[ S3 ] 



Thofe pois'iious fields with rank luxuriance crowu'd. 

 Where the dark fcorpion gathers death around, 

 Where at each Rep the ftranger fears to wake 

 The rattling terrors of the vengeful fnake ; 

 Where crouching tygers wait their haplefs prey. 

 And favage men more murd'rous dill than they ; 

 While oft in whirls the mad Tornado flies 

 Mingling the ravag'd landfcape with the fkies. 



This pafTage is more peculiarly in Goldfmith's manner, the 

 fublimity here being only an accidental inftrument to heighten 

 the pathos. 



For denfe and folid fentiments — couplets pregnant with 

 found refledlion in forcible language, fitted to imprefs them- 

 felves on the memory, and to incorporate in the mafs of po- 

 pular morals, we in vain look in this author's writings. His 

 moral pafTages are too diffufe for quotation : they are long 

 addreffes to luxviry or to freedom, connedled details of the 

 evils of fa(5lion, whole fcencs defcriptive of city profufion and 

 rural devaftation, without any effort to concenter their force 

 in one ftrong apothegm, or to fum up the particulars in more 

 compadl form, and without calling in the fupport of any ac- 

 knowledged and inftrudlive truth, delivered in abftradl preci- 

 fion and cloathed in imprefGve language. I know but one at- 

 tempt of Goldfmith's at condenfing the fubftance of an ante- 

 cedent detail, and but one of his couplets containing a moral 



fentimcnt 



