So might I hope applauding crowds to hear,
Catch the quick smile, and HIS attentive ear.
Catch the quick smile, and HIS attentive ear.
Oliver Goldsmith
49 (for April 26, 1711) has a somewhat similar
thought:--'"Eubulus" has so great an Authority in his little
Diurnal Audience, that when he shakes his Head at any Piece of
publick News, they all of them appear dejected; and, on the
contrary, go home to their Dinners with a good Stomach and
chearful Aspect, when "Eubulus" seems to intimate that Things go
well. '
l. 205. -----
"Yet he was kind", etc. For the rhyme of 'fault' and
'aught' in this couplet Prior cites the precedent of Pope:--
Before his sacred name flies ev'ry fault,
And each exalted stanza teems with thought!
('Essay on Criticism', l. 422).
He might also have cited Waller, who elides the 'l':--
Were we but less indulgent to our fau'ts,
And patience had to cultivate our thoughts.
Goldsmith uses a like rhyme in 'Edwin and Angelina',
Stanza xxxv:--
But mine the sorrow, mine the fault,
And well my life shall pay;
I'll seek the solitude he sought,
And stretch me where he lay.
Cf. also 'Retaliation', ll. 73-4. Perhaps--as indeed Prior
suggests--he pronounced 'fault' in this fashion.
l. 216. -----
"That one small head could carry all he knew". Some of
the traits of this portrait are said to be borrowed from
Goldsmith's own master at Lissoy:--'He was instructed in
reading, writing, and arithmetic'--says his sister Catherine,
Mrs. Hodson--'by a schoolmaster in his father's village, who had
been a quartermaster in the army in Queen Anne's wars, in that
detachment which was sent to Spain: having travelled over a
considerable part of Europe and being of a very romantic turn,
he used to entertain Oliver with his adventures; and the
impressions these made on his scholar were believed by the
family to have given him that wandering and unsettled turn which
so much appeared in his future life. ' ('Percy Memoir', 1801, pp.
3-4. ) The name of this worthy, according to Strean, was Burn
(Byrne). (Mangin's 'Essay on Light Reading', 1808, p. 142. )
l. 219. -----
"Near yonder thorn". See note to l. 13.
l. 229. -----
"The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay". Cf. the
'Description of an Author's Bedchamber', p. 48, l. ult. :--
A cap by night--a stocking all the day!
l. 232. "The twelve good rules". 'A constant one' (i. e.
picture) 'in every house was "King Charles' Twelve Good Rules. "'
(Bewick's 'Memoir', 'Memorial Edition,' 1887, p. 262. ) This old
broadside, surmounted by a rude woodcut of the King's execution,
is still prized by collectors. The rules, as 'found in the study
of King Charles the First, of Blessed Memory,' are as
follow:--
'1. Urge no healths;
2. Profane no divine ordinances;
3. Touch no state matters;
4. Reveal no secrets;
5. Pick no quarrels;
6. Make no comparisons;
7. Maintain no ill opinions;
8. Keep no bad company;
9. Encourage no vice;
10. Make no long meals;
11. Repeat no grievances;
12. Lay no Wagers.
Prior, 'Misc. Works', 1837, iv. 63, points out that Crabbe also
makes the 'Twelve Good Rules' conspicuous in the 'Parish
Register' (ll. 51-2):--
There is King Charles, and all his Golden Rules,
Who proved Misfortune's was the best of schools.
Her late Majesty, Queen Victoria, kept a copy of these rules in
the servants' hall at Windsor Castle.
"the royal game of goose". The 'Royal and Entertaining Game of
the Goose' is described at length in Strutt's 'Sports and
Pastimes', bk. iv, ch. 2 (xxv). It may be briefly defined as a
game of compartments with different titles through which the
player progresses according to the numbers he throws with the
dice. At every fourth or fifth compartment is depicted a goose,
and if the player's cast falls upon one of these, he moves
forward double the number of his throw.
l. 235. -----
"While broken tea-cups". Cf. the 'Description of an
Author's Bedchamber', p. 48, l. 18:--
And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board.
Mr. Hogan, who repaired or rebuilt the ale-house at Lissoy, did
not forget, besides restoring the 'Royal Game of Goose' and the
'Twelve Good Rules,' to add the broken teacups, 'which for
better security in the frail tenure of an Irish publican, or the
doubtful decorum of his guests, were embedded in the mortar. '
(Prior, 'Life', 1837, ii. 265. )
l. 250. -----
"Shall kiss the cup. ". Cf. Scott's 'Lochinvar':--
The bride kissed the goblet: the knight took it up,
He quaff'd off the wine and he threw down the cup.
Cf. also 'The History of Miss Stanton' ('British Magazine',
July, 1760). --'The earthen mug went round. 'Miss touched the
cup', the stranger pledged the parson. ' etc.
l. 268. -----
"Between a splendid and a happy land". Prior compares
'The Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 98:--'Too much commerce may
injure a nation as well as too little; and. . . there is a wide
difference between a conquering and a flourishing empire. '
l. 310. -----
"To see profusion that he must not share". Cf.
'Animated Nature', iv. p. 43:--'He only guards those luxuries he
is not fated to share. ' [Mitford. ]
l. 313. -----
"To see those joys". Up to the third edition the words
were 'each joy'.
l. 318. -----
"There the black gibbet glooms beside the way". The
gallows, under the savage penal laws of the eighteenth century,
by which horse-stealing, forgery, shop-lifting, and even the
cutting of a hop-bind in a plantation were punishable with
death, was a common object in the landscape. Cf. 'Vicar of
Wakefield', 1706, ii. 122:--'Our possessions are paled up with
new edicts every day, and hung round with gibbets to scare every
invader'; and 'Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 63-7. Johnson,
who wrote eloquently on capital punishment in 'The Rambler' for
April 20, 1751, No. 114, also refers to the ceaseless executions
in his 'London', 1738, ll. 238-43:--
Scarce can our fields, such crowds at Tyburn die,
With hemp the gallows and the fleet supply.
