Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.

Pastorals

No rules that relate to pastoral can affect the Georgics, which fall under that class of poetry which consists in giving plain instructions to the reader.

The truth of it is, the sweetness and rusticity of a pastoral cannot be so well expressed in any other tongue as in the Greek, when rapidly mixed and qualified with the Doric dialect.

There is scarcely any species of poetry that has allured more readers, or excited more writers, than the pastoral. It is generally pleasing, because it entertains the mind with representations of scenes familiar to almost every imagination, and of which all can equally judge whether they are well described. It exhibits a life to which we have always been accustomed to associate peace, and leisure, and innocence; and therefore we readily set open the heart for the admission of its images, which contribute to drive away cares and perturbations, and suffer ourselves, without resistance, to be transported to Elysian regions, where we are to meet with nothing but joy, and plenty, and contentment; where every gale whispers pleasure, and every shade promises repose.

Pastoral is an imitation of the action of a shepherd; the form of this imitation is dramatic or narrative, or mixed of both, the fable simple, the manners not too polite nor too rustic.

We must use some illusion to render a pastoral delightful, and this consists in exposing the best side only of a shepherd’s life, and in concealing its miseries.

There ought to be the same difference between pastorals and elegies as between the life of the country and the court: the latter should be smooth, clean, tender, and passionate: the thoughts may be bold, more gay, and more elevated than in pastoral.