Chapter 7

the Roman senators are spoken of as still flattering the people ‘with a shew of freedom, while themselves only were free.’

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law. Prior notes a corresponding utterance in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, 1766, i. 206, ch. xix:—‘What they may then expect, may be seen by turning our eyes to Holland, Genoa, or Venice, where the laws govern the poor, and the rich govern the law.’

I fly from petty tyrants to the throne. Cf. Dr. Primrose, _ut supra_, p. 201:—‘The generality of mankind also are of my way of thinking, and have unanimously created one king, whose election at once diminishes the number of tyrants, and puts tyranny at the greatest distance from the greatest number of people.’ Cf. also Churchill, _The Farewell_, ll. 363–4 and 369–70:—

Let not a Mob of Tyrants seize the helm,

Nor titled upstarts league to rob the realm...

Let us, some comfort in our griefs to bring,

Be slaves to one, and be that one a King.

lines 393–4. Goldsmith’s first thought was—

Yes, my lov’d brother, cursed be that hour

When first ambition toil’d for foreign power,—

an entirely different couplet to that in the text, and certainly more logical. (Dobell’s _Prospect of Society_, 1902, pp. xi, 2, and Notes, v, vi). Mr. Dobell plausibly suggests that this Tory substitution is due to Johnson.

Have we not seen, etc. These lines contain the first idea of the subsequent poem of _The Deserted Village_ (_q.v._).

Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around. The Oswego is a river which runs between Lakes Oneida and Ontario. In the _Threnodia Augustalis_, 1772, Goldsmith writes:—

Oswego’s dreary shores shall be my grave.

The ‘desarts of Oswego’ were familiar to the eighteenth-century reader in connexion with General Braddock’s ill-fated expedition of 1755, an account of which Goldsmith had just given in _An History of England, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son_, 1764, ii. 202–4.

marks with murderous aim. In the first edition ‘takes a deadly aim.’

pensive exile. This, in the version mentioned in the next note, was ‘famish’d exile.’

To stop too fearful, and too faint to go. This line, upon Boswell’s authority, is claimed for Johnson (Birkbeck Hill’s _ Boswell_, 1887, ii. 6). Goldsmith’s original ran:—

And faintly fainter, fainter seems to go.

(Dobell’s _Prospect of Society_, 1902, p. 3).

How small, of all, etc. Johnson wrote these concluding ten lines with the exception of the penultimate couplet. They and line 420 were all—he told Boswell—of which he could be sure (Birkbeck Hill’s _Boswell_, _ut supra_). Like Goldsmith, he sometimes worked his prose ideas into his verse. The first couplet is apparently a reminiscence of a passage in his own _Rasselas_, 1759, ii. 112, where the astronomer speaks of ‘the task of a king . . . who has the care only of a few millions, to whom he cannot do much good or harm.’ (Grant’s _Johnson_, 1887, p. 89.) ‘I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another,’ he told that ‘vile Whig,’ Sir Adam Fergusson, in 1772. ‘It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual’ (Birkbeck Hill’s _ Boswell_, 1887, ii. 170).

The lifted axe. Mitford here recalls Blackmore’s

Some the sharp axe, and some the painful wheel.

The ‘lifted axe’ he also traces to Young and Blackmore, with both of whom Goldsmith seems to have been familiar; but it is surely not necessary to assume that he borrowed from either in this instance.

Luke’s iron crown. George and Luke Dosa, or Doscha, headed a rebellion in Hungary in 1513. The former was proclaimed king by the peasants; and, in consequence suffered, among other things, the torture of the red-hot iron crown. Such a punishment took place at Bordeaux when Montaigne was seventeen (Morley’s Florio’s _ Montaigne_, 1886, p. xvi). Much ink has been shed over Goldsmith’s lapse of ‘Luke’ for George. In the book which he cited as his authority, the family name of the brothers was given as Zeck,—hence Bolton Corney, in his edition of the _ Poetical Works_, 1845, p. 36, corrected the line to—

_Zeck’s_ iron crown, etc.,

an alteration which has been adopted by other editors. (See also Forster’s _Life_, 1871, i. 370.)

Damien’s bed of steel. Robert-Francois Damiens, 1714–57. Goldsmith writes ‘Damien’s.’ In the _Gentlemen’s Magazine_ for 1757, vol. xxvii. pp. 87 and 151, where there is an account of this poor half-witted wretch’s torture and execution for attempting to assassinate Louis XV, the name is thus spelled, as also in other contemporary records and caricatures. The following passage explains the ‘bed of steel’:—‘Being conducted to the Conciergerie, an ‘iron bed’, which likewise served for a chair, was prepared for him, and to this he was fastened with chains. The torture was again applied, and a physician ordered to attend to see what degree of pain he could support,’ etc. (Smollett’s _History of England_, 1823, bk. iii, ch. 7, § xxv.) Goldsmith’s own explanation—according to Tom Davies, the bookseller—was that he meant the rack. But Davies may have misunderstood him, or Goldsmith himself may have forgotten the facts. (See Forster’s _Life_, 1871, i. 370.) At pp. 57–78 of the _ Monthly Review_ for July, 1757 (upon which Goldsmith was at this date employed), is a summary, ‘from our correspondent at Paris,’ of the official record of the Damiens’ Trial, 4 vols. 12 mo.; and his deed and tragedy make a graphic chapter in the remarkable _Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous_, by George Augustus Sala, 1863, iii. pp. 154–180.

line 438. In the first edition of ‘The Traveller’ there are only 416 lines.

