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;
And the weak soul, within itself unblest,
Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.
Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art,
Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
Here vanity assumes her pert grimace,
And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace;
Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer,
To boast one splendid banquet once a year;
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,
Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.

BRITAIN.

My genius spreads her wing,

The Traveler.

And flies where Britain courts the western spring;
Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,
And brighter streams than famed Hydaspes glide;
There all around the gentlest breezes stray,
There gentle music melts on every spray;
Creation's mildest charms are there combined,
Extremes are only in the master's mind!
Stern o'er each bosom Reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great;
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,

I see the lords of human kind pass by;

Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,

By forms unfashion'd fresh from Nature's hand;
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,

True to imagined right above control,

While e'en the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man.2

Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictured here,
Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear;
'Too blest, indeed, were such without alloy,
But foster'd e'en by Freedom, ills annoy;
That independence Britons prize too high,

Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie;
The self-dependent lordlings stand alone,

All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown;
Here by the bonds of nature feebly held,
Minds combat minds, repelling and repell'd.

1 There is, perhaps, no couplet in English rhyme more perspicuously condensed than those two lines of The Traveller,' in which the author describes the at once flattering, vain, and happy cha racter of the French."-Campbell.

2" We talked of Goldsmith's Traveller,' of which Dr. Johnson spoke highly; and, while I was helping him on with his greatcoat, he repeatedly quoted from it the character of the British nation which he did with such energy that the tear started in his eye."-Boswell's Johnson.

Ferments arise, imprison'd factions roar,
Represt ambition struggles round her shore,
Till over-wrought, the general system feels
Its motions stop, or phrensy fire the wheels.
Nor this the worst. As nature's ties decay,
As duty, love, and honor fail to sway,
Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law,
Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe.
Hence all obedience bows to these alone,
And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown;
Till time may come, when, stript of all her charms,
The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms,
Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame,
Where kings have toil'd, and poets wrote for fame,
One sink of level avarice shall lie,

And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonor'd die.

The Traveller.

THE VILLAGE PREACHER.

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden flower grows wild; There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, The village preacher's modest mansion rose.

A man he was to all the country dear,

And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,

Nor e'er had changed, nor wish'd to change his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power

By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize,
More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain;
The long-remember'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer prond,

Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd:
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,

Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away;

Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done,

Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won

Pleased with his guests, the good man learn'd 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 e'en his failings lean'd to Virtue's side;
But in his duty prompt at every call,

He watch'd and wept, he pray'd 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.

Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay'd

The reverend champion stood. At his control,
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last faltering accents whisper'd praise.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorn'd the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,

With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran;

E'en children follow'd with endearing wile,

And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest,

Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven:
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.

The Deserted Filage.

AN ELEGY ON THE GLORY OF HER SEX, MRS. MARY BLAIZE.

Good people all, with one accord,
Lament for Madam Blaize,
Who never wanted a good word-
From those who spoke her praise.

The needy seldom pass'd her door,
And always found her kind;
She freely lent to all the poor,-
Who left a pledge behind.

She strove the neighborhood to please
With manners wonderous winning;
And never follow'd wicked ways,-
Unless when she was sinning.

At church, in silks and satins new,
With hoop of monstrous size;
She never slumber'd in her pew,-
But when she shut her eyes.

Her love was sought, I do aver,
By twenty beaux and more;
The king himself has follow'd her,-
When she has walk'd before.

But now her wealth and finery fled,

Her hangers-on cut short all;

The doctors found, when she was dead,

Her last disorder mortal.

Let us lament, in sorrow sore,

For Kent-street well may say,

That had she lived a twelvemonth more,-
She had not died to-day.

But Goldsmith's prose is no less charming than his poetry. There are, in his essays, entitled "The Citizen of the World," an ease and gracefulness of style, a chaste humor, a rich poetical fancy, and a nice observation of men and manners, that render them truly "a mine of lively and profound thought, happy imagery, and pure English." 1

LIFE ENDEARED BY AGE.

