The truth seems that Goldsmith, living in England, recalled
in a poem that was English in its conception many of the memories and
accessories of his early life in Ireland, without intending or even
caring to draw an exact picture.
in a poem that was English in its conception many of the memories and
accessories of his early life in Ireland, without intending or even
caring to draw an exact picture.
Oliver Goldsmith
'Slavery,' says
Mitford, 'was permitted in Holland; children were sold by their
parents for a certain number of years. '
l. 309. -----
"A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves". Goldsmith uses this
very line as prose in Letter xxxiv of
'The Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 147.
l. 310. -----
"dishonourable graves". 'Julius Caesar', Act i. Sc. 2.
l. 313. -----
"Heavens! how unlike", etc. Prior compares a passage from a
manuscript 'Introduction to the History of the Seven Years'
War':--'How unlike the brave peasants their ancestors, who
spread terror into either India, and always declared themselves
the allies of those who drew the sword in defence of freedom*. '
[footnote] *J. W. M. Gibbs ('Works', v. 9) discovered that parts
of this 'History', hitherto supposed to have been written in
1761, were published in the 'Literary Magazine', 1757-8.
l. 320. -----
"famed Hydaspes", i. e. the 'fabulosus Hydaspes' of
Horace, Bk. i. Ode xxii, and the 'Medus Hydaspes' of Virgil,
'Georg', iv. 211, of which so many stores were told. It is now
known as the Jhilum, one of the five rivers which give the
Punjaub its name.
l. 327. -----
"Pride in their port", etc. In the first edition these
two lines were inverted.
l. 343. -----
"Here by the bonds of nature feebly held". In the
first edition--
See, though by circling deeps together held.
l. 349. -----
"Nature's ties" was 'social bonds' in the first edition.
l. 358. -----
"Where kings have toil'd, and poets wrote for fame". In the
first edition this line read:--
And monarchs toil, and poets pant for fame.
l. 361. -----
"Yet think not', etc. 'In the things I have hitherto
written I have neither allured the vanity of the great by
flattery, nor satisfied the malignity of the vulgar by scandal,
but I have endeavoured to get an honest reputation by liberal
pursuits. '
(Preface to 'English History'. ) [Mitford. ]
l. 363. -----
"Ye powers of truth", etc. The first version has:--
Perish the wish; for, inly satisfy'd,
Above their pomps I hold my ragged pride.
Mr. Forster thinks ('Life', 1871, i. 375) that Goldsmith altered
this (i. e. 'ragged pride') because, like the omitted 'Haud
inexpertus loquor' of the 'Enquiry', it involved an undignified
admission.
ll. 365-80 -----
are not in the first edition.
l. 382. -----
"Contracting regal power to stretch their own". 'It is
the interest of the great, therefore, to diminish kingly power
as much as possible; because whatever they take from it is
naturally restored to themselves; and all they have to do in a
state, is to undermine the single tyrant, by which they resume
their primaeval authority. ' ('Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, i. 202,
ch. xix. )
l. 383. -----
"When I behold", etc. Prior compares a passage in
Letter xlix of 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 218, where
the Roman senators are spoken of as still flattering the people
'with a shew of freedom, while themselves only were free. '
l. 386. -----
"Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law".
Prior notes a corresponding utterance in 'The Vicar of
Wakefield', 1766, i. 206, ch. xix:--'What they may then expect,
may be seen by turning our eyes to Holland, Genoa, or Venice,
where the laws govern the poor, and the rich govern the law. '
l. 392. -----
"I fly from petty tyrants to the throne". Cf. Dr.
Primrose, 'ut supra', p. 201:--'The generality of mankind also
are of my way of thinking, and have unanimously created one
king, whose election at once diminishes the number of tyrants,
and puts tyranny at the greatest distance from the greatest
number of people. ' Cf. also Churchill, 'The Farewell', ll. 363-4
and 369-70:--
Let not a Mob of Tyrants seize the helm,
Nor titled upstarts league to rob the realm. . .
Let us, some comfort in our griefs to bring,
Be slaves to one, and be that one a King.
ll. 393-4. -----
Goldsmith's first thought was--
Yes, my lov'd brother, cursed be that hour
When first ambition toil'd for foreign power,--
an entirely different couplet to that in the text, and certainly
more logical. (Dobell's 'Prospect of Society', 1902, pp. xi, 2,
and Notes, v, vi). Mr. Dobell plausibly suggests that this Tory
substitution is due to Johnson.
l. 397. -----
"Have we not seen", etc. These lines contain the first
idea of the subsequent poem of 'The Deserted Village' ('q. v. ').
l. 411. -----
"Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around". The
Oswego is a river which runs between Lakes Oneida and Ontario.
In the 'Threnodia Augustalis', 1772, Goldsmith writes:--
Oswego's dreary shores shall be my grave.
