Page:The Dunciad - Alexander Pope (1743).djvu/254

Rh Streph. Me gentle Delia beckons from the plain, Then, hid in shades, eludes her eager swain; But feigns a laugh, to see me search around, And by that laugh the willing fair is found.

Daph. The sprightly Sylvia trips along the green, She runs, but hopes she does not run unseen, While a kind glance at her pursuer flies, How much at variance are her feet and eyes!

There is nothing the writers of this kind of poetry are fonder of, than descriptions of pastoral presents. Philips says thus of a sheep-hook:

Of season'd elm, where studs of brass appear, To speak the giver's name, the month and year; The hook of polish'd steel, the handle turn'd, And richly by the graver's skill adorn'd.

The other of a bowl embossed with figures:

where wanton ivy twines, And swelling clusters bend the curling vines; Four figures rising from the work appear, The various seasons of the rolling year; And what is that which binds the radiant sky, Where twelve bright signs in beauteous order lie?

The simplicity of the swain in this place, who forgets the name of the zodiac, is no ill imitation of Virgil: but how much more plainly and unaffectedly would Philips have dressed this thought in his Doric?

And what that bight which girds the welkin seen, Where twelve gay signs in meet array are seen?

If the reader would indulge his curiosity any farther in the comparison of particulars, he may read the first Pastoral of Philips with the second of his contemporary; and the fourth and sixth of the former with the fourth and first of the latter; where several parallel places will occur to every one.

Having now shown some parts in which these two writers may be compared, it is a justice I owe to Mr. Philips, to discover those in which no man can compare with him. First, that beautiful rusticity, of which I shall only produce two instances of an hundred not yet quoted:

''O woeful day! O day of woe! quoth he;'' And woeful I, who live the day to see!

The simplicity of the diction, the melancholy flowing of the numbers, the solemnity