1 94 June — The Modern Genuine Pastoral. 



Here are decided intentions of taking walks in the 

 woods, but they come to nothing ; and the poet does 

 not get beyond a very external interest in agriculture, 

 which leaves him at liberty to soliloquize at great length 

 upon things in general. 



It was only after the mania for imitating Virgil and 

 Theocritus had completely spent itself that the genuine 

 modern school of pastoral art arose. The feeling which 

 inspired Theocritus exists in our own day, but now, 

 when it is genuine, it never expresses itself in the form 

 that was natural to him. Most commonly, a modern 

 poet who has this inspiration gives utterance to it by 

 means of color upon canvas, making his idyl really 

 visible, according to the derivation of the word from 

 elSos and elSo), and he who cares for this kind of poetry 

 may find good pages of it in the annual exhibitions 

 of pictures. Sometimes our modern writers in verse 

 or prose describe rural things with idyllic grace and 

 sweetness, yet hardly ever with idyllic concision ; and it 

 is for this reason chiefly that a painted idyl, which pro- 

 duces its effect instantaneously on the spectator, is 

 nearer to the original conception of the elSvWiov. I 

 should like very much to quote some of the best 

 modern work in writing, but it is almost impossible 

 to do so without invading one's space too much : such 

 quotations are like the young cuckoo in a small bird's 

 nest ; they grow and grow till they push the native prog- 

 eny aside. 



* Les Laboureurs ' of Lamartine is a very good speci- 

 men of the genuine modern rustic poem. Here is one 



