that he should be sure of its continuance. The work which had
procured him the first notice from the public was his "Six
Pastorals," which, flattering the imagination with Arcadian scenes,
probably found many readers, and might have long passed as a
pleasing amusement had they not been unhappily too much commended.

The rustic poems of Theocritus were so highly valued by the Greeks
and Romans that they attracted the imitation of Virgil, whose
Eclogues seem to have been considered as precluding all attempts of
the same kind; for no shepherds were taught to sing by any
succeeding poet, till Nemesian and Calphurnius ventured their feeble
efforts in the lower age of Latin literature.

At the revival of learning in Italy it was soon discovered that a
dialogue of imaginary swains might be composed with little
difficulty, because the conversation of shepherds excludes profound
or refined sentiment; and for images and descriptions, satyrs and
fauns, and naiads and dryads, were always within call; and woods and
meadows, and hills and rivers, supplied variety of matter, which,
having a natural power to soothe the mind, did not quickly cloy it.

Petrarch entertained the learned men of his age with the novelty of
modern pastorals in Latin. Being not ignorant of Greek, and finding
nothing in the word "eclogue" of rural meaning, he supposed it to be
corrupted by the copiers, and therefore called his own productions
"AEglogues," by which he meant to express the talk of goat-herds,
though it will mean only the talk of goats. This new name was
adopted by subsequent writers, and among others by our Spenser.

More than a century afterwards (1498) Mantuan published his Bucolics