THE TRAVELLER: OR, A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY.

TO THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH.

DEAR SIR,

I AM sensible that the friendship between us can acquire no new force from the ceremonies of a Dedication; and, perhaps, it demands an excuse thus to prefix your name to my attempts, which you decline giving with your own. But as a part of this poem was formerly written to you from Switzerland, the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you. It will also throw a light upon many parts of it, when the reader understands, that it is addressed to a man, who, despising fame and fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year.

I now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom of your humble choice. You have entered upon a sacred office, where the harvest is great, and the labourers are but few; while you have left[Page 148] the field of ambition, where the labourers are many, and the harvest not worth carrying away. But of all kinds of ambition, as things are now circumstanced, perhaps that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest. What from the increased refinement of the times, from the diversity of judgments produced by opposing systems of criticism, and from the more prevalent divisions of opinion influenced by party, the strongest and happiest efforts can expect to please but in a very narrow circle.

Poetry makes a principal amusement among unpolished nations; but in a country verging to the extremes of refinement, Painting and Music come in for a share. And as they offer the feeble mind a less laborious entertainment, they at first rival Poetry, and at length supplant her; they engross all favour to themselves, and though but younger sisters, seize upon the elder's birth-right.

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, chorusses, anapests and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence! Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it, and as he is generally[Page 149] much in the wrong, so he has always much to say; for error is ever talkative.

But there is an enemy to this art still more dangerous, I mean party. Party entirely distorts the judgment, and destroys the taste. A mind capable of relishing general beauty, when once infected with this disease, can only find pleasure in what contributes to increase the distemper. Like the tyger that seldom desists from pursuing 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 lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the name of poet; his lampoons are called satires, his turbulence is said 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 much solicitous to know. My aims are right. Without espousing the cause of any party, I have attempted to moderate the rage of all. I have endeavoured to shew, that there may be equal happiness in other states, though differently governed from our own; that each state has a particular principle[Page 150] of happiness, and that this principle in each state, and in our own in particular, may be carried to a mischievous excess. There are few can judge, better than yourself, how far these positions are illustrated in this poem.

I AM, SIR, YOUR MOST AFFECTIONATE BROTHER, OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

[Page]

THE TRAVELLER: OR, A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY.

REMOTE, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
Or by the lazy Scheld or wandering Po;
Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door;
Or where Campania's plain forsaken lies,
A weary waste expanded to the skies:
Where'er I roam, whatever realm to see,
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
Or drags at each remove a lengthening chain. 

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend;
Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire;
Blest that abode, where want and pain repair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair;
[Page 152]17  Blest be those feasts where mirth and peace abound,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,
Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good. 

But me, not destin'd such delights to share,
My prime of life in wand'ring spent and care! 
Impell'd, with steps unceasing, to pursue
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 solitudes ascend,
I sit me down a pensive hour to spend;
And, plac'd on high above the storm's career,
Look downward where an hundred realms appear;
Lakes, forests, cities, plains extended wide,
The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride. 

When thus creation's charms around combine,
Amidst the store, should thankless pride repine? 
Say, should the philosophic mind disdain
That good, which makes each humbler bosom vain? 
Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can,
These little things are great to little man;
And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind
Exults in all the good of all mankind. 
Ye glitt'ring towns, with wealth and splendour crown'd,
Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round,
Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale,
Ye bending swains, that dress the flow'ry vale,
For me your tributary stores combine;
Creation's tenant, all the world is mine. 

[Page 153]

As some lone miser visiting his store,
Bends at his treasure, counts, recounts it o'er;
Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill,
Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still:
Thus to my breast alternate passions rise,
Pleas'd with each good that heaven to man supplies:
Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall,
To see the sum of human bliss so small;
And oft I wish, amidst the scene, to find
Some spot to real happiness consign'd,
Where my worn soul, each wand'ring hope at rest,
May gather bliss to see my fellows blest. 

