A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) by Thomas Purney

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Series Two:

_Essays on Poetry_

No. 4

Thomas Purney, _A Full Enquiry into the
True Nature of Pastoral_ (1717)

With an Introduction by
Earl Wasserman

The Augustan Reprint Society
January, 1948
_Price_: $1.00

_GENERAL EDITORS_

RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_

_ASSISTANT EDITOR_

W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_

_ADVISORY EDITORS_

EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
BENJAMIN BOYCE, _University of Nebraska_
LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_
JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_

Lithoprinted from copy supplied by author
by
Edwards Brothers, Inc.
Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.
1948

INTRODUCTION

In the preface to each of his volumes of pastorals (_Pastorals. After
the simple Manner of Theocritus, 1717_; _Pastorals. viz. The Bashful
Swain: and Beauty and Simplicity, 1717_) Thomas Purney rushed into
critical discussions with the breathlessness of one impatient to reveal
his opinions, and, after touching on a variety of significant topics,
cut himself short with the promise of a future extensive treatise
on pastoral poetry. In 1933 Mr. H.O. White, unable to discover the
treatise, was forced to conclude that it probably had never appeared
(_The Works of Thomas Purney_, ed. H.O. White, Oxford, 1933, p. 111),
although it had been advertised at the conclusion of Purney's second
volume of poetry as shortly to be printed. A copy, probably unique, of
_A Full Enquiry into the True Nature of Pastoral_ (1717) was, however,
recently purchased by the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library of the
University of California, and is here reproduced. Despite the obvious
failure of the essay to influence critical theory, it justifies
attention because it is the most thorough and specific of the remarkably
few studies of the pastoral in an age when many thought it necessary to
imitate Virgil's poetic career, and because it is, in many respects, a
contribution to the more liberal tendencies within neoclassic criticism.
Essentially, the _Full Enquiry_ is a coherent expansion of the random
comments collected in the poet's earlier prefaces.

Purney belongs to the small group of early eighteenth-century
critics who tended to reject the aesthetics based upon authority and
pre-established definitions of the _genres_, and to evolve one logically
from the nature of the human mind and the sources of its enjoyment; in
other words, who turned attention from the objective work of art to the
subjective response. These men, such as Dennis and Addison, were
not searching for an aesthetics of safety, one that would produce
unimpeachable correctness; Purney frequently underscored his preference
for a faulty and irregular work that is alive to a meticulous but dull
one. This is not to be understood as praise of the irregular: the rules
of poetry must be established, but they must be founded rationally on
the ends of poetry, pleasure and profit, and the psychological process
by which they are received, and not solely on the practices and
doctrines of the ancients. Taking his cue from the Hobbesian and Lockian
methodology of Addison's papers of the pleasures of the imagination
without delving into Addison's sensational philosophy, Purney outlined
an extensive critical project to investigate (1) "the Nature and
Constitution of the human Mind, and what Pleasures it is capable
of receiving from Poetry"; (2) the best methods of exciting those
pleasures; (3) the rules whereby these methods may be incorporated into
literary form (_Works_, ed. White, p. 48). It is this pattern of thought
that regulates the _Full Enquiry_. Perhaps more than any other poetic
type, the pastoral of the Restoration and the early eighteenth 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
a minor form and consequently had narrowed their attention to a few
frequently debated questions, mainly the state of rural life to be
depicted and the level of the style to be adopted. All agreed that the
poem should be brief and simple in its fable, characters, and style.
But it was therefore a poetic exercise, no more significant, Purney
complained, than a madrigal. He was intent upon investing the pastoral
with all the major poetic elements--extended, worthy fable; moral;
fully-drawn characters; and appropriate expression. For in his mind the
poem best incorporates one of the only two true styles, the tender, and
therefore warrants a literary status beneath only tragedy and the epic.

