18 



REMARKS ON " THE 0ESERTED VILLAGE 



The poet takes the part of those who are suffering from 

 this measure of ambition, and throws into his subject much 

 humane feeling, mingled with honest indignation. He warms 

 with his subject, and hesitates not to denounce the luxury to 

 which he attributes the evils which he depicts, as a vice of 

 the blackest enormity and most dangerous quality. But 

 while he attacks Luxury as the depopulator of his country, 

 he at the same time accuses Commerce as the chief cause of 

 the evil. He draws the picture of a barren waste, — solitary, 

 without inhabitants, and without cultivation ; and having 

 contrasted the beauty of rural life in a happy village, with 

 the scene of his imagination, condemns Commerce as the 

 cause of the change, and in his desire to defend the peace of 

 rural happiness, hesitates not to accuse the enterprise of 

 trade as an evil which must eventually ruin the country, and 

 drive from it not only population but virtue. So long as he 

 confines himself to the delineation of the rustic population, — 

 to the painting their sports, habits, and occupations, — or 

 pictures the village church and the school or parsonage, 

 every one must admit the accuracy of his description and the 

 force of his language. But when he begins to reason as to 

 the causes which have operated to bring about the state of 

 things which he describes, his arguments appear weak and 

 his illustrations absurd. The beauty of the poem will com- 

 pensate for this failing with ordinary readers, who can 

 appreciate the scenes which he paints, though they will pass 

 over without much consideration the deductions which he 

 draws. 



In truth, the poet would have been deficient in feeling had 

 he not, after lamenting the desolation, denounced the Deso- 

 lators ; and after he had discovered what he conceived to be 

 the cause of the evil, he was compelled to pour out all the 

 indignation of poetical justice upon the offenders. Yet when 

 we analyse his pathetic appeals, it will appear they are more 

 imaginary than real. If they were correctly stated as having 



