No. 40.] No. 40.] Monday, April 27, THE GUARDIAN.` 1713. ་ 59 example, might he not have said 'quoi' instead of cui:''quoijum' for 'cujum ;' ' volt' for vult,' &c. as well as our modern hath welladay' for alas,'' whilome' for ' of old,' 'muke mock' for 'deride,' and 'witless younglings' for 'simple lambs,' &c. by which means he had attained as much of the air of Theocritus, as Philips hath of Spenser ? Mr. Pope hath fallen into the same error with Virgil. His clowns do not converse in all the simplicity proper to the country. His names are borrowed from Theocritus and Virgil, which are improper to the scene of his pastorals. He introduces Daphnis, Alexis, and Thyrsis on British plains, as Virgil had done before bim on the Mantuan: whereas Philips, who hath the strictest regard to propriety, makes choice of names peculiar to the country, and more agreeable to a reader of delicacy; such as Hobbinol, Lobbin, Cuddy, and Colin Clout. So easy as pastoral writing may seem (in the simplicity we have described it), yet it requires great reading, both of the ancients and moderus, to be a master of it. Philips hath given us manifest proofs of his knowledge of books; it must be confessed his competitor hath imitated some single thoughts of the ancients well enough, if we consider he had not the happiness of a university education; but he hath dispersed them here and there, without that order and method which Mr. Philips observes, whose whole third pastoral is an instance how well he hath studied the fifth of Virgil, and how judiciously reduced Virgil's thoughts to the standard of pastoral; as his contention of Colin Clout and the Nightingale, shows with what exactness he hath imitated Strada. I have laid it down as the first rule of pastoral, that its idea should be taken from the manners of the golden age, and the moral formed upon the representation of innocence; it is therefore plain that any deviations from that design degrade a poem from being true pastoral. In this view it will appear that Virgil can only have two of his eclogues allowed to be such. His first and ninth must be rejected, because they describe the ravages of armies, and oppressions of the innocent; Corydon's criminal passion for Alexis throws out the second; the calumny and railing in the third are not proper to that state of concord; the eighth represents unlawful ways of procuring love by enchantments, and introduces a shepherd whom an inviting precipice tempts to selfmurder. As to the fourth, sixth and tenth, they are given up by Heinsius, Salmasius, Rapin, and the critics in general. They likewise observe that but eleven of all the Idyllia of Theo- When I remarked it as a principal fault to critus are to be admitted as pastorals; and even introduce fruits and flowers of a foreign growth, out of that number the greater part will be ex-in descriptions where the scene lies in our cluded, for one or other of the reasons abovementioned. So that when I remarked in a former paper, that Virgil's eclogues, taken altogether, are rather select poems than pastorals, I might have said the same thing, with no less truth, of Theocritus. The reason of this I take to be yet unobserved by the critics, viz. They never meant them all for pastorals;' which it is plain Philips hath done, and in that particular excelled both Theocritus and Virgil. As simplicity is the distinguishing characteristic of pastoral, Virgil has been thought guilty of too courtly a style: his language is perfectly pure, and he often forgets he is among peasants. I have frequently wondered that since he was so conversant in the writings of Ennius, he had not imitated the rusticity of the Doric, as well, by the help of the old obsolete Roman language, as Philips hath by the antiquated English. For See Rapin de Carin. Past. pars 3. country, I did not design that observation should extend also to animals, or the sensitive life; for Philips bath with great judgment described wolves in England, in his first pastoral. Nor would I have a poet slavishly confine himself (as Mr. Pope hath done) to one particular season of the year, one certain time of the day, and one unbroken scene in each eclogue. It is plain Spenser neglected this pedantry, who, in his pastoral of November, mentions the mournful song of the nightingale. Sad Philomel her song in tears doth 'steep.' And Mr. Philips, by a poetical creation, hath raised up finer beds of flowers than the most industrious gardener; his roses, lilies and daffodils, blow in the same season. But the better to discover the merits of our two contemporary pastoral writers, I shall endeavour to draw a parallel of them, by setting several of their particular thoughts in the same light, whereby it will be obvious how much may read the first pastoral of Philips with the Philips hath the advantage. With what sim-second of his contemporary, and the fourth and plicity he introduces two shepherds singing al- sixth of the former, with the fourth and