and of the melancholy life of the fad hiftorian of this rural defolation.'

• Sweet was the found when oft at evening's close,
Up yonder hill the village murmur rofe;
There as I paft with careless steps and flow,
The mingling notes came foftened from below;
The swain refponfive as the milk-maid fung,
The fober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noify geefe that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children juft let loose from school;
The watch dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind :
Thefe all in foft confufion fought the shade,
And filled each paufe the nightingale had made,
But now the founds of population fail,
No chearful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,
No busy steps the grafs-grown foot-way tread,
But all the bloomy flush of life is fled.
All but yon widowed, folitary thing

That feebly bends befide the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron, forced, in age, for bread,
To ftrip the brook with mantling creffes spread,
To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn,
To feek her nightly fhed, and weep till morn;
She only left of all the harmless train,
The fad hiftorian of the penfive plain.

Near yonder copfe, where once the garden fimil'd,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild;
There, where a few torn fhrubs the place difclose,
The village preacher's modeft manfion rofe.
A man he was, to all the country dear,
And paffing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,

Nor ere had changed, nor wifh'd to change his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or feek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rife.
His houfe was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long remembered beggar was his gueft,
Whose beard defcending fwept his aged breaft;
The ruined fpendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken foldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sate by his fire, and talked the night away;

Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of forrow done,
Shouldered his crutch, and fhewed how fields were won.
Pleafed with his guefts, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits, or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.

• Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And even his failings leaned to Virtue's fide;
But in his duty prompt at every call,

He watched and wept, he prayed and felt, for all.
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries,
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies;
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

Befide the bed where parting life was layed,
And forrow, guilt, and pain, by turns difmayed,
The reverend champion ftood. At his controul,
Defpair and anguifh fled the struggling foul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raife,
And his last faultering accents whispered praise.

• At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double fway,
And fools, who came to fcoff, remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With ready zeal each honeft ruftic ran;
Even children followed with endearing wile,

And plucked his gown to fhare the good man's fmile.
His ready fimile a parent's warmth expreft,

Their welfare pleased him, and their cares diftreft;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his ferious thoughts had reft in heaven.
As fome tall cliff that lifts its awful form,

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the ftorm,
Tho' round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal funshine fettles on its head.'

We rarely fee a poem in which there are fewer inftances of improper fentiment, or expreffion, than in this. Two lines, however, we must beg leave to animadvert upon.

The fad hiftorian of the penfive plain.'

Penfive is too bold an epithet, even in poetry; as it attributes too much of foul to inanimate matter.-Dryden, indeed, is guilty of a like impropriety in his noble imitation of the beginning of the first book of Lucretius: addreffing himself to Venus, he fays, of Mars,

Ff4

'Who

Who oft retires from fighting fields, to prove

The pleafing pains of thy eternal love."

Dryden here afcribes too much action to the Fields, as Dr. Goldsmith has infpired his Plain with too reflecting a melancholy. Dryden has attributed to his Fields too strong a characteristic of the impetuous warriour; and Dr. Goldsmith has given to his Plain too much of the fenfibility and contemplation of the poet we should emulate the natural and great fublime of Dryden, but we fhould avoid his negligence and excess.

His pity gave ere charity began.'

This line violates the perfpicuity of poetry. And the thought it contains is but a quaint one; more worthy of Seneca, or of the worst poetry of Dr. Young, than of the author of the Deferted Village.

In giving the following lines to the fentimental reader, we need not defire him principally to mark the unhappy fituation of the ruined country-girl: a home reproof to obdurate men ; and a strong warning to unguarded innocence.

Where then, ah, where fhall poverty refide,
To fcape the preffure of contiguous pride;
If to fome common's fenceless limits strayed,
He drives his flock to pick the fcanty blade,
Those fenceless fields the fons of wealth divide,
And even the bare-worn common is denied.

If to the city fped-What waits him there?
To fee profufion that he must not share ;
To fee ten thoufand baneful arts combined
To pamper luxury, and thin mankind;
To fee each joy the fons of pleasure know,
Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe.

Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade,
There the pale artift plies the fickly trade;

Here, while the proud their long drawn pomps display,
There the black gibbet glooms befide the way.
The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign,
Here richly deckt admits the gorgeous train,
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing fquare,
The rattling chariots clafh, the torches glare;
Sure fcenes like thefe no troubles ere annoy!

