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tlon. His fimiles therefore might be expedled to be, as indeed 

 they are, beautiful pictures and well adapted illuftratioiis. With 

 their acknowledged jnerits of this fort they certainly unite one 

 of fingular fubtilty- Many of them are local images, the ap- 

 propriate growth of the fcene or country which he defcribes. 

 The mean delights of the modern Italians fucceeding the no- 

 bler aims of their progenitors are illuftrated by the fimile of 

 the peafant feeking fhelter in thofe domes where Caefars once 

 bore fway *. The virtues of the Swifs are like falcons cowring 

 on the neft : the Dutch, conformed to fervitude, are 



Dull as their lakes which deep beneath the ftorm. 



Such a felicity in his fimiles embodies them into the main 

 fubjedl, and even gives an apparent flrength to the theory in 

 his Traveller, by an indiredl intimation that the national cha- 

 radier is fovmded in fome afTociate circumftance of the natural 

 hiftory of each country. 



The fimile in which our author compares the mifer's rap- 

 ture at the view of his hoards and his fighs for thofe which 

 are wanting with the alternate pafllons in his own breafl, of 



pleafure 



* The fame efFeft is produced by an artifice of Goldfmith's di£lion. The pecu- 

 liarity of the word long-fall'n as applied to the mind in Italy naturally recals to our 

 view the loiig-falhi columns in the fame country which had been mentioned but 

 eleven lines before, and thus induces a mental comparifon between the ftate of their 

 arts and their minds. 