The 'desarts of Oswego' were familiar to the eighteenth-century
reader in connexion with General Braddock's ill-fated expedition
of 1755, an account of which Goldsmith had just given in 'An
History of England, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to
his Son', 1764, ii. 202-4.
l. 416. -----
"marks with murderous aim". In the first edition
'takes a deadly aim. '
l. 419. -----
"pensive exile". This, in the version mentioned in the
next note, was 'famish'd exile. '
l. 420. -----
"To stop too fearful, and too faint to go". This line,
upon Boswell's authority, is claimed for Johnson (Birkbeck
Hill's 'Boswell', 1887, ii. 6). Goldsmith's original ran:--
And faintly fainter, fainter seems to go.
(Dobell's 'Prospect of Society', 1902, p. 3).
l. 429. -----
"How small, of all," etc. Johnson wrote these
concluding ten lines with the exception of the penultimate
couplet. They and line 420 were all--he told Boswell--of which
he could be sure (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell, ut supra'). Like
Goldsmith, he sometimes worked his prose ideas into his verse.
The first couplet is apparently a reminiscence of a passage in
his own 'Rasselas', 1759, ii. 112, where the astronomer speaks
of 'the task of a king. . . who has the care only of a few
millions, to whom he cannot do much good or harm. ' (Grant's
'Johnson', 1887, p. 89. ) 'I would not give half a guinea to live
under one form of government rather than another,' he told that
'vile Whig,' Sir Adam Fergusson, in 1772. 'It is of no moment to
the happiness of an individual' (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell',
1887, ii. 170).
l. 435. -----
"The lifted axe". Mitford here recalls Blackmore's
Some the sharp axe, and some the painful wheel.
The 'lifted axe' he also traces to Young and Blackmore, with
both of whom Goldsmith seems to have been familiar; but it is
surely not necessary to assume that he borrowed from either in
this instance.
l. 436. -----
"Luke's iron crown". George and Luke Dosa, or Doscha,
headed a rebellion in Hungary in 1513. The former was proclaimed
king by the peasants; and, in consequence suffered, among other
things, the torture of the red-hot iron crown. Such a punishment
took place at Bordeaux when Montaigne was seventeen (Morley's
Florio's 'Montaigne', 1886, p. xvi). Much ink has been shed over
Goldsmith's lapse of 'Luke' for George. In the book which he
cited as his authority, the family name of the brothers was
given as Zeck,--hence Bolton Corney, in his edition of the
'Poetical Works', 1845, p. 36, corrected the line to--
'Zeck's' iron crown, etc. ,
an alteration which has been adopted by other editors. (See
also Forster's 'Life', 1871, i. 370. )
"Damien's bed of steel". Robert-Francois Damiens, 1714-57.
Goldsmith writes 'Damien's. ' In the 'Gentlemen's Magazine' for
1757, vol. xxvii. pp. 87 and 151, where there is an account of
this poor half-witted wretch's torture and execution for
attempting to assassinate Louis XV, the name is thus spelled, as
also in other contemporary records and caricatures. The
following passage explains the 'bed of steel':--'Being conducted
to the Conciergerie, an 'iron bed', which likewise served for a
chair, was prepared for him, and to this he was fastened with
chains. The torture was again applied, and a physician ordered
to attend to see what degree of pain he could support,' etc.
(Smollett's 'History of England', 1823, bk. iii, ch. 7, ¤ xxv. )
Goldsmith's own explanation--according to Tom Davies, the
bookseller--was that he meant the rack. But Davies may have
misunderstood him, or Goldsmith himself may have forgotten the
facts. (See Forster's 'Life', 1871, i. 370. ) At pp. 57-78 of the
'Monthly Review' for July, 1757 (upon which Goldsmith was at
this date employed), is a summary, 'from our correspondent at
Paris,' of the official record of the Damiens' Trial, 4 vols. 12
mo. ; and his deed and tragedy make a graphic chapter in the
remarkable 'Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous', by George
Augustus Sala, 1863, iii. pp. 154-180.
l. 438. -----
In the first edition of 'The Traveller' there are only
416 lines.
THE DESERTED VILLAGE.
After having been for some time announced as in preparation, 'The
Deserted Village' made its first appearance on May 26, 1770*. It was
received with great enthusiasm. In June a second, third, and fourth
edition followed, and in August a fifth was published. The text here
given is that of the fourth edition, which was considerably revised.
Johnson, we are told, thought 'The Deserted Village' inferior to 'The
Traveller': but 'time,' to use Mr. Forster's words, 'has not confirmed
'that' judgment. ' Its germ is perhaps to be found in ll. 397-402 of the
earlier poem. Much research has been expended in the endeavour to
identify the scene with Lissoy, the home of the poet's youth (see
'Introduction', p. ix); but the result has only been partially
successful.
