The pastoral eclogue had been a recognised genre in English poetry for the two centuries before Collins wrote his, but in the 18th century there was a disposition to renew its subject matter. Jonathan Swift, John Gay and Mary Wortley Montagu had all transposed rural preoccupations to life in London in a series of "town eclogues"; at the same period William Diaper had substituted marine divinities for shepherds in his "Nereides: or Sea-Eclogues" (1712). Collins' "Persian Eclogues" (1742) also fell within this movement of renewal. Though written in heroic couplets, their Oriental settings are explained by the pretence that they are translations. Their action takes place in "a valley near Bagdat" (1), at midday in the desert (2), and within sight of the Caucasus mountains in Georgia (3) and war-torn Circassia (4).