DEDICATION
TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
DEAR SIR,
I can have no expectations in an address of this kind, either to add to
your reputation, or to establish my own. You can gain nothing from my
admiration, as I am ignorant of that art in which you are said to excel;
and I may lose much by the severity of your judgment, as few have a
juster taste in poetry than you. Setting interest therefore aside, to
which I never paid much attention, I must be indulged at present in
following my affections. The only dedication I ever made was to my
brother, because I loved him better than most other men. He is since
dead. Permit me to inscribe this Poem to you.
How far you may be pleased with the versification and mere mechanical
parts of this attempt, I don't pretend to enquire; but I know you will
object (and indeed several of our best and wisest friends concur in the
opinion) that the depopulation it deplores is no where to be seen, and
the disorders it laments are only to be found in the poet's own
imagination. To this I can scarce make any other answer than that I
sincerely believe what I have written; that I have taken all possible
pains, in my country excursions, for these four or five years past, to
be certain of what I allege; and that all my views and enquiries have
led me to believe those miseries real, which I here attempt to display.
But this is not the place to enter into an enquiry, whether the country
be depopulating or not; the discussion would take up much room, and I
should prove myself, at best, an indifferent politician, to tire the
reader with a long preface, when I want his unfatigued attention to a
long poem.
In regretting the depopulation of the country, I inveigh against the
increase of our luxuries; and here also I expect the shout of modern
politicians against me. For twenty or thirty years past, it has been the
fashion to consider luxury as one of the greatest national advantages;
and all the wisdom of antiquity in that particular, as erroneous. Still
however, I must remain a professed ancient on that head, and continue to
think those luxuries prejudicial to states, by which so many vices are
introduced, and so many kingdoms have been undone. Indeed so much has
been poured out of late on the other side of the question, that, merely
GOLDSMITH'S DEDICATION:
For the sake of novelty and variety, one would sometimes wish to be in
the right.
I am, Dear Sir,
Your sincere friend, and ardent admirer,
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
