Theocritus united elegance with simplicity; and
taught his shepherds to sing with so much ease and
harmony, that his countrymen, despairing to excel,
forbore to imitate him; and the Greeks, however
vain or ambitious, left him in quiet possession of the
garlands which the wood-nymphs had bestowed
upon him.
Virgil, however, taking advantage of another
language, ventured to copy or to rival the Sicilian bard:
he has written with greater splendour of diction, and
elevation of sentiment: but as the magnificence of
his performances was more, the simplicity was less;
and, perhaps, where he excels Theocritus, he sometimes
obtains his superiority by deviating from the
pastoral character, and performing what Theocritus
never attempted.
Yet, though I would willingly pay to Theocritus
the honour which is always due to an original author,
I am far from intending to depreciate Virgil: of
whom Horace justly declares, that the rural muses
have appropriated to him their elegance and sweetness,
and who, as he copied Theocritus in his design,
has resembled him likewise in his success; for,
if we except Calphurnius, an obscure author of the
lower ages, I know not that a single pastoral was
written after him by any poet, till the revival of
literature.
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