User: Can you write me a poem about aesop?
Assistant: Sure, here's a poem about aesop:
  Chronology of Goldsmith's Life and Poems
On a Beautiful Youth struck Blind with Lightning
Description of an Author's Bedchamber
On seeing Mrs. *** perform in the Character of ****
An Epigram.  Addressed to the Gentlemen reflected on
To G. C. and R. L
Song ('When Lovely Woman,' &c.)
Epilogue to 'The Good Natur'd Man'
Song ('Ah, me!  when shall I marry me?')
Translation ('Chaste are their instincts')
The Clown's Reply
Epilogue written for 'She Stoops to Conquer' (1)
Epilogue written for 'She Stoops to Conquer' (2)
Vida's Game of Chess
On a Beautiful Youth struck Blind with Lightning
Description of an Author's Bedchamber
On seeing Mrs. *** perform in the Character of ****
To G. C. and R. L.
Song (from 'The Vicar of Wakefield')
Epilogue ('The Good Natur'd Man')
Song (from 'She Stoops to Conquer')
Song intended for 'She Stoops to Conquer'
The Clown's Reply
Epilogue for Lee Lewes's Benefit
Vida's Game of Chess
Descriptions of Newell's Views of Lissoy, &c
Fragments of Translations, &c., by Goldsmith
Goldsmith on Poetry under Anne and George the First
Criticisms from Goldsmith's
Nesbit for Bulmer's 'Poems of Goldsmith and
engraved on wood by Thomas Bewick for Bulmer's
by Charlton Nesbit for Bulmer's 'Poems of
by John Bewick for Bulmer's 'Poems of Goldsmith and
on wood by Thomas Bewick for Bulmer's 'Poems of
made by Thomas Stothard, R.A., for Aikin's
an etching by James Basire on the title-page
writing and signature, from Prior's 'Life of
a sketch by R. H. Newell ('Goldsmith's Poetical
and etched by James Bretherton.  From the
of a sketch by R. H. Newell ('Goldsmith's
assisting the rector of the neighbouring parish of Kilkenny West,
Heralds! proclaim aloud! all saying,
See 'Aesop' dancing, and his 'monkey' playing,--
afterwards steal out in the twilight to hear them sung to the
indiscriminate but applauding audience of the Dublin streets.
long-suffering uncle, he started for, and succeeded in reaching,
deliberately to make the tour of Europe on foot. 'Haud inexpertus
Goldsmith's name, but that of James Willington, one of his old
The publication of Marteilhe's 'Memoirs' had no influence upon
By this time Goldsmith had moved into those historic but now
understood him best.
landlady--has not yet been satisfactorily suggested. Possibly the
About Christmas in the same year Goldsmith moved into lodgings at
feelings. Upon his return he had to fall again to the old
Family remove to Lissoy, in the county of Westmeath.
Under Mr. Thomas Byrne of the village school.
At school at Elphin (Mr. Griffin's),
Athlone (Mr. Campbell's),
Edgeworthstown (Mr. Hughes's).
June 11.          Admitted a sizar of Trinity College, Dublin,
Death of his father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith.
May.              Takes part in a college riot.
June 15.          Obtains a Smythe exhibition.
Runs away from college.
February 27.      Takes his degree as Bachelor of Arts.
Rejected for orders by the Bishop of Elphin.
Sets out for America (via Cork), but returns.
Letter to Mrs. Goldsmith(his mother).
Starts as a law student, but loses his all at play.
Goes to Edinburgh to become a medical student.
Takes degree of Bachelor of Medicine at Louvain (?).
Travels on foot in France, Germany,
Low comedian; usher (?); apothecary's journeyman;
poor physician in Bankside, Southwark.
Press corrector to Samuel Richardson, printer and
novelist; assistant at Peckham Academy (Dr. Milner's).
April.            Bound over to Griffiths the bookseller.
Quarrels with Griffiths.
December 27.      Letter to his brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson.
condemned to the Galleys of France for his Religion'.
Gives up literature and returns to Peckham.
Appointed surgeon and physician to a factory
Moves into 12 Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey.
Coromandel appointment comes to nothing.
December 21.      Rejected at Surgeons' Hall as 'not qualified'
for a hospital mate.
November 24.     'The Bee' closed.
January  1.      'The British Magazine' commenced.
"   12.      'The Public Ledger' commenced.
Editing 'Lady's Magazine'.  Compiling Prefaces.
Moves into 6 Wine Office Court, Fleet Street.
'Lady's Magazine'.
February 23.      Pamphlet on Cock Lane Ghost published.
"    26.     'History of Mecklenburgh' published.
May 1.           'Citizen of the World' published.
May 1 to Nov. 1. 'Plutarch's Lives', vol. i to vii, published.
October 14.      'Life of Richard Nash' published.
"   28.       Sells third share of 'Vicar of Wakefield'
to B. Collins, printer, Salisbury.
At Mrs. Fleming's at Islington.
March 31.         Agrees with James Dodsley to write a
Persons of Great Britain and Ireland'. (Never done.)
'The Club,' afterwards the Literary Club, founded.
Moves into lodgings on the
library staircase of the Temple.
June 26.          'History of England, in a series of Letters
from a Nobleman to his Son' published.
June 4.          'Essays by Mr. Goldsmith' published.
printed privately for the amusement
Resumes practice as a physician.
March 27.        'Vicar of Wakefield' published.
'Olivia's Song' ('Vicar of Wakefield').
May 31.          'Vicar of Wakefield', 2nd edition.
June.             Translation of Formey's 'Concise History of
Philosophy and Philosophers' published.
August 29.       'Vicar of Wakefield', 3rd edition.
December 15.     'Poems for Young Ladies' published.
December 28.     'English Grammar' written.
April.           'Beauties of English Poesy' published.
"   25.          Letter to the 'St. James's Chronicle'.
February 5.       Publishes 'The Good Natur'd Man', a Comedy,
produced at Covent Garden, January 29.
'Epilogue to 'The Good Natur'd Man'.'
February 18.     'Epilogue to Mrs. Lenox's 'Sister'.'
May 18.          'Roman History' published
April 24-May 26.   Portrait by Reynolds exhibited.
May 26.           'The Deserted Village' published.
July 13.          'Life of Thomas Parnell' published.
July.              On the Continent with the Hornecks.
September 15.      Agreement for abridgement of 'Roman History'.
'Vicar of Wakefield', 4th edition.
'Haunch of Venison' written. (?)
August 6.         'History of England' published.
December 11.      'Prologue to Cradock's 'Zobeide'.'
February 20.      'Threnodia Augustalis' published.
Watson's Engraving of 'Resignation' published.
December.          Abridgement of 'Roman History' published.
produced at Covent Garden, March 15.
March 24.         Kenrick's libel in the 'London Packet'.
May 8.            'The Grumbler' produced.
late of Brick-court, Middle Temple'
April 19.        'Retaliation' published.
April.           'Vicar of Wakefield', 5th edition (dated 1773).
published.
'The Haunch of Venison' published.
'Two Songs from 'The Captivity' ('Haunch of Venison').
Monument with medallion by Nollekens erected in the
south transept of Westminster Abbey.
'Poems and Plays' published.
'The Clown's Reply,'
'Vicar of Wakefield', 6th edition.
Evans's edition, published.
'Miscellaneous Works', Percy's edition, published.
'Epilogues (unspoken) to 'She Stoops to Conquer''
'Miscellaneous Works', 'trade' edition, published.
'Miscellaneous Works', Prior's edition, published.
Tablet erected in the Temple Church.
'Goldsmith's Works', Cunningham's edition, published.
'Translation of Vida's 'Game of Chess''
January 5.        J. H. Foley's statue placed in front of
I am, dear Sir,
Your most affectionate Brother,
REMOTE, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
Or by the lazy Scheldt, or wandering Po;
Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door;
Or where Campania's plain forsaken lies,
A weary waste expanding to the skies:
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.
Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend:
Bless'd be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their ev'ning fire;
Bless'd that abode, where want and pain repair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair;
Bless'd be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,
Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good.
But me, not destin'd such delights to share,
My prime of life in wand'ring spent and care,
Impell'd, with steps unceasing, to pursue
Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view;
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies;
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone,
And find no spot of all the world my own.
E'en now, where Alpine solitudes ascend,
I sit me down a pensive hour to spend;
And, plac'd on high above the storm's career,
Look downward where a hundred realms appear;
Lakes, forests, cities, plains, extending wide,
The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride.
When thus Creation's charms around combine,
Amidst the store, should thankless pride repine?
Say, should the philosophic mind disdain
That good, which makes each humbler bosom vain?
Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can,
These little things are great to little man;
And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind
Exults in all the good of all mankind.
Ye glitt'ring towns, with wealth and splendour crown'd,
Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round,
Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale,
Ye bending swains, that dress the flow'ry vale,
For me your tributary stores combine;
Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine!
As some lone miser visiting his store,
Bends at his treasure, counts, re-counts it o'er;
Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill,
Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still:
Thus to my breast alternate passions rise,
Pleas'd with each good that heaven to man supplies:
Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall,
To see the hoard of human bliss so small;
And oft I wish, amidst the scene, to find
Some spot to real happiness consign'd,
Where my worn soul, each wand'ring hope at rest,
May gather bliss to see my fellows bless'd.
But where to find that happiest spot below,
Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
The shudd'ring tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own,
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease;
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country ever is, at home.
And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,
And estimate the blessings which they share,
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
An equal portion dealt to all mankind,
As different good, by Art or Nature given,
To different nations makes their blessings even.
Nature, a mother kind alike to all,
Still grants her bliss at Labour's earnest call;
With food as well the peasant is supplied
On Idra's cliffs as Arno's shelvy side;
And though the rocky-crested summits frown,
These rocks, by custom, turn to beds of down.
From Art more various are the blessings sent;
Wealth commerce, honour, liberty, content.
Yet these each other's power so strong contest,
That either seems destructive of the rest.
Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails,
And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
Hence every state to one lov'd blessing prone,
Conforms and models life to that alone.
Each to the favourite happiness attends,
And spurns the plan that aims at other ends;
Till, carried to excess in each domain,
This favourite good begets peculiar pain.
But let us try these truths with closer eyes,
And trace them through the prospect as it lies:
Here for a while my proper cares resign'd,
Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind,
Like yon neglected shrub at random cast,
That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast.
Far to the right where Apennine ascends,
Bright as the summer, Italy extends;
Its uplands sloping deck the mountain's side,
Woods over woods in gay theatric pride;
While oft some temple's mould'ring tops between
With venerable grandeur mark the scene
Could Nature's bounty satisfy the breast,
The sons of Italy were surely blest.
Whatever fruits in different climes were found,
That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground;
Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear,
Whose bright succession decks the varied year;
Whatever sweets salute the northern sky
With vernal lives that blossom but to die;
These here disporting own the kindred soil,
Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil;
While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land.
But small the bliss that sense alone bestows,
And sensual bliss is all the nation knows.
In florid beauty groves and fields appear,
Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.
Contrasted faults through all his manner reign;
Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain;
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue;
And e'en in penance planning sins anew.
All evils here contaminate the mind,
That opulence departed leaves behind;
For wealth was theirs, not far remov'd the date,
When commerce proudly flourish'd through the state;
At her command the palace learn'd to rise,
Again the long-fall'n column sought the skies;
The canvas glow'd beyond e'en Nature warm,
The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form;
Till, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Commerce on other shores display'd her sail;
While nought remain'd of all that riches gave,
But towns unmann'd, and lords without a slave;
And late the nation found, with fruitless skill,
Its former strength was but plethoric ill.
Yet still the loss of wealth is here supplied
By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride;
From these the feeble heart and long-fall'n mind
An easy compensation seem to find.
Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array'd,
The paste-board triumph and the cavalcade;
Processions form'd for piety and love,
A mistress or a saint in every grove.
By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd,
The sports of children satisfy the child;
Each nobler aim, repress'd by long control,
Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul;
While low delights, succeeding fast behind,
In happier meanness occupy the mind:
As in those domes, where Caesars once bore sway,
Defac'd by time and tottering in decay,
There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed,
And, wond'ring man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.
My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey
Where rougher climes a nobler race display,
Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread;
No product here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword;
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter ling'ring chills the lap of May;
No Zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.
Yet still, e'en here, content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.
Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though small,
He sees his little lot the lot of all;
Sees no contiguous palace rear its head
To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal
To make him loathe his vegetable meal;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.
Cheerful at morn he wakes from short repose,
Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls the finny deep,
Or drives his vent'rous plough-share to the steep;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
And drags the struggling savage into day.
At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze;
While his lov'd partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board:
And haply too some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.
Thus every good his native wilds impart,
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart,
And e'en those ills, that round his mansion rise,
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,
Clings close and closer to the mother's breast,
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more.
Such are the charms to barren states assign'd;
Their wants but few, their wishes all confin'd.
Yet let them only share the praises due,
If few their wants, their pleasures are but few;
For every want that stimulates the breast,
Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest.
Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies,
That first excites desire, and then supplies;
Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy,
To fill the languid pause with finer joy;
Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame,
Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame.
Their level life is but a smould'ring fire,
Unquench'd by want, unfann'd by strong desire;
Unfit for raptures, or, if raptures cheer
On some high festival of once a year,
In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire,
Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.
But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow:
Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low;
For, as refinement stops, from sire to son
Unalter'd, unimprov'd the manners run;
And love's and friendship's finely pointed dart
Fall blunted from each indurated heart.
Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast
May sit, like falcons cow'ring on the nest;
But all the gentler morals, such as play
Through life's more cultur'd walks, and charm the way,
These far dispers'd, on timorous pinions fly,
To sport and flutter in a kinder sky.
To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
I turn; and France displays her bright domain.
Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleas'd with thyself, whom all the world can please,
How often have I led thy sportive choir,
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire!
Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And freshen'd from the wave the Zephyr flew;
And haply, though my harsh touch falt'ring still,
But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill;
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide hour.
Alike all ages.  Dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore,
Has frisk'd beneath the burthen of threescore.
So bless'd a life these thoughtless realms display,
Thus idly busy rolls their world away:
Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
For honour forms the social temper here:
Honour, that praise which real merit gains,
Or e'en imaginary worth obtains,
Here passes current; paid from hand to hand,
It shifts in splendid traffic round the land:
From courts, to camps, to cottages it strays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise;
They please, are pleas'd, they give to get esteem,
Till, seeming bless'd, they grow to what they seem.
But while this softer art their bliss supplies,
It gives their follies also room to rise;
For praise too dearly lov'd, or warmly sought,
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought;
And the weak soul, within itself unblest,
Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.
Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art,
Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
Here vanity assumes her pert grimace,
And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace;
Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer,
To boast one splendid banquet once a year;
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,
Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.
To men of other minds my fancy flies,
Embosom'd in the deep where Holland lies.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
Where the broad ocean leans against the land,
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride.
Onward, methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm-connected bulwark seems to grow;
Spreads its long arms amidst the wat'ry roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore;
While the pent ocean rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;
The slow canal, the yellow-blossom'd vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescu'd from his reign.
Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil
Impels the native to repeated toil,
Industrious habits in each bosom reign,
And industry begets a love of gain.
Hence all the good from opulence that springs,
With all those ills superfluous treasure brings,
Are here displayed.  Their much-lov'd wealth imparts
Convenience, plenty, elegance, and arts;
But view them closer, craft and fraud appear,
E'en liberty itself is barter'd here.
At gold's superior charms all freedom flies,
The needy sell it, and the rich man buys;
A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves,
Here wretches seek dishonourable graves,
And calmly bent, to servitude conform,
Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.
Heavens!  how unlike their Belgic sires of old!
Rough, poor, content, ungovernably bold;
War in each breast, and freedom on each brow;
How much unlike the sons of Britain now!
Fir'd at the sound, my genius spreads her wing,
And flies where Britain courts the western spring;
Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,
And brighter streams than fam'd Hydaspes glide.
There all around the gentlest breezes stray,
There gentle music melts on ev'ry spray;
Creation's mildest charms are there combin'd,
Extremes are only in the master's mind!
Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great;
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by,
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,
By forms unfashion'd, fresh from Nature's hand;
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imagin'd right, above control,
While e'en the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man.
Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictur'd here,
Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear;
Too bless'd, indeed, were such without alloy,
But foster'd e'en by Freedom, ills annoy:
That independence Britons prize too high,
Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie;
The self-dependent lordlings stand alone,
All claims that bind and sweeten life unknown;
Here by the bonds of nature feebly held,
Minds combat minds, repelling and repell'd.
Ferments arise, imprison'd factions roar,
Repress'd ambition struggles round her shore,
Till over-wrought, the general system feels
Its motions stop, or frenzy fire the wheels.
Nor this the worst.  As nature's ties decay,
As duty, love, and honour fail to sway,
Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law,
Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe.
Hence all obedience bows to these alone,
And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown;
Time may come, when stripp'd of all her charms,
The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms,
Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame,
Where kings have toil'd, and poets wrote for fame,
One sink of level avarice shall lie,
And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonour'd die.
Yet think not, thus when Freedom's ills I state,
I mean to flatter kings, or court the great;
Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire,
Far from my bosom drive the low desire;
And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel
The rabble's rage, and tyrant's angry steel;
Thou transitory flower, alike undone
By proud contempt, or favour's fostering sun,
Still may thy blooms the changeful clime endure,
I only would repress them to secure:
For just experience tells, in every soil,
That those who think must govern those that toil;
And all that freedom's highest aims can reach,
Is but to lay proportion'd loads on each.
Hence, should one order disproportion'd grow,
Its double weight must ruin all below.
O then how blind to all that truth requires,
Who think it freedom when a part aspires!
Calm is my soul, nor apt to rise in arms,
Except when fast-approaching danger warms:
But when contending chiefs blockade the throne,
Contracting regal power to stretch their own;
When I behold a factious band agree
To call it freedom when themselves are free;
Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw,
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law;
The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam,
Pillag'd from slaves to purchase slaves at home;
Fear, pity, justice, indignation start,
Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart;
Till half a patriot, half a coward grown,
I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.
Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour,
When first ambition struck at regal power;
And thus polluting honour in its source,
Gave wealth to sway the mind with double force.
Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore,
Her useful sons exchang'd for useless ore?
Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,
Like flaring tapers bright'ning as they waste;
Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
Lead stern depopulation in her train,
And over fields where scatter'd hamlets rose,
In barren solitary pomp repose?
Have we not seen, at pleasure's lordly call,
The smiling long-frequented village fall?
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay'd,
The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main;
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thund'ring sound?
E'en now, perhaps as there some pilgrim strays
Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways;
Where beasts with man divided empire claim,
And the brown Indian marks with murd'rous aim;
There, while above the giddy tempest flies,
And all around distressful yells arise,
The pensive exile, bending with his woe,
To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,
Casts a long look where England's glories shine,
And bids his bosom sympathise with mine.
Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind:
Why have I stray'd from pleasure and repose,
To seek a good each government bestows?
In every government, though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings, or tyrant laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,
Our own felicity we make or find:
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
The lifted axe, the agonising wheel,
Luke's iron crown, and Damiens' bed of steel,
To men remote from power but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience all our own.
Your sincere friend, and ardent admirer,
SWEET AUBURN! loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheer'd the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer's lingering blooms delay'd:
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loiter'd o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endear'd each scene;
How often have I paus'd on every charm,
The shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whisp'ring lovers made;
How often have I bless'd the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labour free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree;
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old survey'd;
And many a gambol frolick'd o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round;
And still as each repeated pleasure tir'd,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspir'd;
The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
By holding out to tire each other down;
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
The bashful virgin's side-long looks of love,
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove:
These were thy charms, sweet village; sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms--But all these charms are fled.
Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green:
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain:
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But chok'd with sedges, works its weedy way.
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the mould'ring wall;
And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away, thy children leave the land.
Ill fares the land, to hast'ning ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.
A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintain'd its man;
For him light labour spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life requir'd, but gave no more:
His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
But times are alter'd; trade's unfeeling train
Usurp the land and dispossess the swain;
Along the lawn, where scatter'd hamlets rose,
Unwieldy wealth, and cumbrous pomp repose;
And every want to opulence allied,
And every pang that folly pays to pride.
Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,
Those calm desires that ask'd but little room,
Those healthful sports that grac'd the peaceful scene,
Liv'd in each look, and brighten'd all the green;
These, far departing, seek a kinder shore,
And rural mirth and manners are no more.
Sweet AUBURN!  parent of the blissful hour,
Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power.
Here as I take my solitary rounds,
Amidst thy tangling walks, and ruin'd grounds,
And, many a year elaps'd, return to view
Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew,
Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.
In all my wand'rings round this world of care,
In all my griefs--and GOD has given my share--
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
To husband out life's taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wasting by repose.
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
Amidst the swains to show my book-learn'd skill,
Around my fire an evening group to draw,
And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;
And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue,
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew,
I still had hopes, my long vexations pass'd,
Here to return--and die at home at last.
O blest retirement, friend to life's decline,
Retreats from care, that never must be mine,
How happy he who crowns in shades like these,
A youth of labour with an age of ease;
Who quits a world where strong temptations try
And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly!
For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep;
No surly porter stands in guilty state
To spurn imploring famine from the gate;
But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending Virtue's friend;
Bends to the grave with unperceiv'd decay,
While Resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects bright'ning to the last,
His Heaven commences ere the world be pass'd!
Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;
There, as I pass'd with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came soften'd from below;
The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,
The sober herd that low'd to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school;
The watchdog's voice that bay'd the whisp'ring wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind;
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made.
But now the sounds of population fail,
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale,
No busy steps the grass-grown foot-way tread,
For all the bloomy flush of life is fled.
All but yon widow'd, solitary thing
That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron, forc'd in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn;
She only left of all the harmless train,
The sad historian of the pensive plain.
Near yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd,
And still where many a garden flower grows wild;
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose,
The village preacher's modest mansion rose.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor e'er had chang'd, nor wished to change his place;
Unpractis'd he to fawn, or seek for power,
By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour;
Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More skill'd to raise the wretched than to rise.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wand'rings, but reliev'd their pain;
The long-remember'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd;
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sat by his fire, and talk'd the night away;
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won.
Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learn'd to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits, or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And e'en his failings lean'd to Virtue's side;
But in his duty prompt at every call,
He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt, for all.
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay,
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way.
Beside the bed where parting life was laid,
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay'd,
The reverend champion stood.  At his control,
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul;
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise,
And his last falt'ring accents whisper'd praise.
At church, with meek and unaffected grace,
His looks adorn'd the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray.
The service pass'd, around the pious man,
With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran;
Even children follow'd with endearing wile,
And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile.
His ready smile a parent's warmth express'd,
Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd;
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven.
As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
The village master taught his little school;
A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew;
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd, with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd;
Yet he was kind; or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declar'd how much he knew;
'Twas certain he could write, and cypher too;
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
And e'en the story ran that he could gauge.
In arguing too, the parson own'd his skill,
For e'en though vanquish'd, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thund'ring sound
Amazed the gazing rustics rang'd around,
And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
But past is all his fame.  The very spot
Where many a time he triumph'd, is forgot.
Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high,
Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye,
Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspir'd,
Where grey-beard mirth and smiling toil retir'd,
Where village statesmen talk'd with looks profound,
And news much older than their ale went round.
Imagination fondly stoops to trace
The parlour splendours of that festive place;
The white-wash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door;
The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day;
The pictures plac'd for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose;
The hearth, except when winter chill'd the day,
With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay;
While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show,
Rang'd o'er the chimney, glisten'd in a row.
Vain, transitory splendours!  Could not all
Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall!
Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart
An hour's importance to the poor man's heart;
Thither no more the peasant shall repair
To sweet oblivion of his daily care;
No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale,
No more the wood-man's ballad shall prevail;
No more the smith his dusky brown shall clear,
Relax his pond'rous strength, and lean to hear;
The host himself no longer shall be found
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
Nor the coy maid, half willing to be press'd,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.
Yes!  let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art;
Spontaneous joys, where Nature has its play,
The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway;
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfin'd:
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth array'd,
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
And, e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy.
Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey
The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay,
'Tis yours to judge, how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land.
Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore,
And shouting Folly hails them from her shore;
Hoards, e'en beyond the miser's wish abound,
And rich men flock from all the world around.
Yet count our gains.  This wealth is but a name
That leaves our useful products still the same.
Nor so the loss.  The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds;
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
Has robb'd the neighbouring fields of half their growth,
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies:
While thus the land adorn'd for pleasure, all
In barren splendour feebly waits the fall.
As some fair female unadorn'd and plain,
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
Slights every borrow'd charm that dress supplies,
Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes:
But when those charms are pass'd, for charms are frail,
When time advances, and when lovers fail,
She then shines forth, solicitous to bless,
In all the glaring impotence of dress.
Thus fares the land, by luxury betray'd,
In nature's simplest charms at first array'd;
But verging to decline, its splendours rise,
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise;
While scourg'd by famine from the smiling land,
The mournful peasant leads his humble band;
And while he sinks, without one arm to save,
The country blooms--a garden, and a grave.
Where then, ah!  where, shall poverty reside,
To 'scape the pressure of continuous pride?
If to some common's fenceless limits stray'd,
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade,
Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide,
And e'en the bare-worn common is denied.
If to the city sped--What waits him there?
To see profusion that he must not share/
To see ten thousand baneful arts combin'd
To pamper luxury, and thin mankind;
To see those joys the sons of pleasure know
Extorted from his fellow creature's woe.
Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade,
There the pale artist plies the sickly trade;
Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomps display,
There the black gibbet glooms beside the way.
The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign
Here, richly deck'd, admits the gorgeous train;
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy!
Sure these denote one universal joy!
Are these thy serious thoughts?--Ah, turn thine eyes
Where the poor houseless shiv'ring female lies.
She once, perhaps, in village plenty bless'd,
Has wept at tales of innocence distress'd;
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;
Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head,
And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the shower,
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
When idly first, ambitious of the town,
She left her wheel and robes of country brown.
Do thine, sweet AUBURN, thine, the loveliest train,
Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
E'en now, perhaps by cold and hunger led,
At proud men's doors they ask a little bread!
Ah, no.  To distant climes, a dreary scene,
Where half the convex world intrudes between,
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.
Far different there from all that charm'd before,
The various terrors of that horrid shore;
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable day;
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing,
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;
Those pois'nous fields with rank luxuriance crown'd,
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men more murd'rous still than they;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravag'd landscape with the skies.
Far different these from every former scene,
The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green,
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
That only shelter'd thefts of harmless love.
Good heaven!  what sorrows gloom'd that parting day,
That call'd them from their native walks away;
When the poor exiles, every pleasure pass'd,
Hung round their bowers, and fondly look'd their last,
And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main;
And shudd'ring still to face the distant deep,
Return'd and wept, and still return'd to weep.
The good old sire, the first prepar'd to go
To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe;
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
He only wish'd for worlds beyond the grave.
His lovely daughter, lovlier in her tears,
The fond companion of his helpless years,
Silent went next, neglectful of her charms,
And left a lover's for a father's arms.
With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
And bless'd the cot where every pleasure rose
And kiss'd her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
And clasp'd them close, in sorrow doubly dear;
Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief
In all the silent manliness of grief.
O Luxury!  thou curs'd by Heaven's decree,
How ill exchang'd are things like these for thee!
How do thy potions, with insidious joy
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy!
Kingdoms, by thee, to sickly greatness grown,
Boast of a florid vigour not their own;
At every draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe;
Till sapp'd their strength, and every part unsound,
Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round.
E'en now the devastation is begun,
And half the business of destruction done;
E'en now, methinks, as pond'ring here I stand,
I see the rural virtues leave the land:
Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail,
That idly waiting flaps with ev'ry gale,
Downward they move, a melancholy band,
Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand.
Contented toil, and hospitable care,
And kind connubial tenderness, are there;
And piety, with wishes plac'd above,
And steady loyalty, and faithful love.
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade;
Unfit in these degenerate times of shame,
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame;
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe,
That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so;
Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!
Farewell, and Oh!  where'er thy voice be tried,
On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side,
Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of th' inclement clime;
Aid slighted truth; with thy persuasive strain
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him, that states of native strength possess'd,
Though very poor, may still be very bless'd;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.
WHAT!  no way left to shun th' inglorious stage,
And save from infamy my sinking age!
Scarce half alive, oppress'd with many a year,
What in the name of dotage drives me here?
A time there was, when glory was my guide,
Nor force nor fraud could turn my steps aside;
Unaw'd by pow'r, and unappall'd by fear,
With honest thrift I held my honour dear;
But this vile hour disperses all my store,
And all my hoard of honour is no more.
For ah!  too partial to my life's decline,
Caesar persuades, submission must be mine;
Him I obey, whom heaven itself obeys,
Hopeless of pleasing, yet inclin'd to please.
Here then at once, I welcome every shame,
And cancel at threescore a life of fame;
No more my titles shall my children tell,
The old buffoon will fit my name as well;
This day beyond its term my fate extends,
For life is ended when our honour ends.
