It is somewhat strange that in the pastorals of a young poet there should not be found a single rural image that is new; but this, I am afraid, is the case in the Pastorals before us. The ideas of Theocritus, Virgil, and Spenser are, indeed, here exhibited in language equally mellifluous and pure; but the descriptions and sentiments are trite and common. To this assertion, formerly made, Dr. Johnson answered, "that no invention was intended." He, therefore, allows the fact and the charge. It is a confession of the very fault imputed to them. There _ought_ to have been invention. It has been my fortune from my way of life,[4] to have seen many compositions of youths of sixteen years old, far beyond these Pastorals in point of genius and imagination, though not perhaps of correctness. Their excellence, indeed, might be owing to having had such a predecessor as Pope.[5] A mixture of British and Grecian ideas may justly be deemed a blemish in these Pastorals, and propriety is certainly violated when he couples Pactolus with Thames, and Windsor with Hybla.[6] Complaints of immoderate heat, and wishes to be conveyed to cooling caverns, when uttered by the inhabitants of Greece, have a decorum and consistency, which they totally lose in the character of a British Shepherd,[7] and, Theocrites, during the ardors of Sirius, must have heard the murmurings of a brook, and the whispers of a pine, with more home-felt pleasure than Pope could possibly experience upon the same occasion. Pope himself informs us, in a note, that he judiciously omitted the following verse:
And list'ning wolves grow milder as they hear
on account of the absurdity, which Spenser overlooked, of introducing wolves into England. But on this principle, which is certainly a just one, may it not be asked, why he should speak, the scene lying in Windsor Forest, of the "sultry Sirius," of the "grateful clusters of grapes," of "a pipe of reeds," the antique fistula, of "thanking Ceres for a plentiful harvest," of "the sacrifice of lambs," with many other instances that might be adduced to this purpose? That Pope, however, was sensible of the importance of adapting images to the scene of action, is obvious from the following example of his judgment; for in translating