Thanks to yr muse a foreign copper shines
Turn'd in to gold, and coin'd in sterling lines.
Turn'd in to gold, and coin'd in sterling lines.
Oliver Goldsmith
' It was first printed in
the 'Miscellaneous Works', 1801, ii. 25. In Prior's edition of
the 'Miscellaneous Works', 1837, iv. 41, it is said to have been
'written some years after the rest of the poem. '
l. 121. -----
"The blossom opening to the day, etc. " For this and the next
two stanzas the first version substitutes:--
Whene'er he spoke amidst the train,
How would my heart attend!
And till delighted even to pain,
How sigh for such a friend!
And when a little rest I sought
In Sleep's refreshing arms,
How have I mended what he taught,
And lent him fancied charms!
Yet still (and woe betide the hour! )
I spurn'd him from my side,
And still with ill-dissembled power
Repaid his love with pride.
l. 129. -----
"For still I tried each fickle art, etc. " Percy finds the
prototype of this in the following stanza of 'Gentle Herdsman':--
And grew soe coy and nice to please,
As women's lookes are often soe,
He might not kisse, nor hand forsoothe,
Unlesse I willed him soe to doe.
l. 133. -----
"Till quite dejected with my scorn, etc. " The first edition
reads this stanza and the first two lines of the next thus:--
Till quite dejected by my scorn,
He left me to deplore;
And sought a solitude forlorn,
And ne'er was heard of more.
Then since he perish'd by my fault,
This pilgrimage I pay, etc.
l. 135. -----
"And sought a solitude forlorn". Cf. 'Gentle Herdsman:--
He gott him to a secrett place,
And there he dyed without releeffe.
l. 141. -----
"And there forlorn, despairing, hid, etc. " The first edition
for this and the next two stanzas substitutes the following:--
And there in shelt'ring thickets hid,
I'll linger till I die;
'Twas thus for me my lover did,
And so for him will I.
'Thou shalt not thus,' the Hermit cried,
And clasp'd her to his breast;
The astonish'd fair one turned to chide, --
'Twas Edwin's self that prest.
For now no longer could he hide,
What first to hide he strove;
His looks resume their youthful pride,
And flush with honest love.
l. 143. -----
"'Twas so for me, etc. " Cf. 'Gentle Herdsman':--
Thus every day I fast and pray,
And ever will doe till I dye;
And gett me to some secret place,
For soe did hee, and soe will I.
l. 145. -----
"Forbid it, Heaven. " 'Vicar of Wakefield', first edition,
like the version of 1765, has 'Thou shalt not thus. '
l. 156. -----
"My life. " 'Vicar of Wakefield', first edition, has 'O thou. '
l. 157. -----
"No, never from this hour, etc. " The first edition reads:--
No, never, from this hour to part,
Our love shall still be new;
And the last sigh that rends thy heart,
Shall break thy Edwin's too.
The poem then concluded thus:--
Here amidst sylvan bowers we'll rove,
From lawn to woodland stray;
Blest as the songsters of the grove,
And innocent as they.
To all that want, and all that wail,
Our pity shall be given,
And when this life of love shall fail,
We'll love again in heaven.
These couplets, with certain alterations in the first and last
lines, are to be found in the version printed in 'Poems for
Young Ladies', 1767, p. 98.
AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG.
This poem was first published in 'The Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, i.
175-6, where it is sung by one of the little boys. In common with the
'Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize' (p. 47) it owes something of its origin to
Goldsmith's antipathy to fashionable elegiacs, something also to the
story of M. de la Palisse. As regards mad dogs, its author seems to have
been more reasonable than many of his contemporaries, since he
ridiculed, with much common sense, their exaggerated fears on this
subject ('v. Chinese Letter' in 'The Public Ledger' for August 29, 1760,
afterwards Letter lxvi of 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 15). But
it is ill jesting with hydrophobia. Like 'Madam Blaize', these verses
have been illustrated by Randolph Caldecott.
l. 5. -----
"In Islington there was a man". Goldsmith had lodgings at Mrs.
Elizabeth Fleming's in Islington (or 'Isling town' as the
earlier editions have it) in 1763-4; and the choice of the
locality may have been determined by this circumstance. But the
date of the composition of the poem is involved in the general
obscurity which hangs over the 'Vicar' in its unprinted state.
(See 'Introduction', pp. xviii-xix. )
l. 19. -----
"The dog, to gain some private ends". The first edition reads
'his private ends. '
l. 32. -----
"The dog it was that died". This catastrophe suggests the
couplet from the 'Greek Anthology',
ed. Jacobs, 1813-7, ii. 387:--
Kappadoken pot exidna kake daken alla kai aute
katthane, geusamene aimatos iobolou.
Goldsmith, however, probably went no farther back
than Voltaire on Freron:--
L'autre jour, au fond d'un vallon,
Un serpent mordit Jean Freron.
Devinez ce qu'il arriva?
Ce fut le serpent qui creva.
This again, according to M. Edouard Fournier ('L'Esprit des Autres',
sixth edition, 1881, p. 288), is simply the readjustment of an earlier
quatrain, based upon a Latin distich in the 'Epigrammatum delectus',
1659:--
Un gros serpent mordit Aurelle.
Que croyez-vous qu'il arriva?
Qu'Aurelle en mourut? -- Bagatelle!
Ce fut le serpent qui creva.
SONG
FROM 'THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. '
First published in 'The Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, ii. 78 (chap. v). It
is there sung by Olivia Primrose, after her return home with her father.
'Do, my pretty Olivia,' says Mrs. Primrose, let us have that little
melancholy air your pappa was so fond of, your sister Sophy has already
obliged us. Do child, it will please your old father. ' 'She complied in
a manner so exquisitely pathetic,' continues Dr. Primrose, 'as moved
me. ' The charm of the words, and the graceful way in which they are
introduced, seem to have blinded criticism to the impropriety, and even
inhumanity, of requiring poor Olivia to sing a song so completely
applicable to her own case. No source has been named for this piece; and
its perfect conformity with the text would appear to indicate that
Goldsmith was not indebted to any earlier writer for his idea.
