Though some of his subjects are not pastoral in themselves, but only
seem to be such, they have a wonderful variety in them, which the Greek
was a stranger to. He exceeds him in regularity and brevity, and falls
short of him in nothing but simplicity and propriety of style; the first
of which perhaps was the fault of his age, and the last of his language.

Among the moderns, their success has been greatest who have most
endeavoured to make these ancients their pattern. The most considerable
genius appears in the famous Tasso, and our Spenser. Tasso in his
'Aminta' has as far excelled all the pastoral writers, as in his
'Gierusalemme' he has outdone the epic poets of his country. But as this
piece seems to have been the original of a new sort of poem--the
pastoral comedy--in Italy, it cannot so well be considered as a copy of
the ancients. Spenser's Calendar, in Mr Dryden's opinion, is the most
complete work of this kind which any nation has produced ever since the
time of Virgil. Not but that he may be thought imperfect in some few
points. His Eclogues are somewhat too long, if we compare them with the
ancients. He is sometimes too allegorical, and treats of matters of
religion in a pastoral style, as the Mantuan had done before him. He has
employed the lyric measure, which is contrary to the practice of the old
poets. His stanza is not still the same, nor always well chosen. This
last may be the reason his expression is sometimes not concise enough:
for the Tetrastic has obliged him to extend his sense to the length of
four lines, which would have been more closely confined in the couplet.

In the manners, thoughts, and characters, he comes near to Theocritus
himself; though, notwithstanding all the care he has taken, he is
certainly inferior in his dialect: for the Doric had its beauty and
propriety in the time of Theocritus; it was used in part of Greece, and