Pastoral

something that relates shepherds, pastores. The poets represent the innocence ofa pastoral life, and_ pastoral manners, in the most agreeable light. We must not imagine them so beautiful in nature as in their descriptions. PasTORAL,/in poetry, denotes a compos i- tion the subject whereof is something in the pastoral, or at least in rural life, and the per=° sons shepherds, or at least rustics. Most authors, except the English, esteem pastoral of the dramatic’ kind; and define ita dramatic piece, wherein the persons are clad like nymphs and shepherds, and act their own amours. he scene is always in the fields or the woods; whence ‘['as so calls pastoral, favola boscareccia. Such are the Pastor, Fido, of Guarini; the Aminta, of Ta o; the Sylvia, of Mairet, the French poet; and the Comus, of Milton, . Ta o a umes to himself the honour of having invented pastoral; but the first idea of this kind of drama seems to be Beceari’s, who made the first attempt of this kind in 1552. But Ta o’s Aminta, which did not appear till the year 1573, effacing what had been done by eccari, the first author was forgot, and Ta o was left as the inventor. It is certain this kind of pastoral fable, com- posed according to the rules of the stage, was unknown among the ancients. The Greeks and Latins have indeed introduced shepherds in their eclogues; but these eclogues had no- thing theatrical in them; nor were the shep- herds ever brought upon the stage. ‘his kind of dramatic pastoral is as yet but little known among us: nor have we any thing considerable under the title pastorals, but country pieces after the manner of the eclogues or idyl lions of the ancients. Every pastoral, even in this last view, should have a little plot or fable, which may deserve the title of a pastoral scene. It must be simple, and but one; yet not so as to refuse all digre ions, provided they be but short. This rule of the plot is every where observed by Virgil. _ Pa’storat. (pastoral is, Latin.) Raral; rustic; beseeming shepherds; imitating shepherds (Sidney). 2. Relating to the _ care of souls (Hooker).