Age, that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living. Those dangers which, in the vigor of youth, we had learned to despise, assume new terrors as we grow old. Our caution increasing as our years increase, fear becomes at last the prevailing passion of the mind; and the small remainder of life is taken up in useless efforts to keep off our end, or provide for a continued existence.

Strange contradiction in our nature, and to which even the wise are liable! If I should judge of that part of life which lies before me, by that which I have already seen, the prospect is hideous. Experience tells me that my past enjoyments have brought no real felicity, and sensation assures me that those I have felt are stronger than those which are yet to come. Yet experience and sensation in vain persuade; hope, more powerful than either, dresses out the distant prospect in fancied beauty; some happiness, in long perspective, still beckons me to pursue, and, like a losing gamester, every new disappointment increases my ardor to continue the game.

Whence, my friend, this increased love of life, which grows upon us with our years? whence comes it, that we thus make greater efforts to preserve our existence at a period when it becomes scarcely worth the keeping? Is it that nature, attentive to the preservation of mankind, increases our wishes to live, while she lessens our enjoyments; and, as she robs the senses of every pleasure, equips imagination in the spoil? Life would be insupportable to an old man who, loaded with infirmities, feared death no more than when in the vigor of manhood; the numberless calamities of decaying nature, and the consciousness of surviving every pleasure, would at once induce him, with his own hand, to terminate the scene of misery; but happily the contempt of death forsakes him at a time when it could be only prejudicial, and le acquires an imaginary value in proportion as its real value is no

more.

Our attachment to every object around us increases, in general,

1 At a dinner at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, when some unkind remark was made of Goldsmith, Jobnson broke out warmly in his defence, and in the course of a spirited eulogium, said, “Is there a man, sir, now, who can pen an essay with such ease and elegance as Dr. Goldsmith ?"

"The prose of Goldsmith is the model of perfection, and the standard of our language; to equa which the efforts of most would be vain, and to exceed it, every exectation folly."- Headley.

from the length of our acquaintance with it. "I would not choose," says a French philosopher, "to see an old post pulled up with which I had been long acquainted." A mind long habituated to a certain set of objects insensibly becomes fond of seeing them; visits them from habit, and parts from them with reluctance. Hence proceeds the avarice of the old in every kind of possession; they love the world and all that it produces; they love life and all its advantages, not because it gives them pleasure, but because they have known it long.

Chinvang the Chaste, ascending the throne of China, commanded that all who were unjustly detained in prison during the preceding reigns should be set free. Among the number who came to thank their deliverer on this occasion, there appeared a majestic old man, who, falling at the emperor's feet, addressed him as follows: "Great father of China, behold a wretch, now eighty-five years old, who was shut up in a dungeon at the age of twenty-two. I was imprisoned, though a stranger to crime, or without being even confronted by my accusers. I have now lived in solitude and in darkness for more than fifty years, and am grown familiar with distress. As yet, dazzled with the splendor of that sun to which you have restored me, I have been wandering the streets to find some friend that would assist, or relieve, or remember me; but my friends, my family, and relations are all dead, and I am forgotten. Permit me, then, O Chinvang, to wear out the wretched remains of life in my former prison; the walls of my dungeon are to me more pleasing than the most splendid palace; I have not long to live, and shall be unhappy except I spend the rest of my days where my youth was passed-in that prison from which you were pleased to release me.”

The old man's passion for confinement is similar to that we all have for life. We are habituated to the prison, we look round with discontent, are displeased with the abode, and yet the length of our captivity only increases our fondness for the cell. The trees we have planted, the houses we have built, or the posterity we have begotten, all serve to bind us closer to earth, and imbitter our parting. Life sues the young like a new acquaintance; the companion, as yet unexhausted, is at once instructive and amusing; its company pleases, yet for all this it is but little regarded. To us, who are declined in years, life appears like an old friend; its jests have been anticipated in former conversation; it has nc new story to make us smile, no new improvement with which tc surprise, yet still we love it; destitute of every enjoyment, stil. we love it; husband the wasting treasure with increased frugality, and feel all the poignancy of anguish in the fatal separation.

Sir Philip Mordaunt was young, beautiful, sincere, brave,--an Englishman. He had a complete fortune of his own, and the love