["The Traveller was published in December 1764, and was the earliest production to which Goldsmith prefixed his name. As Dr. Johnson was the first to introduce it to the good opinion of the public, in a manner which could not fail to draw attention, it will not be uninteresting to look back at what he then said, and observe how perfectly all judges of poetry have concurred in his opinion: "The author has, in an elegant dedication to his brother, a country clergyman, given the design of his poem. Without espousing the cause of any party, I have attempted to moderate the rage of all. I have endeavored to show that there may be equal happiness in other states, though differently governed from our own; that each state has a peculiar principle of happiness, and that this principle in each state, and in our own in particular, may be carried to a mischievous excess.' That he may illustrate and enforce this important position, the author places himself on a summit of the Alps, and turning his eyes around in all directions, upon the different regions that lie before him, compares not merely their situation and policy, but those social and domestic manners which, after a very few deductions, make the sum total of human life. 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 an hundred realms appear; Lakes, forests, cities, plains, extending wide, Say, should the philosophic mind disdain That good which makes each humbler bosom vain? These little things are great to little man; And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind "The author already appears by his numbers to be a versifier, and by his scenery to be a poet; it therefore only remains that his sentiments discover him to be a just estimator of comparative happiness. The goods of life are either given by nature or procured by ourselves. Nature has distributed her gifts in very different proportions, yet all her children are content; but the acquisitions of art are such as terminate in good or evil, as they are differently regulated or combined. Nature, a mother kind alike to all, Still grants her bliss at Labor's earnest call; And though the rocky crested summits frown, Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails, Conforms and models life to that alone.' This is the position which he conducts through Italy, Switzerland, France, Holland, and England; and which he endeavors to confirm by remarking the manners of every country. Having censured the degeneracy of the modern Italians, he proceeds thus : My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey Where rougher climes a nobler race display, Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion 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; But having found that the rural life of a Swiss has its evils as well as comforts, he turns to France: To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, Thus idle busy rolls their world away: Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear, For honor forms the social temple here. Honer, that praise which real morit gains, Or e'en imaginary worth obtains, Here passes current; paid frem hand to hand, It shifts in splendid trafe round the land; From courts to camps, to cottages it strays, They please, are pleas'd, they give to get esteem, For praise, too dearly lov'd, or warmly sought, Hang thus passed through Holland, he arrives at England- 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.' With the inconveniences that harass the sons of freedom, this extract shall be concluded 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; |