Propose your schemes, ye senatorian band,
Whose ways and means support the sinking land:
Lest ropes be wanting in the tempting spring,
To rig another convoy for the king.
l. 326. -----
"Where the poor houseless shivering female lies".
Mitford compares Letter cxiv of 'The Citizen of the World',
1762, ii. 211:--'These 'poor shivering females' have once seen
happier days, and been flattered into beauty. They have been
prostituted to the gay luxurious villain, and are now turned out
to meet the severity of winter. Perhaps now lying at the doors
of their betrayers, they sue to wretches whose hearts are
insensible, or debauchees who may curse, but will not relieve
them. ' The same passage occurs in 'The Bee', 1759, p. 126 ('A
City Night-Piece').
l. 332. -----
"Near her betrayer's door", etc. Cf. the foregoing
quotation.
l. 344. -----
"wild Altama", i. e. the Alatamaha, a river in Georgia,
North America. Goldsmith may have been familiar with this name
in connexion with his friend Oglethorpe's expedition of 1733.
l. 355. -----
"crouching tigers", a poetical licence, as there are no
tigers in the locality named. But Mr. J. H. Lobban calls
attention to a passage from 'Animated Nature' [1774, iii. 244],
in which Goldsmith seems to defend himself:--'There is an animal
of America, which is usually called the Red Tiger, but Mr.
Buffon calls it the Cougar, which, no doubt, is very different
from the tiger of the east. Some, however, have thought proper
to rank both together, and I will take leave to follow their
example. '
l. 371. -----
"The good old sire". Cf. 'Threnodia Augustalis', ll.
16-17:--
The good old sire, unconscious of decay,
The modest matron, clad in homespun gray
l. 378. -----
"a father's". 'Her father's' in the first edition.
l. 384. -----
"silent". 'Decent' in the first edition.
l. 418. -----
"On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side". 'Torno' =
Tornea, a river which falls into the Gulf of Bothnia; Pambamarca
is a mountain near Quito, South America. 'The author'--says
Bolton Corney--'bears in memory the operations of the French
philosophers in the arctic and equatorial regions, as described
in the celebrated narratives of M. Maupertuis and Don Antonio de
Ulloa. '
ll. 427-30. "That trade's proud empire", etc. These last four
lines are attributed to Johnson on Boswell's authority:--'Dr.
Johnson. . . favoured me by marking the lines which he furnished to
Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village', which are only the 'last four'. '
(Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell', 1887, ii. 7. )
PROLOGUE OF LABERIUS.
This translation, or rather imitation, was first published at pp. 176-7
of 'An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe',
1759 (Chap. xii, 'Of the Stage'), where it is prefaced as
follows:--'MACROBIUS has preserved a prologue, spoken and written by the
poet [Decimus] Laberius, a Roman knight, whom Caesar forced upon the
stage, written with great elegance and spirit, which shews what opinion
the Romans in general entertained of the profession of an actor. ' In the
second edition of 1774 the prologue was omitted. The original lines, one
of which Goldsmith quotes, are to found in the 'Saturnalia' of
Macrobius, lib. ii, cap. vii ('Opera', London, 1694). He seems to have
confined himself to imitating the first fifteen:--
Necessitas, cujus cursus transversi impetum
Voluerunt multi effugere, pauci potuerunt,
Quo me detrusit paene extremis sensibus?
Quem nulla ambitio, nulla umquam largitio,
Nullus timor, vis nulla, nulla auctoritas
Movere potuit in juventa de statu;
Ecce in senecta ut facile labefecit loco
Viri Excellentis mente clemente edita
Submissa placide blandiloquens oratio!
Etenim ipsi di negare cui nihil potuerunt,
Hominem me denegare quis posset pati?
Ergo bis tricenis annis actis sine tota
Eques Romanus Lare egressus meo
Domum revertar mimus. nimirum hoc die
Uno plus vixi mihi quam vivendum fuit.
Rollin gives a French translation of this prologue in his 'Traite des
Etudes'. It is quoted by Bolton Corney in his 'Poetical Works of Oliver
Goldsmith', 1845, pp. 203-4. In his Aldine edition of 1831, p. 114,
Mitford completed Goldsmith's version as follows:--
Too lavish still in good, or evil hour,
To show to man the empire of thy power,
If fortune, at thy wild impetuous sway,
The blossoms of my fame must drop away,
Then was the time the obedient plant to strain
When life was warm in every vigorous vein,
To mould young nature to thy plastic skill,
And bend my pliant boyhood to thy will.
So might I hope applauding crowds to hear,
Catch the quick smile, and HIS attentive ear.
But ah! for what has thou reserv'd my age?
Say, how can I expect the approving stage;
Fled is the bloom of youth -- the manly air --
The vigorous mind that spurn'd at toil and care;
Gone is the voice, whose clear and silver tone
The enraptur'd theatre would love to own.
As clasping ivy chokes the encumber'd tree,
So age with foul embrace has ruined me.
Thou, and the tomb, Laberius, art the same,
Empty within, what hast thou but a name?
Macrobius, it may be remembered, was the author, with a quotation from
whom Johnson, after a long silence, electrified the company upon his
first arrival at Pembroke College, thus giving (says Boswell) 'the first
impression of that more extensive reading in which he had indulged
himself' (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell', 1887, i. 59). If the study of
Macrobius is to be regarded as a test of 'more extensive reading' that
praise must therefore be accorded to Goldsmith, who cites him in his
first book.
ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH STRUCK BLIND WITH LIGHTNING.
This quatrain, the original of which does not appear to have been
traced, was first published in 'The Bee' for Saturday, the 6th of
October, 1759, p. 8. It is there succeeded by the following Latin
epigram, 'in the same spirit':--
LUMINE Acon dextro capta est Leonida sinistro
Et poterat forma vincere uterque Deos.
Parve puer lumen quod habes concede puellae
Sic tu caecus amor sic erit illa Venus.
There are several variations of this in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for
1745, pp. 104, 159, 213, 327, one of which is said to be 'By a monk of
Winchester,' with a reference to 'Cambden's 'Remains', p. 413. ' None of
these corresponds exactly with Goldsmith's text; and the lady's name is
uniformly given as 'Leonilla. ' A writer in the 'Quarterly Review', vol.
