ARGUMENT. The Subject proposed.-Remarks upon pastoral Poetry. -A Tract of Country near the Coast described.-An impoverished Borough.-Smugglers and their Assistants.-Rude Manners of the Inhabitants.-Ruinous Effects of a high Tide.-The Village Life more generally considered: Evils of it.-The youthful Labourer.-The Old Man his Soliloquy.-The Parish Workhouse.Its Inhabitants.-The Sick Poor.-Their Apothecary. -The dying Pauper.-The Village Priest. THE VILLAGE. BOOK I. THE Village life, and every care that reigns Fled are those times, when, in harmonious strains, The rustic poet prais'd his native plains; No shepherds now in smooth alternate verse, On MINCIO'S banks, in CESAR's bounteous reign, If TITYRUS found the golden age again, Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong, From truth and nature shall we widely stray, Because the Muses never knew their pains: From this chief cause these idle praises spring, I grant indeed that fields and flocks have charms, For him that gazes or for him that farms; But when amid such pleasing scenes I trace The poor laborious natives of the place, And see the mid-day sun, with fervid ray, On their bare heads and dewy temples play; |