Like his critical method, Purney's decision that the pastoral should
depict contemporary rural life divested of what is vulgar and painful
in it, rather than either the life of the Golden Age or true rustic
existence places him on the side of Addison, Tickell, Ambrose Philips,
and Fontenelle (indeed, his statement is a paraphrase of Fontenelle's),
and in opposition to the school of Rapin, Pope, and Gay, who argued for
a portrait of the Golden Age. Both schools campaigned for a simplicity
removed from realistic rusticity (which they detected in Spenser and
Theocritus) and refinement (as in Virgil's eclogues); but to one group
the term meant the innocence of those remote from academic learning and
social sophistication, and to the other the refined simplicity of an
age when all men--including kings and philosophers--were shepherds. With
reservations, the first group tended to prefer Theocritus and Spenser;
and the second, Virgil. Hence, too, the first group approved of Philips'
efforts to create a fresh and simple pastoral manner. As a poet, Purney
moved sharply away from the classical pastoral by curiously blending an
entirely original subject matter with a sentimentalized realism and a
naive, diffuse expression; and as a critic he pointed in the direction
of Shenstone and Allan Ramsay by emphasizing the tender, admitting
the use of earthy realism in the manner of Gay, and recommending for
pastoral such "inimitably pretty and delightful" tales as _The Two
Children in the Wood_. Had his contemporaries read the treatise,
how they would have been amused to contemplate the serious literary
treatment of chapbook narratives, despite Addison's praise of this
ballad.

In his usual nervous manner, the critic did not confine himself to his
topic, but touched on a number of significant peripheral subjects. He
showed the virtue of concrete and specific imagery at a time when most
poets sought the sanctuary of abstractions and universals; commented
cogently on the styles of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare; anticipated
the later doctrine of the power of the incomplete and the obscure to
suggest and therefore to compel the imagination to create; adopted and
expanded Addison's distinction between the sublime and the beautiful;
and, borrowing a suggestion that he probably found in Dennis (_Critical
Works_, ed. Edward N. Hooker, Baltimore, 1919, I, 47), developed a
profitable distinction between the sublime image and the sublime thought
by examining their different psychological effects.

But, because they run counter to the accepted opinions of his age, it
is Purney's comments on matters of style that are especially striking,
although it must be remembered that most of them have to do with the
pastoral alone and do not constitute a general theory of poetics.
Perhaps his most original contribution is his attack upon the cautious
contemporary styles of poetry: "strong lines," a term that originally
defined the style of the metaphysical poets, but that now described the
compact and pregnant manner of Dryden's satires, for example, and the
"fine and agreeable," exemplified, let us say, by Pope's _Pastorals_ or
Prior's _vers de societe_. To these Purney preferred the bolder though
less popular styles, the sublime and the tender, corresponding to the
two pure artistic manners that Addison had distinguished. How widely
Purney intended to diverge from current poetry can be judged by his
definition of the sublime image as one that puts the mind "upon the
Stretch" as in Lady Macbeth's apostrophe to night; and by his praise of
the simplicity of Desdemona's "Mine eyes do itch." Both passages were
usually ridiculed by Purney's contemporaries as indecorous.

Equally original is Purney's concept of simplicity, which he insisted
should appear in the style and the nature of the characters, not in
denuding the fable and in divesting the poem of the ornaments of poetry,
as Pope had argued in the preface of his _Pastorals_. It was this
concept that also led Purney to his unusual theory of enervated diction.
How unusual it was can be judged by comparing with the then-current
practices and theories of poetic diction his recommendation of
monosyllables, expletives, the archaic language of Chaucer and Spenser,
and current provincialisms--devices that Gay had used for burlesque--as
means of producing the soft and the tender.

But it is hardly true that Purney's "true kinship is with the
romantics," as Mr. White claims, for there is a wide chasm between a
romantic and a daring and extravagant neoclassicist. Rather, Purney's
search for a subjective psychological basis for criticism is one of the
elements out of which the romantic aesthetics was eventually evolved,
and it frequently led him to conclusions that reappear later in the
eighteenth century.

* * * * *

In addition to editing Purney's pastorals, Mr. H.O. White has published
an exhaustive study of "Thomas Purney, a Forgotten Poet and Critic of
the Eighteenth Century" in _Essays and Studies by Members of the English
Association_, XV (1929), 67-97. University of Illinois.

Earl. R. Wasserman

A FULL ENQUIRY INTO THE TRUE NATURE OF PASTORAL.

The PROEME or first Chapter of which contains a SUMMARY of all that the
CRITICKS, ancient or modern, have hitherto deliver'd on that SUBJECT.
After which follows what the Author has farther to advance, in order to
carry the POEM on to its utmost Perfection.

