description of political satire, none has attained greater notoriety than Lilliburlero, or better deserved it than the Vicar of Bray. The doggerel stanzas of the former were sung all over England about the time of the landing of William III., and are said to have contributed much to stir up the popular hatred against James. The Vicar of Bray is a witty narrative of the changes in political sentiment which a beneficed clergyman, whose fundamental principle it is to stick to his benefice, might be supposed to undergo between the reigns of Charles II. and George I. The first and the last stanzas are subjoined :

Pastoral Poetry:-Spenser, Browne, Pope, Shenstone.

Of the pastoral poetry of Greece, such as we have it in the exquisite Idyls of Theocritus, our English specimens are but a weak and pale reflection. The true pastoral brings us to the sloping brow of the hill, while the goats

G G

are browsing below; and on a rustic seat, opposite a statue of Priapus, we see the herdsmen singing or piping, yet shunning to try their skill in the mid-day heats, because they fear to anger Pan, who then 'rests, being a-weary, from his hunting.' Even Virgil's Eclogues, graceful and musical as they are, possess but a secondary excellence; they are merely imitations of Theocritus, and do not body forth the real rural life of Italy. The only English poetry which bears the true pastoral stamp is that of Burns and other Scottish writers ;—and for this reason that, like the Greek pastoral, it is founded on reality; it springs out of the actual life and manner of thought of the Scottish peasant. If it is rough-hewn and harsh in comparison with its Southern prototype, that is but saying that the Scottish peasant, though not despicably endowed, is neither intellectually nor æsthetically the equal of the Greek.

The chief pastoral poems that we have, are Spenser's Shepherd's Kalendar, Drayton's Eclogues, Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, and Pope's and Shenstone's Pastorals, besides innumerable shorter pieces. It is scarcely worth while to make extracts. Browne's so-called pastorals ought rather to be classed as descriptive poems, since they are destitute of that dramatic character which the true pastoral (which is, in fact, a rudimentary drama) should always

possess.

Britannia's Pastorals are in two books, each containing five 'songs' or cantos. A thread of narrative runs through them, but does not furnish much that is interesting, either in character or in incident. The conduct of the story of Marina and her lovers is far too discursive. Each song is introduced by an argument,' as in the Faery Queen, and the colouring of the whole work is strongly Spenserian. But the digressions and intercalated discussions on all sorts of matters, chiefly however amatory, make it very tedious reading. A true feeling for natural beauty, a special love for the scenery of his native Devon, and a corresponding power of rich and picturesque description, are Browne's chief merits.

1 Theocritus, Idyl I.

Pope, in the Introduction to his Pastorals, explained his conception of a pastoral poem, as of an ideal picture of the simplicity and virtue,―the artless manners, fresh affections, and natural language of the golden age,―apart alike from courtly refinements and realistic coarseness. In executing this conception he is very happy, especially in the third and fourth pastorals. Shenstone's Pastoral Ballad has some delicately-turned phrases; we subjoin a stanza or two :

When forced the fair nymph to forego,
What anguish I felt at my heart!
Yet I thought-but it might not be so-
'Twas with pain that she saw me depart.
She gazed, as I slowly withdrew;
My path I could hardly discern;
So sweetly she bade me adieu,

I thought that she bade me return.

The nymph proves faithless; and 'disappointment' is the burden of the concluding part or canto of the poem :—

Alas! from the day that we met,
What hope of an end to my woes?

When I cannot endure to forget

The glance that undid my repose.

Yet time may diminish the pain;

The flower, and the shrub, and the tree,
Which I reared for her pleasure in vain,
In time may have comfort for me.

Descriptive Poetry :- Poly-olbion,' 'Cooper's Hill,'
'The Seasons.'

This kind of poetry labours under the want of definite form and scope; it is accumulative, not organic; and consequently is avoided, or but seldom used, by the greater masters of the art. The most bulky specimen of descriptive verse that we possess is Drayton's Poly-olbion; the most celebrated, Thomson's Seasons. The Poly-olbion

is a sort of British gazetteer; it describes the most noted spots or towns in every English county, with historical illustrations. The poem shows great imaginative as well as descriptive power; so that one wonders at the patient industry with which a man, whose gifts qualified him for higher things, must have worked out his dull task. The diction is simple and strong, and tends to the Saxon side of the language, as the following extract shows:— ·

Of Albion's glorious isle, the wonders whilst I write,
The sundry varying soils, the pleasures infinite,
Where heat kills not the cold, nor cold expels the heat,
The calms too mildly small, nor winds too roughly great,
Nor night doth hinder day, nor day the night doth wrong,
The summer not too short, the winter not too long-
What help shall I invoke to aid my muse the while?

Thou genius of the place! this most renowned isle,
Which livedst long before the all-earth-drowning flood,
Whilst yet the earth did swarm with her gigantic brood,
Go thou before me still, thy circling shores about,
Direct my course so right, as with thy hand to show
Which way thy forests range, which way thy rivers flow,
Wise genius, by thy help that so I may descry

How thy fair mountains stand, and how thy valleys lie.

Cooper's Hill, by Sir John Denham, has the beautiful and often-quoted passage descriptive of the Thames :—

Thames the most loved of all the Ocean's sons

By his old sire-to his embraces runs,
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity.

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold,

His genius and less guilty wealth to explore,

Search not his bottom, but survey his shore;
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for the ensuing spring;

Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants over-lay,

Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave;

No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil;
But godlike his unwearied bounty flows;

First loves to do, then loves the good he does;
Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,
But free and common as the sea, or wind,
When he, to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying towers,
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities, plants;
So that to us no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.
O might I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!

Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.

Of Pope's Windsor Forest, Johnson has remarked, 'The design of Windsor Forest is evidently taken from Cooper's Hill, with some attention to Waller's poem on The Park. The objection made by Dennis is the want of plan, or a regular subordination of parts terminating in the principal and original design. There is this want in most descriptive poems; because, as the scenes which they must exhibit successively, are all subsisting at the same time, the order in which they are shown must by necessity be arbitrary, and more is not to be expected from the last part than the first.'

Thomson's Seasons, a poem in blank verse, in four books, bears some resemblance, though no comparison, to Virgil's Georgics. The descriptions of the appearances of nature, the habits of animals, and the manners of men, are generally given with truthful and vivid delineation. The more ambitious flights--if a fine panegyric on Peter the Great be excepted-in which he paints great characters of ancient or modern story, or philosophises, or plays the moralist—are less successful. Even in describing nature, Thomson betrays a signal want of imagination; he saw