The fifth contains a celebration of Daphnis, which has stood to all fucceeding ages as the model of paftoral elegies. To deny praife to a performance which fo many thousands have laboured to imitate, would be to judge with too little deference for the opinion of mankind: yet whoever shall read it with impartiality, will find that most of the images are of the mythological kind, and, therefore, easily invented; and that there are few fentiments of rational praife or natural lamentation. In the Silenus he again rifes to the dignity of phi lofophick fentiments and heroic poetry. The addrefs to Varus is eminently beautiful: but fince the compliment paid to Gallus fixes the tranfaction to his own time, the fiction of Silenus feems injudicious; nor has any fufficient reafon yet been found, to juftify his choice of thofe fables that make the fubject of the fong. The feventh exhibits another conteft of the tuneful fhepherds: and, furely, it is not without fome reproach to his inventive power, that of ten pastorals Virgil has written two upon the fame plan. One of the shepherds now gains an acknowledged victory, but without any apparent fuperiority; and the reader, when he fees the prize adjudged, is not able to discover how it was deferved. Of the eighth paftoral, fo little is properly the work of Virgil, that he has no claim to other praise or blame than that of a translator. Of the ninth, it is fcarce poffible to discover the defign or tendency: it is faid, I know not upon. what authority, to have been compofed from frag ments of other poems; and except a few lines in which the author touches upon his own misfortunes, there is nothing that feems appropriated to any time or place, or of which any other ufe can be discovered than to fill up the poem. The first and the tenth paftorals, whatever be determined of the reft, are fufficient to place their author above the reach of rivalry. The complaint of Gallus difappointed in his love, is full of fuch fentiments as difappointed love naturally produces; his wifhes are wild, his refentment is tender, and his purposes are inconftant. In the genuine language of despair, he fooths himself a-while with the pity that fhall be paid him after his death: Tamen cantabitis, Arcades, inquit, Montibus hæc veftris: foli cantare periti Yet, O Arcadian swains, Ye beft artificers of foothing ftrains! Tune your foft reeds, and teach your rocks my woes, So fall my fhade in sweeter reft repose, O that your birth and bufinefs had been mine; WARTON. Difcontented with his prefent condition, and defirous to be any thing but what he is, he wishes himfelf one of the fhepherds. He then catches the idea of rural tranquillity; but foon difcovers how much happier he fhould be in thefe happy regions, with coris at his fide: Hic gelidi fontes, hic mollia prata, Lycori: Here cooling fountains roll thro' flow'ry meads, Inftead of that, me frantick love detains 'Mid foes, and dreadful darts, and bloody plains: } WARTON. He then turns his thoughts on every fide, in queft of fomething that may folace or amufe him: he proposes happiness to himself, firft in one scene and then in another; and at last finds that nothing will fatisfy: Jam neque Hamadryades rurfum, nec carmina nobis But But now again no more the woodland maids, WARTON. But notwithstanding the excellence of the tenth paftoral, I cannot forbear to give the preference to the firft, which is equally natural and more diverfified. The complaint of the fhepherd, who faw his old companion at eafe in the fhade, while himfelf was driving his little flock he knew not whither, is fuch as, with variation of circumstances, mifery always utters at the fight of profperity: Nos patria fines, & dulcia linquimus arva; We leave our country's bounds, our much lov'd plains WARTON, His account of the difficulties of his journey, gives a very tender image of paftoral diftrefs: En ipfe capellas Protenus ager ago: hanc etiam vix, Tityre, duco : WARTON. The defcripion of Virgil's happiness in his little farm, combines almost all the images of rural pleafure; and he, therefore, that can read it with indifference, has no sense of pastoral poetry: Fortunate fenex, ergo tua rura manebunt, Et tibi magna fatis; quamvis lapis omnia nudus, Happy old man! then ftill thy farms reftor'd, No |