* * * * *

Written by Mr. _PURNEY_.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

* * * * *

_LONDON_

Printed by _H.P._ for JONAS BROWN, at the _Black Swan_ without
_Temple-Bar_. 1717.

PROEME.

_Cubbin_ (ye know the Kentish Swain) was basking in the Sun one
Summer-Morn: His Limbs were stretch'd all soft upon the Sands, and his
Eye on the Lasses feeding in the Shade. The gentle Paplet peep'd at
Colly thro' a Hedge, and this he try'd to put in Rhime, when he saw a
Person of unusual Air come tow'rd him. Yet neither the Novelty of his
Dress, nor the fairness of his Mien could win the Mind of the Swain from
his rural Amusement, till he accosted the thoughtful Shepherd thus.

If you are the _Cubbin_, said he, I enquire for, as by the Peculiarity
of your Countenance, and the Firmness of your Look, you seem, young
Boy, to be; I would hold some Discourse with you. The Pastorals of your
Performance I have seen; and tho' I will not call 'em Perfect, I think
they show a Genius not wholly to be overlookt. My Name, continued he, is
Sophy, nor is it unknown in the World. In this Book (and here he pluckt
it out of his Pocket) I have pen'd some Rules for your future Guidance.

_Cubbin_ was strangely taken with the mild Address and Sweetness of
Sophy. A thousand times he thanked him, as often smil'd upon him, and
spread his Coat for him to set more soft upon the Sands.

Sophy was a true-born _Britton_, and admir'd a forward _Spirit_. The
_French_ he little loved; Their Poets dare not (said he) think without
the Ancients, and their Criticks make use of their Eyes instead of their
Understandings. 'Twas his way to pardon, nay admire a Critick, who
for every fifty Errors would give him but one Remark of Use, or good
Discovery. But always read one Sheet, then burnt those dull insipid
Rogues, who thought that to write a good was to write a faultless Piece.
By which means their whole Work becomes one general Fault.

This Censure, I fear, would fall pretty heavy on the [A]_Criticks_ of
_France_; if this were a proper Place to persue the Argument in. But
Sophy thus resum'd his Talk.

[Footnote A: _In the Preface to the Second Part of our_ Pastorals,
_viz._ THE BASHFUL-SWAIN, _and_ BEAUTY AND SIMPLICITY, _we have shown
to what Perfection the whole Science of_ CRITICISM _was brought by the
Ancients, then what Progress the_ French Criticks _have further made,
and also what remains as yet untouch'd, and uncompleat_.]

In this, said he, I like your Temper, Cubbin. By those few Pieces we
have seen of your's, and those I hear you have in Manuscript, you seem
determin'd to engage in those Kinds of Poetry and those Subjects in
Criticism, which the Ancients have left us most imperfect. Here, if you
fail, you may be still some help to him who shall Attempt it next; and
if all decline it, apprehensive of no fair success, how should it ever
attain Perfection.

Then Cubbin told the _Critick_, that the reason of his entering upon
Pastoral, where the Labour was excessive and the Honour gain'd minute,
was this; He had unhappily reflected on that thing, we call a Name, so
thoroughly, and weigh'd so closely what like Happiness it would afford,
that he could now receive no pleasure from the Thoughts of growing
famous; nor would write one Hour in any little kind of Poetry, which was
not able to take up and possess his Mind with Pleasure, tho' it would
procure him the most glaring Character in Christendom. This Temper was
especially conspicuous while he tarried at the Fountain where he imbibed
the little Knowledge he possesses. He seem'd as out of humour with
Applause, and dafted aside the Wreath if ever any seem'd dispos'd to
offer it.

I' faith, said _Cubbin_, I am nothing careful whether any Pastorals be
cry'd up or not. Were I dispos'd to write for a Name, no whit would I
engage in either the Sublime or Soft in Writing: For as the middle Way,
made up of both, is vastly easiest to attain; so is it pleasant to the
most Imaginations, and acquires the widest Character.

There are originally, answer'd Sophy, no perfect and real Kinds of
Writing but them two. As for the Strong Lines, 'tis supplying the want
of the Sublime with the Courtly and Florid Stile; as what we usually
call the Fine and Agreeable is but bastard and degenerate from the truly
Tender. But yet it must be added that this suits the Populace the best.

