cannot be doubted, since the latin pastoral, in which, as he expresses it, he laments his solitude," bears the impression of sorrow equally with that of poetry, and is as honourable to his heart as to his talents.

This effusion of strong grief lowered into melancholy, and of power to incline without oppressing the fancy, is entitled to very high regard from every reader of taste. It has been censured, and has been defended; but the deed in either case will, perhaps, be viewed with indifference by the unprejudiced and able critic. "It is written," as it has been dogmatically, and, I think, ignorantly observed, "with the common but childish affectation of pastoral life;" and this has been excused "as the fault of the

66

poet's age;" and as compensated by some passages in the poem, wandering far beyond the bounds of bucolic song."" Affectation is every where a just object of reprobation; but how a writer can, with propriety, be said to be guilty of it, for employing any allowed and established species of composition as the vehicle of his thoughts, is more than I can possibly comprehend. When Milton

n Se suamq; solitudinem hoc carmine deplorat.

• See Johnson's Life of Milton.

• Warton's note at the end of the poem.

Arg. E.D.

Silenus, his Pollio,

its to har

Its be

Sactly

bitly see

with exception to those in a very few lines,
are, through the whole of the composition,
strictly pastoral; and he never wanders so
far beyond the bounds of bucolic song, or rises.
so high as Virgil in his
or, perhaps, his Gallus.
mined, by the names of
tain; but it offends us with no incongruous
or unpleasant images,' and is made, in fact,
of no consequence to the piece. A shepherd
may utter his complaints for the loss of his
friend in any country, if he be not stationed
under an orange grove, where orange groves
do not exist; or be made to pass the night in
a field, where the rigour of the skies would
make us feel more for his bodily than for
his mental distress. The picture, in short,
in this pastoral, is consistent, and neither
extravagant nor horrid: it will justify, there-
fore, the art and the taste of its author, and
be secure of acquittal before any just and in-
telligent tribunal.

His scene is deter-
His scene is deter- tumcept:
some places, to Bri-

I have said so much on the subject of
this poem, that it may probably gratify my

is where the first four feet are not linked by a syllable to the
fifth, as "Non;-verum Ægonis; nuper mihi | tradidit Ægon;"
and not as " Silvestrem tenui Musam meditaris avenā.”

One slight incongruity occurs in the 41st verse of the
poem; and it is remarked in the note on the translation of that
passage.

readers to have the whole of it laid before them. Its beauties, indeed, will be only indistinctly seen in my translation: but to those, who are not conversant with the original, the inadequate copy may not, perhaps, be unacceptable.

EPITAPHIUM DAMONIS.

Himerides nymphæ, (nam vos et Daphnin et Hylan,"
Et plorata diu meministis fata Bionis,)

'I am afraid that our poet has been guilty in this place of a false quantity. The first syllable of Hylas is unquestionably short.

His adjungit Hylan nautæ quo fonte relictum

Clamassent; ut littus Hyla, Hyla omne sonaret.

This, however, was only a slip of Milton's pen: in his seventh elegy the quantity of Hylas is right—

Thiodamantæus Naiade raptus Hylas.

But I have an objection, on the ground of taste, to the opening passage of this poem. It presents us with an unwarrantable mixture of fable with truth; and brings the fictitious or fabulous personages of Daphnis and Hylas into union with Bion, the pastoral poet of Smyrna, whose death was lamented in the elegiac strains of Moschus of Syracuse.

Dicite Sicelicum Thamesina per oppida carmen;
Quas miser effudit voces, quæ murmura Thyrsis,
Et quibus assiduis exercuit antra querelis,
Fluminaque, fontesque vagos, nemorumque recessus;
Dum sibi præreptum queritur Damona, neque altam
Luctibus exemit noctem, loca sola pererrans.
Et jam bis viridi surgebat culmus aristâ,
Et totidem flavas numerabant horrea messes,
Ex quo summa dies tulerat Damona sub umbras,
Nec dum aderat Thyrsis; pastorem scilicèt illum
Dulcis amor Musæ Thuscâ retinebat in urbe.
Ast ubi mens expleta domum, pecorisque relicti
Cura vocat, simul assuetà seditque sub ulmo,
Tum verò amissum tum denique sentit amicum,

Two rivers of Sicily bore the name of Himera, one of them flowing, with a northern course, into the Tuscan sea, and the other, which is the largest, with a southern, into the Lybian. On the banks of the former of these rivers, near its influx into the sea, stood the city of Himera, in the vicinity of which Gelon, the king of Syracuse, gained a memorable victory over the Carthaginians at the time of the invasion of Greece by Xerxes. I am at a loss to discover why Mr. Warton should call the Himera "the famous bucolic river of Theocritus." Not one of this sweet poet's scenes are placed upon this river: it is mentioned only twice (if my recollection be at all accurate) in the thirty idylliums, which have been ascribed to him; and he was a native, as Suidas informs us, according to some accounts, of Coös, and, according to others, of Syracuse, a city no otherwise connected with the Himera than as it is in Sicily. The two passages in which this river is named by Theocritus are the following:

ἡμέρα ἀνθ' ύδατος ῥείτω γάλα.

καὶ ὡς δρύες αὐτὸν ἐθρήνουν

Idyll. v. 124.

Ἱμέρα αἴτε φύοντι παρ' όχθησιν ποταμοία.

Idyl. vii. 74.

Cœpit et immensum sic exonerare dolorem.

Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni.
Hei mihi! quæ terris, quæ dicam numina cœlo,
Postquam te immiti rapuerunt funere, Damon!
Siccine nos linquis, tua sic sine nomine virtus
Ibit, et obscuris numero sociabitur umbris?
At non ille, animas virgâ qui dividit aureâ,
Ista velit, dignumque tui te ducat in agmen,
Ignavumque procul pecus arceat omne silentûm.
Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni.
Quicquid erit, certè, nisi me lupus ante videbit,
Indeplorato non comminuere sepulchro,
Constabitque tuus tibi honos, longùmque vigebit
Inter pastores: illi tibi vota secundo

Solvere post Daphnin, post Daphnin dicere laudes
Gaudebunt, dum rura Pales, dum Faunus amabit:
Si quid id est, priscamque fidem coluisse, piumque,
Palladiasque artes, sociumque habuisse canorum.

Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni.
Hæc tibi certa manent, tibi erunt hæc præmia, Damon.
At mihi quid tandem fiet modò? quis mihi fidus
Hærebit lateri comes, ut tu sæpe solebas,
Frigoribus duris, et per loca fœta pruinis,
Aut rapido sub sole, siti morientibus herbis?
Sive opus in magnos fuit eminùs ire leones,
Aut avidos terrere lupos præsepibus altis';
Quis fando sopire diem, cantuque solebit?,

Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni.
Pectora cui credam? quis me lenire docebit
Mordaces curas? quis longam fallere noctem

Dulcibus alloquiis, grato cùm sibilat igni

Molle pyrum, et nucibus strepitat focus, et malus Auster Miscet cuncta foris, er desuper intonat ulmo?

Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat agni.

Aut æstate, dies medio dum vertitur axe,

Cùm Pan æsculeâ somnum capit abditus umbrâ,
Et repetunt sub aquis sibi nota sedilia nymphæ,
Pastoresque latent, stertit sub sepe colonus;