THE DESERTED VILLAGE. A Poem. London: Printed for W. Griffin, at Garrick's Head, in Catharine-street, Strand, MDCCLXX. "The Deserted Village, a Poem by Dr. Goldsmith London: Printed for W. Griffin, at Garrick's Head, in Catharine Street, Strand, 1770," 4to, was first published in May, 1770, and ran through six editions in the same year in which it was first published. The price was 2s. The sum received by Goldsmith for "The Deserted Village" is unknown. ΤΟ 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 I 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 enquire; 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 allege, and that all my views and enquiries have led me to believe those miseries real, which I here attempt to display. But this is not the place to enter into an enquiry, 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. 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 erroneous. 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. THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 1 SWEET AUBURN! loveliest village of the plain, The shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm, The decent church that topt the neighbouring hill, How often have I blest the coming day,' And all the village train, from labour free, Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree; ["Lissoy, near Ballymahon, where the poet's brother, a clergyman, had his living, claims the honour of being the spot from which the localities of the 'Deserted Village' were derived. The church which tops the neighbouring hill, the mill, and the brook, are still pointed out; and a hawthorn has suffered the penalty of poetical celebrity, being cut to pieces by those admirers of the bard, who desired to have classical tooth-pick cases and tobacco-stoppers. Much of this supposed locality may be fanciful, but it is a pleasing tribute to the poet in the land of his fathers."-SIR WALTER SCOTT, Miscellaneous Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 250, edit. 1834.] 2 [Supposed to allude to the number of Saints' days in Ireland, kept by the Roman Catholic peasantry.] |