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

After having been for some time announced as in preparation, _The Deserted Village_ made its first appearance on May 26, 1770.* It was received with great enthusiasm. In June a second, third, and fourth edition followed, and in August a fifth was published. The text here given is that of the fourth edition, which was considerably revised. Johnson, we are told, thought _The Deserted Village_ inferior to _The Traveller_: but ‘time,’ to use Mr. Forster’s words, ‘has not confirmed _that_ judgment.’ Its germ is perhaps to be found in ll. 397–402 of the earlier poem.

* In the American _Bookman_ for February, 1901, pp. 563–7, Mr. Luther S. Livingston gives an account (with facsimile title-pages) of three _octavo_ (or rather duodecimo) editions all dated 1770; and ostensibly printed for ‘W. Griffin, at Garrick’s Head, in Catherine-street, Strand.’ He rightly describes their existence as ‘a bibliographical puzzle.’ They afford no important variations; are not mentioned by the early editors; and are certainly not in the form in which the poem was first advertised and reviewed, as this was a quarto. But they are naturally of interest to the collector; and the late Colonel Francis Grant, a good Goldsmith scholar, described one of them in the _Athenaeum_ for June 20, 1896 (No. 3582).

Much research has been expended in the endeavour to identify the scene with Lissoy, the home of the poet’s youth (see _Introduction_, p. ix); but the result has only been partially successful. The truth seems that Goldsmith, living in England, recalled in a poem that was English in its conception many of the memories and accessories of his early life in Ireland, without intending or even caring to draw an exact picture. Hence, as Lord Macaulay has observed, in a much criticized and characteristic passage, ‘it is made up of incongruous parts. The village in its happy days is a true English village. The village in its decay is an Irish village. The felicity and the misery which Goldsmith has brought close together belong to two different countries, and to two different stages in the progress of society. He had assuredly never seen in his native island such a rural paradise, such a seat of plenty, content, and tranquillity, as his “Auburn.” He had assuredly never seen in England all the inhabitants of such a paradise turned out of their homes in one day and forced to emigrate in a body to America. The hamlet he had probably seen in Kent; the ejectment he had probably seen in Munster; but, by joining the two, he has produced something which never was and never will be seen in any part of the world.’ (_Encyclop. Britannica_, 1856.) It is obvious also that in some of his theories—the depopulation of the kingdom, for example—Goldsmith was mistaken. But it was not for its didactic qualities then, nor is it for them now, that _The Deserted Village_’ delighted and delights. It maintains its popularity by its charming _genre_-pictures, its sweet and tender passages, its simplicity, its sympathetic hold upon the enduring in human nature. To test it solely with a view to establish its topographical accuracy, or to insist too much upon the value of its ethical teaching, is to mistake its real mission as a work of art.

Dedication. I am ignorant of that art in which you are said to excel. This modest confession did not prevent Goldsmith from making fun of the contemporary connoisseur. See the letter from the young virtuoso in _The Citizen of the World_, 1762, i. 145, announcing that a famous ‘torse’ has been discovered to be not ‘a Cleopatra bathing’ but ‘a Hercules spinning’; and Charles Primrose’s experiences at Paris (_Vicar of Wakefield_, 1766, ii. 27–8).

He is since dead. Henry Goldsmith died in May, 1768, at the age of forty-five, being then curate of Kilkenny West. (See note, p. 164.)

a long poem. ‘I might dwell upon such thoughts . . . were I not afraid of making this preface too tedious; especially since I shall want all the patience of the reader, for having enlarged it with the following verses.’ (Tickell’s Preface to Addison’s _ Works_, at end.)

the increase of our luxuries. The evil of luxury was a ‘common topick’ with Goldsmith. (Birkbeck Hill’s _Boswell_, 1887, ii. 217–8.) Smollett also, speaking with the voice of Lismahago, and continuing the quotation on p. 169, was of the opinion that ‘the sudden affluence occasioned by trade, forced open all the sluices of luxury, and overflowed the land with every species of profligacy and corruption.’ (_Humphry Clinker_, 1771, ii. 192.—Letter of Mr. Bramble to Dr. Lewis.)

Sweet AUBURN. Forster, _Life_, 1871, ii. 206, says that Goldsmith obtained this name from Bennet Langton. There is an Aldbourn or Auburn in Wiltshire, not far from Marlborough, which Prior thinks may have furnished the suggestion.

Seats of my youth. This alone would imply that Goldsmith had in mind the environment of his Irish home.

The decent church that topp’d the neighbouring hill. This corresponds with the church of Kilkenny West as seen from the house at Lissoy.

No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale. (Cf. Goldsmith’s Essay on _ Metaphors_ (_British Magazine_):—‘Armstrong has used the word ‘fluctuate’ with admirable efficacy, in his philosophical poem entitled _The Art of Preserving Health_.

Oh! when the growling winds contend, and all

The sounding forest ‘fluctuates’ in the storm,

To sink in warm repose, and hear the din

Howl o’er the steady battlements.

The sad historian of the pensive plain. Strean (see note to l. 13) identified the old watercress gatherer as a certain Catherine Giraghty (or Geraghty). Her children (he said) were still living in the neighbourhood of Lissoy in 1807. (Mangin’s _Essay on Light Reading_, 1808, p. 142.)

