And late the nation found, with fruitless skill, Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supplied Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array'd, A mistress or a saint in every grove. By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd,(2) (1) ["Yet, though to fortune lost, here still abide Some splendid arts, the wrecks of former pride."-First edit.] (2) [Either Sir Joshua Reynolds, or a mutual friend who immediately communicated the story to him, calling at Goldsmith's lodgings, opened the door without ceremony, and discovered him not in meditation, or in the throes of poetic birth, but in the boyish office of teaching a favourite dog to sit upright upon its haunches, or as it is commonly said, to beg. Occasionally he glanced his eyes over his desk, and occasionally shook his finger at the unwilling pupil, in order to make him retain his position; while on the page before him was written that couplet, with the ink of the second line still wet, from the description of Italy: "By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, The sentiment seemed so appropriate to the employment, that the visitor could not refrain from giving vent to his surprise in a strain of banter, which was received with characteristic good humour, and the admission at once made, that the amusement in which he had been engaged had given birth to the idea. See Life, ch. xiv.] (3) [Here followed in the first edition : : "At sports like these while foreign arms advance, (4) ["When struggling Virtue sinks by long control, As in those domes where Cæsars once bore sway, There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,(2) My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey But man and steel, the soldier and his sword; Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm, Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm. Though poor the peasant's hut, his feast though small, He sees his little lot the lot of all; Sees no contiguous palace rear its head, To shame the meanness of his humble shed; (2) ["Amidst the ruin, heedless of the dead."-First edit.] way, Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the Thus every good his native wilds impart, Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; And e'en those ills that round his mansion rise, Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies. Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms; And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,(1) Clings close and closer to the mother's breast, So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar, But bind him to his native mountains more. Such are the charms to barren states assign'd; Their wants but few, their wishes all confin'd. Yet let them only share the praises due ; If few their wants, their pleasures are but few: For every want that stimulates the breast Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies, That first excites desire, and then supplies; Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy, To fill the languid pause with finer joy; (1) ["And as a babe, when scaring sounds molest," &c.-First edit.] Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame, Unquench'd by want, unfann'd by strong desire; (1) In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire. But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow; Through life's more cultur'd walks, and charm the way, To sport and flutter in a kinder sky. To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire ! (1) ["Their level life is but a mouldering fire, Not quench'd by want, nor fann'd by strong desire."-First edit.] (2) [ Unalter'd, unimproved their manners run."-Ibid.] Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, So blest a life these thoughtless realms display, Here passes current; paid from hand to hand, They please, are pleas'd; they give to get esteem, But while this softer art their bliss supplies, For praise too dearly lov'd, or warmly sought, (1) ["I had some knowledge of music," says George Primrose, in the Vicar of Wakefield, "with a tolerable voice, and now turned what was my amusement into a present means of subsistence. I passed among the harmless peasants of Flanders, and among such of the French as were poor enough to be very merry; for I ever found them sprightly in proportion to their wants. Whenever I approached a peasant's house towards night-fall, I played one of my most merry tunes; and that procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next day."-S -See Life, ch. v.] (2) ["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 character of the French." -CAMPBELL, British Poets, vol. vi. p. 262.] |