('Imitated from the Spanish'.)
SURE 'twas by Providence design'd,
Rather in pity, than in hate,
That he should be, like Cupid, blind,
To save him from Narcissus' fate.
SAY, cruel IRIS, pretty rake,
Dear mercenary beauty,
What annual offering shall I make,
Expressive of my duty?
My heart, a victim to thine eyes,
Should I at once deliver,
Say, would the angry fair one prize
The gift, who slights the giver?
My rivals give--and let 'em;
If gems, or gold, impart a joy,
I'll give them--when I get 'em.
I'll give--but not the full-blown rose,
Or rose-bud more in fashion;
Such short-liv'd offerings but disclose
A transitory passion.
I'll give thee something yet unpaid,
Not less sincere, than civil:
I'll give thee--Ah!  too charming maid,
I'll give thee--To the devil.
LOGICIANS have but ill defin'd
As rational, the human kind;
Reason, they say, belongs to man,
But let them prove it if they can.
By ratiocinations specious,
Have strove to prove with great precision,
With definition and division,
But for my soul I cannot credit 'em;
And must in spite of them maintain,
That man and all his ways are vain;
And that this boasted lord of nature
Is both a weak and erring creature;
That instinct is a surer guide
Than reason-boasting mortals' pride;
And that brute beasts are far before 'em,
'Deus est anima brutorum'.
Who ever knew an honest brute
At law his neighbour prosecute,
Bring action for assault and battery,
Or friend beguile with lies and flattery?
O'er plains they ramble unconfin'd,
No politics disturb their mind;
They eat their meals, and take their sport,
Nor know who's in or out at court;
They never to the levee go
To treat as dearest friend, a foe;
They never importune his grace,
Nor ever cringe to men in place;
Nor undertake a dirty job,
Nor draw the quill to write for B--b.
Fraught with invective they ne'er go
To folks at Pater-Noster-Row;
No judges, fiddlers, dancing-masters,
No pick-pockets, or poetasters,
Are known to honest quadrupeds;
No single brute his fellow leads.
Brutes never meet in bloody fray,
Nor cut each others' throats, for pay.
Of beasts, it is confess'd, the ape
Comes nearest us in human shape;
Like man he imitates each fashion,
And malice is his ruling passion;
But both in malice and grimaces
A courtier any ape surpasses.
Behold him humbly cringing wait
Upon a minister of state;
View him soon after to inferiors,
Aping the conduct of superiors;
He promises with equal air,
And to perform takes equal care.
He in his turn finds imitators;
At court, the porters, lacqueys, waiters,
Their master's manners still contract,
And footmen, lords and dukes can act.
Thus at the court both great an small
Behave alike--for all ape all.
WEEPING, murmuring, complaining,
Lost to every gay delight;
MYRA, too sincere for feigning,
Fears th' approaching bridal night.
Yet, why impair thy bright perfection?
Or dim thy beauty with a tear?
Had MYRA followed my direction,
She long had wanted cause of fear.
AMIDST the clamour of exulting joys,
Which triumph forces from the patriot heart,
Grief dares to mingle her soul-piercing voice,
And quells the raptures which from pleasures start.
O WOLFE!  to thee a streaming flood of woe,
Sighing we pay, and think e'en conquest dear;
QUEBEC in vain shall teach our breast to glow,
Whilst thy sad fate extorts the heart-wrung tear.
Alive the foe thy dreadful vigour fled,
And saw thee fall with joy-pronouncing eyes:
Yet they shall know thou conquerest, though dead--
Since from thy tomb a thousand heroes rise!
GOOD people all, with one accord,
Lament for Madam BLAIZE,
Who never wanted a good word--
'From those who spoke her praise'.
The needy seldom pass'd her door,
And always found her kind;
She freely lent to all the poor,--
'Who left a pledge behind'.
She strove the neighbourhood to please,
With manners wond'rous winning,
And never follow'd wicked ways,--
'Unless when she was sinning'.
At church, in silks and satins new,
With hoop of monstrous size,
She never slumber'd in her pew,--
'But when she shut her eyes'.
Her love was sought, I do aver,
By twenty beaux and more;
The king himself has follow'd her,--
'When she has walk'd before'.
But now her wealth and finery fled,
Her hangers-on cut short all;
The doctors found, when she was dead,--
'Her last disorder mortal'.
Let us lament, in sorrow sore,
For Kent-street well may say,
That had she liv'd a twelve-month more,--
'She had not died to-day'.
WHERE the Red Lion flaring o'er the way,
Invites each passing stranger that can pay;
Where Calvert's butt, and Parsons' black champagne,
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane;
There in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,
The Muse found Scroggen stretch'd beneath a rug;
A window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray,
That dimly show'd the state in which he lay;
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread;
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread:
The royal game of goose was there in view,
And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew;
The seasons, fram'd with listing, found a place,
And brave prince William show'd his lamp-black face:
The morn was cold, he views with keen desire
The rusty grate unconscious of a fire;
With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scor'd,
And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board;
A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay,
A cap by night--a stocking all the day!
FOR you, bright fair, the nine address their lays,
And tune my feeble voice to sing thy praise.
The heartfelt power of every charm divine,
Who can withstand their all-commanding shine?
See how she moves along with every grace,
While soul-brought tears steal down each shining face.
She speaks!  'tis rapture all, and nameless bliss,
Ye gods!  what transport e'er compared to this.
As when in Paphian groves the Queen of Love
With fond complaint addressed the listening Jove,
'Twas joy, and endless blisses all around,
And rocks forgot their hardness at the sound.
Then first, at last even Jove was taken in,
And felt her charms, without disguise, within.
YE Muses, pour the pitying tear
For Pollio snatch'd away;
O!  had he liv'd another year!--
'He had not died to-day'.
O!  were he born to bless mankind,
In virtuous times of yore,
Heroes themselves had fallen behind!--
'Whene'er he went before'.
How sad the groves and plains appear,
And sympathetic sheep;
Even pitying hills would drop a tear!--
'If hills could learn to weep'.
His bounty in exalted strain
Each bard might well display;
Since none implor'd relief in vain!--
'That went reliev'd away'.
And hark!  I hear the tuneful throng
His obsequies forbid,
He still shall live, shall live as long!--
'As ever dead man did'.
Worried with debts and past all hopes of bail,
His pen he prostitutes t' avoid a gaol.
LET not the 'hungry' Bavius' angry stroke
Awake resentment, or your rage provoke;
But pitying his distress, let virtue shine,
And giving each your bounty, 'let him dine';
For thus retain'd, as learned counsel can,
And by a quick transition, plainly show
'Twas no defect of yours, but 'pocket low',
That caused his 'putrid kennel' to o'erflow.
'TWAS you, or I, or he, or all together,
'Twas one, both, three of them, they know not whether;
This, I believe, between us great or small,
You, I, he, wrote it not--'twas Churchill's all.
IN all my Enna's beauties blest,
Amidst profusion still I pine;
For though she gives me up her breast,
Its panting tenant is not mine.
SECLUDED from domestic strife,
Jack Book-worm led a college life;
A fellowship at twenty-five
Made him the happiest man alive;
He drank his glass and crack'd his joke,
And freshmen wonder'd as he spoke.
Such pleasures, unalloy'd with care,
Could any accident impair?
Could Cupid's shaft at length transfix
Our swain, arriv'd at thirty-six?
O had the archer ne'er come down
To ravage in a country town!
Or Flavia been content to stop
At triumphs in a Fleet-street shop.
O had her eyes forgot to blaze!
Or Jack had wanted eyes to gaze.
O! -- But let exclamation cease,
Her presence banish'd all his peace.
So with decorum all things carried;
Miss frown'd, and blush'd, and then was -- married.
Need we expose to vulgar sight
The raptures of the bridal night?
Need we intrude on hallow'd ground,
Or draw the curtains clos'd around?
Let it suffice, that each had charms;
He clasp'd a goddess in his arms;
And though she felt his usage rough,
Yet in a man 'twas well enough.
The honey-moon like lightning flew,
The second brought its transports too.
A third, a fourth, were not amiss,
The fifth was friendship mix'd with bliss:
But when a twelvemonth pass'd away,
Jack found his goddess made of clay;
Found half the charms that deck'd her face
Arose from powder, shreds, or lace;
But still the worst remain'd behind,
That very face had robb'd her mind.
Skill'd in no other arts was she
But dressing, patching, repartee;
And, just as humour rose or fell,
By turns a slattern or a belle;
'Tis true she dress'd with modern grace,
Half naked at a ball or race;
But when at home, at board or bed,
Five greasy nightcaps wrapp'd her head.
Could so much beauty condescend
To be a dull domestic friend?
Could any curtain-lectures bring
To decency so fine a thing?
In short, by night, 'twas fits or fretting;
By day, 'twas gadding or coquetting.
Fond to be seen, she kept a bevy
Of powder'd coxcombs at her levy;
The 'squire and captain took their stations,
And twenty other near relations;
Jack suck'd his pipe, and often broke
A sigh in suffocating smoke;
While all their hours were pass'd between
Insulting repartee or spleen.
Thus as her faults each day were known,
He thinks her features coarser grown;
He fancies every vice she shows,
Or thins her lip, or points her nose:
Whenever rage or envy rise,
How wide her mouth, how wild her eyes!
He knows not how, but so it is,
Her face is grown a knowing phiz;
And, though her fops are wond'rous civil,
He thinks her ugly as the devil.
Now, to perplex the ravell'd noose,
As each a different way pursues,
While sullen or loquacious strife,
Promis'd to hold them on for life,
That dire disease, whose ruthless power
Withers the beauty's transient flower:
Lo!  the small-pox, whose horrid glare
Levell'd its terrors at the fair;
And, rifling ev'ry youthful grace,
Left but the remnant of a face.
The glass, grown hateful to her sight,
Reflected now a perfect fright:
Each former art she vainly tries
To bring back lustre to her eyes.
In vain she tries her paste and creams,
To smooth her skin, or hide its seams;
Her country beaux and city cousins,
Lovers no more, flew off by dozens:
The 'squire himself was seen to yield,
And e'en the captain quit the field.
Poor Madam, now condemn'd to hack
The rest of life with anxious Jack,
Perceiving others fairly flown,
Attempted pleasing him alone.
Jack soon was dazzl'd to behold
Her present face surpass the old;
With modesty her cheeks are dy'd,
Humility displaces pride;
For tawdry finery is seen
A person ever neatly clean:
No more presuming on her sway,
She learns good-nature every day;
Serenely gay, and strict in duty,
Jack finds his wife a perfect beauty.
LONG had I sought in vain to find
A likeness for the scribbling kind;
The modern scribbling kind, who write
In wit, and sense, and nature's spite:
Till reading, I forget what day on,
A chapter out of Tooke's Pantheon,
I think I met with something there,
To suit my purpose to a hair;
But let us not proceed too furious,
First please to turn to god Mercurius;
You'll find him pictur'd at full length
In book the second, page the tenth:
The stress of all my proofs on him I lay,
And now proceed we to our simile.
Imprimis, pray observe his hat,
Wings upon either side--mark that.
Well!  what is it from thence we gather?
Why these denote a brain of feather.
A brain of feather!  very right,
With wit that's flighty, learning light;
Such as to modern bard's decreed:
A just comparison,--proceed.
In the next place, his feet peruse,
Wings grow again from both his shoes;
Design'd, no doubt, their part to bear,
And waft his godship through the air;
And here my simile unites,
For in a modern poet's flights,
I'm sure it may be justly said,
His feet are useful as his head.
Lastly, vouchsafe t'observe his hand,
Filled with a snake-encircl'd wand;
By classic authors term'd caduceus,
And highly fam'd for several uses.
To wit--most wond'rously endu'd,
No poppy water half so good;
For let folks only get a touch,
Its soporific virtue's such,
Though ne'er so much awake before,
That quickly they begin to snore.
Add too, what certain writers tell,
With this he drives men's souls to hell.
Now to apply, begin we then;
His wand's a modern author's pen;
The serpents round about it twin'd
Denote him of the reptile kind;
Denote the rage with which he writes,
His frothy slaver, venom'd bites;
An equal semblance still to keep,
Alike too both conduce to sleep.
This diff'rence only, as the god
Drove souls to Tart'rus with his rod,
With his goosequill the scribbling elf,
Instead of others, damns himself.
And here my simile almost tript,
Yet grant a word by way of postscript.
Moreover, Merc'ry had a failing:
Well!  what of that?  out with it--stealing;
In which all modern bards agree,
Being each as great a thief as he:
But ev'n this deity's existence
Shall lend my simile assistance.
Our modern bards!  why what a pox
Are they but senseless stones and blocks?
'TURN, gentle hermit of the dale,
And guide my lonely way,
To where yon taper cheers the vale
With hospitable ray.
'For here, forlorn and lost I tread,
With fainting steps and slow;
Where wilds immeasurably spread,
Seem length'ning as I go.'
'Forbear, my son,' the hermit cries,
'To tempt the dangerous gloom;
For yonder faithless phantom flies
To lure thee to thy doom.
'Here to the houseless child of want
My door is open still;
And though my portion is but scant,
I give it with good will.
'Then turn to-night, and freely share
Whate'er my cell bestows;
My rushy couch, and frugal fare,
My blessing and repose.
'No flocks that range the valley free
To slaughter I condemn:
Taught by that power that pities me,
I learn to pity them.
'But from the mountain's grassy side
A guiltless feast I bring;
A scrip with herbs and fruits supplied,
And water from the spring.
'Then, pilgrim, turn, thy cares forgo;
All earth-born cares are wrong:
Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.'
Soft as the dew from heav'n descends,
His gentle accents fell:
The modest stranger lowly bends,
And follows to the cell.
Far in a wilderness obscure
The lonely mansion lay;
A refuge to the neighbouring poor
And strangers led astray.
No stores beneath its humble thatch
Requir'd a master's care;
The wicket, opening with a latch,
Receiv'd the harmless pair.
And now, when busy crowds retire
To take their evening rest,
The hermit trimm'd his little fire,
And cheer'd his pensive guest:
And spread his vegetable store,
And gaily press'd, and smil'd;
And, skill'd in legendary lore,
The lingering hours beguil'd.
Around in sympathetic mirth
Its tricks the kitten tries;
The cricket chirrups in the hearth;
But nothing could a charm impart
To soothe the stranger's woe;
For grief was heavy at his heart,
And tears began to flow.
His rising cares the hermit spied,
With answ'ring care oppress'd;
'And whence, unhappy youth,' he cried,
'The sorrows of thy breast?
'From better habitations spurn'd,
Reluctant dost thou rove;
Or grieve for friendship unreturn'd,
Or unregarded love?
'Alas!  the joys that fortune brings
Are trifling, and decay;
And those who prize the paltry things,
More trifling still than they.
'And what is friendship but a name,
A charm that lulls to sleep;
A shade that follows wealth or fame,
But leaves the wretch to weep?
'And love is still an emptier sound,
The modern fair one's jest:
On earth unseen, or only found
To warm the turtle's nest.
'For shame, fond youth, thy sorrows hush,
And spurn the sex,' he said:
But, while he spoke, a rising blush
His love-lorn guest betray'd.
Surpris'd, he sees new beauties rise,
Swift mantling to the view;
Like colours o'er the morning skies,
As bright, as transient too.
The bashful look, the rising breast,
Alternate spread alarms:
The lovely stranger stands confess'd
A maid in all her charms.
'And, ah!  forgive a stranger rude,
A wretch forlorn,' she cried;
'Whose feet unhallow'd thus intrude
Where heaven and you reside.
'But let a maid thy pity share,
Whom love has taught to stray;
Who seeks for rest, but finds despair
Companion of her way.
'My father liv'd beside the Tyne,
A wealthy lord was he;
And all his wealth was mark'd as mine,
He had but only me.
'To win me from his tender arms
Unnumber'd suitors came;
Who prais'd me for imputed charms,
And felt or feign'd a flame.
Each hour a mercenary crowd
With richest proffers strove:
Amongst the rest young Edwin bow'd,
But never talk'd of love.
'In humble, simplest habit clad,
No wealth nor power had he;
Wisdom and worth were all he had,
But these were all to me.
'And when beside me in the dale
He caroll'd lays of love;
His breath lent fragrance to the gale,
And music to the grove.
'The blossom opening to the day,
The dews of heaven refin'd,
Could nought of purity display,
To emulate his mind.
'The dew, the blossom on the tree,
With charms inconstant shine;
Their charms were his, but woe to me!
Their constancy was mine.
'For still I tried each fickle art,
Importunate and vain:
And while his passion touch'd my heart,
I triumph'd in his pain.
'Till quite dejected with my scorn,
He left me to my pride;
And sought a solitude forlorn,
In secret, where he died.
'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.
'And there forlorn, despairing, hid,
I'll lay me down and die;
'Twas so for me that Edwin did,
And so for him will I.'
'Forbid it, heaven!' the hermit cried,
And clasp'd her to his breast:
The wondering fair one turn'd to chide,
'Twas Edwin's self that prest.
'Turn, Angelina, ever dear,
My charmer, turn to see
Thy own, thy long-lost Edwin here,
Restor'd to love and thee.
'Thus let me hold thee to my heart,
And ev'ry care resign;
And shall we never, never part,
My life -- my all that's mine?
'No, never from this hour to part,
We'll live and love so true;
The sigh that rends thy constant heart
Shall break thy Edwin's too.'
Good people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wond'rous short,
It cannot hold you long.
In Islington there was a man,
Of whom the world might say,
That still a godly race he ran,
Whene'er he went to pray.
A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad,
When he put on his clothes.
And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And curs of low degree.
This dog and man at first were friends;
But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad and bit the man.
Around from all the neighbouring streets
The wond'ring neighbours ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.
The wound it seem'd both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.
But soon a wonder came to light,
That show'd the rogues they lied:
The man recover'd of the bite,
The dog it was that died.
WHEN lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is -- to die.
As puffing quacks some caitiff wretch procure
To swear the pill, or drop, has wrought a cure;
Thus on the stage, our play-wrights still depend
For Epilogues and Prologues on some friend,
Who knows each art of coaxing up the town,
And make full many a bitter pill go down.
Conscious of this, our bard has gone about,
And teas'd each rhyming friend to help him out.
'An Epilogue -- things can't go on without it;
It could not fail, would you but set about it.'
'Young man,' cries one -- a bard laid up in clover --
'Alas, young man, my writing days are over;
Let boys play tricks, and kick the straw; not I:
Your brother Doctor there, perhaps, may try.'
'What I? dear Sir,' the Doctor interposes
'What plant my thistle, Sir, among his roses!
No, no; I've other contests to maintain;
To-night I head our troops at Warwick Lane:
Go, ask your manager.'  'Who, me?  Your pardon;
Those things are not our forte at Covent Garden.'
Our Author's friends, thus plac'd at happy distance,
Give him good words indeed, but no assistance.
As some unhappy wight, at some new play,
At the Pit door stands elbowing a way,
While oft, with many a smile, and many a shrug,
He eyes the centre, where his friends sit snug;
His simp'ring friends, with pleasure in their eyes,
Sink as he sinks, and as he rises rise;
He nods, they nod; he cringes, they grimace;
But not a soul will budge to give him place.
Since then, unhelp'd, our bard must now conform
'To 'bide the pelting of this pitiless storm' --
Blame where you must, be candid where you can;
And be each critic the 'Good Natur'd Man'.
WHAT! five long acts -- and all to make us wiser!
Our authoress sure has wanted an adviser.
Had she consulted 'me', she should have made
Her moral play a speaking masquerade;
Warm'd up each bustling scene, and in her rage
Have emptied all the green-room on the stage.
My life on't, this had kept her play from sinking;
Have pleas'd our eyes, and sav'd the pain of thinking.
Well!  since she thus has shown her want of skill,
What if I give a masquerade? -- I will.
But how?  ay, there's the rub!  ('pausing') -- I've got my cue:
The world's a masquerade!  the maskers, you, you, you.
____, what a group the motley scene discloses!
False wits, false wives, false virgins, and false spouses!
Statesmen with bridles on; and, close beside 'em,
Patriots, in party-coloured suits, that ride 'em.
There Hebes, turn'd of fifty, try once more
To raise a flame in Cupids of threescore.
These in their turn, with appetites as keen,
Deserting fifty, fasten on fifteen,
Miss, not yet full fifteen, with fire uncommon,
Flings down her sampler, and takes up the woman:
The little urchin smiles, and spreads her lure,
And tries to kill, ere she's got power to cure.
Thus 'tis with all -- their chief and constant care
Is to seem everything but what they are.
Yon broad, bold, angry spark, I fix my eye on,
Who seems to have robb'd his vizor from the lion;
Who frowns, and talks, and swears, with round parade,
Looking as who should say, D__ __! who's afraid?
Strip but his vizor off, and sure I am
You'll find his lionship a very lamb.
Yon politician, famous in debate,
Perhaps, to vulgar eyes, bestrides the state;
Yet, when he deigns his real shape t' assume,
He turns old woman, and bestrides a broom.
Yon patriot, too, who presses on your sight,
And seems to every gazer all in white,
If with a bribe his candour you attack,
He bows, turns round, and whip -- the man's a black!
Yon critic, too -- but whither do I run?
If I proceed, our bard will be undone!
Well then a truce, since she requests it too:
Do you spare her, and I'll for once spare you.
IN these bold times, when Learning's sons explore
The distant climate and the savage shore;
When wise Astronomers to India steer,
And quit for Venus, many a brighter here;
While Botanists, all cold to smiles and dimpling,
Forsake the fair, and patiently -- go simpling;
When every bosom swells with wond'rous scenes,
Priests, cannibals, and hoity-toity queens:
Our bard into the general spirit enters,
And fits his little frigate for adventures:
With Scythian stores, and trinkets deeply laden,
He this way steers his course, in hopes of trading --
Yet ere he lands he 'as ordered me before,
To make an observation on the shore.
Where are we driven?  our reck'ning sure is lost!
This seems a barren and a dangerous coast.
____ what a sultry climate am I under!
Yon ill foreboding cloud seems big with thunder.
There Mangroves spread, and larger than I've seen 'em --
Here trees of stately size -- and turtles in 'em --
Here ill-condition'd oranges abound --
And apples ('takes up one and tastes it'),
bitter apples strew the ground.
The place is uninhabited, I fear!
I heard a hissing -- there are serpents here!
O there the natives are -- a dreadful race!
The men have tails, the women paint the face!
No doubt they're all barbarians. -- Yes, 'tis so,
I'll try to make palaver with them though;
'Tis best, however, keeping at a distance.
Good Savages, our Captain craves assistance;
Our ship's well stor'd; -- in yonder creek we've laid her;
His honour is no mercenary trader;
This is his first adventure; lend him aid,
Or you may chance to spoil a thriving trade.
His goods, he hopes are prime, and brought from far,
Equally fit for gallantry and war.
What!  no reply to promises so ample?
I'd best step back -- and order up a sample.
ARISE, ye sons of worth, arise,
And waken every note of woe;
When truth and virtue reach the skies,
'Tis ours to weep the want below!
When truth and virtue, etc.
The praise attending pomp and power,
The incense given to kings,
Are but the trappings of an hour --
Mere transitory things!
The base bestow them:  but the good agree
To spurn the venal gifts as flattery.
But when to pomp and power are join'd
An equal dignity of mind --
When titles are the smallest claim --
When wealth and rank and noble blood,
But aid the power of doing good --
Then all their trophies last; and flattery turns to fame.
Bless'd spirit thou, whose fame, just born to bloom
Shall spread and flourish from the tomb,
How hast thou left mankind for heaven!
Even now reproach and faction mourn.
And, wondering how their rage was borne,
Request to be forgiven.
Alas!  they never had thy hate:
Unmov'd in conscious rectitude,
Thy towering mind self-centred stood,
Nor wanted man's opinion to be great.
In vain, to charm thy ravish'd sight,
A thousand gifts would fortune send;
In vain, to drive thee from the right,
A thousand sorrows urg'd thy end:
Like some well-fashion'd arch thy patience stood,
And purchas'd strength from its increasing load.
Pain met thee like a friend that set thee free;
Affliction still is virtue's opportunity!
Virtue, on herself relying,
Ev'ry passion hush'd to rest,
Loses ev'ry pain of dying
In the hopes of being blest.
Ev'ry added pang she suffers
Some increasing good bestows,
Ev'ry shock that malice offers
Only rocks her to repose.
Virtue, on herself relying,
Ev'ry passion hush'd to rest,
Loses ev'ry pain of dying
In the hopes of being blest.
Ev'ry added pang she suffers
Some increasing good bestows,
Ev'ry shock that malice offers,
Only rocks her to repose.
Yet, ah!  what terrors frowned upon her fate --
Death, with its formidable band,
Fever and pain and pale consumptive care,
Determin'd took their stand:
Nor did the cruel ravagers design
To finish all their efforts at a blow;
But, mischievously slow,
They robb'd the relic and defac'd the shrine.
With unavailing grief,
Despairing of relief,
Her weeping children round
Beheld each hour
Death's growing power,
And trembled as he frown'd.
As helpless friends who view from shore
The labouring ship, and hear the tempest roar,
While winds and waves their wishes cross --
They stood, while hope and comfort fail,
Not to assist, but to bewail
The inevitable loss.
Relentless tyrant, at thy call
How do the good, the virtuous fall!
Truth, beauty, worth, and all that most engage,
But wake thy vengeance and provoke thy rage.
When vice my dart and scythe supply,
How great a king of terrors I!
If folly, fraud, your hearts engage,
Tremble, ye mortals, at my rage!
Fall, round me fall, ye little things,
Ye statesmen, warriors, poets, kings;
If virtue fail her counsel sage,
Tremble, ye mortals, at my rage!
Yet let that wisdom, urged by her example,
Teach us to estimate what all must suffer;
Let us prize death as the best gift of nature --
As a safe inn, where weary travellers,
When they have journeyed through a world of cares,
May put off life and be at rest for ever.
Groans, weeping friends, indeed, and gloomy sables,
May oft distract us with their sad solemnity:
The preparation is the executioner.
Death, when unmasked, shows me a friendly face,
And is a terror only at a distance;
For as the line of life conducts me on
To Death's great court, the prospect seems more fair.
'Tis Nature's kind retreat, that's always open
To take us in when we have drained the cup
Of life, or worn our days to wretchedness.
In that secure, serene retreat,
Where all the humble, all the great,
Promiscuously recline;
Where wildly huddled to the eye,
The beggar's pouch and prince's purple lie,
May every bliss be thine.
And ah!  bless'd spirit, wheresoe'er thy flight,
Through rolling worlds, or fields of liquid light,
May cherubs welcome their expected guest;
May saints with songs receive thee to their rest;
May peace that claimed while here thy warmest love,
May blissful endless peace be thine above!
Lovely, lasting Peace below,
Comforter of every woe,
Heav'nly born, and bred on high,
To crown the favourites of the sky --
Lovely, lasting Peace, appear;
This world itself, if thou art here,
Is once again with Eden blest,
And man contains it in his breast.
Our vows are heard!  Long, long to mortal eyes,
Her soul was fitting to its kindred skies:
Celestial-like her bounty fell,
Where modest want and patient sorrow dwell;
Want pass'd for merit at her door,
Unseen the modest were supplied,
Her constant pity fed the poor --
Then only poor, indeed, the day she died.
And oh!  for this!  while sculpture decks thy shrine,
And art exhausts profusion round,
The tribute of a tear be mine,
A simple song, a sigh profound.
There Faith shall come, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the tomb that wraps thy clay;
And calm Religion shall repair
To dwell a weeping hermit there.
Truth, Fortitude, and Friendship shall agree
To blend their virtues while they think of thee.
Let us, let all the world agree,
To profit by resembling thee.
FAST by that shore where Thames' translucent stream
Reflects new glories on his breast,
Where, splendid as the youthful poet's dream,
He forms a scene beyond Elysium blest --
Where sculptur'd elegance and native grace
Unite to stamp the beauties of the place,
While sweetly blending still are seen
The wavy lawn, the sloping green --
While novelty, with cautious cunning,
Through ev'ry maze of fancy running,
From China borrows aid to deck the scene --
There, sorrowing by the river's glassy bed,
Forlorn, a rural bard complain'd,
All whom Augusta's bounty fed,
All whom her clemency sustain'd;
The good old sire, unconscious of decay,
The modest matron, clad in homespun gray,
The military boy, the orphan'd maid,
The shatter'd veteran, now first dismay'd;
These sadly join beside the murmuring deep,
And, as they view
The towers of Kew,
Call on their mistress -- now no more -- and weep.
Ye shady walks, ye waving greens,
Ye nodding towers, ye fairy scenes --
Let all your echoes now deplore
That she who form'd your beauties is no more.
First of the train the patient rustic came,
Whose callous hand had form'd the scene,
Bending at once with sorrow and with age,
With many a tear and many a sigh between;
'And where,' he cried, 'shall now my babes have bread,
Or how shall age support its feeble fire?
