Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray.*
The service past, around the pious man,
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;

E'en children follow'd with endearing wile,

And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest,
Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distrest;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.†

Beside you straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay,

[This line bears some resemblance in expression to a passage in Dryden's Britannia Redeviva :

"Our vows are heard betimes, and heaven takes care

To grant before we can conclude the pray'r;

Preventing angels met it half the way,

And sent us back to praise who came to pray."]

["This is one of the most simple and sublime passages in English poetry."-GIFFORD.

"As Claudian has come in my way," says Gilbert Wakefield, in his Memoirs," and the subject turns on the obligations of the moderns to the ancients, I will step out of the road to discover the origin of perhaps the sublimest simile that English poetry can boast:

Ut altus Olympi

Vertex, qui spatio ventos hiemesque relinquit,
Perpetuum nullâ temeratus nube serenum,
Celsior exsurgit pluviis, auditque ruentes
Sub pedibus nimbos, et rauca tonitrua calcat;
Sic patiens animus per tanta negotia liber

Emergit, simili-que sui: justique tenorem
Flectere non odium cogit, non gratia suadet.'"

CLAUD. de Mall. Theod. Cons. 206,
"Stat sublimis aper, ver.tosque imbresque serenus
Despicit."-Theb. i. 35.]

There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,
The village master taught his little school:
A man severe he was, and stern to view,
I knew him well, and every truant knew;
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round,
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd:
Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declar'd how much he knew,
'Twas certain he could write and cipher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And e'en the story ran-that he could gauge:
In arguing too, the parson own'd his skill,
For e'en though vanquish'd, he could argue still;
While words of learned length, and thund'ring sound,
Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around;

And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew."

Where many a time he triumph'd, is forgot.

Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high,

Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye,
Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspir'd,
Where graybeard mirth, and smiling toil retir'd,

* [Goldsmith is here supposed to have drawn the portrait of his own early instructor, Thomas Byrne -See Life, ch. i.]

Where village statesmen talked with looks profound,
And news much older than their ale went round.
Imagination fondly stoops to trace

The parlor splendors of that festive place;
The white-wash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door ;*
The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay,

A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day;
The pictures plac'd for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules,† the royal game of goose;
The hearth, except when winter chill'd the day,
With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay,
While broken tea cups, wisely kept for show,
Rang'd o'er the chimney, glisten'd in a row.‡

Vain, transitory splendors! could not all
Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall?

* ["Goldsmith's chaste pathos makes him an insinuating moralist, and throws a charm of Claude-like softness over his descriptions of homely objects, that would seem only fit to be the subjects of Dutch painting. But his quiet enthusiasm leads the affections to humble things without a vulgar association; and he inspires us with a fondness to trace the simplest recollections of Auburn, till we count the furniture of its alehouse, and listen to the varnished clock that clicked behind the door.'"-CAMPBELL, vol. vi. p. 263.]

[Crabbe, who had his eye frequently fixed on Goldsmith, of whom he is indeed in many passages an enlarged, sometimes avowed imitator, has likewise introduced "The Twelve Good Rules" as part of the ornamental furniture of the industrious swain's cot in the introduction to the Parish Register:There is King Charles, and all his Golden Rules, Who proved misfortune's was the best of schools; And then his Son, who tried by years of pain,

Proved that misfortunes may be sent in vain."-Vol. ii. p. 144, edit. 1834.]

[The alehouse has been rebuilt by the poet's relative, Mr. Hogan, and supplied with the sign of the "Three Jolly Pigeons," with new copies of the "Twelve Golden Rules" and the "Royal Game of Goose," not omitting the broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show."-See Life, ch. xix.]

VOL. IV.

Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart
An hour's importance to the poor man's heart;
Thither no more the peasant shall repair,
To sweet oblivion of his daily care;

No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale,
No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail;
No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear,
Relax his ponderous strength, and lean to hear;
The host himself no longer shall be found
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train,
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art:
Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway;
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfin'd.

But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth array'd,
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain:
And e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy?

Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay,

'Tis yours to judge, how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land.*

Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore,
And shouting folly hails them from her shore;
Hoards e'en beyond the miser's wish abound,
And rich men flock from all the world around.
Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name,
That leaves our useful products still the same.
Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds:
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth,
Has robb'd the neighboring fields of half their growth;
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,

Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies.
While thus the land, adorn'd for pleasure all,
In barren splendor feebly waits the fall.

As some fair female, unadorn'd and plain,
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
Slights every borrow'd charm that dress supplies,
Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes;

* [“ Happy, very happy, might they have been, had they known when to bound their riches and their glory: had they known that extending empire is often diminishing power; that countries are ever strongest which are internally powerful; that colonies, by draining away the brave and enterprising, leave the country in the hands of the timid and the avaricious; that too much commerce may injure a nation as well as too little; and that there is a wide differ ence between a conquering and a flourishing empire."-Citizen of the World See vol. ii. p. 109.]