His well-known obligations to French sources seem, however, to have
suggested that, if a French original could not be discovered for the
foregoing lyric, it might be desirable to invent one. A clever
paragraphist in the 'St. James's Gazette' for January 28th, 1889,
accordingly reproduced the following stanzas, which he alleged, were to
be found in the poems of Segur, 'printed in Paris in 1719':--
Lorsqu'une femme, apres trop de tendresse,
D'un homme sent la trahison,
Comment, pour cette si douce foiblesse
Peut-elle trouver une guerison?
Le seul remede qu'elle peut ressentir,
La seul revanche pour son tort,
Pour faire trop tard l'amant repentir,
Helas! trop tard -- est la mort.
As a correspondent was not slow to point out, Goldsmith, if a copyist,
at all events considerably improved his model (see in particular lines 7
and 8 of the French). On the 30th of the month the late Sir William
Fraser gave it as his opinion, that, until the volume of 1719 should be
produced, the 'very inferior verses quoted' must be classed with the
fabrications of 'Father Prout,' and he instanced that very version of
the 'Burial of Sir John Moore' ('Les Funerailles de Beaumanoir') which
has recently (August 1906) been going the round of the papers once
again. No Segur volume of 1719 was, of course, forthcoming.
Kenrick, as we have already seen, had in 1767 accused Goldsmith of
taking 'Edwin and Angelina' from Percy (p. 206). Thirty years later, the
charge of plagiarism was revived in a different way when 'Raimond and
Angeline', a French translation of the same poem, appeared, as
Goldsmith's original, in a collection of Essays called 'The Quiz', 1797.
It was eventually discovered to be a translation 'from' Goldsmith by a
French poet named Leonard, who had included it in a volume dated 1792,
entitled 'Lettres de deux Amans, Habitans de Lyon' (Prior's 'Life',
1837, ii. 89-94). It may be added that, according to the 'Biographie
Universelle', 1847, vol. 18 (Art. 'Goldsmith'), there were then no fewer
than at least three French imitations of 'The Hermit' besides Leonard's.
EPILOGUE TO 'THE GOOD NATUR'D MAN. '
Goldsmith's comedy of 'The Good Natur'd Man' was produced by Colman, at
Covent Garden, on Friday, January 29, 1768. The following note was
appended to the Epilogue when printed:-- 'The Author, in expectation of
an Epilogue from a friend at Oxford, deferred writing one himself till
the very last hour. What is here offered, owes all its success to the
graceful manner of the Actress who spoke it. ' It was spoken by Mrs.
Bulkley, the 'Miss Richland' of the piece. In its first form it is to be
found in 'The Public Advertiser' for February 3. Two days later the play
was published, with the version here followed.
l. 1. -----
"As puffing quacks". Goldsmith had devoted a Chinese
letter to this subject. See 'Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 10
(Letter lxv).
l. 17. -----
"No, no: I've other contests, etc. " This couplet is
not in the first version. The old building of the College of
Physicians was in Warwick Lane; and the reference is to the
long-pending dispute, occasionally enlivened by personal
collision, between the Fellows and Licentiates respecting the
exclusion of certain of the latter from Fellowships. On this
theme Bonnell Thornton, himself an M. B. like Goldsmith, wrote a
satiric additional canto to Garth's 'Dispensary', entitled 'The
Battle of the Wigs', long extracts from which are printed in
'The Gentleman's Magazine' for March, 1768, p. 132. The same
number also reviews 'The Siege of the Castle of Aesculapius, an
heroic Comedy, as it is acted in Warwick-Lane'. Goldsmith's
couplet is, however, best illustrated by the title of one of
Sayer's caricatures, 'The March of the Medical Militants to the
Siege of Warwick-Lane-Castle in the Year' 1767. The quarrel was
finally settled in favour of the college in June, 1771.
l. 19. -----
"Go, ask your manager". Colman, the manager of Covent
Garden, was not a prolific, although he was a happy writer of
prologues and epilogues.
l. 32. -----
The quotation is from 'King Lear', Act iii, Sc. 4.
l. 34. -----
In the first version the last line runs:--
And view with favour, the 'Good-natur'd Man. '
EPILOGUE TO 'THE SISTER. '
'The Sister', produced at Covent Garden February 18, 1769, was a comedy
by Mrs. Charlotte Lenox or Lennox, 'an ingenious lady,' says 'The
Gentleman's Magazine' for April in the same year, 'well known in the
literary world by her excellent writings, particularly the Female
Quixote, and Shakespeare illustrated. . . . The audience expressed their
disapprobation of it with so much clamour and appearance of prejudice,
that she would not suffer an attempt to exhibit it a second time (p.
