eds him in regularity and
brevity, and falls short of him in nothing but simplicity and propriety
of style; the first of which perhaps was the fault of his age, and the
last of his language.

Among the moderns, their success has been greatest who have most
endeavoured to make these ancients their pattern. The most considerable
genius appears in the famous Tasso, and our Spenser. Tasso in his Aminta
has far excelled all the pastoral writers, as in his Gierusalemme he has
outdone the epic poets of his country. But as this piece seems to have
been the original of a new sort of poem, the pastoral comedy, in Italy,
it cannot so well be considered as a copy of the ancients.[17] Spenser's
Calendar, in Mr. Dryden's opinion, is the most complete work of this
kind which any nation has produced ever since the time of Virgil.[18]
Not but that he may be thought imperfect in some few points. His
Eclogues are somewhat too long, if we compare them with the
ancients.[19] He is sometimes too allegorical, and treats of matters of
religion in a pastoral style, as the Mantuan had done before him. He has
employed the lyric measure, which is contrary to the practice of the old
poets. His stanza is not still the same, nor always well chosen. This
last may be the reason his expression is sometimes not concise enough:
for the tetrastic has obliged him to extend his sense to the length of
four lines, which would have been more closely confined in the couplet.

In the manners, thoughts, and characters, he comes near to Theocritus
himself; though, notwithstanding all the care he has taken, he is
certainly inferior in his dialect: for the Doric had its beauty and
propriety in the time of Theocritus; it was used in part of Greece, and
frequent in the mouths of many of the greatest persons, whereas the old
English and country phrases of Spenser were either entirely obsolete, or
spoken only by people of the lowest condition.[20] As there is a
difference betwixt simplicity and rusticity, so the expression of simple
thoughts should be plain, but not clownish. The addition he has made of
a calendar to his Eclogues, is very beautiful; since by this, besides
the general moral of innocence and simplicity, which is common to other
authors of pastoral, he has one peculiar to himself; he compares human
life to the several seasons, and at once exposes to his readers a view
of the great and little worlds, in their various changes and
aspects.[21] Yet the scrupul