Eclogue (Gr. eklegein, 'to select'), a short pastoral poem, in which the swains converse with one another in turn, as in the eclogues of Virgil, also called Bucolics (q.v.). The earliest modern bucolics were Petrarch's; the earliest in English were the eclogues of the Scottish poet Alexander Barclay (q.v.).
Eclogue
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 4: Dionysius to Friction, p. 190
Source scan(s): p. 0199