With bad Eclogues I am sufficiently acquainted, from Tityrus and Corydon down to our English Strephons and Thirsises. No kind of poetry can boast of more illustrious names or is more distinguished by the servile dulness of imitated nonsense. Pastoral writers “more silly than their sheep” have like their sheep gone on in the same track one after another. Gay stumbled into a new path. His eclogues were the only ones that interested me when I was a boy, and did not know they were burlesque. The subject would furnish matter for a long essay, but this is not the place for it. How far poems requiring almost a colloquial plainness of language may accord with the public taste I am doubtful. They have been subjected to able criticism and revised with care. I have endeavoured to make them true to nature. Eclogue I ­ The Old Mansion House _Stranger_. Old friend! why you seem bent on parish duty, Breaking the highway stones,—and ’tis a task Somewhat too hard methinks for age like yours. _Old Man_. Why yes! for one with such a weight of years Upon his back. I’ve lived here, man and boy, In this same parish, near the age of man For I am hard upon threescore and ten. I can remember sixty years ago The beautifying of this mansion here When my late Lady’s father, the old Squire Came to the estate. _Stranger_. Why then you have outlasted All his improvements, for you see they’re making Great alterations here. _Old Man_. Aye-great indeed! And if my poor old Lady could rise up— God rest her soul! ’twould grieve her to behold The wicked work is here. _Stranger_. They’ve set about it In right good earnest. All the front is gone, Here’s to be turf they tell me, and a road Round to the door. There were some yew trees too Stood in the court. _Old Man_. Aye Master! fine old trees! My grandfather could just remember back When they were planted there. It was my task To keep them trimm’d, and ’twas a pleasure to me! All strait and smooth, and like a great green wall! My poor old Lady many a time would come And tell me where to shear, for she had played In childhood under them, and ’twas her pride To keep them in their beauty. Plague I say On their new-fangled whimsies! we shall have A modern shrubbery here stuck full of firs And your pert poplar trees;—I could as soon Have plough’d my father’s grave as cut them down!