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'The felicity and the misery which he has brought close together belong to two different countries and to two different stages in the progress of society.' But there is no poem in the English language more universally popular than the Deserted Village. Its best passages are learned in youth, and never quit the memory. Its delineations of rustic life accord with those ideas of romantic purity, seclusion, and happiness, which the young mind associates with the country and all its charms, before modern manners and oppression had driven them away

To pamper luxury, and thin mankind.

Political economists may dispute the axiom that luxury is hurtful to nations; but Goldsmith has a surer advocate in the feelings of the heart, which yield a spontaneous assent to the principles he inculcates, when teaching by examples, with all the efficacy of apparent truth, and all the effect of poetical beauty and excellence.

Description of Auburn-The Village Preacher, the
Schoolmaster, and Ale-house-Reflections.

Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain;
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed;
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please;
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene!
How often have I paused on every charm;
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm ;
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topped the neighbouring hill;
The hawthorn-bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made!
How often have I blessed the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play;
And all the village train, from labour free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree;
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old surveyed;
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round.
And still, as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired :
The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
By holding out to tire each other down;
The swain, mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter tittered round the place;
The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove-
These were thy charms, sweet village ! sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please.

Sweet was the sound, when oft, at evening's close,
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;
There as I passed, with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came softened from below;
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung,
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school;
The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind:
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And filled each pause the nightingale had made.
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 wished to change his place;
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned 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-remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruined spendthrift now no longer proud,
Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sat by his fire, and talked the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shouldered his crutch, and shewed how fields were

won.

Pleased with his guests, the good man learned 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 leaned to virtue's side;
But, in his duty prompt at every call,
He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all;
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries,
To tempt her 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 dismayed,
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 whispered praise.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorned the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway;
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
The service past, around the pious man,
With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran;
E'en children followed with endearing wile,

And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile;
His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed,
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed;
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.

Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossomed furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion skilled to rule,
The village master taught his little school;
A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew.
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning's face;
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned;
Yet he was kind; or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declared how much he knew;
'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage;
And e'en the story ran that he could gauge;
In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill,
For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still;
While words of learned length, and thundering sound,
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
But past is all his fame: the very spot
Where many a time he triumphed, is forgot.

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Near yonder thorn that lifts its head on high, Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye, Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired, Where gray-beard mirth and smiling toil retired; Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, And news much older than their ale went round. Imagination fondly stoops to trace

The parlour splendours of that festive place;
The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnished clock that clicked behind the door;
The chest, contrived a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day;
The pictures placed for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose;
The hearth, except when winter chilled the day,
With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay;
While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show,
Ranged o'er the chimney, glistened in a row.

Vain transitory splendours! could not all
Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall?
Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart
An hour's importance to the poor man's heart.
Thither no more the peasant shall repair,
To sweet oblivion of his daily care;

No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale,
No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail;
No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear,
Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear;
The host himself no longer shall be found
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
Nor the coy maid, half willing to be pressed,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train';
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art.
Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway:
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined.

But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed,
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
And e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks if this be joy?

Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey
The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay,
'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land.

Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore,
And shouting folly hails them from her shore;
Hoards, e'en beyond the miser's wish, abound,
And rich men flock from all the world around.
Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name,
That leaves our useful product still the same.
Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds;
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds;
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth,

Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth;

His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies.
While thus the land adorned for pleasure all,
In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.

Edwin and Angelina.

'Turn, gentle hermit of the dale,

And guide my lonely way,

To where yon taper cheers the vale With hospitable ray.

'For here forlorn and lost I tread,
With fainting steps and slow;
Where wilds immeasurably spread,
Seem lengthening as I go.'

'Forbear, my son,' the hermit cries,
'To tempt the dangerous gloom;
For yonder phantom only flies
To lure thee to thy doom.

"Here, to the houseless child of want, My door is open still:

And though my portion is but scant,
I give it with good-will.

