Page:The Amyntas of Tasso (1770) - Percival Stockdale.djvu/17



we have no tolerable translation of Tasso's Amyntas, I flatter myself that the following one will meet with a favourable reception from the publick. The poem is deemed, by all good judges, excellent in it's kind. It was written by one of the greatest poets the world ever saw, when his mind was in the maturity of it's vigour. He was well acquainted with the best models of pastoral writing; his soul felt their beauties: and as his feelings were delicate, and comprehensive, he was not a servile imitator; he revered the laws of his predecessors, and he caught their beauties; but he enriched his work with sentiments, and pictures of his own tender and warm imagination. The Amyntas, therefore, may, in just metaphor, be stiled, a garland composed of the choicest flowers of Arcadia.

Tasso, indeed, has been blasphemed by hardy, and profane mouths. Boileau, one of the con-