No lord will take me now, my vigour fled,
Nor can my strength perform what they require;
Each grudging master keeps the labourer bare --
A sleek and idle race is all their care.
My noble mistress thought not so:
Her bounty, like the morning dew,
Unseen, though constant, used to flow;
And as my strength decay'd, her bounty grew.'
In decent dress, and coarsely clean,
The pious matron next was seen --
Clasp'd in her hand a godly book was borne,
By use and daily meditation worn;
That decent dress, this holy guide,
Augusta's care had well supplied.
'And ah!' she cries, all woe-begone,
'What now remains for me?
Oh!  where shall weeping want repair,
To  ask for charity?
Too late in life for me to ask,
And shame prevents the deed,
To succour, should I need.
But all my wants, before I spoke,
Were to my Mistress known;
She still reliev'd, nor sought my praise,
Contented with her own.
But ev'ry day her name I'll bless,
My morning prayer, my evening song,
I'll praise her while my life shall last,
A life that cannot last me long.'
Each day, each hour, her name I'll bless --
My morning and my evening song;
And when in death my vows shall cease,
My children shall the note prolong.
The hardy veteran after struck the sight,
Scarr'd, mangled, maim'd in every part,
Lopp'd of his limbs in many a gallant fight,
In nought entire -- except his heart.
Mute for a while, and sullenly distress'd,
At last the impetuous sorrow fir'd his breast.
'Wild is the whirlwind rolling
O'er Afric's sandy plain,
And wild the tempest howling
Along the billow'd main:
But every danger felt before --
The raging deep, the whirlwind's roar --
Less dreadful struck me with dismay,
Than what I feel this fatal day.
Oh, let me fly a land that spurns the brave,
Oswego's dreary shores shall be my grave;
I'll seek that less inhospitable coast,
And lay my body where my limbs were lost.'
Old Edward's sons, unknown to yield,
Shall crowd from Crecy's laurell'd field,
To do thy memory right;
For thine and Britain's wrongs they feel,
Again they snatch the gleamy steel,
And wish the avenging fight.
In innocence and youth complaining,
Next appear'd a lovely maid,
Affliction o'er each feature reigning,
Kindly came in beauty's aid;
Every grace that grief dispenses,
Every glance that warms the soul,
In sweet succession charmed the senses,
While pity harmonized the whole.
'The garland of beauty' -- 'tis thus she would say --
'No more shall my crook or my temples adorn,
I'll not wear a garland -- Augusta's away,
I'll not wear a garland until she return;
But alas!  that return I never shall see,
The echoes of Thames shall my sorrows proclaim,
There promised a lover to come -- but, O me!
'Twas death, -- 'twas the death of my mistress that came.
But ever, for ever, her image shall last,
I'll strip all the spring of its earliest bloom;
On her grave shall the cowslip and primrose be cast,
And the new-blossomed thorn shall whiten her tomb.'
With garlands of beauty the queen of the May
No more will her crook or her temples adorn;
For who'd wear a garland when she is away,
When she is remov'd, and shall never return.
On the grave of Augusta these garlands be plac'd,
We'll rifle the spring of its earliest bloom,
And there shall the cowslip and primrose be cast,
And the new-blossom'd thorn shall whiten her tomb.
On the grave of Augusta this garland be plac'd,
We'll rifle the spring of its earliest bloom,
And there shall the cowslip and primrose be cast,
And the tears of her country shall water her tomb.
LET school-masters puzzle their brain,
With grammar, and nonsense, and learning;
Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,
Gives 'genus' a better discerning.
Let them brag of their heathenish gods,
Their Lethes, their Styxes, and Stygians:
Their Quis, and their Quaes, and their Quods,
They're all but a parcel of Pigeons.
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.
When Methodist preachers come down
A-preaching that drinking is sinful,
I'll wager the rascals a crown
They always preach best with a skinful.
But when you come down with your pence,
For a slice of their scurvy religion,
I'll leave it to all men of sense,
But you, my good friend, are the pigeon.
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.
Then come, put the jorum about,
And let us be merry and clever;
Our hearts and our liquors are stout;
Here's the Three Jolly Pigeons for ever.
Let some cry up woodcock or hare,
But of all the birds in the air,
Here's a health to the Three Jolly Pigeons.
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.
WELL, having stoop'd to conquer with success,
And gain'd a husband without aid from dress,
Still, as a Bar-maid, I could wish it too,
As I have conquer'd him, to conquer you:
And let me say, for all your resolution,
That pretty Bar-maids have done execution.
Our life is all a play, compos'd to please,
'We have our exits and our entrances.'
The First Act shows the simple country maid,
Harmless and young, of ev'ry thing afraid;
Blushes when hir'd, and, with unmeaning action,
'I hopes as how to give you satisfaction.'
Her Second Act displays a livelier scene --
Th' unblushing Bar-maid of a country inn,
Who whisks about the house, at market caters,
Talks loud, coquets the guests, and scolds the waiters.
Next the scene shifts to town, and there she soars,
The chop-house toast of ogling connoisseurs.
On 'Squires and Cits she there displays her arts,
And on the gridiron broils her lovers' hearts:
And as she smiles, her triumphs to complete,
Even Common-Councilmen forget to eat.
The Fourth Act shows her wedded to the 'Squire,
And Madam now begins to hold it higher;
Pretends to taste, at Operas cries 'caro',
And quits her 'Nancy Dawson', for 'Che faro',
Doats upon dancing, and in all her pride,
Swims round the room, the Heinel of Cheapside;
Ogles and leers with artificial skill,
'Till having lost in age the power to kill,
She sits all night at cards, and ogles at spadille.
Such, through our lives, the eventful history --
The Fifth and Last Act still remains for me.
The Bar-maid now for your protection prays.
Turns Female Barrister, and pleads for Bayes.
OF old, when Scarron his companions invited,
Each guest brought his dish, and the feast was united;
If our landlord supplies us with beef, and with fish,
Let each guest bring himself, and he brings the best dish:
Our Dean shall be venison, just fresh from the plains;
Our Burke shall be tongue, with a garnish of brains;
Our Will shall be wild-fowl, of excellent flavour,
Our Cumberland's sweet-bread its place shall obtain,
And Douglas is pudding, substantial and plain:
Our Garrick's a salad; for in him we see
Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree:
To make out the dinner, full certain I am,
That Ridge is anchovy, and Reynolds is lamb;
That Hickey's a capon, and by the same rule,
Magnanimous Goldsmith a gooseberry fool.
At a dinner so various, at such a repast,
Who'd not be a glutton, and stick to the last?
Here, waiter!  more wine, let me sit while I'm able,
Till all my companions sink under the table;
Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head,
Let me ponder, and tell what I think of the dead.
Here lies the good Dean, re-united to earth,
Who mix'd reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth:
If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt,
At least, in six weeks, I could not find 'em out;
Yet some have declar'd, and it can't be denied 'em,
That sly-boots was cursedly cunning to hide 'em.
Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such,
We scarcely can praise it, or blame it too much;
Who, born for the Universe, narrow'd his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote;
Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining;
Though equal to all things, for all things unfit,
Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit:
For a patriot, too cool; for a drudge, disobedient;
And too fond of the 'right' to pursue the 'expedient'.
In short, 'twas his fate, unemploy'd, or in place, Sir,
To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor.
Here lies honest William, whose heart was a mint,
While the owner ne'er knew half the good that was in't;
The pupil of impulse, it forc'd him along,
His conduct still right, with his argument wrong;
Still aiming at honour, yet fearing to roam,
The coachman was tipsy, the chariot drove home;
Would you ask for his merits?  alas!  he had none;
What was good was spontaneous, his faults were his own.
Here lies honest Richard, whose fate I must sigh at;
Alas, that such frolic should now be so quiet!
What spirits were his!  what wit and what whim!
Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb;
Now wrangling and grumbling to keep up the ball,
Now teasing and vexing, yet laughing at all!
That we wish'd him full ten times a day at Old Nick;
But, missing his mirth and agreeable vein,
Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts,
The Terence of England, the mender of hearts;
A flattering painter, who made it his care
To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
His gallants are all faultless, his women divine,
And comedy wonders at being so fine;
Like a tragedy queen he has dizen'd her out,
Or rather like tragedy giving a rout.
His fools have their follies so lost in a crowd
Of virtues and feelings, that folly grows proud;
And coxcombs, alike in their failings alone,
Adopting his portraits, are pleas'd with their own.
Say, where has our poet this malady caught?
Or, wherefore his characters thus without fault?
Say, was it that vainly directing his view
To find out men's virtues, and finding them few,
Quite sick of pursuing each troublesome elf,
He grew lazy at last, and drew from himself?
Here Douglas retires, from his toils to relax,
The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks:
Come, all ye quack bards, and ye quacking divines,
Come, and dance on the spot where your tyrant reclines:
When Satire and Censure encircl'd his throne,
I fear'd for your safety, I fear'd for my own;
But now he is gone, and we want a detector,
Our Dodds shall be pious, our Kenricks shall lecture;
Macpherson write bombast, and call it a style,
Our Townshend make speeches, and I shall compile;
New Lauders and Bowers the Tweed shall cross over,
No countryman living their tricks to discover;
Detection her taper shall quench to a spark,
And Scotchman meet Scotchman, and cheat in the dark.
Here lies David Garrick, describe me, who can,
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man;
As an actor, confess'd without rival to shine:
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line:
Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart,
The man had his failings, a dupe to his art.
Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread,
And beplaster'd with rouge his own natural red.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
'Twas only that when he was off he was acting.
With no reason on earth to go out of his way,
He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day.
Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick
If they were not his own by finessing and trick,
He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came,
And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame;
Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease,
Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.
But let us be candid, and speak out our mind,
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.
Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave,
What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave!
How did Grub-street re-echo the shouts you rais'd,
While he was be-Roscius'd, and you were be-prais'd!
But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies,
To act as an angel, and mix with the skies:
Those poets, who owe their best fame to his skill,
Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will.
Old Shakespeare, receive him, with praise and with love,
And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above.
Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature,
And slander itself must allow him good nature:
He cherish'd his friend, and he relish'd a bumper;
Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper.
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser!
I answer, no, no, for he always was wiser:
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat?
His very worst foe can't accuse him of that:
Perhaps he confided in men as they go,
And so was too foolishly honest!  Ah no!
Then what was his failing?  come, tell it, and burn ye!
He was, could he help it? -- a special attorney.
Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind,
He has not left a better or wiser behind:
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand;
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland;
Still born to improve us in every part,
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart:
To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering,
When they judg'd without skill he was still hard of hearing:
When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff,
He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff.
After the Fourth Edition of this Poem was printed, the Publisher
HERE Whitefoord reclines, and deny it who can,
Though he 'merrily' liv'd, he is now a 'grave' man;
Rare compound of oddity, frolic, and fun!
Who relish'd a joke, and rejoic'd in a pun;
Whose temper was generous, open, sincere;
A stranger to flatt'ry, a stranger to fear;
Who scatter'd around wit and humour at will;
Whose daily 'bons mots' half a column might fill;
A Scotchman, from pride and from prejudice free;
A scholar, yet surely no pedant was he.
What pity, alas!  that so lib'ral a mind
Should so long be to news-paper essays confin'd;
Who perhaps to the summit of science could soar,
Yet content 'if the table he set on a roar';
Whose talents to fill any station were fit,
Yet happy if Woodfall confess'd him a wit.
Ye news-paper witlings!  ye pert scribbling folks
Who copied his squibs, and re-echoed his jokes;
Ye tame imitators, ye servile herd, come,
Still follow your master, and visit his tomb:
To deck it, bring with you festoons of the vine,
And copious libations bestow on his shrine:
Then strew all around it (you can do no less)
'Cross-readings, Ship-news', and 'Mistakes of the Press'.
Merry Whitefoord, farewell!  for 'thy' sake I admit
That a Scot may have humour, I had almost said wit:
This debt to thy mem'ry I cannot refuse,
'Thou best humour'd man with the worst humour'd muse.'
AH me!  when shall I marry me?
Lovers are plenty; but fail to relieve me:
He, fond youth, that could carry me,
Offers to love, but means to deceive me.
But I will rally, and combat the ruiner:
Not a look, not a smile shall my passion discover:
She that gives all to the false one pursuing her,
Makes but a penitent, loses a lover.
CHASTE are their instincts, faithful is their fire,
No foreign beauty tempts to false desire;
The snow-white vesture, and the glittering crown,
The simple plumage, or the glossy down
Prompt not their loves:-- the patriot bird pursues
His well acquainted tints, and kindred hues.
Hence through their tribes no mix'd polluted flame,
No monster-breed to mark the groves with shame;
But the chaste blackbird, to its partner true,
Thinks black alone is beauty's favourite hue.
The nightingale, with mutual passion blest,
Sings to its mate, and nightly charms the nest;
While the dark owl to court its partner flies,
And owns its offspring in their yellow eyes.
THANKS, my Lord, for your venison, for finer or fatter
Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter;
The haunch was a picture for painters to study,
The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy.
Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting
To spoil such a delicate picture by eating;
I had thoughts, in my chambers, to place it in view,
To be shown to my friends as a piece of 'virtu';
As in some Irish houses, where things are so so,
One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show:
But for eating a rasher of what they take pride in,
They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fried in.
But hold -- let me pause -- Don't I hear you pronounce
This tale of the bacon a damnable bounce?
Well, suppose it a bounce -- sure a poet may try,
By a bounce now and then, to get courage to fly.
But, my Lord, it's no bounce:  I protest in my turn,
It's a truth -- and your Lordship may ask Mr. Byrne.
To go on with my tale -- as I gaz'd on the haunch,
I thought of a friend that was trusty and staunch;
So I cut it, and sent it to Reynolds undress'd,
To paint it, or eat it, just as he lik'd best.
Of the neck and the breast I had next to dispose;
'Twas a neck and a breast -- that might rival M--r--'s:
But in parting with these I was puzzled again,
With the how, and the who, and the where, and the when.
I think they love venison -- I know they love beef;
There's my countryman H--gg--ns--  Oh!  let him alone,
For making a blunder, or picking a bone.
But hang it -- to poets who seldom can eat,
Your very good mutton's a very good treat;
Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt,
It's like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.
While thus I debated, in reverie centred,
An acquaintance, a friend as he call'd himself, enter'd;
An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he,
And he smil'd as he look'd at the venison and me.
'What have we got here? -- Why, this is good eating!
Your own, I suppose -- or is it in waiting?'
'Why, whose should it be?' cried I with a flounce,
'I get these things often;' -- but that was a bounce:
'Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation,
Are pleas'd to be kind -- but I hate ostentation.'
'If that be the case, then,' cried he, very gay,
'I'm glad I have taken this house in my way.
To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me;
No words -- I insist on't -- precisely at three:
We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits will be there;
My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my Lord Clare.
And now that I think on't, as I am a sinner!
We wanted this venison to make out the dinner.
What say you -- a pasty?  it shall, and it must,
And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust.
Here, porter! -- this venison with me to Mile-end;
No stirring -- I beg -- my dear friend -- my dear friend!
Thus snatching his hat, he brush'd off like the wind,
And the porter and eatables follow'd behind.
Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf,
'And nobody with me at sea but myself';
Though I could not help thinking my gentleman hasty,
Yet Johnson, and Burke, and a good venison pasty,
Were things that I never dislik'd in my life,
Though clogg'd with a coxcomb, and Kitty his wife.
So next day, in due splendour to make my approach,
I drove to his door in my own hackney coach.
When come to the place where we all were to dine,
(A chair-lumber'd closet just twelve feet by nine:)
With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come;
'For I knew it,' he cried, 'both eternally fail,
The one with his speeches, and t'other with Thrale;
But no matter, I'll warrant we'll make up the party
With two full as clever, and ten times as hearty.
They['re] both of them merry and authors like you;
The one writes the 'Snarler', the other the 'Scourge';
Some think he writes 'Cinna' -- he own to 'Panurge'.'
While thus he describ'd them by trade, and by name,
They enter'd and dinner was serv'd as they came.
At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen,
At the bottom was tripe in a swinging tureen;
At the sides there was spinach and pudding made hot;
In the middle a place where the pasty -- was not.
Now, my Lord as for tripe, it's my utter aversion,
And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Persian;
So there I sat stuck, like a horse in a pound,
While the bacon and liver went merrily round.
But what vex'd me most was that d--'d Scottish rogue,
With his long-winded speeches, his smiles and his brogue;
And, 'Madam,' quoth he, 'may this bit be my poison,
A prettier dinner I never set eyes on;
Pray a slice of your liver, though may I be curs'd,
But I've eat of your tripe till I'm ready to burst.;
'I could dine on this tripe seven days in the week:
I like these here dinners so pretty and small;
But your friend there, the Doctor, eats nothing at all.'
'O--Oh!' quoth my friend, 'he'll come on in a trice,
He's keeping a corner for something that's nice:
'I don't care if I keep a corner for't too.'
'What the de'il, mon, a pasty!' re-echoed the Scot,
'Though splitting, I'll still keep a corner for thot.'
'We'll all keep a corner,' the lady cried out;
'We'll all keep a corner,' was echoed about.
While thus we resolv'd, and the pasty delay'd,
With look that quite petrified, enter'd the maid;
A visage so sad, and so pale with affright,
Wak'd Priam in drawing his curtains by night.
But we quickly found out, for who could mistake her?
That she came with some terrible news from the baker:
And so it fell out, for that negligent sloven
Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven
Sad Philomel thus -- but let similes drop --
And now that I think on't, the story may stop.
To be plain, my good Lord, it's but labour misplac'd
To send such good verses to one of your taste;
You've got an odd something -- a kind of discerning --
A relish -- a taste -- sicken'd over by learning;
At least, it's your temper, as very well known,
That you think very slightly of all that's your own:
So, perhaps, in your habits of thinking amiss,
You may make a mistake, and think slightly of this.
THIS tomb, inscrib'd to gentle Parnell's name,
May speak our gratitude, but not his fame.
What heart but feels his sweetly-moral lay,
That leads to truth through pleasure's flowery way!
Celestial themes confess'd his tuneful aid;
And Heaven, that lent him genius, was repaid.
Needless to him the tribute we bestow --
The transitory breath of fame below:
More lasting rapture from his works shall rise,
While Converts thank their poet in the skies.
JOHN TROTT was desired by two witty peers
To tell them the reason why asses had ears?
'An't please you,' quoth John, 'I'm not given to letters,
Nor dare I pretend to know more than my betters;
Howe'er, from this time I shall ne'er see your graces,
As I hope to be saved!  without thinking on asses.'
HERE lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed,
Who long was a bookseller's hack;
He led such a damnable life in this world, --
I don't think he'll wish to come back.
HOLD!  Prompter, hold!  a word before your nonsense;
I'd speak a word or two, to ease my conscience.
My pride forbids it ever should be said,
My heels eclips'd the honours of my head;
That I found humour in a piebald vest,
Or ever thought that jumping was a jest.
('Takes off his mask.')
Whence, and what art thou, visionary birth?
Nature disowns, and reason scorns thy mirth,
In thy black aspect every passion sleeps,
The joy that dimples, and the woe that weeps.
How has thou fill'd the scene with all thy brood,
Of fools pursuing, and of fools pursu'd!
Whose ins and outs no ray of sense discloses,
Whose only plot it is to break our noses;
Whilst from below the trap-door Demons rise,
And from above the dangling deities;
And shall I mix in this unhallow'd crew?
May rosined lightning blast me, if I do!
No -- I will act, I'll vindicate the stage:
Shakespeare himself shall feel my tragic rage.
Off!  off!  vile trappings!  a new passion reigns!
The madd'ning monarch revels in my veins.
Oh!  for a Richard's voice to catch the theme:
'Give me another horse!  bind up my wounds!
-- soft -- 'twas but a dream.'
Aye, 'twas but a dream, for now there's no retreating:
If I cease Harlequin, I cease from eating.
'Twas thus that Aesop's stag, a creature blameless,
Yet something vain, like one that shall be nameless,
Once on the margin of a fountain stood,
And cavill'd at his image in the flood.
'The deuce confound,' he cries, 'these drumstick shanks,
They never have my gratitude nor thanks;
They're perfectly disgraceful!  strike me dead!
But for a head, yes, yes, I have a head.
How piercing is that eye!  how sleek that brow!
My horns!  I'm told horns are the fashion now.'
Whilst thus he spoke, astonish'd, to his view,
Near, and more near, the hounds and huntsmen drew.
'Hoicks!  hark forward!' came thund'ring from behind,
He bounds aloft, outstrips the fleeting wind:
He quits the woods, and tries the beaten ways;
He starts, he pants, he takes the circling maze.
At length his silly head, so priz'd before,
Is taught his former folly to deplore;
Whilst his strong limbs conspire to set him free,
And at one bound he saves himself, -- like me.
('Taking a hump through the stage door'.)
'who curtsies very low as beginning to speak.
Then enter' MISS CATLEY,
'who stands full before her, and curtsies to the audience'.
HOLD, Ma'am, your pardon.  What's your business here?
Yes, the Epilogue, my dear.
Sure you mistake, Ma'am.  The Epilogue, 'I' bring it.
Excuse me, Ma'am.  The Author bid 'me' sing it.
Ye beaux and belles, that form this splendid ring,
Suspend your conversation while I sing.
Why, sure the girl's beside herself:  an Epilogue of singing,
A hopeful end indeed to such a blest beginning.
Besides, a singer in a comic set! --
Excuse me, Ma'am, I know the etiquette.
What if we leave it to the House?
And she, whose party's largest, shall proceed.
And first I hope, you'll readily agree
I've all the critics and the wits for me.
They, I am sure, will answer my commands:
Ye candid-judging few, hold up your hands.
What!  no return?  I find too late, I fear,
That modern judges seldom enter here.
I'm for a different set. -- Old men, whose trade is
Still to gallant and dangle with the ladies; --
Who mump their passion, and who, grimly smiling,
Still thus address the fair with voice beguiling:--
Turn, my fairest, turn, if ever
Strephon caught thy ravish'd eye;
Pity take on your swain so clever,
Who without your aid must die.
Yes, I shall die, hu, hu, hu, hu!
Yes, I must die, ho, ho, ho, ho!  ('Da capo'.)
Let all the old pay homage to your merit;
Give me the young, the gay, the men of spirit.
Ye travell'd tribe, ye macaroni train,
Of French friseurs, and nosegays, justly vain,
Who take a trip to Paris once a year
To dress, and look like awkward Frenchmen here,
Lend me your hands. -- Oh!  fatal news to tell:
Their hands are only lent to the Heinel.
Ay, take your travellers, travellers indeed!
Give me my bonny Scot, that travels from the Tweed.
Where are the chiels?  Ah!  Ah, I well discern
The smiling looks of each bewitching bairn.
'Air -- A bonny young lad is my Jockey'.
I'll sing to amuse you by night and by day,
And be unco merry when you are but gay;
When you with your bagpipes are ready to play,
My voice shall be ready to carol away
Ye gamesters, who, so eager in pursuit,
Make but of all your fortune one 'va toute';
Ye jockey tribe, whose stock of words are few,
'I hold the odds. -- Done, done, with you, with you;'
Ye barristers, so fluent with grimace,
'My Lord, -- your Lordship misconceives the case;'
Doctors, who cough and answer every misfortuner,
'I wish I'd been called in a little sooner:'
Assist my cause with hands and voices hearty;
Come, end the contest here, and aid my party.
Ye brave Irish lads, hark away to the crack,
Assist me, I pray, in this woful attack;
For sure I don't wrong you, you seldom are slack,
When the ladies are calling, to blush and hang back;
For you're always polite and attentive,
Still to amuse us inventive,
And death is your only preventive:
Your hands and your voices for me.
Well, Madam, what if, after all this sparring,
We both agree, like friends, to end our jarring?
And that our friendship may remain unbroken,
What if we leave the Epilogue unspoken?
And now with late repentance,
Un-epilogued the Poet waits his sentence.
Condemn the stubborn fool who can't submit
To thrive by flattery, though he starves by wit.
THERE is a place, so Ariosto sings,
A treasury for lost and missing things;
Lost human wits have places assign'd them,
And they, who lose their senses, there may find them.
But where's this place, this storehouse of the age?
The Moon, says he:-- but 'I' affirm the Stage:
At least in many things, I think, I see
His lunar, and our mimic world agree.
Both shine at night, for, but at Foote's alone,
We scarce exhibit till the sun goes down.
Both prone to change, no settled limits fix,
But in this parallel my best pretence is,
That mortals visit both to find their senses.
To this strange spot, Rakes, Macaronies, Cits
Come thronging to collect their scatter'd wits.
The gay coquette, who ogles all the day,
Comes here at night, and goes a prude away.
Hither the affected city dame advancing,
Who sighs for operas, and dotes on dancing,
Taught by our art her ridicule to pause on,
Quits the 'Ballet', and calls for 'Nancy Dawson'.
The Gamester too, whose wit's all high or low,
Oft risks his fortune on one desperate throw,
Comes here to saunter, having made his bets,
Finds his lost senses out, and pay his debts.
The Mohawk too -- with angry phrases stored,
Here lesson'd for a while, and hence retreating,
Goes out, affronts his man, and takes a beating.
Here come the sons of scandal and of news,
But find no sense -- for they had none to lose.
Of all the tribe here wanting an adviser
Our Author's the least likely to grow wiser;
Has he not seen how you your favour place,
On sentimental Queens and Lords in lace?
Without a star, a coronet or garter,
How can the piece expect or hope for quarter?
No high-life scenes, no sentiment:-- the creature
Still stoops among the low to copy nature.
Yes, he's far gone:-- and yet some pity fix,
SCENE - The Banks of the River Euphrates, near Babylon.
'Israelites sitting on the Banks of the Euphrates'.
YE captive tribes, that hourly work and weep
Where flows Euphrates murmuring to the deep,
Suspend awhile the task, the tear suspend,
And turn to God, your Father and your Friend.
Insulted, chain'd, and all the world a foe,
Our God alone is all we boast below.
Our God is all we boast below,
To him we turn our eyes;
And every added weight of woe
Shall make our homage rise.
And though no temple richly drest,
Nor sacrifice is here;
We'll make his temple in our breast,
And offer up a tear.
That strain once more; it bids remembrance rise,
And brings my long-lost country to mine eyes.
Ye fields of Sharon, dress'd in flow'ry pride,
Ye plains where Jordan rolls its glassy tide,
Ye hills of Lebanon, with cedars crown'd,
Ye Gilead groves, that fling perfumes around,
These hills how sweet!  Those plains how wond'rous fair,
But sweeter still, when Heaven was with us there!
O Memory, thou fond deceiver,
Still importunate and vain;
To former joys recurring ever,
And turning all the past to pain;
Hence intruder, most distressing,
Seek the happy and the free:
The wretch who wants each other blessing,
Ever wants a friend in thee.
Yet, why complain?  What, though by bonds confin'd,
Should bonds repress the vigour of the mind?
Have we not cause for triumph when we see
Ourselves alone from idol-worship free?
Are not this very morn those feasts begun?
Where prostrate error hails the rising sun?
Do not our tyrant lords this day ordain
For superstitious rites and mirth profane?
And should we mourn?  Should coward virtue fly,
When impious folly rears her front on high?
No; rather let us triumph still the more,
And as our fortune sinks, our wishes soar.
The triumphs that on vice attend
Shall ever in confusion end;
The good man suffers but to gain,
And every virtue springs from pain:
As aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But crush'd, or trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.
But hush, my sons, our tyrant lords are near;
The sounds of barb'rous pleasure strike mine ear;
Triumphant music floats along the vale;
Near, nearer still, it gathers on the gale;
The growing sound their swift approach declares; --
Desist, my sons, nor mix the strain with theirs.
'Enter' CHALDEAN PRIESTS 'attended'.
Come on, my companions, the triumph display;
Let rapture the minutes employ;
The sun calls us out on this festival day,
And our monarch partakes in the joy.
Like the sun, our great monarch all rapture supplies,
Both similar blessings bestow;
The sun with his splendour illumines the skies,
And our monarch enlivens below.
Haste, ye sprightly sons of pleasure;
Love presents the fairest treasure,
Leave all other joys for me.
Or rather, Love's delights despising,
Haste to raptures ever rising
Wine shall bless the brave and free.
Wind and beauty thus inviting,
Each to different joys exciting,
Whither shall my choice incline?
I'll waste no longer thought in choosing;
But, neither this nor that refusing,
I'll make them both together mine.
But whence, when joy should brighten o'er the land,
This sullen gloom in Judah's captive band?
Ye sons of Judah, why the lute unstrung?
Or why those harps on yonder willows hung?
Come, take the lyre, and pour the strain along,
The day demands it; sing us Sion's song.
Dismiss your griefs, and join our warbling choir,
For who like you can wake the sleeping lyre?
Bow'd down with chains, the scorn of all mankind,
To want, to toil, and every ill consign'd,
Is this a time to bid us raise the strain,
Or mix in rites that Heaven regards with pain?
