the
Bolognese
Academy of the 'Arcadi'].
Oliver Goldsmith
'
l. 20. -----
But of all kinds of ambition", etc. In the first edition of
1765, p. ii, this passage was as follows:--'But of all kinds of
ambition, as things are now circumstanced, perhaps that which
pursues poetical fame, is the wildest. What from the encreased
refinement of the times, from the diversity of judgments
produced by opposing systems of criticism, and from the more
prevalent divisions of opinion influenced by party, the
strongest and happiest efforts can expect to please but in a
very narrow circle. Though the poet were as sure of his aim as
the imperial archer of antiquity, who boasted that he never
missed the heart; yet would many of his shafts now fly at
random, for the heart is too often in the wrong place. ' In the
second edition it was curtailed; in the sixth it took its final
form.
l. 29. -----
"they engross all that favour once shown to her". First
version--'They engross all favour to themselves. '
l. 30. -----
"the elder's birthright". Cunningham here aptly compares
Dryden's epistle 'To Sir Godfrey Kneller', II. 89-92:--
Our arts are sisters, though not twins in birth;
For hymns were sung in Eden's happy earth:
But oh, the painter muse, though last in place,
Has seized the blessing first, like Jacob's race.
l. 42. -----
"Party"=faction. Cf. lines 31-2 on Edmund Burke in
'Retaliation':--
Who, born for the Universe, narrow'd his mind,
And to 'party' gave up what was meant for mankind.
l. 50. -----
"Such readers generally admire", etc. 'I suppose this paragraph
to be directed against Paul Whitehead, or Churchill,' writes
Mitford. It was clearly aimed at Churchill, since Prior ('Life',
1837, ii. 54) quotes a portion of a contemporary article in the
'St. James's Chronicle' for February 7-9, 1765, attributed to
Bonnell Thornton, which leaves little room for doubt upon the
question. 'The latter part of this paragraph,' says the writer,
referring to the passage now annotated, 'we cannot help
considering as a reflection on the memory of the late Mr.
Churchill, whose talents as a poet were so greatly and so
deservedly admired, that during his short reign, his merit in
great measure eclipsed that of others; and we think it no mean
acknowledgment of the excellencies of this poem ['The
Traveller'] to say that, like the stars, they appear the more
brilliant now that the sun of our poetry is gone down. '
Churchill died on the 4th of November, 1764, some weeks before
the publication of 'The Traveller'. His powers, it may be, were
misdirected and misapplied; but his rough vigour and his manly
verse deserved a better fate at Goldsmith's hands.
l. 53. -----
"tawdry" was added in the sixth edition of 1770.
l. 56. -----
"blank verse". Cf. 'The Present State of Polite
Learning', 1759, p. 150--'From a desire in the critic of
grafting the spirit of ancient languages upon the English, has
proceeded of late several disagreeable instances of pedantry.
Among the number, I think we may reckon 'blank verse'. Nothing
but the greatest sublimity of subject can render such a measure
pleasing; however, we now see it used on the most trivial
occasions'--by which last remark Goldsmith probably, as
Cunningham thinks, intended to refer to the efforts of Akenside,
Dyer, and Armstrong. His views upon blank verse were shared by
Johnson and Gray. At the date of the present dedication, the
latest offender in this way had been Goldsmith's old colleague
on 'The Monthly Review', Dr. James Grainger, author of 'The
Sugar Cane', which was published in June, 1764. (Cf. also 'The
Bee' for 24th November, 1759, 'An account of the Augustan Age of
England. ')
l. 62. -----
"and that this principle", etc. In the first edition
this read--'and that this principle in each state, and in our
own in particular, may be carried to a mischievous excess. '
l. 1. -----
"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow". Mitford (Aldine
edition, 1831, p. 7) compares the following lines from Ovid:--
Solus, inops, exspes, leto poenaeque relictus.
'Metamorphoses', xiv. 217.
Exsul, inops erres, alienaque limina lustres, etc.
'Ibis'. 113.
"slow". A well-known passage from Boswell must here be
reproduced:--'Chamier once asked him [Goldsmith], what he meant
by 'slow', the last word in the first line of 'The Traveller',
Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.
