ous division of his pastorals into months,
has obliged him either to repeat the same description, in other words,
for three months together; or, when it was exhausted before, entirely to
omit it: whence it comes to pass that some of his Eclogues (as the
sixth, eighth, and tenth, for example) have nothing but their titles to
distinguish them. The reason is evident, because the year has not that
variety in it to furnish every month with a particular description, as
it may every season.

Of the following Eclogues I shall only say, that these four comprehend
all the subjects which the critics upon Theocritus and Virgil will allow
to be fit for pastoral: that they have as much variety of description,
in respect of the several seasons, as Spenser's: that in order 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. But
after all, if they have any merit, it is to be attributed to some good
old authors, whose works as I had leisure to study, so I hope I have not
wanted care to imitate.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Written at sixteen years of age.--POPE.

This sensible and judicious discourse written at so early an age is a
more extraordinary production than the Pastorals that follow it. Our
author has chiefly drawn his observations from Rapin, Fontenelle, and
the preface to Dryden's Virgil. A translation of Rapin's Discourse had
been some years before prefixed to Creech's translation of Theocritus,
and is no extraordinary piece of criticism. And though Hume highly
praises the Discourse of Fontenelle, yet Dr. Hurd thinks it only rather
more tolerable than his Pastorals.--WARTON.

Hume had said that there could not be a finer piece of criticism than
Fontenelle's Dissertation on Pastorals, but that the Pastorals
themselves displayed false taste, and did not exemplify the rules laid
down in the criticism.]

[Footnote 2: Fontenelle's Discourse of Pastorals.--POPE.]

[Footnote 3: Heinsius in Theocr.--POPE.]

[Footnote 4: Rapin de Carm. Past., P. 2.--POPE.]

[Footnote 5: I cannot easily discover why it is thought necessary to
refer descriptions of a rural state to the golden age, nor can I
perceive that any writer has consistently preserved the Arcadian manners
and sentiments. The only reason that I have r