No, never!  May this hand forget each art
That speeds the power of music to the heart,
Ere I forget the land that gave me birth,
Or join with sounds profane its sacred mirth!
Insulting slaves!  If gentler methods fail,
The whips and angry tortures shall prevail.
Why, let them come, one good remains to cheer;
We fear the Lord, and know no other fear.
Can whips or tortures hurt the mind
On God's supporting breast reclin'd?
Stand fast, and let our tyrants see
That fortitude is victory.
'Scene as before'.
O PEACE of mind, angelic guest!
Thou soft companion of the breast!
Dispense thy balmy store.
Wing all our thoughts to reach the skies,
Till earth, receding from our eyes,
Shall vanish as we soar.
No more!  Too long has justice been delay'd,
The king's commands must fully be obey'd;
Compliance with his will your peace secures,
Praise but our gods, and every good is yours.
But if, rebellious to his high command,
You spurn the favours offer'd from his hand,
Think, timely think, what terrors are behind;
Reflect, nor tempt to rage the royal mind.
Fierce is the whirlwind howling
O'er Afric's sandy plain,
And fierce the tempest rolling
Along the furrow'd main:
But storms that fly,
To rend the sky,
Every ill presaging,
Less dreadful show
To worlds below
Than angry monarch's raging.
Ah, me! What angry terrors round us grow;
How shrinks my soul to meet the threaten'd blow!
Ye prophets, skill'd in Heaven's eternal truth,
Forgive my sex's fears, forgive my youth!
If, shrinking thus, when frowning power appears,
I wish for life, and yield me to my fears.
Let us one hour, one little hour obey;
To-morrow's tears may wash our stains away.
To the last moment of his breath
On hope the wretch relies;
And e'en the pang preceding death
Bids expectation rise.
Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,
Adorns and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.
Why this delay? At length for joy prepare;
I read your looks, and see compliance there.
Come on, and bid the warbling rapture rise,
Our monarch's fame the noblest theme supplies.
Begin, ye captive bands, and strike the lyre,
The time, the theme, the place, and all conspire.
See the ruddy morning smiling,
Hear the grove to bliss beguiling;
Zephyrs through the woodland playing,
Streams along the valley straying.
While these a constant revel keep,
Shall Reason only teach to weep?
Hence, intruder! We'll pursue
Nature, a better guide than you.
Every moment, as it flows,
Some peculiar pleasure owes;
Then let us, providently wise,
Seize the debtor as it flies.
Think not to-morrow can repay
The pleasures that we lose to-day;
To-morrow's most unbounded store
Can but pay its proper score.
But hush!  See, foremost of the captive choir,
The master-prophet grasps his full-ton'd lyre.
Mark where he sits, with executing art,
Feels for each tone, and speeds it to the heart;
See how prophetic rapture fills his form,
Awful as clouds that nurse the growing storm;
And now his voice, accordant to the string,
Prepares our monarch's victories to sing.
From north, from south, from east, from west,
Conspiring nations come;
Tremble thou vice-polluted breast;
The tempest gathers all around,
On Babylon it lies;
Down with her! down -- down to the ground;
She sinks, she groans, she dies.
Down with her, Lord, to lick the dust,
Ere yonder setting sun;
Serve her as she hath served the just!
'Tis fixed -- it shall be done.
No more! When slaves thus insolent presume,
The king himself shall judge, and fix their doom.
Unthinking wretches! have not you, and all,
Beheld our power in Zedekiah's fall?
To yonder gloomy dungeon turn your eyes;
See where dethron'd your captive monarch lies,
Depriv'd of sight and rankling in his chain;
See where he mourns his friends and children slain.
Yet know, ye slaves, that still remain behind
More ponderous chains, and dungeons more confin'd.
Arise, all potent ruler, rise,
And vindicate thy people's cause;
Till every tongue in every land
Shall offer up unfeign'd applause.
'Scene as before'.
YES, my companions, Heaven's decrees are past,
And our fix'd empire shall for ever last;
In vain the madd'ning prophet threatens woe,
In vain rebellion aims her secret blow;
Still shall our fame and growing power be spread,
And still our vengeance crush the traitor's head.
Coeval with man
Our empire began,
And never shall fail
Till ruin shakes all;
When ruin shakes all,
Then shall Babylon fall.
'Tis thus that pride triumphant rears the head,
A little while, and all their power is fled;
But ha! what means yon sadly plaintive train,
That this way slowly bend along the plain?
And now, methinks, to yonder bank they bear
A palled corse, and rest the body there.
Alas! too well mine eyes indignant trace
The last remains of Judah's royal race:
Our monarch falls, and now our fears are o'er,
Unhappy Zedekiah is no more!
Ye wretches who, by fortune's hate,
In want and sorrow groan;
Come ponder his severer fate,
And learn to bless your own.
You vain, whom youth and pleasure guide,
Awhile the bliss suspend;
Like yours, his life began in pride,
Like his, your lives shall end.
Behold his wretched corse with sorrow worn,
His squalid limbs with pond'rous fetters torn;
Those eyeless orbs that shock with ghastly glare,
Those ill-becoming rags -- that matted hair!
And shall not Heaven for this its terrors show,
Grasp the red bolt, and lay the guilty low?
How long, how long, Almighty God of all,
Shall wrath vindictive threaten ere it fall!
As panting flies the hunted hind,
Where brooks refreshing stray;
And rivers through the valley wind,
That stop the hunter's way:
Thus we, O Lord, alike distrest,
For streams of mercy long;
Those streams which cheer the sore opprest,
And overwhelm the strong.
But, whence that shout?  Good heavens! amazement all!
See yonder tower just nodding to the fall:
See where an army covers all the ground,
Saps the strong wall, and pours destruction round;
The ruin smokes, destruction pours along;
How low the great, how feeble are the strong!
The foe prevails, the lofty walls recline --
O God of hosts, the victory is thine!
Down with them, Lord, to lick the dust;
Thy vengeance be begun:
Serve them as they have serv'd the just,
And let thy will be done.
All, all is lost.  The Syrian army fails,
Cyrus, the conqueror of the world, prevails,
The ruin smokes, the torrent pours along;
How low the proud, how feeble are the strong!
Save us, O Lord! to thee, though late, we pray,
And give repentance but an hour's delay.
Thrice happy, who in happy hour
To Heaven their praise bestow,
And own his all-consuming power
Before they feel the blow!
Now, now's our time! ye wretches bold and blind,
Brave but to God, and cowards to mankind,
Too late you seek that power unsought before,
Your wealth, your pride, your kingdom, are no more.
O Lucifer, thou son of morn,
Alike of Heaven and man the foe;
Heaven, men, and all,
Now press thy fall,
And sink thee lowest of the low.
O Babylon, how art thou fallen!
Thy fall more dreadful from delay!
Thy streets forlorn
To wilds shall turn,
Where toads shall pant, and vultures prey.
Such be her fate.  But listen! from afar
The clarion's note proclaims the finish'd war!
Cyrus, our great restorer, is at hand,
And this way leads his formidable band.
Give, give your songs of Sion to the wind,
And hail the benefactor of mankind:
He comes pursuant to divine decree,
To chain the strong, and set the captive free.
Rise to transports past expressing,
Sweeter from remember'd woes;
Cyrus comes, our wrongs redressing,
Comes to give the world repose.
Cyrus comes, the world redressing,
Love and pleasure in his train;
Comes to heighten every blessing,
Comes to soften every pain.
Hail to him with mercy reigning,
Skilled in every peaceful art;
Who from bonds our limbs unchaining,
Only binds the willing heart.
But chief to Thee, our God, defender, friend,
Let praise be given to all eternity;
O Thou, without beginning, without end,
Let us, and all, begin and end, in Thee!
'This 'is' a poem!  This 'is' a copy of verses!'
YOUR mandate I got,
You may all go to pot;
Had your senses been right,
You'd have sent before night;
As I hope to be saved,
I put off being shaved;
For I could not make bold,
While the matter was cold,
To meddle in suds,
Or to put on my duds;
So tell Horneck and Nesbitt,
And Baker and his bit,
And Kauffmann beside,
With the rest of the crew,
The Reynoldses two,
Little Comedy's face,
And the Captain in lace,
(By-the-bye you may tell him,
I have something to sell him;
Of use I insist,
When he comes to enlist.
Your worships must know
That a few days ago,
An order went out,
For the foot guards so stout
To wear tails in high taste,
Twelve inches at least:
Now I've got him a scale
To measure each tail,
To lengthen a short tail,
And a long one to curtail.) --
Yet how can I when vext,
Thus stray from my text?
Tell each other to rue
Your Devonshire crew,
For sending so late
To one of my state.
But 'tis Reynolds's way
From wisdom to stray,
And Angelica's whim
To be frolick like him,
But, alas! Your good worships, how could they be wiser,
When both have been spoil'd in to-day's 'Advertiser'?
'I hope, my good Doctor, you soon will be here,
And your spring-velvet coat very smart will appear,
To open our ball the first day of the year.'
'And bring with you a wig, that is modish and gay,
To dance with the girls that are makers of hay.'
First let me suppose, what may shortly be true,
The company set, and the word to be, Loo;
All smirking, and pleasant, and big with adventure,
And ogling the stake which is fix'd in the centre.
Round and round go the cards, while I inwardly damn
At never once finding a visit from Pam.
I lay down my stake, apparently cool,
While the harpies about me all pocket the pool.
I fret in my gizzard, yet, cautious and sly,
I wish all my friends may be bolder than I:
Yet still they sit snug, not a creature will aim
By losing their money to venture at fame.
'Tis in vain that I flatter the brave and the bold:
All play their own way, and they think me an ass, --
'What does Mrs. Bunbury?'  'I, Sir?  I pass.'
'Pray what does Miss Horneck? Take courage, come do,' --
'Who, I?  let me see, Sir, why I must pass too.'
Mr. Bunbury frets, and I fret like the devil,
To see them so cowardly, lucky, and civil.
Yet still I sit snug, and continue to sigh on,
Till made by my losses as bold as a lion,
I venture at all, -- while my avarice regards
The whole pool as my own -- 'Come, give me five cards.'
'Well done!' cry the ladies; 'Ah, Doctor, that's good!
The pool's very rich -- ah! the Doctor is loo'd!'
Thus foil'd in my courage, on all sides perplex'd,
I ask for advice from the lady that's next:
'Pray, Ma'am, be so good as to give your advice;
Don't you think the best way is to venture for 't twice?'
'I advise,' cries the lady, 'to try it, I own. --
Ah! the Doctor is loo'd!  Come, Doctor, put down.'
Thus, playing, and playing, I still grow more eager,
And so bold, and so bold, I'm at last a bold beggar.
Now, ladies, I ask, if law-matters you're skill'd in,
Whether crimes such as yours should not come before Fielding?
For giving advice that is not worth a straw,
May well be call'd picking of pockets in law;
And picking of pockets, with which I now charge ye,
Is, by quinto Elizabeth, Death without Clergy.
What justice, when both to the Old Bailey brought!
By the gods, I'll enjoy it; though 'tis but in thought!
Both are plac'd at the bar, with all proper decorum,
With bunches of fennel, and nosegays before 'em;
Both cover their faces with mobs and all that;
But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat.
When uncover'd, a buzz of enquiry runs round, --
'Pray what are their crimes?' -- 'They've been pilfering found.'
'But, pray, whom have they pilfer'd?' -- 'A Doctor, I hear.'
'What, yon solemn-faced, odd-looking man that stands near!'
'The same.' -- 'What a pity! how does it surprise one!
Two handsomer culprits I never set eyes on!'
Then their friends all come round me with cringing and leering,
To melt me to pity, and soften my swearing.
First Sir Charles advances with phrases well strung,
'Consider, dear Doctor, the girls are but young.'
'The younger the worse,' I return him again,
'It shows that their habits are all dyed in grain.'
'But then they're so handsome, one's bosom it grieves.'
'What signifies 'handsome', when people are thieves?'
'But where is your justice? their cases are hard.'
'What signifies 'justice'?  I want the 'reward'.
There's the parish of Edmonton offers forty pounds; there's the
parish of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, offers forty pounds; there's
the parish of Tyburn, from the Hog-in-the-Pound to St. Giles's
watchhouse, offers forty pounds, -- I shall have all that if I
convict them!' --
'But consider their case, -- it may yet be your own!
And see how they kneel!  Is your heart made of stone?'
This moves:-- so at last I agree to relent,
For ten pounds in hand, and ten pounds to be spent.
I challenge you all to answer this:  I tell you, you cannot. It
cuts deep; -- but now for the rest of the letter: and next --
but I want room -- so I believe I shall battle the rest out at
Barton some day next week.
I don't value you all!
ARMIES of box that sportively engage
And mimic real battles in their rage,
Pleased I recount; how, smit with glory's charms,
Two mighty Monarchs met in adverse arms,
Sable and white; assist me to explore,
Ye Serian Nymphs, what ne'er was sung before.
No path appears: yet resolute I stray
Where youth undaunted bids me force my way.
O'er rocks and cliffs while I the task pursue,
Guide me, ye Nymphs, with your unerring clue.
For you the rise of this diversion know,
You first were pleased in Italy to show
This studious sport; from Scacchis was its name,
The pleasing record of your Sister's fame.
When Jove through Ethiopia's parch'd extent
To grace the nuptials of old Ocean went,
Each god was there; and mirth and joy around
To shores remote diffused their happy sound.
Then when their hunger and their thirst no more
Claim'd their attention, and the feast was o'er;
Ocean with pastime to divert the thought,
Commands a painted table to be brought.
Sixty-four spaces fill the chequer'd square;
Eight in each rank eight equal limits share.
Alike their form, but different are their dyes,
They fade alternate, and alternate rise,
White after black; such various stains as those
The shelving backs of tortoises disclose.
Then to the gods that mute and wondering sate,
You see (says he) the field prepared for fate.
Here will the little armies please your sight,
With adverse colours hurrying to the fight:
On which so oft, with silent sweet surprise,
The Nymphs and Nereids used to feast their eyes,
And all the neighbours of the hoary deep,
When calm the sea, and winds were lull'd asleep
But see, the mimic heroes tread the board;
He said, and straightway from an urn he pour'd
The sculptured box, that neatly seem'd to ape
The graceful figure of a human shape:--
Equal the strength and number of each foe,
Sixteen appear'd like jet, sixteen like snow.
As their shape varies various is the name,
Different their posts, nor is their strength the same.
There might you see two Kings with equal pride
Gird on their arms, their Consorts by their side;
Here the Foot-warriors glowing after fame,
There prancing Knights and dexterous Archers came
And Elephants, that on their backs sustain
Vast towers of war, and fill and shake the plain.
And now both hosts, preparing for the storm
Of adverse battle, their encampments form.
In the fourth space, and on the farthest line,
Directly opposite the Monarchs shine;
The swarthy on white ground, on sable stands
The silver King; and then they send commands.
Nearest to these the Queens exert their might;
One the left side, and t'other guards the right:
Where each, by her respective armour known.
Chooses the colour that is like her own.
Then the young Archers, two that snowy-white
Bend the tough yew, and two as black as night;
(Greece call'd them Mars's favourites heretofore,
From their delight in war, and thirst of gore).
These on each side the Monarch and his Queen
Surround obedient; next to these are seen
The crested Knights in golden armour gay;
Their steeds by turns curvet, or snort or neigh.
In either army on each distant wing
Two mighty Elephants their castles bring,
Bulwarks immense! and then at last combine
Eight of the Foot to form the second line,
The vanguard to the King and Queen; from far
Prepared to open all the fate of war.
So moved the boxen hosts, each double-lined,
Their different colours floating in the wind:
As if an army of the Gauls should go,
With their white standards, o'er the Alpine snow
To meet in rigid fight on scorching sands
The sun-burnt Moors and Memnon's swarthy bands.
Then Father Ocean thus; you see them here,
Celestial powers, what troops, what camps appear.
Learn now the sev'ral orders of the fray,
For e'en these arms their stated laws obey.
To lead the fight, the Kings from all their bands
Choose whom they please to bear their great commands.
Should a black hero first to battle go,
Instant a white one guards against the blow;
But only one at once can charge or shun the foe.
Their gen'ral purpose on one scheme is bent,
So to besiege the King within the tent,
That there remains no place by subtle flight
From danger free; and that decides the fight.
Meanwhile, howe'er, the sooner to destroy
Th' imperial Prince, remorseless they employ
Their swords in blood; and whosoever dare
Oppose their vengeance, in the ruin share.
Fate thins their camp; the parti-coloured field
Widens apace, as they o'ercome or yield,
But the proud victor takes the captive's post;
There fronts the fury of th' avenging host
One single shock: and (should he ward the blow),
May then retire at pleasure from the foe.
The Foot alone (so their harsh laws ordain)
When they proceed can ne'er return again.
But neither all rush on alike to prove
The terror of their arms: The Foot must move
Directly on, and but a single square;
Yet may these heroes, when they first prepare
To mix in combat on the bloody mead,
Double their sally, and two steps proceed;
But when they wound, their swords they subtly guide
With aim oblique, and slanting pierce his side.
But the great Indian beasts, whose backs sustain
Vast turrets arm'd, when on the redd'ning plain
They join in all the terror of the fight,
Forward or backward, to the left or right,
Run furious, and impatient of confine
Scour through the field, and threat the farthest line.
Yet must they ne'er obliquely aim their blows;
That only manner is allow'd to those
Whom Mars has favour'd most, who bend the stubborn bows.
These glancing sidewards in a straight career,
Yet each confin'd to their respective sphere,
Or white or black, can send th' unerring dart
Wing'd with swift death to pierce through ev'ry part.
The fiery steed, regardless of the reins,
Comes prancing on; but sullenly disdains
The path direct, and boldly wheeling round,
Leaps o'er a double space at ev'ry bound:
And shifts from white or black to diff'rent colour'd ground.
But the fierce Queen, whom dangers ne'er dismay,
The strength and terror of the bloody day,
In a straight line spreads her destruction wide,
To left or right, before, behind, aside.
Yet may she never with a circling course
Sweep to the battle like the fretful Horse;
But unconfin'd may at her pleasure stray,
If neither friend nor foe block up the way;
For to o'erleap a warrior, 'tis decreed
Those only dare who curb the snorting steed.
With greater caution and majestic state
The warlike Monarchs in the scene of fate
Direct their motions, since for these appear
Zealous each hope, and anxious ev'ry fear.
While the King's safe, with resolution stern
They clasp their arms; but should a sudden turn
Make him a captive, instantly they yield,
Resolved to share his fortune in the field.
He moves on slow; with reverence profound
His faithful troops encompass him around,
And oft, to break some instant fatal scheme,
Rush to their fates, their sov'reign to redeem;
While he, unanxious where to wound the foe,
Need only shift and guard against a blow.
But none, however, can presume t' appear
Within his reach, but must his vengeance fear;
For he on ev'ry side his terror throws;
But when he changes from his first repose,
Moves but one step, most awfully sedate,
Or idly roving, or intent on fate.
These are the sev'ral and establish'd laws:
Now see how each maintains his bloody cause.
Here paused the god, but (since whene'er they wage
War here on earth the gods themselves engage
In mutual battle as they hate or love,
And the most stubborn war is oft above),
Almighty Jove commands the circling train
Of gods from fav'ring either to abstain,
And let the fight be silently survey'd;
And added solemn threats if disobey'd.
Then call'd he Phoebus from among the Powers
And subtle Hermes, whom in softer hours
Fair Maia bore: youth wanton'd in their face;
Both in life's bloom, both shone with equal grace.
Hermes as yet had never wing'd his feet;
As yet Apollo in his radiant seat
Had never driv'n his chariot through the air,
Known by his bow alone and golden hair.
These Jove commission'd to attempt the fray,
And rule the sportive military day;
Bid them agree which party each maintains,
And promised a reward that's worth their pains.
The greater took their seats; on either hand
Respectful the less gods in order stand,
But careful not to interrupt their play,
By hinting when t' advance or run away.
Then they examine, who shall first proceed
To try their courage, and their army lead.
Chance gave it for the White, that he should go
First with a brave defiance to the foe.
Awhile he ponder'd which of all his train
Should bear his first commission o'er the plain;
And then determined to begin the scene
With him that stood before to guard the Queen.
He took a double step: with instant care
Does the black Monarch in his turn prepare
The adverse champion, and with stern command
Bid him repel the charge with equal hand.
There front to front, the midst of all the field,
With furious threats their shining arms they wield;
Yet vain the conflict, neither can prevail
While in one path each other they assail.
On ev'ry side to their assistance fly
Their fellow soldiers, and with strong supply
Crowd to the battle, but no bloody stain
Tinctures their armour; sportive in the plain
Mars plays awhile, and in excursion slight
Harmless they sally forth, or wait the fight.
But now the swarthy Foot, that first appear'd
To front the foe, his pond'rous jav'lin rear'd
Leftward aslant, and a pale warrior slays,
Spurns him aside, and boldly takes his place.
Unhappy youth, his danger not to spy!
Instant he fell, and triumph'd but to die.
At this the sable King with prudent care
Removed his station from the middle square,
And slow retiring to the farthest ground,
There safely lurk'd, with troops entrench'd around.
Then from each quarter to the war advance
The furious Knights, and poise the trembling lance:
By turns they rush, by turns the victors yield,
Heaps of dead Foot choke up the crimson'd field:
They fall unable to retreat; around
The clang of arms and iron hoofs resound.
But while young Phoebus pleased himself to view
His furious Knight destroy the vulgar crew,
Sly Hermes long'd t' attempt with secret aim
Some noble act of more exalted fame.
For this, he inoffensive pass'd along
Through ranks of Foot, and midst the trembling throng
Sent his left Horse, that free without confine
Rov'd o'er the plain, upon some great design
Against the King himself.  At length he stood,
And having fix'd his station as he would,
Threaten'd at once with instant fate the King
And th' Indian beast that guarded the right wing.
Apollo sigh'd, and hast'ning to relieve
The straiten'd Monarch, griev'd that he must leave
His martial Elephant expos'd to fate,
And view'd with pitying eyes his dang'rous state.
First in his thoughts however was his care
To save his King, whom to the neighbouring square
On the right hand, he snatch'd with trembling flight;
At this with fury springs the sable Knight,
Drew his keen sword, and rising to the blow,
Sent the great Indian brute to shades below.
O fatal loss! for none except the Queen
Spreads such a terror through the bloody scene.
Yet shall you ne'er unpunish'd boast your prize,
The Delian god with stern resentment cries;
And wedg'd him round with Foot, and pour'd in fresh supplies.
Thus close besieg'd trembling he cast his eye
Around the plain, but saw no shelter nigh,
No way for flight; for here the Queen oppos'd,
The Foot in phalanx there the passage clos'd:
At length he fell; yet not unpleas'd with fate,
Since victim to a Queen's vindictive hate.
With grief and fury burns the whiten'd host,
One of their Tow'rs thus immaturely lost.
As when a bull has in contention stern
Lost his right horn, with double vengeance burn
His thoughts for war, with blood he's cover'd o'er,
And the woods echo to his dismal roar,
So look'd the flaxen host, when angry fate
O'erturn'd the Indian bulwark of their state.
Fired at this great success, with double rage
Apollo hurries on his troops t' engage,
For blood and havoc wild; and, while he leads
His troops thus careless, loses both his steeds:
For if some adverse warriors were o'erthrown,
He little thought what dangers threat his own.
But slyer Hermes with observant eyes
March'd slowly cautious, and at distance spies
What moves must next succeed, what dangers next arise.
Often would he, the stately Queen to snare,
The slender Foot to front her arms prepare,
And to conceal his scheme he sighs and feigns
Such a wrong step would frustrate all his pains.
Just then an Archer, from the right-hand view,
At the pale Queen his arrow boldly drew,
Unseen by Phoebus, who, with studious thought,
From the left side a vulgar hero brought.
But tender Venus, with a pitying eye,
Viewing the sad destruction that was nigh,
Wink'd upon Phoebus (for the Goddess sat
By chance directly opposite); at that
Roused in an instant, young Apollo threw
His eyes around the field his troops to view:
Perceiv'd the danger, and with sudden fright
Withdrew the Foot that he had sent to fight,
And sav'd his trembling Queen by seasonable flight.
But Maia's son with shouts fill'd all the coast:
The Queen, he cried, the important Queen is lost.
Phoebus, howe'er, resolving to maintain
What he had done, bespoke the heavenly train.
What mighty harm, in sportive mimic flight,
Is it to set a little blunder right,
When no preliminary rule debarr'd?
If you henceforward, Mercury, would guard
Against such practice, let us make the law:
And whosoe'er shall first to battle draw,
Or white, or black, remorseless let him go
At all events, and dare the angry foe.
He said, and this opinion pleased around:
Jove turn'd aside, and on his daughter frown'd,
Unmark'd by Hermes, who, with strange surprise,
Fretted and foam'd, and roll'd his ferret eyes,
And but with great reluctance could refrain
From dashing at a blow all off the plain.
Then he resolved to interweave deceits, --
To carry on the war by tricks and cheats.
Instant he call'd an Archer from the throng,
And bid him like the courser wheel along:
Bounding he springs, and threats the pallid Queen.
The fraud, however, was by Phoebus seen;
He smiled, and, turning to the Gods, he said:
Though, Hermes, you are perfect in your trade,
And you can trick and cheat to great surprise,
These little sleights no more shall blind my eyes;
Correct them if you please, the more you thus disguise.
The circle laugh'd aloud; and Maia's son
(As if it had but by mistake been done)
Recall'd his Archer, and with motion due,
Bid him advance, the combat to renew.
But Phoebus watch'd him with a jealous eye,
Fearing some trick was ever lurking nigh,
For he would oft, with sudden sly design,
Send forth at once two combatants to join
His warring troops, against the law of arms,
Unless the wary foe was ever in alarms.
Now the white Archer with his utmost force
Bent the tough bow against the sable Horse,
And drove him from the Queen, where he had stood
Hoping to glut his vengeance with her blood.
Then the right Elephant with martial pride
Roved here and there, and spread his terrors wide:
Glittering in arms from far a courser came,
Threaten'd at once the King and Royal Dame;
Thought himself safe when he the post had seized,
And with the future spoils his fancy pleased.
Fired at the danger a young Archer came,
Rush'd on the foe, and levell'd sure his aim;
(And though a Pawn his sword in vengeance draws,
Gladly he'd lose his life in glory's cause).
The whistling arrow to his bowels flew,
And the sharp steel his blood profusely drew;
He drops the reins, he totters to the ground,
And his life issued murm'ring through the wound.
Pierced by the Foot, this Archer bit the plain;
The Foot himself was by another slain;
And with inflamed revenge, the battle burns again.
Towers, Archers, Knights, meet on the crimson ground,
And the field echoes to the martial sound.
Their thoughts are heated, and their courage fired,
Thick they rush on with double zeal inspired;
Generals and Foot, with different colour'd mien,
Confusedly warring in the camps are seen, --
Valour and fortune meet in one promiscuous scene.
Now these victorious, lord it o'er the field;
Now the foe rallies, the triumphant yield:
Just as the tide of battle ebbs or flows.
As when the conflict more tempestuous grows
Between the winds, with strong and boisterous sweep
They plough th' Ionian or Atlantic deep!
By turns prevail the mutual blustering roar,
And the big waves alternate lash the shore.
But in the midst of all the battle raged
The snowy Queen, with troops at once engaged;
She fell'd an Archer as she sought the plain, --
As she retired an Elephant was slain:
To right and left her fatal spears she sent,
Burst through the ranks, and triumph'd as she went;
Through arms and blood she seeks a glorious fate,
Pierces the farthest lines, and nobly great
Leads on her army with a gallant show,
Breaks the battalions, and cuts through the foe.
At length the sable King his fears betray'd,
And begg'd his military consort's aid:
With cheerful speed she flew to his relief,
And met in equal arms the female chief.
Who first, great Queen, and who at last did bleed?
How many Whites lay gasping on the mead?
Half dead, and floating in a bloody tide,
Foot, Knights, and Archer lie on every side.
Who can recount the slaughter of the day?
How many leaders threw their lives away?
The chequer'd plain is fill'd with dying box,
Havoc ensues, and with tumultuous shocks
The different colour'd ranks in blood engage,
And Foot and Horse promiscuously rage.
With nobler courage and superior might
The dreadful Amazons sustain the fight,
Resolved alike to mix in glorious strife,
Till to imperious fate they yield their life.
Meanwhile each Monarch, in a neighbouring cell,
Confined the warriors that in battle fell,
There watch'd the captives with a jealous eye,
Lest, slipping out again, to arms they fly.
But Thracian Mars, in stedfast friendship join'd
To Hermes, as near Phoebus he reclined,
Observed each chance, how all their motions bend,
Resolved if possible to serve his friend.
He a Foot-soldier and a Knight purloin'd
Out from the prison that the dead confined;
And slyly push'd 'em forward on the plain;
Th' enliven'd combatants their arms regain,
Mix in the bloody scene, and boldly war again.