Did he mean tardiness of locomotion? Goldsmith, who would say
something without consideration, answered "yes. " I [Johnson] was
sitting by, and said, "No, Sir, you do not mean tardiness of
locomotion; you mean, that sluggishness of mind which comes upon
a man in solitude. " Chamier believed then that I had written the
line as much as if he had seen me write it. ' [Birkbeck Hill's
'Boswell', 1887, iii. 252-3. ) It is quite possible, however,
that Goldsmith meant no more than he said.
l. 3. -----
"the rude Carinthian boor". 'Carinthia,' says Cunningham, 'was
visited by Goldsmith in 1755, and still (1853) retains its
character for inhospitality. '
l. 5. -----
"Campania". 'Intended,' says Bolton Corney, 'to denote
'La campagna di Roma'. The portion of it which extends from Rome
to Terracina is scarcely habitable. '
l. 10. -----
"a lengthening chain". Prior compares Letter iii of 'The
Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 5:--'The farther I travel I feel
the pain of separation with stronger force, those ties that bind
me to my native country, and you, are still unbroken. By every
remove, I only drag a greater length of chain. ' But, as Mitford
points out, Cibber has a similar thought in his 'Comical
Lovers', 1707, Act v:--'When I am with Florimel, it [my heart]
is still your prisoner, 'it only draws a longer chain after
it'. ' And earlier still in Dryden's 'All for Love', 1678, Act
ii, Sc. 1:--
My life on't, he still drags a chain along,
That needs must clog his flight.
l. 17. -----
"with simple plenty crown'd". In the first edition this read
'where mirth and peace abound. '
l. 22. -----
"the luxury of doing good". Prior compares Garth's 'Claremont',
1715, where he speaks of the Druids:--
Hard was their Lodging, homely was their Food,
For all their 'Luxury was doing Good'.
l. 24. -----
"my prime of life". He was seven-and-twenty when he
landed at Dover in February, 1756.
l. 27. -----
"That, like the circle bounding", etc. Cf. 'Vicar of
Wakefield', 1766, ii. 160-1 (ch. x):--'Death, the only friend of
the wretched, for a little while mocks the weary traveller with
the view, and like his horizon, still flies before him. '
[Prior. ]
l. 30. -----
"And find no spot of all the world my own". Prior
compares his namesake's lines 'In the Beginning of [Jacques]
Robbe's Geography', 1700:--
My destin'd Miles I shall have gone,
By THAMES or MAESE, by PO or RHONE,
And found no Foot of Earth my own.
l. 33. -----
"above the storm's career". Cf. 1. 190 of 'The Deserted
Village'.
l. 38. -----
"should thankless pride repine? " First edition,
''twere thankless to repine. '
l. 39. -----
"Say, should the philosophic mind", etc. First edition:--
'Twere affectation all, and school-taught pride,
To spurn the splendid things by heaven supply'd
l. 58. -----
"hoard". 'Sum' in the first edition.
l. 66. -----
"Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own". In the first
version this was--
Boldly asserts that country for his own.
l. 75. -----
"And yet, perhaps", etc. In the first edition, for this and the
following five lines appeared these eight:--
And yet, perhaps, if states with states we scan,
Or estimate their bliss on Reason's plan,
Though patriots flatter, and though fools contend,
We still shall find uncertainty suspend;
Find that each good, by Art or Nature given,
To these or those, but makes the balance even:
Find that the bliss of all is much the same,
And patriotic boasting reason's shame!
l. 84. -----
"On Idra's cliffs". Bolton Corney conjectures that
Goldsmith meant 'Idria, a town in Carniola, noted for its
mines. ' 'Goldsmith in his "History of Animated Nature" makes
mention of the mines, and spells the name in the same way as
here. ' (Mr. J. H. Lobban's 'Select Poems of Goldsmith', 1900, p.
87). Lines 84-5, it may be added, are not in the first edition.
l. 85. -----
"And though the rocky-crested summits frown". In the
first edition:--
And though rough rocks or gloomy summits frown.
ll. 91-2 -----
are not in the first editions.
l. 98. -----
"peculiar", i. e. 'proper,' 'appropriate. '
l. 122. -----
"winnow", i. e. 'waft,' 'disperse. ' John Evelyn refers to these
'sea-born gales' in the 'Dedication' of his 'Fumifugium',
1661:--'Those who take notice of the scent of the orange-flowers
from the rivage of Genoa, and St. Pietro dell' Arena; the
blossomes of the rosemary from the Coasts of Spain, many leagues
off at sea; or the manifest, and odoriferous wafts which flow
from Fontenay and Vaugirard, even to Paris in the season of
roses, with the contrary effect of those less pleasing smells
from other accidents, will easily consent to what I suggest
[i. e. the planting of sweet-smelling trees]. ' ('Miscellaneous
Writings', 1825, p. 208. )
l. 139. -----
"Till, more unsteady', etc. In the first edition:--
But, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Soon Commerce turn'd on other shores her sail.