199). ' According to the same authority it was based upon one of the
writer's own novels, 'Henrietta', published in 1758. Though tainted with
the prevailing sentimentalism, 'The Sister' is described by Forster as
'both amusing and interesting'; and it is probable that it was not
fairly treated when it was acted. Mrs. Lenox (1720-1804), daughter of
Colonel Ramsay, Lieut. -Governor of New York, was a favourite with the
literary magnates of her day. Johnson was half suspected of having
helped her in her book on Shakespeare; Richardson admitted her to his
readings at Parson's Green; Fielding, who knew her, calls her, in the
'Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon', 1755, p. 35 (first version), 'the
inimitable author of the Female Quixote'; and Goldsmith, though he had
no kindness for genteel comedy (see 'post', p. 228), wrote her this
lively epilogue, which was spoken by Mrs. Bulkley, who personated the
'Miss Autumn' of the piece. Mrs. Lenox died in extremely reduced
circumstances, and was buried by the Right Hon. George Ross, who had
befriended her later years. There are several references to her in
Boswell's 'Life of Johnson'. (See also Hawkins' 'Life', 2nd ed. 1787,
pp. 285-7. )
PROLOGUE TO 'ZOBEIDE. '
'Zobeide', a play by Joseph Cradock (1742-1826), of Gumley, in
Leicestershire, was produced by Colman at Covent Garden on Dec. 11,
1771. It was a translation from three acts of 'Les Scythes', an
unfinished tragedy by Voltaire. Goldsmith was applied to, through the
Yates's, for a prologue, and sent that here printed to the author of the
play with the following note:-- 'Mr. Goldsmith presents his best
respects to Mr. Cradock, has sent him the Prologue, such as it is. He
cannot take time to make it better. He begs he will give Mr. Yates the
proper instructions; and so, even so, commits him to fortune and the
publick. ' (Cradock's 'Memoirs', 1826, i. 224. ) Yates, to the acting of
whose wife in the character of the heroine the success of the piece,
which ran for thirteen nights, was mainly attributable, was to have
spoken the prologue, but it ultimately fell to Quick, later the 'Tony
Lumpkin' of 'She Stoops to Conquer', who delivered it in the character
of a sailor. Cradock seems subsequently to have sent a copy of 'Zobeide'
to Voltaire, who replied in English as follows:--
9e. 8bre. 1773. a ferney.
Sr.
Thanks to yr muse a foreign copper shines
Turn'd in to gold, and coin'd in sterling lines.
You have done to much honour to an old sick man of eighty.
I am with the most sincere esteem and gratitude
Sr.
Yr. obdt. Servt. Voltaire.
A Monsieur Monsieur J. Cradock.
The text of the prologue is here given as printed in Cradock's
'Memoirs', 1828, iii. 8-9. It is unnecessary to specify the variations
between this and the earlier issue of 1771.
l. 1. -----
"In these bold times, etc. " The reference is to Cook,
who, on June 12, 1771, had returned to England in the
'Endeavour', after three years' absence, having gone to Otaheite
to observe the transit of Venus (l. 4).
l. 5. -----
"Botanists". Mr. (afterward Sir Joseph) Banks and Dr.
Solander, of the British Museum, accompanied Cook.
l. 6. -----
"go simpling", i. e. gathering simples, or herbs. Cf.
'Merry Wives of Windsor', Act iii, Sc. 3:--
'-- These lisping hawthorn buds that. . .
smell like Bucklersbury in 'simple'-time. '
In the caricatures of the day Solander figured as 'The
'simpling' Macaroni. ' (See note, p. 247, l. 31. )
l. 11. -----
"With Scythian stores". The scene of the play was laid
in Scythia ('v. supra').
l. 28. -----
"to make palaver", to hold a parley, generally with the
intention of cajoling. Two of Goldsmith's notes to Garrick in
1773 are endorsed by the actor -- 'Goldsmith's parlaver. '
(Forster's 'Life', 1871, ii. 397. )
l. 32. -----
"mercenary". Cradock gave the profits of 'Zobeide' to
Mrs. Yates. 'I mentioned the disappointment it would be to you'
-- she says in a letter to him dated April 26, 1771 --' as you
had generously given the emoluments of the piece to me. '
('Memoirs', 1828, iv. 211. )
THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS.
Augusta, widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and mother of George the
Third, died at Carlton House, February 8, 1772. This piece was spoken
and sung in Mrs. Teresa Cornelys's Great Room in Soho Square, on the
Thursday following (the 20th), being sold at the door as a small quarto
pamphlet, printed by William Woodfall. The author's name was not given;
but it was prefaced by this 'advertisement,' etc. :--
'The following may more properly be termed a compilation than a poem.
It was prepared for the composer in little more than two days: and may
be considered therefore rather as an industrious effort of gratitude
than of genius. In justice to the composer it may likewise be right to
inform the public, that the music was adapted in a period of time
equally short.
SPEAKERS.
'Mr. Lee and Mrs. Bellamy'.
SINGERS.
'Mr. Champnes, Mr. Dine, and Miss Jameson; with twelve chorus singers.
The music prepared and adapted by Signor Vento. '
It is -- as Cunningham calls it -- a 'hurried and unworthy off-spring of
the muse of Goldsmith. '
(Part I).
l. 122 "-----
Celestial-like her bounty fell". The
Princess's benefactions are not exaggerated. 'She had paid off
the whole of her husband's debts, and she had given munificent
sums in charity. More than 10,000'l. ' a year were given away by
her in pensions to individuals whom she judged deserving, very
few of whom were aware, until her death, whence the bounty came.
The whole of her income she spent in England, and very little on
herself' ('Augusta: Princess of Wales', by W. H. Wilkins,
'Nineteenth Century', October, 1903, p. 675).
l. 132. -----
"There faith shall come". This, and the three lines
that follow, are borrowed from Collins's 'Ode written in the
beginning of the year' 1746.
(Part II).
l. 22 "-----
The towers of Kew". 'The embellishments of
Kew palace and gardens, under the direction of [Sir William]
Chambers, and others, was the favourite object of her [Royal
Highness's] widowhood' (Bolton Corney).
l. 77. -----
"Along the billow'd main". Cf. 'The Captivity', Act ii,
I. 18.
l. 83. -----
"Oswego's dreary shores". Cf. 'The Traveller', l. 411.
l. 91. -----
"And with the avenging fight". Varied from Collins's
'Ode on the Death of Colonel Charles Ross at Fontenoy'.
l. 177. -----
"Its earliest bloom". Cf. Collins's 'Dirge in Cymbeline'.
