Goldsmith's once proposing to muster a party to damn Home's Fatal Discovery, for the reason that "no such fellows should be encouraged," asserts it to have been a "transient thought, which, upon the least check, he would have immediately renounced, and as heartily joined to support the piece he had before devoted to destruction."

It is fitting that, for the instruction of posterity, these weaknesses should be remembered; but it is also fitting that we should bear no grudging testimony to that kindliness of heart, which no poverty could sour, and to which misery never appealed in vainto that princely generosity which no ingratitude could impairto that simplicity of character, the remembrance of which could draw tears from the eyes of Burke-and, above all, to that genius, so lively and so versatile, which has endeared him to the hearts of three generations, and will continue, so long as our language lasts, to make him one of the most popular of British writers "Tread lightly on his ashes, ye men of genius, for he was your kinsman; weed his grave clean, ye men of goodness, for he was your brother."

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 inccme 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 divi

*First published in December 1764, and now reprinted from the 9th edition, which was the last that appeared in the author's lifetime. Henry Goldsmith was Oliver's elder brother.

sions 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 music come in for a share. As these offer the feeble mind a less laborious entertainment, they at first rival poetry, and at length supplant 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 odes, 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 human 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 frenzy 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 hap

piness, 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.

REMOTE, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
Or by the lazy Scheld, or wandering Po,
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-