In the first edition
this read--'and that this principle in each state, and in our
own in particular, may be carried to a mischievous excess.'
l. 1. -----
"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow". Mitford (Aldine
edition, 1831, p. 7) compares the following lines from Ovid:--
Solus, inops, exspes, leto poenaeque relictus.
'Metamorphoses', xiv. 217.
Exsul, inops erres, alienaque limina lustres, etc.
'Ibis'. 113.
"slow". A well-known passage from Boswell must here be
reproduced:--'Chamier once asked him [Goldsmith], what he meant
by 'slow', the last word in the first line of 'The Traveller',
Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.
Did he mean tardiness of locomotion? Goldsmith, who would say
something without consideration, answered "yes." I [Johnson] was
sitting by, and said, "No, Sir, you do not mean tardiness of
locomotion; you mean, that sluggishness of mind which comes upon
a man in solitude.
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