So the foul hag, in screaming wild alarms
O'er a dead carcase muttering her charms,
(And with her frequent and tremendous yell
Forcing great Hecate from out of hell)
Shoots in the corpse a new fictitious soul;
With instant glare the supple eyeballs roll,
Again it moves and speaks, and life informs the whole.
Vulcan alone discern'd the subtle cheat;
And wisely scorning such a base deceit,
Call'd out to Phoebus.  Grief and rage assail
Phoebus by turns; detected Mars turns pale.
Then awful Jove with sullen eye reproved
Mars, and the captives order'd to be moved
To their dark caves; bid each fictitious spear
Be straight recall'd, and all be as they were.
And now both Monarchs with redoubled rage
Led on their Queens, the mutual war to wage.
O'er all the field their thirsty spears they send,
Then front to front their Monarchs they defend.
But lo! the female White rush'd in unseen,
And slew with fatal haste the swarthy Queen;
Yet soon, alas! resign'd her royal spoils,
Snatch'd by a shaft from her successful toils.
Struck at the sight, both hosts in wild surprise
Pour'd forth their tears, and fill'd the air with cries;
They wept and sigh'd, as pass'd the fun'ral train,
As if both armies had at once been slain.
And now each troop surrounds its mourning chief,
To guard his person, or assuage his grief.
One is their common fear; one stormy blast
Has equally made havoc as it pass'd.
Not all, however, of their youth are slain;
Some champions yet the vig'rous war maintain.
Three Foot, an Archer, and a stately Tower,
For Phoebus still exert their utmost power.
Just the same number Mercury can boast,
Except the Tower, who lately in his post
Unarm'd inglorious fell, in peace profound,
Pierced by an Archer with a distant wound;
But his right Horse retain'd its mettled pride, --
The rest were swept away by war's strong tide.
But fretful Hermes, with despairing moan,
Griev'd that so many champions were o'erthrown,
Yet reassumes the fight; and summons round
The little straggling army that he found, --
All that had 'scaped from fierce Apollo's rage, --
Resolved with greater caution to engage
In future strife, by subtle wiles (if fate
Should give him leave) to save his sinking state.
The sable troops advance with prudence slow,
Bent on all hazards to distress the foe.
More cheerful Phoebus, with unequal pace,
Rallies his arms to lessen his disgrace.
But what strange havoc everywhere has been!
A straggling champion here and there is seen;
And many are the tents, yet few are left within.
Th' afflicted Kings bewail their consorts dead,
And loathe the thoughts of a deserted bed;
And though each monarch studies to improve
The tender mem'ry of his former love,
Their state requires a second nuptial tie.
Hence the pale ruler with a love-sick eye
Surveys th' attendants of his former wife,
And offers one of them a royal life.
These, when their martial mistress had been slain,
Weak and despairing tried their arms in vain;
Willing, howe'er, amidst the Black to go,
They thirst for speedy vengeance on the foe.
Then he resolves to see who merits best,
By strength and courage, the imperial vest;
Points out the foe, bids each with bold design
Pierce through the ranks, and reach the deepest line:
For none must hope with monarchs to repose
But who can first, through thick surrounding foes,
Through arms and wiles, with hazardous essay,
Safe to the farthest quarters force their way.
Fired at the thought, with sudden, joyful pace
They hurry on; but first of all the race
Runs the third right-hand warrior for the prize, --
The glitt'ring crown already charms her eyes.
Her dear associates cheerfully give o'er
The nuptial chase; and swift she flies before,
And Glory lent her wings, and the reward in store.
Nor would the sable King her hopes prevent,
For he himself was on a Queen intent,
Alternate, therefore, through the field they go.
Hermes led on, but by a step too slow,
His fourth left Pawn: and now th' advent'rous White
Had march'd through all, and gain'd the wish'd for site.
Then the pleased King gives orders to prepare
The crown, the sceptre, and the royal chair,
And owns her for his Queen: around exult
The snowy troops, and o'er the Black insult.
Hermes burst into tears, -- with fretful roar
Fill'd the wide air, and his gay vesture tore.
The swarthy Foot had only to advance
One single step; but oh! malignant chance!
A towered Elephant, with fatal aim,
Stood ready to destroy her when she came:
He keeps a watchful eye upon the whole,
Threatens her entrance, and protects the goal.
Meanwhile the royal new-created bride,
Pleased with her pomp, spread death and terror wide;
Like lightning through the sable troops she flies,
Clashes her arms, and seems to threat the skies.
The sable troops are sunk in wild affright,
And wish th' earth op'ning snatch'd 'em from her sight.
In burst the Queen, with vast impetuous swing:
The trembling foes come swarming round the King,
Where in the midst he stood, and form a valiant ring.
So the poor cows, straggling o'er pasture land,
When they perceive the prowling wolf at hand,
Crowd close together in a circle full,
And beg the succour of the lordly bull;
They clash their horns, they low with dreadful sound,
And the remotest groves re-echo round.
But the bold Queen, victorious, from behind
Pierces the foe; yet chiefly she design'd
Against the King himself some fatal aim,
And full of war to his pavilion came.
Now here she rush'd, now there; and had she been
But duly prudent, she had slipp'd between,
With course oblique, into the fourth white square,
And the long toil of war had ended there,
The King had fallen, and all his sable state;
And vanquish'd Hermes cursed his partial fate.
For thence with ease the championess might go,
Murder the King, and none could ward the blow.
With silence, Hermes, and with panting heart,
Perceived the danger, but with subtle art,
(Lest he should see the place) spurs on the foe,
Confounds his thoughts, and blames his being slow.
For shame! move on; would you for ever stay?
What sloth is this, what strange perverse delay? --
How could you e'er my little pausing blame? --
What! you would wait till night shall end the game?
Phoebus, thus nettled, with imprudence slew
A vulgar Pawn, but lost his nobler view.
Young Hermes leap'd, with sudden joy elate;
And then, to save the monarch from his fate,
Led on his martial Knight, who stepp'd between,
Pleased that his charge was to oppose the Queen --
Then, pondering how the Indian beast to slay,
That stopp'd the Foot from making farther way, --
From being made a Queen; with slanting aim
An archer struck him; down the monster came,
And dying shook the earth: while Phoebus tries
Without success the monarch to surprise.
The Foot, then uncontroll'd with instant pride,
Seized the last spot, and moved a royal bride.
And now with equal strength both war again,
And bring their second wives upon the plain;
Then, though with equal views each hop'd and fear'd,
Yet, as if every doubt had disappear'd,
As if he had the palm, young Hermes flies
Into excess of joy; with deep disguise,
Extols his own Black troops, with frequent spite
And with invective taunts disdains the White.
Whom Phoebus thus reproved with quick return --
As yet we cannot the decision learn
Of this dispute, and do you triumph now?
Then your big words and vauntings I'll allow,
When you the battle shall completely gain;
At present I shall make your boasting vain.
He said, and forward led the daring Queen;
Instant the fury of the bloody scene
Rises tumultuous, swift the warriors fly
From either side to conquer or to die.
They front the storm of war: around 'em Fear,
Terror, and Death, perpetually appear.
All meet in arms, and man to man oppose,
Each from their camp attempts to drive their foes;
Each tries by turns to force the hostile lines;
Chance and impatience blast their best designs.
The sable Queen spread terror as she went
Through the mid ranks: with more reserved intent
The adverse dame declined the open fray,
And to the King in private stole away:
Then took the royal guard, and bursting in,
With fatal menace close besieged the King.
Alarm'd at this, the swarthy Queen, in haste,
From all her havoc and destructive waste
Broke off, and her contempt of death to show,
Leap'd in between the Monarch and the foe,
To save the King and state from this impending blow.
But Phoebus met a worse misfortune here:
For Hermes now led forward, void of fear,
His furious Horse into the open plain,
That onward chafed, and pranced, and pawed amain.
Nor ceased from his attempts until he stood
On the long-wished-for spot, from whence he could
Slay King or Queen.  O'erwhelm'd with sudden fears,
Apollo saw, and could not keep from tears.
Now all seem'd ready to be overthrown;
His strength was wither'd, ev'ry hope was flown.
Hermes, exulting at this great surprise,
Shouted for joy, and fill'd the air with cries;
Instant he sent the Queen to shades below,
And of her spoils made a triumphant show.
But in return, and in his mid career,
Fell his brave Knight, beneath the Monarch's spear.
Phoebus, however, did not yet despair,
But still fought on with courage and with care.
He had but two poor common men to show,
And Mars's favourite with his iv'ry bow.
The thoughts of ruin made 'em dare their best
To save their King, so fatally distress'd.
But the sad hour required not such an aid;
And Hermes breathed revenge where'er he stray'd.
Fierce comes the sable Queen with fatal threat,
Surrounds the Monarch in his royal seat;
Rushed here and there, nor rested till she slew
The last remainder of the whiten'd crew.
Sole stood the King, the midst of all the plain,
Weak and defenceless, his companions slain.
As when the ruddy morn ascending high
Has chased the twinkling stars from all the sky,
Your star, fair Venus, still retains its light,
And, loveliest, goes the latest out of sight.
No safety's left, no gleams of hope remain;
Yet did he not as vanquish'd quit the plain,
But tried to shut himself between the foe, --
Unhurt through swords and spears he hoped to go,
Until no room was left to shun the fatal blow.
For if none threaten'd his immediate fate,
And his next move must ruin all his state,
All their past toil and labour is in vain,
Vain all the bloody carnage of the plain, --
Neither would triumph then, the laurel neither gain.
Therefore through each void space and desert tent,
By different moves his various course he bent:
The Black King watch'd him with observant eye,
Follow'd him close, but left him room to fly.
Then when he saw him take the farthest line,
He sent the Queen his motions to confine,
And guard the second rank, that he could go
No farther now than to that distant row.
The sable monarch then with cheerful mien
Approach'd, but always with one space between.
But as the King stood o'er against him there,
Helpless, forlorn, and sunk in his despair,
The martial Queen her lucky moment knew,
Seized on the farthest seat with fatal view,
Nor left th' unhappy King a place to flee unto.
At length in vengeance her keen sword she draws,
Slew him, and ended thus the bloody cause:
And all the gods around approved it with applause.
The victor could not from his insults keep,
But laugh'd and sneer'd to see Apollo weep.
Jove call'd him near, and gave him in his hand
The powerful, happy, and mysterious wand
By which the Shades are call'd to purer day,
When penal fire has purged their sins away;
By which the guilty are condemn'd to dwell
In the dark mansions of the deepest hell;
By which he gives us sleep, or sleep denies,
And closes at the last the dying eyes.
Soon after this, the heavenly victor brought
The game on earth, and first th' Italians taught.
For (as they say) fair Scacchis he espied
Feeding her cygnets in the silver tide,
(Sacchis, the loveliest Seriad of the place)
And as she stray'd, took her to his embrace.
Then, to reward her for her virtue lost,
Gave her the men and chequer'd board, emboss'd
With gold and silver curiously inlay'd;
And taught her how the game was to be play'd.
Ev'n now 'tis honour'd with her happy name;
And Rome and all the world admire the game.
All which the Seriads told me heretofore,
When my boy-notes amused the Serian shore.
"He was born...at Pallas."  This is the usual
account. But it was maintained by the family of the poet's
mother, and has been contended (by Dr. Michael F. Cox in a
published in vol. 1, pt. 2, of the 'Journal' of the 'National
Literary Society of Ireland.' 1900) that his real birth-place
was the residence of Mrs. Goldsmith's parents, Smith-Hill House,
Elphin, Roscommon, to which she was in the habit of paying
frequent visits. Meanwhile, in 1897, a window was placed to
Goldsmith's memory in Forgney Church, Longford,--the church of
which, at the time of his birth, his father was curate.
"his academic career was not a success."  'Oliver
Goldsmith is recorded on two occasions as being remarkably
diligent at Morning Lecture; again, as cautioned for bad
answering at Morning and Greek Lectures; and finally, as put
down into the next class for neglect of his studies' (Dr.
Stubbs's 'History of the University of Dublin', 1889, p. 201 n.)
"a scratched signature upon a window-pane."  This,
which is now at Trinity College, Dublin, is here reproduced in
facsimile. When the garrets of No. 35, Parliament Square, were
pulled down in 1837, it was cut out of the window by the last
occupant of the rooms, who broke it in the process. (Dr. J. F.
Waller in Cassell's 'Works' of Goldsmith, [1864-5], pp. xiii-xiv
"a poor physician".  Where he obtained his
diploma is not known. It was certainly not at Padua
('Athenaeum', July 21, 1894). At Leyden and Louvain Prior made
inquiries but, in each case, without success. The annals of the
University of Louvain were, however, destroyed in the
"declared it to be by Goldsmith".  Goldsmith's
authorship of this version has now been placed beyond a doubt by
the publication in facsimile of his signed receipt to Edward
Dilly for a third share of 'my translation,' such third share
amounting to 6 pounds 13s. 4d. The receipt, which belongs to Mr.
J. W. Ford of Enfield Old Park, is dated 'January 11th, 1758.'
('Memoirs of a Protestant', etc., Dent's edition, 1895, i, pp.
tiny square occupying a site now absorbed by the Holborn Viaduct
and Railway Station. No. 12, where Goldsmith lived, was later
occupied by Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. as a printing office. An
engraving of the Court forms the frontispiece to the 'European
"or some of his imitators".  The proximate
cause of the 'Citizen of the World', as the present writer has
suggested elsewhere, 'may' have been Horace Walpole's 'Letter
from XoHo [Soho?], a Chinese Philosopher at London, to his
friend Lien Chi, at Peking'. This was noticed as 'in
Montesquieu's manner' in the May issue of the 'Monthly Review'
for 1757, to which Goldsmith was a contributor ('Eighteenth
Century Vignettes', first series, second edition, 1897, pp.
"demonstrable from internal evidence".
e.g.--The references to the musical glasses (ch. ix), which were
the rage in 1761-2; and to the 'Auditor' (ch. xix) established
by Arthur Murphy in June of the latter year. The sale of the
'Vicar' is discussed at length in chapter vii of the editor's
'Life of Oliver Goldsmith' ('Great Writers' series), 1888, pp.
"started with a loss".  This, which to some
critics has seemed unintelliglble, rests upon the following:
'The first three editions,...resulted in a loss, and the fourth,
which was not issued until eight [four?] years after the first,
started with a balance against it of 2 pounds 16s. 6d., and it
was not until that fourth edition had been sold that the balance
came out on the right side' ('A Bookseller of the Last Century'
his statement upon Collins's 'Publishing book, account of books
"James's Powder".  This was a famous patent
panacea, invented by Johnson's Lichfield townsman, Dr. Robert
James of the 'Medicinal Dictionary'. It was sold by John
Newbery, and had an extraordinary vogue. The King dosed Princess
Elizabeth with it; Fielding, Gray, and Cowper all swore by it,
and Horace Walpole, who wished to try it upon Mme. du Deffand
'in extremis', said he should use it if the house were on fire.
William Hawes, the Strand apothecary who attended Goldsmith,
wrote an interesting 'Account of the late Dr. Goldsmith's
Illness, so far as relates to the Exhibition of Dr. James's
Powders, etc.', 1774, which he dedicated to Reynolds and Burke.
To Hawes once belonged the poet's worn old wooden writing-desk,
now in the South Kensington Museum, where are also his favourite
chair and cane. Another desk-chair, which had descended from his
friend, Edmund Bott, was recently for sale at Sotheby's (July,
"with an income of forty pounds a year".  Cf. 'The Deserted
A man he was, to all the country dear,
And passing rich with 'forty pounds a year'.
Cf. also Parson Adams in ch. iii of 'Joseph Andrews', who has
twenty-three; and Mr. Rivers, in the 'Spiritual Quixote',
life-time, and work for about fifteen-pence a day, or
twenty-five pounds a year' (bk. vi, ch. xvii). Dr. Primrose's
stipend is thirty-five in the first instance, fifteen in the
second ('Vicar of Wakefield', chapters ii and iii). But
Professor Hales ('Longer English Poems', 1885, p. 351) supplies
an exact parallel in the case of Churchill, who, he says, when
a curate at Rainham, 'prayed and starved on 'forty pounds a
year'.' The latter words are Churchill's own, and sound like a
quotation; but he was dead long before 'The Deserted Village'
appeared in 1770. There is an interesting paper in the
'Gentleman's Magazine' for November, 1763, on the miseries and
hardships of the 'inferior clergy.'
But of all kinds of ambition", etc.  In the first edition of
ambition, as things are now circumstanced, perhaps that which
pursues poetical fame, is the wildest. What from the encreased
refinement of the times, from the diversity of judgments
produced by opposing systems of criticism, and from the more
prevalent divisions of opinion influenced by party, the
strongest and happiest efforts can expect to please but in a
very narrow circle. Though the poet were as sure of his aim as
the imperial archer of antiquity, who boasted that he never
missed the heart; yet would many of his shafts now fly at
random, for the heart is too often in the wrong place.' In the
second edition it was curtailed; in the sixth it took its final
form.
"they engross all that favour once shown to her".  First
version--'They engross all favour to themselves.'
"the elder's birthright".  Cunningham here aptly compares
Dryden's epistle 'To Sir Godfrey Kneller', II. 89-92:--
Our arts are sisters, though not twins in birth;
For hymns were sung in Eden's happy earth:
But oh, the painter muse, though last in place,
Has seized the blessing first, like Jacob's race.
"Party"=faction.  Cf. lines 31-2 on Edmund Burke in
Who, born for the Universe, narrow'd his mind,
And to 'party' gave up what was meant for mankind.
"Such readers generally admire", etc.  'I suppose this paragraph
to be directed against Paul Whitehead, or Churchill,' writes
Mitford. It was clearly aimed at Churchill, since Prior ('Life',
'St. James's Chronicle' for February 7-9, 1765, attributed to
Bonnell Thornton, which leaves little room for doubt upon the
question. 'The latter part of this paragraph,' says the writer,
referring to the passage now annotated, 'we cannot help
considering as a reflection on the memory of the late Mr.
Churchill, whose talents as a poet were so greatly and so
deservedly admired, that during his short reign, his merit in
great measure eclipsed that of others; and we think it no mean
acknowledgment of the excellencies of this poem ['The
Traveller'] to say that, like the stars, they appear the more
brilliant now that the sun of our poetry is gone down.'
Churchill died on the 4th of November, 1764, some weeks before
the publication of 'The Traveller'. His powers, it may be, were
misdirected and misapplied; but his rough vigour and his manly
verse deserved a better fate at Goldsmith's hands.
"tawdry" was added in the sixth edition of 1770.
"blank verse".  Cf. 'The Present State of Polite
grafting the spirit of ancient languages upon the English, has
proceeded of late several disagreeable instances of pedantry.
Among the number, I think we may reckon 'blank verse'. Nothing
but the greatest sublimity of subject can render such a measure
pleasing; however, we now see it used on the most trivial
occasions'--by which last remark Goldsmith probably, as
Cunningham thinks, intended to refer to the efforts of Akenside,
Dyer, and Armstrong. His views upon blank verse were shared by
Johnson and Gray. At the date of the present dedication, the
latest offender in this way had been Goldsmith's old colleague
on 'The Monthly Review', Dr. James Grainger, author of 'The
Sugar Cane', which was published in June, 1764. (Cf. also 'The
Bee' for 24th November, 1759, 'An account of the Augustan Age of
"and that this principle", etc.  In the first edition
this read--'and that this principle in each state, and in our
own in particular, may be carried to a mischievous excess.'
"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow".  Mitford (Aldine
edition, 1831, p. 7) compares the following lines from Ovid:--
Solus, inops, exspes, leto poenaeque relictus.
Exsul, inops erres, alienaque limina lustres, etc.
"slow".  A well-known passage from Boswell must here be
reproduced:--'Chamier once asked him [Goldsmith], what he meant
by 'slow', the last word in the first line of 'The Traveller',
Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.
something without consideration, answered "yes." I [Johnson] was
locomotion; you mean, that sluggishness of mind which comes upon
a man in solitude." Chamier believed then that I had written the
line as much as if he had seen me write it.' [Birkbeck Hill's
that Goldsmith meant no more than he said.
"the rude Carinthian boor".  'Carinthia,' says Cunningham, 'was
visited by Goldsmith in 1755, and still (1853) retains its
character for inhospitality.'
"Campania".  'Intended,' says Bolton Corney, 'to denote
'La campagna di Roma'. The portion of it which extends from Rome
to Terracina is scarcely habitable.'
"a lengthening chain".  Prior compares Letter iii of 'The
Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 5:--'The farther I travel I feel
the pain of separation with stronger force, those ties that bind
me to my native country, and you, are still unbroken. By every
remove, I only drag a greater length of chain.' But, as Mitford
points out, Cibber has a similar thought in his 'Comical
Lovers', 1707, Act v:--'When I am with Florimel, it [my heart]
is still your prisoner, 'it only draws a longer chain after
it'.' And earlier still in Dryden's 'All for Love', 1678, Act
My life on't, he still drags a chain along,
That needs must clog his flight.
"with simple plenty crown'd".  In the first edition this read
'where mirth and peace abound.'
"the luxury of doing good".  Prior compares Garth's 'Claremont',
Hard was their Lodging, homely was their Food,
For all their 'Luxury was doing Good'.
"my prime of life".  He was seven-and-twenty when he
landed at Dover in February, 1756.
"That, like the circle bounding", etc.  Cf. 'Vicar of
the wretched, for a little while mocks the weary traveller with
the view, and like his horizon, still flies before him.'
"And find no spot of all the world my own".  Prior
compares his namesake's lines 'In the Beginning of [Jacques]
My destin'd Miles I shall have gone,
And found no Foot of Earth my own.
"above the storm's career".  Cf. 1. 190 of 'The Deserted
"should thankless pride repine?"  First edition,
''twere thankless to repine.'
"Say, should the philosophic mind", etc.  First edition:--
'Twere affectation all, and school-taught pride,
To spurn the splendid things by heaven supply'd
"hoard".  'Sum' in the first edition.
"Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own".  In the first
version this was--
Boldly asserts that country for his own.
"And yet, perhaps", etc.  In the first edition, for this and the
following five lines appeared these eight:--
And yet, perhaps, if states with states we scan,
Or estimate their bliss on Reason's plan,
Though patriots flatter, and though fools contend,
We still shall find uncertainty suspend;
Find that each good, by Art or Nature given,
To these or those, but makes the balance even:
Find that the bliss of all is much the same,
And patriotic boasting reason's shame!
"On Idra's cliffs".  Bolton Corney conjectures that
Goldsmith meant 'Idria, a town in Carniola, noted for its
mines.' 'Goldsmith in his "History of Animated Nature" makes
mention of the mines, and spells the name in the same way as
"And though the rocky-crested summits frown".  In the
first edition:--
And though rough rocks or gloomy summits frown.
are not in the first editions.
"winnow", i.e. 'waft,' 'disperse.'  John Evelyn refers to these
'sea-born gales' in the 'Dedication' of his 'Fumifugium',
from the rivage of Genoa, and St. Pietro dell' Arena; the
blossomes of the rosemary from the Coasts of Spain, many leagues
off at sea; or the manifest, and odoriferous wafts which flow
from Fontenay and Vaugirard, even to Paris in the season of
roses, with the contrary effect of those less pleasing smells
from other accidents, will easily consent to what I suggest
"Till, more unsteady', etc.  In the first edition:--
But, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Soon Commerce turn'd on other shores her sail.
There is a certain resemblance between this passage and one of
the later paradoxes of Smollett's Lismahago;--'He affirmed, the
nature of commerce was such, that it could not be fixed or
perpetuated, but, having flowed to a certain height, would
immediately begin to ebb, and so continue till the channels
should be left almost dry; but there was no instance of the
tide's rising a second time to any considerable influx in the
are not in the first edition.
"Its former strength was but plethoric ill".  Cf.  'The
resembled one of those bodies bloated with disease, whose bulk
is only a symptom of its wretchedness.' [Mitford.]
"Yet still the loss", etc.  In the first edition:--
Yet, though to fortune lost, here still abide
Some splendid arts, the wrecks of former pride.
"The paste-board triumph and the cavalcade".  'Happy
Country [he is speaking of Italy], where the pastoral age begins
to revive! Where the wits even of Rome are united into a rural
groupe of nymphs and swains, under the appellation of modern
Arcadians [i.e. the Bolognese Academy of the 'Arcadi']. Where in
the midst of porticos, processions, and cavalcades, abbes turn'd
into shepherds, and shepherdesses without sheep, indulge their
innocent 'divertimenti'.' ('Present State of Polite Learning',
studied in the plates of Jacques Callot.
"By sports like these", etc.  A pretty and well-known
story is told with regard to this couplet. Calling once on
Goldsmith, Reynolds, having vainly tried to attract attention,
entered unannounced. 'His friend was at his desk, but with hand
uplifted, and a look directed to another part of the room; where
a little dog sat with difficulty on his haunches, looking
imploringly at his teacher, whose rebuke for toppling over he
had evidently just received. Reynolds advanced, and looked past
Goldsmith's shoulder at the writing on his desk. It seemed to be
some portions of a poem; and looking more closely, he was able
to read a couplet which had been that instant written. The ink
of the second line was wet:--
By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd;
The sports of children satisfy the child.
"The sports of children".  This line, in the first edition, was
followed by:--
At sports like these, while foreign arms advance,
In passive ease they leave the world to chance.
"Each nobler aim", etc.  The first edition reads:--
When struggling Virtue sinks by long controul,
She leaves at last, or feebly mans the soul.
This was changed in the second, third, fourth, and fifth
editions to:--
When noble aims have suffer'd long controul,
They sink at last, or feebly man the soul.
"No product here", etc.  The Swiss mercenaries, here referred
to, were long famous in European warfare.
They parted with a thousand kisses,
And fight e'er since for pay, like Swisses.
Gay's 'Aye and No, a Fable'.
This fine use of 'breasts'--as Cunningham points out--is given
by Johnson as an example in his Dictionary.
"With patient angle, trolls the finny deep".  'Troll,' i.e. as
for pike. Goldsmith uses 'finny prey' in 'The Citizen of the
World', 1762, ii. 99:--'The best manner to draw up the 'finny
prey'.' Cf. also 'warbling grove,' 'Deserted Village', l. 361,
as a parallel to 'finny deep.'
"the struggling savage", i.e. wolf or bear.  Mitford
compares the following:--'He is a beast of prey, and the laws
should make use of as many stratagems and as much force to drive
the 'reluctant savage' into the toils, as the Indians when they
hunt the hyena or the rhinoceros.' ('Citizen of the World',
But if the 'savage' turns his glaring eye,
They howl aloof, and round the forest fly.
are not in the first edition.
"For every want", etc.  Mitford quotes a parallel
'Every want thus becomes a means of pleasure, in the redressing.'
"Their morals, like their pleasures, are but low".
Probably Goldsmith only uses 'low' here in its primitive sense,
and not in that which, in his own day, gave so much umbrage to
so many eighteenth-century students of humanity in the rough.
Friends cry'd--"Look'e, Gentlemen, the Man is a Villain; but it
is Nature for all that." And all the young Critics of the Age,
the Clerks, Apprentices, etc., called it 'Low' and fell a
nothing comes out but the 'most lowest' stuff in nature'--says
Lady Blarney in ch. xi of the 'Vicar', whose author is eloquent
on this topic in 'The Present State of Polite Learning', 1759,
Graves ('Spiritual Quixote', 1772, bk. i, ch. vi) gives the
fashion the scientific appellation of 'tapino-phoby,' which he
defines as 'a dread of everything that is 'low', either in
writing or in conversation.' To Goldsmith, if we may trust
George Colman's 'Prologue' to Miss Lee's 'Chapter of Accidents',
depreciation:--
When Fielding, Humour's fav'rite child, appear'd,
'Low' was the word--a word each author fear'd!
Till chas'd at length, by pleasantry's bright ray,
Nature and mirth resum'd their legal sway;
And Goldsmith's genius bask'd in open day.
According to Borrow's 'Lavengro', ch. xli, Lord Chesterfield
considered that the speeches of Homer's heroes were frequently
'exceedingly low.'
"How often", etc.  This and the lines which immediately
follow are autobiographical. Cf. George Primrose's story in 'The
the harmless peasants of Flanders, and among such of the French
as were poor enough to be very merry; for I ever found them
sprightly in proportion to their wants. Whenever I approached a
peasant's house towards night-fall, I played one of my most
merry tunes, and that procured me not only a lodging, but
subsistence for the next day.'
"gestic lore", i.e. traditional gestures or motions.
Scott uses the word 'gestic' in 'Peveril of the Peak', ch. xxx,
where King Charles the Second witnesses the dancing of
Fenella:--'He bore time to her motions with the movement of his
foot--applauded with head and with hand--and seemed, like
herself, carried away by the enthusiasm of the 'gestic' art.'
"Thus idly busy rolls their world away".  Pope has 'Life's
The 'busy, idle' blockheads of the ball.
