TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

DEAR SIR,

I 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 said to excel; and I may lose much by the severity of your judgment, as few have a juster taste in poetry than you. Setting interest, therefore, aside, to which I never paid much attention, I must be indulged at present in following my affections. The only dedication I ever made was to my brother, because 1 loved him better than most other men. He is since dead. Permit me to inscribe this poem to you.

How far you may be pleased with the versification and mere mechanical parts of this attempt, I do not pretend to inquire; but I know you will object (and indeed several of our best and wisest 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 scarcely make any other answer than that I sincerely believe what I have written; that I have taken all possible pains, in my country excursions, for these four or five years past, to be certain of what I alledge, and that all my views and inquiries have led me to believe those miseries real which I here attempt to display. But this is not the place to enter into an inquiry, whether the country be depopulating or not; the

discussion would take up much room, and I should prove myself, at best, an indifferent politician, to tire the reader with a long preface, when I want his unfatigued attention to a long poem.

erroneous.

In regretting the depopulation of the country, I inveigh against the increase of our luxuries; and here also I expect the shout of modern politicians against me. For twenty or thirty years past, it has been the fashion to consider luxury as one of the greatest national advantages; and all the wisdom of antiquity in that particular, as Still, however, I must remain a professed ancient on that head, and continue to think those luxuries prejudicial to states by which so many vices are introduced, and so many kingdoms have been undone. Indeed, so much has been poured out of late on the other side of the question, that, merely for the sake of novelty and variety, one would sometimes wish to be in the right. I am,

Dear Sir,

Your sincere friend,

And ardent admirer

OLIVER GOLDSMITH

TO DR. GOLDSMITH,

AUTHOR OF

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

BY MISS AIKIN,

AFTERWARDS MRS. BARBAULD.

IN vain fair Auburn weeps her desert plains;
She moves our envy who so well complains:
In vain hath proud oppression laid her low,
She wears a garland on her faded brow.
Now, Auburn, now, absolve impartial fate,
Which if it makes thee wretched, makes thee
great.

So unobserv'd some humble plant may bloom,
Till crush'd, it fills the air with sweet perfume
So had thy swains in ease and plenty slept,
The poet had not sung nor Britain wept.
Nor let Britannia mourn her drooping bay,
Unhonour'd Genius, and her swift decay;
O, patron of the poor, it cannot be,
While one....one poet yet remains like thee.
Nor can the Muse desert our favour'd Isle,
Till thou desert the Muse, and scorn her smile.

1

THE

DESERTED VILLAGE.

SWEET Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheer'd the labouring swain,

Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer's ling'ring blooms delay'd.
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loiter'd o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endear'd each scene!
How often have I paus'd on every charm,
The shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm.
The never failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topt the neighb'ring hill,

The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,

For talking age and whisp'ring lovers made!
How often have I blest the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the viliage train, from labour free,
sports beneath the spreading tree,

Led up

their