Here Cubbin answer'd Sophy, that these were pretty ways of making
Verses, but his mind was of such a peculiar Turn, that it requir'd some
greater Design, and more laborious to occupy it, or else it would not
be sufficiently engag'd to be delighted. Twould not be taken off
from reflecting on what a stupid Dream is Life; and what trifling and
impertinent Creatures all Mankind. Unless, said He, I'm busy'd, and in a
hurry, I can't impose upon my self the Thought that I am a Being of some
little significance in the Creation; I can't help looking forward and
discovering how little better I shall be if I write well, or ill, or not
at all. I would fain perswade my self, continued he, that a _Shakespear_
and a _Milton_ see us now take their Works in hand with Pleasure and
read with Applause.

Tis certain, answer'd Sophy, that the less we know of Nature and our
Selves, the more is Life delightful. If we take all things as we see
'em, Life is a good simple kind of Dream enough, but if we awaken out
of the dull Lethargy, we are so unhappy as to discover, that tis all and
every thing Folly, and Nonsense and Stupidity.--But we walk in a vain
Shadow and disquiet our selves in vain.

Here Cubbin fell with his Face to the Ground, and said, I prethee now no
more of this; your Book you open'd but forgot to give me the Contents.

Sophy recollected him; and told the Swain, That Book contain'd some
Rules for his Direction. But as I have not patience, added he, to make
a Treatise of some hundred Pages, which consists of other Persons Hints,
but flourish'd and dilated on; or the Rules and Observations of the
Anciants set in a different Light; I shall first sum up the whole
Discoverys the _French_ or any other Criticks yet have made in Pastoral;
and where they have left it I shall take the Subject, and try how far
beyond I am able to carry it. For after that, every single Thought
will be the free Sentiment of my own Mind. And I desire all to judge
as freely as I write; and (if, after a strict Examination of the Rules,
they see any Reason) to condemn as peremtorily; for we cannot get out of
an Error too soon.

_RUAEUS_ say's, The Pastoral Sentiments must have a Connection Plain and
Easy. Affirming that tho' Incoherence, may add a neglegence and simple
loosness to Pastoral, yet 'tis not such a Negligence or Simplicity as
Pastoral delight's in.

_DRYDEN_ observe's, that the Dialect proper for Pastoral, must have a
Relish of the Fascion of speaking in the Country.

_FONTENELL_ that most excellent _Frenchman_ takes Notice, that no
Passion is so proper for Pastoral as that of Love. He mean's as to what
we are to describe in our Swains; not mentioning those Passions that
Poem is to raise in the Reader.

_RAPIN_ observe's, The Fable should be One. The Swains not abusive, or
full of Raillery. The Sence should not be extended or long. This Author
has other Observations new, but you may guess of what a Nature, when he
confesses He walk'd but as _Theocritus_ and _Virgil_ lead him. Therefore
he cannot have carried the Poem to any Perfection beyond the Condition
they left it in; and so much any Reader may see from the Authors
themselves, without reading a large Volume to find it out.

Mr. _DRYDEN_, in another place, has an Observation which carrys the
Knowledge of Pastoral still farther. Pastorals, says he, must contain an
agreeable Variety after the manner of a Landscape.

But in the _GUARDIANS_, Vol. I. The Reader may see the Nature of
Pastoral more explain'd and enter'd into, in a few Dissertations, than
by all these Authors have deliver'd on the Subject. As these are Books
in every Bodies Hands, I shall not trouble my self to extract the
Summary of 'em. But he will find the Criticism on Phillips and the other
Observations are extreamly Ingenious.

CHAP. I

_Of the Parts of Pastoral; and of the several Sorts of that Poem_.

PASTORAL, in it's Imitation of the Lives of Shepherds, makes use of
FABLE, CHARACTERS, SENTIMENTS and LANGUAGE; and by these four Parts
conjoyntly obtain's it's End; that is, excites our Pity, or our Joy,
or both. For in FABLE I include the MORAL; in SENTIMENTS both IMAGE and
THOUGHT; and in LANGUAGE I comprehend the HARMONY.

