Instruction is not the first object of poetry; it is not to the reason that she addresses herself. When we resort to her power to exercise our faculties, we expect to be carried into the realms of fancy and passion; we demand voluntary delusions, and strive to escape from the dull severities of truth. Didáctic verse, therefore, which can only aspire to some of the outward clothing, and minor embellishments, (as the metaphors and the rhythm) of the muse, must always stand in a subordinate class. It is wonderful how much more distinctly and universally these distinctions are understood in the sister art of painting. There the most conspicuous honours of the art are without hesi tation decreed to those who have shewn the boldest and most sublime invention; to figures which surpass in strength or beauty the imperfect specimens of reality, or scenes which exceed in richness and variety the proudest productions of nature. The portrait-painter, the ingenious Dutchman, who brings forth with such exquisite minuteness the pictures of familiar life; nay, the delineator of historic groups, neither obtains, nor even for a moment asks, a seat in the upper ranks of his profession.

Let us then put the class, to which Goldsmith belongs, in its proper rank; and having done so, we can have no scruple in placing him among the very first of that class. The Traveller is indeed a very finished and a very noble poem. The sentiments are always interesting, generally just, and often new; the imagery is elegant, picturesque, and occasionally sublime; the language is nervous, highly finished, and full of harmony. *

The

There is a forgotten poem of Blackmore, entitled "The Nature of Man, in Three Books," with this motto, "Quid quæque ferat Regio, et

The Deserted Village is a poem far inferior to The Traveller, though it contains many beautiful passages, I do not enter into its pretensions to skill in political

quid quæque recuset." Virg, 1711. 8vo, in which the Second Book is filled with topics very similar to tho of Goldsmith, in the above poem. Blackmore, in his Preface, says

"The Design of this poem is to express how far the disparity of the intellectual faculties, dispositions, and passions of men is oxing to the different situation of their native countries in respect of the sun; and to shew what advantages those receive, who are born in a mild air and temperate cimate; and what disadvantages in respect of understanding, reason, and moral improvements, those nations lie under, who suffer the extreme either of cold or heat: this is attempted in the First Book. Next, the Design is to bring down this general object to particular instances, by giving the distinct characters of many. European nations, arising from the different nature of the air and soil of their respective countries; and this is the subject of the Second Book. In the Third, the causes are enumerated, which raise and preserve a worthy and generous race of men; and the fatal errors and distempers of mind, which bring unavoidable ruin and destruction on the greatest and most Aourishing people."

The Argument of the Second Book is thus stated:

"The Character of the French Nation; their virtues and vices. Of the Spaniard. Of the Inhabitants of the Northern Coast of Africa stretching along the Mediterranean sea. Of the Italians. Of the Germans. Of the people of the United Netherlands. Of the Britons. An Episorical Digres sion, in praise of British Liberty. The Briton's Vices."

The following is part of the description of the French.

"Splendid in houses, equipage, and dress,
For show and pomp their passions they express.
Fawning and servile to the great they bow,
While scornful they insult the mean and low;
They thirst for praise immoderate, and proclaim,
In fulsome style, a benefactor's name;
And when their lawless monarch is the theme,
To court a tyrant they their God blaspheme,
They boast with hasty pride each small succes,
And as small lusses soon their souls depress,
Still in extremes their passions they employ;
Abject their grief, and insolent their joy.”

economy

economy, though, in that respect, it contains a strange mixture of important truths and dangerous fallacies. My business is with its poetry. Its inferiority to its predecessor arises from its comparative want of compression, as well as of force and novelty of imagery. Its tone of melancholy is more sickly, and some of the descriptions, which have been most praised, are marked by all the poverty and flatness, and indeed are peopled with the sort of comic and grotesque figures, of a Flemish landscape.

"The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,

The never-failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topt the neighbouring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made,
How often have I blest 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 survey'd ;
And many a gambol frolick'd o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round.
And still as each repeated pleasure tir'd,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspir'd;
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 titter'd round the place," &c.

Are not these the exact verbal description of a scene of Teniers?

In the mention of the village murmurs, which rise of a still evening to the neighbouring hill, occurs a

line of this sort, which never could have been admitted by one endued with high taste.

"The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool."

The recollected scene of the village ale-house contains also several passages strikingly liable to this

censure.

"The white-wash'd wall, the nicely-sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door;
The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay,

A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.
The pictures plac'd for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules; the royal game of goose;
The hearth, except when Winter chill'd the day,
With asper boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay;
While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show,
Rang'd a'er the chimney, glitter'd in a row."

If these were meant to be comic, they ought not to have occurred in a serious poent; and if they were not meant to be so, they must be admitted to be in a very bad style, and very unfortunate! But I do not doubt that Goldsmith thought them, as the mob always think a Dutch piece of drollery, highly simple and natural! And there are not a few readers, who of course consider them among the best verses of the poem.

How different is the following part of an Address to
Poetry, with which he closes.

"Farewell! And O! where'er thy voice be try'd,
On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side;
Whether where equinoctial fervors glow,
Or Winter wraps the polar world in snow;
Still let thy voice, prevailing over Time,
Redress the rigours of th' inclement clime;

Aid

Aid slighted Truth with thy persuasive strain,
Teach errring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him that states, of native strength possest,
Tho' very poor, may yet be very blest;

That Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As Ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky."
May 21, 1807.

ART. XV. The Ruminator. Containing a series, of moral and sentimental Essays.

N°. IX.

On the Belief of Supernatural Beings.

TO THE RUMINATOR.

In the course of your deep speculations on men and things; in the varied reflections of a poetic as well as philosophic mind, you must sometimes probably have thought on what will be, as well as on that whicht has been. Some of your ruminations no doubt have turned on subjects of higher and more lasting importance than political, and, of course, ternporary concerns; than the far more engaging pursuits of philosophy, or even of that divine art, which, beyond all others, ensures the immortality of this world.*

Speculations

Witness the assertion of Horace, that his famie would last as long as the Vestal Virgin should offer sacrifice on the Capit 51. The Pagan Priest, the Vestal Virgin have served for centuries, only

"To point a moral or adorn a tal,"

and