There is a certain resemblance between this passage and one of
the later paradoxes of Smollett's Lismahago;--'He affirmed, the
nature of commerce was such, that it could not be fixed or
perpetuated, but, having flowed to a certain height, would
immediately begin to ebb, and so continue till the channels
should be left almost dry; but there was no instance of the
tide's rising a second time to any considerable influx in the
same nation' ('Humphry Clinker', 1771, ii. 192. Letter of Mr.
Bramble to Dr. Lewis).
ll. 141-2 -----
are not in the first edition.
l. 144. -----
"Its former strength was but plethoric ill". Cf. 'The
Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 98:--'In short, the state
resembled one of those bodies bloated with disease, whose bulk
is only a symptom of its wretchedness. ' [Mitford. ]
l. 145. -----
"Yet still the loss", etc. In the first edition:--
Yet, though to fortune lost, here still abide
Some splendid arts, the wrecks of former pride.
l. 150. -----
"The paste-board triumph and the cavalcade". 'Happy
Country [he is speaking of Italy], where the pastoral age begins
to revive! Where the wits even of Rome are united into a rural
groupe of nymphs and swains, under the appellation of modern
Arcadians [i. e.
the Bolognese Academy of the 'Arcadi']. Where in
the midst of porticos, processions, and cavalcades, abbes turn'd
into shepherds, and shepherdesses without sheep, indulge their
innocent 'divertimenti'. ' ('Present State of Polite Learning',
1759, pp. 50-1. ) Some of the 'paste-board triumphs' may be
studied in the plates of Jacques Callot.
l. 153. -----
"By sports like these", etc. A pretty and well-known
story is told with regard to this couplet. Calling once on
Goldsmith, Reynolds, having vainly tried to attract attention,
entered unannounced. 'His friend was at his desk, but with hand
uplifted, and a look directed to another part of the room; where
a little dog sat with difficulty on his haunches, looking
imploringly at his teacher, whose rebuke for toppling over he
had evidently just received. Reynolds advanced, and looked past
Goldsmith's shoulder at the writing on his desk. It seemed to be
some portions of a poem; and looking more closely, he was able
to read a couplet which had been that instant written. The ink
of the second line was wet:--
By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd;
The sports of children satisfy the child.
(Forster's 'Life', 1871, i. pp. 347-8).
l. 154. -----
"The sports of children". This line, in the first edition, was
followed by:--
At sports like these, while foreign arms advance,
In passive ease they leave the world to chance.
l. 155. -----
"Each nobler aim", etc. The first edition reads:--
When struggling Virtue sinks by long controul,
She leaves at last, or feebly mans the soul.
This was changed in the second, third, fourth, and fifth
editions to:--
When noble aims have suffer'd long controul,
They sink at last, or feebly man the soul.
l. 169. -----
"No product here", etc. The Swiss mercenaries, here referred
to, were long famous in European warfare.
They parted with a thousand kisses,
And fight e'er since for pay, like Swisses.
Gay's 'Aye and No, a Fable'.
l. 185. -----
This fine use of 'breasts'--as Cunningham points out--is given
by Johnson as an example in his Dictionary.
l. 187. -----
"With patient angle, trolls the finny deep". 'Troll,' i. e. as
for pike. Goldsmith uses 'finny prey' in 'The Citizen of the
World', 1762, ii. 99:--'The best manner to draw up the 'finny
prey'. ' Cf. also 'warbling grove,' 'Deserted Village', l. 361,
as a parallel to 'finny deep. '
l. 190. -----
"the struggling savage", i. e. wolf or bear. Mitford
compares the following:--'He is a beast of prey, and the laws
should make use of as many stratagems and as much force to drive
the 'reluctant savage' into the toils, as the Indians when they
hunt the hyena or the rhinoceros. ' ('Citizen of the World',
1762, i. 112. ) See also Pope's 'Iliad', Bk. xvii:--
But if the 'savage' turns his glaring eye,
They howl aloof, and round the forest fly.
ll. 201-2 -----
are not in the first edition.
l. 213. -----
"For every want", etc. Mitford quotes a parallel
passage in 'Animated Nature', 1774, ii. 123:--
'Every want thus becomes a means of pleasure, in the redressing. '
l. 228. -----
"Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low".
Probably Goldsmith only uses 'low' here in its primitive sense,
and not in that which, in his own day, gave so much umbrage to
so many eighteenth-century students of humanity in the rough.
