I designed to have troubled the reader with no farther discourses of Pastorals, but being informed that I am taxed of partiality, in not mentioning an author, whose Eclogues are published in the same volume with Mr. Philips’s, I shall employ this paper in observations upon him, written in the free spirit of criticism, and without apprehensions of offending that gentleman, whose character it is, that he takes the greatest care of his works before they are published, and has the least concern for them afterwards.  I have laid it down as the first rule of Pastoral, that its idea should be taken from the manners of the Golden Age, and the moral formed upon the representation of innocence; ’tis therefore plain, that any deviations from that design, degrade a poem from being true Pastoral.

So easy as Pastoral writing may seem (in the simplicity we have described it) yet it requires great reading, both of the ancients and moderns, to be a master of it.  Mr. Philips hath given us manifest proofs of his knowledge of books; it must be confessed his competitor has imitated some single thoughts of the antients well enough, if we consider he had not the happiness of an university education:  but he hath dispersed them here and there without that order and method Mr. Philips observes, whose whole third pastoral, is an instance how well he studied the fifth of Virgil, and how judiciously he reduced Virgil’s thoughts to the standard of pastoral; and his contention of Colin Clout, and the Nightingale, shews with what exactness he hath imitated Strada.  When I remarked it as a principal fault to introduce fruits, and flowers of a foreign growth in descriptions, where the scene lies in our country, I did not design that observation should extend also to animals, or the sensitive life; for Philips hath with great judgment described wolves in England in his first pastoral.  Nor would I have a poet slavishly confine himself, (as Mr. Pope hath done) to one particular season of the year, one certain time of the day, and one unbroken scene in each Eclogue.  It is plain, Spencer neglected this pedantry, who in his Pastoral of November, mentions the mournful song of the Nightingale.

  Sad Philomel, her song in tears doth sleep.

And Mr. Philips by a poetical creation, hath raised up finer beds of flowers, than the most industrious gardener; his roses, lilies, and daffadils, blow in the same season.

But the better to discover the merit of our two cotemporary pastoral writers.  I shall endeavour to draw a parallel of them, by placing several of their particular thoughts in the same light; whereby it will be obvious, how much Philips hath the advantage:  With what simplicity he introduces two shepherds singing alternately.

  HOBB.

  Come Rosalind, O come, for without thee
  What pleasure can the country have for me? 
  Come Rosalind, O come; my brinded kine,
  My snowy sheep, my farm and all is thine.