nth century
was dominated by classical tradition; the verse composed was largely
imitative of the eclogues of Theocritus and Virgil, especially the
latter, and criticism of the form was deduced from their practices or
from an assumption that the true pastoral of antiquity was the product
of the Golden Age. Of this mode of criticism Rapin and Pope were the
leading exemplars. In opposition, Fontenelle, Tickell (if he was the
author of the _Guardian_ essays on the pastoral), and Purney developed
their theories empirically and hence directed the pastoral away from the
classical tradition. (On these two schools see J.E. Congleton, "Theories
of Pastoral Poetry in England, 1684-1717," _SP_, XLI, 1944, pp.
544-575.) Although Purney adopted a modification of Aristotle's critical
divisions into Fable, Character, Sentiment, and Diction, and took
for granted the doctrine of the distinction of _genres_, he otherwise
rejected traditional formulae and critical tenets, and began with the
premise that man is most delighted by the imaginative perception of the
states of life for which he would willingly exchange his own. These are
"the busy, great, or pompous" (depicted in tragedy and the epic) and
"the retir'd, soft, or easy" (depicted in the pastoral). From this
analysis of "the Nature of the Human Mind," the characteristics of the
true pastoral, such as the avoidance of the hardships and vulgarities
of rural life, follow logically. Similarly, since a minutely drawn
description deprives the reader's fancy of its naturally pleasurable
exercise, pastoral descriptions should only set "the Image in the finest
Light." Rapin, on the other hand, had determined the proper length of
descriptions by examining Virgil and Theocritus. For the association of
the pleasure afforded by the pastoral with the natural human delight
in ease, Purney was indebted to the essays on the pastoral in _The
Guardian_ (see no. 22), from which he borrowed extensively for many of
his principles, and to Fontenelle, who constructed his theory of the
pastoral upon the premise that all men are dominated "par une certaine
paresse." By contrast, although Pope adopted Fontenelle's premise, he
tested its validity by relating it to the accepted definition of the
_genre_.

One of Purney's major purposes in the essay was to dignify the pastoral
by demonstrating that it admits all the components generally reserved
for tragedy and the epic. Most critics had considered the pastoral