'Then turn to-night, and freely share
Whate'er my cell bestows;
My rushy couch and frugal fare,
My blessing and repose.

'No flocks that range the valley free,
To slaughter I condemn;
Taught by that Power that pities me,
I learn to pity them.

'But from the mountain's grassy side, A guiltless feast I bring;

A scrip, with herbs and fruits supplied, And water from the spring.

"Then, pilgrim, turn, thy cares forego; All earth-born cares are wrong: "Man wants but little here below,

Nor wants that little long."

Soft as the dew from heaven descends,
His gentle accents fell;
The modest stranger lowly bends,
And follows to the cell.

Far in a wilderness obscure,
The lonely mansion lay;
A refuge to the neighbouring poor,
And strangers led astray.

No stores beneath its humble thatch
Required a master's care;
The wicket, opening with a latch,
Received the harmless pair.

And now, when busy crowds retire,
To take their evening rest,
The hermit trimmed his little fire,

And cheered his pensive guest:

And spread his vegetable store,

And gaily pressed and smiled;
And, skilled in legendary lore,
The lingering hours beguiled.

Around, in sympathetic mirth,
Its tricks the kitten tries;
The cricket chirrups in the hearth,
The crackling fagot flies.

But nothing could a charm impart,
To soothe the stranger's woe;
For grief was heavy at his heart,
And tears began to flow.

His rising cares the hermit spied,
With answering care oppressed:
And whence, unhappy youth,' he cried,
'The sorrows of thy breast?

* From Young.-'Man wants but little, nor that little long.' Goldsmith, in the original copy, marked the passage as a quotation.

'From better habitations spurned, Reluctant dost thou rove?

Or grieve for friendship unreturned,
Or unregarded love?

'Alas! the joys that fortune brings
Are trifling, and decay;

And those who prize the paltry things More trifling still than they.

'And what is friendship but a name: A charm that lulls to sleep!

A shade that follows wealth or fame,
But leaves the wretch to weep!

'And love is still an emptier sound,
The modern fair-one's jest ;
On earth unseen, or only found

To warm the turtle's nest.

'For shame, fond youth, thy sorrows hush,
And spurn the sex,' he said:
But while he spoke, a rising blush
His love-lorn guest betrayed.

Surprised, he sees new beauties rise,
Swift mantling to the view,
Like colours o'er the morning skies,
As bright, as transient too.

The bashful look, the rising breast,
Alternate spread alarms;
The lovely stranger stands confessed
A maid in all her charms.

And ah! forgive a stranger rude, A wretch forlorn,' she cried, 'Whose feet unhallowed thus intrude Where Heaven and you reside.

'But let a maid thy pity share,

Whom love has taught to stray: Who seeks for rest, but finds despair Companion of her way.

'My father lived beside the Tyne,

A wealthy lord was he;

And all his wealth was marked as mine; He had but only me.

To win me from his tender arms, Unnumbered suitors came; Who praised me for imputed charms, And felt, or feigned, a flame.

"Each hour a mercenary crowd

With richest proffers strove; Amongst the rest young Edwin bowed, But never talked of love.

'In humble, simplest habit clad,

No wealth nor power had he; Wisdom and worth were all he had, But these were all to me.

'The blossom opening to the day, The dews of heaven refined, Could nought of purity display, To emulate his mind.

"The dew, the blossoms of the tree, With charms inconstant shine;

Their charms were his; but, woe to me, Their constancy was mine.

'For still I tried each fickle art, Importunate and vain;

And while his passion touched my heart,

I triumphed in his pain.

'Till quite dejected with my scorn,
He left me to my pride;
And sought a solitude forlorn,
In secret, where he died.

'But mine the sorrow, mine the fault,
And well my life shall pay :
I'll seek the solitude he sought,
And stretch me where he lay.

'And there, forlorn, despairing, hid,
I'll lay me down and die:
'Twas so for me that Edwin did,
And so for him will I.'

