A GLIMPSE OF PASTORAL LIFE.
HE was still eager upon the same inquiry; and having heard of a hermit
that lived near the lowest cataract of the Nile, and filled the whole
country with the fame of his sanctity, resolved to visit his retreat, and
inquire whether that felicity which public life could not afford was to
be found in solitude, and whether a man whose age and virtue made him
venerable could teach any peculiar art of shunning evils or enduring
them.
Imlac and the Princess agreed to accompany him, and after the necessary
preparations, they began their journey. Their way lay through the
fields, where shepherds tended their flocks and the lambs were playing
upon the pasture. “This,” said the poet, “is the life which has been
often celebrated for its innocence and quiet; let us pass the heat of the
day among the shepherds’ tents, and know whether all our searches are not
to terminate in pastoral simplicity.”
The proposal pleased them; and they induced the shepherds, by small
presents and familiar questions, to tell the opinion of their own state.
They were so rude and ignorant, so little able to compare the good with
the evil of the occupation, and so indistinct in their narratives and
descriptions, that very little could be learned from them. But it was
evident that their hearts were cankered with discontent; that they
considered themselves as condemned to labour for the luxury of the rich,
and looked up with stupid malevolence towards those that were placed
above them.
The Princess pronounced with vehemence that she would never suffer these
envious savages to be her companions, and that she should not soon be
desirous of seeing any more specimens of rustic happiness; but could not
believe that all the accounts of primeval pleasures were fabulous, and
was in doubt whether life had anything that could be justly preferred to
the placid gratification of fields and woods. She hoped that the time
would come when, with a few virtuous and elegant companions, she should
gather flowers planted by her own hands, fondle the lambs of her own ewe,
and listen without care, among brooks and breezes, to one of her maidens
reading in the shade.