I see a column of slow-rising smoke
O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild. |
A vagabond and useless tribe there eat
560 Their miserable meal. A kettle, slung
Between two poles upon a stick transverse,
Receives the morsel; flesh obscene of dog,
Or vermin, or, at best, of cock purloined
From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race!
565 They pick their fuel out of every hedge,|

Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unquenched

The spark of life. |

Their fluttering rags,

The sportive wind blows wide

and shows a tawny skin,

The vellum of the pedigree they claim.]

570 Great skill have they in palmistry, and more
To conjure clean away the gold) they touch,]
Conveying worthless dross into its place ;)

Loud) when they beg, | dumb only) when they steal. |
Strange that a creature rational, and cast

575 In human mould, should brutalize by choice
His nature, and, though capable of arts)

By which the world might profit and himself, |
Self-banished from society, prefer

Such squalid sloth to honourable toil !)

580 Yet even these,) though feigning sickness oft,
They swathe the forehead, drag the limping limb,]
And vex their flesh with artificial sores,]

Can change their whine into a mirthful note)

When safe occasion offers;

558. The wood that skirts the wild. Wild is not an Adj. used substantively, but a real substantive, whence we speak of the wilds of America. It is, in fact, originally identical with wood, wold and weald, all of which designate a wilderness as opposed to cultivated land.

O'ertop-See Gr. 77.

566. Saves unquenched-Gr. 76, Rem. 1. 570. Palmistry,-Fortune telling from

and with dance

the lines of the palm of the hand; to conjure, adjunct to skill.

575. The order is this:-[It is] strange, that a creature rational, and cast in human inould, should by choice brutalize his nature : and though capable of arts by which the world and [he] himself might profit, [that he], self-banished from society, should prefer such squalid sloth to honourable toil.

585 And music of the bladder and the bag,

Beguile their woes,] and make the woods resound.]
Such health and gaiety of heart enjoy

The houseless rovers of the sylvan world ;|

And breathing wholesome air, and wandering much, 590 Need other physic none to heal the effects Of loathsome diet, penury, and cold.]

Blest he, though undistinguished from the crowd
By wealth or dignity,] who dwells secure |
Where man, by nature fierce, has laid aside
595 His fierceness, having learnt, though slow to learn,
The manners and the arts of civil life. |
His wants, indeed, are many ; but supply
Is obvious; placed within the easy reach
Of temperate wishes and industrious hands. |
600 Here virtue thrives as in her proper soil ;
Not rude and surly, and beset with thorns,
And terrible to sight,) as when she springs
(If e'er she spring spontaneous) in remote
And barbarous climes, where violence prevails, |
605 And strength is lord of all ;] but gentle, kind,
By culture tamed, by liberty refreshed,

And all her fruits by radiant truth matured.)
War and the chase engross the savage whole :
War followed for revenge, or to supplant
610 The envied tenants of some happier spot;
The chase for sustenance, precarious trust!|
His hard condition with severe constraint
Binds all his faculties, forbids all growth
Of wisdom,] proves a school] in which he learns

585. Music of the bladder and the bag? The bagpipe and timbrel ?

586. Factitive construction.

598. Obvious is used in the sense of the Latin obvius, viz., easily obtainable; not in sense of easily perceptible, which is now the only received signification.

606-607. All the Adjectives and Participles in these lines-rude, surly, gentle, kind, tamed, refreshed, matured-really agree with virtue, but are used to modify the Predicate.-(Vide Gr. 78, d).

608. Whole, a Latinism for wholly 611. Precarious trust!-Interjection.

615 Sly circumvention, unrelenting hate,

Mean self-attachment, and scarce aught beside. |
Thus fare the shivering natives of the north,|

And thus the rangers of the western world,]
Where it advances far into the deep,

620 Towards the Antarctic. Even the favoured isles,
So lately found,) although the constant sun
Cheer all their seasons with a grateful smile, |
Can boast but little virtue ;) and inert

Through plenty, lose in morals) what they gain
625 In manners | victims of luxurious ease.)
These therefore I can pity, placed remote
From all) that science traces, art invents,]
Or inspiration teaches ;] and enclosed
In boundless oceans, never to be passed
630 By navigators uninformed) as they,]

Or ploughed perhaps by British bark again.)
But far beyond the rest, and with most cause,
Thee, gentle savage !] whom no love of thee
Or thine, but curiosity, perhaps,

