Others therefore took another route. The famous Tasso, by an effort of genius which hath done him more honour than even his epic talents, produced a new kind of pastoral, by engrafting it on the drama. And under this form, pastoral poetry became all the vogue. The charming Amintas was even commented by the greatest scholars and critics. It was read, admired, and imitated by all the world.
There is no need to depreciate the fine copies that were taken of it, in Italy. But those by our own poets were, by far, the best. Shakespeare had, indeed, set the example of something like pastoral dramas, in our language; and in his Winter’s Tale, As ye like it, and some other of his pieces, has enchanted every body with his natural sylvan manners, and sylvan scenes. But Fletcher set himself, in earnest, to emulate the Italian, yet still with an eye of reverence towards the English, poet. In his faithful shepherdess he surpasses the former, in the variety of his paintings and the beauty of his scene; and only falls short of the latter, in the truth of manners, and a certain original grace of invention which no imitation can reach. The fashion was now so far established, that every poet of the time would try his hand at a pastoral. Even surly Ben, though he found no precedent for it among his ancients, was caught with the beauty of this novel drama, and, it must be owned, has written above himself in the fragment of his sad shepherd.—The scene, at length, was closed with the Comus of Milton, who, in his rural paintings, almost equalled the simplicity and nature of Shakespeare and Fletcher, and, in the purity and splendor of his expression, outdid Tasso.
In this new form of the pastoral, what was childish before, is readily admitted and excused. A simple moral tale being the groundwork of the piece, the charms of description and all the embellishments of the scene are only subservient to the higher purpose of picturing the manners, or touching the heart.
But the good sense of Shakespeare, or perhaps the felicity of his genius, was admirable. Instead of the deep tragic air of Tasso (which has been generally followed) and his continuance of the pastoral strain, even to satiety, through five acts, he only made use of these playful images to enrich his comic scenes. He saw, I suppose, that pastoral subjects were unfit to bear a tragic distress. And besides, when the distress rises to any height, the wantonness of pastoral imagery grows distasteful. Where as the genius of comedy admits of humbler distresses; and leaves us at leisure to recreate ourselves with these images, as no way interfering with the draught of characters, or the management of a comic tale. But to make up in surprize what was wanting in passion, Shakespeare hath, with great judgment, adopted the popular system of Faeries; which, while it so naturally supplies the place of the old sylvan theology, gives a wildness to this sort of pastoral painting which is perfectly inimitable.
In a word; if Tasso had the honour of inventing the pastoral drama, properly so called, Shakespeare has shewn us the just application of pastoral poetry; which, however amusing to the imagination, good sense will hardly endure, except in a short dialogue, or in some occasional dramatic scenes; and in these only, as it serves to the display of characters and the conduct of the poet’s plot.
And to confirm these observations on pastoral poetry, which may be thought too severe, one may observe that such, in effect, was the judgment passed upon it by that great critic, as well as wit, Cervantes. He concludes his famous adventures, with a kind of project for his knight and squire to turn shepherds: an evident ridicule on the turn of that time for pastoral poems and romances, that were beginning to succeed to their books of heroic knight-errantry. Not, but it contains, also, a fine stroke of moral criticism, as implying, what is seen from experience to be too true, that men capable of running into one enthusiasm are seldom cured of it but by some sudden diversion of the imagination, which drives them into another.
In conclusion, the reader will scarcely ask me, why, in this deduction of the history and genius of pastoral poetry, I have taken no notice of what has been written of this kind, in France; which, if it be not the most unpoetical nation in Europe, is at least the most unpastoral. Nor is their criticism of this poem much better than their execution. A late writer[24] indeed pronounces M. de Fontenelle’s discourse on pastoral poetry to be one of the finest pieces of criticism in the world. For my part, I can only say it is rather more tolerable than his pastorals.
248. Offendentur enim quibus est equus et pater et res.] The poet, in his endeavour to reclaim his countrymen from the taste obscene, very politely, by a common figure, represents that as being the fact, which he wished to be so. For what reception the rankest obscenities met with on the Roman stage we learn from Ovid’s account of the success of the Mimi:
Nobilis hos virgo matronaque, virque puerque,
Spectat: et è magnâ parte senatus adest.
Trist. ii. v. 501.