"And all are taught an avarice of praise".  Professor Hales
('Longer English Poems') compares Horace of the Greeks:--
Praeter laudem, nullius avaris.
"copper lace".  'St Martin's lace,' for which, in Strype's day,
Blowbladder St. was famous. Cf. the actress's 'copper tail' in
"To men of other minds", etc.  Prior compares with the
description that follows a passage in vol. i. p. 276 of
'Animated Nature', 1774:--'But we need scarce mention these,
when we find that the whole kingdom of Holland seems to be a
conquest upon the sea, and in a manner rescued from its bosom.
The surface of the earth, in this country, is below the level of
the bed of the sea; and I remember, upon approaching the coast,
to have looked down upon it from the sea, as into a valley.'
"Where the broad ocean leans against the land".  Cf.
And view the ocean leaning on the sky.
"the tall rampire's", i.e. rampart's (Old French, 'rempart,
'Our rampir'd gates.'
"bosom reign" in the first edition was 'breast obtain.'
"Even liberty itself is barter'd here".  'Slavery,' says
Mitford, 'was permitted in Holland; children were sold by their
parents for a certain number of years.'
"A land of tyrants, and a den of slaves".  Goldsmith uses this
very line as prose in Letter xxxiv of
"dishonourable graves".  'Julius Caesar', Act i. Sc. 2.
"Heavens!  how unlike", etc.  Prior compares a passage from a
manuscript 'Introduction to the History of the Seven Years'
War':--'How unlike the brave peasants their ancestors, who
spread terror into either India, and always declared themselves
the allies of those who drew the sword in defence of freedom*.'
of this 'History', hitherto supposed to have been written in
"famed Hydaspes", i.e. the 'fabulosus Hydaspes' of
Horace, Bk. i. Ode xxii, and the 'Medus Hydaspes' of Virgil,
'Georg', iv. 211, of which so many stores were told. It is now
known as the Jhilum, one of the five rivers which give the
Punjaub its name.
"Pride in their port", etc.  In the first edition these
two lines were inverted.
"Here by the bonds of nature feebly held".  In the
first edition--
See, though by circling deeps together held.
"Nature's ties" was 'social bonds' in the first edition.
"Where kings have toil'd, and poets wrote for fame".  In the
first edition this line read:--
And monarchs toil, and poets pant for fame.
"Yet think not', etc.  'In the things I have hitherto
written I have neither allured the vanity of the great by
flattery, nor satisfied the malignity of the vulgar by scandal,
but I have endeavoured to get an honest reputation by liberal
pursuits.'
"Ye powers of truth", etc.  The first version has:--
Perish the wish; for, inly satisfy'd,
Above their pomps I hold my ragged pride.
Mr. Forster thinks ('Life', 1871, i. 375) that Goldsmith altered
this (i.e. 'ragged pride') because, like the omitted 'Haud
inexpertus loquor' of the 'Enquiry', it involved an undignified
admission.
are not in the first edition.
"Contracting regal power to stretch their own".  'It is
the interest of the great, therefore, to diminish kingly power
as much as possible; because whatever they take from it is
naturally restored to themselves; and all they have to do in a
state, is to undermine the single tyrant, by which they resume
"When I behold", etc.  Prior compares a passage in
Letter xlix of 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, i. 218, where
the Roman senators are spoken of as still flattering the people
'with a shew of freedom, while themselves only were free.'
"Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law".
Prior notes a corresponding utterance in 'The Vicar of
may be seen by turning our eyes to Holland, Genoa, or Venice,
where the laws govern the poor, and the rich govern the law.'
"I fly from petty tyrants to the throne".  Cf. Dr.
Primrose, 'ut supra', p. 201:--'The generality of mankind also
are of my way of thinking, and have unanimously created one
king, whose election at once diminishes the number of tyrants,
and puts tyranny at the greatest distance from the greatest
Let not a Mob of Tyrants seize the helm,
Nor titled upstarts league to rob the realm...
Let us, some comfort in our griefs to bring,
Be slaves to one, and be that one a King.
Goldsmith's first thought was--
Yes, my lov'd brother, cursed be that hour
When first ambition toil'd for foreign power,--
an entirely different couplet to that in the text, and certainly
more logical. (Dobell's 'Prospect of Society', 1902, pp. xi, 2,
and Notes, v, vi). Mr. Dobell plausibly suggests that this Tory
substitution is due to Johnson.
"Have we not seen", etc.  These lines contain the first
idea of the subsequent poem of 'The Deserted Village' ('q.v.').
"Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around".  The
Oswego is a river which runs between Lakes Oneida and Ontario.
In the 'Threnodia Augustalis', 1772, Goldsmith writes:--
Oswego's dreary shores shall be my grave.
The 'desarts of Oswego' were familiar to the eighteenth-century
reader in connexion with General Braddock's ill-fated expedition
of 1755, an account of which Goldsmith had just given in 'An
History of England, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to
"marks with murderous aim".  In the first edition
'takes a deadly aim.'
"pensive exile".  This, in the version mentioned in the
next note, was 'famish'd exile.'
"To stop too fearful, and too faint to go".  This line,
upon Boswell's authority, is claimed for Johnson (Birkbeck
And faintly fainter, fainter seems to go.
"How small, of all," etc.  Johnson wrote these
concluding ten lines with the exception of the penultimate
couplet. They and line 420 were all--he told Boswell--of which
he could be sure (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell, ut supra'). Like
Goldsmith, he sometimes worked his prose ideas into his verse.
The first couplet is apparently a reminiscence of a passage in
his own 'Rasselas', 1759, ii. 112, where the astronomer speaks
of 'the task of a king...who has the care only of a few
millions, to whom he cannot do much good or harm.' (Grant's
'Johnson', 1887, p. 89.) 'I would not give half a guinea to live
under one form of government rather than another,' he told that
'vile Whig,' Sir Adam Fergusson, in 1772. 'It is of no moment to
the happiness of an individual' (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell',
"The lifted axe".  Mitford here recalls Blackmore's
Some the sharp axe, and some the painful wheel.
The 'lifted axe' he also traces to Young and Blackmore, with
both of whom Goldsmith seems to have been familiar; but it is
surely not necessary to assume that he borrowed from either in
this instance.
"Luke's iron crown".  George and Luke Dosa, or Doscha,
headed a rebellion in Hungary in 1513. The former was proclaimed
king by the peasants; and, in consequence suffered, among other
things, the torture of the red-hot iron crown. Such a punishment
took place at Bordeaux when Montaigne was seventeen (Morley's
Florio's 'Montaigne', 1886, p. xvi). Much ink has been shed over
Goldsmith's lapse of 'Luke' for George. In the book which he
cited as his authority, the family name of the brothers was
given as Zeck,--hence Bolton Corney, in his edition of the
'Zeck's' iron crown, etc.,
an alteration which has been adopted by other editors.  (See
"Damien's bed of steel".  Robert-Francois Damiens, 1714-57.
Goldsmith writes 'Damien's.' In the 'Gentlemen's Magazine' for
this poor half-witted wretch's torture and execution for
attempting to assassinate Louis XV, the name is thus spelled, as
also in other contemporary records and caricatures. The
following passage explains the 'bed of steel':--'Being conducted
to the Conciergerie, an 'iron bed', which likewise served for a
chair, was prepared for him, and to this he was fastened with
chains. The torture was again applied, and a physician ordered
to attend to see what degree of pain he could support,' etc.
Goldsmith's own explanation--according to Tom Davies, the
bookseller--was that he meant the rack. But Davies may have
misunderstood him, or Goldsmith himself may have forgotten the
'Monthly Review' for July, 1757 (upon which Goldsmith was at
this date employed), is a summary, 'from our correspondent at
mo.; and his deed and tragedy make a graphic chapter in the
remarkable 'Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous', by George
In the first edition of 'The Traveller' there are only
After having been for some time announced as in preparation, 'The
"I am ignorant of that art in which you are
said to excel". This modest confession did not prevent Goldsmith
from making fun of the contemporary connoisseur. See the letter
from the young virtuoso in 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, i.
not 'a Cleopatra bathing' but 'a Hercules spinning'; and Charles
Primrose's experiences at Paris ('Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, ii.
"He is since dead".  Henry Goldsmith died in May, 1768,
at the age of forty-five, being then curate of Kilkenny West.
"a long poem".  'I might dwell upon such thoughts...were
I not afraid of making this preface too tedious; especially
since I shall want all the patience of the reader, for having
enlarged it with the following verses.' (Tickell's Preface to
Addison's 'Works', at end.)
"the increase of our luxuries".  The evil of luxury was
a 'common topick' with Goldsmith. (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell',
Lismahago, and continuing the quotation on p. 169, was of the
opinion that 'the sudden affluence occasioned by trade, forced
open all the sluices of luxury, and overflowed the land with
every species of profligacy and corruption.' ('Humphry Clinker',
that Goldsmith obtained this name from Bennet Langton. There is
an Aldbourn or Auburn in Wiltshire, not far from Marlborough,
which Prior thinks may have furnished the suggestion.
"Seats of my youth".  This alone would imply that
Goldsmith had in mind the environment of his Irish home.
"The decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill".
This corresponds with the church of Kilkenny West as seen from
the house at Lissoy.
"The hawthorn bush".  The Rev. Annesley Strean, Henry
Goldsmith's successor at Kilkenny West, well remembered the
hawthorn bush in front of the village ale-house. It had
originally three trunks; but when he wrote in 1807 only one
remained, 'the other two having been cut, from time to time, by
persons carrying pieces of it away to be made into toys, etc.,
in honour of the bard, and of the celebrity of his poem.'
previously to 1819; but nevertheless when Prior visited the
place in 1830, nothing was apparent but 'a very tender shoot
from a sketch made in 1806-9, is to be found at p. 41 of
Goldsmith's 'Poetical Works', R. H. Newell's edition, 1811, and
is reproduced in the present volume.
"How often have I bless'd the coming day".  Prior,
'Life', 1837, ii. 261, finds in this an allusion 'to the Sundays
or numerous holidays, usually kept in Roman Catholic countries.'
"Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen".  Strean's
explanation (Mangin, 'ut supra', pp. 140-1) of this is as
follows:--'The poem of 'The Deserted Village', took its origin
from the circumstance of general Robert Napper [Napier or
Naper], (the grandfather of the gentleman who now  lives
in the house, within half a mile of Lissoy, and built by the
general) having purchased an extensive tract of the country
surrounding Lissoy, or 'Auburn'; in consequence of which many
families, here called 'cottiers', were removed, to make room for
the intended improvements of what was now to become the wide
domain of a rich man, warm with the idea of changing the face of
his new acquisition; and were forced, "with fainting steps," to
go in search of "torrid tracts" and "distant climes."'
Prior ('Life', 1837, i. 40-3) points out that Goldsmith was not
the first to give poetical expression to the wrongs of the
dispossessed Irish peasantry; and he quotes a long extract from
the 'Works' (1741) of a Westmeath poet, Lawrence Whyte, which
contains such passages as these:--
Their native soil were forced to quit,
So Irish landlords thought it fit;
Who without ceremony or rout,
For their improvements turn'd them out...
How many villages they razed,
How many parishes laid waste...
Whole colonies, to shun the fate
Of being oppress'd at such a rate,
By tyrants who still raise their rent,
Sail'd to the Western Continent.
"The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest".  'Of all
those sounds,' says Goldsmith, speaking of the cries of
waterfowl, 'there is none so dismally hollow as the booming of
the bittern.' ...'I remember in the place where I was a boy with
what terror this bird's note affected the whole village; they
considered it as the presage of some sad event; and generally
found or made one to succeed it.' ('Animated Nature', 1774, vi.
Bewick, who may be trusted to speak of a bird which he has drawn
with such exquisite fidelity, refers ('Water Birds', 1847, p.
the night, in the breeding season, from its swampy retreats.'
Cf. also that close observer Crabbe ('The Borough', Letter xxii,
And the loud bittern, from the bull-rush home,
Gave from the salt-ditch side the bellowing boom.
"Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made".
Mitford compares 'Confessio Amantis', fol. 152:--
A kynge may make a lorde a knave,
And of a knave a lord also;
and Professor Hales recalls Burns's later line in the 'Cotter's
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings.
But Prior finds the exact equivalent of the second line in the
verses of an old French poet, De. Caux, upon an hour-glass:--
C'est un verre qui luit,
Qu'un souffle peut detruire, et qu'un souffle a produit.
"A time there was, ere England's griefs began".  Here
wherever the locality of Auburn, the author had clearly England
in mind. A caustic commentator has observed that the 'time'
indicated must have been a long while ago.
"opulence".  In the first edition the word is 'luxury.'
"And, many a year elapsed, return to view".  'It is
strongly contended at Lishoy, that "the Poet," as he is usually
called there, after his pedestrian tour upon the Continent of
Europe, returned to and resided in the village some time.... It
is moreover believed, that the havock which had been made in his
absence among those favourite scenes of his youth, affected his
mind so deeply, that he actually composed great part of the
Deserted Village 'at' Lishoy.' ('Poetical Works, with Remarks',
Notwithstanding the above, there is no evidence that Goldsmith
ever returned to his native island. In a letter to his
brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson, written in 1758, he spoke of
hoping to do so 'in five or six years.' ('Percy Memoir', 1801,
i. 49). But in another letter, written towards the close of his
life, it is still a thing to come. 'I am again,' he says, 'just
setting out for Bath, and I honestly say I had much rather it
had been for Ireland with my nephew, but that pleasure I hope to
have before I die.' (Letter to Daniel Hodson, no date, in
possession of the late Frederick Locker Lampson.)
"Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew".  Here
followed, in the first edition:--
Here, as with doubtful, pensive steps I range,
Trace every scene, and wonder at the change,
Remembrance, etc.
l. 84.  "In all my griefs--and God has given my share".  Prior
notes a slight similarity here to a line of Collins:--
Ye mute companions of my toils, that bear,
'In all my griefs', a more than equal share!
Goldsmith refers feelingly to 'the neglected author of the
Persian eclogues, which, however inaccurate, excel any in our
language.' He included four of them in 'The Beauties of English
"To husband out", etc.  In the first edition this ran:--
My anxious day to husband near the close,
And keep life's flame from wasting by repose.
"Here to return--and die at home at last".  Forster
compares a passage in 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, ii.
first had existence, that nothing but it can please; whatever
vicissitudes we experience in life, however we toil, or
wheresoever we wander, our fatigued wishes still recur to home
for tranquillity, we long to die in that spot which gave us
birth, and in that pleasing expectation opiate every calamity.'
The poet Waller too--he adds--wished to die 'like the stag where
"How happy he".  'How blest is he' in the first edition.
"And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly".
struggling with misfortunes, we are sure to receive some wounds
in the conflict. The only method to come off victorious, is by
running away.'
"surly porter".  Mr. J. M. Lobban compares the 'Citizen
half opened that some surly porter or footman does not stand
"Bends".  'Sinks' in the first edition. "unperceived
An age that melts with unperceiv'd decay,
And glides in modest innocence away;
And varied life steal unperceiv'd away.
"While Resignation", etc.  In 1771 Sir Joshua exhibited
a picture of 'An Old Man,' studied from the beggar who was his
model for Ugolino. When it was engraved by Thomas Watson in
Goldsmith in the following words:--'This attempt to express a
Character in 'The Deserted Village', is dedicated to Dr.
Goldsmith, by his sincere Friend and admirer, JOSHUA REYNOLDS.'
"Up yonder hill".  It has been suggested that Goldsmith
was here thinking of the little hill of Knockaruadh (Red Hill)
in front of Lissoy parsonage, of which there is a sketch in
Newell's 'Poetical Works', 1811. When Newell wrote, it was
already known as 'Goldsmith's mount'; and the poet himself
refers to it in a letter to his brother-in-law Hodson, dated
Dec. 27, 1757:--'I had rather be placed on the little mount
before Lishoy gate, and there take in, to me, the most pleasing
"And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made".  In
nightingale's pausing song would be the proper epithet for this
bird's music.' [Mitford.]
"No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale".  (Cf.
Goldsmith's Essay on 'Metaphors' ('British
Magazine'):--'Armstrong has used the word 'fluctuate' with
admirable efficacy, in his philosophical poem entitled 'The Art
Oh!  when the growling winds contend, and all
The sounding forest 'fluctuates' in the storm,
To sink in warm repose, and hear the din
Howl o'er the steady battlements.
"The sad historian of the pensive plain".  Strean (see
note to l. 13) identified the old watercress gatherer as a
certain Catherine Giraghty (or Geraghty). Her children (he said)
were still living in the neighbourhood of Lissoy in 1807.
"The village preacher's modest mansion rose".  'The
Rev. Charles Goldsmith is allowed by all that knew him, to have
been faithfully represented by his son in the character of the
Village Preacher.' So writes his daughter, Catharine Hodson
('Percy Memoir', 1801, p. 3). Others, relying perhaps upon the
'forty pounds a year' of the Dedication to 'The Traveller', make
the poet's brother Henry the original; others, again, incline to
kindly Uncle Contarine ('vide Introduction'). But as Prior
he fixed upon no one individual, but borrowing like all good
poets and painters a little from each, drew the character by
their combination.'
"with forty pounds a year".  Cf. Dedication to 'The
"Unpractis'd".  'Unskilful' in the first edition.
"More skilled".  'More bent' in the first edition.
"The long remember'd beggar".  'The same persons,' says
Prior, commenting upon this passage, 'are seen for a series of
years to traverse the same tract of country at certain
intervals, intrude into every house which is not defended by the
usual outworks of wealth, a gate and a porter's lodge, exact
their portion of the food of the family, and even find an
occasional resting-place for the night, or from severe weather,
in the chimney-corner of respectable farmers.' ('Life', 1837,
ii. 269.) Cf. Scott on the Scottish mendicants in the
'Advertisement' to 'The Antiquary', 1816, and Leland's 'Hist. of
"The broken soldier".  The disbanded soldier let loose
upon the country at the conclusion of the 'Seven Years' War' was
a familiar figure at this period. Bewick, in his 'Memoir'
ancient campaigners with their battered old uniforms and their
endless stories of Minden and Quebec; and a picture of two of
them by T. S. Good of Berwick belonged to the late Mr. Locker
Lampson. Edie Ochiltree ('Antiquary')--it may be remembered--had
fought at Fontenoy.
"Allur'd to brighter worlds".  Cf. Tickell on
Addison--'Saints who taught and led the way to Heaven.'
"And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray".
Prior compares the opening lines of Dryden's 'Britannia
Our vows are heard betimes, and heaven takes care
To grant, before we can conclude the prayer;
Preventing angels met it half the way,
And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.
"As some tall cliff", etc.  Lucan, Statius, and
Claudian have been supposed to have helped Goldsmith to this
fine and deservedly popular simile. But, considering his obvious
familiarity with French literature, and the rarity of his
'obligations to the ancients,' it is not unlikely that, as
suggested by a writer in the 'Academy' for Oct. 30, 1886, his
source of suggestion is to be found in the following passage of
an Ode addressed by Chapelain (1595-1674) to Richelieu:--
Dans un paisible mouvement
Tu t'eleves au firmament,
Et laisses contre toi murmurer cette terre;
Ainsi le haut Olympe, a son pied sablonneux,
Laisse fumer la foudre et gronder le tonnerre,
Et garde son sommet tranquille et lumineux.
Or another French model--indicated by Mr. Forster ('Life', 1871,
ii. 115-16) by the late Lord Lytton--may have been these lines
Au milieu cependant de ces peines cruelles
De notre triste hiver, compagnes trop fideles,
Je suis tranquille et gai.  Quel bien plus precieux
Puis-je esperer jamais de la bonte des dieux!
Tel qu'un rocher dont la tete,
Voit a ses pieds la tempete
Troubler le calme des flots,
La mer autour bruit et gronde;
Malgre ses emotions,
Sur son front eleve regne une paix profonde,
Que tant d'agitations
Et que ses fureurs de l'onde
Respectent a l'egal du nid des alcyons.
On the other hand, Goldsmith may have gone no further than
Young's 'Complaint: Night the Second', 1742, p. 42, where, as
Mitford points out, occur these lines:--
As some tall Tow'r, or lofty Mountain's Brow,
Detains the Sun, Illustrious from its Height,
While rising Vapours, and descending Shades,
With Damps, and Darkness drown the Spatious Vale:
Undampt by Doubt, Undarken'd by Despair,
'Philander', thus, augustly rears his Head.
'Animated Nature', 1774, i. 145, derived from Ulloa, which
perhaps served as the raw material of the simile.
"Full well they laugh'd", etc.  Steele, in 'Spectator',
No. 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
"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!
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.
"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.
"Near yonder thorn".  See note to l. 13.
"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."'
broadside, surmounted by a rude woodcut of the King's execution,
is still prized by collectors. The rules, as 'found in the study
'1. Urge no healths;
Prior, 'Misc. Works', 1837, iv. 63, points out that Crabbe also
makes the 'Twelve Good Rules' conspicuous in the 'Parish
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.
"While broken tea-cups".  Cf. the 'Description of an
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.'
"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.
"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.'
"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.]
"To see those joys".  Up to the third edition the words
were 'each joy'.
"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
who wrote eloquently on capital punishment in 'The Rambler' for
April 20, 1751, No. 114, also refers to the ceaseless executions
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.
"Where the poor houseless shivering female lies".
Mitford compares Letter cxiv of 'The Citizen of the World',
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
"Near her betrayer's door", etc.  Cf. the foregoing
quotation.
"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.
"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.'
"The good old sire".  Cf. 'Threnodia Augustalis', ll.
The good old sire, unconscious of decay,
The modest matron, clad in homespun gray
"a father's".  'Her father's' in the first edition.
"silent".  'Decent' in the first edition.
"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
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'.'
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.
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?
This quatrain, the original of which does not appear to have been
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.
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;
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.
"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.'
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
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.,
"Than reason-boasting mortal's pride".  So in 'The Busy
Body'. Some editors--Mitford, for example--print the line:--
Than reason,--boasting mortals' pride.
"Deus est anima brutorum".  Cf. Addison in 'Spectator',
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
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.'
"B-b"=Bob, i.e. Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister,
for whom many venal 'quills were drawn' 'circa' 1715-42. Cf.
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.
"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.
"And footmen, lords and dukes can act".  Cf. 'Gil Blas',
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
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.
This little piece first appears in 'The Bee' for October 20,
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.
This and the following line in the first version run:--
Yet, why this killing soft dejection?
Why dim thy beauty with a tear?
Monsieur d'La Palice est mort,
Mort devant Pavie;
Un quart d'heure avant sa mort,
'Il etait encore en vie'.
"Who left a pledge behind".  Caldecott cleverly converted
this line into the keynote of the poem, by making the heroine a
pawnbroker.
"When she has walk'd before".  Cf. the French:--
On dit que dans ses amours
Il fut caresse des belles,
Qui le suivirent toujours,
'Tant qu'il marcha devant elles'.
"Her last disorder mortal".  Cf. the French:--
Il fut par un triste sort
Blesse d'une main cruelle.
On croit, puis qu'il en est mort,
'Que la plaie etoit mortelle'.
"Kent Street", Southwark, 'chiefly inhabited,' said
Strype, 'by Broom Men and Mumpers'; and Evelyn tells us ('Diary'
fifth husband, of a Mrs. Castle, who was 'the daughter of one
Burton, a broom-man...in Kent Street' who had become not only
rich, but Sheriff of Surrey. It was a poor neighbourhood
corresponding to the present 'old Kent-road, from Kent to
Southwark and old London Bridge' (Cunningham's London*).
Goldsmith himself refers to it in 'The Bee' for October 20,
'Madam Blaize' first appeared:--'You then, O ye beggars of my
acquaintance, whether in rags or lace; whether in 'Kent-street'
or the Mall; whether at the Smyrna or St. Giles's, might I
advise as a friend, never seem in want of the favour which you
solicit' (p. 72). Three years earlier he had practised as 'a
physician, in a humble way' in Bankside, Southwark, and was
probably well acquainted with the humours of Kent Street.
*[footnote] In contemporary maps Kent (now Tabard) Street is
shown extending between the present New Kent Road and Blackman
The window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray,
That feebly shew'd the state in which he lay.
The sanded floor, that grits beneath the tread:
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread;
The game of goose was there expos'd to view
And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew:
The seasons, fram'd with listing, found a place,
And Prussia's monarch shew'd his lamp-black face
The morn was cold; he views with keen desire,
A rusty grate unconscious of a fire.
An unpaid reck'ning on the frieze was scor'd,
And five crack'd tea-cups dress'd the chimney board.
And now imagine after his soliloquy, the landlord to make his
appearance, in order to dun him for the reckoning:--
Not with that face, so servile and so gay,
That welcomes every stranger that can pay,
With sulky eye he smoak'd the patient man,
Then pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began, etc.
All this is taken, you see, from nature.  It is a good remark of
Where the Red Lion, etc.'
The verses then follow as they are printed in this volume; but
*[footnote]  i.e. accord, conform.
"Where Calvert's butt, and Parsons' black champagne".  The
Calverts and Humphrey Parsons were noted brewers of 'entire butt
beer' or porter, also known familiarly as 'British Burgundy' and
'black Champagne.' Calvert's 'Best Butt Beer' figures on the
sign in Hogarth's 'Beer Street', 1751.
"The humid wall with paltry pictures spread".  Bewick gives the
names of some of these popular, if paltry, decorations:--'In
cottages everywhere were to be seen the "Sailor's Farewell" and
"The royal game of goose was there in view".  (See note, p. 188,
"And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew".  (See note, p.
"The Seasons, fram'd with listing".  See note to l. 10 above, as
to 'The Seasons.' Listing, ribbon, braid, or tape is still used
as a primitive 'encadrement'. In a letter dated August 15, 1758,
to his cousin, Mrs. Lawder (Jane Contarine), Goldsmith again
refers to this device. Speaking of some 'maxims of frugality'
with which he intends to adorn his room, he adds--'my landlady's
daughter shall frame them with the parings of my black
"And brave Prince William".  William Augustus, Duke of
Cumberland, 1721-65. The 'lamp-black face' would seem to imply
that the portrait was a silhouette. In the letter quoted on p.
"With beer and milk arrears".  See the lines relative to the
landlord in Goldsmith's above-quoted letter to his brother. In
another letter of August 14, 1758, to Robert Bryanton, he
describes himself as 'in a garret writing for bread, and
expecting to be dunned for a milk score.' Hogarth's 'Distrest
Poet', 1736, it will be remembered, has already realized this
expectation.
"A cap by night--a stocking all the day".  'With this last
author] seemed so much elated, that he was unable to proceed:
"There gentlemen, cries he, there is a description for you;
Rab[e]lais's bed-chamber is but a fool to it:
'A cap by night--a stocking all the day!'
There is sound and sense, and truth, and nature in the trifling
compass of ten little syllables."' (Letter xxix.) Cf. also 'The
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.
If Goldsmith's lines did not belong to 1759, one might suppose
he had in mind the later 'Pauvre Diable' of his favourite
Voltaire. (See also APPENDIX B.)
These verses, intended for a specimen of the newspaper Muse, are
from Letter lxxxii of 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 87,
first printed in 'The Public Ledger', October 21, 1760.
From Letter ciii of 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 164,
first printed in 'The Public Ledger', March 4, 1761. The verses
are given as a 'specimen of a poem on the decease of a great
man.' Goldsmith had already used the trick of the final line of
the quatrain in 'An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize', ante, p. 198.
first printed in 'The Public Ledger', April 14, 1761. It had,
however, already been printed in the 'Ledger', ten days before.
Goldsmith's animosity to Churchill (cf. note to l. 41 of the
dedication to 'The Traveller') was notorious; but this is one of
his doubtful pieces.
"bounty".  'Settled at One Shilling--the Price of the Poem'
From the same letter as the preceding.  George Colman and Robert
Lloyd of the 'St. James's Magazine' were supposed to have helped
Churchill in 'The Rosciad', the 'it' of the epigram.
From Letter cxiii of 'The Citizen of the World', 1762, ii. 209,
first printed in 'The Public Ledger', May 13, 1761.
'The Double Transformation' first appeared in 'Essays:  By Mr.
Goldsmith", 1765, where it figures as Essay xxvi, occupying pp.
Essay xxviii, pp. 241-45. This is the text here followed. The
poem is an obvious imitation of what its author calls ('Letters
from a Nobleman to his Son', 1764, ii. 140) that 'French elegant
easy manner of telling a story,' which Prior had caught from La
Fontaine. But the inherent simplicity of Goldsmith's style is
curiously evidenced by the absence of those illustrations and
ingenious allusions which are Prior's chief characteristic. And
although Goldsmith included 'The Ladle' and 'Hans Carvel' in his
'Beauties of English Poesy', 1767, he refrained wisely from
copying the licence of his model.
"Jack Book-worm led a college life".
The version of 1765 reads 'liv'd' for 'led.'
"And freshmen wonder'd as he spoke".
