Note 17 — PASTORAL POETRY.[1]
Reading edition
The Aminta of Tasso is here erroneously mentioned by Pope as the very first pastoral comedy that appeared in Italy. But it is certain that Il Sacrificio of Agostino Beccari was the first, who boasts of it in his prologue, and who died very old in 1590.—Warton.
"There were," says Roscoe, "several writers of pastoral in Italy prior to those mentioned either by Pope or Warton." Roscoe mistook the question, which was, who was the first author of the pastoral drama? None of the prior pastoral writers he enumerates produced a drama, and Warton was right in giving the precedency to Beccari.