The village preacher’s modest mansion rose. ‘The Rev. Charles Goldsmith is allowed by all that knew him, to have been faithfully represented by his son in the character of the Village Preacher.’ So writes his daughter, Catharine Hodson (_Percy Memoir_, 1801, p. 3). Others, relying perhaps upon the ‘forty pounds a year’ of the Dedication to _The Traveller_, make the poet’s brother Henry the original; others, again, incline to kindly Uncle Contarine (_vide Introduction_). But as Prior justly says (_Life_, 1837, ii. 249), ‘the fact perhaps is that he fixed upon no one individual, but borrowing like all good poets and painters a little from each, drew the character by their combination.’

with forty pounds a year. Cf. Dedication to _The Traveller_, p. 3, l. 14.

Unpractis’d. ‘Unskilful’ in the first edition.

More skilled. ‘More bent’ in the first edition.

The long remember’d beggar. ‘The same persons,’ says Prior, commenting upon this passage, ‘are seen for a series of years to traverse the same tract of country at certain intervals, intrude into every house which is not defended by the usual outworks of wealth, a gate and a porter’s lodge, exact their portion of the food of the family, and even find an occasional resting-place for the night, or from severe weather, in the chimney-corner of respectable farmers.’ (_Life_, 1837, ii. 269.) Cf. Scott on the Scottish mendicants in the ‘Advertisement’ to _The Antiquary_, 1816, and Leland’s _Hist. of Ireland_, 1773, i. 35.

The broken soldier. The disbanded soldier let loose upon the country at the conclusion of the ‘Seven Years’ War’ was a familiar figure at this period. Bewick, in his _Memoir_ (‘Memorial Edition’), 1887, pp. 44–5, describes some of these ancient campaigners with their battered old uniforms and their endless stories of Minden and Quebec; and a picture of two of them by T. S. Good of Berwick belonged to the late Mr. Locker Lampson. Edie Ochiltree (_Antiquary_)—it may be remembered—had fought at Fontenoy.

Allur’d to brighter worlds. Cf. Tickell on Addison—‘Saints who taught and led the way to Heaven.’

And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray. Prior compares the opening lines of Dryden’s _Britannia Rediviva_:—

Our vows are heard betimes, and heaven takes care

To grant, before we can conclude the prayer;

Preventing angels met it half the way,

And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.

As some tall cliff, etc. Lucan, Statius, and Claudian have been supposed to have helped Goldsmith to this fine and deservedly popular simile. But, considering his obvious familiarity with French literature, and the rarity of his ‘obligations to the ancients,’ it is not unlikely that, as suggested by a writer in the _Academy_ for Oct. 30, 1886, his source of suggestion is to be found in the following passage of an Ode addressed by Chapelain (1595–1674) to Richelieu:—

Dans un paisible mouvement

Tu t’élèves au firmament,

Et laisses contre toi murmurer cette terre;

Ainsi le haut Olympe, à son pied sablonneux,

Laisse fumer la foudre et gronder le tonnerre,

Et garde son sommet tranquille et lumineux.

Or another French model—indicated by Mr. Forster (_Life_, 1871, ii. 115–16) by the late Lord Lytton—may have been these lines from a poem by the Abbé de Chaulieu (1639–1720):—

Au milieu cependant de ces peines cruelles

De notre triste hiver, compagnes trop fidèles,

Je suis tranquille et gai. Quel bien plus précieux

Puis-je espérer jamais de la bonté des dieux!

Tel qu’un rocher dont la tête,

Égalant le Mont Athos,

Voit à ses pieds la tempête

Troubler le calme des flots,

La mer autour bruit et gronde;

Malgré ses emotions,

Sur son front élevé règne une paix profonde,

Que tant d’agitations

Et que ses fureurs de l’onde

Respectent à l’égal du nid des alcyons.

On the other hand, Goldsmith may have gone no further than Young’s _Complaint: Night the Second_, 1742, p. 42, where, as Mitford points out, occur these lines:—

As some tall Tow’r, or lofty Mountain’s Brow,

Detains the Sun, Illustrious from its Height,

While rising Vapours, and descending Shades,

With Damps, and Darkness drown the Spatious Vale:

Undampt by Doubt, Undarken’d by Despair,

_Philander_, thus, augustly rears his Head.

Prior also (_Life_, 1837, ii. 252) prints a passage from _Animated Nature_, 1774, i. 145, derived from Ulloa, which perhaps served as the raw material of the simile.

Full well they laugh’d, etc. Steele, in _Spectator_, No. 49 (for April 26, 1711) has a somewhat similar thought:—‘_Eubulus_ has so great an Authority in his little Diurnal Audience, that when he shakes his Head at any Piece of publick News, they all of them appear dejected; and, on the contrary, go home to their Dinners with a good Stomach and chearful Aspect, when _Eubulus_ seems to intimate that Things go well.’

Yet he was kind, etc. For the rhyme of ‘fault’ and ‘aught’ in this couplet Prior cites the precedent of Pope:—

Before his sacred name flies ev’ry fault,

And each exalted stanza teems with thought!

(_Essay on Criticism_, l. 422). He might also have cited Waller, who elides the ‘l’:—

Were we but less indulgent to our fau’ts,

And patience had to cultivate our thoughts.

Goldsmith uses a like rhyme in _Edwin and Angelina_, Stanza xxxv:—

But mine the sorrow, mine the fault,

And well my life shall pay;

I’ll seek the solitude he sought,

And stretch me where he lay.

