Chapter 8

first printed in _The Public Ledger_, October 21, 1760.

ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. ***

From Letter ciii of _The Citizen of the World_, 1762, ii. 164, first printed in _The Public Ledger_, March 4, 1761. The verses are given as a ‘specimen of a poem on the decease of a great man.’ Goldsmith had already used the trick of the final line of the quatrain in _An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize_, ante, p. 198.

AN EPIGRAM.

From Letter cx of _The Citizen of the World_, 1762, ii. 193, first printed in _The Public Ledger_, April 14, 1761. It had, however, already been printed in the ‘Ledger’, ten days before. Goldsmith’s animosity to Churchill (cf. note to l. 41 of the dedication to _The Traveller_) was notorious; but this is one of his doubtful pieces.

virtue. ‘Charity’ (_Author’s note_).

bounty. ‘Settled at One Shilling—the Price of the Poem’ (_Author’s note_).

TO G. C. AND R. L.

From the same letter as the preceding. George Colman and Robert Lloyd of the _St. James’s Magazine_ were supposed to have helped Churchill in _The Rosciad_, the ‘it’ of the epigram.

TRANSLATION OF A SOUTH AMERICAN ODE.

From Letter cxiii of _The Citizen of the World_, 1762, ii. 209, first printed in _The Public Ledger_, May 13, 1761.

THE DOUBLE TRANSFORMATION.

_The Double Transformation_ first appeared in _Essays: By Mr. Goldsmith_, 1765, where it figures as Essay xxvi, occupying pp. 229–33. It was revised for the second edition of 1766, becoming Essay xxviii, pp. 241–45. This is the text here followed. The poem is an obvious imitation of what its author calls (_Letters from a Nobleman to his Son_, 1764, ii. 140) that ‘French elegant easy manner of telling a story,’ which Prior had caught from La Fontaine. But the inherent simplicity of Goldsmith’s style is curiously evidenced by the absence of those illustrations and ingenious allusions which are Prior’s chief characteristic. And although Goldsmith included _The Ladle_ and _Hans Carvel_ in his _Beauties of English Poesy_, 1767, he refrained wisely from copying the licence of his model.

Jack Book-worm led a college life. The version of 1765 reads ‘liv’d’ for ‘led’.

And freshmen wonder’d as he spoke. The earlier version adds here—

Without politeness aim’d at breeding,

And laugh’d at pedantry and reading.

Her presence banish’d all his peace. Here in the first version the paragraph closes, and a fresh one is commenced as follows:—

Our alter’d Parson now began

To be a perfect ladies’ man;

Made sonnets, lisp’d his sermons o’er,

And told the tales he told before,

Of bailiffs pump’d, and proctors bit,

At college how he shew’d his wit;

And, as the fair one still approv’d,

He fell in love—or thought he lov’d.

So with decorum, etc.

The fifth line was probably a reminiscence of the college riot in which Goldsmith was involved in May, 1747, and for his part in which he was publicly admonished. (See _Introduction_, p. xi, l. 3.)

usage. This word, perhaps by a printer’s error, is ‘visage’ in the first version.

Skill’d in no other arts was she. Cf. Prior:—

For in all Visits who but She,

To Argue, or to Repartee.

Five greasy nightcaps wrapp’d her head. Cf. _Spectator_, No. 494— ‘At length the Head of the Colledge came out to him, from an inner Room, with half a Dozen Night-Caps upon his Head.’ See also Goldsmith’s essay on the Coronation (_Essays_, 1766, p. 238), where Mr. Grogan speaks of his wife as habitually ‘mobbed up in flannel night caps, and trembling at a breath of air.’

By day, ’twas gadding or coquetting. The first version after ‘coquetting’ begins a fresh paragraph with—

Now tawdry madam kept, etc.

A sigh in suffocating smoke. Here in the first version follows:—

She, in her turn, became perplexing,

And found substantial bliss in vexing.

Thus every hour was pass’d, etc.

Thus as her faults each day were known. First version: ‘Each day, the more her faults,’ etc.

Now, to perplex. The first version has ‘Thus.’ But the alteration in line 61 made a change necessary.

paste. First version ‘pastes.’

condemn’d to hack, i.e. to hackney, to plod.

A NEW SIMILE.

The _New Simile_ first appears in _Essays: By Mr. Goldsmith_, 1765, pp. 234–6, where it forms Essay xxvii. In the second edition of 1766 it occupies pp. 246–8 and forms Essay xix. The text here followed is that of the second edition, which varies slightly from the first. In both cases the poem is followed by the enigmatical initials ‘*J. B.,’ which, however, as suggested by Gibbs, may simply stand for ‘Jack Bookworm’ of _The Double Transformation_. (See p. 204.)

Long had I sought in vain to find. The text of 1765 reads—

‘I long had rack’d my brains to find.’

Tooke’s Pantheon. Andrew Tooke (1673–1732) was first usher and then Master at the Charterhouse. In the latter capacity he succeeded Thomas Walker, the master of Addison and Steele. His _ Pantheon_, a revised translation from the Latin of the Jesuit, Francis Pomey, was a popular school-book of mythology, with copper-plates.

Wings upon either side—mark that. The petasus of Mercury, like his sandals (l. 24), is winged.

No poppy-water half so good. Poppy-water, made by boiling the heads of the white, black, or red poppy, was a favourite eighteenth-century soporific:—‘Juno shall give her peacock _poppy-water_, that he may fold his ogling tail.’ (Congreve’s _Love for Love_, 1695, iv. 3.)

With this he drives men’s souls to hell.

Tu....

....virgaque levem coerces

Aurea turbam.—Hor. _Od_. i. 10.

Moreover, Merc’ry had a failing.

Te canam....

Callidum, quidquid placuit, iocoso

Condere furto.—Hor. _Od_. i. 10.

Goldsmith, it will be observed, rhymes ‘failing’ and ‘stealing.’ But Pope does much the same:—

That Jelly’s rich, this Malmsey healing,

Pray dip your Whiskers and your tail in.

(_Imitation of Horace_, Bk. ii, Sat. vi.)

Unless this is to be explained by poetical licence, one of these words must have been pronounced in the eighteenth century as it is not pronounced now.

In which all modern bards agree. The text of 1765 reads ‘our scribling bards.’

EDWIN AND ANGELINA.

This ballad, usually known as _The Hermit_, was written in or before 1765, and printed privately in that year ‘for the amusement of the Countess of Northumberland,’ whose acquaintance Goldsmith had recently made through Mr. Nugent. (See the prefatory note to _The Haunch of Venison_.) Its title was ‘_Edwin and Angelina. A Ballad_. By Mr. Goldsmith.’ It was first published in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, 1766, where it appears at pp. 70–7, vol. i. In July, 1767, Goldsmith was accused [by Dr. Kenrick] in the _St. James’s Chronicle_ of having taken it from Percy’s _ Friar of Orders Gray_. Thereupon he addressed a letter to the paper, of which the following is the material portion:—‘Another Correspondent of yours accuses me of having taken a Ballad, I published some Time ago, from one by the ingenious Mr. Percy. I do not think there is any great Resemblance between the two Pieces in Question. If there be any, his Ballad is taken from mine. I read it to Mr. Percy some Years ago, and he (as we both considered these Things as Trifles at best) told me, with his usual Good Humour, the next Time I saw him, that he had taken my Plan to form the fragments of Shakespeare into a Ballad of his own. He then read me his little Cento, if I may so call it, and I highly approved it. Such petty Anecdotes as these are scarce worth printing, and were it not for the busy Disposition of some of your Correspondents, the Publick should never have known that he owes me the Hint of his Ballad, or that I am obliged to his Friendship and Learning for Communications of a much more important Nature.—I am, Sir, your’s etc. OLIVER GOLDSMITH.’ (_St. James’s Chronicle_, July 23–5, 1767.) No contradiction of this statement appears to have been offered by Percy; but in re-editing his _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_ in 1775, shortly after Goldsmith’s death, he affixed this note to _The Friar of Orders Gray_:—‘As the foregoing song has been thought to have suggested to our late excellent poet, Dr. Goldsmith, the plan of his beautiful ballad of _Edwin and Emma_ [_Angelina_], first printed [published?] in his _ Vicar of Wakefield_, it is but justice to his memory to declare, that his poem was written first, and that if there is any imitation in the case, they will be found both to be indebted to the beautiful old ballad, _Gentle Herdsman, etc._, printed in the second volume of this work, which the doctor had much admired in manuscript, and has finely improved’ (vol. i. p. 250). The same story is told, in slightly different terms, at pp. 74–5 of the _Memoir_ of Goldsmith drawn up under Percy’s superintendence for the _Miscellaneous Works_ of 1801, and a few stanzas of _Gentle Herdsman_, which Goldsmith is supposed to have had specially in mind, are there reproduced. References to them will be found in the ensuing notes. The text here adopted (with exception of ll. 117–20) is that of the fifth edition of _The Vicar of Wakefield_, 1773[4], i. pp. 78–85; but the variations of the earlier version of 1765 are duly chronicled, together with certain hitherto neglected differences between the first and later editions of the novel. The poem was also printed in the _Poems for Young Ladies_, 1767, pp. 91–8.* The author himself, it may be added, thought highly of it. ‘As to my “Hermit,” that poem,’ he is reported to have said, ‘cannot be amended.’ (Cradock’s _Memoirs_, 1828, iv. 286.)

* This version differs considerably from the others, often following that of 1765; but it has not been considered necessary to record the variations here. That Goldsmith unceasingly revised the piece is sufficiently established.

Turn, etc. The first version has—

Deign saint-like tenant of the dale,

To guide my nightly way,

To yonder fire, that cheers the vale

With hospitable ray.

For yonder faithless phantom flies. _The Vicar of Wakefield_, first edition, has—

‘For yonder phantom only flies.’

All. _ Vicar of Wakefield_, first edition, ‘For.’

Man wants but little here below. Cf. Young’s _Complaint_, 1743, _Night_ iv. 9, of which this and the next line are a recollection. According to Prior (_Life_, 1837, ii. 83), they were printed as a quotation in the version of 1765. Young’s line is—

Man wants but Little; nor that Little, long.

modest. _Vicar of Wakefield_, first edition, ‘grateful.’

Far in a wilderness obscure. First version, and _Vicar of Wakefield_, first edition:—

Far shelter’d in a glade obscure

The modest mansion lay.

The wicket, opening with a latch. First version, and _Vicar of Wakefield_, first edition:—

The door just opening with a latch.

And now, when busy crowds retire. First version, and _Vicar of Wakefield_, first edition:—

And now, when worldly crowds retire

To revels or to rest.

But nothing, etc. In the first version this stanza runs as follows:—

But nothing mirthful could assuage

The pensive stranger’s woe;

For grief had seized his early age,

And tears would often flow.

modern. _Vicar of Wakefield_, first edition, reads ‘haughty.’

His love-lorn guest betray’d. First version, and _Vicar of Wakefield_, first edition:—

The bashful guest betray’d.

Surpris’d, he sees, etc. First version, and _Vicar of Wakefield_, first edition:—

He sees unnumber’d beauties rise,

Expanding to the view;

Like clouds that deck the morning skies,

As bright, as transient too.

The bashful look, the rising breast. First version, and _Vicar of Wakefield_, first edition:—

Her looks, her lips, her panting breast.

But let a maid, etc. For this, and the next two stanzas, the first version substitutes:—

Forgive, and let thy pious care

A heart’s distress allay;

That seeks repose, but finds despair

Companion of the way.

My father liv’d, of high degree,

Remote beside the Tyne;

And as he had but only me,

Whate’er he had was mine.

To win me from his tender arms,

Unnumber’d suitors came;

Their chief pretence my flatter’d charms,

My wealth perhaps their aim.

a mercenary crowd. _Vicar of Wakefield_, first edition, has:—‘the gay phantastic crowd.’

Amongst the rest young Edwin bow’d. First version:—

Among the rest young Edwin bow’d,

Who offer’d only love.

Wisdom and worth, etc. First version, and _Vicar of Wakefield_, first edition:—

A constant heart was all he had,

But that was all to me.

And when beside me, etc. For this ‘additional stanza,’ says the _Percy Memoir_, p. 76, ‘the reader is indebted to Richard Archdal, Esq., late a member of the Irish Parliament, to whom it was presented by the author himself.’ It was first printed in the _Miscellaneous Works_, 1801, ii. 25. In Prior’s edition of the _Miscellaneous Works_, 1837, iv. 41, it is said to have been ‘written some years after the rest of the poem.’

The blossom opening to the day, etc. For this and the next two stanzas the first version substitutes:—

Whene’er he spoke amidst the train,

How would my heart attend!

And till delighted even to pain,

How sigh for such a friend!

And when a little rest I sought

In Sleep’s refreshing arms,

How have I mended what he taught,

And lent him fancied charms!

Yet still (and woe betide the hour!)

I spurn’d him from my side,

And still with ill-dissembled power

Repaid his love with pride.

For still I tried each fickle art, etc. Percy finds the prototype of this in the following stanza of _Gentle Herdsman_:—

And grew soe coy and nice to please,

As women’s lookes are often soe,

He might not kisse, nor hand forsoothe,

Unlesse I willed him soe to doe.

Till quite dejected with my scorn, etc. The first edition reads this stanza and the first two lines of the next thus:—

Till quite dejected by my scorn,

He left me to deplore;

And sought a solitude forlorn,

And ne’er was heard of more.

Then since he perish’d by my fault,

This pilgrimage I pay, etc.

And sought a solitude forlorn. Cf. _Gentle Herdsman_:—

He gott him to a secrett place,

And there he dyed without releeffe.

And there forlorn, despairing, hid, etc. The first edition for this and the next two stanzas substitutes the following:—

And there in shelt’ring thickets hid,

I’ll linger till I die;

’Twas thus for me my lover did,

And so for him will I.

‘Thou shalt not thus,’ the Hermit cried,

And clasp’d her to his breast;

The astonish’d fair one turned to chide,—

’Twas Edwin’s self that prest.

For now no longer could he hide,

What first to hide he strove;

His looks resume their youthful pride,

And flush with honest love.

’Twas so for me, etc. Cf. _Gentle Herdsman_:—

Thus every day I fast and pray,

And ever will doe till I dye;

And gett me to some secret place,

For soe did hee, and soe will I.

Forbid it, Heaven. _Vicar of Wakefield_, first edition, like the version of 1765, has ‘Thou shalt not thus.’

My life. _Vicar of Wakefield_, first edition, has ‘O thou.’

No, never from this hour, etc. The first edition reads:—

No, never, from this hour to part,

Our love shall still be new;

And the last sigh that rends thy heart,

Shall break thy Edwin’s too.

The poem then concluded thus:—

Here amidst sylvan bowers we’ll rove,

From lawn to woodland stray;

Blest as the songsters of the grove,

And innocent as they.

To all that want, and all that wail,

Our pity shall be given,

And when this life of love shall fail,

We’ll love again in heaven.

These couplets, with certain alterations in the first and last lines, are to be found in the version printed in _Poems for Young Ladies_, 1767, p. 98.

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG.

This poem was first published in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, 1766, i. 175–6, where it is sung by one of the little boys. In common with the _Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize_ (p. 47) it owes something of its origin to Goldsmith’s antipathy to fashionable elegiacs, something also to the story of M. de la Palisse. As regards mad dogs, its author seems to have been more reasonable than many of his contemporaries, since he ridiculed, with much common sense, their exaggerated fears on this subject (_v. Chinese Letter_ in _The Public Ledger_ for August 29, 1760, afterwards Letter lxvi of _ The Citizen of the World_, 1762, ii. 15). But it is ill jesting with hydrophobia. Like _Madam Blaize_, these verses have been illustrated by Randolph Caldecott.

In Islington there was a man. Goldsmith had lodgings at Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming’s in Islington (or ‘Isling town’ as the earlier editions have it) in 1763–4; and the choice of the locality may have been determined by this circumstance. But the date of the composition of the poem is involved in the general obscurity which hangs over the _Vicar_ in its unprinted state. (See _Introduction_, pp. xviii-xix.)

The dog, to gain some private ends. The first edition reads ‘his private ends.’

The dog it was that died. This catastrophe suggests the couplet from the _Greek Anthology_, ed. Jacobs, 1813–7, ii. 387:—

Kappadoken pot exidna kake daken alla kai aute

katthane, geusamene aimatos iobolou.

Goldsmith, however, probably went no farther back than Voltaire on Fréron:—

L’autre jour, au fond d’un vallon,

Un serpent mordit Jean Fréron.

Devinez ce qu’il arriva?

Ce fut le serpent qui creva.

This again, according to M. Edouard Fournier (_L’Esprit des Autres_, sixth edition, 1881, p. 288), is simply the readjustment of an earlier quatrain, based upon a Latin distich in the _Epigrammatum delectus_, 1659:—

Un gros serpent mordit Aurelle.

Que croyez-vous qu’il arriva?

Qu’Aurelle en mourut?—Bagatelle!

Ce fut le serpent qui creva.

SONG

FROM ‘THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.’

First published in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, 1766, ii. 78 (chap. v). It is there sung by Olivia Primrose, after her return home with her father. ‘Do, my pretty Olivia,’ says Mrs. Primrose, let us have that little melancholy air your pappa was so fond of, your sister Sophy has already obliged us. Do child, it will please your old father.’ ‘She complied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic,’ continues Dr. Primrose, ‘as moved me.’ The charm of the words, and the graceful way in which they are introduced, seem to have blinded criticism to the impropriety, and even inhumanity, of requiring poor Olivia to sing a song so completely applicable to her own case. No source has been named for this piece; and its perfect conformity with the text would appear to indicate that Goldsmith was not indebted to any earlier writer for his idea.

His well-known obligations to French sources seem, however, to have suggested that, if a French original could not be discovered for the foregoing lyric, it might be desirable to invent one. A clever paragraphist in the _St. James’s Gazette_ for January 28th, 1889, accordingly reproduced the following stanzas, which he alleged, were to be found in the poems of Segur, ‘printed in Paris in 1719’:—

Lorsqu’une femme, après trop de tendresse,

D’un homme sent la trahison,

Comment, pour cette si douce foiblesse

Peut-elle trouver une guérison?

Le seul remède qu’elle peut ressentir,

La seul revanche pour son tort,

Pour faire trop tard l’amant repentir,

Helas! trop tard—est la mort.

As a correspondent was not slow to point out, Goldsmith, if a copyist, at all events considerably improved his model (see in particular lines 7 and 8 of the French). On the 30th of the month the late Sir William Fraser gave it as his opinion, that, until the volume of 1719 should be produced, the ‘very inferior verses quoted’ must be classed with the fabrications of ‘Father Prout,’ and he instanced that very version of the _ Burial of Sir John Moore_ (_Les Funérailles de Beaumanoir_) which has recently (August 1906) been going the round of the papers once again. No Ségur volume of 1719 was, of course, forthcoming.

Kenrick, as we have already seen, had in 1767 accused Goldsmith of taking _Edwin and Angelina_ from Percy (p. 206). Thirty years later, the charge of plagiarism was revived in a different way when _Raimond and Angéline_, a French translation of the same poem, appeared, as Goldsmith’s original, in a collection of Essays called _The Quiz_, 1797. It was eventually discovered to be a translation ‘from’ Goldsmith by a French poet named Léonard, who had included it in a volume dated 1792, entitled _Lettres de deux Amans, Habitans de Lyon_ (Prior’s _Life_, 1837, ii. 89–94). It may be added that, according to the _ Biographie Universelle_, 1847, vol. 18 (Art. ‘Goldsmith’), there were then no fewer than at least three French imitations of _The Hermit_ besides Léonard’s.

EPILOGUE TO ‘THE GOOD NATUR’D MAN.’

Goldsmith’s comedy of _The Good Natur’d Man_ was produced by Colman, at Covent Garden, on Friday, January 29, 1768. The following note was appended to the Epilogue when printed:—‘The Author, in expectation of an Epilogue from a friend at Oxford, deferred writing one himself till the very last hour. What is here offered, owes all its success to the graceful manner of the Actress who spoke it.’ It was spoken by Mrs. Bulkley, the ‘Miss Richland’ of the piece. In its first form it is to be found in _The Public Advertiser_ for February 3. Two days later the play was published, with the version here followed.

As puffing quacks. Goldsmith had devoted a Chinese letter to this subject. See _Citizen of the World_, 1762, ii. 10 (Letter lxv).

No, no: I’ve other contests, etc. This couplet is not in the first version. The old building of the College of Physicians was in Warwick Lane; and the reference is to the long-pending dispute, occasionally enlivened by personal collision, between the Fellows and Licentiates respecting the exclusion of certain of the latter from Fellowships. On this theme Bonnell Thornton, himself an M.B. like Goldsmith, wrote a satiric additional canto to Garth’s _ Dispensary_, entitled _The Battle of the Wigs_, long extracts from which are printed in _The Gentleman’s Magazine_ for March, 1768, p. 132. The same number also reviews _The Siege of the Castle of Æsculapius, an heroic Comedy, as it is acted in Warwick-Lane_. Goldsmith’s couplet is, however, best illustrated by the title of one of Sayer’s caricatures, _The March of the Medical Militants to the Siege of Warwick-Lane-Castle in the Year_ 1767. The quarrel was finally settled in favour of the college in June, 1771.

Go, ask your manager. Colman, the manager of Covent Garden, was not a prolific, although he was a happy writer of prologues and epilogues.

The quotation is from _King Lear_, Act iii, Sc. 4.

In the first version the last line runs:—

And view with favour, the ‘Good-natur’d Man.’

EPILOGUE TO ‘THE SISTER.’

_The Sister_, produced at Covent Garden February 18, 1769, was a comedy by Mrs. Charlotte Lenox or Lennox, ‘an ingenious lady,’ says _The Gentleman’s Magazine_ for April in the same year, ‘well known in the literary world by her excellent writings, particularly the Female Quixote, and Shakespeare illustrated. . . . The audience expressed their disapprobation of it with so much clamour and appearance of prejudice, that she would not suffer an attempt to exhibit it a second time (p. 199).’ According to the

same authority it was based upon one of the writer’s own novels, _Henrietta_, published in 1758. Though tainted with the prevailing sentimentalism, _The Sister_ is described by Forster as ‘both amusing and interesting’; and it is probable that it was not fairly treated when it was acted. Mrs. Lenox (1720–1804), daughter of Colonel Ramsay, Lieut.-Governor of New York, was a favourite with the literary magnates of her day. Johnson was half suspected of having helped her in her book on Shakespeare; Richardson admitted her to his readings at Parson’s Green; Fielding, who knew her, calls her, in the _Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon_, 1755, p. 35 (first version), ‘the inimitable author of the Female Quixote’; and Goldsmith, though he had no kindness for genteel comedy (see _ post_, p. 228), wrote her this lively epilogue, which was spoken by Mrs. Bulkley, who personated the ‘Miss Autumn’ of the piece. Mrs. Lenox died in extremely reduced circumstances, and was buried by the Right Hon. George Ross, who had befriended her later years. There are several references to her in Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_. (See also Hawkins’ _Life_, 2nd ed. 1787, pp. 285–7.)

PROLOGUE TO ‘ZOBEIDE.’

_Zobeide_, a play by Joseph Cradock (1742–1826), of Gumley, in Leicestershire, was produced by Colman at Covent Garden on Dec. 11, 1771. It was a translation from three acts of _Les Scythes_, an unfinished tragedy by Voltaire. Goldsmith was applied to, through the Yates’s, for a prologue, and sent that here printed to the author of the play with the following note:—‘Mr. Goldsmith presents his best respects to Mr. Cradock, has sent him the Prologue, such as it is. He cannot take time to make it better. He begs he will give Mr. Yates the proper instructions; and so, even so, commits him to fortune and the publick.’ (Cradock’s _Memoirs_, 1826, i. 224.) Yates, to the acting of whose wife in the character of the heroine the success of the piece, which ran for thirteen nights, was mainly attributable, was to have spoken the prologue, but it ultimately fell to Quick, later the ‘Tony Lumpkin’ of _She Stoops to Conquer_, who delivered it in the character of a sailor. Cradock seems subsequently to have sent a copy of _ Zobeide_ to Voltaire, who replied in English as follows:—

9e. 8bre. 1773. à ferney.

Sr.

Thanks to yr muse a foreign copper shines Turn’d in to gold, and coin’d in sterling lines. You have done to much honour to an old sick man of eighty.

I am with the most sincere esteem and gratitude

Sr.

Yr. obdt. Servt. Voltaire.

A Monsieur Monsieur J. Cradock.

The text of the prologue is here given as printed in Cradock’s _Memoirs_, 1828, iii. 8–9. It is unnecessary to specify the variations between this and the earlier issue of 1771.

In these bold times, etc. The reference is to Cook, who, on June 12, 1771, had returned to England in the _Endeavour_, after three years’ absence, having gone to Otaheite to observe the transit of Venus (l. 4).

Botanists. Mr. (afterward Sir Joseph) Banks and Dr. Solander, of the British Museum, accompanied Cook.

go simpling, i.e. gathering simples, or herbs. Cf. _Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act iii, Sc. 3:—

‘—These lisping hawthorn buds that ... smell like Bucklersbury in _simple_-time.’

In the caricatures of the day Solander figured as ‘The _simpling_ Macaroni.’ (See note, p. 247, l. 31.)

With Scythian stores. The scene of the play was laid in Scythia (_v. supra_).

to make palaver, to hold a parley, generally with the intention of cajoling. Two of Goldsmith’s notes to Garrick in 1773 are endorsed by the actor—‘Goldsmith’s parlaver.’ (Forster’s _ Life_, 1871, ii. 397.)

mercenary. Cradock gave the profits of _Zobeide_ to Mrs. Yates. ‘I mentioned the disappointment it would be to you’—she says in a letter to him dated April 26, 1771—‘as you had generously given the emoluments of the piece to me.’ (_Memoirs_, 1828, iv. 211.)

THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS.

Augusta, widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and mother of George the Third, died at Carlton House, February 8, 1772. This piece was spoken and sung in Mrs. Teresa Cornelys’s Great Room in Soho Square, on the Thursday following (the 20th), being sold at the door as a small quarto pamphlet, printed by William Woodfall. The author’s name was not given; but it was prefaced by this ‘advertisement,’ etc.:—

‘The following may more properly be termed a compilation than a poem. It was prepared for the composer in little more than two days: and may be considered therefore rather as an industrious effort of gratitude than of genius. In justice to the composer it may likewise be right to inform the public, that the music was adapted in a period of time equally short.

SPEAKERS. _Mr. Lee and Mrs. Bellamy._

SINGERS.

_Mr. Champnes, Mr. Dine, and Miss Jameson; with twelve chorus singers. The music prepared and adapted by Signor Vento._

It is—as Cunningham calls it—a ‘hurried and unworthy off-spring of the muse of Goldsmith.’

(Part I). Celestial-like her bounty fell. The Princess’s benefactions are not exaggerated. ‘She had paid off the whole of her husband’s debts, and she had given munificent sums in charity. More than 10,000 pounds a year were given away by her in pensions to individuals whom she judged deserving, very few of whom were aware, until her death, whence the bounty came. The whole of her income she spent in England, and very little on herself’ (_Augusta: Princess of Wales_, by W. H. Wilkins, _ Nineteenth Century_, October, 1903, p. 675).

There faith shall come. This, and the three lines that follow, are borrowed from Collins’s _Ode written in the beginning of the year_ 1746.

(Part II). The towers of Kew. ‘The embellishments of Kew palace and gardens, under the direction of [Sir William] Chambers, and others, was the favourite object of her [Royal Highness’s] widowhood’ (Bolton Corney).

Along the billow’d main. Cf. _The Captivity_,