The truth seems that Goldsmith, living in England, recalled
in a poem that was English in its conception many of the memories and
accessories of his early life in Ireland, without intending or even
caring to draw an exact picture. Hence, as Lord Macaulay has observed,
in a much criticized and characteristic passage, 'it is made up of
incongruous parts. The village in its happy days is a true English
village. The village in its decay is an Irish village. The felicity and
the misery which Goldsmith has brought close together belong to two
different countries, and to two different stages in the progress of
society. He had assuredly never seen in his native island such a rural
paradise, such a seat of plenty, content, and tranquillity, as his
"Auburn. " He had assuredly never seen in England all the inhabitants of
such a paradise turned out of their homes in one day and forced to
emigrate in a body to America. The hamlet he had probably seen in Kent;
the ejectment he had probably seen in Munster; but, by joining the two,
he has produced something which never was and never will be seen in any
part of the world. ' ('Encyclop. Britannica', 1856. ) It is obvious also
that in some of his theories--the depopulation of the kingdom, for
example--Goldsmith was mistaken. But it was not for its didactic
qualities then, nor is it for them now, that 'The Deserted Village'
delighted and delights. It maintains its popularity by its charming
'genre'-pictures, its sweet and tender passages, its simplicity, its
sympathetic hold upon the enduring in human nature. To test it solely
with a view to establish its topographical accuracy, or to insist too
much upon the value of its ethical teaching, is to mistake its real
mission as a work of art.
[footnote] *In the American 'Bookman' for February, 1901, pp. 563-7, Mr.
Luther S. Livingston gives an account (with facsimile title-pages) of
three 'octavo' (or rather duodecimo) editions all dated 1770; and
ostensibly printed for 'W. Griffin, at Garrick's Head, in
Catherine-street, Strand. ' He rightly describes their existence as 'a
bibliographical puzzle. ' They afford no important variations; are not
mentioned by the early editors; and are certainly not in the form in
which the poem was first advertised and reviewed, as this was a quarto.
But they are naturally of interest to the collector; and the late
Colonel Francis Grant, a good Goldsmith scholar, described one of them
in the 'Athenaeum' for June 20, 1896 (No. 3582).
"Dedication", l. 6. -----
"I am ignorant of that art in which you are
said to excel". This modest confession did not prevent Goldsmith
from making fun of the contemporary connoisseur. See the letter
from the young virtuoso in 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, i.
145, announcing that a famous 'torse' has been discovered to be
not 'a Cleopatra bathing' but 'a Hercules spinning'; and Charles
Primrose's experiences at Paris ('Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, ii.
27-8).
l. 14. -----
"He is since dead". Henry Goldsmith died in May, 1768,
at the age of forty-five, being then curate of Kilkenny West.
(See note, p. 164. )
l. 33. -----
"a long poem". 'I might dwell upon such thoughts. . . were
I not afraid of making this preface too tedious; especially
since I shall want all the patience of the reader, for having
enlarged it with the following verses. ' (Tickell's Preface to
Addison's 'Works', at end. )
l. 35. -----
"the increase of our luxuries". The evil of luxury was
a 'common topick' with Goldsmith. (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell',
1887, ii. 217-8. ) Smollett also, speaking with the voice of
Lismahago, and continuing the quotation on p. 169, was of the
opinion that 'the sudden affluence occasioned by trade, forced
open all the sluices of luxury, and overflowed the land with
every species of profligacy and corruption. ' ('Humphry Clinker',
1771, ii. 192. --Letter of Mr. Bramble to Dr. Lewis. )
l. 1. -----
"'Sweet' AUBURN". Forster, 'Life', 1871, ii. 206, says
that Goldsmith obtained this name from Bennet Langton. There is
an Aldbourn or Auburn in Wiltshire, not far from Marlborough,
which Prior thinks may have furnished the suggestion.
l. 6. -----
"Seats of my youth". This alone would imply that
Goldsmith had in mind the environment of his Irish home.
l. 12. -----
"The decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill".
This corresponds with the church of Kilkenny West as seen from
the house at Lissoy.
l. 13. -----
"The hawthorn bush". The Rev. Annesley Strean, Henry
Goldsmith's successor at Kilkenny West, well remembered the
hawthorn bush in front of the village ale-house. It had
originally three trunks; but when he wrote in 1807 only one
remained, 'the other two having been cut, from time to time, by
persons carrying pieces of it away to be made into toys, etc. ,
in honour of the bard, and of the celebrity of his poem. '
('Essay on Light Reading', by the Rev. Edward Mangin, M. A. ,
1808, 142-3. ) Its remains were enclosed by a Captain Hogan
previously to 1819; but nevertheless when Prior visited the
place in 1830, nothing was apparent but 'a very tender shoot
[which] had again forced its way to the surface. ' (Prior,
'Life', 1837, ii. 264. ) An engraving of the tree by S. Alken,
from a sketch made in 1806-9, is to be found at p. 41 of
Goldsmith's 'Poetical Works', R. H. Newell's edition, 1811, and
is reproduced in the present volume.
l. 15. -----
"How often have I bless'd the coming day". Prior,
'Life', 1837, ii. 261, finds in this an allusion 'to the Sundays
or numerous holidays, usually kept in Roman Catholic countries. '
l. 37. -----
"Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen". Strean's
explanation (Mangin, 'ut supra', pp. 140-1) of this is as
follows:--'The poem of 'The Deserted Village', took its origin
from the circumstance of general Robert Napper [Napier or
Naper], (the grandfather of the gentleman who now [1807] lives
in the house, within half a mile of Lissoy, and built by the
general) having purchased an extensive tract of the country
surrounding Lissoy, or 'Auburn'; in consequence of which many
families, here called 'cottiers', were removed, to make room for
the intended improvements of what was now to become the wide
domain of a rich man, warm with the idea of changing the face of
his new acquisition; and were forced, "with fainting steps," to
go in search of "torrid tracts" and "distant climes. "'
Prior ('Life', 1837, i. 40-3) points out that Goldsmith was not
the first to give poetical expression to the wrongs of the
dispossessed Irish peasantry; and he quotes a long extract from
the 'Works' (1741) of a Westmeath poet, Lawrence Whyte, which
contains such passages as these:--
Their native soil were forced to quit,
So Irish landlords thought it fit;
Who without ceremony or rout,
For their improvements turn'd them out. . .
