xaggeration of fervid passion, but both grief and love are
without the semblance of genuine feeling, and only excited the derision
of those who looked for a meaning beneath the glitter of words. "Pray
tell me the name of him I love," wrote Lady Mary Pierrepont, afterwards
the celebrated Lady Mary Wortley, "that I may sigh to the woods and
groves hereabouts, and teach it to the echo. Above all, let me know
whether it is most proper to walk in the woods, increasing the winds
with my sighs, or to sit by a purling stream, swelling the rivulet with
my tears."[13] This happy ridicule of a style of composition, which Pope
acknowledged ought "to be full of the greatest simplicity, in nature,"
was written a few months after the Pastorals were published, and appears
to have been suggested by them. The clever girl drew her notions from
life, and the perceptions of the young author were sophisticated by
books. Bowles believed that Pope was influenced "by the false taste of
Cowley at that time prevalent." Cowley's popularity, however, had ceased
for some years; the fashion he set had passed away; and Dryden reigned
in his stead. "He is sunk in his reputation," said this illustrious
successor in 1700, "because he could never forego any conceit which came
in his way, but swept, like a drag-net, great and small. For this
reason, though he must always be thought a great poet, he is no longer
esteemed a good writer, and for ten impressions which his works have had
in many successive years, yet at present a hundred books are scarcely
purchased once a twelvemonth."[14] The conceits in Pope's Pastorals were
derived from other sources. He took little from Cowley, and borrowed
none of his peculiarities.

Pope says, in his Discourse, that his Pastorals "have as much variety in
respect of the several seasons as Spenser's; that to add to this
variety, the several times of the day are observed, the rural
employments in each season or time of day, and the rural scenes or
places proper to such employments, not without some regard to the
several ages of man, and the different passions proper to each age."
Johnson has in consequence accorded to the Pastorals the praise of being
composed with "close thought;" but the conception was very imperfectly
executed, and in part is puerile. Spring and morning, summer and noon,
autumn and evening, winter and night, are coupled together, as if each
season was specially characterised by a single portion of the day