SONG
FROM 'SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER. '
This thoroughly characteristic song, for a parallel to which one must go
to Congreve, or to the 'Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen' of 'The
School for Scandal', has one grave defect, -- it is too good to have
been composed by Tony Lumpkin, who, despite his inability to read
anything but 'print-hand,' declares, in Act i. Sc. 2 of 'She Stoops to
Conquer', 1773, that he himself made it upon the ale-house ('The Three
Pigeons') in which he sings it, and where it is followed by the annexed
comments, directed by the author against the sentimentalists, who, in
'The Good Natur'd Man' of five years before, had insisted upon the
omission of the Bailiff scene:--
'OMNES.
Bravo, bravo!
'First' FELLOW.
The 'Squire has got spunk in him.
'Second' FELLOW.
I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never gives us nothing
that's 'low'. . .
'Fourth' FELLOW.
The genteel thing is the genteel thing at any time. If so be that a
gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.
'Third' FELLOW.
I like the maxum of it, Master Muggins. What, tho' I am obligated to
dance a bear, a man may be a gentleman for all that. May this be my
poison if my bear ever dances but to the very genteelest of tunes.
'Water parted'*, or the minuet in 'Ariadne'. '
[footnote] *i. e. Arne's 'Water Parted from the Sea', -- the song of
Arbaces in the opera of 'Artaxerxes, 1762. The minuet in 'Ariadne' was
by Handel. It came at the end of the overture, and is said to have been
the best thing in the opera.
l. 9. -----
"When Methodist preachers, etc. " Tony Lumpkin's
utterance accurately represents the view of this sect taken by
some of his contemporaries. While moderate and just spectators
of the Johnson type could recognize the sincerity of men, who,
like Wesley, travelled 'nine hundred miles in a month, and
preached twelve times a week' for no ostensibly adequate reward,
there were others who saw in Methodism, and especially in the
extravagancies of its camp followers, nothing but cant and
duplicity. It was this which prompted on the stage Foote's
'Minor' (1760) and Bickerstaffe's 'Hypocrite' (1768); in art the
'Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism' of Hogarth (1762); and
in literature the 'New Bath Guide' of Anstey (1766), the
'Spiritual Quixote' of Graves, 1772, and the sarcasms of Sterne,
Smollett and Walpole.
It is notable that the most generous contemporary portrait of
these much satirised sectaries came from one of the originals of
the 'Retaliation' gallery. Scott highly praises the character of
Ezekiel Daw in Cumberland's 'Henry', 1795, adding, in his large
impartial fashion, with reference to the general practice of
representing Methodists either as idiots or hypocrites, 'A very
different feeling is due to many, perhaps to most, of this
enthusiastic sect; nor is it rashly to be inferred, that he who
makes religion the general object of his life, is for that sole
reason to be held either a fool or an impostor. ' (Scott's
'Miscellaneous Prose Works', 1834, iii. 222. )
l. 23. -----
"But of all the birds in the air". Hypercriticism may
object that 'the hare' is not a bird. But exigence of rhyme has
to answer for many things. Some editors needlessly read 'the
'gay' birds' to lengthen the line. There is no sanction for this
in the earlier editions.
EPILOGUE TO 'SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER. '
This epilogue was spoken by Mrs. Bulkley in the character of
Miss Hardcastle. It is probably the epilogue described by
Goldsmith to Cradock, in the letter quoted at p. 246, as 'a very
mawkish thing,' a phrase not so incontestable as Bolton Corney's
remark that it is 'an obvious imitation of Shakespere. '
l. 6. -----
"That pretty Bar-maids have done execution". Cf. 'The
Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, i. 7:-- 'Sophia's features were not
so striking at first; but often did more certain execution. '
l. 16. -----
"coquets the guests". Johnson explains this word 'to
entertain with compliments and amorous tattle,' and quotes the
following illustration from Swift, 'You are 'coquetting' a maid
of honour, my lord looking on to see how the gamesters play, and
I railing at you both. '
l. 26. -----
"Nancy Dawson". Nancy Dawson was a famous 'toast' and
horn-pipe dancer, who died at Haverstock Hill, May 27, 1767, and
was buried behind the Foundling, in the burial-ground of St.
George the Martyr. She first appeared at Sadler's Wells, and
speedily passed to the stage of Covent Garden, where she danced
in the 'Beggar's Opera'. There is a portrait of her in the
Garrick Club, and there are several contemporary prints. She was
the heroine of a popular song, here referred to, beginning:--
Of all the girls in our town,
The black, the fair, the red, the brown,
Who dance and prance it up and down,
There's none like Nancy Dawson:
Her easy mien, her shape so neat,
She foots, she trips, she looks so sweet,
Her ev'ry motion is complete;
I die for Nancy Dawson.
Its tune -- says J. T. Smith ('Book for a Rainy Day', Whitten's
ed. , 1905, p. 10) was 'as lively as that of "Sir Roger de
Coverley. "'
"Che faro", i. e. 'Che faro senza Euridice', the lovely lament
from Gluck's 'Orfeo', 1764.
l. 28. -----
"the Heinel of Cheapside". The reference is to
Mademoiselle Anna-Frederica Heinel, 1752-1808, a beautiful
Prussian, subsequently the wife of Gaetano Apollino Balthazar
Vestris, called 'Vestris the First. ' After extraordinary success
as a 'danseuse' at Stuttgard and Paris, where Walpole saw her in
1771 (Letter to the Earl of Strafford 25th August), she had come
to London; and, at this date, was the darling of the Macaronies
(cf. the note on p. 247, l. 31), who, from their club, added a
'regallo' (present) of six hundred pounds to the salary allowed
her at the Haymarket. On April 1, 1773, Metastasio's 'Artaserse'
was performed for her benefit, when she was announced to dance a
minuet with Monsieur Fierville, and 'Tickets were to be hand, at
her house in Piccadilly, two doors from Air Street. '
l. 31. -----
"spadille", i. e. the ace of spades, the first trump in
the game of Ombre.
the 'Miscellaneous Works', 1801, ii. 25. In Prior's edition of
the 'Miscellaneous Works', 1837, iv. 41, it is said to have been
'written some years after the rest of the poem. '
l. 121. -----
"The blossom opening to the day, etc. " For this and the next
two stanzas the first version substitutes:--
Whene'er he spoke amidst the train,
How would my heart attend!