How many villages they razed,
How many parishes laid waste. . .
Whole colonies, to shun the fate
Of being oppress'd at such a rate,
By tyrants who still raise their rent,
Sail'd to the Western Continent.
l. 44. -----
"The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest". 'Of all
those sounds,' says Goldsmith, speaking of the cries of
waterfowl, 'there is none so dismally hollow as the booming of
the bittern. ' . . . 'I remember in the place where I was a boy with
what terror this bird's note affected the whole village; they
considered it as the presage of some sad event; and generally
found or made one to succeed it. ' ('Animated Nature', 1774, vi.
1-2, 4. )
Bewick, who may be trusted to speak of a bird which he has drawn
with such exquisite fidelity, refers ('Water Birds', 1847, p.
49) to 'the hollow booming noise which the bittern makes during
the night, in the breeding season, from its swampy retreats. '
Cf. also that close observer Crabbe ('The Borough', Letter xxii,
ll. 197-8):--
And the loud bittern, from the bull-rush home,
Gave from the salt-ditch side the bellowing boom.
l. 53. -----
"Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made".
Mitford compares 'Confessio Amantis', fol. 152:--
A kynge may make a lorde a knave,
And of a knave a lord also;
and Professor Hales recalls Burns's later line in the 'Cotter's
Saturday Night', 1785:--
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings.
But Prior finds the exact equivalent of the second line in the
verses of an old French poet, De. Caux, upon an hour-glass:--
C'est un verre qui luit,
Qu'un souffle peut detruire, et qu'un souffle a produit.
l. 57. -----
"A time there was, ere England's griefs began". Here
wherever the locality of Auburn, the author had clearly England
in mind. A caustic commentator has observed that the 'time'
indicated must have been a long while ago.
l. 67. -----
"opulence". In the first edition the word is 'luxury. '
l. 79. -----
"And, many a year elapsed, return to view". 'It is
strongly contended at Lishoy, that "the Poet," as he is usually
called there, after his pedestrian tour upon the Continent of
Europe, returned to and resided in the village some time. . . . It
is moreover believed, that the havock which had been made in his
absence among those favourite scenes of his youth, affected his
mind so deeply, that he actually composed great part of the
Deserted Village 'at' Lishoy. ' ('Poetical Works, with Remarks',
etc. , by the Rev. R. H. Newell, 1811, p. 74. )
Notwithstanding the above, there is no evidence that Goldsmith
ever returned to his native island. In a letter to his
brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson, written in 1758, he spoke of
hoping to do so 'in five or six years. ' ('Percy Memoir', 1801,
i. 49). But in another letter, written towards the close of his
life, it is still a thing to come. 'I am again,' he says, 'just
setting out for Bath, and I honestly say I had much rather it
had been for Ireland with my nephew, but that pleasure I hope to
have before I die. ' (Letter to Daniel Hodson, no date, in
possession of the late Frederick Locker Lampson. )
l. 80. -----
"Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew". Here
followed, in the first edition:--
Here, as with doubtful, pensive steps I range,
Trace every scene, and wonder at the change,
Remembrance, etc.
l. 84. "In all my griefs--and God has given my share". Prior
notes a slight similarity here to a line of Collins:--
Ye mute companions of my toils, that bear,
'In all my griefs', a more than equal share!
'Hassan; or, The Camel Driver'.
In 'The Present State of Polite Learning', 1759, p. 143,
Goldsmith refers feelingly to 'the neglected author of the
Persian eclogues, which, however inaccurate, excel any in our
language. ' He included four of them in 'The Beauties of English
Poesy', 1767, i. pp. 239-53.
l. 87. -----
"To husband out", etc. In the first edition this ran:--
My anxious day to husband near the close,
And keep life's flame from wasting by repose.
l. 96. -----
"Here to return--and die at home at last". Forster
compares a passage in 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, ii.
153:--'There is something so seducing in that spot in which we
first had existence, that nothing but it can please; whatever
vicissitudes we experience in life, however we toil, or
wheresoever we wander, our fatigued wishes still recur to home
for tranquillity, we long to die in that spot which gave us
birth, and in that pleasing expectation opiate every calamity. '
The poet Waller too--he adds--wished to die 'like the stag where
he was roused. ' ('Life', 1871, ii. 202. )
l. 99. -----
"How happy he". 'How blest is he' in the first edition.
l. 102. -----
"And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly".
