How small, of all that human hearts endure,1 With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Luke's iron crown,2 and Damiens' bed of steel, [Johnson wrote these last lines, the penultimate couplet excepted. (Boswell, ut supra.)] 12 George (not Luke) Dosa, a Hungarian patriot, suffered in 1514 the penalty of the red-hot iron crown. Cf. H. Morley's Montaigne, 1886, xvi.j Robert-François Damiens was executed in 1757 after horrible tortures for an attempt to assassinate Louis XV. When in the Conciergerie, he is said to have been chained to an iron bed. (Smollett's History of England, 1823, bk. iii. ch. 7, § xxv.).] [The Deserted Village, a Poem. By Dr. Goldsmith,-was published by W. Griffin, at Garrick's Head, in Catherine-street, Strand, in a 4to. of thirty-two pages, on the 26th May, 1770. The price was two shillings. It is here reprinted from the fourth edition, issued in the same year as the first, but considerably revised.] I DEAR SIR, DEDICATION TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS 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 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.1 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 don't 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 scarce make any other answer than that I sincerely be lieve 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 See p. 3, and note.] |