171, p. 296, prints the 'original' thus --
Lumine Acon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinistro,
Et potis est forma vincere uterque Deos.
Blande puer, lumen quod habes concede sorori;
Sic tu caecus Amor, sic erit illa Venus;
and says 'it was written by Girolamo Amalteo, and will be found in any
of the editions of the 'Trium Fratrum Amaltheorum Carmina', under the
title of 'De gemellis, fratre et sorore, luscis. ' According to Byron on
Bowles ('Works', 1836, vi. p. 390), the persons referred to are the
Princess of Eboli, mistress of Philip II of Spain, and Maugiron, minion
of Henry III of France, who had each of them lost an eye. But for this
the reviewer above quoted had found no authority.
THE GIFT.
This little trifle, in which a French levity is wedded to the language
of Prior, was first printed in 'The Bee', for Saturday, the 13th of
October, 1759. Its original, which is as follows, is to be found where
Goldsmith found it, namely in Part iii of the 'Menagiana', (ed. 1729,
iii, 397), and not far from the ditty of 'le fameux la Galisse'. (See
'An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize', 'infra', p. 198):--
ETRENE A IRIS.
Pour temoigner de ma flame,
Iris, du meilleur de mon ame
Je vous donne a ce nouvel an
Non pas dentelle ni ruban,
Non pas essence, ni pommade,
Quelques boites de marmelade,
Un manchon, des gans, un bouquet,
Non pas heures, ni chapelet.
Quoi donc? Attendez, je vous donne
O fille plus belle que bonne. . .
Je vous donne: Ah! le puis-je dire?
Oui, c'est trop souffrir le martyre,
Il est tems de s'emanciper,
Patience va m'echaper,
Fussiez-vous cent fois plus aimable,
Belle Iris, je vous donne. . . au Diable.
In Bolton Corney's edition of Goldsmith's 'Poetical Works', 1845, p. 77,
note, these lines are attributed to Bernard de la Monnoye (1641-1728),
who is said to have included them in a collection of 'Etrennes en vers',
published in 1715.
l. 20. -----
"I'll give thee". See an anecdote 'a propos' of this
anticlimax in Trevelyan's 'Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay',
ed. 1889, p. 600:--'There was much laughing about Mrs. Beecher
Stowe [then (16th March, 1853) expected in England], and what we
were to give her. I referred the ladies to Goldsmith's poems for
what I should give. Nobody but Hannah understood me; but some of
them have since been thumbing Goldsmith to make out the riddle. '
THE LOGICIANS REFUTED.
These lines, which have often, and even of late years, been included
among Swift's works, were first printed as Goldsmith's by T. Evans at
vol. i. pp. 115-17 of 'The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Oliver
Goldsmith, M. B. , 1780. They originally appeared in 'The Busy Body' for
Thursday, October the 18th, 1759 (No. v), having this notification above
the title: 'The following Poem written by Dr. SWIFT, is communicated to
the Public by the BUSY BODY, to whom it was presented by a Nobleman of
distinguished Learning and Taste. ' In No. ii they had already been
advertised as forthcoming. The sub-title, 'In imitation of Dean Swift,'
seems to have been added by Evans. The text here followed is that of the
first issue.
l. 5. -----
"Wise Aristotle and Smiglecius". Cf. 'The Life of
Parnell', 1770, p. 3:--'His imagination might have been too warm
to relish the cold logic of Burgersdicius, or the dreary
subtleties of 'Smiglesius'; but it is certain that as a
classical scholar, few could equal him. ' Martin Smiglesius or
Smigletius, a Polish Jesuit, theologian and logician, who died
in 1618, appears to have been a special 'bete noire' to
Goldsmith; and the reference to him here would support the
ascription of the poem to Goldsmith's pen, were it not that
Swift seems also to have cherished a like antipathy:--'He told
me that he had made many efforts, upon his entering the College
[i. e. Trinity College, Dublin], to read some of the old
treatises on logic writ by 'Smeglesius', Keckermannus,
Burgersdicius, etc. , and that he never had patience to go
through three pages of any of them, he was so disgusted at the
stupidity of the work. ' (Sheridan's 'Life of Swift', 2nd ed. ,
1787, p. 4. )
l. 16. -----
"Than reason-boasting mortal's pride". So in 'The Busy
Body'. Some editors--Mitford, for example--print the line:--
Than reason,--boasting mortals' pride.
l. 18. -----
"Deus est anima brutorum". Cf. Addison in 'Spectator',
No. 121 (July 19, 1711): 'A modern Philosopher, quoted by
Monsieur 'Bale' in his Learned Dissertation on the Souls of
Brutes delivers the same Opinion [i. e. --That Instinct is the
immediate direction of Providence], tho' in a bolder form of
words where he says 'Deus est Anima Brutorum', God himself is
the Soul of Brutes. ' There is much in 'Monsieur Bayle' on this
theme. Probably Addison had in mind the following passage of the
'Dict. Hist. et Critique' (3rd ed. , 1720, 2481b. ) which Bayle
cites from M. Bernard:--'Il me semble d'avoir lu quelque part
cette These, 'Deus est anima brutorum': l'expression est un peu
dure; mais elle peut recevoir un fort bon sens. '
l. 32. -----
"B-b"=Bob, i. e. Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister,
for whom many venal 'quills were drawn' 'circa' 1715-42. Cf.
Pope's 'Epilogue to the Satires', 1738, Dialogue i, ll. 27-32:--
Go see Sir ROBERT--
P. See Sir ROBERT! --hum--
And never laugh--for all my life to come?
Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of Social Pleasure, ill-exchang'd for Pow'r;
Seen him, uncumber'd with the Venal tribe,
Smile without Art, and win without a Bribe.
l. 46. -----
"A courtier any ape surpasses". Cf. Gay's 'Fables,
passim'. Indeed there is more of Gay than Swift in this and the
lines that follow. Gay's life was wasted in fruitless
expectations of court patronage, and his disappointment often
betrays itself in his writings.
l. 56. -----
"And footmen, lords and dukes can act". Cf. 'Gil Blas',
1715-35, liv. iii, chap. iv:--'Il falloit voir comme nous nous
portions des santes a tous moments, en nous donnant les uns aux
autres les surnoms de nos maitres. Le valet de don Antonio
appeloit Gamboa celui de don Fernand, et le valet de don Fernand
appeloit Centelles celui de don Antonio. Ils me nommoient de
meme Silva; et nous nous enivrions peu a peu sous ces noms
empruntes, tout aussi bien que les seigneurs qui les portoient
veritablement. ' But Steele had already touched this subject in
'Spectator', No. 88, for June 11, 1711, 'On the Misbehaviour of
Servants,' a paper supposed to have afforded the hint for
Townley's farce of 'High Life below Stairs', which, about a
fortnight after 'The Logicians Refuted' appeared, was played for
the first time at Drury Lane, not much to the gratification of
the gentlemen's gentlemen in the upper gallery. Goldsmith
himself wrote 'A Word or two on the late Farce, called 'High
Life below Stairs',' in 'The Bee' for November 3, 1759, pp.
154-7.
A SONNET.
This little piece first appears in 'The Bee' for October 20,
1759 (No. iii). It is there called 'A Sonnet,' a title which is
only accurate in so far as it is 'a little song. ' Bolton Corney
affirms that it is imitated from the French of Saint-Pavin (i. e.
Denis Sanguin de Saint-Pavin, d. 1670), whose works were edited
in 1759, the year in which Goldsmith published the collection of
essays and verses in which it is to be found. The text here
followed is that of the 'new edition' of 'The Bee', published by
W. Lane, Leadenhall Street, no date, p. 94. Neither by its
motive nor its literary merits--it should be added--did the
original call urgently for translation; and the poem is here
included solely because, being Goldsmith's, it cannot be omitted
from his complete works.
l. 5. -----
This and the following line in the first version run:--
Yet, why this killing soft dejection?
Why dim thy beauty with a tear?
STANZAS ON THE TAKING OF QUEBEC.
Quebec was taken on the 13th September, 1759. Wolfe was wounded pretty
early in the action, while leading the advance of the Louisbourg
grenadiers. 'A shot shattered his wrist. He wrapped his handkerchief
about it and kept on. Another shot struck him, and he still advanced,
when a third lodged in his breast. He staggered, and sat on the ground.
Lieutenant Brown, of the grenadiers, one Henderson, a volunteer in the
same company, and a private soldier, aided by an officer of artillery
who ran to join them, carried him in their arms to the rear. He begged
them to lay him down. They did so, and asked if he would have a surgeon.
"There's no need," he answered; "it's all over with me. " A moment after,
one of them cried out, "They run; see how they run! " "Who run? " Wolfe
demanded, like a man roused from sleep. "The enemy, sir. They give way
everywhere! " "Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton," returned the dying
man; "tell him to march Webb's regiment down to Charles River, to cut
off their retreat from the bridge. " Then, turning on his side, he
murmured, "Now, God be praised, I will die in peace! " and in a few
moments his gallant soul had fled. ' (Parkman's 'Montcalm and Wolfe',
1885, ii. 296-7. ) In his 'History of England in a Series of Letters',
1764, ii. 241, Goldsmith says of this event:--'Perhaps the loss of such
a man was greater to the nation than the conquering of all Canada was
advantageous; but it is the misfortune of humanity, that we can never
know true greatness till the moment when we are going to lose it*. ' The
present stanzas were first published in 'The Busy Body' (No. vii) for
Tuesday, the 22nd October, 1759, a week after the news of Wolfe's death
had reached this country (Tuesday the 16th). According to Prior ('Life',
1837, i. 6), Goldsmith claimed to be related to Wolfe by the father's
side, the maiden name of the General's mother being Henrietta Goldsmith.
It may be noted that Benjamin West's popular rendering of Wolfe's death
(1771)--a rendering which Nelson never passed in a print shop without
being stopped by it--was said to be based upon the descriptions of an
eye-witness. It was engraved by Woollett and Ryland in 1776. A key to
the names of those appearing in the picture was published in the 'Army
and Navy Gazette' of January 20, 1893.
*[footnote] He repeats this sentiment, in different words, in the later
'History of England' of 1771, iv. 400.
AN ELEGY ON MRS. MARY BLAIZE.
The publication in February, 1751, of Gray's 'Elegy Wrote in a Country
Church Yard' had set a fashion in poetry which long continued.
Goldsmith, who considered that work 'a very fine poem, but overloaded
with epithet' ('Beauties of English Poesy', 1767, i. 53), and once
proposed to amend it 'by leaving out an idle word in every line' [! ]
(Cradock's 'Memoirs', 1826, i. 230), resented these endless imitations,
and his antipathy to them frequently reveals itself. Only a few months
before the appearance of Mrs. Blaize in 'The Bee' for October 27, 1759,
he had written in the 'Critical Review', vii. 263, when noticing
Langhorne's 'Death of Adonis', as follows:--'It is not thus that many of
our moderns have composed what they call elegies; they seem scarcely to
have known its real character. If an hero or a poet happens to die with
us, the whole band of elegiac poets raise the dismal chorus, adorn his
herse with all the paltry escutcheons of flattery, rise into bombast,
paint him at the head of his thundering legions, or reining Pegasus in
his most rapid career; they are sure to strew cypress enough upon the
bier, dress up all the muses in mourning, and look themselves every whit
as dismal and sorrowful as an undertaker's shop. ' He returned to the
subject in a 'Chinese Letter' of March 4, 1761, in the 'Public Ledger'
(afterwards Letter ciii of 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 162-5),
which contains the lines 'On the Death of the Right Honourable ***; and
again, in 'The Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, i. 174, 'a propos' of the
'Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog', he makes Dr. Primrose say, 'I have
wept so much at all sorts of elegies of late, that without an enlivening
glass I am sure this will overcome me. '
The model for 'An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize' is to be found in the old
French popular song of Monsieur de la Palisse or Palice, about fifty
verses of which are printed in Larousse's 'Grand Dictionnaire Universel
du XIXme Siecle', x. p. 179.
thought:--'"Eubulus" has so great an Authority in his little
Diurnal Audience, that when he shakes his Head at any Piece of
publick News, they all of them appear dejected; and, on the
contrary, go home to their Dinners with a good Stomach and
chearful Aspect, when "Eubulus" seems to intimate that Things go
well. '
l. 205. -----
"Yet he was kind", etc. For the rhyme of 'fault' and
'aught' in this couplet Prior cites the precedent of Pope:--
Before his sacred name flies ev'ry fault,
And each exalted stanza teems with thought!
