poems of thirty-eight authors, and even this makes no pretence of giving
those of the middle ages. The collection, however, ranges from Calpurnius
to Castalio (i.e. the French theologian Sébastien Châteillon), and
includes the work of Petrarca, Boccaccio, Spagnuoli, Urceo, Pontano,
Sannazzaro, Erasmus, Vida, and others. There is a strong family likeness
in the pastoral verse of these authors, and the majority are devoid of
individual interest. A few, however, merit separate notice.

It was in the latter half of the fifteenth century that the renaissance
eclogue, abandoning its last claims to poetic inspiration, assumed its
definitive form in the works of Battista Spagnuoli, more commonly known
from the place of his birth by the name of Mantuanus. His eclogues, ten in
number, were accepted by the sixteenth century as models of pastoral
composition, inferior to those of Vergil alone, were indeed any
inferiority allowed. Starting with the simple theme of love, the author
proceeds to depict its excess in the love-lunes of the distraught Amyntas.
Thence he passes to one of those satires on women in which the fifteenth
century delighted, so bitter, that when Thomas Harvey came to translate it
in 1656 he felt constrained, for his credit's sake, to add the note,
'What the author meant of all, the translater intends only of ill
women[29].' There follows the old complaint of the niggardliness of rich
patrons towards poor poets, and a satire on the luxury of city life. The
remaining poems are ecclesiastical. One is in praise of the religious
life, another describes the simple faith of the country folk and the joys
of conversion; finally, we have a satire on the abuses of Rome, and a
discussion on points of theological controversy. None of these subjects
possess the least novelty; the author's merit, if merit it can be called,
lies in having stamped them with their definitive form for the use of
subsequent ages. Combined with this lack of originality, however, it is
easy to trace a strong personal element in the bitterness of the satire