'Forbid it, Heaven!' the hermit cried, And clasped her to his breast:

The wondering fair one turned to chide: 'Twas Edwin's self that pressed!

'Turn, Angelina, ever dear,

My charmer, turn to see Thy own, thy long-lost Edwin here, Restored to love and thee.

'Thus let me hold thee to my heart,
And every care resign;
And shall we never, never part,
My life my all that's mine?

'No, never from this hour to part,
We'll live and love so true;

The sigh that rends thy constant heart, Shall break thy Edwin's too.'

Extracts from 'Retaliation.'

Goldsmith and some of his friends occasionally dined together at the St James's Coffee-house. One day it was proposed to write epitaphs upon him. His country, dialect, and blunders furnished subjects for witticism. He was called on for retaliation, and, at the next meeting, produced part of this poem (which was left unfinished at his death), in which we find much of the shrewd observation, wit, and liveliness which distinguish the happiest of his prose writings.

Here lies our good Edmund,* whose genius was such,

We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much;
Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his
throat,

To persuade Tommy Townsend to lend him a vote;
Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing, while they thought of
dining.

Though equal to all things, for all things unfit;
Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit:
For a patriot too cool; for a drudge disobedient,
And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient.
In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed, or in place, sir,
To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor....

Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can, An abridgment of all that is pleasant in man; As an actor, confessed without rival to shine; As a wit, if not first, in the very first line; Yet with talents like these, and an excellent heart, The man had his failings-a dupe to his art; Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread, And beplastered with rouge his own natural red. On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting; 'Twas only that when he was off he was acting:

* Burke.

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Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came ;
And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame ;
Till his relish grown callous almost to disease,
Who peppered the highest was surest to please.
But let us be candid, and speak out our mind;
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.
Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave,
What a commerce was yours, while you got and you
gave !

How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you raised,

While he was be-Rosciused, and you were be-praised!
But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies,
To act as an angel, and mix with the skies:
Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill,
Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will;
Old Shakspeare, receive him with praise and with
love,

And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above. . . .

Here Reynolds is laid; and, to tell you my mind, He has not left a wiser or better behind. His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand; His manners were gentle, complying, and bland; Still born to improve us in every part, His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering; When they judged without skill, he was still hard of hearing:

When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff,

He shifted his trumpet,* and only took snuff.
By flattery unspoiled.

...

BISHOP PERCY.

DR THOMAS PERCY (1729-1811), afterwards bishop of Dromore, in 1765 published his Reliques of English Poetry, in which several excellent old songs and ballads were revived, and a selection made of the best lyrical pieces scattered through the works of dramatic and other authors. The learning and ability with which Percy executed his task, and the sterling value of his materials, recommended his volumes to public favour. They found their way into the hands of poets and poetical readers, and awakened a love of nature, simplicity, and true passion, in contradistinction to that coldly correct and sentimental style which pervaded part of our literature. The influence of Percy's collection was general and extensive.

It

is evident in many contemporary authors. It gave the first impulse to the genius of Sir Walter Scott; and it may be seen in the writings of Coleridge and Wordsworth. A fresh fountain of poetry was opened up-a spring of sweet, tender, and heroic thoughts and imaginations, which could never be again turned back into the artificial channels in which the genius of poesy had been too long and too closely confined. Percy was himself a poet. His ballad, O Nancy, wilt thou go with Me? the Hermit of Warkworth, and other detached pieces, evince both taste and talent. We subjoin a cento, the Friar of Orders Gray, which

* Sir Joshua was so deaf, as to be under the necessity of using an ear-trumpet in company. Goldsmith was engaged on this portrait when his last illness seized him.

Percy says he compiled from fragments of ancient ballads, to which he added supplemental stanzas to connect them together. The greater part, however, is his own, and it must be admitted that he Percy was born at Bridgnorth, Shropshire, son of was too prone to tamper with the old ballads. Dr a grocer, and having taken holy orders, became successively chaplain to the king, dean of Carlisle, and bishop of Dromore: the latter dignity he possessed from 1782 till his death at the advanced age of eighty-two. He enjoyed the friendship of Johnson, Goldsmith, and other distinguished men of his day, and lived long enough to hail the genius of Scott.

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A complete reprint of Bishop Percy's folio MS. was published in 1868, in three volumes, edited Mr Furnival describes the MS. as 'a scrubby, by John W. Hales, M.A. and F. J. Furnival, M.A. shabby paper book,' which had lost some pages both at the beginning and end. Percy found it lying dirty on the floor under a bureau in the parlour of his friend Humphrey Pitt of Shifnall, Shropshire, being used by the maids to light the fire. The date, as appears from the handwriting, was about 1650. As to the text,' says Mr Furnival, 'he (Percy) looked on it as a young woman from the country with unkempt locks, whom he had to fit for fashionable society. He puffed out the thirty-nine lines of the Child of Elle to two hundred; he pomatumed the Heir of Linne till it shone again; he stuffed bits of wool into Sir Carline and Sir Aldingar; he powdered everything.' The Reliques contained one hundred and seventy-six pieces and of these forty-five were from the folio MS.

O Nancy, wilt thou go with Me?* O Nancy, wilt thou go with me,

Nor sigh to leave the flaunting town? Can silent glens have charms for thee, The lowly cot and russet gown? No longer dressed in silken sheen,

No longer decked with jewels rare, Say, canst thou quit each courtly scene, Where thou wert fairest of the fair?

O Nancy, when thou 'rt far away,
Wilt thou not cast a wish behind?
Say, canst thou face the parching ray,
Nor shrink before the wintry wind?
O can that soft and gentle mien

Extremes of hardship learn to bear, Nor, sad, regret each courtly scene, Where thou wert fairest of the fair?

O Nancy, canst thou love so true,

Through perils keen with me to go? Or, when thy swain mishap shall rue,

To share with him the pang of woe? Say, should disease or pain befall,

Wilt thou assume the nurse's care, Nor, wistful, those gay scenes recall, Where thou wert fairest of the fair? And when at last thy love shall die,

Wilt thou receive his parting breath? Wilt thou repress each struggling sigh,

And cheer with smiles the bed of death?

* From Dodsley's Collection of Poems, 1758. In Johnson's Musical Museum it is printed as a Scottish production. 'It is too barefaced,' says Burns, to take Dr Percy's charming song, and, by means of transposing a few English words into Scots, to offer to pass it for a Scots song.'

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'And will he never come again—

Will he ne'er come again?

Ah, no! he is dead, and laid in his grave, For ever to remain.

'His cheek was redder than the roseThe comeliest youth was he;

But he is dead, and laid in his grave, Alas! and woe is me.'

'Sigh no more, lady, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever;

One foot on sea, and one on land, To one thing constant never.

'Hadst thou been fond, he had been false, And left thee sad and heavy;

For young men ever were fickle found,
Since summer trees were leafy.'

'Now say not so, thou holy friar,
I pray thee say not so;

My love he had the truest heart-
O he was ever true!

'And art thou dead, thou much-loved youth? And didst thou die for me?

Then farewell home; for evermore

A pilgrim I will be.

'But first upon my true-love's grave
My weary limbs I'll lay,

And thrice I'll kiss the green grass turf
That wraps his breathless clay.'

'Yet stay, fair lady, rest a while
Beneath this cloister wall;

The cold wind through the hawthorn blows,
And drizzly rain doth fall.'

'O stay me not, thou holy friar,
O stay me not, I pray;
No drizzly rain that falls on me,
Can wash my fault away.'

'Yet stay, fair lady, turn again,
And dry those pearly tears;

For see, beneath this gown of gray,
Thy own true love appears.

'Here, forced by grief and hopeless love,
These holy weeds I sought;

And here, amid these lonely walls,
To end my days I thought.

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