And till delighted even to pain,
How sigh for such a friend!
And when a little rest I sought
In Sleep's refreshing arms,
How have I mended what he taught,
And lent him fancied charms!
Yet still (and woe betide the hour! )
I spurn'd him from my side,
And still with ill-dissembled power
Repaid his love with pride.
l. 129. -----
"For still I tried each fickle art, etc. " Percy finds the
prototype of this in the following stanza of 'Gentle Herdsman':--
And grew soe coy and nice to please,
As women's lookes are often soe,
He might not kisse, nor hand forsoothe,
Unlesse I willed him soe to doe.
l. 133. -----
"Till quite dejected with my scorn, etc. " The first edition
reads this stanza and the first two lines of the next thus:--
Till quite dejected by my scorn,
He left me to deplore;
And sought a solitude forlorn,
And ne'er was heard of more.
Then since he perish'd by my fault,
This pilgrimage I pay, etc.
l. 135. -----
"And sought a solitude forlorn". Cf. 'Gentle Herdsman:--
He gott him to a secrett place,
And there he dyed without releeffe.
l. 141. -----
"And there forlorn, despairing, hid, etc. " The first edition
for this and the next two stanzas substitutes the following:--
And there in shelt'ring thickets hid,
I'll linger till I die;
'Twas thus for me my lover did,
And so for him will I.
'Thou shalt not thus,' the Hermit cried,
And clasp'd her to his breast;
The astonish'd fair one turned to chide, --
'Twas Edwin's self that prest.
For now no longer could he hide,
What first to hide he strove;
His looks resume their youthful pride,
And flush with honest love.
l. 143. -----
"'Twas so for me, etc. " Cf. 'Gentle Herdsman':--
Thus every day I fast and pray,
And ever will doe till I dye;
And gett me to some secret place,
For soe did hee, and soe will I.
l. 145. -----
"Forbid it, Heaven. " 'Vicar of Wakefield', first edition,
like the version of 1765, has 'Thou shalt not thus. '
l. 156. -----
"My life. " 'Vicar of Wakefield', first edition, has 'O thou. '
l. 157. -----
"No, never from this hour, etc. " The first edition reads:--
No, never, from this hour to part,
Our love shall still be new;
And the last sigh that rends thy heart,
Shall break thy Edwin's too.
The poem then concluded thus:--
Here amidst sylvan bowers we'll rove,
From lawn to woodland stray;
Blest as the songsters of the grove,
And innocent as they.
To all that want, and all that wail,
Our pity shall be given,
And when this life of love shall fail,
We'll love again in heaven.
These couplets, with certain alterations in the first and last
lines, are to be found in the version printed in 'Poems for
Young Ladies', 1767, p. 98.
AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG.
This poem was first published in 'The Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, i.
175-6, where it is sung by one of the little boys. In common with the
'Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize' (p. 47) it owes something of its origin to
Goldsmith's antipathy to fashionable elegiacs, something also to the
story of M. de la Palisse. As regards mad dogs, its author seems to have
been more reasonable than many of his contemporaries, since he
ridiculed, with much common sense, their exaggerated fears on this
subject ('v. Chinese Letter' in 'The Public Ledger' for August 29, 1760,
afterwards Letter lxvi of 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 15). But
it is ill jesting with hydrophobia. Like 'Madam Blaize', these verses
have been illustrated by Randolph Caldecott.
l. 5. -----
"In Islington there was a man". Goldsmith had lodgings at Mrs.
Elizabeth Fleming's in Islington (or 'Isling town' as the
earlier editions have it) in 1763-4; and the choice of the
locality may have been determined by this circumstance. But the
date of the composition of the poem is involved in the general
obscurity which hangs over the 'Vicar' in its unprinted state.
(See 'Introduction', pp. xviii-xix. )
l. 19. -----
"The dog, to gain some private ends". The first edition reads
'his private ends. '
l. 32. -----
"The dog it was that died". This catastrophe suggests the
couplet from the 'Greek Anthology',
ed. Jacobs, 1813-7, ii. 387:--
Kappadoken pot exidna kake daken alla kai aute
katthane, geusamene aimatos iobolou.
Goldsmith, however, probably went no farther back
than Voltaire on Freron:--
L'autre jour, au fond d'un vallon,
Un serpent mordit Jean Freron.
Devinez ce qu'il arriva?
Ce fut le serpent qui creva.
This again, according to M. Edouard Fournier ('L'Esprit des Autres',
sixth edition, 1881, p. 288), is simply the readjustment of an earlier
quatrain, based upon a Latin distich in the 'Epigrammatum delectus',
1659:--
Un gros serpent mordit Aurelle.
Que croyez-vous qu'il arriva?
Qu'Aurelle en mourut? -- Bagatelle!
Ce fut le serpent qui creva.
SONG
FROM 'THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. '
First published in 'The Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, ii. 78 (chap. v). It
is there sung by Olivia Primrose, after her return home with her father.
'Do, my pretty Olivia,' says Mrs. Primrose, let us have that little
melancholy air your pappa was so fond of, your sister Sophy has already
obliged us. Do child, it will please your old father. ' 'She complied in
a manner so exquisitely pathetic,' continues Dr. Primrose, 'as moved
me. ' The charm of the words, and the graceful way in which they are
introduced, seem to have blinded criticism to the impropriety, and even
inhumanity, of requiring poor Olivia to sing a song so completely
applicable to her own case. No source has been named for this piece; and
its perfect conformity with the text would appear to indicate that
Goldsmith was not indebted to any earlier writer for his idea.