Sure these denote one univerfal joy!

Are these thy ferious thoughts-Ah, turn thine eyes
Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.

She once, perhaps, in village plenty bleft,
Has wept at tales of innocence diftreft;

Her

Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;
Now loft to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
Near her betrayer's door fhe lays her head,

And pinch'd with cold, and fhrinking from the shower,
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
When idly firft, ambitious of the town,

She left her wheel and robes of country brown.'

The close of the poem is beautiful, but mere imagination and romance. In his enthufiaftic vifion, Commerce and Luxury drive the rural virtues from the land. Unfortunate Poetry too is tranfported; and the author takes a most pathetic leave of her.

And thou sweet Poetry, thou lovelieft maid,
Still first to fly where fenfual joys invade ;
Unfit in these degenerate times of fhame,
To catch the heart, or ftrike for honest fame;
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My fhame in crowds, my folitary pride.

Thou fource of all my blifs, and all my woe,
That found'st me poor at first, and keep'ft me so;
Thou guide by which the nobler arts excell,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well.
Farewell, and O where'er thy voice be tried,
On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's fide,
Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,
Or Winter wraps the polar world in fnow,
Still let thy voice prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of the inclement clime;
Aid flighted truth, with thy perfuafive ftrain
Teach erring man to fpurn the rage of gain;
Teach him that states of native ftrength poffeft,
Tho' very poor, may still be very bleft;
That trade's proud empire haftes to fwift decay,
As ocean fweeps the labour'd mole away;
While felf-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks refift the billows and the sky.'
England is certainly not fo inhofpitable to
equinoctial fervour, or the polar cold would be.
a delicate conftitution; fhe would infallibly die,
nished either to Guinea, or to Greenland. Her powers would
be diffolved in Guinea, and congealed in Greenland. She
would want objects to enrich her genius, and her vigorous ex-
ertion would forfake her, in the one climate, or in the other.
She would be employed on none of the noble themes, which

poetry as the Poetry is of if she was ba

the

the poet requests her to embellish in her exile, for the good of mankind. We differ fo far from Dr. Goldsmith's theory, that we think the country diftinguished from all others for its extenfive commerce, its refined luxury, and its generous plan of freedom, the most favourable region to the muses. There the poet will find the amplest field for his imagination; the best judges, and the highest rewards of his merit. London, therefore, is the place to which a fon of Apollo fhould direct his views; and by no means to the cliffs of Torno, or to the fide of Pambamarca. In London, he will have the richest fund of thought, and the warmest incentives to write: and without thefe advantages in perfection, a great genius can never be perfectly displayed.--Here, it must be confeffed, a poet often treads on dangerous ground; and the greater his talents are, his ruin is the more probable; for his fenfibilty is the more quick, and his virtuous condu&t the more difficult. But if his abuse of external objects will lead him to deftruation, his proper application of them will procure him, at least, a competent fubfiftence, and high reputation., Why do we excel the ancients in writing, (for that we do excel them, blind prejudice only and ftupidity will deny) because the improvement of literature hath kept pace with all other improvements; because a justnefs, a delicacy of thinking, the true fublime, are the confequences of polished life; because genius is now furnished with the greatest variety of ideas, and ftimulated by the most powerful incitements to excel. Do the ancients excel us in poeetry Certainly not, upon the whole. It is true, they preceded us; and therefore have tranfmitted many noble fentiments, which we can only repeat. They are likewife more fortunate than we are in another circumftance; they gave the fire of genius its immediate and full play; but we are apt to refrain and fubdue it too much by art. They are often too negligent; we are fometimes too elaborate. But none of them are fo fublime as our divine Shakespeare and Milton; in none of them is to be found fo much vigour and correctness united as in Pope. Are the ancient hiftorians preferable to our beft hiftorians as writers? By no means. They dwell upon trifies; they tell us a ftring of barbarous tales, which now would only be pardonable from the mouth of an old woman in a chimney-corner. Indeed they exhibit giants of virtue and patriotism to our view, of whom we have no living fimilitudes. Let us discriminate before we pronounce; and not mistake old characters, which we owe to the government, and manners of their country, for the excellence of old authors.

The reader, we hope, will not be difpleafed with this digreffion, which is not much out of the way, when we are animadverting