never to walk over Mountains without his Shooes, the Idyllium presently concludes, a thing which those who are not conversant with Antiquity, would scarce have believ'd possible.
When in a Pastoral Strife one says, Ho! My Goats go on the Brow of yonder Hill; and the other answers, Go, my Sheep, feed on to the Eastward.
Or, I hate the brush-tail'd Fox, which comes at Night and devours our Grapes; and the other, I hate the Beetles that Eat the Figs.
Or, when one says, I have made my self a Bed with Cow's Skins near a cool Stream,
And there I value Summer's burning Heats,
No more than Children do their Fathers Threats,
Their Mothers kind Complaints, &c.
And the other answers, I live in a large shady Cave, where
Soft Chitterlings afford me pleasing Food,
And when the Winter comes I'm stor'd with wood;
So that I value cold no more, not I,
Than toothless Men do Nuts when Pap is by.
May not these Discourses be thought too Clownish, and fitter to be spoken by real Country Fellows than by such Shepherds as are introduc'd in Eclogues?
Virgil, who having had the Example of Theocritus before his Eyes, has had an opportunity to outdo him, hath made his Shepherds more polite and agreeable. Any one who compares his third Eclogue with that of Laco and Comatas in Theocritus will easily find how well he cou'd rectifie and surpass what he did imitate: Not but that he still somewhat too much resembles Theocritus, when he loses some time in making his Pastors say,
Beware the Stream, drive not the Sheep too nigh,
The Bank may fail, the Ram is hardly dry.
And, Kids from the River drive, and sling your Hook,
Anon I'll wash them in the shallow Brook.
And, Boys, drive to Shades, when Milk is drain'd by heat,
In vain the Milk-Maid stroaks an empty Teat.
All this is the less pleasing considering that it comes after some tender things which are very pretty and genteel, and which have made the Reader the more unfit to relish such things as altogether relate to the Country.
Calpurnius
