And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,

Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And curs of low degree.

This dog and man at first were friends;

But when a pique began,

The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad, and bit the man.

Around from all the neighb'ring streets
The wond'ring neighbours ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.

The wound it seem'd both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;

And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.

But soon a wonder came to light,
That show'd the rogues they lied;

The man recover'd of the bite,

The dog it was that died.

STANZAS

ON

WOMAN.

WHEN lovely woman stoops to folly, And finds too late that men betray, What charm can soothe her melancholy, What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,

To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom is to die.

THE

TRAVELLER;

OR,

A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY:

A POEM.

FIRST PRINTED IN MDCCLXV.

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.