Cf. 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.
l. 20. -----
But of all kinds of ambition", etc. In the first edition of
1765, p. ii, this passage was as follows:--'But of all kinds of
ambition, as things are now circumstanced, perhaps that which
pursues poetical fame, is the wildest. What from the encreased
refinement of the times, from the diversity of judgments
produced by opposing systems of criticism, and from the more
prevalent divisions of opinion influenced by party, the
strongest and happiest efforts can expect to please but in a
very narrow circle. Though the poet were as sure of his aim as
the imperial archer of antiquity, who boasted that he never
missed the heart; yet would many of his shafts now fly at
random, for the heart is too often in the wrong place. ' In the
second edition it was curtailed; in the sixth it took its final
form.
l. 29. -----
"they engross all that favour once shown to her". First
version--'They engross all favour to themselves. '
l. 30. -----
"the elder's birthright". Cunningham here aptly compares
Dryden's epistle 'To Sir Godfrey Kneller', II. 89-92:--
Our arts are sisters, though not twins in birth;
For hymns were sung in Eden's happy earth:
But oh, the painter muse, though last in place,
Has seized the blessing first, like Jacob's race.
l. 42. -----
"Party"=faction. Cf. lines 31-2 on Edmund Burke in
'Retaliation':--
Who, born for the Universe, narrow'd his mind,
And to 'party' gave up what was meant for mankind.
l. 50. -----
"Such readers generally admire", etc. 'I suppose this paragraph
to be directed against Paul Whitehead, or Churchill,' writes
Mitford. It was clearly aimed at Churchill, since Prior ('Life',
1837, ii. 54) quotes a portion of a contemporary article in the
'St. James's Chronicle' for February 7-9, 1765, attributed to
Bonnell Thornton, which leaves little room for doubt upon the
question. 'The latter part of this paragraph,' says the writer,
referring to the passage now annotated, 'we cannot help
considering as a reflection on the memory of the late Mr.
Churchill, whose talents as a poet were so greatly and so
deservedly admired, that during his short reign, his merit in
great measure eclipsed that of others; and we think it no mean
acknowledgment of the excellencies of this poem ['The
Traveller'] to say that, like the stars, they appear the more
brilliant now that the sun of our poetry is gone down. '
Churchill died on the 4th of November, 1764, some weeks before
the publication of 'The Traveller'. His powers, it may be, were
misdirected and misapplied; but his rough vigour and his manly
verse deserved a better fate at Goldsmith's hands.
l. 53. -----
"tawdry" was added in the sixth edition of 1770.
l. 56. -----
"blank verse". Cf. 'The Present State of Polite
Learning', 1759, p. 150--'From a desire in the critic of
grafting the spirit of ancient languages upon the English, has
proceeded of late several disagreeable instances of pedantry.
Among the number, I think we may reckon 'blank verse'. Nothing
but the greatest sublimity of subject can render such a measure
pleasing; however, we now see it used on the most trivial
occasions'--by which last remark Goldsmith probably, as
Cunningham thinks, intended to refer to the efforts of Akenside,
Dyer, and Armstrong. His views upon blank verse were shared by
Johnson and Gray. At the date of the present dedication, the
latest offender in this way had been Goldsmith's old colleague
on 'The Monthly Review', Dr. James Grainger, author of 'The
Sugar Cane', which was published in June, 1764. (Cf. also 'The
Bee' for 24th November, 1759, 'An account of the Augustan Age of
England. ')
l. 62. -----
"and that this principle", etc. In the first edition
this read--'and that this principle in each state, and in our
own in particular, may be carried to a mischievous excess. '
l. 1. -----
"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow". Mitford (Aldine
edition, 1831, p. 7) compares the following lines from Ovid:--
Solus, inops, exspes, leto poenaeque relictus.
'Metamorphoses', xiv. 217.
Exsul, inops erres, alienaque limina lustres, etc.
'Ibis'. 113.
"slow". A well-known passage from Boswell must here be
reproduced:--'Chamier once asked him [Goldsmith], what he meant
by 'slow', the last word in the first line of 'The Traveller',
Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.
