TO THE

REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH.

DEAR SIR,

I AM sensible that the friendship between us can acquire no new force from the ceremonies of a dedication; and perhaps it demands an excuse thus to prefix your name to my attempts, which you decline giving with your own. But as a part of this poem was formerly written you from Switzerland, the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you. It will also throw a light upon many parts of it, when the reader understands, that it is addressed to a man, who despising fame and fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a-year.

I now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom of your humble choice. You have entered upon a sacred office, where the harvest is great, and the labourers are but few; while you have left the field of ambition, where the labourers are many, and the harvest not worth carrying away. But of all kinds of ambition,

what from the refinement of the times, from different systems of criticism, and from the divisions of party, that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest.

Poetry makes a principal amusement among unpolished nations; but in a country verging to the extremes of refinement, painting and As these offer the music come in for a share. feeble mind a less laborious entertainment, G

they at first rival poetry, and at length sup. | plant her; they engross all that favour once shown to her, and though but younger sisters, seize upon the elder's birthright.

Yet, however this art may be neglected by the powerful, it is still in great danger from the mistaken efforts of the learned to improve it. What criticisms have we not heard of late in favour of blank verse, and Pindaric orders, choruses, anapests and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence! Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it; and as he is generally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say; for error is ever talkative.

But there is an enemy to this art still more dangerous, I mean party. Party entirely distorts the judgment, and destroys the taste. When the mind is once infected with this disease, it can only find pleasure in what contributes to increase the distemper. Like the tiger,.that seldom desists from pursuing man, after having once preyed upon buman flesh, the reader who has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes ever after, the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers generally admire some half witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the name of poet: his tawdry lampoons are called satires, his turbulence is said to be force, and his phrenzy fire.

What reception a poem may find, which has neither abuse, party, nor blank verse to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I solicitous to know. My aims are right. Without espousing the cause of any party, I have attempted to moderate the rage of all. I have endeavoured to show, that there may be equal happiness in states that are differently governed from our own; that every state has a particular principle of happiness, and that this principle in each may be carried to a mischievous excess. There are few can judge, better than yourself, how far these positions are illustrated in this poem.

I am,
Dear Sir,
Your most affectionate brother,
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

THE

TRAVELLER;

OR

A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY.* Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow Or by the lazy Scheld, or wandering Po;

• In this poem, as it passed through different editions, several alterations were made, and some additional verses introduced. We have followed the ninth edition, which was the last that appeared in the lifetime of the Author.

Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door;
Or where Campania's plain forsaken lies,
A weary waste expanding to the skies;
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend, And round his dwelling guardian saints attend;

Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire;
Blest that abode, where want and pain repair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair:
Blest be those feasts with simple plenty
crown'd,

Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jests of pranks that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale;
Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good.

But me, not destined such delights to share,
My prime of life, in wandering spent, and care;
Impell'd, with steps unceasing, to pursue
Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the
view;

That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies;
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone,
And find no spot of all the world my own.

Ev'n now, where Alpine solitudes ascend,
I sit me down a pensive hour to spend ;
And plac'd on high above the storm's career,
Look downward where a hundred realms ap-

pear;

Lakes, forests, cities, plains, extending wide, The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride.

When thus creation's charms around combine,

Amidst the store should thankless pride repine?
Say, should the philosophic mind disdain
That good which makes each humbler bosom
vain?

Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can,
These little things are great to little man;
And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind
Exults in all the good of all mankind.
Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splen-
dour crown'd;

Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round;

Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale; Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale; For me your tributary stores combine: Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine!

As some lone miser, visiting his store, Bends at his treasure, counts, recounts it o'er, Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill, Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still:

Thus to my breast alternate passions rise, Pleased with each good that Heaven to man supplies;

Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall,
To see the hoard of human bliss so small:
And oft I wish, amidst the scene to find
Some spot to real happiness consign'd,

rest,

May gather bliss to see my fellows blest.

But where to find that happiest spot below Who can direct, when all pretend to know? The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own; Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, And his long nights of revelry and ease: The naked Negro, panting at the line, Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine, Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave, And thanks his gods for all the good they

gave.

Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country, ever is at home.
And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,
And estimate the blessings which they share,
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
An equal portion dealt to all mankind;
As different good, by art or nature given,
To different nations makes their blessings even.

Nature, a mother kind alike to all,
Still grants her bliss at labour's earnest call;
With food as well the peasant is supplied
On Idra's cliffs as Arno's shelvy side;
And though the rocky crested summits frown,
These rocks by custom turn to beds of down.
From art more various are the blessings sent
Wealth, commerce, honour, liberty, content.
Yet these each other's power so strong contest,
That either seems destructive of the rest.
Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment
fails,

And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.

