то SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. I DEAR SIR, Can have no expectations in an address of this kind, either to add to your reputation, or to establish my own. You can gain nothing from my admiration, as I am ignorant of that art in which you are faid to excell; and I may lofe much by the feverity of your judgment, as few have a jufter taste in poetry than you. Setting intereft therefore afide, to which I never paid much. attention, I must be indulged at prefent in following my affections. The only dedication I ever made was to my brother, because I loved him better than most other men. He is fince dead.. Permit me to infcribe this Poem to you. How How far you may be pleased with the verfification and mere mechanical parts of this attempt, I don't pretend to enquire; but I know you will object (and indeed several of our beft and wifeft friends concur in the opinion) that the depopulation it deplores is no where to be seen, and the disorders it laments are only to be found in the poet's own imagination. To this I can fcarce make any other answer than that I fincerely believe what I have written ; that I have taken all poffible pains, in my country excurfions, for these four or five years paft, to be certain of what I alledge; and that all my views and enquiries have led me to believe thofe miferies real, which I here attempt to display. But this is not the place to enter into an enquiry, whether the country be depopulating, or not; the difcuffion would take up much room, and I fhould prove myself, at beft, an indifferent politician, to tire the reader with a long preface, when I want his unfatigued attention to a long poem. In regretting the depopulation of the country, I inveigh against the encrease of our luxuries; and here also erroneous. I expect the shout of modern politicians against me. For twenty or thirty years paft, it has been the fashion to confider luxury as one of the greateft national advantages; and all the wisdom of antiquity in that particular, as Still however, I must remain a profeffed ancient on that head, and continue to think thofe luxuries prejudicial to ftates, by which fo many vices are introduced, and fo many kingdoms have been undone. Indeed fo much has been poured out of late on the other fide of the question, that, merely for the fake of novelty and variety, one would fometimes wifh to be in the right, I am, Dear Sir, Your fincere friend, and ardent admirer, OLIVER GOLDSMITH |