first ternately: of the latter; where several parallel places will occur to every one. Hobb. Come, Rosalind, O come, for without thee What pleasure can the country have for me. Come, Rosalind, O come: My brinded kine, My snowy sheep, my farm, and all, is thine. Lang. Come, Rosalind, O come; here shady bowers, Here are cool fountains, and here springing flow'rs. Come, Rosalind; here ever let us stay, And sweetly waste our live long time away. Dur other pastoral writer, in expressing the same thought, deviates into downright poetry. Streph. In spring the fields, in autumn hills I love, At morn the plaius, at noon the shady grove, But Delia always; forc'd from Delia's sight, Nor plains at morn, nor groves at noon delight. Daph. Sylvia's like autumn ripe, yet mild as May, More bright than noon, yet fresh as early day; In the first of these authors, two shepherds thus innocently describe the behaviour of their mistresses. Hobb. As Marian bath'd, by chance I passed by ; She blush'd, and at me cast a side-long eye: Then swift beneath the crystal wave she try'd Her beautious form, but all in vain to hide. Lang. As I to cool me bath'd one sultry day, Fond Lydia lurking in the sedges lay; The wanton laugh'd, and seem'd în haste to fly; The other modern (who it must be confessed Then, hid in shades, eludes her eager swain; But feigns a laugh, to see me search around, And by that laugh the willing fair is found. Daph. The sprightly Sylvia trips along the green; She runs, but hopes she does not run unseen; While a kind glance at her pursuer flies, How much at variance are her feet and eyes! Having now shown some parts, in which these two writers may be compared, it is a justice I owe to Mr. Philips, to discover those in which no man can compare with him. First that beautiful rusticity, of which I shall only produce two instances, out of a hundred not yet quoted : O woful day! O day of woe, quoth he. And woful 1, who live the day to see? That simplicity of diction, the melancholy flowing of the numbers, the solemnity of the sound, and the easy turn of the words, in this dirge (to make use of our author's expression) are extremely elegant. In another of his pastorals a shepherd utters a dirge not much inferior to the former, in the following lines: Ah me the while! an me, the luckless day! How he still charms the ear with these artful repetitions of the epithets; and how significant is the last verse! I defy the most common reader to repeat them without feeling some motions of compassion. In the next place I sball rank his proverbs, in which I formerly observed he excels. For example, A rolling stone is ever bare of moss; -Nor fear, from upright sentence, wrong. There is nothing the writers of this kind of Lastly, his elegant dialect, which alone might poetry are fonder of, than descriptions of pas- prove him the eldest born of Spenser, and our toral presents. Philips says thus of a sheep-only true Arcadian; I should think it proper hook: Of season'd clm; where studs of brass appear, The other of a bowl embossed with figures: where wanton ivy twines; And swelling clusters bend the carling vines; The simplicity of the swain in this place, who forgets the name of the Zodiac, is no ill imitation of Virgil; but how much more plainly and unaffectedly would Philips have dressed this thought in his Doric ? And what that hight, which girds the Welkin sheen, If the reader would indulge his curiosity any farther in the comparison of particulars, he for the several writers of pastoral, to confine themselves to their several counties: Spenser seems to have been of this opinion; for he hath laid the scene of one of his pastorals in Wales, where, with all the simplicity natural to that part of our island, one shepherd bids the other good-morrow in an unusual and elegant man ner. Diggon Davey, I bid hur God-day; Or Diggon hur is, or 1 mis-say. Diggon answers, Hur was hur while it was day light: But now hur is a most wretched wight, &c. But the most beautiful example of this kind that I ever met with, is a very valuable piece which I chanced to find among some old manuscripts, entitled, A Pastoral Ballad; which I think, for its nature and simplicity, may (notwithstandin the modesty of the title) be allowed a perfect pastoral. It is composed in the Somersetshire dialect, and the names such as are proper to the country people. It may be observed, as a farther beauty of this pastoral, the words Nymph, Dryad, Naiad, Faun, Cupid, or Satyr, are not once mentioned through the whole. I shall make no apology for inserting some few lines of this excellent piece. Cicily breaks thus into the subject, as she is going a milking: Cieily. Rager go vetch tha kee, or else tha zun Will quite be go, bevore c'have half a lon. Roger. Thon should'st not ax ma tweece, but I've a be To dreave our bull to bull tha parson's kee. It is to be observed, that this whole dialogue is formed upon the passion of jealousy; and his mentioning the parson's