Cf. also _Retaliation_, ll. 73–4. Perhaps—as indeed Prior suggests—he pronounced ‘fault’ in this fashion.

To see those joys. Up to the third edition the words were _each joy_.

There the black gibbet glooms beside the way. The gallows, under the savage penal laws of the eighteenth century, by which horse-stealing, forgery, shop-lifting, and even the cutting of a hop-bind in a plantation were punishable with death, was a common object in the landscape. Cf. _Vicar of Wakefield_, 1706, ii. 122:—‘Our possessions are paled up with new edicts every day, and hung round with gibbets to scare every invader’; and _ Citizen of the World_, 1762, ii. 63–7. Johnson, who wrote eloquently on capital punishment in _The Rambler_ for April 20, 1751, No. 114, also refers to the ceaseless executions in his _London_, 1738, ll. 238–43:—

Scarce can our fields, such crowds at Tyburn die,

With hemp the gallows and the fleet supply.

Propose your schemes, ye senatorian band,

Whose ways and means support the sinking land:

Lest ropes be wanting in the tempting spring,

To rig another convoy for the king.

Where the poor houseless shivering female lies. Mitford compares Letter cxiv of _The Citizen of the World_, 1762, ii. 211:—‘These _poor shivering females_ have once seen happier days, and been flattered into beauty. They have been prostituted to the gay luxurious villain, and are now turned out to meet the severity of winter. Perhaps now lying at the doors of their betrayers, they sue to wretches whose hearts are insensible, or debauchees who may curse, but will not relieve them.’ The same passage occurs in _The Bee_, 1759, p. 126 (_A City Night-Piece_).

Near her betrayer’s door, etc. Cf. the foregoing quotation.

wild Altama, i.e. the Alatamaha, a river in Georgia, North America. Goldsmith may have been familiar with this name in connexion with his friend Oglethorpe’s expedition of 1733.

crouching tigers, a poetical licence, as there are no tigers in the locality named. But Mr. J. H. Lobban calls attention to a passage from _Animated Nature_ [1774, iii. 244], in which Goldsmith seems to defend himself:—‘There is an animal of America, which is usually called the Red Tiger, but Mr. Buffon calls it the Cougar, which, no doubt, is very different from the tiger of the east. Some, however, have thought proper to rank both together, and I will take leave to follow their example.’

The good old sire. Cf. _Threnodia Augustalis_, ll. 16–17:—

The good old sire, unconscious of decay,

The modest matron, clad in homespun gray

a father’s. ‘Her father’s’ in the first edition.

silent. ‘Decent’ in the first edition.

On Torno’s cliffs, or Pambamarca’s side. ‘Torno’=Tornea, a river which falls into the Gulf of Bothnia; Pambamarca is a mountain near Quito, South America. ‘The author’—says Bolton Corney—‘bears in memory the operations of the French philosophers in the arctic and equatorial regions, as described in the celebrated narratives of M. Maupertuis and Don Antonio de Ulloa.’

That trade’s proud empire, etc. These last four lines are attributed to Johnson on Boswell’s authority:—‘Dr. Johnson . . . favoured me by marking the lines which he furnished to Goldsmith’s _ Deserted Village_, which are only the ‘last four’.’ (Birkbeck Hill’s _Boswell_, 1887, ii. 7.)

PROLOGUE OF LABERIUS.

This translation, or rather imitation, was first published at pp. 176–7 of _An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe_, 1759 (Chap. xii, ‘Of the Stage’), where it is prefaced as follows:— ‘MACROBIUS has preserved a prologue, spoken and written by the poet [Decimus] Laberius, a Roman knight, whom Caesar forced upon the stage, written with great elegance and spirit, which shews what opinion the Romans in general entertained of the profession of an actor.’ In the second edition of 1774 the prologue was omitted. The original lines, one of which Goldsmith quotes, are to found in the _Saturnalia_ of Macrobius, lib. ii, cap. vii (_Opera_, London, 1694). He seems to have confined himself to imitating the first fifteen:—

Necessitas, cujus cursus transversi impetum

Voluerunt multi effugere, pauci potuerunt,

Quo me detrusit paene extremis sensibus?

Quem nulla ambitio, nulla umquam largitio,

Nullus timor, vis nulla, nulla auctoritas

Movere potuit in juventa de statu;

Ecce in senecta ut facile labefecit loco

Viri Excellentis mente clemente edita

Submissa placide blandiloquens oratio!

Etenim ipsi di negare cui nihil potuerunt,

Hominem me denegare quis posset pati?

Ergo bis tricenis annis actis sine tota

Eques Romanus Lare egressus meo

Domum revertar mimus. nimirum hoc die

Uno plus vixi mihi quam vivendum fuit.

Rollin gives a French translation of this prologue in his _Traité des Études_. It is quoted by Bolton Corney in his _Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith_, 1845, pp. 203–4. In his Aldine edition of 1831, p. 114, Mitford completed Goldsmith’s version as follows:—

Too lavish still in good, or evil hour,

To show to man the empire of thy power,

If fortune, at thy wild impetuous sway,

The blossoms of my fame must drop away,

Then was the time the obedient plant to strain

When life was warm in every vigorous vein,

To mould young nature to thy plastic skill,

And bend my pliant boyhood to thy will.

So might I hope applauding crowds to hear,

Catch the quick smile, and HIS attentive ear.

