_Silvia_, when she found her lover thus miraculously preserved from the cruel death, to which her barbarity had prompted him to expose himself. Yet, the fable of the _Aminta_, unnatural and undramatic, as it is, has the merit of simplicity. That of the _Pastor Fido_, equally unnatural and incredible, has the additional demerit of being complicated as well as absurd. The distress of _Amyntas_, arising from an adequate and natural cause--rejected love, excites our sympathy; but the distress in the _Pastor Fido_ is altogether chimerical; we have no sympathy with the calamities arising from the indignation of _Diana_, or the supposed necessity of accomplishing the absurd and whimsical response of an _oracle_. We cannot be affected by the passions of fictitious beings. The love of a _satyr_ has nothing in it but what is odious and disgusting. The defects of these celebrated poems have arisen from the erroneous idea entertained by their authors, that the province of this species of poetry was not to imitate nature, but to paint that chimerical state of society, which is termed the _golden age_. _Mr. Addison_, who, in the Guardian, has treated the subject of pastoral poetry at considerable length, has drawn his critical rules from that absurd principle; for he lays it down as a maxim, that, to form a right judgment of pastoral poetry, it is necessary to cast back our eyes on the first ages of the world, and inquire into the manners of men, "before they were formed into large societies, cities built, or commerce established: a state," says he, "of ease, innocence, and contentment; where plenty begot pleasure, and pleasure begot singing, and singing begot poetry, and poetry begot singing again:" a description this, which is so fantastical, as would almost persuade us, that the writer meant to ridicule his own doctrine, if the general strain of his criticism did not convince us it was seriously delivered. Is it necessary to prove, that this notion of pastoral poetry, however founded, in the practice of celebrated writers, has no foundation in fact, no basis in reason, nor conformity to good sense? To a just taste, and unadulterated feelings, the natural beauties of the country, the simple manners, rustic occupations, and rural enjoyments of its inhabitants, brought into view by the medium of a well-contrived dramatic fable, must afford a much higher degree of pleasure, than any chimerical fiction, in which Arcadian nymphs and swains hold intercourse with Pan and his attendant fauns and satyrs. If the position be disputed, let the _Gentle Shepherd_ be fairly compared with the _Aminta_, and, _Pastor Fido_.