The addition he has made of a
Calendar to his Eclogues, is very beautiful; since by this, besides the
general moral of innocence and simplicity, which is common to other
authors of pastoral, he has one peculiar to himself--he compares human
life to the several seasons, and at once exposes to his readers a view
of the great and little worlds, in their various changes and aspects.
Yet the scrupulous division of his pastorals into months has obliged him
either to repeat the same description, in other words, for three months
together; or, when it was exhausted before, entirely to omit it: whence
it comes to pass that some of his Eclogues (as the sixth, eighth, and
tenth, for example) have nothing but their titles to distinguish them.
The reason is evident--because the year has not that variety in it to
furnish every month with a particular description, as it may every
season.
Of the following eclogues I shall only say, that these four comprehend
all the subjects which the critics upon Theocritus and Virgil will allow
to be fit for pastoral: that they have as much variety of description,
in respect of the several seasons, as Spenser's: that, in order to add
to this variety, the several times of the day are observed, the rural
employments in each season or time of day, and the rural scenes or
places proper to such employments; not without some regard to the
several ages of man, and the different passions proper to each age.
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