His well-known obligations to French sources seem, however, to have
suggested that, if a French original could not be discovered for the
foregoing lyric, it might be desirable to invent one. A clever
paragraphist in the 'St. James's Gazette' for January 28th, 1889,
accordingly reproduced the following stanzas, which he alleged, were to
be found in the poems of Segur, 'printed in Paris in 1719':--
Lorsqu'une femme, apres trop de tendresse,
D'un homme sent la trahison,
Comment, pour cette si douce foiblesse
Peut-elle trouver une guerison?
Le seul remede qu'elle peut ressentir,
La seul revanche pour son tort,
Pour faire trop tard l'amant repentir,
Helas! trop tard -- est la mort.
As a correspondent was not slow to point out, Goldsmith, if a copyist,
at all events considerably improved his model (see in particular lines 7
and 8 of the French). On the 30th of the month the late Sir William
Fraser gave it as his opinion, that, until the volume of 1719 should be
produced, the 'very inferior verses quoted' must be classed with the
fabrications of 'Father Prout,' and he instanced that very version of
the 'Burial of Sir John Moore' ('Les Funerailles de Beaumanoir') which
has recently (August 1906) been going the round of the papers once
again. No Segur volume of 1719 was, of course, forthcoming.
Kenrick, as we have already seen, had in 1767 accused Goldsmith of
taking 'Edwin and Angelina' from Percy (p. 206). Thirty years later, the
charge of plagiarism was revived in a different way when 'Raimond and
Angeline', a French translation of the same poem, appeared, as
Goldsmith's original, in a collection of Essays called 'The Quiz', 1797.
It was eventually discovered to be a translation 'from' Goldsmith by a
French poet named Leonard, who had included it in a volume dated 1792,
entitled 'Lettres de deux Amans, Habitans de Lyon' (Prior's 'Life',
1837, ii. 89-94). It may be added that, according to the 'Biographie
Universelle', 1847, vol. 18 (Art. 'Goldsmith'), there were then no fewer
than at least three French imitations of 'The Hermit' besides Leonard's.
EPILOGUE TO 'THE GOOD NATUR'D MAN. '
Goldsmith's comedy of 'The Good Natur'd Man' was produced by Colman, at
Covent Garden, on Friday, January 29, 1768. The following note was
appended to the Epilogue when printed:-- 'The Author, in expectation of
an Epilogue from a friend at Oxford, deferred writing one himself till
the very last hour. What is here offered, owes all its success to the
graceful manner of the Actress who spoke it. ' It was spoken by Mrs.
Bulkley, the 'Miss Richland' of the piece. In its first form it is to be
found in 'The Public Advertiser' for February 3. Two days later the play
was published, with the version here followed.
l. 1. -----
"As puffing quacks". Goldsmith had devoted a Chinese
letter to this subject. See 'Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 10
(Letter lxv).
l. 17. -----
"No, no: I've other contests, etc. " This couplet is
not in the first version. The old building of the College of
Physicians was in Warwick Lane; and the reference is to the
long-pending dispute, occasionally enlivened by personal
collision, between the Fellows and Licentiates respecting the
exclusion of certain of the latter from Fellowships. On this
theme Bonnell Thornton, himself an M. B. like Goldsmith, wrote a
satiric additional canto to Garth's 'Dispensary', entitled 'The
Battle of the Wigs', long extracts from which are printed in
'The Gentleman's Magazine' for March, 1768, p. 132. The same
number also reviews 'The Siege of the Castle of Aesculapius, an
heroic Comedy, as it is acted in Warwick-Lane'. Goldsmith's
couplet is, however, best illustrated by the title of one of
Sayer's caricatures, 'The March of the Medical Militants to the
Siege of Warwick-Lane-Castle in the Year' 1767. The quarrel was
finally settled in favour of the college in June, 1771.
l. 19. -----
"Go, ask your manager". Colman, the manager of Covent
Garden, was not a prolific, although he was a happy writer of
prologues and epilogues.
l. 32. -----
The quotation is from 'King Lear', Act iii, Sc. 4.
l. 34. -----
In the first version the last line runs:--
And view with favour, the 'Good-natur'd Man. '
EPILOGUE TO 'THE SISTER. '
'The Sister', produced at Covent Garden February 18, 1769, was a comedy
by Mrs. Charlotte Lenox or Lennox, 'an ingenious lady,' says 'The
Gentleman's Magazine' for April in the same year, 'well known in the
literary world by her excellent writings, particularly the Female
Quixote, and Shakespeare illustrated. . . . The audience expressed their
disapprobation of it with so much clamour and appearance of prejudice,
that she would not suffer an attempt to exhibit it a second time (p.
