ABSTRACT
From The Guardian No. 40 (27 April 1713); repr. Literary Criticism of Alexander Pope ed. B. H. Goldgar (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1965), p. 103: Lastly, His [Ambrose Philips's] Elegant Dialect, which alone might prove him the eldest born of Spencer, and our only true Arcadian; I should think it proper for the several Writers of Pastoral to confine themselves to their several Counties. Spencer seems to have been of this Opinion: for he hath laid the Scene of one of his Pastorals in Wales, where, with all the Simplicity natural to that Part of our Island, one Shepherd bids the other Good-morrow in an unusual and elegant Manner:
Diggon answers,
Diggon Davy, I bid hur God-day; Or Diggon hur is, or I mis-say.
