—Where wanton ivy twines,
And swelling clusters bend the curling vines,
Four figures rising from the work appear,
The various seasons of the rolling year;
And what is that which binds the radiant sky,
Where twelve bright signs, in beauteous order lye.
The simplicity of the swain in this place who forgets the name of the Zodiac, is no ill imitation of Virgil; but how much more plainly, and unaffectedly would Philips have dressed this thought in his Doric.
And what that height, which girds the welkin-sheen
Where twelve gay signs in meet array are seen.
If the reader would indulge his curiosity any farther in the comparison of particulars, he may read the first Pastoral of Philips, with the second of his contemporary, and the fourth and fifth of the former, with the fourth and first of the latter; where several parallel places will occur to every one.
Having now shewn some parts, in which these two writers may be compared, it is a justice I owe to Mr. Philips, to discover those in which no man can compare with him. First, the beautiful rusticity, of which I shall now produce two instances, out of a hundred not yet quoted.
O woeful day! O day of woe, quoth he,
And woeful I, who live the day to see!
That simplicity of diction, the melancholy flowing of the numbers, the solemnity of the sound, and the easy turn of the words, are extremely elegant.
In another Pastoral, a shepherd utters a Dirge, not much inferior to the former in the following lines.
Ah me the while! ah me, the luckless day!
Ah luckless lad, the rather might I say;
Ah silly I! more silly than my sheep,
Which on the flow'ry plains I once did keep.
How he still charms the ear, with his artful repetition of the epithets; and how significant is the last verse! I defy the most common reader to repeat them, without feeling some motions of compassion. In the next place, I shall rank his Proverbs in which I formerly observed he excels: For example,