9)
discovered
that parts
of this 'History', hitherto supposed to have been written in
1761, were published in the 'Literary Magazine', 1757-8.
of this 'History', hitherto supposed to have been written in
1761, were published in the 'Literary Magazine', 1757-8.
Oliver Goldsmith
-----
"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. Fielding, 'Tom Jones', 1749, iii. 6:--'Some of the Author's
Friends cry'd--"Look'e, Gentlemen, the Man is a Villain; but it
is Nature for all that. " And all the young Critics of the Age,
the Clerks, Apprentices, etc. , called it 'Low' and fell a
Groaning. ' See also 'Tom Jones', iv. 94, and 226-30. 'There's
nothing comes out but the 'most lowest' stuff in nature'--says
Lady Blarney in ch. xi of the 'Vicar', whose author is eloquent
on this topic in 'The Present State of Polite Learning', 1759,
pp. 154-6, and in 'She Stoops to Conquer, 1773 (Act i); while
Graves ('Spiritual Quixote', 1772, bk. i, ch. vi) gives the
fashion the scientific appellation of 'tapino-phoby,' which he
defines as 'a dread of everything that is 'low', either in
writing or in conversation. ' To Goldsmith, if we may trust
George Colman's 'Prologue' to Miss Lee's 'Chapter of Accidents',
1780, belongs the credit of exorcising this particular form of
depreciation:--
When Fielding, Humour's fav'rite child, appear'd,
'Low' was the word--a word each author fear'd!
Till chas'd at length, by pleasantry's bright ray,
Nature and mirth resum'd their legal sway;
And Goldsmith's genius bask'd in open day.
According to Borrow's 'Lavengro', ch. xli, Lord Chesterfield
considered that the speeches of Homer's heroes were frequently
'exceedingly low. '
l. 243. -----
"How often", etc. This and the lines which immediately
follow are autobiographical. Cf. George Primrose's story in 'The
Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, ii. 24-5 (ch. i):--'I passed among
the harmless peasants of Flanders, and among such of the French
as were poor enough to be very merry; for I ever found them
sprightly in proportion to their wants. Whenever I approached a
peasant's house towards night-fall, I played one of my most
merry tunes, and that procured me not only a lodging, but
subsistence for the next day. '
l. 253. -----
"gestic lore", i. e. traditional gestures or motions.
Scott uses the word 'gestic' in 'Peveril of the Peak', ch. xxx,
where King Charles the Second witnesses the dancing of
Fenella:--'He bore time to her motions with the movement of his
foot--applauded with head and with hand--and seemed, like
herself, carried away by the enthusiasm of the 'gestic' art. '
[Hales. ]
l. 256. -----
"Thus idly busy rolls their world away". Pope has 'Life's
'idle business'' ('Unfortunate Lady', l. 81), and--
The 'busy, idle' blockheads of the ball.
Donne's 'Satires', iv. l. 203.
l. 264. -----
"And all are taught an avarice of praise". Professor Hales
('Longer English Poems') compares Horace of the Greeks:--
Praeter laudem, nullius avaris.
'Ars Poetica', l. 324.
l. 275. -----
"copper lace". 'St Martin's lace,' for which, in Strype's day,
Blowbladder St. was famous. Cf. the actress's 'copper tail' in
'Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 60.
l. 281. -----
"To men of other minds", etc. Prior compares with the
description that follows a passage in vol. i. p. 276 of
'Animated Nature', 1774:--'But we need scarce mention these,
when we find that the whole kingdom of Holland seems to be a
conquest upon the sea, and in a manner rescued from its bosom.
The surface of the earth, in this country, is below the level of
the bed of the sea; and I remember, upon approaching the coast,
to have looked down upon it from the sea, as into a valley. '
l. 284. -----
"Where the broad ocean leans against the land". Cf.
Dryden in 'Annus Mirabilis', 1666, st. clxiv. l. 654:--
And view the ocean leaning on the sky.
l. 286. -----
"the tall rampire's", i. e. rampart's (Old French, 'rempart,
rempar'). Cf. 'Timon of Athens', Act v. Sc. 4:--
'Our rampir'd gates. '
l. 299. -----
"bosom reign" in the first edition was 'breast obtain. '
l. 306. -----
"Even liberty itself is barter'd here". '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.