Yet, where to find that happiest spot below,
Who can direct, when all pretend to know? 
The shudd'ring tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own,
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long night of revelry and ease;
The naked savage, panting at the line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave. 
Nor less the patriot's boast where'er we roam,
His first, best country, ever is, at home. 

And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,
And estimate the blessings which they share;
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
An equal portion dealt to all mankind,
As different good, by Art or Nature given
To different nations, makes their blessings even. 

Nature, a mother kind alike to all,
Still grants her bliss at Labour's earnest call;
With food as well the peasant is supply'd
On Idra's cliff as Arno's shelvy side;
[Page 154]85  And though the rocky crested summits frown,
These rocks, by custom, turn to beds of down. 

From Art more various are the blessings sent;
Wealth, splendors, honour, liberty, content:
Yet these each other's power so strong contest,
That either seems destructive of the rest. 
Hence every state to one lov'd blessing prone,
Conforms and models life to that alone. 
Each to the favourite happiness attends,
And spurns the plan that aims at other ends;
'Till, carried to excess in each domain,
This favourite good begets peculiar pain. 

But let us try these truths with closer eyes,
And trace them through the prospect as it lies:
Here for a while, my proper cares resign'd,
Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind;
Like yon neglected shrub at random cast,
That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast. 

Far to the right, where Appennine ascends,
Bright as the summer, Italy extends:
Her uplands sloping deck the mountain's side,
Woods over woods in gay theatric pride;
While oft some temple's mould'ring top between,
With venerable grandeur marks the scene. 

Could Nature's bounty satisfy the breast,
The sons of Italy were surely blest. 
Whatever fruits in different climes are found,
That proudly rise or humbly court the ground;
Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear,
Whose bright succession decks the varied year;
Whatever sweets salute the northern sky
With vernal lives that blossom but to die;
These here disporting own the kindred soil,
Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil;
[Page 155]119  While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land. 

But small the bliss that sense alone bestows,
And sensual bliss is all this nation knows. 
In florid beauty groves and fields appear,
Men seem the only growth that dwindles here. 
Contrasted faults through all their manners reign,
Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain;
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue;
And even in penance planning sins anew. 
All evils here contaminate the mind,
That opulence departed leaves behind;
For wealth was theirs; nor far remov'd the date,
When Commerce proudly flourish'd through the state;
At her command the palace learnt to rise,
Again the long-fall'n colomn sought the skies;
The canvass glow'd beyond even nature warm,
The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form. 
But, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Soon Commerce turn'd on other shores her sail;
While nought remain'd of all that riches gave,
But towns unmann'd, and lords without a slave. 

Yet still the loss of wealth is here supply'd
By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride;
From these the feeble heart and long-fall'n mind
An easy compensation seem to find. 
Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array'd,
The paste-board triumph and the cavalcade;
Processions form'd for piety and love,
A mistress or a saint in every grove. 
By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd,
The sports of children satisfy the child;
At sports like these, while foreign arms advance,
In passive ease they leave the world to chance. 

[Page 156]

When noble aims have suffer'd long controul,
They sink at last, or feebly man the soul;
While low delights, succeeding fast behind,
In happier meanness occupy the mind:
As in those domes, where Caesars once bore sway,
Defac'd by time and tottering in decay,
Amidst the ruin, heedless of the dead,
The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed,
And, wond'ring man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile. 

My soul turn from them; turn we to survey
Where rougher climes a nobler race display,
Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread;
No product here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword. 
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter lingering chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly foothes the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest. 
Yet still, ev'n here, content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm. 
Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts 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;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal
To make him loath his vegetable meal;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil. 
Cheerful at morn he wakes from short repose,
Breasts the keen air, and carrols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls the sinny deep,
Or drives his vent'rous plough-share to the steep;
[Page 157]187  Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
And drags the struggling savage into day. 
At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down, the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His childrens looks, that brighten at the blaze;
While his lov'd partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays the cleanly platter on the board:
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed. 

Thus every good his native wilds impart,
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;
And ev'n those hills 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 babe, when scaring sounds molest,
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. 

These are the charms to barren states assign'd,
Their wants are few, their wishes all confin'd. 
Yet let them only share the praises due,
If few their wants, their pleasures are but few;
Since every want that stimulates the breast,
Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest. 
Hence 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;
Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,
Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame. 
Their level life is but a smould'ring fire,
Nor quench'd by want, nor fann'd by strong desire;
[Page 158]221  Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer
On some high festival of once a year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,
'Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire. 

But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow;
Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low:
For, as refinement stops, from sire to son,
Unalter'd, unimprov'd, their manners run;
And love's and friendship's finely pointed dart
Fall blunted from each indurated heart:
Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast
May sit, like falcons cow'ring on the nest,
But all the gentler morals, such as play
Through life's more cultur'd walks, and charm our way,
These far dispers'd, on timorous pinions fly,
To sport and flutter in a kinder sky. 

To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
We turn; and France displays her bright domain. 
Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleas'd with thyself, whom all the world can please,
How often have I led thy sportive choir,
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire! 
Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And freshen'd from the wave the zephyr flew;
And haply, though my harsh touch faultering still,
But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill;
Yet would the village praise my wond'rous power,
And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide hour. 
Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore,
Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore. 

So bright a life these thoughtless realms display;
Thus idly busy rolls their world away:
[Page 159]255  Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
For honour forms the social temper here. 
Honour, that praise which real merit gains,
Or ev'n imaginary worth obtains,
Here passes current; paid from hand to hand,
It shifts in splendid traffic round the land:
From courts to camps, to cottages it strays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise;
They please, are pleas'd, they give to get esteem,
'Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem. 

But while this softer art their bliss supplies,
It gives their follies also room to rise;
For praise too dearly lov'd or warmly sought,
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought:
And the weak soul, within itself unblest,
Leans for all pleasure on another's breast. 
Hence Ostentation here, with taudry art,
Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
Here Vanity assumes her pert grimace,
And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace;
Here beggar Pride defrauds her daily cheer,
To boast one splendid banquet once a year;
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,
Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause. 

To men of other minds my fancy flies,
Embosom'd in the deep where Holland lies;
Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
Where the broad ocean leans against the land,
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride;
Onward methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm connected bulwark seems to go;
Spreads its long arms amidst the watry roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore:
[Page 160]289  While the pent Ocean rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;
The slow canal, the yellow-blossom'd vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescu'd from his reign. 

Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil
Impels the native to repeated toil,
Industrious habits in each bosom reign,
And industry begets a love of gain. 
Hence all the good from opulence that springs,
With all those ills superfluous treasure brings,
Are here display'd. Their much lov'd wealth imparts
Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts;
But view them closer, craft and fraud appear,
Ev'n liberty itself is barter'd here. 
At gold's superior charms all freedom flies,
The needy sell it, and the rich man buys;
A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves,
Here wretches seek dishonourable graves,
And calmly bent, to servitude conform,
Dull as their lakes that sleep beneath the storm. 

Heavens! how unlike their Belgic sires of old! 
Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold;
War in each breast, and freedom on each brow;
How much unlike the sons of Britain now! 

Fir'd at the sound, my genius spreads her wing,
And flies where Britain courts the western spring;
Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,
And brighter streams than fam'd Hydaspis glide. 
There all around the gentlest breezes stray,
There gentle music melts on every spray;
Creation's mildest charms are there combin'd,
Extremes are only in the master's mind. 
[Page 161]323 Stern o'er each bosom Reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great;
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by,
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,
By forms unfashion'd, fresh from Nature's hand;
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imagin'd right, above controul,
While ev'n the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man. 

Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictur'd here,
Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear;
Too blest, indeed, were such without alloy,
But, foster'd ev'n by Freedom, ills annoy:
That independence Britons prize too high,
Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie;
The self-dependent lordlings stand alone,
All kindred claims that soften life unknown:
Here by the bonds of nature feebly held,
Minds combat minds, repelling and repell'd;
Ferments arise, imprison'd factions roar,
Represt ambition struggles round her shore,
Whilst over-wrought, the general system feels
Its motions stopt, or phrenzy fires the wheels. 

Nor this the worst. As social bonds decay,
As duty, love, and honour fail to sway,
Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law,
Still gather strength and force unwilling awe. 
Hence all obedience bows to these alone,
And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown;
Till time may come, when stript of all her charms,
That land of scholars, and that nurse of arms,
Where noble stems transmit the patriot claim,
And monarchs toil, and poets pant for fame,
[Page 162]357  One sink of level avarice shall lie,
And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonour'd die. 

Yet think not, thus when freedom's ills I state,
I mean to flatter kings, or court the great;
Ye powers of truth that bid my soul aspire,
Far from my bosom drive the low desire! 
And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel
The rabble's rage, and tyrant's angry steel;
Thou transitory flower, alike undone
By cold contempt, or favour's fostering sun,
Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure,
I only would repress them to secure:
For just experience tells in every soil,
That those who think must govern those that toil;
And all that freedom's highest aims can reach,
Is but to lay proportion'd loads on each;
Much on the low, the rest, as rank supplies,
Should in columnar diminution rise;
While, should one order disproportion'd grow,
Its double weight must ruin all below. 
O then how blind to all that truth requires,
Who think it freedom when a part aspires! 
Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,
Except when fast approaching danger warms:
But when contending chiefs blockade the throne,
Contracting regal power to stretch their own;
When I behold a factious band agree
To call it freedom when themselves are free;
Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw,
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law;
The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam,
Pillag'd from slaves to purchase slaves at home;
Fear, pity, justice, indignation start,
Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart;
[Page 163]391  'Till half a patriot, half a coward grown,
I fly from petty tyrants to the throne. 

Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour,
When first ambition struck at regal power;
And thus polluting honour in its source,
Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force. 
Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore,
Her useful sons exchang'd for useless ore? 
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,
Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste;
Seen Opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
Lead stern Depopulation in her train,
And, over fields where scatter'd hamlets rose,
In barren solitary pomp repose? 
Have we not seen, at Pleasure's lordly call,
The smiling long-frequented village fall;
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay'd,
The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main;
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thund'ring sound? 

Ev'n now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays
Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways;
Where beasts with men divided empire claim,
And the brown Indian takes a deadly aim;
There, while above the giddy tempest flies,
And all around distressful yells arise,
The pensive exile, bending with his woe,
To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,
Casts a fond look where England's glories shine,
And bids his bosom sympathize with mine. 

Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centers in the mind:
[Page 164]425  Why have I stray'd from pleasure and repose,
To seek a good each government bestows? 
In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain,
How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure. 
Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,
Our own felicity we make or find:
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy. 
The lifted ax, the agonizing wheel,
Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel,
To men remote from power but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own. 

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Title (in Source Edition): THE TRAVELLER: OR, A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY.

Author: Oliver Goldsmith

Themes: travel; rural life; city

Genres: heroic couplet; prospect poem / topographical poem

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Source edition

Goldsmith, Oliver, 1730?-1774. The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M.B. Containing all his Essays and Poems. London: printed for W. Griffin, Catherine-street, in the Strand, 1775, pp. []-164. [8],iv,[1],10-200p. ; 8⁰. (ESTC T146118; OTA K113624.000)

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The text has been typographically modernized, but without any silent modernization of spelling, capitalization, or punctuation. The source of the text is given and all editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. Based on the electronic text originally produced by the TCP project, this ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

Secondary literature

Kazmin, Roman. Oliver Goldsmith's The Traveller and The Deserted Village: moral economy of landscape representation. English Studies (The Netherlands) 87(6) (2006): 653-668. Print.

TO THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH.

THE TRAVELLER: OR, A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY.

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