Nor is this inconsistent with what he says in the subsequent passage, for it is perfectly true that it was with Beccari that the pastoral first attained its full complexity of dramatic structure, and his allusion to Theocritus means, not that he regarded him as the father of the form, but that, after the manner of a cinquecento critic, he is seeking for authority at least among the ancients where direct precedent is not to be found.

Ouida writes in winter mornings at a Venetian writing-table of cinquecento work that would enrapture the souls of the virtuosi who haunt Christie's.E. Yates, Celebrities, xix.