kine naturally revives the jealousy of the shepherdess Cicily, which she expresses as follows: Cicily. Ah Rager, Rager, chez was zore avraid When in yond vield you kiss'd tha parson's maid: Is this the love that once to me you zed [bread? When from tha wake thou brought'st me gingerRoger. Cicily thou charg'st me false-I'll zwear to thee, Tha parson's maid is still a maid for me. In which answer of his are expressed at once that'spirit of religion,' and that' innocence of the golden age,' so necessary to be observed by all writers of pastoral. At the conclusion of this piece, the author reconciles the lovers, and ends the eclogue the most simply in the world: So Rager parted vor to vetch tha kee, I am loth to show my fondness for antiquity so far as to prefer this ancient British author to our present English writers of pastoral; but I cannot avoid making this obvious remark, that both Spenser and Philips have hit into the same road with this old west country bard of ours. To the Author of the Guardian. SIR, 'I claim a place in your paper for what I now write to you, from the declaration which you made at your first appearance, and the very title you assume to yourself. If the circumstance which I am going to mention is over-looked by one who calls himself Guardian, I am sure honour and integrity, innocence and virtue, are not the objects of his care. The Examiner ends his discourse of Friday, the twenty-fourth instant, with these words: 66 confirmed past retrieving, but lady Char-te+ No sooner was D-* among the whigs, and is taken knotting in St. James's chapel during divine service, in the immediate presence both of God and her majesty, who were affronted together, that the family might appear to be entirely come over. I spare the beauty for the sake of her birth; but certainly there was no occasion for so public a proof, that her fingers are more dexterous in tying a knot, than her father's brains in perplexing the government." 'It is apparent that the person here intended is by her birth a lady, and daughter of an earl of Great Britain; and the treatment this author is pleased to give her, he makes no scruple to own she is exposed to by being his daughter. Since he has assumed a licence to talk of this nobleman in print to his disadvantage, I hope his lordship will pardon me, that out of the interest which I, and all true Englishmen, have in his character, I take the liberty to defend him. 'I am willing on this occasion, to allow the claim and pretension to merit to be such, as the same author describes in his preceding paper. 66 By active merit (says the Examiner of the twenty-first) I understand, not only the power and ability to serve, but the actual exercise of any one or more virtues, for promoting the good of one's country, and a long and steady course of real endeavours to appear useful in a government; or where a person eminently After all that hath been said I hope none can think it any injustice to Mr. Pope, that I forbore to mention him as a pastoral writer; since upon the whole he is of the same class with Moschus and Bion, whom we have excluded that rank; and of whose eclogues, as well as some of Virgil's, it may be said, that according to the description we have given of this sort of poetry, they are by no means pas-qualified for public affairs, distinguishes himtorals, but something better.' self in some critical juncture, and at the expense of his ease and fortune, or with the hazard of his person, exposes himself to the malice of a designing faction, by thwarting their wicked purposes, and contributing to the safety, repose, and welfare of a people." E'en churches are no sanctuaries now. Epilogue to Cato. Let us examine the conduct of this noble THE following letter has so much truth and earl by this description. Upon the late glo. reason in it, that I believe every man of sense rious revolution, when it was in debate in what and honour in England, will have a just indig-manner the people of England should express nation against the person who could commit their gratitude to their deliverer, this lord, so great a violence, as that of which my correspondent complains. That is, kine or cows. Earl of Nottingham. ↑ His daughter, lady Charlotte Finch, afterwards duchess of Somerset tioned in a public paper, much more to be named in a libellous manner, as having offended God and man, But the wretch, as dull as he is wicked, felt it strike on his imagination, that knotting and perplexing would make a quaint sting at the end of his paper, and had no compunction, though he introduced his witticism at the expense of a young lady's quiet, and (as far as in him lies) her honour. Does he thus finish his discourse of religion? This is indeed " to lay at us and make every blow fell to the ground." 