How unusual it was can be judged by comparing with the then-current
practices and theories of poetic diction his recommendation of
monosyllables, expletives, the archaic language of Chaucer and Spenser,
and current provincialisms--devices that Gay had used for burlesque--as
means of producing the soft and the tender.

But it is hardly true that Purney's "true kinship is with the
romantics," as Mr. White claims, for there is a wide chasm between a
romantic and a daring and extravagant neoclassicist. Rather, Purney's
search for a subjective psychological basis for criticism is one of the
elements out of which the romantic aesthetics was eventually evolved,
and it frequently led him to conclusions that reappear later in the
eighteenth century.

* * * * *

In addition to editing Purney's pastorals, Mr. H.O. White has published
an exhaustive study of "Thomas Purney, a Forgotten Poet and Critic of
the Eighteenth Century" in _Essays and Studies by Members of the English
Association_, XV (1929), 67-97. University of Illinois.

Earl. R. Wasserman



A FULL ENQUIRY INTO THE TRUE NATURE OF PASTORAL.


The PROEME or first Chapter of which contains a SUMMARY of all that the
CRITICKS, ancient or modern, have hitherto deliver'd on that SUBJECT.