The didactic purpose of _The Traveller_ is defined in the concluding paragraph of the _Dedication_; and, like many of the thoughts which it contains, had been anticipated in a passage of _The Citizen of the World_, 1762, i. 185:—‘Every mind seems capable of entertaining a certain quantity of happiness, which no institutions can encrease, no circumstances alter, and entirely independent on fortune.’ But the best short description of the poem is Macaulay’s:—‘In the _Traveller_ the execution, though deserving of much praise, is far inferior to the design. No philosophical poem, ancient or modern, has a plan so noble, and at the same time so simple. An English wanderer, seated on a crag among the Alps, near the point where three great countries meet, looks down on the boundless prospect, reviews his long pilgrimage, recalls the varieties of scenery, of climate, of government, of religion, of national character, which he has observed, and comes to the conclusion, just or unjust, that our happiness depends little on political institutions, and much on the temper and regulation of our own minds.’ (_Encyclop. Britannica_, Goldsmith, February, 1856.) The only definite record of payment for _ The Traveller_ is ‘Copy of the Traveller, a Poem, 21_l_,’ in Newbery’s MSS.; but as the same sum occurs in Memoranda of much later date than 1764, it is possible that the success of the book may have prompted some supplementary fee. A Prospect, i.e. ‘a view.’ ‘I went to Putney, and other places on the Thames, to take ‘prospects’ in crayon, to carry into France, where I thought to have them engraved’ (Evelyn, _Diary_, 20th June, 1649). And Reynolds uses the word of Claude in his Fourth Discourse:—‘His pictures are a composition of the various draughts which he had previously made from various beautiful scenes and prospects’ (_Works_, by Malone, 1798, i. 105). The word is common on old prints, e.g. _An Exact Prospect of the Magnificent Stone Bridge at Westminster_, etc., 1751. Dedication. The Rev. Henry Goldsmith, says the Percy _ Memoir_, 1801, p. 3, ‘had distinguished himself both at school and at college, but he unfortunately married at the early age of nineteen; which confined him to a Curacy, and prevented his rising to preferment in the church.’ with an income of forty pounds a year. Cf. _The Deserted Village_, ll. 141–2:— A man he was, to all the country dear, And passing rich with _forty pounds a year_.