The earlier version adds here--
Without politeness aim'd at breeding,
And laugh'd at pedantry and reading.
"Her presence banish'd all his peace".
Here in the first version the paragraph closes,
and a fresh one is commenced as follows:--
Our alter'd Parson now began
To be a perfect ladies' man;
Made sonnets, lisp'd his sermons o'er,
And told the tales he told before,
Of bailiffs pump'd, and proctors bit,
At college how he shew'd his wit;
And, as the fair one still approv'd,
He fell in love--or thought he lov'd.
So with decorum, etc.
The fifth line was probably a reminiscence of the college riot
in which Goldsmith was involved in May, 1747, and for his part
in which he was publicly admonished. (See 'Introduction', p. xi,
"usage".  This word, perhaps by a printer's error, is
'visage' in the first version
"Skill'd in no other arts was she".  Cf. Prior:--
"Five greasy nightcaps wrapp'd her head".  Cf.
'Spectator', No. 494--'At length the Head of the
Colledge came out to him, from an inner Room, with half
a Dozen Night-Caps upon his Head.' See also Goldsmith's
Mr. Grogan speaks of his wife as habitually 'mobbed up
in flannel night caps, and trembling at a breath of
"By day, 'twas gadding or coquetting".  The first version after
'coquetting' begins a fresh paragraph with--
Now tawdry madam kept, etc.
"A sigh in suffocating smoke".
Here in the first version follows:--
She, in her turn, became perplexing,
And found substantial bliss in vexing.
Thus every hour was pass'd, etc.
"Thus as her faults each day were known".  First version:
'Each day, the more her faults,' etc.
"Now, to perplex".  The first version has 'Thus.'
But the alteration in line 61 made a change necessary.
"paste".  First version 'pastes.'
"condemn'd to hack", i.e. to hackney, to plod.
'I long had rack'd my brains to find.'
usher and then Master at the Charterhouse. In the latter
capacity he succeeded Thomas Walker, the master of Addison and
Steele. His 'Pantheon', a revised translation from the Latin of
the Jesuit, Francis Pomey, was a popular school-book of
mythology, with copper-plates.
"Wings upon either side--mark that".  The petasus of
Mercury, like his sandals (l. 24), is winged.
"No poppy-water half so good".  Poppy-water, made by
boiling the heads of the white, black, or red poppy, was a
favourite eighteenth-century soporific:--'Juno shall give her
peacock 'poppy-water', that he may fold his ogling tail.'
"With this he drives men's souls to hell".
....virgaque levem coerces
l. 57.  "Moreover, Merc'ry had a failing".
Callidum, quidquid placuit, iocoso
Goldsmith, it will be observed, rhymes 'failing' and 'stealing.'
But Pope does much the same:--
That Jelly's rich, this Malmsey healing,
Pray dip your Whiskers and your tail in.
('Imitation of Horace', Bk. ii, Sat. vi.)
Unless this is to be explained by poetical licence, one of these
words must have been pronounced in the eighteenth century as it
is not pronounced now.
"In which all modern bards agree".
The text of 1765 reads 'our scribling bards.'
"Turn, etc."  The first version has --
Deign saint-like tenant of the dale,
To guide my nightly way,
To yonder fire, that cheers the vale
With hospitable ray.
"For yonder faithless phantom flies".
'The Vicar of Wakefield', first edition, has --
'For yonder phantom only flies.'
"All".  'Vicar of Wakefield', first edition, 'For.'
"Man wants but little here below".  Cf. Young's 'Complaint',
recollection. According to Prior ('Life', 1837, ii. 83), they
were printed as a quotation in the version of 1765. Young's line
Man wants but Little; nor that Little, long.
"modest".  'Vicar of Wakefield', first edition, 'grateful.'
"Far in a wilderness obscure".  First version, and 'Vicar of
Wakefield', first edition:--
Far shelter'd in a glade obscure
The modest mansion lay.
"The wicket, opening with a latch".  First version, and 'Vicar
of Wakefield', first edition:--
The door just opening with a latch.
"And now, when busy crowds retire".  First version, and 'Vicar
of Wakefield', first edition:--
And now, when worldly crowds retire
To revels or to rest.
"But nothing, etc."  In the first version this stanza runs as
But nothing mirthful could assuage
The pensive stranger's woe;
For grief had seized his early age,
And tears would often flow.
"modern". 'Vicar of Wakefield', first edition, reads 'haughty.'
"His love-lorn guest betray'd".  First version, and 'Vicar of
Wakefield', first edition:--
The bashful guest betray'd.
"Surpris'd, he sees, etc."  First version, and 'Vicar of
Wakefield', first edition:--
He sees unnumber'd beauties rise,
Expanding to the view;
Like clouds that deck the morning skies,
As bright, as transient too.
"The bashful look, the rising breast".  First version,
and 'Vicar of Wakefield', first edition:--
Her looks, her lips, her panting breast.
"But let a maid, etc."  For this, and the next two stanzas,
the first version substitutes:--
Forgive, and let thy pious care
A heart's distress allay;
That seeks repose, but finds despair
Companion of the way.
My father liv'd, of high degree,
Remote beside the Tyne;
And as he had but only me,
Whate'er he had was mine.
To win me from his tender arms,
Unnumber'd suitors came;
Their chief pretence my flatter'd charms,
My wealth perhaps their aim.
"a mercenary crowd".  'Vicar of Wakefield', first edition, has:--
'the gay phantastic crowd.'
"Amongst the rest young Edwin bow'd".  First version:--
Among the rest young Edwin bow'd,
Who offer'd only love.
"Wisdom and worth, etc."  First version, and 'Vicar of
Wakefield', first edition:--
A constant heart was all he had,
But that was all to me.
"And when beside me, etc."  For this 'additional stanza,' says
the 'Percy Memoir', p. 76, 'the reader is indebted to Richard
Archdal, Esq., late a member of the Irish Parliament, to whom it
was presented by the author himself.' 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.'
"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.
"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.
"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.
"And sought a solitude forlorn".  Cf. 'Gentle Herdsman:--
He gott him to a secrett place,
And there he dyed without releeffe.
"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.
"'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.
"Forbid it, Heaven."  'Vicar of Wakefield', first edition,
like the version of 1765, has 'Thou shalt not thus.'
"My life."  'Vicar of Wakefield', first edition, has 'O thou.'
"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
"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.)
"The dog, to gain some private ends".  The first edition reads
'his private ends.'
"The dog it was that died".  This catastrophe suggests the
couplet from the 'Greek Anthology',
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.
Un gros serpent mordit Aurelle.
Que croyez-vous qu'il arriva?
Qu'Aurelle en mourut? -- Bagatelle!
Ce fut le serpent qui creva.
paragraphist in the 'St. James's Gazette' for January 28th, 1889,
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,
"As puffing quacks".  Goldsmith had devoted a Chinese
(Letter lxv).
"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.
"Go, ask your manager".  Colman, the manager of Covent
Garden, was not a prolific, although he was a happy writer of
prologues and epilogues.
The quotation is from 'King Lear', Act iii, Sc. 4.
In the first version the last line runs:--
And view with favour, the 'Good-natur'd Man.'
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
Yr. obdt. Servt. Voltaire.
The text of the prologue is here given as printed in Cradock's
"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).
"Botanists".  Mr. (afterward Sir Joseph) Banks and Dr.
Solander, of the British Museum, accompanied Cook.
"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
"With Scythian stores".  The scene of the play was laid
"to make palaver", to hold a parley, generally with the
intention of cajoling. Two of Goldsmith's notes to Garrick in
"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.'
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,
"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.
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).
"Along the billow'd main".  Cf. 'The Captivity', Act ii,
"Oswego's dreary shores".  Cf. 'The Traveller', l. 411.
"And with the avenging fight".  Varied from Collins's
"Its earliest bloom".  Cf. Collins's 'Dirge in Cymbeline'.
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
'Fourth' FELLOW.
'Third' FELLOW.
"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
in literature the 'New Bath Guide' of Anstey (1766), the
'Spiritual Quixote' of Graves, 1772, and the sarcasms of Sterne,
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
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
"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.
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.'
"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.'
"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.'
"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;
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
"Che faro", i.e. 'Che faro senza Euridice', the lovely lament
"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
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.'
the game of Ombre. Cf. Swift's 'Journal of a Modern Lady in a
She draws up card by card, to find
Good fortune peeping from behind;
With panting heart, and earnest eyes,
In hope to see 'spadillo' rise;
In vain, alas!  her hope is fed;
She draws an ace, and sees it red.
"Bayes".  The chief character in Buckingham's
'Rehearsal', 1672, and intended for John Dryden. Here the name
is put for the 'poet' or 'dramatist.' Cf. Murphy's Epilogue to
Not e'en poor 'Bayes' within must hope to be
Free from the lash:-- His Play he writ for me
'Tis true -- and now my gratitude you'll see;
and Colman's Epilogue to 'The School for Scandal', 1777:--
So wills our virtuous bard -- the motley 'Bayes'
Of crying epilogues and laughing plays!
Here lies NOLLY Goldsmith, for shortness call'd Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, but talk'd like poor Poll.
Goldsmith, upon the company's laughing very heartily, grew very
admired, and gone through several editions.' This account, though
On him let all thy vengeance fall;
On me you but misplace it:
Remember how he called thee 'Poll' --
But, ah!  he dares not face it.
author 'inter alia' of the 'Roman Comique', 1651-7, upon a
translation of which Goldsmith was occupied during the last
months of his life. It was published by Griffin in 1776.
"Each guest brought his dish".  'Chez Scarron,' -- says
his editor, M. Charles Baumet, when speaking of the poet's
entertainments, -- 'venait d'ailleurs l'elite des dames, des
courtisans & des hommes de lettres. On y dinait joyeusement.
'Chacun apportait son plat'.' ('Oeuvres de Scarron', 1877, i.
viii.) Scarron's company must have been as brilliant as
Goldsmith's. Villarceaux, Vivonne, the Marechal d'Albret,
figured in his list of courtiers; while for ladies he had
Sevigne, to say nothing of Ninon de Lenclos and Marion Delorme.
"If our landlord".  The 'explanatory note' to the second
edition says -- 'The master of the St. James's coffee-house,
where the Doctor, and the friends he has characterized in this
Poem, held an occasional club.' This, it should be stated, was
not the famous 'Literary Club,' which met at the Turk's Head
Tavern in Gerrard Street. The St. James's Coffee-house, as
familiar to Swift and Addison at the beginning, as it was to
Goldsmith and his friends at the end of the eighteenth century,
was the last house but one on the south-west corner of St.
James's Street. It now no longer exists. Cradock ('Memoirs',
Street' with Goldsmith, Percy, the two Burkes ('v. infra'),
Johnson, Garrick, Dean Barnard, and others. 'We sat very late;'
he adds in conclusion, 'and the conversation that at last
ensued, was the direct cause of my friend Goldsmith's poem,
called "Retaliation."'
"Our Dean".  Dr. Thomas Barnard, an Irishman, at this
time Dean of Derry. He died at Wimbledon in 1806. It was Dr.
Barnard who, in reply to a rude sally of Johnson, wrote the
charming verses on improvement after the age of forty-five,
which end --
If I have thoughts, and can't express them,
Gibbon shall teach me how to dress them,
In terms select and terse;
Jones teach me modesty and Greek,
Smith how to think, Burke how to speak,
And Beauclerk to converse.
Let Johnson teach me how to place
In fairest light, each borrow'd grace,
From him I'll learn to write;
Copy his clear, familiar style,
And from the roughness of his file
Grow like himself -- polite.
also gave him [Goldsmith] an epitaph, and Sir Joshua illuminated
the dean's verses with a sketch of his bust in pen and ink
inimitably caricatured.' What would collectors give for that
sketch and epitaph! Unfortunately in Cumberland's septuagenarian
recollections the 'truth severe' is mingled with an unusual
amount of 'fairy fiction.' However Sir Joshua 'did' draw
caricatures, for a number of them were exhibited at the
Grosvenor Gallery (by the Duke of Devonshire) in the winter of
"Our Will".  'Mr. William Burke, late Secretary to
General Conway, and member for Bedwin, Wiltshire' (Note to
second edition). He was a kinsman of Edmund Burke, and one of
the supposed authors of Junius's 'Letters'. He died in 1798. 'It
is said that the notices Goldsmith first wrote of the Burkes
were so severe that Hugh Boyd persuaded the poet to alter them,
and entirely rewrite the character of William, for he was sure
that if the Burkes saw what was originally written of them the
peace of the Club would be disturbed.' (Rev. W. Hunt in 'Dict.
brother. He was for some years Collector to the Customs at
Grenada, being on a visit to London when 'Retaliation' was
"Our Cumberland's sweetbread".  Richard Cumberland, the
poet, novelist, and dramatist, 1731-1811, author of 'The West
more or less sentimental plays. In his 'Memoirs', 1807, i.
which adds a few dubious particulars to that of Garrick. But it
was written from memory long after the events it records.
"Douglas".  'Dr. Douglas, since Bishop of Salisbury,'
says Cumberland. He died in 1807 ('v. infra').
"Ridge".  'Counsellor John Ridge, a gentleman belonging
to the Irish Bar' (Note to second edition). 'Burke,' says Bolton
Corney, 'in 1771, described him as "one of the honestest and
best-natured men living, and inferior to none of his profession
in ability."' (See also note to line 125.)
"Hickey".  The commentator of the second edition of
'Retaliation' calls this gentleman 'honest Tom Hickey'. His
Christian name, however, was 'Joseph' (Letter of Burke, November
the legal adviser of both Burke and Reynolds. Indeed it was
Hickey who drew the conveyance of the land on which Reynolds's
house 'next to the Star and Garter' at Richmond (Wick House) was
built by Chambers the architect. Hickey died in 1794. Reynolds
painted his portrait for Burke, and it was exhibited at the
H. Burke. Sir Joshua also painted Miss Hickey in 1769-73. Her
father, not much to Goldsmith's satisfaction, was one of the
Paris party in 1770. See also note to l. 125.
(Reynolds's 'Works', second edition, 1801, i. xc), Goldsmith
intended to have concluded with his own character.
afterwards first Viscount Sydney. He died in 1800. Junius says
Bolton Corney, gives a portrait of him as 'still life'. His
presence in 'Retaliation' is accounted for by the fact that he
had commented in Parliament upon Johnson's pension. 'I am well
assured,' says Boswell, 'that Mr. Townshend's attack upon
Johnson was the occasion of his "hitching in a rhyme"; for, that
in the original copy of Goldsmith's character of Mr. Burke, in
his 'Retaliation' another person's name stood in the couplet
where Mr. Townshend is now introduced.' (Birkbeck Hill's
"too deep for his hearers".  'The emotion to which he
commonly appealed was that too rare one, the love of wisdom, and
he combined his thoughts and knowledge in propositions of wisdom
so weighty and strong, that the minds of ordinary hearers were
not on the instant prepared for them.' (Morley's 'Burke', 1882,
"And thought of convincing, while they thought of
dining". For the reason given in the previous note, many of
Burke's hearers often took the opportunity of his rising to
speak, to retire to dinner. Thus he acquired the nickname of the
"To eat mutton cold".  There is a certain resemblance
between this character and Gray's lines on himself written in
Gray and Goldsmith may have been thinking of a line in the once
popular song of 'Ally Croaker':--
Too dull for a wit, too grave for a joker.
"honest William", i.e. William Burke ('v. supra').
"Now breaking a jest, and now breaking a limb".  A note
to the second edition says -- 'The above Gentleman [Richard
Burke, 'v. supra'] having slightly fractured one of his arms and
legs, at different times, the Doctor [i.e. Goldsmith] has
rallied him on those accidents, as a kind of 'retributive'
justice for breaking his jests on other people.'
"Here Cumberland lies".  According to Boaden's 'Life of
Kemble', 1825, i. 438, Mrs. Piozzi rightly regarded this
portrait as wholly ironical; and Bolton Corney, without much
expenditure of acumen, discovers it to have been written in a
spirit of 'persiflage'. Nevertheless, Cumberland himself
('Memoirs', 1807, i. 369) seems to have accepted it in good
faith. Speaking of Goldsmith he says -- I conclude my account of
him with gratitude for the epitaph he bestowed on me in his poem
called 'Retaliation'.' From the further details which he gives
of the circumstances, it would appear that his own performance,
of which he could recall but one line --
All mourn the poet, I lament the man --
was conceived in a less malicious spirit than those of the
others, and had predisposed the sensitive bard in his favour.
But no very genuine cordiality could be expected to exist
between the rival authors of 'The West Indian' and 'She Stoops
"And Comedy wonders at being so fine".  It is
instructive here to transcribe Goldsmith's serious opinion of
the kind of work which Cumberland essayed:-- 'A new species of
Dramatic Composition has been introduced, under the name of
'Sentimental' Comedy, in which the virtues of Private Life are
exhibited, rather than the Vices exposed; and the Distresses
rather than the Faults of Mankind, make our interest in the
piece.... In these Plays almost all the Characters are good, and
exceedingly generous; they are lavish enough of their 'Tin'
Money on the Stage, and though they want Humour, have abundance
of Sentiment and Feeling. If they happen to have Faults or
Foibles, the Spectator is taught not only to pardon, but to
applaud them, in consideration of the goodness of their hearts;
so that Folly, instead of being ridiculed, is commended, and the
Comedy aims at touching our Passions without the power of being
the 'Preface to The Good Natur'd Man', where he 'hopes that too
much refinement will not banish humour and character from our's,
as it has already done from the French theatre. Indeed the
French comedy is now become so very elevated and sentimental,
that it has not only banished humour and 'Moliere' from the
stage, but it has banished all spectators too.'
"The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks".  Dr.
John Douglas ('v. supra') distinguished himself by his exposure
of two of his countrymen, Archibald Bower, 1686-1766, who, being
secretly a member of the Catholic Church, wrote a 'History of
the Popes'; and William Lauder 1710-1771, who attempted to prove
Milton a plagiarist. Cf. Churchill's 'Ghost', Bk. ii:--
By TRUTH inspir'd when 'Lauder's' spight
O'er MILTON cast the Veil of Night,
DOUGLAS arose, and thro' the maze
Of intricate and winding ways,
Came where the subtle Traitor lay,
And dragg'd him trembling to the day.
'Lauder on Milton' is one of the books bound to the
trunk-maker's in Hogarth's 'Beer Street', 1751. He imposed on
Johnson, who wrote him a 'Preface' and was consequently trounced
by Churchill ('ut supra') as 'our Letter'd POLYPHEME.'
"Our Dodds shall be pious".  The reference is to the
Rev. Dr. William Dodd, who three years after the publication of
'Retaliation' (i.e. June 27, 1777) was hanged at Tyburn for
forging the signature of the fifth Earl of Chesterfield, to whom
he had been tutor. His life previously had long been scandalous
enough to justify Goldsmith's words. Johnson made strenuous and
humane exertions to save Dodd's life, but without avail. (See
account of Dodd's execution at the end of vol. i of Angelo's
"our Kenricks".  Dr. William Kenrick -- say the earlier
annotators -- who 'read lectures at the Devil Tavern, under the
Title of "The School of Shakespeare."' The lectures began
January 19, 1774, and help to fix the date of the poem.
Goldsmith had little reason for liking this versatile and
unprincipled Ishmaelite of letters, who, only a year before, had
penned a scurrilous attack upon him in 'The London Packet'.
Kenrick died in 1779.
lately, from the mere 'force of his style', wrote down the first
poet of all antiquity.' (Note to second edition.) This was
Erse epics by a prose translation of Homer, which brought him
little but opprobrium. 'Your abilities, since your Homer, are
not so formidable,' says Johnson in the knockdown letter which
he addressed to him in 1775. (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell', 1887,
"Our Townshend".  See note to line 34.
"New Lauders and Bowers".  See note to l. 80.
"And Scotchman meet Scotchman, and cheat in the dark".
Mitford compares Farquhar's 'Love and a Bottle', 1699, Act iii--
But gods meet gods and jostle in the dark.
But Farquhar was quoting from Dryden and Lee's 'Oedipus', 1679,
Act iv (at end).
"Here lies David Garrick".  'The sum of all that can be
said for and against Mr. Garrick, some people think, may be
found in these lines of Goldsmith,' writes Davies in his 'Life
hesitating in its verdict. 'The lines on Garrick,' says Forster,
'Life of Goldsmith', 1871, ii. 409, 'are quite perfect writing.
Without anger, the satire is finished, keen, and uncompromising;
the wit is adorned by most discriminating praise; and the truth
is only the more unsparing for its exquisite good manners and
good taste.'
"Ye Kenricks".  See note to line 86.
for Wives', 1774, and other 'sentimental dramas,' is here
referred to. His first play, which is described in Garrick's
prologue as a 'Sermon,' 'preach'd in Acts,' was produced at
Drury Lane just six days before Goldsmith's comedy of 'The Good
Natur'd Man' appeared at Covent Garden, and obtained a success
which it ill deserved. 'False Delicacy' -- said Johnson truly
of character,' -- a crushing accusation to make against a drama.
But Garrick, for his private ends, had taken up Kelly as a rival
to Goldsmith; and the 'comedie serieuse' or 'larmoyante' of La
Chaussee, Sedaine, and Diderot had already found votaries in
England. 'False Delicacy', weak, washy, and invertebrate as it
was, completed the transformation of 'genteel' into
'sentimental' comedy, and establishing that 'genre' for the next
humour and character which Goldsmith had tried to promote by
'The Good Natur'd Man'. (See note to l. 66.)
"Woodfalls".  'William Woodfall' -- says Bolton Corney --
'successively editor of 'The London Packet' and 'The Morning
Chronicle', was matchless as a reporter of speeches, and an able
theatrical critic. He made lofty pretensions to editorial
impartiality -- but the actor [i.e. Garrick] was not 'always'
satisfied.' He died in 1803. He must not be confounded with
Henry Sampson Woodfall, the editor of Junius's 'Letters'. (See
"To act as an angel".  There is a sub-ironic touch in
this phrase which should not be overlooked. Cf. l. 102.
"Here Hickey reclines".  See note to l. 15.  In
Cumberland's 'Poetical Epistle to Dr. Goldsmith; or Supplement
Hickey's genial qualities are thus referred to:--
Give RIDGE and HICKY, generous souls!
Of WHISKEY PUNCH convivial bowls.
"a special attorney".  A special attorney was merely an
attorney who practised in one court only. The species is now
said to be extinct.
"burn ye".  The annotator of the second edition,
apologizing for this 'forced' rhyme to 'attorney,' informs the
English reader that the phrase of 'burn ye' is 'a familiar
method of salutation in Ireland amongst the lower classes of the
"Here Reynolds is laid".  This shares the palm with the
admirable epitaphs on Garrick and Burke. But Goldsmith loved
Reynolds, and there are no satiric strokes in the picture. If we
are to believe Malone (Reynolds's 'Works', second edition, 1801,
i. xc), 'these were the last lines the author wrote.'
"bland".  Malone ('ut supra', lxxxix) notes this word
as 'eminently happy, and characteristick of his [Reynolds's]
easy and placid manners.' Boswell (Dedication of 'Life of
Johnson') refers to his 'equal and placid temper.' Cf. also Dean
Barnard's verses (Northcote's 'Life of Reynolds', 2nd ed., 1819,
i. 220), and Mrs. Piozzi's lines in her 'Autobiography', 2nd
"He shifted his trumpet".  While studying Raphael in
the Vatican in 1751, Reynolds caught so severe a cold 'as to
occasion a deafness which obliged him to use an ear-trumpet for
the remainder of his life.' (Taylor and Leslie's 'Reynolds',
which he painted for Thrale about 1775. See also Zoffany's
picture of the 'Academicians gathered about the model in the
Life School at Somerset House,' 1772, where he is shown
employing it to catch the conversation of Wilton and Chambers.
"and only took snuff".  Sir Joshua was a great snuff-taker.  His
snuff-box, described in the Catalogue as the one 'immortalized
in Goldsmith's 'Retaliation',' was exhibited, with his
spectacles and other personal relics, at the Grosvenor Gallery
in 1883-4. In the early editions this epitaph breaks off
abruptly at the word 'snuff.' But Malone says that half a line
more had been written. Prior gives this half line as 'By
flattery unspoiled --,' and affirms that among several erasures
in the manuscript sketch devoted to Reynolds it 'remained
"Here Whitefoord reclines".  The circumstances which
led to the insertion of these lines in the fifth edition are
detailed in the prefatory words of the publisher given at p. 92.
There is more than a suspicion that Whitefoord wrote them
himself; but they have too long been accepted as an appendage to
the poem to be now displaced. Caleb Whitefoord (born 1734) was a
Scotchman, a wine-merchant, and an art connoisseur, to whom J.
several pages. He was one of the party at the St. James's
Coffee-house. He died in 1810. There is a caricature of him in
'Connoisseurs inspecting a Collection of George Morland,'
was a reminiscence of a visit which, when he first came to
London, he paid to Whitefoord. He was also painted by Reynolds
and Stuart. Hewins's 'Whitefoord Papers', 1898, throw no light
upon the story of the epitaph.
"a grave man".  Cf. 'Romeo and Juliet', Act iii, Sc. 1:
-- 'Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me 'a grave man'.'
This Shakespearean recollection is a little like Goldsmith's
way. (See note to 'The Haunch of Venison', l. 120.)
"and rejoic'd in a pun".  'Mr. W. is so notorious a
punster, that Doctor Goldsmith used to say, it was impossible to
keep him company, without being 'infected' with the 'itch of
punning'.' (Note to fifth edition.)
'"if the table he set on a roar".'  Cf. 'Hamlet', Act
"Woodfall", i.e. Henry Sampson Woodfall, printer of
'The Public Advertiser'. He died in 1805. (See note to l. 115.)
Over the 'nom de guerre' of 'Papyrius Cursor,' a real Roman
name, but as happy in its applicability as Thackeray's 'Manlius
Pennialinus,' Whitefoord contributed many specimens of this
mechanic wit to 'The Public Advertiser'. The 'Cross Readings'
were obtained by taking two or three columns of a newspaper
horizontally and 'onwards' instead of 'vertically' and
downwards, thus:--
Colds caught at this season are
To be sold to the best Bidder,
My seat in Parliament being vacated.
A more elaborate example is
On Tuesday an address was presented;
it unhappily missed fire and the villain made off,
when the honour of knighthood was conferred on him
to the great joy of that noble family
Goldsmith was hugely delighted with Whitefoord's 'lucky
inventions' when they first became popular in 1766. 'He
declared, in the heat of his admiration of them, it would have
given him more pleasure to have been the author of them than of
all the works he had ever published of his own' (Northcote's
remarkable is, that Johnson spoke of Whitefoord's performances
as 'ingenious and diverting' (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell', 1887,
iv. 322); and Horace Walpole laughed over them till he cried
(Letter to Montagu, December 12, 1766). To use Voltaire's
witticism, he is 'bien heureux' who can laugh now. It may be
added that Whitefoord did not, as he claimed, originate the
'Cross Readings.' They had been anticipated in No. 49 of
Harrison's spurious 'Tatler', vol. v .
. We hear that his Majestys Ship 'Newcastle' will soon
have a new figurehead, the old one being almost worn out.' The
'Mistakes of the Press' explain themselves. (See also Smith's
Hospital for Wit', 1784, vol. ii, and 'Gentleman's Magazine',
"That a Scot may have humour, I had almost said wit".
Goldsmith, -- if he wrote these verses, -- must have forgotten
that he had already credited Whitefoord with 'wit' in l. 153.
"Thou best humour'd man with the worst humour'd muse".
Cf. Rochester of Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset:--
The best good man, with the worst-natur'd muse.
Whitefoord's contribution to the epitaphs on Goldsmith is said
to have been unusually severe, -- so severe that four only of
its eight lines are quoted in the 'Whitefoord Papers', 1898, the
rest being 'unfit for publication' (p. xxvii). He afterwards
addressed a metrical apology to Sir Joshua, which is printed at
Boswell, to whom we are indebted for the preservation of this
Your humble Servant,
Sing -- sing -- Music was given,
To brighten the gay, and kindle the loving;
Souls here, like planets in Heaven,
By harmony's laws alone are kept moving, etc.
What tho' the good, the brave, the wise,
With adverse force undaunted rise,
To break th' eternal doom!
Tho' CATO liv'd, tho' TULLY spoke,
Tho' BRUTUS dealt the godlike stroke,
Yet perish'd fated ROME.
"The fat was so white, etc."  The first version reads --
'The white was so white, and the red was so ruddy.'
"Though my stomach was sharp, etc."  This couplet is not
in the first version.
"One gammon of bacon".  Prior compared a passage from
Goldsmith's 'Animated Nature', 1774, iii. 9, 'a propos' of a
similar practice in Germany, Poland, and Switzerland. 'A piece
of beef,' he says, 'hung up there, is considered as an elegant
piece of furniture, which, though seldom touched, at least
argues the possessor's opulence and ease.'
