Hogarth,
too, is said to have visited him at Islington, and to have painted the
portrait of Mrs. Fleming. Later in the same year, incited thereto by the
success of Christopher Smart's 'Hannah', he wrote the Oratorio of 'The
Captivity', now to be found in most editions of his poems, but never set
to music. Then after the slow growth of months, was issued on the 19th
December the elaboration of that fragmentary sketch which he had sent
years before to his brother Henry from the Continent, the poem entitled
'The Traveller; or, A Prospect of Society'.
In the notes appended to 'The Traveller' in the present volume, its
origin and progress are sufficiently explained. Its success was
immediate and enduring. The beauty of the descriptive passages, the
subtle simplicity of the language, the sweetness and finish of the
versification, found ready admirers,--perhaps all the more because of
the contrast they afforded to the rough and strenuous sounds with which
Charles Churchill had lately filled the public ear.
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