('Essay on Criticism', l. 422).
He might also have cited Waller, who elides the 'l':--
Were we but less indulgent to our fau'ts,
And patience had to cultivate our thoughts.
Goldsmith uses a like rhyme in 'Edwin and Angelina',
Stanza xxxv:--
But mine the sorrow, mine the fault,
And well my life shall pay;
I'll seek the solitude he sought,
And stretch me where he lay.
Cf. also 'Retaliation', ll. 73-4. Perhaps--as indeed Prior
suggests--he pronounced 'fault' in this fashion.
l. 216. -----
"That one small head could carry all he knew". Some of
the traits of this portrait are said to be borrowed from
Goldsmith's own master at Lissoy:--'He was instructed in
reading, writing, and arithmetic'--says his sister Catherine,
Mrs. Hodson--'by a schoolmaster in his father's village, who had
been a quartermaster in the army in Queen Anne's wars, in that
detachment which was sent to Spain: having travelled over a
considerable part of Europe and being of a very romantic turn,
he used to entertain Oliver with his adventures; and the
impressions these made on his scholar were believed by the
family to have given him that wandering and unsettled turn which
so much appeared in his future life. ' ('Percy Memoir', 1801, pp.
3-4. ) The name of this worthy, according to Strean, was Burn
(Byrne). (Mangin's 'Essay on Light Reading', 1808, p. 142. )
l. 219. -----
"Near yonder thorn". See note to l. 13.
l. 229. -----
"The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay". Cf. the
'Description of an Author's Bedchamber', p. 48, l. ult. :--
A cap by night--a stocking all the day!
l. 232. "The twelve good rules". 'A constant one' (i. e.
picture) 'in every house was "King Charles' Twelve Good Rules. "'
(Bewick's 'Memoir', 'Memorial Edition,' 1887, p. 262. ) This old
broadside, surmounted by a rude woodcut of the King's execution,
is still prized by collectors. The rules, as 'found in the study
of King Charles the First, of Blessed Memory,' are as
follow:--
'1. Urge no healths;
2. Profane no divine ordinances;
3. Touch no state matters;
4. Reveal no secrets;
5. Pick no quarrels;
6. Make no comparisons;
7. Maintain no ill opinions;
8. Keep no bad company;
9. Encourage no vice;
10. Make no long meals;
11. Repeat no grievances;
12. Lay no Wagers.
Prior, 'Misc. Works', 1837, iv. 63, points out that Crabbe also
makes the 'Twelve Good Rules' conspicuous in the 'Parish
Register' (ll. 51-2):--
There is King Charles, and all his Golden Rules,
Who proved Misfortune's was the best of schools.
Her late Majesty, Queen Victoria, kept a copy of these rules in
the servants' hall at Windsor Castle.
"the royal game of goose". The 'Royal and Entertaining Game of
the Goose' is described at length in Strutt's 'Sports and
Pastimes', bk. iv, ch. 2 (xxv). It may be briefly defined as a
game of compartments with different titles through which the
player progresses according to the numbers he throws with the
dice. At every fourth or fifth compartment is depicted a goose,
and if the player's cast falls upon one of these, he moves
forward double the number of his throw.
l. 235. -----
"While broken tea-cups". Cf. the 'Description of an
Author's Bedchamber', p. 48, l. 18:--
And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board.
Mr. Hogan, who repaired or rebuilt the ale-house at Lissoy, did
not forget, besides restoring the 'Royal Game of Goose' and the
'Twelve Good Rules,' to add the broken teacups, 'which for
better security in the frail tenure of an Irish publican, or the
doubtful decorum of his guests, were embedded in the mortar. '
(Prior, 'Life', 1837, ii. 265. )
l. 250. -----
"Shall kiss the cup. ". Cf. Scott's 'Lochinvar':--
The bride kissed the goblet: the knight took it up,
He quaff'd off the wine and he threw down the cup.
Cf. also 'The History of Miss Stanton' ('British Magazine',
July, 1760). --'The earthen mug went round. 'Miss touched the
cup', the stranger pledged the parson. ' etc.
l. 268. -----
"Between a splendid and a happy land". Prior compares
'The Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 98:--'Too much commerce may
injure a nation as well as too little; and. . . there is a wide
difference between a conquering and a flourishing empire. '
l. 310. -----
"To see profusion that he must not share". Cf.
'Animated Nature', iv. p. 43:--'He only guards those luxuries he
is not fated to share. ' [Mitford. ]
l. 313. -----
"To see those joys". Up to the third edition the words
were 'each joy'.
l. 318. -----
"There the black gibbet glooms beside the way". The
gallows, under the savage penal laws of the eighteenth century,
by which horse-stealing, forgery, shop-lifting, and even the
cutting of a hop-bind in a plantation were punishable with
death, was a common object in the landscape. Cf. 'Vicar of
Wakefield', 1706, ii. 122:--'Our possessions are paled up with
new edicts every day, and hung round with gibbets to scare every
invader'; and 'Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 63-7. Johnson,
who wrote eloquently on capital punishment in 'The Rambler' for
April 20, 1751, No. 114, also refers to the ceaseless executions
in his 'London', 1738, ll. 238-43:--
Scarce can our fields, such crowds at Tyburn die,
With hemp the gallows and the fleet supply.
Propose your schemes, ye senatorian band,
Whose ways and means support the sinking land:
Lest ropes be wanting in the tempting spring,
To rig another convoy for the king.
l. 326. -----
"Where the poor houseless shivering female lies".