But ah! for what has thou reserv’d my age?

Say, how can I expect the approving stage;

Fled is the bloom of youth—the manly air—

The vigorous mind that spurn’d at toil and care;

Gone is the voice, whose clear and silver tone

The enraptur’d theatre would love to own.

As clasping ivy chokes the encumber’d tree,

So age with foul embrace has ruined me.

Thou, and the tomb, Laberius, art the same,

Empty within, what hast thou but a name?

Macrobius, it may be remembered, was the author, with a quotation from whom Johnson, after a long silence, electrified the company upon his first arrival at Pembroke College, thus giving (says Boswell) ‘the first impression of that more extensive reading in which he had indulged himself’ (Birkbeck Hill’s _Boswell_, 1887, i. 59). If the study of Macrobius is to be regarded as a test of ‘more extensive reading’ that praise must therefore be accorded to Goldsmith, who cites him in his first book.

ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH STRUCK BLIND WITH LIGHTNING.

This quatrain, the original of which does not appear to have been traced, was first published in _The Bee_ for Saturday, the 6th of October, 1759, p. 8. It is there succeeded by the following Latin epigram, ‘in the same spirit’:—

LUMINE Acon dextro capta est Leonida sinistro

Et poterat forma vincere uterque Deos.

Parve puer lumen quod habes concede puellae

Sic tu caecus amor sic erit illa Venus.

There are several variations of this in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1745, pp. 104, 159, 213, 327, one of which is said to be ‘By a monk of Winchester,’ with a reference to ‘Cambden’s _Remains_, p. 413.’ None of these corresponds exactly with Goldsmith’s text; and the lady’s name is uniformly given as ‘Leonilla.’ A writer in the _ Quarterly Review_, vol. 171, p. 296, prints the ‘original’ thus—

Lumine Acon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinistro,

Et potis est forma vincere uterque Deos.

Blande puer, lumen quod habes concede sorori;

Sic tu caecus Amor, sic erit illa Venus;

and says ‘it was written by Girolamo Amalteo, and will be found in any of the editions of the _Trium Fratrum Amaltheorum Carmina_, under the title of ‘De gemellis, fratre et sorore, luscis.’ According to Byron on Bowles (_Works_, 1836, vi. p. 390), the persons referred to are the Princess of Eboli, mistress of Philip II of Spain, and Maugiron, minion of Henry III of France, who had each of them lost an eye. But for this the reviewer above quoted had found no authority.

THE GIFT.

This little trifle, in which a French levity is wedded to the language of Prior, was first printed in _The Bee_, for Saturday, the 13th of October, 1759. Its original, which is as follows, is to be found where Goldsmith found it, namely in Part iii of the _Ménagiana_, (ed. 1729, iii, 397), and not far from the ditty of _le fameux la Galisse_. (See _An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize_, _ infra_, p. 198):—

ETRENE A IRIS.

Pour témoigner de ma flame,

Iris, du meilleur de mon ame

Je vous donne à ce nouvel an

Non pas dentelle ni ruban,

Non pas essence, ni pommade,

Quelques boites de marmelade,

Un manchon, des gans, un bouquet,

Non pas heures, ni chapelet.

Quoi donc? Attendez, je vous donne

O fille plus belle que bonne ...

Je vous donne: Ah! le puis-je dire?

Oui, c’est trop souffrir le martyre,

Il est tems de s’émanciper,

Patience va m’échaper,

Fussiez-vous cent fois plus aimable,

Belle Iris, je vous donne ... au Diable.

In Bolton Corney’s edition of Goldsmith’s _ Poetical Works_, 1845, p. 77, note, these lines are attributed to Bernard de la Monnoye (1641–1728), who is said to have included them in a collection of _Étrennes en vers_, published in 1715.

I’ll give thee. See an anecdote _à propos_ of this anticlimax in Trevelyan’s _Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay_, ed. 1889, p. 600:—‘There was much laughing about Mrs. Beecher Stowe [then (16th March, 1853) expected in England], and what we were to give her. I referred the ladies to Goldsmith’s poems for what I should give. Nobody but Hannah understood me; but some of them have since been thumbing Goldsmith to make out the riddle.’

THE LOGICIANS REFUTED.

These lines, which have often, and even of late years, been included among Swift’s works, were first printed as Goldsmith’s by T. Evans at vol. i. pp. 115–17 of _The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M.B._, 1780. They originally appeared in _The Busy Body_ for Thursday, October the 18th, 1759 (No. v), having this notification above the title: ‘The following Poem written by DR. SWIFT, is communicated to the Public by the BUSY BODY, to whom it was presented by a Nobleman of distinguished Learning and Taste.’ In No. ii they had already been advertised as forthcoming. The sub-title, ‘In imitation of Dean Swift,’ seems to have been added by Evans. The text here followed is that of the first issue.

Wise Aristotle and Smiglecius. Cf. _The Life of Parnell_, 1770, p. 3:—‘His imagination might have been too warm to relish the cold logic of Burgersdicius, or the dreary subtleties of _ Smiglesius_; but it is certain that as a classical scholar, few could equal him.’ Martin Smiglesius or Smigletius, a Polish Jesuit, theologian and logician, who died in 1618, appears to have been a special _bête noire_ to Goldsmith; and the reference to him here would support the ascription of the poem to Goldsmith’s pen, were it not that Swift seems also to have cherished a like antipathy:—‘He told me that he had made many efforts, upon his entering the College [i.e. Trinity College, Dublin], to read some of the old treatises on logic writ by _Smeglesius_, Keckermannus, Burgersdicius, etc., and that he never had patience to go through three pages of any of them, he was so disgusted at the stupidity of the work.’ (Sheridan’s _Life of Swift_, 2nd ed., 1787, p. 4.)