Mitford compares 'The Bee' for October 13, 1759, p. 56:--'By
struggling with misfortunes, we are sure to receive some wounds
in the conflict. The only method to come off victorious, is by
running away. '
l. 105. -----
"surly porter". Mr. J.
Mitford, 'was permitted in Holland; children were sold by their
parents for a certain number of years. '
l. 309. -----
"A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves". Goldsmith uses this
very line as prose in Letter xxxiv of
'The Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 147.
l. 310. -----
"dishonourable graves". 'Julius Caesar', Act i. Sc. 2.
l. 313. -----
"Heavens! how unlike", etc. Prior compares a passage from a
manuscript 'Introduction to the History of the Seven Years'
War':--'How unlike the brave peasants their ancestors, who
spread terror into either India, and always declared themselves
the allies of those who drew the sword in defence of freedom*. '
[footnote] *J. W. M. Gibbs ('Works', v. 9) discovered that parts
of this 'History', hitherto supposed to have been written in
1761, were published in the 'Literary Magazine', 1757-8.
l. 320. -----
"famed Hydaspes", i. e. the 'fabulosus Hydaspes' of
Horace, Bk. i. Ode xxii, and the 'Medus Hydaspes' of Virgil,
'Georg', iv. 211, of which so many stores were told. It is now
known as the Jhilum, one of the five rivers which give the
Punjaub its name.
l. 327. -----
"Pride in their port", etc. In the first edition these
two lines were inverted.
l. 343. -----
"Here by the bonds of nature feebly held". In the
first edition--
See, though by circling deeps together held.
l. 349. -----
"Nature's ties" was 'social bonds' in the first edition.
l. 358. -----
"Where kings have toil'd, and poets wrote for fame". In the
first edition this line read:--
And monarchs toil, and poets pant for fame.
l. 361. -----
"Yet think not', etc. 'In the things I have hitherto
written I have neither allured the vanity of the great by
flattery, nor satisfied the malignity of the vulgar by scandal,
but I have endeavoured to get an honest reputation by liberal
pursuits. '
(Preface to 'English History'. ) [Mitford. ]
l. 363. -----
"Ye powers of truth", etc. The first version has:--
Perish the wish; for, inly satisfy'd,
Above their pomps I hold my ragged pride.
Mr. Forster thinks ('Life', 1871, i. 375) that Goldsmith altered
this (i. e. 'ragged pride') because, like the omitted 'Haud
inexpertus loquor' of the 'Enquiry', it involved an undignified
admission.
ll. 365-80 -----
are not in the first edition.
l. 382. -----
"Contracting regal power to stretch their own". 'It is
the interest of the great, therefore, to diminish kingly power
as much as possible; because whatever they take from it is
naturally restored to themselves; and all they have to do in a
state, is to undermine the single tyrant, by which they resume
their primaeval authority. ' ('Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, i. 202,
ch. xix. )
l. 383. -----
"When I behold", etc. Prior compares a passage in
Letter xlix of 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 218, where
the Roman senators are spoken of as still flattering the people
'with a shew of freedom, while themselves only were free. '
l. 386. -----
"Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law".
Prior notes a corresponding utterance in 'The Vicar of
Wakefield', 1766, i. 206, ch. xix:--'What they may then expect,
may be seen by turning our eyes to Holland, Genoa, or Venice,
where the laws govern the poor, and the rich govern the law. '
l. 392. -----
"I fly from petty tyrants to the throne". Cf. Dr.
Primrose, 'ut supra', p. 201:--'The generality of mankind also
are of my way of thinking, and have unanimously created one
king, whose election at once diminishes the number of tyrants,
and puts tyranny at the greatest distance from the greatest
number of people. ' Cf. also Churchill, 'The Farewell', ll. 363-4
and 369-70:--
Let not a Mob of Tyrants seize the helm,
Nor titled upstarts league to rob the realm. . .
Let us, some comfort in our griefs to bring,
Be slaves to one, and be that one a King.
ll. 393-4. -----
Goldsmith's first thought was--
Yes, my lov'd brother, cursed be that hour
When first ambition toil'd for foreign power,--
an entirely different couplet to that in the text, and certainly
more logical. (Dobell's 'Prospect of Society', 1902, pp. xi, 2,
and Notes, v, vi). Mr. Dobell plausibly suggests that this Tory
substitution is due to Johnson.
l. 397. -----
"Have we not seen", etc. These lines contain the first
idea of the subsequent poem of 'The Deserted Village' ('q. v. ').
l. 411. -----
"Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around". The
Oswego is a river which runs between Lakes Oneida and Ontario.
In the 'Threnodia Augustalis', 1772, Goldsmith writes:--
Oswego's dreary shores shall be my grave.
The 'desarts of Oswego' were familiar to the eighteenth-century
reader in connexion with General Braddock's ill-fated expedition
of 1755, an account of which Goldsmith had just given in 'An
History of England, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to
his Son', 1764, ii. 202-4.
l. 416. -----
"marks with murderous aim". In the first edition
'takes a deadly aim. '
l. 419. -----
"pensive exile". This, in the version mentioned in the
next note, was 'famish'd exile. '
l. 420. -----
"To stop too fearful, and too faint to go". This line,
upon Boswell's authority, is claimed for Johnson (Birkbeck
Hill's 'Boswell', 1887, ii. 6). Goldsmith's original ran:--
And faintly fainter, fainter seems to go.
