Part 5 (2/2)

Of the three sorts or kinds of Beautiful Images, the first, and least delightful is, where only a simple Image is exhibited to the Reader's Mind. As of a Fair Shepherdess.

The second Sort is, where there is the Addition of the Scene; as suppose we give the Picture of the fair Shepherdess, sitting on the Banks of a pleasant streamlet.

The third, and finest kind of Beautiful Images is, where the Picture contain's a still further Addition of action. As, the Image of a fair Shepherdess, on the Banks of a pleasant Stream asleep, and her innocent Lover harmlessly smoothing her Cloaths as flutter'd by the Wind. And the most beautiful Image in Phillips, or I think any Pastoral-Writer, is of this Nature.

_Once_ Delia _lay, on easy Moss reclin'd; Her lovely Limbs half bare, and rude the Wind.

I smooth'd her Coats, and stole a silent Kiss; Condemn me, Shepherds, if I did amiss_.

_Past_. 5.

The last Line contains a Pastoral Thought, of the best Sort; as the three first a Pastoral Image.

The middle of this last Pastoral is full of beautiful Images, and has therefore proved so Entertaining to all Readers, that I wonder Mr.

Phillips would not give us the Beautiful in his four first Pieces also.

Of all the Persons who have written in the English Language, no one ever had a Mind so well form'd by Nature for Pleasurable Writing, as Spencer.

Yet as he wrote his Pastorals when very Young, this does not appear so much from them, as from his Fairy Queen; thro' which, (like Ovid, in his Metamorphoses) he has perpetually recourse to Pastoral. Especially in his Second Book; in which there are more pleasurable Pastoral Images in every eight Lines, than in all his Pastorals. We have Knights basking in the Sun by a pleasant Stream, rambling among the Shepherdesses, entering delightful Groves surrounded with Trees, or the like, almost in every Stanza; but thro' all his Pastorals, we have not half a dozen beautiful Images. 'Tis therefore the Pastoral Language that support's 'em, which he took excessive pains about.

CHAP. III.

_Of Pastoral Descriptions. And what Authors have the finest_.

Of Images are form'd Descriptions, as by a Combination of Thoughts a Speech is composed. And a Description is good or bad, chiefly as the Images or Circ.u.mstances are judiciously, or otherwise, chosen; and artfully put together.

As to the putting them together, I shall only observe, that in Descriptions of the Heat of Love, not in Pastoral, but in such Pieces as Sapho's, or the like, the Circ.u.mstances should be couch'd extreamly close; in Epick Poetry the Circ.u.mstances should be somewhat less closely heap'd together; and that Pastoral requires 'em the most diffuse of any; being of a Nature extreamly calm and sedate.

Hence we may learn what Length Pastoral will admit of in it's Descriptions. And certain it is, that as we are easily wearied by a cold Speech, so are we by a cold Description, unless very concise.

But as those Poets whose Minds have delighted in Pastoral Images have always been Men of Pleasurable Fancies, and who never would bring their Minds under the Regulation of Art; all who have touch'd Pastoral the finest have egregiously offended in this Particular. The only Writers, I think, who have ever had Genius's form'd for Pastoral Images, are _Ovid_ and _Spencer_; which appear's from the _Metamorphoses_ of the first, and the _Fairy-Queen_ of the latter. As for _Theocritus_, he seem's to me to be better in the Pastoral Thought than Image; and as I rank together _Ovid_ and _Spencer_, so I put _Theocritus_ in the same Cla.s.s with _Otway_. And I think any one of these Four, if he had form'd his Mind aright by Art, (that is, had either thoroughly understood Criticism in all it's Branches, or else never vitiated his natural Genius by any Learning) was capable of giving the World a perfect Sett of Pastorals.

The former two would have run most upon beautiful Images, and the latter two upon Agreeable Thoughts.

I need not instance in the tedious Descriptions of _Theocritus_, _Ovid_ and _Spencer_. But certainly, if long Descriptions are faulty in Epick Poetry, as they prevent the Curiosity of the Reader, and leave him nothing to invent, or to imploy his own Mind upon, they are in Pastoral much more disagreeable. Tho' if any thing would excuse a long Description, there is in _Ovid_ and _Spencer_, that inimitable Delightfulness, which would make 'em pa.s.s. Virgil has no Descriptions in his Pastorals so long as Spencer, and Heavens deliver us if he had; for as 'tis, I can better read the longest of _Spencer_'s, than the shortest of his, in his Pastorals.

SECT. 2.

_The proper Length for Descriptions adjusted, from several Considerations_.

What I have laid down seem's in its self plain and evident; but because _Rapin_, and some other Criticks, famous for the Niceness of their Judgments, have made it a considerable Question, and at last own'd themselves unable to decide it, I shall further consider the Matter.

'Tis best, I think, only just to exhibit the Picture of an Object to the Reader's Mind; for if 'tis rightly set and well given, he will himself supply the minute Particulars better to please himself than any Poet can do; as no different Fancies are equally delighted with one and the same thing, the Poet in an extended Description must needs. .h.i.t upon many Circ.u.mstances not pleasant to every Fancy; even tho' he touches all the best Particulars. But if the Poet only set's the Image in the finest Light, by enumerating two or three Circ.u.mstances, the Reader's Mind in that very instant it sees the Image or Picture, fill's up all the Omissions with such Particulars, as are most suitable to it's own single Fancy. Which farther conceives something beyond, and something out of the way, if all is not told. Whereas descending to Particulars cool's the Mind, which in those Cases ever finds less than it expected.

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