Note 13 — PASTORAL POETRY.[1]

In what does the great father of the pastoral excel all others? In "simplicity, and nature." I admit with Pope, but more particularly in one circumstance, which seems to have escaped general attention, and that circumstance is the picturesque. Pope says he is too long in his descriptions, particularly of the cup. Was not Pope, a professed admirer of painting, aware that the description of that cup contains touches of the most delightful and highly-finished landscape? The old fisherman, and the broken rock in one scene; in another, the beautiful contrast of the little boy weaving his rush-work, and so intent on it, that he forgets the vineyard he was set to guard. We see him in the foreground of the piece. Then there is his scrip, and the fox eyeing it askance; the ripe and purple vineyard, and the other fox treading down the grapes whilst he continues at his work. Add to these circumstances the wild and beautiful Sicilian scenery, and where can there be found more perfect landscapes in the works, which these pictures peculiarly resemble, of Vernet or Gainsborough? Considered in this view, how rich, wild, and various are the landscapes of the old Sicilian, and we cannot but wonder that so many striking and original traits should be passed over by a "youthful bard," who professed to select from, and to copy the ancients.—Bowles.