(Dobell's 'Prospect of Society', 1902, p. 3).
l. 429. -----
"How small, of all," etc. Johnson wrote these
concluding ten lines with the exception of the penultimate
couplet. They and line 420 were all--he told Boswell--of which
he could be sure (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell, ut supra'). Like
Goldsmith, he sometimes worked his prose ideas into his verse.
The first couplet is apparently a reminiscence of a passage in
his own 'Rasselas', 1759, ii. 112, where the astronomer speaks
of 'the task of a king. . . who has the care only of a few
millions, to whom he cannot do much good or harm. ' (Grant's
'Johnson', 1887, p. 89. ) 'I would not give half a guinea to live
under one form of government rather than another,' he told that
'vile Whig,' Sir Adam Fergusson, in 1772. 'It is of no moment to
the happiness of an individual' (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell',
1887, ii. 170).
l. 435. -----
"The lifted axe". Mitford here recalls Blackmore's
Some the sharp axe, and some the painful wheel.
The 'lifted axe' he also traces to Young and Blackmore, with
both of whom Goldsmith seems to have been familiar; but it is
surely not necessary to assume that he borrowed from either in
this instance.
l. 436. -----
"Luke's iron crown". George and Luke Dosa, or Doscha,
headed a rebellion in Hungary in 1513. The former was proclaimed
king by the peasants; and, in consequence suffered, among other
things, the torture of the red-hot iron crown. Such a punishment
took place at Bordeaux when Montaigne was seventeen (Morley's
Florio's 'Montaigne', 1886, p. xvi). Much ink has been shed over
Goldsmith's lapse of 'Luke' for George. In the book which he
cited as his authority, the family name of the brothers was
given as Zeck,--hence Bolton Corney, in his edition of the
'Poetical Works', 1845, p. 36, corrected the line to--
'Zeck's' iron crown, etc. ,
an alteration which has been adopted by other editors. (See
also Forster's 'Life', 1871, i. 370. )
"Damien's bed of steel". Robert-Francois Damiens, 1714-57.
Goldsmith writes 'Damien's. ' In the 'Gentlemen's Magazine' for
1757, vol. xxvii. pp. 87 and 151, where there is an account of
this poor half-witted wretch's torture and execution for
attempting to assassinate Louis XV, the name is thus spelled, as
also in other contemporary records and caricatures. The
following passage explains the 'bed of steel':--'Being conducted
to the Conciergerie, an 'iron bed', which likewise served for a
chair, was prepared for him, and to this he was fastened with
chains. The torture was again applied, and a physician ordered
to attend to see what degree of pain he could support,' etc.
(Smollett's 'History of England', 1823, bk. iii, ch. 7, ¤ xxv. )
Goldsmith's own explanation--according to Tom Davies, the
bookseller--was that he meant the rack. But Davies may have
misunderstood him, or Goldsmith himself may have forgotten the
facts. (See Forster's 'Life', 1871, i. 370. ) At pp. 57-78 of the
'Monthly Review' for July, 1757 (upon which Goldsmith was at
this date employed), is a summary, 'from our correspondent at
Paris,' of the official record of the Damiens' Trial, 4 vols. 12
mo. ; and his deed and tragedy make a graphic chapter in the
remarkable 'Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous', by George
Augustus Sala, 1863, iii. pp. 154-180.
l. 438. -----
In the first edition of 'The Traveller' there are only
416 lines.
THE DESERTED VILLAGE.
After having been for some time announced as in preparation, 'The
Deserted Village' made its first appearance on May 26, 1770*. It was
received with great enthusiasm. In June a second, third, and fourth
edition followed, and in August a fifth was published. The text here
given is that of the fourth edition, which was considerably revised.
Johnson, we are told, thought 'The Deserted Village' inferior to 'The
Traveller': but 'time,' to use Mr. Forster's words, 'has not confirmed
'that' judgment. ' Its germ is perhaps to be found in ll. 397-402 of the
earlier poem. Much research has been expended in the endeavour to
identify the scene with Lissoy, the home of the poet's youth (see
'Introduction', p. ix); but the result has only been partially
successful.
The truth seems that Goldsmith, living in England, recalled
in a poem that was English in its conception many of the memories and
accessories of his early life in Ireland, without intending or even
caring to draw an exact picture. Hence, as Lord Macaulay has observed,
in a much criticized and characteristic passage, 'it is made up of
incongruous parts. The village in its happy days is a true English
village. The village in its decay is an Irish village. The felicity and
the misery which Goldsmith has brought close together belong to two
different countries, and to two different stages in the progress of
society. He had assuredly never seen in his native island such a rural
paradise, such a seat of plenty, content, and tranquillity, as his
"Auburn. " He had assuredly never seen in England all the inhabitants of
such a paradise turned out of their homes in one day and forced to
emigrate in a body to America. The hamlet he had probably seen in Kent;
the ejectment he had probably seen in Munster; but, by joining the two,
he has produced something which never was and never will be seen in any
part of the world. ' ('Encyclop. Britannica', 1856. ) It is obvious also
that in some of his theories--the depopulation of the kingdom, for
example--Goldsmith was mistaken. But it was not for its didactic
qualities then, nor is it for them now, that 'The Deserted Village'
delighted and delights. It maintains its popularity by its charming
'genre'-pictures, its sweet and tender passages, its simplicity, its
sympathetic hold upon the enduring in human nature. To test it solely
with a view to establish its topographical accuracy, or to insist too
much upon the value of its ethical teaching, is to mistake its real
mission as a work of art.
