s borrowed from rural objects are not only much in
character, but perfectly natural and expressive. There is,
notwithstanding, this defect in the former, that it wants a peculiar
propriety; for purity of thought may as well be applied to chastity as
to modesty; and from this instance, as well as from a thousand more, we
may see the necessity of distinguishing, in characteristic poetry, every
object by marks and attributes peculiarly its own.

It cannot be objected to this eclogue, that it wants both those
essential criteria of the pastoral, love and the drama; for though it
partakes not of the latter, the former still retains an interest in it,
and that too very material, as it professedly consults the virtue and
happiness of the lover, while it informs what are the qualities

----that must lead to love.

ECLOGUE II.

All the advantages that any species of poetry can derive from the
novelty of the subject and scenery, this eclogue possesses. The
route of a camel-driver is a scene that scarce could exist in the
imagination of a European, and of its attendant distresses he could
have no idea.--These are very happily and minutely painted by our
descriptive poet. What sublime simplicity of expression! what
nervous plainness in the opening of the poem!

"In silent horror o'er the boundless waste
The driver Hassan with his camels past."

The magic pencil of the poet brings the whole scene before us at once,
as it were by enchantment; and in this single couplet we feel all the
effect that arises from the terrible wildness of a region unenlivened by
the habitations of men. The verses that describe so minutely the
camel-driver's little provisions have a touching influence on the
imagination, and prepare the reader to enter more feelingly into his
future apprehensions of distress:

"Bethink thee, Hassan, where shall thirst assuage,
When fails this cruise, his unrelenting rage!"

It is difficult to say whether his apostrophe to the "mute companions of
his toils" is more to be admired for the elegance and beauty of the
poetical imagery, or for the tenderness and humanity of the sentiment.
He who can read it without being affected, will do his heart no
injustice if he concludes it to be destitute of sensibility:

"Ye mute companions of my toils, that bear
In all my griefs a more than equal share!
Here, where no springs in murmurs break away,
Or moss-crown'd fountains mitigate the day,
In vain