.

In the _Guardian_, Addison has stated, with his wonted lucidity and
perspicuity, those mechanical rules to which, in his idea, the type of
poetry termed 'pastoral' should conform. He maintained it should be a
reflection, more or less faithful, of the manners of men 'before they
were formed into large societies, cities built, or communities
established, where plenty begot pleasure.' In other words, that 'an
imaginary Golden Age should be evolved by each poet out of his inner
consciousness.' Then the Ursa Major of criticism, Dr. Johnson, after
growling at all preceding critics on the subject, and remarking that
'the rustic poems of Theocritus and the eclogues of Virgil precluded in
antiquity all imitation, until the weak productions of Nemesian and
Calphurnius, in the Brazen Age of Latin literature,' proceeds to say:
'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.' Rapin, in his _De Carmine Pastorali_, observes: ''Tis hard
to give rules for that in which there have been none already given. Yet
in this difficulty I will follow Aristotle's example, who, being to lay
down rules concerning epics, proposed Homer as a pattern, from whom he
deduced the whole art. So will I gather from Theocritus and Virgil,
those fathers of pastoral, what I deliver on this account, their
practice being rules in itself.' And Pope, in his _Discourse on Pastoral
Poetry_, says: 'Since the instructions given for any art are to be
delivered as that art is in perfection, they must of necessity be
derived from those in whom it is acknowledged so to be. It is therefore
from the practice of Theocritus and Virgil (the only undisputed authors
of pastoral) that the critics have drawn the foregoing notions
concerning it.' And Boileau, in his _Art Poetique_, after cautioning
writers of pastoral against the introduction of bombast splendour or
pomp on the one hand, and the use of low and mean language on the other,
making shepherds converse _comme on parle au village_, observes that
'the path between the two extremes is very difficult'; while Dryden, in
his preface to Virgil's _Pastorals_, defines pastoral to be 'the
imitation of a shepherd considered under that character.' Finally, to
quote Dr. Johnson once more, he remarks, in his _Lives of the Poets_,
'truth and exactness of imitation, to s