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Virgil: but how much more plainly and unaffectedly would Philips have dreffed this thought in his Doric ?

And what that hight, which girds the welkin sheen, Where twelve gay figns in meet array are feen?

If the reader would indulge his curiofity any further in the comparison of particulars, he may read the first pastoral of Philips with the fecond of his contemporary, and the fourth and fixth of the former with the fourth and firft of the latter; where feveral parallel places will occur to every one.

Having now shown fome parts, in which thefe two writers may be compared, it is a justice I owe to Mr. Philips to discover thofe in which no man can compare with him. First, That beautiful rusticity, of which I fhall only produce two inftances out of a hundred not yet quoted :

O woful day! O day of woe! quoth he,
And woful 1, who live the day to fee!

The fimplicity of diction, the melancholy flowing of the numbers, the folemnity of the found, and the easy turn of the words in this Dirge (to make ufe of our author's expreffion) are extremely elegant.

In another of his paftorals, a fhepherd utters a Dirge not much inferior to the former, in the following lines:

Ah me the while! ah me! the luckless day,
Ab luckless lad! the rather might I fay;
Ab filly I! more filly than my sheep,
Which on the flow'ry plains I once did keep.

How he still charms the ear with thefe artful repetitions of the epithets; and how fignificant is the laft verfe! I defy the most common reader to repeat them, without feeling fome motions of compaffion.

In the next place I fhall rank his Proverbs, in which I formerly obferved he excels: For example:

A rolling ftone is ever bare of mofs;

And, to their coft, green years old proverbs cross.

He that late lies down, as late will rife.
And fluggard-like, till noon-day fnoaring lies.
-Against Ill-luck all cunning forefight fails;
Whether we fleep or wake, it naught avails.

-Nor fear, from upright fentence, wrong.

Laftly, his elegant Dialect, which alone might prove him the eldest born of Spencer, and our only

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true Arcadian. I should think it proper for the feveral writers of Pastoral, to confine themselves to their feveral Counties. Spencer feems to have been of this opinion: for he hath laid the scene of one of his Pastorals in Wales; where with all the fimplicity natural to that part of our island, one shepherd bids the other good morrow, in an unusual and elegant

manner:

Diggon Davy, I bid bur God-day:
Or Diggon bur is, or 1 mif-fay.

Diggon answers:

Hur was hur, while it was day-light;
But now hur is a most wretched wight, etc.

But the most beautiful example of this kind that I ever met with, is in a very valuable piece which I chanced to find among fome old manufcripts, entituled, A Paftoral Ballad: which I think, for its nature and fimplicity, may (notwithstanding the modefty of the title) be allowed a perfect Paftoral. It is compofed in the Somersetshire dialect, and the names fuch as are proper to the country people. It may be obferved as a further beauty of this Paftoral, the words Nymph, Dryad, Naiad, Fawn, Cupid, or Satyr, are not once mentioned throughout the whole. I fhall make no apology for inferting fome few lines

of this excellent piece. Cicily breaks thus into the fubject, as fhe is going a milking:

Cicily. Rager, ga vetch tha Kee, or elfe tha Zun
Will quite be go, bevore c'have half a don.

Roger. Thou shouldfi not ax ma tweece, but I've a bee
To dreve our bull to bull tha Parfon's Kee.

It is to be obferved, that this whole dialogue is formed upon the paffion of Jealoufy; and his mentioning the Parfon's Kine naturally revives the jealoufy of the fhepherdefs Cicily, which the expreffes as follows:

Cicily. Ah Rager, Rager, ches was zore avraid,

When in yon Vield you kijs'd the Parfon's maid:
Is this the love that once to me you zed,
When from the Wake thou brought ft me ginger-
bread?

Roger. Cicily, thou charg'ft me valfe,

to thee,

-I'll wear

Tha Parfon's maid is fill a maid for me.

In which answer of his, are expreffed at once that Spirit of Religion, and that Innocence of the Golden age, fo neceffary to be observed by all writers of Paftoral.

a That is, the Kine or Cows.

At the conclufion of this piece, the author reconciles the Lovers, and ends the Eclogue the moft fimply in the world:

So Rager parted vor to vetch tha Kee,

And vor her bucket in went Cicily.

I am loth to fhow my fondnefs for antiquity fo far as to prefer this ancient British author to our prefent English Writers of Pastoral; but I cannot avoid making this obvious remark, that Philips had hit into the fame road with this old West Country Bard of

ours.

After all that hath been faid, I hope none can think it any injustice to Mr. Pope that I forbore to mention him as a Paftoral writer; fince, upon the whole, he is of the fame clafs with Mofchus and Bion, whom we have excluded that rank; and of whofe Eclogues, as well as fome of Virgil's, it may be said, that (according to the defcription we have given of this fort of poetry) they are by no means Paftorals, but fomething better.

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