ot too polite
nor too rustic; the thoughts are plain, yet admit a little quickness and
passion.... If we would copy Nature, it may be useful to take this Idea
along with us: that Pastoral is an image of what they call the Golden
Age. So that we are not to describe our shepherds as shepherds at this
day really are, but as they may be conceived then to have been when the
best of men followed the employment.... We must therefore use some
illusion to render a Pastoral delightful, and this consists in exposing
the best side only of a shepherd's life, and in concealing its
miseries."

In his 'Shepherd's Pipe,' a series of 'Eclogues' Browne follows this
plan; but 'Britannia's Pastorals' contains rambling stories of
Hamadryads and Oreads; figures which are too shadowy to seem real, yet
stand in exquisite woodland landscapes. When the story passes to the
yellow sands and "froth-girt rocks," washed by the crisped and curling
waves from "Neptune's silver, ever-shaking breast," or when it touches
the mysteries of the ocean world, over which "Thetis drives her silver
throne," the poet's fancy is as delicate as when he revels in the earthy
smell of the woods, where the leaves, golden and green, hide from sight
the feathered choir; where glow the hips of scarlet berries; where is
heard the dropping of nuts; and where the active bright-eyed squirrels
leap from tree to tree.

The loves, hardships, and adventures of Marina, Celadyne, Redmond, Fida,
Philocel, Aletheia, Metanoia, and Amintas do not hold the reader from
delight in descriptions of the blackbird and dove calling from the dewy
branches; crystal streams lisping through banks purple with violets,
rosy with eglantine, or sweet with wild thyme; thickets where the
rabbits hide; sequestered nooks on which the elms and alders throw long
shadows; circles of green grass made by dancing elves; rounded hills
shut in by oaks, pines, birches, and laurel, where shepherds pipe on
oaten straws, or shag-haired satyrs frolic and sleep; and meadows, whose
carpets of cowslip and mint are freshened daily by nymphs pouring out
gentle streams from crystal urns. Every now and then, huntsmen in green
dash through his sombre woods with their hounds in full cry; anglers are
seated by still pools, shepherds dance around the May-pole, and
shepherdesses gather flowers for garlands. Gloomy caves appear,
surrounded by hawthorn and holly that "outdares cold winter's ire," and
sheltering old hermits, skilled