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the harvest not worth carrying away. But of all kinds of ambition, what from the refinement of the times, from different systems of criticism, and from the divifions of party, that which purfues poetical fame is the wildeft.

Poetry makes a principal amufement among unpolished nations; but in a country verging to the extremes of refinement, Painting and Mufic come in for a fhare. As thefe offer the feeble mind a lefs laborious entertainment, they at first rival Poetry, and at length fupplant her; they engrofs all that favour once fhewn to her, and, though but younger fifters, feize upon the elder's birthright.

Yet, however this art may be neglected by the powerful, it is ftill in greater danger from the miftaken efforts of the learned to improve it. What criticisms have we not heard of late in favour of blank verfe, and Pindaric odes, choruffes, anapefts and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence! Every abfurdity has now a champion to defend it; and as he is generally much in the wrong, fo he has always much to fay; for error is ever talkative.

But there is an enemy to this art ftill more dangerous, I mean Party. Party entirely diftorts the judgment, and destroys the taste. When the mind is once infected with this disease, it can only find

pleasure

pleasure in what contributes to increase the diftemper. Like the tyger, that feldom defifts from purfuing man, after having once preyed upon human flesh, the reader, who has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes, ever after, the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers generally admire some half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, having loft the character of a wife one. Him they dignify with the name of poet his tawdry lampoons are called fatires; his turbulence is faid to be force, and his phrenzy fire.

What reception a Poem may find, which has neither abuse, party, nor blank verse to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I folicitous to know. My aims are right. Without efpoufing the cause of any party, I have attempted to moderate the rage of all. I have endeavoured to fhew, that there may be equal happiness in states, that are differently governed from our own; that every state has a particular principle of happiness, and that this principle in each may be carried to a mischievous excess. There are few can judge, better than yourself, how far these pofitions are illuftrated in this Poem. I am,

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THE

TRAVELLER;

OR, A

PROSPECT OF SOCIET Y.*

REMOTE, unfriended, melancholy, flow,
Or by the lazy Scheld, or wandering Po;
Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor
Against the houseless ftranger fhuts the door;
Or where Campania's plain forfaken lies,
A weary wafte expanding to the skies;
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to fee,
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee:
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.

* In this poem several alterations were made, and fome new verses added, as it passed through different editions.We have printed from the ninth, which was the last edition published in the life-time of the author.

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Eternal bleffings crown my earliest friend,
And round his dwelling guardian faints attend;
Bleft be that spot, where chearful guests retire
To paufe from toil, and trim their evening fire;
Bleft that abode, where want and pain repair,
And every ftranger finds a ready chair:
Bleft be thofe feafts with fimple plenty crown'd,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jefts or pranks that never fail,
Or figh with pity at fome mournful tale;
Or prefs the bashful ftranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good.

But me, not deftin'd fuch delights to share,
My prime of life in wandering spent and care:
Impell'd, with fteps unceafing, to purfue

Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view;
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies;
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone,
And find no spot of all the world my own.

Ev'n now, where Alpine folitudes afcend,
I fit me down a penfive hour to spend ;
And, plac'd on high above the florm's career,
Look downward where an hundred realms appear;
Lakes, forefts, cities, plains extending wide,
The pomp of kings, the fhepherd's humbler pride.

When

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