'There is no party concerned in this circumstance; but every man that hopes for a vir from the utmost tenderness and loyalty to his unhappy prince, and apprehensive of the danger of so great a change, voted against king Wilham's accession to the throne. However, his following services sufficiently testified the truth of that his memorable expression, "Though he could not make a king, he could obey him." The whole course and tenour of his life ever since has been visibly animated, by a steady and constant zeal for the monarchy and episcopacy of these realms. He has been ever reviled by all who are cold to the interests of our established religion, or dissenters from it, as a favourer of persecution, and a bigot to the church, against the civil rights of his fel-tuous woman to his wife, that would defeud low-subjects. Thus it stood with him at the his child, or protect his mistress, ought to retrial of doctor Sacheverell, when this noble earl ceive this insolence as done to bimcelf. "In had a very great share in obtaining the gentle the immediate presence of God and her majesty, sentence which the house of lords pronounced that the family might appear to be entirely on that occasion. But, indeed, I have not heard come over," says the fawning miscreant.-It is that any of his lordship's dependents joined very visible which of those powers (that be bas saint Harry in the pilgrimage which " that put together) he is the more fearful of offendmeek man" took afterwards round England, ing. But he mistakes his way in making his followed by drum, trumpet, and acclamations, court to a pious sovereign, by naming her with to visit the churches."-Civi! prudence made the Deity, in order to find protection for init, perhaps, necessary to throw the public af-sulting a virtuous woman, who comes to call fairs into such hands as had no pretensions to popularity in either party, but from the distribution of the queen's favours. 'During such, and other later transactions (which are too fresh to need being recounted) the earl of Nottingham has had the misfortune to differ with the lords who have the honour to be employed in the administration; but even among these incidents he has highly distinguished himself in procuring an act of parliament, to prevent that those who dissent from the church should serve in the state. upon him in the royal chapel. The 'If life be (as it ought to be with people of their character, whom the Examiner attacks) less valuable and dear than honour and repu tation, in that proportion is the Examiner worse than an assassin, we have stood by and tamely heard him aggravate the disgraces of the brave and the unfortunate, we have seen him double the anguish of the unhappy man, we have seen him trample on the ashes of the dead; but all this has concerned greater life, and could touch only public characters, they did but remotely 'I hope these are great and critical junctures, affect our private and domestic interests; but wherein this gentleman has shown himself a when due regard is not had to the honour of patriot and lover of the church in as eminent women, all buman society is assaulted. manner, as any other of his fellow-subjects. highest person in the world is of that sex, and "He has at all times, and in all seasons, has the utmost seusibility of an outrage comshown the same steady abhorrence to all inno-mitted against it. She, who was the best wife vations." But it is from this behaviour, that that ever prince was blessed with, will, though he has deserved so ill of the Examiner, as to she sits on a throne, jealously regard the honour be termed a late convert" to those whom he of a young lady who has not entered into that calls factious, and introduced in his profane condition. dialogue of April the sixth, with a servant and a mad woman. I think I have, according to the Examiner's own description of merit, shown how little this nobleman deserves such treatment. I shall now appeal to all the world, to consider whether the outrage committed against the young lady had not been cruel and insufferable, towards the daughter of the highest No. 42.] offender. The utmost malice and invention could go no farther than to forge a story of her having inadvertently done an indifferent action in a sacred place. Of what temper can this man be made, that could have no sense of the pangs he must give a young lady to be barely men 'Lady Char-te's quality will make it impossible that this cruel usage can escape her majesty's notice; and it is the business of every honest man to trace the offender, and expose him to the indignation of his sovereign.' Wednesday, April 29, 1713. Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris hirado. TOM LIZARD told us a story the other day, of some persons which our family know very well, with so much humour and life, that it caused a great deal of mirth at the tea-table. His brother Will, the Templar, was highly delighted with it, and the next day being with some of his inns-of-court acquaintance, resolved (whether out of the benevolence, or the pride of his heart, I will not determine) to entertain them with what he called ' a pleasant humour enough.' I was in great pain for him when I heard him begin, and was not at all surprised to find the company very little moved by it. Will blushed, looked round the room, and with a forced laugh, Faith, gentlemen,' said he, 'I do not know what makes you look so grave; it was an admirable story when I heard it.' When I came home I fell into a profound eontemplation upon story-telling, and as I have nothing so much at heart as the good of my country, I resolved to lay down some precautions upon this subject. I have often thought that a story-teller is born, as well as a poet. It is, I think, certain, that some men have such a peculiar cast of mind, that they see things in another light than men of grave dispositions. Men of a lively imagination, and a mirthful temper, will represent things to their hearers in the same manner as they themselves were affected with them ; and whereas serious spirits might perhaps have been disgusted at the sight of some odd occurrences in life; yet the very same occurrences shall please them in a well-told story, where the disagreeable parts of the images are concealed, and those only which are pleasing exhibited to the fancy. Story-telling is therefore not an art, but what we call a knack;' it doth not so much subsist upon wit as upon humour; and I will add, that it is not perfect without proper gesticulations of the body, which naturally attend such merry emotions of the mind. I know very well, that a certain gravity of countenance sets some stories off to advantage, where the hearer is to be surprised in the end; but this is by no means a general rule; for it is frequently convenient to aid and assist by cheerful looks, and whimsical agitations. I will go yet further, and affirm that the success of a story very often depends upon, the make of the body, and formation of the features, of him who relates it. I have been of this opinion ever since I criticised upon the chin of Dick Dewlap. I very often had the weakness to repine at the prosperity of his conceits, which made him pass for a wit with the widow at the coffee-house, and the ordinary mechanics that frequent it; nor could I myself forbear laughing at them most heartily, though upon examination I thought most of them very flat and insipid. I found after some time, that the merit of his wit was founded upon the shaking of a fat paunch, and the tossing up of a pair of rosy joles. Poor Dick had a fit of sickness, which robbed him of his fat and his fame at once; and it was full three months before he regained his reputation, which rose in proportion to his floridity. He is now very jolly and ingenious, and hath a good constitution for wit. Those who are thus adorned with the gifts of nature, are apt to show their parts with too much ostentation: I would therefore advise all the professors of this art never to tell stories but as they seem to grow out of the subject matter of the conversation, or as they serve to illustrate or enliven it. Stories that are very common are generally irksome; but may be aptly introduced, provided they be only hinted at, and mentioned by way of allusion. Those that are altogether new should never be ushered in without a short and pertinent character of the chief persons concerued; because, by that means, you make the company ac quainted with them; and it is a certain rule, that slight and trivial accounts of those who are familiar to us, administer more mirth, than the brighest points of wit in unknown characters. A little circumstance in the complexion or dress of the man you are talking of sets his image before the hearer, if it be chosen aptly for the story. Thus, I remember Tom Lizard, after having made his sisters merry with an account of a formal old mau's way of complimenting, owned very frankly, that his story would not have been worth one farthing, if he had made the hat of him whom he represented one inch narrower. Besides the marking distinct characters, and selecting pertinent circumstances, it is likewise necessary to leave off in time, and end smartly. So that there is a kind of drama in the forming of a story, and the manner of conducting and pointing it, is the same as in an epigram. It is a miserable thing, after one hath raised the expectation of the company by humorous characters, and a pretty conceit, to pursue the matter too far. There is no retreating, and how poor it is for a storyteller to end his relation by saying, 'that's all!' As the choosing of pertinent circumstances is the life of a story, and that wherein humour principally consists; so the collectors of impertinent particulars are the very bane and opiates of conversation. Old men are great transgressors this way. Poor Ned Poppy,he's gone-was a very honest man, but was so excessively tedious over his pipe, that he was not to be endured. He knew so exactly what they had for dinner; when such a thing happened; in what ditch his bay stone-horse had his sprain at that time, and how his man John, |