name of good sense; the other is not totally clear of conceits and incongruities. The one is usually termed a Descriptive Poem, but, as I have shewn, has nothing that deserves the title of description; the other is a Pastoral, and in general well preserves the rural character. Dr. Johnson, who, in his account of Cooper's Hill, concurred with the vox populi, has in his account of Lycidas, widely diffented from it. His censure is indeed sufficiently severe. He objects to the form, as that of a pastoral, easy, vulgar, and disgusting. He afferts, that whatever images it can supply, are • long ago exhausted,' and that ' its inhe• rent improbability forces dissatisfaction ' on the mind;' that it cannot be con• fidered as an effusion of real paffion, because paffion runs not after remote 'allusions, or obfcure opinions, rural, imagery, or mythological personages ; that ' it introduces Heathen deities • among among copses, flocks, and flowers;' that ' it combines Pagan and Chriftian characters; and that the dic 6 tion is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, ' and the numbers unpleasing.' This derogatory sentence seems to affect paftoral in general, and to condemn Milton's plan, as well as his execution. The manners of antiquity differed fo widely from ours, that some species of poetry, which to the ancients were just representations of nature, appear to us improbable; fuch poetry nevertheless does not cease to please. There is an inherent improbability in modern tragedy, and in modern pastoral; families do not discourse in blank verse, nor do shepherds converse in rhyme; yet a well written drama, and a well written eclogue, will always be read with delight. Theocrites perhaps gave a picture of genuine Sicilian rural life. Virgil introC4 duced duced himself, and his friend Gallus, in a rustick character, which they never really bore; yet his first and tenth eclogues received the approbation of the Augustan age, and even now have power to command attention. When our above-mentioned ingenious critick thinks that Lycidas cannot be confidered as an effusion of real grief, he seems to have mistaken the nature of the poem. There is an anxiety from apprehenfion of losing a beloved object; and there is a grief immediately subsequent to its actual lofs, which cannot be expressed but in the shortest and simplest manner. There is a grief softened by time, which can recapitulate past pleafures in all their minutiæ of circumstance and situation, and can select such images as are proper to the kind of composition, wherein it chuses to convey itself, It was no sudden impetus of passion, but this mellowed forrow, that effused effused the verses now under confideration. That Milton has introduced Heathen deities among his copses, flocks, and flowers, is perhaps not strictly fact: those personages seem rather to appear only to his supposed shepherd's imagination. That he has connected Heathen and Christian characters in the same poem, is true, but it may be deemed some merit, that he has not grouped them confusedly together; they are viewed in fucceffion, one character is dismissed before the other is produced, and they are all sufficiently distinguished. The irregularity of the rhyme is obviously the effect of design, not of carelessness, and may not please some ears, but the numbers, or component parts of the lines, are in general so musical, that one should think they must please all. Lycidas Lycidas is an elegy on a deceafed friend. The plan of the poem is that of a monody, or soliloquy, in which the speaker episodically introduces matter which he supposes to have heard spoken by others. The monodist begins with an apoftrophe to the laurel, myrtle, and ivy, perhaps confidered as funereal greens. This whatever defects it may have, is certainly poetical: V. r. Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, The |