199). ' According to the same authority it was based upon one of the
writer's own novels, 'Henrietta', published in 1758. Though tainted with
the prevailing sentimentalism, 'The Sister' is described by Forster as
'both amusing and interesting'; and it is probable that it was not
fairly treated when it was acted. Mrs. Lenox (1720-1804), daughter of
Colonel Ramsay, Lieut. -Governor of New York, was a favourite with the
literary magnates of her day. Johnson was half suspected of having
helped her in her book on Shakespeare; Richardson admitted her to his
readings at Parson's Green; Fielding, who knew her, calls her, in the
'Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon', 1755, p. 35 (first version), 'the
inimitable author of the Female Quixote'; and Goldsmith, though he had
no kindness for genteel comedy (see 'post', p. 228), wrote her this
lively epilogue, which was spoken by Mrs. Bulkley, who personated the
'Miss Autumn' of the piece. Mrs. Lenox died in extremely reduced
circumstances, and was buried by the Right Hon. George Ross, who had
befriended her later years. There are several references to her in
Boswell's 'Life of Johnson'. (See also Hawkins' 'Life', 2nd ed. 1787,
pp. 285-7. )
PROLOGUE TO 'ZOBEIDE. '
'Zobeide', a play by Joseph Cradock (1742-1826), of Gumley, in
Leicestershire, was produced by Colman at Covent Garden on Dec. 11,
1771. It was a translation from three acts of 'Les Scythes', an
unfinished tragedy by Voltaire. Goldsmith was applied to, through the
Yates's, for a prologue, and sent that here printed to the author of the
play with the following note:-- 'Mr. Goldsmith presents his best
respects to Mr. Cradock, has sent him the Prologue, such as it is. He
cannot take time to make it better. He begs he will give Mr. Yates the
proper instructions; and so, even so, commits him to fortune and the
publick. ' (Cradock's 'Memoirs', 1826, i. 224. ) Yates, to the acting of
whose wife in the character of the heroine the success of the piece,
which ran for thirteen nights, was mainly attributable, was to have
spoken the prologue, but it ultimately fell to Quick, later the 'Tony
Lumpkin' of 'She Stoops to Conquer', who delivered it in the character
of a sailor. Cradock seems subsequently to have sent a copy of 'Zobeide'
to Voltaire, who replied in English as follows:--
9e. 8bre. 1773. a ferney.
Sr.
Thanks to yr muse a foreign copper shines
Turn'd in to gold, and coin'd in sterling lines.
You have done to much honour to an old sick man of eighty.
I am with the most sincere esteem and gratitude
Sr.
Yr. obdt. Servt. Voltaire.
A Monsieur Monsieur J. Cradock.
The text of the prologue is here given as printed in Cradock's
'Memoirs', 1828, iii. 8-9. It is unnecessary to specify the variations
between this and the earlier issue of 1771.
l. 1. -----
"In these bold times, etc. " The reference is to Cook,
who, on June 12, 1771, had returned to England in the
'Endeavour', after three years' absence, having gone to Otaheite
to observe the transit of Venus (l. 4).
l. 5. -----
"Botanists". Mr. (afterward Sir Joseph) Banks and Dr.
Solander, of the British Museum, accompanied Cook.
l. 6. -----
"go simpling", i. e. gathering simples, or herbs. Cf.
'Merry Wives of Windsor', Act iii, Sc. 3:--
'-- These lisping hawthorn buds that. . .
smell like Bucklersbury in 'simple'-time. '
In the caricatures of the day Solander figured as 'The
'simpling' Macaroni. ' (See note, p. 247, l. 31. )
l. 11. -----
"With Scythian stores". The scene of the play was laid
in Scythia ('v. supra').
l. 28. -----
"to make palaver", to hold a parley, generally with the
intention of cajoling. Two of Goldsmith's notes to Garrick in
1773 are endorsed by the actor -- 'Goldsmith's parlaver. '
(Forster's 'Life', 1871, ii. 397. )
l. 32. -----
"mercenary". Cradock gave the profits of 'Zobeide' to
Mrs. Yates. 'I mentioned the disappointment it would be to you'
-- she says in a letter to him dated April 26, 1771 --' as you
had generously given the emoluments of the piece to me. '
('Memoirs', 1828, iv. 211. )
THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS.
Augusta, widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and mother of George the
Third, died at Carlton House, February 8, 1772. This piece was spoken
and sung in Mrs. Teresa Cornelys's Great Room in Soho Square, on the
Thursday following (the 20th), being sold at the door as a small quarto
pamphlet, printed by William Woodfall. The author's name was not given;
but it was prefaced by this 'advertisement,' etc. :--
'The following may more properly be termed a compilation than a poem.
It was prepared for the composer in little more than two days: and may
be considered therefore rather as an industrious effort of gratitude
than of genius. In justice to the composer it may likewise be right to
inform the public, that the music was adapted in a period of time
equally short.
SPEAKERS.
'Mr. Lee and Mrs. Bellamy'.
SINGERS.
'Mr. Champnes, Mr. Dine, and Miss Jameson; with twelve chorus singers.
The music prepared and adapted by Signor Vento. '
It is -- as Cunningham calls it -- a 'hurried and unworthy off-spring of
the muse of Goldsmith. '
(Part I).
l. 122 "-----
Celestial-like her bounty fell". The
Princess's benefactions are not exaggerated. 'She had paid off
the whole of her husband's debts, and she had given munificent
sums in charity. More than 10,000'l. ' a year were given away by
her in pensions to individuals whom she judged deserving, very
few of whom were aware, until her death, whence the bounty came.
The whole of her income she spent in England, and very little on
herself' ('Augusta: Princess of Wales', by W. H. Wilkins,
'Nineteenth Century', October, 1903, p. 675).
l. 132. -----
"There faith shall come". This, and the three lines
that follow, are borrowed from Collins's 'Ode written in the
beginning of the year' 1746.
(Part II).
l. 22 "-----
The towers of Kew". 'The embellishments of
Kew palace and gardens, under the direction of [Sir William]
Chambers, and others, was the favourite object of her [Royal
Highness's] widowhood' (Bolton Corney).
l. 77. -----
"Along the billow'd main". Cf. 'The Captivity', Act ii,
I. 18.
l. 83. -----
"Oswego's dreary shores". Cf. 'The Traveller', l. 411.
l. 91. -----
"And with the avenging fight". Varied from Collins's
'Ode on the Death of Colonel Charles Ross at Fontenoy'.
l. 177. -----
"Its earliest bloom". Cf. Collins's 'Dirge in Cymbeline'.