Hence every state to one lov'd blessing prone,
Conforms and models life to that alone.
Each to the favourite happiness attends,
And spurns the plan that aims at other ends;
Till carried to excess in each domain,
This favourite good begets peculiar pain.

But let us try these truths with closer eyes,
And trace them through the prospect as it lies;
Here for a while my proper cares resign'd,
Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind;
Like yon neglected shrub at random cast,
That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast.

Far to the right where Apennine ascends, Bright as the summer, Italy extends ; Its uplands sloping, deck the mountain's side, Woods over woods in gay theatric pride; While oft some temple's mouldering tops be

tween

With venerable grandeur mark the scene.

These here disporting own the kindred soil, Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil; While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand To winnow fragrance round the smiling land.

But small the bliss that sense alone bestows, And sensual bliss is all the nation knows. In florid beauty groves and fields appear, Man seems the only growth that dwindles here. Contrasted faults through all his manners reign;

Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain;

Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue;
And even in penance planning sins anew.
All evils here contaminate the mind,
That opulence departed leaves behind;
For health was theirs, not far remov'd the date,
When commerce proudly flourish'd thro' the

state;

At her command the palace learn'd to rise, Again the long-fall'n column sought the skies; The canvass glow'd beyond e'en nature warm, The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form: Till, more unsteady than the southern gale, Commerce on other shores display'd her sail : While nought remain'd of all that riches gave, But towns unmann'd, and lords without a slave:

And late the nation found with fruitless skill Its former strength was but plethoric ill.

Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supplied, By arts, the splendid wrecks for former pride ; From these the feeble heart and long-fall'n mind

An easy compensation seem to find..
Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array'd,
The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade ;
Processions formed for piety and love,
A mistress or a saint in every grove.
By sports like those are all their cares beguiled,
The spots of children satisfy the child;
Each nobler aim, repress'd by long controul,
Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul;
While low delights succeeding fast behind,
In happier meanness occupy the mind:

As in those domes where Cæsars once bore sway,

Defac'd by time and tottering in decay,
There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed:
And, wondering man could want the larger
pile,

Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.

My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey Where rougher climes a nobler race display,

tread,

And force a churlish soil for scanty bread;
No product here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword.
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter lingering chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.

Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm,

Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm. Though poor the peasant's hut, his feast tho' small,

He sees his little lot the lot of all;
Sees no contiguous palace rear its head
To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal
To make him loathe his vegetable meal;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.
Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls the finny deep,

Or drives his vent'rous ploughshare to the steep;

Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,

And drags the struggling savage into day.
At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks that brighten at the blaze;
While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board:
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.

Thus every good his native wilds impart, Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; And e'en those ills that round his mansion rise, Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms; And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, Clings close and closer to the mother's breast, So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar, But binds him to his native mountains more.

Such are the charms to barren states assign'd;

Their wants but few, their wishes all confined.
Yet let them only share the praises due,
If few their wants, their pleasures are but few;
For every want that stimulates the breast,
Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest;
Whence from such lands each pleasing science
flies,

That first excites desire, and then supplies;
Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy;
Unknown those powers that raise the soul to
flame,

Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame,

Unquench'd by want, unfann'd by strong desire;

Unfit for raptures, or if raptures cheer
On some high festival of once a-year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.

But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow; Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low; For, as refinement stops, from sire to son Unalter'd, unimprov'd the manners run; And love's and friendship's finely pointed dart Fall blunted from each indurated heart. Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast May sit like falcons cowering on the nest; But all the gentler morals, such as play Thro' life's more cultured walks, and charm the way;

These, far dispersed, on timorous pinions fly, To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.

To kinder skies, where gentler manners

reign,

I turn; and France displays her bright domain.
Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can
please,

How often have I led thy sportive choir,
With tuneless pipe beside the murmuring
Loire !

Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And freshen'd from the wave the zephyr flew;
And haply, though my harsh touch falt'ring
still,

But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill;

Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,

And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide hour.
Alike all ages.
Dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful

maze,

And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.

So blest a life these thoughtless realms display,

Thus idly busy rolls their world away:
Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
For honour forms the social temper here.
Honour, that praise which real merit gains,
Or even imaginary worth obtains,
Here passes current; paid from hand to hand,
It shifts in splendid traffic round the land;
From courts to camps, to cottages it strays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise;
They please, are pleased, they give to get
esteem,

Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they

seem.

But while this softer art their bliss supplies, It gives their follies also room to rise; For praise too dearly loved, or warmly sought, Enfeebles all internal strength of thought: