In glittering arms the little horsemen shine; The lost, lamented child! the shepherds bold* * For an account of the Fairy superstition, see the Introduction to the "Tale of Tamlane," in that elegant work called Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, vol. ii. p. 174. Second Edition. To fuir. Pudeles grassy tomb, Soft maids and village hinds shall-bring aweet of carliest bloom. Each opening OBSERVATIONS ON THE ORIENTAL ECLOGUES. THE genius of the pastoral, as well as of every other respectable species of poetry, had its origin in the East, and from thence was transplanted by the Muses of Greece; but whether from the continent of the Lesser Asia, or from Egypt, which, about the era of the Grecian pastoral, was the hospitable nurse of letters, it is not easy to determine. From the subjects, and the manner of Theocritus, one would incline to the latter opinion, while the history of Bion is in favour of the former. However, though it should still remain a doubt through what channel the pastoral travelled westward, there is not the least shadow of uncertainty concerning its oriental origin. In those ages, which, guided by sacred chronology, from a comparative view of time, we call the early ages, it appears, from the most authentic historians, that the chiefs of the people employed themselves in rural exercises, and that astronomers and legislators were at the same time shepherds. Thus Strabo in forms us, that the history of the creation was communicated to the Egyptians by a Chaldean shepherd. From these circumstances it is evident, not only that such shepherds were capable of all the dignity and elegance peculiar to poetry, but that whatever poetry they attempted would be of the pastoral kind; would take its subjects from those scenes of rural simplicity in which they were conversant, and, as it was the offspring of harmony and nature, would employ the powers it derived from the former, to celebrate the beauty and benevolence of the latter. Accordingly we find that the most ancient poems treat of agriculture, astronomy, and other objects within the rural and natural systems. What constitutes the difference between the Georgic and the Pastoral, is love and the colloquial or dramatic form of composition peculiar to the latter: this form of composition is sometimes dispensed with, and love and rural imagery alone are thought sufficient to distinguish the pastoral. The tender passion, however, seems to be essential to this species of poetry, and is hardly ever excluded from those pieces that were intended to come under this denomination: even in those eclogues of the Amœbean kind, whose only purport is a trial of skill between contending shepherds, love has its usual share, and the praises of their respective mistresses are the general subjects of the competitors. It is to be lamented, that scarce any oriental com. positions of this kind have survived the ravages of ignorance, tyranny, and time; we cannot doubt that many such have been extant, possibly as far down as that fatal period, never to be mentioned in the world of letters without horror, when the glorious monu |