Than reason-boasting mortal’s pride. So in _The Busy Body_. Some editors—Mitford, for example—print the line:—

Than reason,—boasting mortals’ pride.

_Deus est anima brutorum_. Cf. Addison in _Spectator_, No. 121 (July 19, 1711): ‘A modern Philosopher, quoted by Monsieur _ Bale_ in his Learned Dissertation on the Souls of Brutes delivers the same Opinion [i.e.—That Instinct is the immediate direction of Providence], tho’ in a bolder form of words where he says _Deus est Anima Brutorum_, God himself is the Soul of Brutes.’ There is much in ‘Monsieur Bayle’ on this theme. Probably Addison had in mind the following passage of the _Dict. Hist. et Critique_ (3rd ed., 1720, 2481_b_.) which Bayle cites from M. Bernard:—‘Il me semble d’avoir lu quelque part cette Thèse, _Deus est anima brutorum_: l’expression est un peu dure; mais elle peut recevoir un fort bon sens.’

B—b=Bob, i.e. Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister, for whom many venal ‘quills were drawn’ _circa_ 1715–42. Cf. Pope’s _Epilogue to the Satires_, 1738, Dialogue i, ll. 27–32:—

Go see Sir ROBERT—

P. See Sir ROBERT!—hum—

And never laugh—for all my life to come?

Seen him I have, but in his happier hour

Of Social Pleasure, ill-exchang’d for Pow’r;

Seen him, uncumber’d with the Venal tribe,

Smile without Art, and win without a Bribe.

A courtier any ape surpasses. Cf. Gay’s _Fables, passim_. Indeed there is more of Gay than Swift in this and the lines that follow. Gay’s life was wasted in fruitless expectations of court patronage, and his disappointment often betrays itself in his writings.

And footmen, lords and dukes can act. Cf. _Gil Blas_, 1715–35, liv. iii, chap. iv:—‘Il falloit voir comme nous nous portions des santés à tous moments, en nous donnant les uns aux autres les surnoms de nos maîtres. Le valet de don Antonio appeloit Gamb celuiet nous nous enivrions peu à peu sous ces noms empruntés, tout aussi bien que les seigneurs qui les portoient véritablement.’ But Steele had already touched this subject in _Spectator_, No. 88, for June 11, 1711, ‘On the Misbehaviour of Servants,’ a paper supposed to have afforded the hint for Townley’s farce of _High Life below Stairs_, which, about a fortnight after _The Logicians Refuted_ appeared, was played for the first time at Drury Lane, not much to the gratification of the gentlemen’s gentlemen in the upper gallery. Goldsmith himself wrote ‘A Word or two on the late Farce, called _High Life below Stairs_,’ in _ The Bee_ for November 3, 1759, pp. 154–7.

A SONNET.

This little piece first appears in _The Bee_ for October 20, 1759 (No. iii). It is there called ‘A Sonnet,’ a title which is only accurate in so far as it is ‘a little song.’ Bolton Corney affirms that it is imitated from the French of Saint-Pavin (i.e. Denis Sanguin de Saint-Pavin, d. 1670), whose works were edited in 1759, the year in which Goldsmith published the collection of essays and verses in which it is to be found. The text here followed is that of the ‘new edition’ of _The Bee_, published by W. Lane, Leadenhall Street, no date, p. 94. Neither by its motive nor its literary merits—it should be added—did the original call urgently for translation; and the poem is here included solely because, being Goldsmith’s, it cannot be omitted from his complete works.

This and the following line in the first version run:—

Yet, why this killing soft dejection?

Why dim thy beauty with a tear?

STANZAS ON THE TAKING OF QUEBEC.

Quebec was taken on the 13th September, 1759. Wolfe was wounded pretty early in the action, while leading the advance of the Louisbourg grenadiers. ‘A shot shattered his wrist. He wrapped his handkerchief about it and kept on. Another shot struck him, and he still advanced, when a third lodged in his breast. He staggered, and sat on the ground. Lieutenant Brown, of the grenadiers, one Henderson, a volunteer in the same company, and a private soldier, aided by an officer of artillery who ran to join them, carried him in their arms to the rear. He begged them to lay him down. They did so, and asked if he would have a surgeon. “There’s no need,” he answered; “it’s all over with me.” A moment after, one of them cried out, “They run; see how they run!” “Who run?” Wolfe demanded, like a man roused from sleep. “The enemy, sir. They give way everywhere!” “Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton,” returned the dying man; “tell him to march Webb’s regiment down to Charles River, to cut off their retreat from the bridge.” Then, turning on his side, he murmured, “Now, God be praised, I will die in peace!” and in a few moments his gallant soul had fled.’ (Parkman’s _Montcalm and Wolfe_, 1885, ii. 296–7.) In his _ History of England in a Series of Letters_, 1764, ii. 241, Goldsmith says of this event:—‘Perhaps the loss of such a man was greater to the nation than the conquering of all Canada was advantageous; but it is the misfortune of humanity, that we can never know true greatness till the moment when we are going to lose it.’* The present stanzas were first published in _The Busy Body_ (No. vii) for Tuesday, the 22nd October, 1759, a week after the news of Wolfe’s death had reached this country (Tuesday the 16th). According to Prior (_Life_, 1837, i. 6), Goldsmith claimed to be related to Wolfe by the father’s side, the maiden name of the General’s mother being Henrietta Goldsmith. It may be noted that Benjamin West’s popular rendering of Wolfe’s death (1771)—a rendering which Nelson never passed in a print shop without being stopped by it—was said to be based upon the descriptions of an eye-witness. It was engraved by Woollett and Ryland in 1776. A key to the names of those appearing in the picture was published in the _Army and Navy Gazette_ of January 20, 1893.

* He repeats this sentiment, in different words, in the later _History of England_ of 1771, iv. 400.

AN ELEGY ON MRS. MARY BLAIZE.

The publication in February, 1751, of Gray’s _Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard_ had set a fashion in poetry which long continued. Goldsmith, who considered that work ‘a very fine poem, but overloaded with epithet’ (_Beauties of English Poesy_, 1767, i. 53), and once proposed to amend it ‘by leaving out an idle word in every line’ [!] (Cradock’s _ Memoirs_, 1826, i. 230), resented these endless imitations, and his antipathy to them frequently reveals itself. Only a few months before the appearance of Mrs. Blaize in _The Bee_ for October 27, 1759, he had written in the _Critical Review_, vii. 263, when noticing Langhorne’s _Death of Adonis_, as follows:—‘It is not thus that many of our moderns have composed what they call elegies; they seem scarcely to have known its real character. If an hero or a poet happens to die with us, the whole band of elegiac poets raise the dismal chorus, adorn his herse with all the paltry escutcheons of flattery, rise into bombast, paint him at the head of his thundering legions, or reining Pegasus in his most rapid career; they are sure to strew cypress enough upon the bier, dress up all the muses in mourning, and look themselves every whit as dismal and sorrowful as an undertaker’s shop.’ He returned to the subject in a _Chinese Letter_ of March 4, 1761, in the _Public Ledger_ (afterwards Letter ciii of _The Citizen of the World_, 1762, ii. 162–5), which contains the lines _On the Death of the Right Honourable ***_; and again, in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, 1766, i. 174, _ à propos_ of the _Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog_, he makes Dr. Primrose say, ‘I have wept so much at all sorts of elegies of late, that without an enlivening glass I am sure this will overcome me.’

The model for _An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize_ is to be found in the old French popular song of Monsieur de la Palisse or Palice, about fifty verses of which are printed in Larousse’s _Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIX_ me _Siècle_, x. p. 179. It is there stated to have originated in some dozen stanzas suggested to la Monnoye (_v. supra_, p. 193) by the extreme artlessness of a military quatrain dating from the battle of Pavia, and the death upon that occasion of the famous French captain, Jacques de Chabannes, seigneur de la Palice:—

Monsieur d’La Palice est mort,

Mort devant Pavie;

Un quart d’heure avant sa mort,

_Il était encore en vie._

The remaining verses, i.e. in addition to those of la Monnoye, are the contributions of successive generations. Goldsmith probably had in mind the version in Part iii of the _Ménagiana_, (ed. 1729, iii, 384–391) where apparently by a typographical error, the hero is called _‘le fameux la Galisse, homme imaginaire.’_ The verses he imitated most closely are reproduced below. It may be added that this poem supplied one of its last inspirations to the pencil of Randolph Caldecott, who published it as a picture-book in October, 1885. (See also _An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog_, p. 212.)

Who left a pledge behind. Caldecott cleverly converted this line into the keynote of the poem, by making the heroine a pawnbroker.

When she has walk’d before. Cf. the French:—

On dit que dans ses amours

Il fut caresse des belles,

Qui le suivirent toujours,

_Tant qu’il marcha devant elles._

Her last disorder mortal. Cf. the French:—

Il fut par un triste sort

Blesse d’une main cruelle.

On croit, puis qu’il en est mort,

_Que la plaie étoit mortelle._

Kent Street, Southwark, ‘chiefly inhabited,’ said Strype, ‘by Broom Men and Mumpers’; and Evelyn tells us (_Diary_ 5th December, 1683) that he assisted at the marriage, to her fifth husband, of a Mrs. Castle, who was ‘the daughter of one Burton, a broom-man . . . in Kent Street’ who had become not only rich, but Sheriff of Surrey. It was a poor neighbourhood corresponding to the present ‘old Kent-road, from Kent to Southwark and old London Bridge’ (Cunningham’s _London_).* Goldsmith himself refers to it in _The Bee_ for October 20, 1759, being the number immediately preceding that in which _Madam Blaize_ first appeared:—‘You then, O ye beggars of my acquaintance, whether in rags or lace; whether in _Kent-street_ or the Mall; whether at the Smyrna or St. Giles’s, might I advise as a friend, never seem in want of the favour which you solicit’ (p. 72). Three years earlier he had practised as ‘a physician, in a humble way’ in Bankside, Southwark, and was probably well acquainted with the humours of Kent Street.

* In contemporary maps Kent (now Tabard) Street is shown extending between the present New Kent Road and Blackman Street.

DESCRIPTION OF AN AUTHOR’S BEDCHAMBER.

