Traveller, The, or a Prospect of Society

Traveller, The, or a Prospect of Society, a poem by Goldsmith, published 1764, and the first production under his own name. It is dedicated and addressed to his brother, a country clergyman.

The poet as traveller, from a vantage point in the Alps, surveys and compares the social, political, and economic conditions of the various countries spread before his eyes and his imagination, and endeavours to illustrate that (in the words of his preface) ‘there may be equal happiness in states, that are differently governed from our own.’ The vividly drawn landscapes of Italy, the Loire valley, and the ‘slow canals’ of Holland are clearly based on Goldsmith's own continental tour in 1755. The poem ends with a lament for rural decay in the face of growing commerce that foreshadows the theme of The Deserted Village. Dr Johnson, who greatly admired the poem, contributed nine lines to it, ll. 420, 429–34, 437–8.