high in the ranks of literature. His play was applauded;
his translations from Sappho had been published in the Spectator; he was
an important and distinguished associate of clubs, witty and political;
and nothing was wanting to his happiness, but that he should be sure of
its continuance.

The work which had procured him the first notice from the publick, was
his Six Pastorals, which, flattering the imagination with Arcadian
scenes, probably found many readers, and might have long passed as a
pleasing amusement, had they not been, unhappily, too much commended.

The rustick poems of Theocritus were so highly valued by the Greeks and
Romans, that they attracted the imitation of Virgil, whose eclogues seem
to have been considered as precluding all attempts of the same kind;
for, no shepherds were taught to sing by any succeeding poet, till
Nemesian and Calphurnius ventured their feeble efforts in the lower age
of Latin literature.

At the revival of learning in Italy, it was soon discovered, that a
dialogue of imaginary swains might be composed with little difficulty;
because the conversation of shepherds excludes profound or refined
sentiment; and, for images and descriptions, satyrs and fawns, and
naiads and dryads, were always within call; and woods and meadows, and
hills and rivers, supplied variety of matter, which; having a natural
power to sooth the mind, did not quickly cloy it.

Petrarch entertained the learned men of his age with the novelty of
modern pastorals in Latin. Being not ignorant of Greek, and finding
nothing in the word _eclogue_, of rural meaning, he supposed it to be
corrupted by the copiers, and, therefore, called his own productions
_oeglogues_, by which he meant to express the talk of goatherds, though
it will mean only the talk of goats. This new name was adopted by
subsequent writers, and, amongst others, by our Spenser.

More than a century afterwards, 1498, Mantuan published his Bucolicks
with such success, that they were soon dignified by Badius with a
comment, and, as Scaliger complained, received into schools, and taught
as classical; his complaint was vain, and the practice, however
injudicious, spread far, and continued long. Mantuan was read, at least
in some of the inferiour schools of this kingdom, to the beginning of
the present century. The speakers of Mantuan carried their disquisitions
beyond the country, to censure the corruptions of the church; and from
him Spenser learned