These four Parts of PASTORAL would lead us into an easy and natural
enumeration of the several Kinds or Sorts of that Poem: According as
they have more or fewer of those Parts; and as they do or do not excite
the Pastoral passions. Not that all those Kinds are perfect Pastorals,
or even Poems, but only such as Authors have given us Examples of, from
_THEOCRITUS_ and _VIRGIL_.

But I omit this Division for another more material. A Difference more
fundamental, arises in the PASTORALS written by different AUTHORS,
according to the Age which the Poet chuses to describe, or the different
Descriptions which he gives us of the COUNTRY. For he may draw it as
'tis suppos'd to have been in the Golden Age; or be may describe his
own COUNTRY, but touching only what is agreable in it; or lastly,
may depaint the Life of Swains exactly as it is, their Fatigues and
Pleasures being equally blended together. And this, last Kind most
Writers have given into; for _Theocritus's_ rude unmanner'd Muse (as
many Criticks have stiled it, not much amiss) naturally led him
into this Method; and then, tis easy to conceive why the latter
Pastoral-Writers chose the same.

But as the second Method is plainly more delightful than the last, as
it collect's the most beautiful Images and sweetest Thoughts the Country
afford's; so I shall show that 'tis preferable on many other Accounts;
and even finer for Pastoral than the Golden Age. But this when I speak
of the Characters.

I would only settle now in short the most compleat Kind of Pastoral; And
such, I think, is that which most beautifully draw's the present Life of
Shepherds, and raises Pity or Joy, by the four Parts of Pastoral,
Fable, Characters, Sentiments, and Language. And since 'tis these which
constitute a perfect Pastoral, I shall crave leave to speak separately
of 'em all. And first of the Fable.

CHAP. II.

_Of the Fable; and the means of making a perfect One_.

A Fable proper for Pastoral, and best adapted to delight, must have
these following Qualities to render It compleat.

_First_, It must be one entire _Action_, having a Beginning, a Middle,
and an End.

_Secondly_, A perfect _Fable_ must have a due _Length_. And not consist
of only a mournful Speech which a Shepherd find's occasion to make; or
the like.

_Thirdly_, And since all Poetry is an Imitation of the most
Considerable, or the most Delightful Actions in the Person's Life we
undertake; not any trifling Action can be sufficient to constitute the
_Fable_.

_Fourthly_, Another Quality which a Pastoral Fable should have to be the
most compleat is a _Moral Result_.

I shall speak to all these Heads, except the first, concerning the
_Unity_; for without that Quality, it's self-evident that 'tis no Fable.
By _Unity_ I mean the same with Aristotle.[A]

[Footnote A: _See his 6th Chapter_.]

SECT. 1.

_What Length a perfect Pastoral should have_.

All _Pastoral-Writers_ have used the same _Length_ which _Theocritus_
at first happen'd into. I shall be therefore obliged, I doubt, to dwell
longer, on this Head, than the Importance of it may seem to require; and
must premise, that tho' a _Fable_ would need, finely carry'd on, to
be three or four Hundred Lines, yet let no Writer be under any Concern
about this: If a _Fable_ have Unity, shews a delightful story, paints
proper Characters, and contains a Moral, I shall not doubt to call the
Poem a perfect and compleat _Pastoral_, tho' the Length exceeds not
fifty Lines. But my Reasons for extending it are these:

Some Author I have seen, ingeniously observes, that even in telling
common Stories, 'twere best to give some short Account of the Persons
first, to be heard with Delight and Attention; For, says he, 'tis not so
much this being said, but its being said on such a particular Occasion,
or by such a particular Person. As this is true in a common Story, so
'tis more so in a Poem. The strongest Pleasure that the Mind receives
from Poetry, flows from its being engaged and concerned in the Progress
and Event of the Story. We naturally side in Parties, and interest our
selves in their Affairs of one side or the other. Then 'tis, our Care
pursues our Favourite Character, where're he goes. We anticipate all his
Successes, and make his Misfortunes our own. Were the Catastrophe in a
Tragedy to appear in the first Act, but little should we be moved by it,
not having as yet imbibed a favourable Opinion of the Hero, nor learn'd
to be in Pain as often as he is in Danger.

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