2all BEMAKKS ON " THE DESERTED VILLAGE " 



It may here be noticed, that all the woes and evils of life 

 have always been embraced by the poets as subjects congenial 

 to their art. The personal experience of the individual men 

 may perhaps account for that acute sympathy which they 

 always display for the wretched and unfortunate. The diffi- 

 culties of the young aspirant for poetic fame, may frequently 

 enlist his feelings on the side of the oppressed. The kindly 

 disposition of the poetic race is a marked characteristic. 

 Indeed, the generous and noble sentiments prevail among 

 them, not only in the choice of subjects, but in their manner 

 of treating them. Hence they are generally the friends of 

 freedom, the advocates of liberty, the denouncers of des- 

 potism, the approvers of constancy in love, and the admirers 

 of bravery in the fight. From these circumstances, the 

 volumes of the poets are always favourites with the more 

 enlightened part of mankind, as well as with those who boast 

 of little knowledge but that of the modest train of the duties 

 of every-day life. Goldsmith, while he has elegance of 

 language, possesses a pathos of description which renders his 

 poetry agreeable to all classes. Few poems are so well 

 known as " The Deserted Village," and few more deservedly 

 appreciated. The taste of the most cultivated is pleased with 

 the poem, while the very school-boy is taught extracts from 

 it which he never forgets, and which he admires the longer 

 he knows them. This is a great tribute to the author, who 

 seems to have erected a monument of fame more durable 

 than the marble, and more lasting than the time-defying 

 brass. 



The nature of this poem precludes many of the higher 

 branches of the poetic art, yet it is not the less pleasing to a 

 general reader. Descriptive poetry attempts nothing that is 

 grand, but clothes with elegance of language those objects 

 which it embraces. In this poem, in particular, no redun- 

 dancy of language appears, no repetition which pains the 

 understanding ; and so closely is it written, that almost all the 



