And pale distress sat sickly on her cheek,
As thus her plaintive elegy began:

And must my children all expire?
Shall none be left to strike the lyre?
Courts death alone a learned prize?
Falls his shafts only on the wise?
Can no fit marks on earth be found,
From useless thousands swarming round?
What crowding ciphers cram the land!
What hosts of victims, at command!
Yet shall the' ingenious drop alone?
Shall science grace the tyrant's throne?
Thou murderer of the tuneful train!
I charge thee with my children slain!
Scarce has the sun thrice urged his annual tour,
pave felt thy

Since half my race

barbarous power; Sore hast thou thinn'd each pleasing art, And struck a muse with every dart: Bard after bard obey'd thy slaughtering call, Till scarce a poet lives to sing a brother's fall. Then let a widow'd mother pay

The tribute of a parting lay;

6

Tearful inscribe the monumental strain,
And speak aloud her feelings and her pain!
And first, Farewell to thee, my son (she cried),
Thou pride of Auburn's dale, sweet bard, farewell!
Long, for thy sake, the peasant's tear shall flow,
And many a virgin bosom heave with woe;
For thee shall sorrow sadden all the scene,
And every pastime perish on the green:
The sturdy farmer shall suspend his tale,
The woodman's ballad shall no more regale,
No more shall mirth each rustic sport inspire,
But every frolic, every feat shall tire:

No more the evening gambol shall delight,
Nor moonshine revels crown the vacant night,
But groups of villagers (each joy forgot)
Shall form a sad assembly round the cot.
Sweet bard,farewell-and farewell Auburn's bliss,
The bashful lover, and the yielded kiss;
The evening warble Philomela made,

The echoing forest, and the whispering shade,
The winding brook, the bleat of brute content,
And the blithe voice that "whistled as it went."
These shall no longer charm the ploughman's care,
But sighs shall fill the pauses of despair.

'Goldsmith, adieu! the "book-learn'd priest" for
Shall now in vain possess his festive glee, [thee
The oft heard jest in vain he shall reveal,
For now, alas! the jest he cannot feel;

But ruddy damsels o'er thy tomb shall bend,
And conscious weep for their and virtue's friend;
The milkmaid shall reject the shepherd's song,
And cease to carol as she toils along;
All Auburn shall bewail the fatal day [away;
When from her fields their pride was snatch'd
And e'en the matron of the cressy lake,
In piteous plight her palsied head shall shake,
While all adown the furrows of her face
Slow shall the lingering tears each other trace.
And oh, my child! severer woes remain
To all the houseless and unshelter'd train :
Thy fate shall sadden many an humble guest,
And heap fresh anguish on the beggar's breast:
For dear wert thou to all the sons of pain,
To all that wander, sorrow, or complain :
Dear to the learned, to the simple dear,
For daily blessings mark'd thy virtuous year;

The rich received a moral from thy head,
And from thy heart the stranger found a bed;
Distress came always smiling from thy door;
For God had made thee agent to the poor;
Had form'd thy feelings on the noblest plan,
To
grace at once the poet and the man.'

ON

THE DEATH OF GOLDSMITH.

BY WILLIAM WOTY.

ADIEU, Sweet Bard! to each fine feeling true, Thy virtues many, and thy foibles few;

Those form'd to charm e'en vicious minds-and

these

With harmless mirth the social soul to please.
Another's woe thy heart could always melt;
None gave more free for none more deeply felt:
Sweet Bard, adieu! thy own harmonious lays
Have sculptured out thy monument of praise:
Yes-these survive to Time's remotest day;
While drops the bust, and boastful tombs decay.
Reader, if number'd in the Muse's train,
Go, tune the lyre, and imitate his strain;
But, if no poet thou, reverse the plan,
Depart in peace, and imitate the man.

THE

TRAVELLER:

OR,

A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY.

FIRST PRINTED IN 1765.

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 to 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 Music come in for a share. As these offer the feeble mind a less laborious entertainment, they at first rivál 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 greater 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, chorusses, anapests, and iambics, illiterative 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