The 'lamp-black face' would seem to imply
that the portrait was a silhouette.
that the portrait was a silhouette.
Oliver Goldsmith
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.
l. 46. -----
"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.
l. 56. -----
"And footmen, lords and dukes can act". Cf. 'Gil Blas',
1715-35, liv. iii, chap. iv:--'Il falloit voir comme nous nous
portions des santes a tous moments, en nous donnant les uns aux
autres les surnoms de nos maitres. Le valet de don Antonio
appeloit Gamboa celui de don Fernand, et le valet de don Fernand
appeloit Centelles celui de don Antonio. Ils me nommoient de
meme Silva; et nous nous enivrions peu a peu sous ces noms
empruntes, tout aussi bien que les seigneurs qui les portoient
veritablement. ' 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.
l. 5. -----
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.
*[footnote] 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, 'a 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 XIXme Siecle', 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 etait 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 'Menagiana', (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. )
l. 8. -----
"Who left a pledge behind". Caldecott cleverly converted
this line into the keynote of the poem, by making the heroine a
pawnbroker.
l. 20. -----
"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'.
l. 24. -----
"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 etoit mortelle'.
l. 26. -----
"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.
*[footnote] 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. '
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. )
*[footnote] i. e. accord, conform.
l. 3. -----
"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.
l. 10. -----
"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. )
l. 11. -----
"The royal game of goose was there in view". (See note, p. 188,
l. 232)
l. 12. -----
"And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew". (See note, p.
187, l. 232. )
l. 13. -----
"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. )
l. 14. -----
"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).
l. 17. -----
"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.
l. 20. -----
"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 Letter lxxxii of 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 87,
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.
l. 3. -----
"virtue". 'Charity' ('Author's note').
l. 4. -----
"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.
l. 2. -----
"Jack Book-worm led a college life".
The version of 1765 reads 'liv'd' for 'led. '
l. 6. -----
"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.
l. 18. -----
"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. )
l. 27. -----
"usage". This word, perhaps by a printer's error, is
'visage' in the first version
l. 39. -----
"Skill'd in no other arts was she". Cf. Prior:--
For in all Visits who but She,
To Argue, or to Repartee.
l. 46. -----
"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. '
l. 52. -----
"By day, 'twas gadding or coquetting". The first version after
'coquetting' begins a fresh paragraph with--
Now tawdry madam kept, etc.
l. 58. -----
"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.
l. 61. -----
"Thus as her faults each day were known". First version:
'Each day, the more her faults,' etc.
l. 71. -----
"Now, to perplex". The first version has 'Thus. '
But the alteration in line 61 made a change necessary.
l. 85. -----
"paste". First version 'pastes. '
l. 91. -----
"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. )
l. 1. -----
"Long had I sought in vain to find". The text of 1765
reads--
'I long had rack'd my brains to find. '
l. 6. -----
"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.
l. 16. -----
"Wings upon either side--mark that". The petasus of
Mercury, like his sandals (l. 24), is winged.
l. 36. -----
"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. )
l. 42. -----
"With this he drives men's souls to hell".
Tu. . . .
. . . . virgaque levem coerces
Aurea turbam. --Hor. 'Od'. i. 10.
l. 57. "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.
l. 59. -----
"In which all modern bards agree".
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.
l. 46. -----
"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.
l. 56. -----
"And footmen, lords and dukes can act". Cf. 'Gil Blas',
1715-35, liv. iii, chap. iv:--'Il falloit voir comme nous nous
portions des santes a tous moments, en nous donnant les uns aux
autres les surnoms de nos maitres. Le valet de don Antonio
appeloit Gamboa celui de don Fernand, et le valet de don Fernand
appeloit Centelles celui de don Antonio. Ils me nommoient de
meme Silva; et nous nous enivrions peu a peu sous ces noms
empruntes, tout aussi bien que les seigneurs qui les portoient
veritablement. ' 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.
l. 5. -----
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.
*[footnote] 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, 'a 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 XIXme Siecle', 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 etait 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 'Menagiana', (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. )
l. 8. -----
"Who left a pledge behind". Caldecott cleverly converted
this line into the keynote of the poem, by making the heroine a
pawnbroker.
l. 20. -----
"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'.
l. 24. -----
"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 etoit mortelle'.
l. 26. -----
"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.
*[footnote] 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. '
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. )
*[footnote] i. e. accord, conform.
l. 3. -----
"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.
l. 10. -----
"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. )
l. 11. -----
"The royal game of goose was there in view". (See note, p. 188,
l. 232)
l. 12. -----
"And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew". (See note, p.
187, l. 232. )
l. 13. -----
"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. )
l. 14. -----
"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).
l. 17. -----
"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.
l. 20. -----
"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 Letter lxxxii of 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 87,
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.
l. 3. -----
"virtue". 'Charity' ('Author's note').
l. 4. -----
"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.
l. 2. -----
"Jack Book-worm led a college life".
The version of 1765 reads 'liv'd' for 'led. '
l. 6. -----
"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.
l. 18. -----
"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. )
l. 27. -----
"usage". This word, perhaps by a printer's error, is
'visage' in the first version
l. 39. -----
"Skill'd in no other arts was she". Cf. Prior:--
For in all Visits who but She,
To Argue, or to Repartee.
l. 46. -----
"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. '
l. 52. -----
"By day, 'twas gadding or coquetting". The first version after
'coquetting' begins a fresh paragraph with--
Now tawdry madam kept, etc.
l. 58. -----
"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.
l. 61. -----
"Thus as her faults each day were known". First version:
'Each day, the more her faults,' etc.
l. 71. -----
"Now, to perplex". The first version has 'Thus. '
But the alteration in line 61 made a change necessary.
l. 85. -----
"paste". First version 'pastes. '
l. 91. -----
"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. )
l. 1. -----
"Long had I sought in vain to find". The text of 1765
reads--
'I long had rack'd my brains to find. '
l. 6. -----
"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.
l. 16. -----
"Wings upon either side--mark that". The petasus of
Mercury, like his sandals (l. 24), is winged.
l. 36. -----
"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. )
l. 42. -----
"With this he drives men's souls to hell".
Tu. . . .
. . . . virgaque levem coerces
Aurea turbam. --Hor. 'Od'. i. 10.
l. 57. "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.
l. 59. -----
"In which all modern bards agree".