SONG
FROM 'SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER. '
This thoroughly characteristic song, for a parallel to which one must go
to Congreve, or to the 'Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen' of 'The
School for Scandal', has one grave defect, -- it is too good to have
been composed by Tony Lumpkin, who, despite his inability to read
anything but 'print-hand,' declares, in Act i. Sc. 2 of 'She Stoops to
Conquer', 1773, that he himself made it upon the ale-house ('The Three
Pigeons') in which he sings it, and where it is followed by the annexed
comments, directed by the author against the sentimentalists, who, in
'The Good Natur'd Man' of five years before, had insisted upon the
omission of the Bailiff scene:--
'OMNES.
Bravo, bravo!
'First' FELLOW.
The 'Squire has got spunk in him.
'Second' FELLOW.
I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never gives us nothing
that's 'low'. . .
'Fourth' FELLOW.
The genteel thing is the genteel thing at any time. If so be that a
gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.
'Third' FELLOW.
I like the maxum of it, Master Muggins. What, tho' I am obligated to
dance a bear, a man may be a gentleman for all that. May this be my
poison if my bear ever dances but to the very genteelest of tunes.
'Water parted'*, or the minuet in 'Ariadne'. '
[footnote] *i. e. Arne's 'Water Parted from the Sea', -- the song of
Arbaces in the opera of 'Artaxerxes, 1762. The minuet in 'Ariadne' was
by Handel. It came at the end of the overture, and is said to have been
the best thing in the opera.
l. 9. -----
"When Methodist preachers, etc. " Tony Lumpkin's
utterance accurately represents the view of this sect taken by
some of his contemporaries. While moderate and just spectators
of the Johnson type could recognize the sincerity of men, who,
like Wesley, travelled 'nine hundred miles in a month, and
preached twelve times a week' for no ostensibly adequate reward,
there were others who saw in Methodism, and especially in the
extravagancies of its camp followers, nothing but cant and
duplicity. It was this which prompted on the stage Foote's
'Minor' (1760) and Bickerstaffe's 'Hypocrite' (1768); in art the
'Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism' of Hogarth (1762); and
in literature the 'New Bath Guide' of Anstey (1766), the
'Spiritual Quixote' of Graves, 1772, and the sarcasms of Sterne,
Smollett and Walpole.
It is notable that the most generous contemporary portrait of
these much satirised sectaries came from one of the originals of
the 'Retaliation' gallery. Scott highly praises the character of
Ezekiel Daw in Cumberland's 'Henry', 1795, adding, in his large
impartial fashion, with reference to the general practice of
representing Methodists either as idiots or hypocrites, 'A very
different feeling is due to many, perhaps to most, of this
enthusiastic sect; nor is it rashly to be inferred, that he who
makes religion the general object of his life, is for that sole
reason to be held either a fool or an impostor. ' (Scott's
'Miscellaneous Prose Works', 1834, iii. 222. )
l. 23. -----
"But of all the birds in the air". Hypercriticism may
object that 'the hare' is not a bird. But exigence of rhyme has
to answer for many things. Some editors needlessly read 'the
'gay' birds' to lengthen the line. There is no sanction for this
in the earlier editions.
EPILOGUE TO 'SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER. '
This epilogue was spoken by Mrs. Bulkley in the character of
Miss Hardcastle. It is probably the epilogue described by
Goldsmith to Cradock, in the letter quoted at p. 246, as 'a very
mawkish thing,' a phrase not so incontestable as Bolton Corney's
remark that it is 'an obvious imitation of Shakespere. '
l. 6. -----
"That pretty Bar-maids have done execution". Cf. 'The
Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, i. 7:-- 'Sophia's features were not
so striking at first; but often did more certain execution. '
l. 16. -----
"coquets the guests". Johnson explains this word 'to
entertain with compliments and amorous tattle,' and quotes the
following illustration from Swift, 'You are 'coquetting' a maid
of honour, my lord looking on to see how the gamesters play, and
I railing at you both. '
l. 26. -----
"Nancy Dawson". Nancy Dawson was a famous 'toast' and
horn-pipe dancer, who died at Haverstock Hill, May 27, 1767, and
was buried behind the Foundling, in the burial-ground of St.
George the Martyr. She first appeared at Sadler's Wells, and
speedily passed to the stage of Covent Garden, where she danced
in the 'Beggar's Opera'. There is a portrait of her in the
Garrick Club, and there are several contemporary prints. She was
the heroine of a popular song, here referred to, beginning:--
Of all the girls in our town,
The black, the fair, the red, the brown,
Who dance and prance it up and down,
There's none like Nancy Dawson:
Her easy mien, her shape so neat,
She foots, she trips, she looks so sweet,
Her ev'ry motion is complete;
I die for Nancy Dawson.
Its tune -- says J. T. Smith ('Book for a Rainy Day', Whitten's
ed. , 1905, p. 10) was 'as lively as that of "Sir Roger de
Coverley. "'
"Che faro", i. e. 'Che faro senza Euridice', the lovely lament
from Gluck's 'Orfeo', 1764.
l. 28. -----
"the Heinel of Cheapside". The reference is to
Mademoiselle Anna-Frederica Heinel, 1752-1808, a beautiful
Prussian, subsequently the wife of Gaetano Apollino Balthazar
Vestris, called 'Vestris the First. ' After extraordinary success
as a 'danseuse' at Stuttgard and Paris, where Walpole saw her in
1771 (Letter to the Earl of Strafford 25th August), she had come
to London; and, at this date, was the darling of the Macaronies
(cf. the note on p. 247, l. 31), who, from their club, added a
'regallo' (present) of six hundred pounds to the salary allowed
her at the Haymarket. On April 1, 1773, Metastasio's 'Artaserse'
was performed for her benefit, when she was announced to dance a
minuet with Monsieur Fierville, and 'Tickets were to be hand, at
her house in Piccadilly, two doors from Air Street. '
l. 31. -----
"spadille", i. e. the ace of spades, the first trump in
the game of Ombre.