Mitford compares Letter cxiv of 'The Citizen of the World',
1762, ii. 211:--'These 'poor shivering females' have once seen
happier days, and been flattered into beauty. They have been
prostituted to the gay luxurious villain, and are now turned out
to meet the severity of winter. Perhaps now lying at the doors
of their betrayers, they sue to wretches whose hearts are
insensible, or debauchees who may curse, but will not relieve
them. ' The same passage occurs in 'The Bee', 1759, p. 126 ('A
City Night-Piece').
l. 332. -----
"Near her betrayer's door", etc. Cf. the foregoing
quotation.
l. 344. -----
"wild Altama", i. e. the Alatamaha, a river in Georgia,
North America. Goldsmith may have been familiar with this name
in connexion with his friend Oglethorpe's expedition of 1733.
l. 355. -----
"crouching tigers", a poetical licence, as there are no
tigers in the locality named. But Mr. J. H. Lobban calls
attention to a passage from 'Animated Nature' [1774, iii. 244],
in which Goldsmith seems to defend himself:--'There is an animal
of America, which is usually called the Red Tiger, but Mr.
Buffon calls it the Cougar, which, no doubt, is very different
from the tiger of the east. Some, however, have thought proper
to rank both together, and I will take leave to follow their
example. '
l. 371. -----
"The good old sire". Cf. 'Threnodia Augustalis', ll.
16-17:--
The good old sire, unconscious of decay,
The modest matron, clad in homespun gray
l. 378. -----
"a father's". 'Her father's' in the first edition.
l. 384. -----
"silent". 'Decent' in the first edition.
l. 418. -----
"On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side". 'Torno' =
Tornea, a river which falls into the Gulf of Bothnia; Pambamarca
is a mountain near Quito, South America. 'The author'--says
Bolton Corney--'bears in memory the operations of the French
philosophers in the arctic and equatorial regions, as described
in the celebrated narratives of M. Maupertuis and Don Antonio de
Ulloa. '
ll. 427-30. "That trade's proud empire", etc. These last four
lines are attributed to Johnson on Boswell's authority:--'Dr.
Johnson. . . favoured me by marking the lines which he furnished to
Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village', which are only the 'last four'. '
(Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell', 1887, ii. 7. )
PROLOGUE OF LABERIUS.
This translation, or rather imitation, was first published at pp. 176-7
of 'An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe',
1759 (Chap. xii, 'Of the Stage'), where it is prefaced as
follows:--'MACROBIUS has preserved a prologue, spoken and written by the
poet [Decimus] Laberius, a Roman knight, whom Caesar forced upon the
stage, written with great elegance and spirit, which shews what opinion
the Romans in general entertained of the profession of an actor. ' In the
second edition of 1774 the prologue was omitted. The original lines, one
of which Goldsmith quotes, are to found in the 'Saturnalia' of
Macrobius, lib. ii, cap. vii ('Opera', London, 1694). He seems to have
confined himself to imitating the first fifteen:--
Necessitas, cujus cursus transversi impetum
Voluerunt multi effugere, pauci potuerunt,
Quo me detrusit paene extremis sensibus?
Quem nulla ambitio, nulla umquam largitio,
Nullus timor, vis nulla, nulla auctoritas
Movere potuit in juventa de statu;
Ecce in senecta ut facile labefecit loco
Viri Excellentis mente clemente edita
Submissa placide blandiloquens oratio!
Etenim ipsi di negare cui nihil potuerunt,
Hominem me denegare quis posset pati?
Ergo bis tricenis annis actis sine tota
Eques Romanus Lare egressus meo
Domum revertar mimus. nimirum hoc die
Uno plus vixi mihi quam vivendum fuit.
Rollin gives a French translation of this prologue in his 'Traite des
Etudes'. It is quoted by Bolton Corney in his 'Poetical Works of Oliver
Goldsmith', 1845, pp. 203-4. In his Aldine edition of 1831, p. 114,
Mitford completed Goldsmith's version as follows:--
Too lavish still in good, or evil hour,
To show to man the empire of thy power,
If fortune, at thy wild impetuous sway,
The blossoms of my fame must drop away,
Then was the time the obedient plant to strain
When life was warm in every vigorous vein,
To mould young nature to thy plastic skill,
And bend my pliant boyhood to thy will.
So might I hope applauding crowds to hear,
Catch the quick smile, and HIS attentive ear.
But ah! for what has thou reserv'd my age?
Say, how can I expect the approving stage;
Fled is the bloom of youth -- the manly air --
The vigorous mind that spurn'd at toil and care;
Gone is the voice, whose clear and silver tone
The enraptur'd theatre would love to own.
As clasping ivy chokes the encumber'd tree,
So age with foul embrace has ruined me.
Thou, and the tomb, Laberius, art the same,
Empty within, what hast thou but a name?
Macrobius, it may be remembered, was the author, with a quotation from
whom Johnson, after a long silence, electrified the company upon his
first arrival at Pembroke College, thus giving (says Boswell) 'the first
impression of that more extensive reading in which he had indulged
himself' (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell', 1887, i. 59). If the study of
Macrobius is to be regarded as a test of 'more extensive reading' that
praise must therefore be accorded to Goldsmith, who cites him in his
first book.
ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH STRUCK BLIND WITH LIGHTNING.
This quatrain, the original of which does not appear to have been
traced, was first published in 'The Bee' for Saturday, the 6th of
October, 1759, p. 8. It is there succeeded by the following Latin
epigram, 'in the same spirit':--
LUMINE Acon dextro capta est Leonida sinistro
Et poterat forma vincere uterque Deos.
Parve puer lumen quod habes concede puellae
Sic tu caecus amor sic erit illa Venus.
There are several variations of this in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for
1745, pp. 104, 159, 213, 327, one of which is said to be 'By a monk of
Winchester,' with a reference to 'Cambden's 'Remains', p. 413. ' None of
these corresponds exactly with Goldsmith's text; and the lady's name is
uniformly given as 'Leonilla. ' A writer in the 'Quarterly Review', vol.
