Virgil's poems are thus characterised, in some of the best turned lines we find in these pastorals :

He funge of fieldes, and tilling of the grounde,
Of shepe and oxen, and battayle did he founde
So shrille he founded in termes eloquent
I trowe his tunes went to the firmament".

He gives us the following idea of the sports, spectacles, and pleasures, of his age.

Some men deliteth beholding men to fight,
Or goodly knightes in pleasaunt apparayle,
Or sturdie fouldiers in bright harnes and male *. -
Some glad is to see these ladies beauteous,
Goodly appoynted in clothing sumpteous :
A number of people appoynted in like wise'
In costly clothing, after the newest gife;
Sportes, disgising", fayre coursers mount and praunce,
Or goodly ladies and knightes sing and daunce:
To see fayre houses, and curious picture,
Or pleasaunt hanging“, or sumpteous vesture,
Of filke, of purpure, or golde mofte orient,
And other clothing divers and excellent:
Hye curious buildinges, or palaces royall,
Or chapels, temples fayre and substanciall,
Images graven, or vaultes curious";
Gardeyns, and meadowes, or places delicious,
Forests and parkes well furnished with dere,
Cold pleausant streames, or wellès fayre and clere,
Curious cundytes, &c“.

• EGL. iv.
* Armour and coats of mail.
y Apparelled in uniform.
z Masques, &c.
Tapestry.

Roofs, curiouffy vaulted. • Houfes, Seats.

Ecl. ii. I shall here throw together in the Notes, fome traits in these Eclogues of the common customs and manners of

the

We have before seen, that our author and Skelton were rivals. He alludes to Skelton, who had been laureated at Oxford, in the following lines.

Then is he decked as poete laureate,
When stinking Thais made him her graduate : -
If they have smelled the artes triviall,

They count them poets bye and heroicall“.
The Towre of VERTUE AND Honour, introduced as a song
of one of the shepherds into these pastorals, exhibits no very
masterly strokes of a sublime and inventive fancy. It has
much of the trite imagery usually applied in the fabrication
of these ideal edifices. It, however, thews our author in a
new walk of poetry. This magnificent tower, or castle, is
built on inaccessible cliffs of flint: the walls are of gold,
bright as the sun, and decorated with olde historyes and pictures
manyfolde : the turrets are beautifully shaped. Among its
heroic inhabitants are king Henry the eighth, Howard duke
of Norfolk, and the earl of Shrewsbury. LABOUR is the
porter at the gate, and Virtue governs the house. LABOUR
is thus pictured, with some degree of spirit.

Fearfull is LABOUR, without favour at all,
Dreadfull of visage, a monster intractable ;
Like Cerberus lying at gates infernall;
To some men his looke is halfe intollerable,
His shoulders large for burden strong and able,
His bodie bristled, his necke mightie and stiffe;
By sturdie sinewes his joynts strong and stable,
Like marble stones his handès be as stiffe.

Here must man vanquish the dragon of Cadmus,
Gainst the Chimere here stoutly must he fight;
Here must he vanquish the fearfull Pegasus,
For the golden flece here must he shewe his might:
If LABOUR gainsay, he can nothing be right:
This monster Labour oft changeth his figure,
Sometime an oxe, a bore, or lion wight,
Playnely he seemeth thus changeth his nature.

Like as Protheus ofte changeth his stature.

*

*

Under his browes he dreadfully doth lowre
With glistering eyes, and side-dependant beard,
For thirst and hunger alway his chere is soure,
His horned forehead doth make faynt hearts afeard.
Alway he drinketh, and yet alway is drye,

The sweat distilling with droppes abundant, &c. The poet adds, that when the noble Howard had long boldly contended with this hideous monster, had broken the bars and doors of the castle, had bound the porter, and was now preparing to ascend the tower of Virtue and Honour, Fortune and Death appeared, and interrupted his progress".

The first modern Latin Bucolics are those of Petrarch, in number twelve, written about the year 13508. The Eclogues of Mantuan, our author's model, appeared about the year 1400, and were followed by many others. Their number multiplied so soon, that a collection of thirty-eight modern bucolic poets in Latin was printed at Bafil, in the year 1546". These writers judged this indirect and disguised mode of dialogue, consisting of fimple characters which spoke freely and plainly, the most safe and convenient vehicle for abusing

e EGL. iv.
{ lbid.
& BUCOLICORUM ECLOGÆ XII.

h Viz, xxxviii. AUTHORES BUCOLICI, Bafil. 1546. 8vo.

the

the corruptions of the church. Mantuan became so popular, as to acquire the estimation of a classic, and to be taught in schools. Nothing better proves the reputation in which this writer was held, than a speech of Shakespeare's pedant, the pedagogue Holofernes. Faufte, precor, gelida quando pecus

omne sub ulmo', and so forth. Ah, good old MANTUAN ! “ I may speak of thee, as the traveller doth of Venice, Vi

negia, Vinegia, chi non te vedi, ei non te pregia. Old Man“ TUAN! Old MANTUAN! Who understandeth thee not, “ loveth thee not*.” But although Barklay copies Mantuan, the recent and separate publication in England of Virgil's bucolics, by Wynkyn de Worde', might partly suggest the new idea of this kind of poetry.

With what avidity the Italian and French poets, in their respective languages, entered into this species of composition, when the rage of Latin versification had subsided, and for the purposes above-mentioned, is an inquiry reserved for a future period. I shall only add here, that before the close of the fifteenth century, Virgil's bucolics were translated into Italian", by Bernardo Pulci, Fossa de Cremona, Benivieni, and Fiorini Buoninsegni.

i One of Mantuan's lines. Farnaby in Maroniani operis commendatio. Die vero his Preface to Martial says, that Faufte viii Aprilis. 4to. And they were reprintprecor gelida, was too often preferred to ed by the same, 1514, and 1516. Arma virumque cano.

I think there is an m Viz. LA BUCOLICA DI VIRGILIO old black letter translation of Mantuan in to per Fratrem Evangeliftam Fossa de CreEnglish. Another translation appeared by mona ord. servorum. In Venezia, 1494. one Thomas Harvey, 1656. Mantuan 4to. But thirteen years earlier we find, was three times printed in England before Bernardo Pulci nella BUSOLICA di Virthe year 1600. Viz. B. Mantuani Carme gilio: di Jeronimo BenIVIENI, Jacopo litæ theologi ADOLESCENTIA seu Buco FIORINO Buoninsegni de Sienna : Epistole

With the commentary of Jodocus di Luca Pulci. In Firenze, per Bartolomeo Badius. Excud. G. Dewes and H. Marshe, Miscomini, 1484. A dedication is per1584. 12mo. Again, for the same, the fixed, by which it appears, that Buoninsame year, 12mo. Again, for Robert

segni wrote a Piscatory ECLOGUE, the Dexter, 1598. 12mo. With Arguments to first ever written in Italy, in the year 1468. the Eclogues, and Notes by John Mur There was a fecond edition of Pulci's vermelius, &c.

fion, La BUCOLICA di VIRGILIO trak Love's Lab. L. Act iv. Sc. 3. dotta per Bernardo Pulci con l'Elegie. I BUCOLICA VIRGILII cum commento

In Fiorenza, 1494. familiari. At the end, Ad juvenes hujus

SECT.

LICA.