ended.

The rustic poems of Theocritus were so highly valued by the Greeks and
Romans that they attracted the imitation of Virgil, whose Eclogues seem
to have been considered as precluding all attempts of the same kind; for
no shepherds were taught to sing by any succeeding poet, till Nemesian
and Calphurnius ventured their feeble efforts in the lower age of Latin
literature.

At the revival of learning in Italy it was soon discovered that a
dialogue of imaginary swains might be composed with little difficulty,
because the conversation of shepherds excludes profound or refined
sentiment; and for images and descriptions, satyrs and fauns, and naiads
and dryads, were always within call; and woods and meadows, and hills
and rivers, supplied variety of matter, which, having a natural power to
soothe the mind, did not quickly cloy it.

Petrarch entertained the learned men of his age with the novelty of
modern pastorals in Latin. Being not ignorant of Greek, and finding
nothing in the word "eclogue" of rural meaning, he supposed it to be
corrupted by the copiers, and therefore called his own productions
"AEglogues," by which he meant to express the talk of goat-herds,
though it will mean only the talk of goats. This new name was adopted by
subsequent writers, and among others by our Spenser.

More than a century afterwards (1498) Mantuan published his Bucolics
with such success that they were soon dignified by Badius with a
comment, and, as Scaliger complained, received into schools, and
taught as classical; his complaint was vain, and the practice, however
injudicious, spread far and continued long. Mantuan was read, at least
in some of the inferior schools of this kingdom, to the beginning of
the present century. The speakers of Mantuan carried their disquisitions
beyond the country to censure the corruptions of the Church, and from
him Spenser learned to employ his swains on topics of controversy.
The Italians soon transferred pastoral poetry into their own language.
Sannazaro wrote "Arcadia" in prose and verse; Tasso and Guarini wrote
"Favole Boschareccie," or Sylvan Dramas; and all nations of Europe
filled volumes with Thyrsis and Damon, and Thestylis and Phyllis.

Philips thinks it "somewhat strange to conceive how, in an age so
addicted to the Muses, pastoral poetry never comes to be so much as
thought upon." His wonder seems very unseasonable; there had never, from
the time of Spenser, wanted writers to talk occa