171, p. 296, prints the 'original' thus --
Lumine Acon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinistro,
Et potis est forma vincere uterque Deos.
Blande puer, lumen quod habes concede sorori;
Sic tu caecus Amor, sic erit illa Venus;
and says 'it was written by Girolamo Amalteo, and will be found in any
of the editions of the 'Trium Fratrum Amaltheorum Carmina', under the
title of 'De gemellis, fratre et sorore, luscis. ' According to Byron on
Bowles ('Works', 1836, vi. p. 390), the persons referred to are the
Princess of Eboli, mistress of Philip II of Spain, and Maugiron, minion
of Henry III of France, who had each of them lost an eye. But for this
the reviewer above quoted had found no authority.
THE GIFT.
This little trifle, in which a French levity is wedded to the language
of Prior, was first printed in 'The Bee', for Saturday, the 13th of
October, 1759. Its original, which is as follows, is to be found where
Goldsmith found it, namely in Part iii of the 'Menagiana', (ed. 1729,
iii, 397), and not far from the ditty of 'le fameux la Galisse'. (See
'An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize', 'infra', p. 198):--
ETRENE A IRIS.
Pour temoigner de ma flame,
Iris, du meilleur de mon ame
Je vous donne a ce nouvel an
Non pas dentelle ni ruban,
Non pas essence, ni pommade,
Quelques boites de marmelade,
Un manchon, des gans, un bouquet,
Non pas heures, ni chapelet.
Quoi donc? Attendez, je vous donne
O fille plus belle que bonne. . .
Je vous donne: Ah! le puis-je dire?
Oui, c'est trop souffrir le martyre,
Il est tems de s'emanciper,
Patience va m'echaper,
Fussiez-vous cent fois plus aimable,
Belle Iris, je vous donne. . . au Diable.
In Bolton Corney's edition of Goldsmith's 'Poetical Works', 1845, p. 77,
note, these lines are attributed to Bernard de la Monnoye (1641-1728),
who is said to have included them in a collection of 'Etrennes en vers',
published in 1715.
l. 20. -----
"I'll give thee". See an anecdote 'a propos' of this
anticlimax in Trevelyan's 'Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay',
ed. 1889, p. 600:--'There was much laughing about Mrs. Beecher
Stowe [then (16th March, 1853) expected in England], and what we
were to give her. I referred the ladies to Goldsmith's poems for
what I should give. Nobody but Hannah understood me; but some of
them have since been thumbing Goldsmith to make out the riddle. '
THE LOGICIANS REFUTED.
These lines, which have often, and even of late years, been included
among Swift's works, were first printed as Goldsmith's by T. Evans at
vol. i. pp. 115-17 of 'The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Oliver
Goldsmith, M. B. , 1780. They originally appeared in 'The Busy Body' for
Thursday, October the 18th, 1759 (No. v), having this notification above
the title: 'The following Poem written by Dr. SWIFT, is communicated to
the Public by the BUSY BODY, to whom it was presented by a Nobleman of
distinguished Learning and Taste. ' In No. ii they had already been
advertised as forthcoming. The sub-title, 'In imitation of Dean Swift,'
seems to have been added by Evans. The text here followed is that of the
first issue.
l. 5. -----
"Wise Aristotle and Smiglecius". Cf. 'The Life of
Parnell', 1770, p. 3:--'His imagination might have been too warm
to relish the cold logic of Burgersdicius, or the dreary
subtleties of 'Smiglesius'; but it is certain that as a
classical scholar, few could equal him. ' Martin Smiglesius or
Smigletius, a Polish Jesuit, theologian and logician, who died
in 1618, appears to have been a special 'bete noire' to
Goldsmith; and the reference to him here would support the
ascription of the poem to Goldsmith's pen, were it not that
Swift seems also to have cherished a like antipathy:--'He told
me that he had made many efforts, upon his entering the College
[i. e. Trinity College, Dublin], to read some of the old
treatises on logic writ by 'Smeglesius', Keckermannus,
Burgersdicius, etc. , and that he never had patience to go
through three pages of any of them, he was so disgusted at the
stupidity of the work. ' (Sheridan's 'Life of Swift', 2nd ed. ,
1787, p. 4. )
l. 16. -----
"Than reason-boasting mortal's pride". So in 'The Busy
Body'. Some editors--Mitford, for example--print the line:--
Than reason,--boasting mortals' pride.
l. 18. -----
"Deus est anima brutorum". Cf. Addison in 'Spectator',
No. 121 (July 19, 1711): 'A modern Philosopher, quoted by
Monsieur 'Bale' in his Learned Dissertation on the Souls of
Brutes delivers the same Opinion [i. e. --That Instinct is the
immediate direction of Providence], tho' in a bolder form of
words where he says 'Deus est Anima Brutorum', God himself is
the Soul of Brutes. ' There is much in 'Monsieur Bayle' on this
theme. Probably Addison had in mind the following passage of the
'Dict. Hist. et Critique' (3rd ed. , 1720, 2481b. ) which Bayle
cites from M. Bernard:--'Il me semble d'avoir lu quelque part
cette These, 'Deus est anima brutorum': l'expression est un peu
dure; mais elle peut recevoir un fort bon sens. '
l. 32. -----
"B-b"=Bob, i. e. Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister,
for whom many venal 'quills were drawn' 'circa' 1715-42. Cf.
Pope's 'Epilogue to the Satires', 1738, Dialogue i, ll. 27-32:--
Go see Sir ROBERT--
P. See Sir ROBERT! --hum--
And never laugh--for all my life to come?
Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of Social Pleasure, ill-exchang'd for Pow'r;
Seen him, uncumber'd with the Venal tribe,
Smile without Art, and win without a Bribe.
l. 46. -----
"A courtier any ape surpasses". Cf. Gay's 'Fables,
passim'. Indeed there is more of Gay than Swift in this and the
lines that follow. Gay's life was wasted in fruitless
expectations of court patronage, and his disappointment often
betrays itself in his writings.
l. 56. -----
"And footmen, lords and dukes can act". Cf. 'Gil Blas',
1715-35, liv. iii, chap. iv:--'Il falloit voir comme nous nous
portions des santes a tous moments, en nous donnant les uns aux
autres les surnoms de nos maitres. Le valet de don Antonio
appeloit Gamboa celui de don Fernand, et le valet de don Fernand
appeloit Centelles celui de don Antonio. Ils me nommoient de
meme Silva; et nous nous enivrions peu a peu sous ces noms
empruntes, tout aussi bien que les seigneurs qui les portoient
veritablement. ' But Steele had already touched this subject in
'Spectator', No. 88, for June 11, 1711, 'On the Misbehaviour of
Servants,' a paper supposed to have afforded the hint for
Townley's farce of 'High Life below Stairs', which, about a
fortnight after 'The Logicians Refuted' appeared, was played for
the first time at Drury Lane, not much to the gratification of
the gentlemen's gentlemen in the upper gallery. Goldsmith
himself wrote 'A Word or two on the late Farce, called 'High
Life below Stairs',' in 'The Bee' for November 3, 1759, pp.
154-7.
A SONNET.
This little piece first appears in 'The Bee' for October 20,
1759 (No. iii). It is there called 'A Sonnet,' a title which is
only accurate in so far as it is 'a little song. ' Bolton Corney
affirms that it is imitated from the French of Saint-Pavin (i. e.
Denis Sanguin de Saint-Pavin, d. 1670), whose works were edited
in 1759, the year in which Goldsmith published the collection of
essays and verses in which it is to be found. The text here
followed is that of the 'new edition' of 'The Bee', published by
W. Lane, Leadenhall Street, no date, p. 94. Neither by its
motive nor its literary merits--it should be added--did the
original call urgently for translation; and the poem is here
included solely because, being Goldsmith's, it cannot be omitted
from his complete works.
l. 5. -----
This and the following line in the first version run:--
Yet, why this killing soft dejection?
Why dim thy beauty with a tear?
STANZAS ON THE TAKING OF QUEBEC.
Quebec was taken on the 13th September, 1759. Wolfe was wounded pretty
early in the action, while leading the advance of the Louisbourg
grenadiers. 'A shot shattered his wrist. He wrapped his handkerchief
about it and kept on. Another shot struck him, and he still advanced,
when a third lodged in his breast. He staggered, and sat on the ground.
Lieutenant Brown, of the grenadiers, one Henderson, a volunteer in the
same company, and a private soldier, aided by an officer of artillery
who ran to join them, carried him in their arms to the rear. He begged
them to lay him down. They did so, and asked if he would have a surgeon.
"There's no need," he answered; "it's all over with me. " A moment after,
one of them cried out, "They run; see how they run! " "Who run? " Wolfe
demanded, like a man roused from sleep. "The enemy, sir. They give way
everywhere! " "Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton," returned the dying
man; "tell him to march Webb's regiment down to Charles River, to cut
off their retreat from the bridge. " Then, turning on his side, he
murmured, "Now, God be praised, I will die in peace! " and in a few
moments his gallant soul had fled. ' (Parkman's 'Montcalm and Wolfe',
1885, ii. 296-7. ) In his 'History of England in a Series of Letters',
1764, ii. 241, Goldsmith says of this event:--'Perhaps the loss of such
a man was greater to the nation than the conquering of all Canada was
advantageous; but it is the misfortune of humanity, that we can never
know true greatness till the moment when we are going to lose it*. ' The
present stanzas were first published in 'The Busy Body' (No. vii) for
Tuesday, the 22nd October, 1759, a week after the news of Wolfe's death
had reached this country (Tuesday the 16th). According to Prior ('Life',
1837, i. 6), Goldsmith claimed to be related to Wolfe by the father's
side, the maiden name of the General's mother being Henrietta Goldsmith.
It may be noted that Benjamin West's popular rendering of Wolfe's death
(1771)--a rendering which Nelson never passed in a print shop without
being stopped by it--was said to be based upon the descriptions of an
eye-witness. It was engraved by Woollett and Ryland in 1776. A key to
the names of those appearing in the picture was published in the 'Army
and Navy Gazette' of January 20, 1893.
*[footnote] He repeats this sentiment, in different words, in the later
'History of England' of 1771, iv. 400.
AN ELEGY ON MRS. MARY BLAIZE.
The publication in February, 1751, of Gray's 'Elegy Wrote in a Country
Church Yard' had set a fashion in poetry which long continued.
Goldsmith, who considered that work 'a very fine poem, but overloaded
with epithet' ('Beauties of English Poesy', 1767, i. 53), and once
proposed to amend it 'by leaving out an idle word in every line' [! ]
(Cradock's 'Memoirs', 1826, i. 230), resented these endless imitations,
and his antipathy to them frequently reveals itself. Only a few months
before the appearance of Mrs. Blaize in 'The Bee' for October 27, 1759,
he had written in the 'Critical Review', vii. 263, when noticing
Langhorne's 'Death of Adonis', as follows:--'It is not thus that many of
our moderns have composed what they call elegies; they seem scarcely to
have known its real character. If an hero or a poet happens to die with
us, the whole band of elegiac poets raise the dismal chorus, adorn his
herse with all the paltry escutcheons of flattery, rise into bombast,
paint him at the head of his thundering legions, or reining Pegasus in
his most rapid career; they are sure to strew cypress enough upon the
bier, dress up all the muses in mourning, and look themselves every whit
as dismal and sorrowful as an undertaker's shop. ' He returned to the
subject in a 'Chinese Letter' of March 4, 1761, in the 'Public Ledger'
(afterwards Letter ciii of 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 162-5),
which contains the lines 'On the Death of the Right Honourable ***; and
again, in 'The Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, i. 174, 'a propos' of the
'Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog', he makes Dr. Primrose say, 'I have
wept so much at all sorts of elegies of late, that without an enlivening
glass I am sure this will overcome me. '
The model for 'An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize' is to be found in the old
French popular song of Monsieur de la Palisse or Palice, about fifty
verses of which are printed in Larousse's 'Grand Dictionnaire Universel
du XIXme Siecle', x. p. 179.
