Note 20 — PASTORAL POETRY.[1]
Reading edition
Johnson remarks that while the notion that rustic characters ought to use rustic phraseology, led to the adoption in pastorals "of a mangled dialect which no human being ever could have spoken," the authors had the inconsistency to invest their personages with a refinement of thought which was incompatible with coarse and vulgar diction. "Spenser," he continues, "begins one of his pastorals with studied barbarity:
Diggon Davie, I bid her good day; Or Diggon her is, or I missay. Dig. Her wus her while it was day-light, But now her is a most wretched wight.
What will the reader imagine to be the subject on which speakers like these exercise their eloquence? Will he not be somewhat disappointed when he finds them met together to condemn the corruptions of the church of Rome? Surely at the same time that a shepherd learns theology, he may gain some acquaintance with his native language."