"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. Fielding, 'Tom Jones', 1749, iii. 6:--'Some of the Author's
Friends cry'd--"Look'e, Gentlemen, the Man is a Villain; but it
is Nature for all that. " And all the young Critics of the Age,
the Clerks, Apprentices, etc. , called it 'Low' and fell a
Groaning. ' See also 'Tom Jones', iv. 94, and 226-30. 'There's
nothing comes out but the 'most lowest' stuff in nature'--says
Lady Blarney in ch. xi of the 'Vicar', whose author is eloquent
on this topic in 'The Present State of Polite Learning', 1759,
pp. 154-6, and in 'She Stoops to Conquer, 1773 (Act i); while
Graves ('Spiritual Quixote', 1772, bk. i, ch. vi) gives the
fashion the scientific appellation of 'tapino-phoby,' which he
defines as 'a dread of everything that is 'low', either in
writing or in conversation. ' To Goldsmith, if we may trust
George Colman's 'Prologue' to Miss Lee's 'Chapter of Accidents',
1780, belongs the credit of exorcising this particular form of
depreciation:--
When Fielding, Humour's fav'rite child, appear'd,
'Low' was the word--a word each author fear'd!
Till chas'd at length, by pleasantry's bright ray,
Nature and mirth resum'd their legal sway;
And Goldsmith's genius bask'd in open day.
According to Borrow's 'Lavengro', ch. xli, Lord Chesterfield
considered that the speeches of Homer's heroes were frequently
'exceedingly low. '
l. 243. -----
"How often", etc. This and the lines which immediately
follow are autobiographical. Cf. George Primrose's story in 'The
Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, ii. 24-5 (ch. i):--'I passed among
the harmless peasants of Flanders, and among such of the French
as were poor enough to be very merry; for I ever found them
sprightly in proportion to their wants. Whenever I approached a
peasant's house towards night-fall, I played one of my most
merry tunes, and that procured me not only a lodging, but
subsistence for the next day. '
l. 253. -----
"gestic lore", i. e. traditional gestures or motions.
Scott uses the word 'gestic' in 'Peveril of the Peak', ch. xxx,
where King Charles the Second witnesses the dancing of
Fenella:--'He bore time to her motions with the movement of his
foot--applauded with head and with hand--and seemed, like
herself, carried away by the enthusiasm of the 'gestic' art. '
[Hales. ]
l. 256. -----
"Thus idly busy rolls their world away". Pope has 'Life's
'idle business'' ('Unfortunate Lady', l. 81), and--
The 'busy, idle' blockheads of the ball.
Donne's 'Satires', iv. l. 203.
l. 264. -----
"And all are taught an avarice of praise". Professor Hales
('Longer English Poems') compares Horace of the Greeks:--
Praeter laudem, nullius avaris.
'Ars Poetica', l. 324.
l. 275. -----
"copper lace". 'St Martin's lace,' for which, in Strype's day,
Blowbladder St. was famous. Cf. the actress's 'copper tail' in
'Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 60.
l. 281. -----
"To men of other minds", etc. Prior compares with the
description that follows a passage in vol. i. p. 276 of
'Animated Nature', 1774:--'But we need scarce mention these,
when we find that the whole kingdom of Holland seems to be a
conquest upon the sea, and in a manner rescued from its bosom.
The surface of the earth, in this country, is below the level of
the bed of the sea; and I remember, upon approaching the coast,
to have looked down upon it from the sea, as into a valley. '
l. 284. -----
"Where the broad ocean leans against the land". Cf.
Dryden in 'Annus Mirabilis', 1666, st. clxiv. l. 654:--
And view the ocean leaning on the sky.
l. 286. -----
"the tall rampire's", i. e. rampart's (Old French, 'rempart,
rempar'). Cf. 'Timon of Athens', Act v. Sc. 4:--
'Our rampir'd gates. '
l. 299. -----
"bosom reign" in the first edition was 'breast obtain. '
l. 306. -----
"Even liberty itself is barter'd here". '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.