635 Or else vain-glory, prompted us to draw
Forth from thy native bowers, to show thee here |
With what superior skill we can abuse
The gifts of Providence, and squander life.]
The dream is past; and thou hast found again

640 Thy cocoas and bananas, palms and yams,

And homestall thatched with leaves. But hast thou found
Their former charms | And having seen our state,

Our palaces, our ladies, and our pomp

Of equipage, our gardens, and our sports,

645 And heard our music; are thy simple friends, Thy simple fare, and all thy plain delights

620. The Antarctic-Used substantively 620. The favoured isles so lately found by Cook.

625. Victims in Appos. with isles.

631. Ellipse to be supplied thus,-or never to be ploughed by British bark again.

633. Thee, gentle savage, [do I pity].

1 Omai.

D

As dear to thee as once? And have thy joys
Lost nothing by comparison with ours?
Rude) as thou art | (for we returned thee rude
650 And ignorant, except of outward show),
I cannot think thee yet so dull of heart
And spiritless, as never to regret

Sweets tasted here, and left as soon as known.)
[Methinks] I see thee straying on the beach,
655 And asking of the surge | that bathes thy foot |
If ever it has washed our distant shore. |
I see thee weep, and thine are honest tears,
A patriot's for his country | thou art sad
At thought of her forlorn and abject state,

660 From which no power of thine can raise her up. |
Thus fancy paints thee, and, though apt to err,
Perhaps errs little] when she paints thee thus.
She tells me too, that duly every morn
Thou climb'st the mountain top, with eager eye
665 Exploring far and wide the watery waste

For sight of ship from England. | Every speck
Seen in the dim horizon, turns thee pale
With conflict of contending hope and fears. I
But comes at last the dull and dusky eve, |
670 And sends thee to thy cabin, well prepared
To dream all night of] what the day denied. |
Alas! expect it not.] We found no bait
To tempt us in thy country. Doing good,
Disinterested good, is not our trade. |

675 We travel far, | ['tis true,] but not for nought ;]
And must be bribed to compass earth again

By other hopes and richer fruits] than yours.]
But though true worth and virtue, in the mild

649. I cannot think thee, rude as thou art [rude], yet so dull of heart.

652. As to regret-Adverbial adjunct to so dull of heart.

654. Methinks is taken from an old Saxon verb, which means to seem. Compare Ger.

mir dünckt. It might be analysed either as a principal sentence, or as a parenthetical phrase.

665. Alliteration.

669. Inversion, see line 16.

And genial soil of cultivated life

680 Thrive most, ❘ and may perhaps thrive only there,]
Yet not in cities oft: in proud and gay
And gain-devoted cities.] Thither flow,
As to a common and most noisome sewer,
The dregs and feculence of every land. I
685 In cities foul example on most minds

Begets its likeness. Rank abundance breeds
In gross and pampered cities sloth and lust,
And wantonness and gluttonous excess.

In cities, vice is hidden with most ease,|
690 Or seen with least reproach ;] and virtue, taught
By frequent lapse, can hope no triumph there
Beyond the achievement of successful flight. |
I do confess them nurseries of the arts,

In which they flourish most; | where, in the beams

695 Of warm encouragement, and in the eye

Of public note, they reach their perfect size.
Such London is, by taste and wealth proclaimed
The fairest capital of all the world,

By riot and incontinence the worst.

700 There, touched by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes

684. Lees and feculence-This is an instance of redundancy of speech, the two expressions not conveying two distinct ideas. It is what the English language is particularly prone to, as in many instances there are two sets of words for the same thing, derived from the two chief sources of the Janguage-the German and the Latin. They abound in the law language (" bribery and corruption"); in the language of common life ("in every form and shape"), and the best authors. Thus, "assemble and meet

together," "dissemble and cloak," are purely tautologous. Shakspere is full of instances, as,—

Julius Cæsar, iii. 1,—

Julius Cæsar, iii. 2,

"The will, the testament." Othello, i. 3,

"The trust, the office, I do hold of you." Othello, i. 3,

"A maiden of spirit so still and quiet." Nor are these cumulative expressions confined to instances when words of German and Latin origin are combined, as shown by the expressions "many a time and oft," and

Othello, i. 2,

"I would not my unhoused free condition Put into circumscription and confine." It would be splitting hairs to attempt to show that each of these various terms was intended to convey a distinct idea.

692. Beyond the achievement, &c.-Attrib. to triumph.