Did he mean tardiness of locomotion? Goldsmith, who would say
something without consideration, answered "yes. " I [Johnson] was
sitting by, and said, "No, Sir, you do not mean tardiness of
locomotion; you mean, that sluggishness of mind which comes upon
a man in solitude. " Chamier believed then that I had written the
line as much as if he had seen me write it. ' [Birkbeck Hill's
'Boswell', 1887, iii. 252-3. ) It is quite possible, however,
that Goldsmith meant no more than he said.
l. 3. -----
"the rude Carinthian boor". 'Carinthia,' says Cunningham, 'was
visited by Goldsmith in 1755, and still (1853) retains its
character for inhospitality. '
l. 5. -----
"Campania". 'Intended,' says Bolton Corney, 'to denote
'La campagna di Roma'. The portion of it which extends from Rome
to Terracina is scarcely habitable. '
l. 10. -----
"a lengthening chain". Prior compares Letter iii of 'The
Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 5:--'The farther I travel I feel
the pain of separation with stronger force, those ties that bind
me to my native country, and you, are still unbroken. By every
remove, I only drag a greater length of chain. ' But, as Mitford
points out, Cibber has a similar thought in his 'Comical
Lovers', 1707, Act v:--'When I am with Florimel, it [my heart]
is still your prisoner, 'it only draws a longer chain after
it'. ' And earlier still in Dryden's 'All for Love', 1678, Act
ii, Sc. 1:--
My life on't, he still drags a chain along,
That needs must clog his flight.
l. 17. -----
"with simple plenty crown'd". In the first edition this read
'where mirth and peace abound. '
l. 22. -----
"the luxury of doing good". Prior compares Garth's 'Claremont',
1715, where he speaks of the Druids:--
Hard was their Lodging, homely was their Food,
For all their 'Luxury was doing Good'.
l. 24. -----
"my prime of life". He was seven-and-twenty when he
landed at Dover in February, 1756.
l. 27. -----
"That, like the circle bounding", etc. Cf. 'Vicar of
Wakefield', 1766, ii. 160-1 (ch. x):--'Death, the only friend of
the wretched, for a little while mocks the weary traveller with
the view, and like his horizon, still flies before him. '
[Prior. ]
l. 30. -----
"And find no spot of all the world my own". Prior
compares his namesake's lines 'In the Beginning of [Jacques]
Robbe's Geography', 1700:--
My destin'd Miles I shall have gone,
By THAMES or MAESE, by PO or RHONE,
And found no Foot of Earth my own.
l. 33. -----
"above the storm's career". Cf. 1. 190 of 'The Deserted
Village'.
l. 38. -----
"should thankless pride repine? " First edition,
''twere thankless to repine. '
l. 39. -----
"Say, should the philosophic mind", etc. First edition:--
'Twere affectation all, and school-taught pride,
To spurn the splendid things by heaven supply'd
l. 58. -----
"hoard". 'Sum' in the first edition.
l. 66. -----
"Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own". In the first
version this was--
Boldly asserts that country for his own.
l. 75. -----
"And yet, perhaps", etc. In the first edition, for this and the
following five lines appeared these eight:--
And yet, perhaps, if states with states we scan,
Or estimate their bliss on Reason's plan,
Though patriots flatter, and though fools contend,
We still shall find uncertainty suspend;
Find that each good, by Art or Nature given,
To these or those, but makes the balance even:
Find that the bliss of all is much the same,
And patriotic boasting reason's shame!
l. 84. -----
"On Idra's cliffs". Bolton Corney conjectures that
Goldsmith meant 'Idria, a town in Carniola, noted for its
mines. ' 'Goldsmith in his "History of Animated Nature" makes
mention of the mines, and spells the name in the same way as
here. ' (Mr. J. H. Lobban's 'Select Poems of Goldsmith', 1900, p.
87). Lines 84-5, it may be added, are not in the first edition.
l. 85. -----
"And though the rocky-crested summits frown". In the
first edition:--
And though rough rocks or gloomy summits frown.
ll. 91-2 -----
are not in the first editions.
l. 98. -----
"peculiar", i. e. 'proper,' 'appropriate. '
l. 122. -----
"winnow", i. e. 'waft,' 'disperse. ' John Evelyn refers to these
'sea-born gales' in the 'Dedication' of his 'Fumifugium',
1661:--'Those who take notice of the scent of the orange-flowers
from the rivage of Genoa, and St. Pietro dell' Arena; the
blossomes of the rosemary from the Coasts of Spain, many leagues
off at sea; or the manifest, and odoriferous wafts which flow
from Fontenay and Vaugirard, even to Paris in the season of
roses, with the contrary effect of those less pleasing smells
from other accidents, will easily consent to what I suggest
[i. e. the planting of sweet-smelling trees]. ' ('Miscellaneous
Writings', 1825, p. 208. )
l. 139. -----
"Till, more unsteady', etc. In the first edition:--
But, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Soon Commerce turn'd on other shores her sail.