[footnote] *In the American 'Bookman' for February, 1901, pp. 563-7, Mr.
Luther S. Livingston gives an account (with facsimile title-pages) of
three 'octavo' (or rather duodecimo) editions all dated 1770; and
ostensibly printed for 'W. Griffin, at Garrick's Head, in
Catherine-street, Strand. ' He rightly describes their existence as 'a
bibliographical puzzle. ' They afford no important variations; are not
mentioned by the early editors; and are certainly not in the form in
which the poem was first advertised and reviewed, as this was a quarto.
But they are naturally of interest to the collector; and the late
Colonel Francis Grant, a good Goldsmith scholar, described one of them
in the 'Athenaeum' for June 20, 1896 (No. 3582).
"Dedication", l. 6. -----
"I am ignorant of that art in which you are
said to excel". This modest confession did not prevent Goldsmith
from making fun of the contemporary connoisseur. See the letter
from the young virtuoso in 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, i.
145, announcing that a famous 'torse' has been discovered to be
not 'a Cleopatra bathing' but 'a Hercules spinning'; and Charles
Primrose's experiences at Paris ('Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, ii.
27-8).
l. 14. -----
"He is since dead". Henry Goldsmith died in May, 1768,
at the age of forty-five, being then curate of Kilkenny West.
(See note, p. 164. )
l. 33. -----
"a long poem". 'I might dwell upon such thoughts. . . were
I not afraid of making this preface too tedious; especially
since I shall want all the patience of the reader, for having
enlarged it with the following verses. ' (Tickell's Preface to
Addison's 'Works', at end. )
l. 35. -----
"the increase of our luxuries". The evil of luxury was
a 'common topick' with Goldsmith. (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell',
1887, ii. 217-8. ) Smollett also, speaking with the voice of
Lismahago, and continuing the quotation on p. 169, was of the
opinion that 'the sudden affluence occasioned by trade, forced
open all the sluices of luxury, and overflowed the land with
every species of profligacy and corruption. ' ('Humphry Clinker',
1771, ii. 192. --Letter of Mr. Bramble to Dr. Lewis. )
l. 1. -----
"'Sweet' AUBURN". Forster, 'Life', 1871, ii. 206, says
that Goldsmith obtained this name from Bennet Langton. There is
an Aldbourn or Auburn in Wiltshire, not far from Marlborough,
which Prior thinks may have furnished the suggestion.
l. 6. -----
"Seats of my youth". This alone would imply that
Goldsmith had in mind the environment of his Irish home.
l. 12. -----
"The decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill".
This corresponds with the church of Kilkenny West as seen from
the house at Lissoy.
l. 13. -----
"The hawthorn bush". The Rev. Annesley Strean, Henry
Goldsmith's successor at Kilkenny West, well remembered the
hawthorn bush in front of the village ale-house. It had
originally three trunks; but when he wrote in 1807 only one
remained, 'the other two having been cut, from time to time, by
persons carrying pieces of it away to be made into toys, etc. ,
in honour of the bard, and of the celebrity of his poem. '
('Essay on Light Reading', by the Rev. Edward Mangin, M. A. ,
1808, 142-3. ) Its remains were enclosed by a Captain Hogan
previously to 1819; but nevertheless when Prior visited the
place in 1830, nothing was apparent but 'a very tender shoot
[which] had again forced its way to the surface. ' (Prior,
'Life', 1837, ii. 264. ) An engraving of the tree by S. Alken,
from a sketch made in 1806-9, is to be found at p. 41 of
Goldsmith's 'Poetical Works', R. H. Newell's edition, 1811, and
is reproduced in the present volume.
l. 15. -----
"How often have I bless'd the coming day". Prior,
'Life', 1837, ii. 261, finds in this an allusion 'to the Sundays
or numerous holidays, usually kept in Roman Catholic countries. '
l. 37. -----
"Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen". Strean's
explanation (Mangin, 'ut supra', pp. 140-1) of this is as
follows:--'The poem of 'The Deserted Village', took its origin
from the circumstance of general Robert Napper [Napier or
Naper], (the grandfather of the gentleman who now [1807] lives
in the house, within half a mile of Lissoy, and built by the
general) having purchased an extensive tract of the country
surrounding Lissoy, or 'Auburn'; in consequence of which many
families, here called 'cottiers', were removed, to make room for
the intended improvements of what was now to become the wide
domain of a rich man, warm with the idea of changing the face of
his new acquisition; and were forced, "with fainting steps," to
go in search of "torrid tracts" and "distant climes. "'
Prior ('Life', 1837, i. 40-3) points out that Goldsmith was not
the first to give poetical expression to the wrongs of the
dispossessed Irish peasantry; and he quotes a long extract from
the 'Works' (1741) of a Westmeath poet, Lawrence Whyte, which
contains such passages as these:--
Their native soil were forced to quit,
So Irish landlords thought it fit;
Who without ceremony or rout,
For their improvements turn'd them out. . .
