A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral | Page 7

solid Reason for the Writers performing such a Work; and that is the raising Pity, without which no End is obtain'd by such a Dialogue. And 'tis only a School-Boy tryal of Wit; like a single Description. Unless the Poet think's it enough that the Scene is laid in the Country, and the very Talk of Shepherds is enough to support a Piece. And the truth is, of a Nature so exceeding pleasant is Pastoral, that a Piece which has but Fields and Hedges repeated pretty often in it, is at least tolerable; whereas in any other Poetry, we see every day far better Poems cast out of the World as soon as they enter into it. But another reason of their Success proceeds from the little Knowledge most People have of Pastoral; all Poets having gone in exactly the same Track, without one endeavouring to raise the Poem to any greater Perfection than they found it in; whereas Epick Poetry, Tragedy, and Comedy, arriv'd by slow degrees to the Perfection they now bear; and this Writer still went beyond the last of an equal Genius.
But I was going to give an Instance how incapable these Pieces are of raising the Passions. A mournful Dialogue, or Elegy is formed upon the Death of some Person. But if this Elegy raises not our Pity, 'tis a Trifle, and only a childish Copy of Verses. But in order to raise that most delightful Passion, should not the Reader be first prepossess'd in favour of the Party dead? Can I pity a Person because deceas'd, without knowing any thing of his while alive?
'Tis the same in that other well-known way of drawing up a Pastoral. I mean, where two Shepherds sing alternately. Theocritus haply light upon this, and every Pastoral Writer since his time, (that I have seen) has been so unfortunate as to happen exactly upon the same. And I believe it has as often been indifferent to the Readers which of the Shepherds overcame. Our Joy in this Case is equal to our Grief in the other.
SECT. 4.
_From the length by Nature prescribed to all Pieces, Epick, Tragick, &c. is shown, That Pastoral will, at least, admit of the Length of three or four hundred Lines_.
Thus far of the Necessity of extending a Pastoral to the Length of three or four hundred Lines, if we would not deprive our selves of the Opportunities of being as delightful as Poetry will permit. But if any Commentator, who think's himself oblig'd to defend Theocritus and Virgil in every particular, should not only not allow this Length to be preferable, but even condemn it as faulty, it would oblige us to come more close to the Point, and to take the Question from the bottom. What is the Length by Nature fix'd for all Pieces? And why mayn't an Epick be as short as a Tragick Poem? Methink's a Poet should not be content to take these things on Trust, and tye himself down to Brevity or Length only because Theocritus wrote short and Homer long Pieces.
I have not Leisure to enter fully into this Question, but would recommend it to some Person who has, as a Subject that would prove as Entertaining to the Reader as the Writer. However, I shall speak just what I have at present in my Mind upon it.
Without considering Tragedy as drawn into Representation, it is plain it would not endure the Length of Epick Poetry, without being wearious in the Reading, for these Reasons among others: It's Nature is more heated and violent than the Epick Poem, and consists of only Dialogue; whereas the former has the Variety of Dialogue and Narration both. Besides, the under-actions which work up to the main Action in Heroick Poetry, are each as great and as different from each other, as the main Actions of different Tragedies.
Nor would Pastoral bear the Length of even Tragedy. For it admits not both those two kinds of Writing, the Sublime and the Beautiful, which are the most different of any in Nature, having only the last. But these two give so sweet a variety to the same Piece, when they are artfully blended together, that a good Tragedy or Epick Poem can never tire. Soon as we begin to be sated and cloy'd with Passion and Sublime Images, the Poet changes the Scene; all is, on a sudden soft and beautiful, and we seem in another World.
Yet is Pastoral by no means ty'd down by nature to the Length used by Theocritus and all his Followers. 'Tis only Example has introduc'd that Method. For, 'tis a Poem capable of raising two Passions, and those tho' all consistent with one another, yet what raise Pleasures, the most widely different of any, in the Mind. When