side,[2] said to
him in his agreeable manner, "You have put your friends here in a very
ridiculous light, as will be seen when it is understood, as it soon must
be, that you were only laughing at the admirers of Philips." But this
ill conduct of Philips occasioned a more open ridicule of his Pastorals
in the mock poem called the Shepherd's Week, written by Gay. But though
more open, the object of it was ill understood[3] by those who were
strangers to the quarrel. These mistook the Shepherd's Week for a
burlesque of Virgil's Pastorals. How far this goes towards a vindication
of Philips's simple painting, let others judge.--WARBURTON.

In 1704 Pope wrote his Pastorals, which were shown to the poets and
critics of that time. As they well deserved, they were read with
admiration, and many praises were bestowed upon them and upon the
preface, which is both elegant and learned in a high degree. They were,
however, not published till five years afterwards. Cowley, Milton, and
Pope are distinguished among the English poets by the early exertion of
their powers; but the works of Cowley alone were published in his
childhood, and, therefore, of him only can it be certain that his
juvenile performances received no improvement from his maturer studies.
The Pastorals were at last printed [1709] in Tonson's Miscellany, in a
volume which began with the Pastorals of Philips, and ended with those
of Pope. It seems natural for a young poet to initiate himself by
pastorals, which, not professing to imitate real life, require no
experience, and exhibiting only the simple operation of unmingled
passions, admit no subtle reasoning or deep inquiry. Pope's Pastorals
are not, however, composed but with close thought; they have reference
to the time of the day, the seasons of the year, and the periods of
human life. The last, that which turns the attention upon age and death,
was the author's favourite. To tell of disappointment and misery, to
thicken the darkness of futurity, and perplex the labyrinth of
uncertainty, has been always a delicious employment of the poets. His
preference was probably just. I wish, however, that his fondness had not
overlooked the line in which the _Zephyrs_ are made _to lament in
silence_. To charge these pastorals with want of invention is to require
what was never intended. The imitations are so ambitiously frequent that
the writer evidently means rather to show his literature than his wit.
It is surely sufficien