ges to the scene of action, is
obvious from the following example of his judgment; for in translating

Audiit Eurotas, jussitque ediscere lauros,

he has dexterously dropped the laurels appropriated to Eurotas, as he is
speaking of the river Thames, and has rendered it

Thames heard the numbers as he flowed along,
And bade his willows learn the moving song.

In the passages which Pope has imitated from Theocritus, and his Latin
translator, Virgil, he has merited but little applause. Upon the whole,
the principal merit of these Pastorals consists in their correct and
musical versification, musical to a degree of which rhyme could hardly
be thought capable, and in giving the truest specimen of that harmony in
English verse, which is now become indispensably necessary, and which
has so forcibly and universally influenced the public ear as to have
obliged every moderate rhymer to be at least melodious. Pope lengthened
the abruptness of Waller, and at the same time contracted the exuberance
of Dryden.--WARTON.

Dr. Johnson does not appear sufficiently attentive to the true character
and nature of pastoral poetry. No doubt it is natural for a young poet
to initiate himself by pastorals; for what youthful heart does not glow
at the descriptions of rural nature, and scenes that accord with its own
innocency and cheerfulness; but although pastorals do not, in the sense
of Dr. Johnson, imitate real life, nor require any great insight into
human passions and characters, yet there are many things necessary in
this species of composition, more than Dr. Johnson seems to require. The
chief thing is an eye for picturesque and rural scenery, and an intimate
acquaintance with those minute and particular appearances of nature,
which alone can give a lively and original colour to the painting of
pastoral poetry. To copy the common descriptions of spring or summer,
morning or evening, or to iterate from Virgil the same complaints of
the same shepherds, is not surely to write pastoral poetry. It is also
difficult to conceive where is "the close thought" with which Johnson
says Pope's Pastorals are composed. They are pleasing as copies of "the
poems of antiquity," although they exhibit no striking taste in the
"selection," and they certainly exhibit a series of musical
versification, which, till their appearance, had no precedent in English
poetry. If in particular passages, I have ventured to remark that Pope
has introduced