There is a certain resemblance between this passage and one of
the later paradoxes of Smollett's Lismahago;--'He affirmed, the
nature of commerce was such, that it could not be fixed or
perpetuated, but, having flowed to a certain height, would
immediately begin to ebb, and so continue till the channels
should be left almost dry; but there was no instance of the
tide's rising a second time to any considerable influx in the
same nation' ('Humphry Clinker', 1771, ii. 192. Letter of Mr.
Bramble to Dr. Lewis).
ll. 141-2 -----
are not in the first edition.
l. 144. -----
"Its former strength was but plethoric ill". Cf. 'The
Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 98:--'In short, the state
resembled one of those bodies bloated with disease, whose bulk
is only a symptom of its wretchedness. ' [Mitford. ]
l. 145. -----
"Yet still the loss", etc. In the first edition:--
Yet, though to fortune lost, here still abide
Some splendid arts, the wrecks of former pride.
l. 150. -----
"The paste-board triumph and the cavalcade". 'Happy
Country [he is speaking of Italy], where the pastoral age begins
to revive! Where the wits even of Rome are united into a rural
groupe of nymphs and swains, under the appellation of modern
Arcadians [i. e.
the Bolognese Academy of the 'Arcadi']. Where in
the midst of porticos, processions, and cavalcades, abbes turn'd
into shepherds, and shepherdesses without sheep, indulge their
innocent 'divertimenti'. ' ('Present State of Polite Learning',
1759, pp. 50-1. ) Some of the 'paste-board triumphs' may be
studied in the plates of Jacques Callot.
l. 153. -----
"By sports like these", etc. A pretty and well-known
story is told with regard to this couplet. Calling once on
Goldsmith, Reynolds, having vainly tried to attract attention,
entered unannounced. 'His friend was at his desk, but with hand
uplifted, and a look directed to another part of the room; where
a little dog sat with difficulty on his haunches, looking
imploringly at his teacher, whose rebuke for toppling over he
had evidently just received. Reynolds advanced, and looked past
Goldsmith's shoulder at the writing on his desk. It seemed to be
some portions of a poem; and looking more closely, he was able
to read a couplet which had been that instant written. The ink
of the second line was wet:--
By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd;
The sports of children satisfy the child.
(Forster's 'Life', 1871, i. pp. 347-8).
l. 154. -----
"The sports of children". This line, in the first edition, was
followed by:--
At sports like these, while foreign arms advance,
In passive ease they leave the world to chance.
l. 155. -----
"Each nobler aim", etc. The first edition reads:--
When struggling Virtue sinks by long controul,
She leaves at last, or feebly mans the soul.
This was changed in the second, third, fourth, and fifth
editions to:--
When noble aims have suffer'd long controul,
They sink at last, or feebly man the soul.
l. 169. -----
"No product here", etc. The Swiss mercenaries, here referred
to, were long famous in European warfare.
They parted with a thousand kisses,
And fight e'er since for pay, like Swisses.
Gay's 'Aye and No, a Fable'.
l. 185. -----
This fine use of 'breasts'--as Cunningham points out--is given
by Johnson as an example in his Dictionary.
l. 187. -----
"With patient angle, trolls the finny deep". 'Troll,' i. e. as
for pike. Goldsmith uses 'finny prey' in 'The Citizen of the
World', 1762, ii. 99:--'The best manner to draw up the 'finny
prey'. ' Cf. also 'warbling grove,' 'Deserted Village', l. 361,
as a parallel to 'finny deep. '
l. 190. -----
"the struggling savage", i. e. wolf or bear. Mitford
compares the following:--'He is a beast of prey, and the laws
should make use of as many stratagems and as much force to drive
the 'reluctant savage' into the toils, as the Indians when they
hunt the hyena or the rhinoceros. ' ('Citizen of the World',
1762, i. 112. ) See also Pope's 'Iliad', Bk. xvii:--
But if the 'savage' turns his glaring eye,
They howl aloof, and round the forest fly.
ll. 201-2 -----
are not in the first edition.
l. 213. -----
"For every want", etc. Mitford quotes a parallel
passage in 'Animated Nature', 1774, ii. 123:--
'Every want thus becomes a means of pleasure, in the redressing. '
l. 228. -----
"Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low".
Probably Goldsmith only uses 'low' here in its primitive sense,
and not in that which, in his own day, gave so much umbrage to
so many eighteenth-century students of humanity in the rough.
Cf. 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.
