DEDICATION. TO THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH. DEAR SIR, M sensible that the friendship between us can quire no new force from the ceremonies of a lication; and perhaps it demands an excuse us to prefix your name to my attempts, which u decline giving with your own. But as a rt of this poem was formerly written to you -m Switzerland, the whole can now, with proety, be only inscribed to you. It will also row a light upon many parts of it, when the ader understands, that it is addressed to a man o, despising fame and fortune, has retired early happiness and obscurity, with an income of ty pounds a year. I now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom your humble choice. sacred office, where the You have entered upon harvest is great, and e labourers are but few; while you have left e field of ambition, where the labourers are any, and 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 divisions of party, that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest. Poetry makes a principal amusement among unpolished nations; but in a country verging to the extremes of refinement, painting and music come in for share. As these offer the feeble mind a less laborious entertainment, they at first rival poetry, and at length supplant her: they engross all that favour once shown to her, and, though but younger sisters, seize upon the elders' birthright. Yet, however this art may be neglected by the powerful, it is still in greater danger from the mistaken efforts of the learned to improve it. What criticisms have we not heard of late in favour of blank verse, and Pindaric odes, choruses, anapests, and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence! Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it; and as he is generally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say; for error is ever talkative. The reception a poem m er abuse, party, nor bla Cannot tell, nor am I Ems are right. Withou party, I have attem of all. I have endea may be equal happi Sly governed from has a particular prin this principle in ea hievous excess. Th er than yourself, ho strated in this poem. But there is an enemy to this art still more dangerous, I mean party. Party entirely distorts the judgment, and destroys the taste. When the mind is once infected with this disease, it can only find pleasure in what contributes to increase the distemper. Like the tiger, that seldom desists from pursuing man, after having once preyed human flesh, the reader, who has once grahis appetite with calumny, makes, ever after, most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. I readers generally admire some half-witted , who wants to be thought a bold man,1 ng lost the character of a wise one. Him dignify with the name of poet: his tawdry oons are called satires; his turbulence is said e force, and his phrenzy fire. hat reception a poem may find, which has her abuse, party, nor blank verse to support cannot tell, nor am I solicitous to know. aims are right. Without espousing the cause ny party, I have attempted to moderate the of all. I have endeavoured to show, that e may be equal happiness in states that are erently governed from our own; that every e has a particular principle of happiness, and this principle in each may be carried to a chievous excess. There are few can judge, cer than yourself, how far these positions are Strated in this poem. I am, Dear Sir, Your most affectionate Brother, OLIVER GOLDSMITH. I suppose this paragraph to be directed against Paul nitehead, or Churchill. |