behind his Back;
He trudg'd along unknowing what he sought,
And whistled as he went for Want of Thought.
There is not a more natural Picture in Language than this. Of the same Kind is that of Iphigenia sleeping by the Fountain: The very Numbers express the Wantonness of the Wind so livelily, that we feel the Air, and are fanned by it while we read them, which I think has had the good Luck to escape Observation: