" 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.
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.
Oliver Goldsmith
This was a famous patent
panacea, invented by Johnson's Lichfield townsman, Dr. Robert
James of the 'Medicinal Dictionary'. It was sold by John
Newbery, and had an extraordinary vogue. The King dosed Princess
Elizabeth with it; Fielding, Gray, and Cowper all swore by it,
and Horace Walpole, who wished to try it upon Mme. du Deffand
'in extremis', said he should use it if the house were on fire.
William Hawes, the Strand apothecary who attended Goldsmith,
wrote an interesting 'Account of the late Dr. Goldsmith's
Illness, so far as relates to the Exhibition of Dr. James's
Powders, etc. ', 1774, which he dedicated to Reynolds and Burke.
To Hawes once belonged the poet's worn old wooden writing-desk,
now in the South Kensington Museum, where are also his favourite
chair and cane. Another desk-chair, which had descended from his
friend, Edmund Bott, was recently for sale at Sotheby's (July,
1906).
EDITIONS OF THE POEMS.
No collected edition of Goldsmith's poetical works appeared until after
his death. But, in 1775, W. Griffin, who had published the 'Essays' of
ten years earlier, issued a volume entitled 'The Miscellaneous Works of
Oliver Goldsmith, M. B. , containing all his Essays and Poems'. The
'poems' however were confined to 'The Traveller,' 'The Deserted
Village,' 'Edwin and Angelina,' 'The Double Transformation,' 'A New
Simile,' and 'Retaliation,'--an obviously imperfect harvesting. In the
following year G. Kearsly printed an eighth edition of 'Retaliation',
with which he included 'The Hermit' ('Edwin and Angelina'), 'The Gift,'
'Madam Blaize,' and the epilogues to 'The Sister' and 'She stoops to
Conquer'*; while to an edition of 'The Haunch of Venison', also put
forth in 1776, he added the 'Epitaph on Parnell' and two songs from the
oratorio of 'The Captivity'. The next collection appeared in a volume of
'Poems and Plays' published at Dublin in 1777, where it was preceded by
a 'Life,' written by W. Glover, one of Goldsmith's 'Irish clients. '
Then, in 1780, came vol. i of T. Evans's 'Poetical and Dramatic Works
etc. , now first collected', also having a 'Memoir,' and certainly fuller
than anything which had gone before. Next followed the long-deferred
'Miscellaneous Works, etc. ', of 1801, in four volumes, vol. ii of which
comprised the plays and poems. Prefixed to this edition is the important
biographical sketch, compiled under the direction of Bishop Percy, and
usually described as the 'Percy Memoir', by which title it is referred
to in the ensuing notes. The next memorable edition was that edited for
the Aldine Series in 1831, by the Rev. John Mitford. Prior and Wright's
edition in vol. iv of the 'Miscellaneous Works, etc. ', of 1837, comes
after this; then Bolton Corney's excellent 'Poetical Works' of 1845; and
vol. i of Peter Cunningham's 'Works, etc. ' of 1854. There are other
issues of the poems, the latest of which is to be found in vol. ii
(1885) of the complete 'Works', in five volumes, edited for Messrs.
George Bell and Sons by J. W. M. Gibbs.
[footnote] *Some copies of this are dated 1777, and contain 'The Haunch
of Venison' and a few minor pieces.
Most of the foregoing editions have been consulted for the following
notes; but chiefly those of Mitford, Prior, Bolton Corney, and
Cunningham. Many of the illustrations and explanations now supplied will
not, however, be found in any of the sources indicated. When an
elucidatory or parallel passage is cited, an attempt has been made, as
far as possible, to give the credit of it to the first discoverer. Thus,
some of the illustrations in Cunningham's notes are here transferred to
Prior, some of Prior's to Mitford, and so forth. As regards the notes
themselves, care has been taken to make them full enough to obviate the
necessity, except in rare instances, of further investigation. It is the
editor's experience that references to external authorities are, as a
general rule, sign-posts to routes which are seldom travelled*.
[footnote] *In this connexion may be recalled the dictum of Hume quoted
by Dr. Birkbeck Hill:--'Every book should be as complete as possible
within itself, and should never refer for anything material to other
books' ('History of England', 1802, ii. 101).
THE TRAVELLER.
It was on those continental wanderings which occupied Goldsmith between
February, 1755 and February, 1756 that he conceived his first idea of
this, the earliest of his poems to which he prefixed his name; and he
probably had in mind Addison's 'Letter from Italy to Lord Halifax', a
work in which he found 'a strain of political thinking that was, at that
time [1701]. new in our poetry. ' ('Beauties of English Poesy', 1767, i.
III). From the dedicatory letter to his brother--which says expressly,
'as a part of this Poem was formerly written to you from Switzerland,
the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you'--it is
plain that some portion of it must have been actually composed abroad.
It was not, however, actually published until the 19th of December,
1764, and the title-page bore the date of 1765*. The publisher was John
Newbery, of St. Paul's Churchyard, and the price of the book, a quarto
of 30 pages, was 1s. 6d. A second, third and fourth edition quickly
followed, and a ninth, from which it is here reprinted, was issued in
1774, the year of the author's death. Between the first and the sixth
edition of 1770 there were numerous alterations, the more important of
which are indicated in the ensuing notes.
[footnote] *This is the generally recognized first edition. But the
late Mr. Frederick Locker Lampson, the poet and collector, possessed a
quarto copy, dated 1764, which had no author's name, and in which the
dedication ran as follows:--'This poem is inscribed to the Rev. Henry
Goldsmith, M. A. By his most affectionate Brother Oliver Goldsmith. ' It
was, in all probability, unique, though it is alleged that there are
octavo copies which present similar characteristics. It has now gone to
America with the Rowfant Library.
In 1902 an interesting discovery was made by Mr. Bertram Dobell, to whom
the public are indebted for so many important literary 'finds. ' In a
parcel of pamphlets he came upon a number of loose printed leaves
entitled 'A Prospect of Society'. They obviously belonged to 'The
Traveller'; but seemed to be its 'formless unarranged material,' and
contained many variations from the text of the first edition. Mr.
Dobell's impression was that 'the author's manuscript, written on loose
leaves, had fallen into confusion, and was then printed without any
attempt at re-arrangement. ' This was near the mark; but the complete
solution of the riddle was furnished by Mr. Quiller Couch in an article
in the 'Daily News' for March 31, 1902, since recast in his charming
volume 'From a Cornish Window', 1906, pp. 86-92. He showed conclusively
that 'The Prospect' was 'merely an early draft of 'The Traveller'
printed backwards in fairly regular sections. ' What had manifestly
happened was this. Goldsmith, turning over each page as written, had
laid it on the top of the preceding page of MS. and forgotten to
rearrange them when done. Thus the series of pages were reversed; and,
so reversed, were set up in type by a matter-of-fact compositor. Mr.
Dobell at once accepted this happy explanation; which--as Mr. Quiller
Couch points out--has the advantage of being a 'blunder just so natural
to Goldsmith as to be almost postulable. ' One or two of the variations
of Mr. Dobell's 'find'--variations, it should be added, antecedent to
the first edition--are noted in their places.
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, 21l,' 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. '
l. 14. -----
"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'.
Cf. also Parson Adams in ch. iii of 'Joseph Andrews', who has
twenty-three; and Mr. Rivers, in the 'Spiritual Quixote',
1772:--'I do not choose to go into orders to be a curate all my
life-time, and work for about fifteen-pence a day, or
twenty-five pounds a year' (bk. vi, ch. xvii). Dr. Primrose's
stipend is thirty-five in the first instance, fifteen in the
second ('Vicar of Wakefield', chapters ii and iii). But
Professor Hales ('Longer English Poems', 1885, p. 351) supplies
an exact parallel in the case of Churchill, who, he says, when
a curate at Rainham, 'prayed and starved on 'forty pounds a
year'. ' The latter words are Churchill's own, and sound like a
quotation; but he was dead long before 'The Deserted Village'
appeared in 1770. There is an interesting paper in the
'Gentleman's Magazine' for November, 1763, on the miseries and
hardships of the 'inferior clergy. '
l. 20. -----
But of all kinds of ambition", etc. In the first edition of
1765, p. ii, this passage was as follows:--'But of all kinds of
ambition, as things are now circumstanced, perhaps that which
pursues poetical fame, is the wildest. What from the encreased
refinement of the times, from the diversity of judgments
produced by opposing systems of criticism, and from the more
prevalent divisions of opinion influenced by party, the
strongest and happiest efforts can expect to please but in a
very narrow circle. Though the poet were as sure of his aim as
the imperial archer of antiquity, who boasted that he never
missed the heart; yet would many of his shafts now fly at
random, for the heart is too often in the wrong place. ' In the
second edition it was curtailed; in the sixth it took its final
form.
l. 29. -----
"they engross all that favour once shown to her". First
version--'They engross all favour to themselves. '
l. 30. -----
"the elder's birthright". Cunningham here aptly compares
Dryden's epistle 'To Sir Godfrey Kneller', II. 89-92:--
Our arts are sisters, though not twins in birth;
For hymns were sung in Eden's happy earth:
But oh, the painter muse, though last in place,
Has seized the blessing first, like Jacob's race.
l. 42. -----
"Party"=faction. Cf. lines 31-2 on Edmund Burke in
'Retaliation':--
Who, born for the Universe, narrow'd his mind,
And to 'party' gave up what was meant for mankind.
l. 50. -----
"Such readers generally admire", etc. 'I suppose this paragraph
to be directed against Paul Whitehead, or Churchill,' writes
Mitford. It was clearly aimed at Churchill, since Prior ('Life',
1837, ii. 54) quotes a portion of a contemporary article in the
'St. James's Chronicle' for February 7-9, 1765, attributed to
Bonnell Thornton, which leaves little room for doubt upon the
question. 'The latter part of this paragraph,' says the writer,
referring to the passage now annotated, 'we cannot help
considering as a reflection on the memory of the late Mr.
Churchill, whose talents as a poet were so greatly and so
deservedly admired, that during his short reign, his merit in
great measure eclipsed that of others; and we think it no mean
acknowledgment of the excellencies of this poem ['The
Traveller'] to say that, like the stars, they appear the more
brilliant now that the sun of our poetry is gone down. '
Churchill died on the 4th of November, 1764, some weeks before
the publication of 'The Traveller'. His powers, it may be, were
misdirected and misapplied; but his rough vigour and his manly
verse deserved a better fate at Goldsmith's hands.
l. 53. -----
"tawdry" was added in the sixth edition of 1770.
l. 56. -----
"blank verse". Cf. 'The Present State of Polite
Learning', 1759, p. 150--'From a desire in the critic of
grafting the spirit of ancient languages upon the English, has
proceeded of late several disagreeable instances of pedantry.
Among the number, I think we may reckon 'blank verse'. Nothing
but the greatest sublimity of subject can render such a measure
pleasing; however, we now see it used on the most trivial
occasions'--by which last remark Goldsmith probably, as
Cunningham thinks, intended to refer to the efforts of Akenside,
Dyer, and Armstrong. His views upon blank verse were shared by
Johnson and Gray. At the date of the present dedication, the
latest offender in this way had been Goldsmith's old colleague
on 'The Monthly Review', Dr. James Grainger, author of 'The
Sugar Cane', which was published in June, 1764. (Cf. also 'The
Bee' for 24th November, 1759, 'An account of the Augustan Age of
England. ')
l. 62. -----
"and that this principle", etc. 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. " Chamier believed then that I had written the
line as much as if he had seen me write it. ' [Birkbeck Hill's
'Boswell', 1887, iii. 252-3. ) It is quite possible, however,
that Goldsmith meant no more than he said.
l. 3. -----
"the rude Carinthian boor". 'Carinthia,' says Cunningham, 'was
visited by Goldsmith in 1755, and still (1853) retains its
character for inhospitality. '
l. 5. -----
"Campania". 'Intended,' says Bolton Corney, 'to denote
'La campagna di Roma'. The portion of it which extends from Rome
to Terracina is scarcely habitable. '
l. 10. -----
"a lengthening chain". Prior compares Letter iii of 'The
Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 5:--'The farther I travel I feel
the pain of separation with stronger force, those ties that bind
me to my native country, and you, are still unbroken. By every
remove, I only drag a greater length of chain. ' But, as Mitford
points out, Cibber has a similar thought in his 'Comical
Lovers', 1707, Act v:--'When I am with Florimel, it [my heart]
is still your prisoner, 'it only draws a longer chain after
it'. ' And earlier still in Dryden's 'All for Love', 1678, Act
ii, Sc. 1:--
My life on't, he still drags a chain along,
That needs must clog his flight.
l. 17. -----
"with simple plenty crown'd". In the first edition this read
'where mirth and peace abound. '
l. 22. -----
"the luxury of doing good". Prior compares Garth's 'Claremont',
1715, where he speaks of the Druids:--
Hard was their Lodging, homely was their Food,
For all their 'Luxury was doing Good'.
l. 24. -----
"my prime of life". He was seven-and-twenty when he
landed at Dover in February, 1756.
l. 27. -----
"That, like the circle bounding", etc. Cf. 'Vicar of
Wakefield', 1766, ii. 160-1 (ch. x):--'Death, the only friend of
the wretched, for a little while mocks the weary traveller with
the view, and like his horizon, still flies before him. '
[Prior. ]
l. 30. -----
"And find no spot of all the world my own". Prior
compares his namesake's lines 'In the Beginning of [Jacques]
Robbe's Geography', 1700:--
My destin'd Miles I shall have gone,
By THAMES or MAESE, by PO or RHONE,
And found no Foot of Earth my own.
l. 33. -----
"above the storm's career". Cf. 1. 190 of 'The Deserted
Village'.
l. 38. -----
"should thankless pride repine? " First edition,
''twere thankless to repine. '
l. 39. -----
"Say, should the philosophic mind", etc. First edition:--
'Twere affectation all, and school-taught pride,
To spurn the splendid things by heaven supply'd
l. 58. -----
"hoard". 'Sum' in the first edition.
l. 66. -----
"Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own". In the first
version this was--
Boldly asserts that country for his own.
l. 75. -----
"And yet, perhaps", etc. In the first edition, for this and the
following five lines appeared these eight:--
And yet, perhaps, if states with states we scan,
Or estimate their bliss on Reason's plan,
Though patriots flatter, and though fools contend,
We still shall find uncertainty suspend;
Find that each good, by Art or Nature given,
To these or those, but makes the balance even:
Find that the bliss of all is much the same,
And patriotic boasting reason's shame!
l. 84. -----
"On Idra's cliffs". Bolton Corney conjectures that
Goldsmith meant 'Idria, a town in Carniola, noted for its
mines. ' 'Goldsmith in his "History of Animated Nature" makes
mention of the mines, and spells the name in the same way as
here. ' (Mr. J. H. Lobban's 'Select Poems of Goldsmith', 1900, p.
87). Lines 84-5, it may be added, are not in the first edition.
l. 85. -----
"And though the rocky-crested summits frown". In the
first edition:--
And though rough rocks or gloomy summits frown.
ll. 91-2 -----
are not in the first editions.
l. 98. -----
"peculiar", i. e. 'proper,' 'appropriate. '
l. 122. -----
"winnow", i. e. 'waft,' 'disperse. ' John Evelyn refers to these
'sea-born gales' in the 'Dedication' of his 'Fumifugium',
1661:--'Those who take notice of the scent of the orange-flowers
from the rivage of Genoa, and St. Pietro dell' Arena; the
blossomes of the rosemary from the Coasts of Spain, many leagues
off at sea; or the manifest, and odoriferous wafts which flow
from Fontenay and Vaugirard, even to Paris in the season of
roses, with the contrary effect of those less pleasing smells
from other accidents, will easily consent to what I suggest
[i. e. the planting of sweet-smelling trees]. ' ('Miscellaneous
Writings', 1825, p. 208. )
l. 139. -----
"Till, more unsteady', etc. In the first edition:--
But, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Soon Commerce turn'd on other shores her sail.
There is a certain resemblance between this passage and one of
the later paradoxes of Smollett's Lismahago;--'He affirmed, the
nature of commerce was such, that it could not be fixed or
perpetuated, but, having flowed to a certain height, would
immediately begin to ebb, and so continue till the channels
should be left almost dry; but there was no instance of the
tide's rising a second time to any considerable influx in the
same nation' ('Humphry Clinker', 1771, ii. 192. Letter of Mr.
Bramble to Dr. Lewis).
ll. 141-2 -----
are not in the first edition.
l. 144. -----
"Its former strength was but plethoric ill". Cf. 'The
Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 98:--'In short, the state
resembled one of those bodies bloated with disease, whose bulk
is only a symptom of its wretchedness. ' [Mitford. ]
l. 145. -----
"Yet still the loss", etc. In the first edition:--
Yet, though to fortune lost, here still abide
Some splendid arts, the wrecks of former pride.
l. 150. -----
"The paste-board triumph and the cavalcade". 'Happy
Country [he is speaking of Italy], where the pastoral age begins
to revive! Where the wits even of Rome are united into a rural
groupe of nymphs and swains, under the appellation of modern
Arcadians [i. e. the Bolognese Academy of the 'Arcadi']. Where in
the midst of porticos, processions, and cavalcades, abbes turn'd
into shepherds, and shepherdesses without sheep, indulge their
innocent 'divertimenti'. ' ('Present State of Polite Learning',
1759, pp. 50-1. ) Some of the 'paste-board triumphs' may be
studied in the plates of Jacques Callot.
l. 153. -----
"By sports like these", etc. A pretty and well-known
story is told with regard to this couplet. Calling once on
Goldsmith, Reynolds, having vainly tried to attract attention,
entered unannounced. 'His friend was at his desk, but with hand
uplifted, and a look directed to another part of the room; where
a little dog sat with difficulty on his haunches, looking
imploringly at his teacher, whose rebuke for toppling over he
had evidently just received. Reynolds advanced, and looked past
Goldsmith's shoulder at the writing on his desk. It seemed to be
some portions of a poem; and looking more closely, he was able
to read a couplet which had been that instant written. The ink
of the second line was wet:--
By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd;
The sports of children satisfy the child.
(Forster's 'Life', 1871, i. pp. 347-8).
l. 154. -----
"The sports of children". This line, in the first edition, was
followed by:--
At sports like these, while foreign arms advance,
In passive ease they leave the world to chance.
l. 155. -----
"Each nobler aim", etc. The first edition reads:--
When struggling Virtue sinks by long controul,
She leaves at last, or feebly mans the soul.
This was changed in the second, third, fourth, and fifth
editions to:--
When noble aims have suffer'd long controul,
They sink at last, or feebly man the soul.
l. 169. -----
"No product here", etc. The Swiss mercenaries, here referred
to, were long famous in European warfare.
They parted with a thousand kisses,
And fight e'er since for pay, like Swisses.
Gay's 'Aye and No, a Fable'.
l. 185. -----
This fine use of 'breasts'--as Cunningham points out--is given
by Johnson as an example in his Dictionary.
l. 187. -----
"With patient angle, trolls the finny deep". 'Troll,' i. e. as
for pike. Goldsmith uses 'finny prey' in 'The Citizen of the
World', 1762, ii. 99:--'The best manner to draw up the 'finny
prey'. ' Cf. also 'warbling grove,' 'Deserted Village', l. 361,
as a parallel to 'finny deep. '
l. 190. -----
"the struggling savage", i. e. wolf or bear. Mitford
compares the following:--'He is a beast of prey, and the laws
should make use of as many stratagems and as much force to drive
the 'reluctant savage' into the toils, as the Indians when they
hunt the hyena or the rhinoceros. ' ('Citizen of the World',
1762, i. 112. ) See also Pope's 'Iliad', Bk. xvii:--
But if the 'savage' turns his glaring eye,
They howl aloof, and round the forest fly.
ll. 201-2 -----
are not in the first edition.
l. 213. -----
"For every want", etc. Mitford quotes a parallel
passage in 'Animated Nature', 1774, ii. 123:--
'Every want thus becomes a means of pleasure, in the redressing. '
l. 228. -----
"Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low".
Probably Goldsmith only uses 'low' here in its primitive sense,
and not in that which, in his own day, gave so much umbrage to
so many eighteenth-century students of humanity in the rough.
Cf.
panacea, invented by Johnson's Lichfield townsman, Dr. Robert
James of the 'Medicinal Dictionary'. It was sold by John
Newbery, and had an extraordinary vogue. The King dosed Princess
Elizabeth with it; Fielding, Gray, and Cowper all swore by it,
and Horace Walpole, who wished to try it upon Mme. du Deffand
'in extremis', said he should use it if the house were on fire.
William Hawes, the Strand apothecary who attended Goldsmith,
wrote an interesting 'Account of the late Dr. Goldsmith's
Illness, so far as relates to the Exhibition of Dr. James's
Powders, etc. ', 1774, which he dedicated to Reynolds and Burke.
To Hawes once belonged the poet's worn old wooden writing-desk,
now in the South Kensington Museum, where are also his favourite
chair and cane. Another desk-chair, which had descended from his
friend, Edmund Bott, was recently for sale at Sotheby's (July,
1906).
EDITIONS OF THE POEMS.
No collected edition of Goldsmith's poetical works appeared until after
his death. But, in 1775, W. Griffin, who had published the 'Essays' of
ten years earlier, issued a volume entitled 'The Miscellaneous Works of
Oliver Goldsmith, M. B. , containing all his Essays and Poems'. The
'poems' however were confined to 'The Traveller,' 'The Deserted
Village,' 'Edwin and Angelina,' 'The Double Transformation,' 'A New
Simile,' and 'Retaliation,'--an obviously imperfect harvesting. In the
following year G. Kearsly printed an eighth edition of 'Retaliation',
with which he included 'The Hermit' ('Edwin and Angelina'), 'The Gift,'
'Madam Blaize,' and the epilogues to 'The Sister' and 'She stoops to
Conquer'*; while to an edition of 'The Haunch of Venison', also put
forth in 1776, he added the 'Epitaph on Parnell' and two songs from the
oratorio of 'The Captivity'. The next collection appeared in a volume of
'Poems and Plays' published at Dublin in 1777, where it was preceded by
a 'Life,' written by W. Glover, one of Goldsmith's 'Irish clients. '
Then, in 1780, came vol. i of T. Evans's 'Poetical and Dramatic Works
etc. , now first collected', also having a 'Memoir,' and certainly fuller
than anything which had gone before. Next followed the long-deferred
'Miscellaneous Works, etc. ', of 1801, in four volumes, vol. ii of which
comprised the plays and poems. Prefixed to this edition is the important
biographical sketch, compiled under the direction of Bishop Percy, and
usually described as the 'Percy Memoir', by which title it is referred
to in the ensuing notes. The next memorable edition was that edited for
the Aldine Series in 1831, by the Rev. John Mitford. Prior and Wright's
edition in vol. iv of the 'Miscellaneous Works, etc. ', of 1837, comes
after this; then Bolton Corney's excellent 'Poetical Works' of 1845; and
vol. i of Peter Cunningham's 'Works, etc. ' of 1854. There are other
issues of the poems, the latest of which is to be found in vol. ii
(1885) of the complete 'Works', in five volumes, edited for Messrs.
George Bell and Sons by J. W. M. Gibbs.
[footnote] *Some copies of this are dated 1777, and contain 'The Haunch
of Venison' and a few minor pieces.
Most of the foregoing editions have been consulted for the following
notes; but chiefly those of Mitford, Prior, Bolton Corney, and
Cunningham. Many of the illustrations and explanations now supplied will
not, however, be found in any of the sources indicated. When an
elucidatory or parallel passage is cited, an attempt has been made, as
far as possible, to give the credit of it to the first discoverer. Thus,
some of the illustrations in Cunningham's notes are here transferred to
Prior, some of Prior's to Mitford, and so forth. As regards the notes
themselves, care has been taken to make them full enough to obviate the
necessity, except in rare instances, of further investigation. It is the
editor's experience that references to external authorities are, as a
general rule, sign-posts to routes which are seldom travelled*.
[footnote] *In this connexion may be recalled the dictum of Hume quoted
by Dr. Birkbeck Hill:--'Every book should be as complete as possible
within itself, and should never refer for anything material to other
books' ('History of England', 1802, ii. 101).
THE TRAVELLER.
It was on those continental wanderings which occupied Goldsmith between
February, 1755 and February, 1756 that he conceived his first idea of
this, the earliest of his poems to which he prefixed his name; and he
probably had in mind Addison's 'Letter from Italy to Lord Halifax', a
work in which he found 'a strain of political thinking that was, at that
time [1701]. new in our poetry. ' ('Beauties of English Poesy', 1767, i.
III). From the dedicatory letter to his brother--which says expressly,
'as a part of this Poem was formerly written to you from Switzerland,
the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you'--it is
plain that some portion of it must have been actually composed abroad.
It was not, however, actually published until the 19th of December,
1764, and the title-page bore the date of 1765*. The publisher was John
Newbery, of St. Paul's Churchyard, and the price of the book, a quarto
of 30 pages, was 1s. 6d. A second, third and fourth edition quickly
followed, and a ninth, from which it is here reprinted, was issued in
1774, the year of the author's death. Between the first and the sixth
edition of 1770 there were numerous alterations, the more important of
which are indicated in the ensuing notes.
[footnote] *This is the generally recognized first edition. But the
late Mr. Frederick Locker Lampson, the poet and collector, possessed a
quarto copy, dated 1764, which had no author's name, and in which the
dedication ran as follows:--'This poem is inscribed to the Rev. Henry
Goldsmith, M. A. By his most affectionate Brother Oliver Goldsmith. ' It
was, in all probability, unique, though it is alleged that there are
octavo copies which present similar characteristics. It has now gone to
America with the Rowfant Library.
In 1902 an interesting discovery was made by Mr. Bertram Dobell, to whom
the public are indebted for so many important literary 'finds. ' In a
parcel of pamphlets he came upon a number of loose printed leaves
entitled 'A Prospect of Society'. They obviously belonged to 'The
Traveller'; but seemed to be its 'formless unarranged material,' and
contained many variations from the text of the first edition. Mr.
Dobell's impression was that 'the author's manuscript, written on loose
leaves, had fallen into confusion, and was then printed without any
attempt at re-arrangement. ' This was near the mark; but the complete
solution of the riddle was furnished by Mr. Quiller Couch in an article
in the 'Daily News' for March 31, 1902, since recast in his charming
volume 'From a Cornish Window', 1906, pp. 86-92. He showed conclusively
that 'The Prospect' was 'merely an early draft of 'The Traveller'
printed backwards in fairly regular sections. ' What had manifestly
happened was this. Goldsmith, turning over each page as written, had
laid it on the top of the preceding page of MS. and forgotten to
rearrange them when done. Thus the series of pages were reversed; and,
so reversed, were set up in type by a matter-of-fact compositor. Mr.
Dobell at once accepted this happy explanation; which--as Mr. Quiller
Couch points out--has the advantage of being a 'blunder just so natural
to Goldsmith as to be almost postulable. ' One or two of the variations
of Mr. Dobell's 'find'--variations, it should be added, antecedent to
the first edition--are noted in their places.
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, 21l,' 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. '
l. 14. -----
"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'.
Cf. also Parson Adams in ch. iii of 'Joseph Andrews', who has
twenty-three; and Mr. Rivers, in the 'Spiritual Quixote',
1772:--'I do not choose to go into orders to be a curate all my
life-time, and work for about fifteen-pence a day, or
twenty-five pounds a year' (bk. vi, ch. xvii). Dr. Primrose's
stipend is thirty-five in the first instance, fifteen in the
second ('Vicar of Wakefield', chapters ii and iii). But
Professor Hales ('Longer English Poems', 1885, p. 351) supplies
an exact parallel in the case of Churchill, who, he says, when
a curate at Rainham, 'prayed and starved on 'forty pounds a
year'. ' The latter words are Churchill's own, and sound like a
quotation; but he was dead long before 'The Deserted Village'
appeared in 1770. There is an interesting paper in the
'Gentleman's Magazine' for November, 1763, on the miseries and
hardships of the 'inferior clergy. '
l. 20. -----
But of all kinds of ambition", etc. In the first edition of
1765, p. ii, this passage was as follows:--'But of all kinds of
ambition, as things are now circumstanced, perhaps that which
pursues poetical fame, is the wildest. What from the encreased
refinement of the times, from the diversity of judgments
produced by opposing systems of criticism, and from the more
prevalent divisions of opinion influenced by party, the
strongest and happiest efforts can expect to please but in a
very narrow circle. Though the poet were as sure of his aim as
the imperial archer of antiquity, who boasted that he never
missed the heart; yet would many of his shafts now fly at
random, for the heart is too often in the wrong place. ' In the
second edition it was curtailed; in the sixth it took its final
form.
l. 29. -----
"they engross all that favour once shown to her". First
version--'They engross all favour to themselves. '
l. 30. -----
"the elder's birthright". Cunningham here aptly compares
Dryden's epistle 'To Sir Godfrey Kneller', II. 89-92:--
Our arts are sisters, though not twins in birth;
For hymns were sung in Eden's happy earth:
But oh, the painter muse, though last in place,
Has seized the blessing first, like Jacob's race.
l. 42. -----
"Party"=faction. Cf. lines 31-2 on Edmund Burke in
'Retaliation':--
Who, born for the Universe, narrow'd his mind,
And to 'party' gave up what was meant for mankind.
l. 50. -----
"Such readers generally admire", etc. 'I suppose this paragraph
to be directed against Paul Whitehead, or Churchill,' writes
Mitford. It was clearly aimed at Churchill, since Prior ('Life',
1837, ii. 54) quotes a portion of a contemporary article in the
'St. James's Chronicle' for February 7-9, 1765, attributed to
Bonnell Thornton, which leaves little room for doubt upon the
question. 'The latter part of this paragraph,' says the writer,
referring to the passage now annotated, 'we cannot help
considering as a reflection on the memory of the late Mr.
Churchill, whose talents as a poet were so greatly and so
deservedly admired, that during his short reign, his merit in
great measure eclipsed that of others; and we think it no mean
acknowledgment of the excellencies of this poem ['The
Traveller'] to say that, like the stars, they appear the more
brilliant now that the sun of our poetry is gone down. '
Churchill died on the 4th of November, 1764, some weeks before
the publication of 'The Traveller'. His powers, it may be, were
misdirected and misapplied; but his rough vigour and his manly
verse deserved a better fate at Goldsmith's hands.
l. 53. -----
"tawdry" was added in the sixth edition of 1770.
l. 56. -----
"blank verse". Cf. 'The Present State of Polite
Learning', 1759, p. 150--'From a desire in the critic of
grafting the spirit of ancient languages upon the English, has
proceeded of late several disagreeable instances of pedantry.
Among the number, I think we may reckon 'blank verse'. Nothing
but the greatest sublimity of subject can render such a measure
pleasing; however, we now see it used on the most trivial
occasions'--by which last remark Goldsmith probably, as
Cunningham thinks, intended to refer to the efforts of Akenside,
Dyer, and Armstrong. His views upon blank verse were shared by
Johnson and Gray. At the date of the present dedication, the
latest offender in this way had been Goldsmith's old colleague
on 'The Monthly Review', Dr. James Grainger, author of 'The
Sugar Cane', which was published in June, 1764. (Cf. also 'The
Bee' for 24th November, 1759, 'An account of the Augustan Age of
England. ')
l. 62. -----
"and that this principle", etc. 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. " Chamier believed then that I had written the
line as much as if he had seen me write it. ' [Birkbeck Hill's
'Boswell', 1887, iii. 252-3. ) It is quite possible, however,
that Goldsmith meant no more than he said.
l. 3. -----
"the rude Carinthian boor". 'Carinthia,' says Cunningham, 'was
visited by Goldsmith in 1755, and still (1853) retains its
character for inhospitality. '
l. 5. -----
"Campania". 'Intended,' says Bolton Corney, 'to denote
'La campagna di Roma'. The portion of it which extends from Rome
to Terracina is scarcely habitable. '
l. 10. -----
"a lengthening chain". Prior compares Letter iii of 'The
Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 5:--'The farther I travel I feel
the pain of separation with stronger force, those ties that bind
me to my native country, and you, are still unbroken. By every
remove, I only drag a greater length of chain. ' But, as Mitford
points out, Cibber has a similar thought in his 'Comical
Lovers', 1707, Act v:--'When I am with Florimel, it [my heart]
is still your prisoner, 'it only draws a longer chain after
it'. ' And earlier still in Dryden's 'All for Love', 1678, Act
ii, Sc. 1:--
My life on't, he still drags a chain along,
That needs must clog his flight.
l. 17. -----
"with simple plenty crown'd". In the first edition this read
'where mirth and peace abound. '
l. 22. -----
"the luxury of doing good". Prior compares Garth's 'Claremont',
1715, where he speaks of the Druids:--
Hard was their Lodging, homely was their Food,
For all their 'Luxury was doing Good'.
l. 24. -----
"my prime of life". He was seven-and-twenty when he
landed at Dover in February, 1756.
l. 27. -----
"That, like the circle bounding", etc. Cf. 'Vicar of
Wakefield', 1766, ii. 160-1 (ch. x):--'Death, the only friend of
the wretched, for a little while mocks the weary traveller with
the view, and like his horizon, still flies before him. '
[Prior. ]
l. 30. -----
"And find no spot of all the world my own". Prior
compares his namesake's lines 'In the Beginning of [Jacques]
Robbe's Geography', 1700:--
My destin'd Miles I shall have gone,
By THAMES or MAESE, by PO or RHONE,
And found no Foot of Earth my own.
l. 33. -----
"above the storm's career". Cf. 1. 190 of 'The Deserted
Village'.
l. 38. -----
"should thankless pride repine? " First edition,
''twere thankless to repine. '
l. 39. -----
"Say, should the philosophic mind", etc. First edition:--
'Twere affectation all, and school-taught pride,
To spurn the splendid things by heaven supply'd
l. 58. -----
"hoard". 'Sum' in the first edition.
l. 66. -----
"Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own". In the first
version this was--
Boldly asserts that country for his own.
l. 75. -----
"And yet, perhaps", etc. In the first edition, for this and the
following five lines appeared these eight:--
And yet, perhaps, if states with states we scan,
Or estimate their bliss on Reason's plan,
Though patriots flatter, and though fools contend,
We still shall find uncertainty suspend;
Find that each good, by Art or Nature given,
To these or those, but makes the balance even:
Find that the bliss of all is much the same,
And patriotic boasting reason's shame!
l. 84. -----
"On Idra's cliffs". Bolton Corney conjectures that
Goldsmith meant 'Idria, a town in Carniola, noted for its
mines. ' 'Goldsmith in his "History of Animated Nature" makes
mention of the mines, and spells the name in the same way as
here. ' (Mr. J. H. Lobban's 'Select Poems of Goldsmith', 1900, p.
87). Lines 84-5, it may be added, are not in the first edition.
l. 85. -----
"And though the rocky-crested summits frown". In the
first edition:--
And though rough rocks or gloomy summits frown.
ll. 91-2 -----
are not in the first editions.
l. 98. -----
"peculiar", i. e. 'proper,' 'appropriate. '
l. 122. -----
"winnow", i. e. 'waft,' 'disperse. ' John Evelyn refers to these
'sea-born gales' in the 'Dedication' of his 'Fumifugium',
1661:--'Those who take notice of the scent of the orange-flowers
from the rivage of Genoa, and St. Pietro dell' Arena; the
blossomes of the rosemary from the Coasts of Spain, many leagues
off at sea; or the manifest, and odoriferous wafts which flow
from Fontenay and Vaugirard, even to Paris in the season of
roses, with the contrary effect of those less pleasing smells
from other accidents, will easily consent to what I suggest
[i. e. the planting of sweet-smelling trees]. ' ('Miscellaneous
Writings', 1825, p. 208. )
l. 139. -----
"Till, more unsteady', etc. In the first edition:--
But, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Soon Commerce turn'd on other shores her sail.
There is a certain resemblance between this passage and one of
the later paradoxes of Smollett's Lismahago;--'He affirmed, the
nature of commerce was such, that it could not be fixed or
perpetuated, but, having flowed to a certain height, would
immediately begin to ebb, and so continue till the channels
should be left almost dry; but there was no instance of the
tide's rising a second time to any considerable influx in the
same nation' ('Humphry Clinker', 1771, ii. 192. Letter of Mr.
Bramble to Dr. Lewis).
ll. 141-2 -----
are not in the first edition.
l. 144. -----
"Its former strength was but plethoric ill". Cf. 'The
Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 98:--'In short, the state
resembled one of those bodies bloated with disease, whose bulk
is only a symptom of its wretchedness. ' [Mitford. ]
l. 145. -----
"Yet still the loss", etc. In the first edition:--
Yet, though to fortune lost, here still abide
Some splendid arts, the wrecks of former pride.
l. 150. -----
"The paste-board triumph and the cavalcade". 'Happy
Country [he is speaking of Italy], where the pastoral age begins
to revive! Where the wits even of Rome are united into a rural
groupe of nymphs and swains, under the appellation of modern
Arcadians [i. e. the Bolognese Academy of the 'Arcadi']. Where in
the midst of porticos, processions, and cavalcades, abbes turn'd
into shepherds, and shepherdesses without sheep, indulge their
innocent 'divertimenti'. ' ('Present State of Polite Learning',
1759, pp. 50-1. ) Some of the 'paste-board triumphs' may be
studied in the plates of Jacques Callot.
l. 153. -----
"By sports like these", etc. A pretty and well-known
story is told with regard to this couplet. Calling once on
Goldsmith, Reynolds, having vainly tried to attract attention,
entered unannounced. 'His friend was at his desk, but with hand
uplifted, and a look directed to another part of the room; where
a little dog sat with difficulty on his haunches, looking
imploringly at his teacher, whose rebuke for toppling over he
had evidently just received. Reynolds advanced, and looked past
Goldsmith's shoulder at the writing on his desk. It seemed to be
some portions of a poem; and looking more closely, he was able
to read a couplet which had been that instant written. The ink
of the second line was wet:--
By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd;
The sports of children satisfy the child.
(Forster's 'Life', 1871, i. pp. 347-8).
l. 154. -----
"The sports of children". This line, in the first edition, was
followed by:--
At sports like these, while foreign arms advance,
In passive ease they leave the world to chance.
l. 155. -----
"Each nobler aim", etc. The first edition reads:--
When struggling Virtue sinks by long controul,
She leaves at last, or feebly mans the soul.
This was changed in the second, third, fourth, and fifth
editions to:--
When noble aims have suffer'd long controul,
They sink at last, or feebly man the soul.
l. 169. -----
"No product here", etc. The Swiss mercenaries, here referred
to, were long famous in European warfare.
They parted with a thousand kisses,
And fight e'er since for pay, like Swisses.
Gay's 'Aye and No, a Fable'.
l. 185. -----
This fine use of 'breasts'--as Cunningham points out--is given
by Johnson as an example in his Dictionary.
l. 187. -----
"With patient angle, trolls the finny deep". 'Troll,' i. e. as
for pike. Goldsmith uses 'finny prey' in 'The Citizen of the
World', 1762, ii. 99:--'The best manner to draw up the 'finny
prey'. ' Cf. also 'warbling grove,' 'Deserted Village', l. 361,
as a parallel to 'finny deep. '
l. 190. -----
"the struggling savage", i. e. wolf or bear. Mitford
compares the following:--'He is a beast of prey, and the laws
should make use of as many stratagems and as much force to drive
the 'reluctant savage' into the toils, as the Indians when they
hunt the hyena or the rhinoceros. ' ('Citizen of the World',
1762, i. 112. ) See also Pope's 'Iliad', Bk. xvii:--
But if the 'savage' turns his glaring eye,
They howl aloof, and round the forest fly.
ll. 201-2 -----
are not in the first edition.
l. 213. -----
"For every want", etc. Mitford quotes a parallel
passage in 'Animated Nature', 1774, ii. 123:--
'Every want thus becomes a means of pleasure, in the redressing. '
l. 228. -----
"Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low".
Probably Goldsmith only uses 'low' here in its primitive sense,
and not in that which, in his own day, gave so much umbrage to
so many eighteenth-century students of humanity in the rough.
Cf.
