'Tis true that Theocritus hath an Idyllium of two Fishermen; but it doth not seem to me so beautiful as to have deserv'd to tempt any Man to write one of that kind. The subject of it is this; Two old Fishermen had but sparingly supp'd together in a wretched little Thatcht-house, by the Sea-side: One of them wakes his Bedfellow to tell him, he had just dreamt that he was catching a Golden Fish; and the other answers him, that he might starve though he had really caught such a one. Was this worth writing an Eclogue!
However, though none but Shepherds were introduc'd in Eclogues, 'tis impossible but that the Life of Shepherds which after all is yet very Clownish must sessen and debase their Wit, and hinder their being as ingenious, nice, and full of gallantry as they are commonly represented in Pastorals. The famous Lord D'urfé's Astræa seems a less fabulous Romance than Amadis de gaule; yet I fansie that in the main it is as incredible, as to the politeness and graces of his Shepherds, as Amadis can be as to all its Enchantments, all its Fairies, and the Extravagance of its adventures. How comes it then that Pastorals please in spight of the falsity of the Characters, which ought always to shock us? Could we be pleased with seeing some Courtiers represented as having a Clownishness which should resemble that of real Shepherds as much as the Gallantry which Shepherds have in Pastorals resembles that of Courtiers? No, doubtless; but indeed that Character of the Shepherds is not false after all, if we look upon it one way: For we do not mind the meanness of the Concerns that are their real Employment, but the little trouble which those Concerns bring. This meanness would wholly exclude Ornaments and Gallantry, but on the other hand the quiet state promotes them; and 'tis only on that tranquility that whatever pleases in a Pastoral Life is grounded.
Our Imagination is not to be pleased without Truth; but it is not very hard to please it; for, often 'tis satisfied with a kind of half Truth. Let it see only the half of a Thing, but let that half be shown in a lively manner, then it will hardly bethink it self that you hide from it the other half, and you may thus deceive it as long as you please, since all the while it imagines that this single moiety, with the Thoughts of which it is taken up, is the whole Thing. The Illusion and at the same time the pleasingness of Pastorals therefore consists in exposing to the Eye only the Tranquility of a Shepherd's Life, and in dissembling or concealing its meanness, as also in showing only its Innocence and hiding its Miseries; so that I do not comprehend why Theocritus dwelt so much upon its Miseries and Clownishness.
If those who are resolved to find no faults in the Ancients, tell us that Theocritus had a mind to draw Nature just such as it is, I hope that according to those principles, we shall have some Idyllia of Porters, or Watermen discoursing together of their particular Concerns:Which