In a letter written to the Rev. Henry Goldsmith in 1759 (_Percy Memoir_, 1801, pp. 53–9), Goldsmith thus refers to the first form of these verses:—‘Your last letter, I repeat it, was too short; you should have given me your opinion of the design of the heroicomical poem which I sent you: you remember I intended to introduce the hero of the poem, as lying in a paltry alehouse. You may take the following specimen of the manner, which I flatter myself is quite original. The room in which he lies, may be described somewhat this way:—

The window, patch’d with paper, lent a ray,

That feebly shew’d the state in which he lay.

The sanded floor, that grits beneath the tread:

The humid wall with paltry pictures spread;

The game of goose was there expos’d to view

And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew:

The seasons, fram’d with listing, found a place,

And Prussia’s monarch shew’d his lamp-black face

The morn was cold; he views with keen desire,

A rusty grate unconscious of a fire.

An unpaid reck’ning on the frieze was scor’d,

And five crack’d tea-cups dress’d the chimney board.

And now imagine after his soliloquy, the landlord to make his appearance, in order to dun him for the reckoning:—

Not with that face, so servile and so gay,

That welcomes every stranger that can pay,

With sulky eye he smoak’d the patient man,

Then pull’d his breeches tight, and thus began, etc.

All this is taken, you see, from nature. It is a good remark of Montaign[e]’s, that the wisest men often have friends, with whom they do not care how much they play the fool. Take my present follies as instances of regard. Poetry is a much easier, and more agreeable species of composition than prose, and could a man live by it, it were no unpleasant employment to be a poet.’

In Letter xxix of _The Citizen of the World_, 1762, i. 119–22, which first appeared in _The Public Ledger_ for May 2, 1760, they have a different setting. They are read at a club of authors by a ‘poet, in shabby finery,’ who asserts that he has composed them the day before. After some preliminary difficulties, arising from the fact that the laws of the club do not permit any author to inflict his own works upon the assembly without a money payment, he introduces them as follows:—‘Gentlemen, says he, the present piece is not one of your common epic poems, which come from the press like paper kites in summer; there are none of your Turnuses or Dido’s in it; it is an heroical description of nature. I only beg you’ll endeavour to make your souls unison* with mine, and hear with the same enthusiasm with which I have written. The poem begins with the description of an author’s bedchamber: the picture was sketched in my own apartment; for you must know, gentlemen, that I am myself the heroe. Then putting himself into the attitude of an orator, with all the emphasis of voice and action, he proceeded.

Where the Red Lion, etc.’

* i.e. accord, conform.

The verses then follow as they are printed in this volume; but he is unable to induce his audience to submit to a further sample. In a slightly different form, some of them were afterwards worked into _The Deserted Village_, 1770. (See ll. 227–36.)

Where Calvert’s butt, and Parsons’ black champagne. The Calverts and Humphrey Parsons were noted brewers of ‘entire butt beer’ or porter, also known familiarly as ‘British Burgundy’ and ‘black Champagne.’ Calvert’s ‘Best Butt Beer’ figures on the sign in Hogarth’s _ Beer Street_, 1751.

The humid wall with paltry pictures spread. Bewick gives the names of some of these popular, if paltry, decorations:—‘In cottages everywhere were to be seen the “Sailor’s Farewell” and his “Happy Return,” “Youthful Sports,” and the “Feats of Manhood,” “The Bold Archers Shooting at a Mark,” “The Four Seasons,” etc.’ (_Memoir_, ‘Memorial Edition,’ 1887, p. 263.)

The royal game of goose was there in view. (See note, p. 188.)

And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew. (See note, p. 187.)

The Seasons, fram’d with listing. See note to l. 10 above, as to ‘The Seasons.’ Listing, ribbon, braid, or tape is still used as a primitive _encadrement_. In a letter dated August 15, 1758, to his cousin, Mrs. Lawder (Jane Contarine), Goldsmith again refers to this device. Speaking of some ‘maxims of frugality’ with which he intends to adorn his room, he adds—‘my landlady’s daughter shall frame them with the parings of my black waistcoat.’ (Prior, _Life_, 1837, i. 271.)

And brave Prince William. William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, 1721–65. The ‘lamp-black face’ would seem to imply that the portrait was a silhouette. In the letter quoted on p. 200 it is ‘Prussia’s monarch’ (i.e. Frederick the Great).

With beer and milk arrears. See the lines relative to the landlord in Goldsmith’s above-quoted letter to his brother. In another letter of August 14, 1758, to Robert Bryanton, he describes himself as ‘in a garret writing for bread, and expecting to be dunned for a milk score.’ Hogarth’s _Distrest Poet_, 1736, it will be remembered, has already realized this expectation.

A cap by night—a stocking all the day. ‘With this last line,’ says _The Citizen of the World_, 1762, i. 121, ‘he [the author] seemed so much elated, that he was unable to proceed: “There gentlemen, cries he, there is a description for you; Rab[e]lais’s bed-chamber is but a fool to it:

_A cap by night—a stocking all the day!_

There is sound and sense, and truth, and nature in the trifling compass of ten little syllables.”’ (Letter xxix.) Cf. also _The Deserted Village_, l. 230:—

A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.

If Goldsmith’s lines did not belong to 1759, one might suppose he had in mind the later _Pauvre Diable_ of his favourite Voltaire. (See also APPENDIX B.)

ON SEEING MRS. ** PERFORM IN THE CHARACTER OF ****.

These verses, intended for a specimen of the newspaper Muse, are from