How many villages they razed,
How many parishes laid waste. . .
Whole colonies, to shun the fate
Of being oppress'd at such a rate,
By tyrants who still raise their rent,
Sail'd to the Western Continent.
l. 44. -----
"The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest". 'Of all
those sounds,' says Goldsmith, speaking of the cries of
waterfowl, 'there is none so dismally hollow as the booming of
the bittern. ' . . . 'I remember in the place where I was a boy with
what terror this bird's note affected the whole village; they
considered it as the presage of some sad event; and generally
found or made one to succeed it. ' ('Animated Nature', 1774, vi.
1-2, 4. )
Bewick, who may be trusted to speak of a bird which he has drawn
with such exquisite fidelity, refers ('Water Birds', 1847, p.
49) to 'the hollow booming noise which the bittern makes during
the night, in the breeding season, from its swampy retreats. '
Cf. also that close observer Crabbe ('The Borough', Letter xxii,
ll. 197-8):--
And the loud bittern, from the bull-rush home,
Gave from the salt-ditch side the bellowing boom.
l. 53. -----
"Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made".
Mitford compares 'Confessio Amantis', fol. 152:--
A kynge may make a lorde a knave,
And of a knave a lord also;
and Professor Hales recalls Burns's later line in the 'Cotter's
Saturday Night', 1785:--
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings.
But Prior finds the exact equivalent of the second line in the
verses of an old French poet, De. Caux, upon an hour-glass:--
C'est un verre qui luit,
Qu'un souffle peut detruire, et qu'un souffle a produit.
l. 57. -----
"A time there was, ere England's griefs began". Here
wherever the locality of Auburn, the author had clearly England
in mind. A caustic commentator has observed that the 'time'
indicated must have been a long while ago.
l. 67. -----
"opulence". In the first edition the word is 'luxury. '
l. 79. -----
"And, many a year elapsed, return to view". 'It is
strongly contended at Lishoy, that "the Poet," as he is usually
called there, after his pedestrian tour upon the Continent of
Europe, returned to and resided in the village some time. . . . It
is moreover believed, that the havock which had been made in his
absence among those favourite scenes of his youth, affected his
mind so deeply, that he actually composed great part of the
Deserted Village 'at' Lishoy. ' ('Poetical Works, with Remarks',
etc. , by the Rev. R. H. Newell, 1811, p. 74. )
Notwithstanding the above, there is no evidence that Goldsmith
ever returned to his native island. In a letter to his
brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson, written in 1758, he spoke of
hoping to do so 'in five or six years. ' ('Percy Memoir', 1801,
i. 49). But in another letter, written towards the close of his
life, it is still a thing to come. 'I am again,' he says, 'just
setting out for Bath, and I honestly say I had much rather it
had been for Ireland with my nephew, but that pleasure I hope to
have before I die. ' (Letter to Daniel Hodson, no date, in
possession of the late Frederick Locker Lampson. )
l. 80. -----
"Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew". Here
followed, in the first edition:--
Here, as with doubtful, pensive steps I range,
Trace every scene, and wonder at the change,
Remembrance, etc.
l. 84. "In all my griefs--and God has given my share". Prior
notes a slight similarity here to a line of Collins:--
Ye mute companions of my toils, that bear,
'In all my griefs', a more than equal share!
'Hassan; or, The Camel Driver'.
In 'The Present State of Polite Learning', 1759, p. 143,
Goldsmith refers feelingly to 'the neglected author of the
Persian eclogues, which, however inaccurate, excel any in our
language. ' He included four of them in 'The Beauties of English
Poesy', 1767, i. pp. 239-53.
l. 87. -----
"To husband out", etc. In the first edition this ran:--
My anxious day to husband near the close,
And keep life's flame from wasting by repose.
l. 96. -----
"Here to return--and die at home at last". Forster
compares a passage in 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, ii.
153:--'There is something so seducing in that spot in which we
first had existence, that nothing but it can please; whatever
vicissitudes we experience in life, however we toil, or
wheresoever we wander, our fatigued wishes still recur to home
for tranquillity, we long to die in that spot which gave us
birth, and in that pleasing expectation opiate every calamity. '
The poet Waller too--he adds--wished to die 'like the stag where
he was roused. ' ('Life', 1871, ii. 202. )
l. 99. -----
"How happy he". 'How blest is he' in the first edition.
l. 102. -----
"And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly".
Mitford compares 'The Bee' for October 13, 1759, p. 56:--'By
struggling with misfortunes, we are sure to receive some wounds
in the conflict. The only method to come off victorious, is by
running away. '
l. 105. -----
"surly porter". Mr. J.