"a bounce", i.e. a braggart falsehood.  Steele, in No.
brag, 'But this is supposed to be only a 'Bounce'.'
"Mr. Byrne", spelled 'Burn' in the earlier editions, was
a relative of Lord Clare.
"M--r--'s."  MONROE's in the first version.  'Dorothy
Monroe,' says Bolton Corney, 'whose various charms are
celebrated in verse by Lord Townshend.'
first version --
'There's COLEY, and WILLIAMS, and HOWARD, and HIFF.'
-- Hiff was Paul Hiffernan, M.B., 1719-77, a Grub Street author
and practitioner. Bolton Corney hazards some conjectures as to
the others; but Cunningham wisely passes them over.
"H--gg--ns".  Perhaps, suggests Bolton Corney, this was
the Captain Higgins who assisted at Goldsmith's absurd 'fracas'
with Evans the bookseller, upon the occasion of Kenrick's
letter in 'The London Packet' for March 24, 1773. Other
accounts, however, state that his companion was Captain Horneck
first version
"Such dainties to them, etc."  The first version reads:--
Such dainties to them!  It 'would' look like a flirt,
Like sending 'em Ruffles when wanting a Shirt.
Cunningham quotes a similar idea from T. Brown's 'Laconics,
Works', 1709, iv. 14. 'To treat a poor wretch with a bottle of
Burgundy, or fill his snuff-box, is like giving a pair of lace
ruffles to a man that has never a shirt on his back.' But
Goldsmith, as was his wont, had already himself employed the
same figure. 'Honours to one in my situation,' he says in a
letter to his brother Maurice, in January, 1770, when speaking
of his appointment as Professor of Ancient History to the Royal
Academy, 'are something like ruffles to a man that wants a
not Brown's 'Laconics', but those French 'ana' he knew so well.
According to M. J. J. Jusserand ('English Essays from a French
Samuel de Sorbieres, the traveller in England who was assailed
by Bishop Sprat. Considering himself inadequately rewarded by
his patrons, Mazarin, Louis XIV, and Pope Clement IX, he said
bitterly -- 'They give lace cuffs to a man without a shirt'; a
'consolatory witticism' which he afterwards remodelled into, 'I
wish they would send me bread for the butter they kindly
provided me with.' In this form it appears in the Preface to the
"a flirt" is a jibe or jeer.  'He would sometimes...cast out a
jesting 'flirt' at me.' (Morley's 'History of Thomas Ellwood',
"An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow, etc."  The first
version reads --
A fine-spoken Custom-house Officer he,
Who smil'd as he gaz'd on the Ven'son and me.
"but I hate ostentation".  Cf. Beau Tibbs:-- 'She was
bred, 'but that's between ourselves', under the inspection of
the Countess of All-night.' ('Citizen of the World', 1762, i.
"We'll have Johnson, and Burke".  Cf. Boileau, 'Sat.'
iii. Ll. 25-6, which Goldsmith had in mind:--
Moliere avec Tartufe y doit jouer son role,
Et Lambert, qui plus est, m'a donne sa parole.
"What say you -- a pasty?  It shall, and it must".  The
first version reads --
I'll take no denial -- you shall, and you must.
Mr. J. H. Lobban, 'Goldsmith, Select Poems', 1900, notes a
hitherto undetected similarity between this and the 'It 'must',
and it 'shall' be a barrack, my life' of Swift's 'Grand Question
Debated'. See also ll. 56 and 91.
l. 56.  "No stirring, I beg -- my dear friend -- my dear
friend". In the first edition --
No words, my dear GOLDSMITH! my very good Friend!
Mr. Lobban compares:--
'Good morrow, good captain.'  'I'll wait on you down,' --
'You shan't stir a foot.'  'You'll think me a clown.'
"'And nobody with me at sea but myself.'"  This is
almost a textual quotation from one of the letters of Henry
correspondence which in 1770 gave great delight to contemporary
caricaturists and scandal-mongers. Other poets besides Goldsmith
seem to have been attracted by this particular lapse of his
illiterate Royal Highness, since it is woven into a ballad
printed in 'The Public Advertiser' for August 2 in the above
The Miser who wakes in a Fright for his Pelf,
And finds 'no one by him except his own Self', etc.
"When come to the place", etc.
A peine etais-je entre, que ravi de me voir,
Mon homme, en m'embrassant, m'est venu recevoir;
Et montrant a mes yeux une allegresse entiere,
Nous n'avons, m'a-t-il dit, ni Lambert ni Moliere.
Lambert the musician, it may be added, had the special
reputation of accepting engagements which he never kept.
"and t'other with Thrale".  Henry Thrale, the Southwark
brewer, and the husband of Mrs. Thrale, afterwards Mrs. Piozzi.
Johnson first made his acquaintance in 1765. Strahan complained
to Boswell that, by this connexion, Johnson 'was in a great
measure absorbed from the society of his old friends.' (Birkbeck
The one at the House, and the other with THRALE.
"They both of them merry and authors like you".  'They'
should apparently be 'they're.' The first version reads --
Who dabble and write in the Papers -- like you.
"Some think he writes Cinna -- he owns to Panurge".
'Panurge' and 'Cinna' are signatures which were frequently to be
found at the foot of letters addressed to the 'Public
Advertiser' in 1770-1 in support of Lord Sandwich and the
Government. They are said to have been written by Dr. W. Scott,
Vicar of Simonburn, Northumberland, and chaplain of Greenwich
Hospital, both of which preferments had been given him by
Sandwich. In 1765 he had attacked Lord Bute and his policy over
the signature of 'Anti-Sejanus.' 'Sandwich and his parson
Anti-Sejanus [are] hooted off the stage' -- writes Walpole to
visited Goldsmith in his Temple chambers, and invited him to
'draw a venal quill' for Lord North's administration.
Goldsmith's noble answer, as reported by his reverend friend,
was -- 'I can earn as much as will supply my wants without
writing for any party; the assistance therefore you offer is
caricature portrait of Scott at p. 141 of 'The London Museum'
for February, 1771, entitled 'Twitcher's Advocate,' 'Jemmy
Twitcher' being the nickname of Lord Sandwich.
"Swinging', great, huge.  'Bishop Lowth has just
finished the Dramas, and sent me word, that although I have paid
him the most 'swinging' compliment he ever received, he likes
the whole book more than he can say.' ('Memoirs of Hannah More',
"pasty".  The first version has 'Ven'son.'
"So there I sat, etc."  This couplet is not in the first
version.
"And, 'Madam,' quoth he".  Mr. Lobban again quotes
Swift's 'Grant Question Debated':--
And 'Madam,' says he, 'if such dinners you give
You'll ne'er want for parsons as long as you live.'
These slight resemblances, coupled with the more obvious
likeness of the 'Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff' of
'Retaliation' (ll. 145-6) to the 'Noveds' and 'Bluturks' and
'Omurs' and stuff' (also pointed out by Mr. Lobban) are
interesting, because they show plainly that Goldsmith remembered
the works of Swift far better than 'The New Bath Guide', which
has sometimes been supposed to have set the tune to the 'Haunch'
"'may this bit be my poison.'"  The gentleman in 'She
Stoops to Conquer', Act i, who is 'obligated to dance a bear.'
Uses the same asseveration.  Cf. also Squire Thornhill's
somewhat similar formula in chap. vii of 'The Vicar of
I could eat of this Tripe seven days in the week.'
"Re-echoed", i.e. 'returned' in the first edition.
"thot".  This, probably by a printer's error, is
altered to 'that' in the second version. But the first reading
is the more in keeping, besides being a better rhyme.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night.
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt.
"sicken'd over by learning".  Cf. 'Hamlet', Act iii,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is 'sicklied o'er' with the pale cast of thought.
Notwithstanding the condemnation of Shakespeare in the 'Present
State of Polite Learning', and elsewhere, Goldsmith frequently
weaves Shakespearean recollections into his work. Cf. 'She
Stoops to Conquer', 1773, Act i, p. 13, 'We wanted no ghost to
tell us that' ('Hamlet', Act i, Sc. 5); and Act i, p. 9, where
he uses Falstaff's words (1 'Henry IV', Act v, Sc. 1):--
Would it were bed-time and all were well.
"as very well known".  The first version has,
''tis very well known.'
"gentle Parnell's Name".  Mitford compares Pope on
With softest manners, gentlest Arts adorn'd.
Pope published Parnell's 'Poems' in 1722, and his sending them
to Harley, Earl of Oxford, after the latter's disgrace and
retirement, was the occasion of the foregoing epistle, from
which the following lines respecting Parnell may also be cited:--
For him, thou oft hast bid the World attend,
Fond to forget the statesman in the friend;
For SWIFT and him despis'd the farce of state,
The sober follies of the wise and great;
Dext'rous the craving, fawning crowd to quit,
And pleas'd to 'scape from Flattery to Wit.
"his sweetly-moral lay".  Cf. 'The Hermit', the 'Hymn to
Contentment', the 'Night Piece on Death' -- which Goldsmith
certainly recalled in his own 'City Night-Piece'. Of the
last-named Goldsmith says ('Life of Parnell', 1770, p. xxxii),
not without an obvious side-stroke at Gray's too-popular
'Elegy', that it 'deserves every praise, and I should suppose
with very little amendment, might be made to surpass all those
night pieces and church yard scenes that have since appeared.'
This is certainly (as Longfellow sings) to
.....rustling hear in every breeze
The laurels of Miltiades.
fiftieth reading; [he] is as fresh as at the first.' But Gray
(speaking -- it should be explained -- of a dubious volume of
his posthumous works) said: 'Parnell is the dung-hill of Irish
it is his fate to-day to be mainly remembered by three words
(not always attributed to him) in a couplet from what Johnson
styled 'perhaps the meanest' of his performances, the 'Elegy --
And all that's madly wild, or oddly gay,
We call it only 'pretty Fanny's way'.
This, though dated 'Edinburgh 1753,' was first printed in 'Poems
"John Trott" is a name for a clown or commonplace
Delap:-- 'As to his person and appearance, they are much in the
'John-trot' style.' Foote, Chesterfield, and Walpole use the
phrase; Fielding Scotticizes it into 'John Trott-Plaid, Esq.';
and Bolingbroke employs it as a pseudonym.
"I shall ne'er see your graces".  'I shall never see a
Goose again without thinking on Mr. 'Neverout',' -- says the
'brilliant Miss Notable' in Swift's 'Polite Conversation', 1738,
Il est au bout de ses travaux,
Il a passe, le Sieur Etienne;
En ce monde il eut tant des maux
Qu'on ne croit pas qu'il revienne.
Well, then, poor G___ lies underground!
So there's an end of honest Jack.
So little justice here he found,
'Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back.'
"in thy black aspect", i.e. the half-mask of harlequin,
in which character the Epilogue was spoken.
"rosined lightning", stage-lightning, in which rosin is
an ingredient.
This epilogue was first printed at pp. 82-6, vol. ii, of the
I am, my dear Cradock,
Your obliged, and obedient servant,
P.S. -- Present my most humble respects to Mrs. Cradock.'
"Who mump their passion", i.e. grimace their passion.
"ye macaroni train".  The Macaronies were the foplings,
fribbles, or beaux of Goldsmith's day. Walpole refers to them as
early as 1764; but their flourishing time was 1770-3, when the
print-shops, and especially Matthew Darly's in the Strand, No.
subject. Selwyn, March -- many well-known names -- are found in
their ranks. Richard Cosway figured as 'The Macaroni Painter';
Angelica Kauffmann as 'The Paintress of Maccaroni's'; Thrale as
'The Southwark Macaroni.' Another caricature ('The Fluttering
Macaroni') contains a portrait of Miss Catley, the singing
actress of the present epilogue; while Charles Horneck, the
brother of 'The Jessamy Bride' (see p. 251, l. 14) is twice
satirized as 'The Martial Macaroni' and 'The Military Macaroni.'
The name, as may be guessed, comes from the Italian dish first
made fashionable by the 'Macaroni Club,' being afterwards
applied by extension to 'the younger and gayer part of our
nobility and gentry, who, at the same time that they gave in to
the luxuries of eating, went equally into the extravagancies of
dress.' ('Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine', Oct. 1772.) Cf. Sir
Benjamin Backbite's later epigram in 'The School for Scandal',
Sure never was seen two such beautiful ponies;
Other horses are clowns, but these 'macaronies':
To give them this title I'm sure can't be wrong,
Their legs are so slim and their tails are so long.
"Their hands are only lent to the Heinel".  See note to
This epilogue, given by Goldsmith to Dr. Percy in MS., was first
published in the 'Miscellaneous Works' of 1801, ii. 87-8, as 'An
"There is a place, so Ariosto sings".  'The poet
alludes to the thirty-fourth canto of 'The Orlando furioso'.
Ariosto, as translated by Mr. Stewart Rose, observes of the
'lunar world';
There thou wilt find, if thou wilt thither post,
Whatever thou on earth beneath hast lost.
Astolpho undertakes the journey; discovers a portion of his
own sense; and, in an ample flask, the lost wits of Orlando.'
(Bolton Corney.) Cf. also 'Rape of the Lock',
Some thought it mounted to the Lunar sphere,
Since all things lost on earth are treasur'd there.
Lord Chesterfield also refers to the 'happy extravagancy'
"at Foote's Alone".  'Foote's' was the Little Theatre in
the Haymarket, where, in February, 1773, he brought out what he
described as a 'Primitive Puppet Show,' based upon the Italian
Fantoccini, and presenting a burlesque sentimental Comedy called
'The Handsome Housemaid; or, Piety in Pattens', which did as
much as 'She Stoops' to laugh false sentiment away. Foote warned
his audience that they would not discover 'much wit or humour'
in the piece, since 'his brother writers had all agreed that it
was highly improper, and beneath the dignity of a mixed
assembly, to show any signs of joyful satisfaction; and that
creating a laugh was forcing the higher order of an audience to
a vulgar and mean use of their muscles' -- for which reason, he
explained, he had, like them, given up the sensual for the
sentimental style. And thereupon followed the story of a maid of
low degree who, 'by the mere effects of morality and virtue,
raised herself [like Richardson's 'Pamela'], to riches and
honours.' The public, who for some time had acquiesced in the
new order of things under the belief that it tended to the
reformation of the stage, and who were beginning to weary of the
'moral essay thrown into dialogue,' which had for some time
supplanted humorous situation, promptly came round under the
influence of Foote's Aristophanic ridicule, and the 'comedie
larmoyante' received an appreciable check. Goldsmith himself had
prepared the way in a paper contributed to the 'Westminster
Magazine' for December, 1772 (vol. I. p. 4), with the title of
'An Essay on the Theatre; or, A Comparison between Laughing and
Sentimental Comedy.' The specific reference in the Prologue is
to the fact that Foote gave morning performances of 'The
Handsome Housemaid'. There was one, for instance, on Saturday,
"The Mohawk".  This particular species of the genus
'rake' belongs more to Swift's than Goldsmith's time, though the
race is eternal. There is an account of the 'Mohock Club' in
"Still stoops among the low to copy nature".  This line,
one would think, should have helped to convince Percy that the
epilogue was intended for 'She Stoops to Conquer', and for no
other play.
Act i.  This song had been published in the first
edition of 'The Haunch of Venison', 1776, with the second stanza
varied thus:--
Thou, like the world, th' opprest oppressing,
Thy smiles increase the wretch's woe'
And he who wants each other blessing,
In thee must ever find a foe.
Act ii.  This song also had appeared in the first edition
of 'The Haunch of Venison', 1776, in a different form:--
The Wretch condemn'd with life to part,
Still, still on Hope relies;
And ev'ry pang that rends the heart,
Bids Expectation rise.
Hope, like the glim'ring taper's light,
Adorns and chears the way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.
Mitford, who printed 'The Captivity' from Newbery's version,
records a number of 'first thoughts' afterwards altered or
improved by the author in his MS. Modern editors have not
reproduced them, and their example has been followed here. 'The
Captivity' is not, in any sense, one of Goldsmith's important
efforts.
"Horneck", i.e. Mrs. Hannah Horneck -- the 'Plymouth
Beauty' -- widow of Captain Kane William Horneck, grandson of
Dr. Anthony Horneck of the Savoy, mentioned in Evelyn's 'Diary',
for whose 'Happy Ascetick', 1724, Hogarth designed a
frontispiece. Mrs. Horneck died in 1803. Like Sir Joshua, the
Hornecks came from Devonshire; and through him, had made the
acquaintance of Goldsmith.
"Nesbitt".  Mr. Nesbitt was the husband of one of Mr. Thrale's
handsome sisters. He was a member of the Devonshire Club, and
twice (1759-61) sat to Reynolds, with whom he was intimate. He
died in 1779, and his widow married a Mr. Scott.
She had come to London in 1766. At the close of 1767 she had
been cajoled into a marriage with an impostor, Count de Horn,
and had separated from him in 1768. In 1769 she painted a 'weak
and uncharacteristic' portrait of Reynolds for Mr. Parker of
Saltram (afterwards Baron Boringdon), which is now in the
possession of the Earl of Morley. It was exhibited at the Royal
Academy in the winter of 1876, and is the portrait referred to
"the Jessamy Bride".  This was Goldsmith's pet-name for
Mary, the elder Miss Horneck. After Goldsmith's death she
married Colonel F. E. Gwyn (1779). She survived until 1840. 'Her
own picture with a turban,' painted by Reynolds, was left to her
in his will ('Works' by Malone, 2nd ed., 1798, p. cxviii). She
was also painted by Romney and Hoppner. 'Jessamy,' or 'jessimy,'
with its suggestion of jasmine flowers, seems in
eighteenth-century parlance to have stood for 'dandified,'
'superfine,' 'delicate,' and the whole name was probably coined
after the model of some of the titles to Darly's prints, then
common in all the shops.
"The Reynoldses two", i.e. Sir Joshua and his sister,
"Little Comedy's face".  'Little Comedy' was Goldsmith's
name for the younger Miss Horneck, Catherine, and already
engaged to H. W. Bunbury ('v. supra'), to whom she was married
in 1771. She died in 1799, and had also been painted by
"the Captain in lace".  This was Charles Horneck, Mrs.
Horneck's son, an officer in the Foot-guards. He afterwards
"to-day's Advertiser".  The lines referred to are said
by Prior to have been as follows:--
While fair Angelica, with matchless grace,
Paints Conway's lovely form and Stanhope's face;
Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay,
We praise, admire, and gaze our souls away.
But when the likeness she hath done for thee,
O Reynolds! with astonishment we see,
Forced to submit, with all our pride we own,
Such strength, such harmony, excell'd by none,
And thou art rivall'd by thyself alone.
They probably appeared in the newspaper at some date between
'Little Comedy' was married, after which time Goldsmith would
scarcely speak of her except as 'Mrs. Bunbury' (see p. 132, l.
This letter, which contains some of the brightest and easiest of
"your spring velvet coat".  Goldsmith's pronounced
taste in dress, and his good-natured simplicity, made his
costume a fertile subject for playful raillery, -- sometimes,
for rather discreditable practical jokes. (See next note.)
"a wig, that is modish and gay".  'He always wore a
wig' -- said the 'Jessamy Bride' in her reminiscences to Prior
-- 'a peculiarity which those who judge of his appearance only
from the fine poetical head of Reynolds, would not suspect; and
on one occasion some person contrived to seriously injure this
important adjunct to dress. It was the only one he had in the
country, and the misfortune seemed irreparable until the
services of Mr. Bunbury's valet were called in, who however
performed his functions so indifferently that poor Goldsmith's
appearance became the signal for a general smile' (Prior's
naso suspendis adunco
Et pueri nasum Rhinocerotis habent.
"Loo", i.e. Lanctre- or Lanterloo, a popular
eighteenth-century game, in which 'Pam', l. 6, the knave of
clubs, is the highest card. Cf. Pope, 'Rape of the Lock', 1714,
Ev'n might 'Pam', that Kings and Queens o'erthrew,
And mow'd down armies in the fights of Lu;
and Colman's epilogue to 'The School for Scandal', 1777:--
And at backgammon mortify my soul,
That pants for 'loo', or flutters at a vole?
Fielding's blind half-brother, who succeeded him as a Justice of
knighted in 1761. There are two portraits of him by Nathaniel
"by quinto Elizabeth, Death without Clergy".  Legal
authorities affirm that the Act quoted should be 8 Eliz. cap.
iv, under which those who stole more than twelvepence 'privately
from a man's person' were debarred from benefit of clergy. But
'quint. Eliz.' must have offered some special attraction to
poets, since Pope also refers to it in the 'Satires and
Consult the Statute: 'quart'. I think, it is,
'Edwardi sext.' or 'prim. et quint. Eliz.'
"With bunches of fennel, and nosegays before 'em".  This
was a custom dating from the fearful jail fever of 1750, which
carried off, not only prisoners, but a judge (Mr. Justice Abney)
'and many jurymen and witnesses.' 'From that time up to this day
the prisoner's dock, to prevent infection.' (Lawrence's 'Life of
Henry Fielding', 1855, p. 296.) The close observation of
Cruikshank has not neglected this detail in the Old Bailey plate
"mobs".  The mob was a loose undress or 'deshabille',
sometimes a hood. 'When we poor souls had presented ourselves
with a contrition suitable to our worthlessness, some pretty
young ladies in 'mobs', popped in here and there about the
"yon solemn-faced".  Cf. 'Introduction', p. xxvii.
According to the 'Jessamy Bride,' Goldsmith sometimes aggravated
his plainness by an 'assumed frown of countenance' (Prior,
"Sir Charles", i.e. Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, Bart.,
M. P., Henry Bunbury's elder brother. He succeeded to the title
in 1764, and died without issue in 1821. Goldsmith, it may be
observed, makes 'Charles' a disyllable. Probably, like many of
his countrymen, he so pronounced it. (Cf. Thackeray's
'Pendennis', 1850, vol. ii, chap. 5 [or xliii], where this is
humorously illustrated in Captain Costigan's 'Sir 'Chorlus', I
saw your neem at the Levee.' Perhaps this accounts for 'failing'
and 'stealing,' -- 'day on' and 'Pantheon,' in the 'New Simile'.
Goldsmith 'rather cultivated (than endeavoured to get rid of)
his brogue.'
"dy'd in grain", i.e. fixed, ineradicable.  To 'dye in
grain' means primarily to colour with the scarlet or purple dye
produced by the 'kermes' insect, called 'granum' in Latin, from
its similarity to small seeds. Being what is styled a 'fast' dye
the phrase is used by extension to signify permanence.
'Introduction.' It was scraped in mezzotint in 1770 by Reynolds's
indecisive chin, and long protruding upper lip, -- awkward,
published, I should not have suffered an hour to elapse without
This south-west view was taken from the road, which passes by the
In this sketch 'the decent church,' at the top of the hill in the
Up yonder hill the distant murmur rose.
And the long grass o'ertops the mould'ring wall.
And then so 'sentimental' is the Stile,
So chaste, yet so bewitching all the while!
Plot, and elopement, passion, rape, and rapture,
The total sum of ev'ry dear -- dear -- Chapter.
The goddess of the woful countenance,
The 'sentimental' Muse! --
'From a French version of Homer'.
The shouting army cry'd with joy extreme,
He sure must conquer, who himself can tame!
The next is also from Homer, and is proposed as an
improvement of Pope:--
They knew and own'd the monarch of the main:
The sea subsiding spreads a level plain:
The curling waves before his coursers fly:
The parting surface leaves his brazen axle dry.
From the same source comes number three,
a quatrain from Vida's 'Eclogues':--
Say heavenly muse, their youthful frays rehearse;
Begin, ye daughters of immortal verse;
Exulting rocks have crown'd the power of song!
And rivers listen'd as they flow'd along.
Another is a couplet from Ovid, the fish
referred to being the 'scarus' or bream:--
Of all the fish that graze beneath the flood,
He, 'only', ruminates his former food.
translation of Scarron's 'Roman Comique':--
Thus, when soft love subdues the heart
With smiling hopes and chilling fears,
The soul rejects the aid of art,
And speaks in moments more than years.
masterpieces in the former, and his 'Essays' published in the
To 'The Beauties of English Poesy', 2 vols., 1767, Goldsmith
prefixed, in each case, 'short introductory criticisms.' They
are, as he says, 'rather designed for boys than men'; and aim
only at being 'obvious and sincere'; but they carry his views on
the subject somewhat farther than the foregoing account from the
This seems to be Mr. Pope's most finished production, and is,
perhaps, the most perfect in our language. It exhibits stronger
powers of imagination, more harmony of numbers, and a greater
knowledge of the world, than any other of this poet's works; and
it is probable, if our country were called upon to show a
specimen of their genius to foreigners, this would be the work
here fixed upon.
This poem is held in just esteem, the versification being
chaste, and tolerably harmonious, and the story told with
perspicuity and conciseness. It seems to have cost great labour,
both to Mr. Pope and Parnell himself, to bring it to this
perfection.* It may not be amiss to observe that the fable is
taken from one of Dr. Henry More's Dialogues.
I have heard a very judicious critic say, that he had an higher
idea of Milton's style in poetry, from the two following poems
It is certain the imagination shown in them is correct and
strong. The introduction to both in irregular measure is
borrowed from the Italian, and hurts an English ear.
This is a very fine poem, but overloaded with epithet.*  The
heroic measure with alternate rhyme is very properly adapted to
the solemnity of the subject, as it is the slowest movement that
our language admits of. The latter part of the poem is pathetic
and interesting.
whose own 'Hermit', as was pointed out to the present Editor by
the late Mr. Kegan Paul, is certainly open to this impeachment.
This poem of Mr. Johnson's is the best imitation of the original
that has appeared in our language, being possessed of all the
force and satirical resentment of Juvenal. Imitation gives us a
much truer idea of the ancients than even translation could do.
This poem is one of those happinesses in which a poet excels
himself, as there is nothing in all Shenstone which in any way
approaches it in merit; and, though I dislike the imitations of
our old English poets in general, yet, on this minute subject,
the antiquity of the style produces a very ludicrous solemnity.
This poem, by Denham, though it may have been exceeded by later
attempts in description, yet deserves the highest applause, as
it far surpasses all that went before it: the concluding part,
though a little too much crowded, is very masterly.
The harmony of numbers in this poem is very fine.  It is rather
drawn out to too tedious a length, although the passions vary
with great judgement. It may be considered as superior to
anything in the epistolary way; and the many translations which
have been made of it into the modern languages, are in some
measure a proof of this.
The opening of this poem is incomparably fine.  The latter part
is tedious and trifling.
In the Year MDCCI.
Few poems have done more honour to English genius than this.
There is in it a strain of political thinking that was, at that
time, new in our poetry. Had the harmony of this been equal to
that of Pope's versification, it would be incontestably the
finest poem in our language; but there is a dryness in the
numbers which greatly lessens the pleasure excited both by the
poet's judgement and imagination.*
This ode [by Mr. Dryden] has been more applauded, perhaps, than
it has been felt, however, it is a very fine one, and gives its
beauties rather at a third, or fourth, than at a first perusal.
This ode [by Mr. Pope] has by many been thought equal to the
former. As it is a repetition of Dryden's manner, it is so far
inferior to him. The whole hint of Orpheus, and many of the
lines, have been taken from an obscure Ode upon Music, published
in Tate's Miscellanies.*
'Mr. Wilson',' which appears at p. 401 of Tate's Collection of
These are Mr. Gay's principal performances.  They were
originally intended, I suppose, as a burlesque on those of
the true spirit of pastoral poetry. In fact, he more resembles
Theocritus than any other English pastoral writer whatsoever.
There runs through the whole a strain of rustic pleasantry which
should ever distinguish this species of composition; but how far
the antiquated expressions used here may contribute to the
humour, I will not determine; for my own part, I could wish the
simplicity were preserved, without recurring to such obsolete
antiquity for the manner of expressing it.
The severity of this satire, and the excellence of its
versification give it a distinguished rank in this species of
composition. At present, an ordinary reader would scarce suppose
that Shadwell, who is here meant by Mac Flecknoe, was worth
being chastised, and that Dryden's descending to such game was
like an eagle's stooping to catch flies.* The truth however is,
Shadwell, at one time, held divided reputation with this great
poet. Every age produces its fashionable dunces, who, by
following the transient topic, or humour, of the day, supply
talkative ignorance with materials for conversation.
Here follows one of the best versified poems in our language,
and the most masterly production of its author. The severity
with which Walpole is here treated, was in consequence of that
minister having refused to provide for Swift in England, when
applied to for that purpose in the year 1725 (if I remember
right). The severity of a poet, however, gave Walpole very
little uneasiness. A man whose schemes, like this minister's,
seldom extended beyond the exigency of the year, but little
regarded the contempt of posterity.
This poem, as Mr. Pope tells us himself, cost much attention and
labour; and, from the easiness that appears in it, one would be
apt to think as much.
This sixth canto of the 'Dispensary', by Dr. Garth, has more
merit than the whole preceding part of the poem, and, as I am
told, in the first edition of this work it is more correct than
as here exhibited; but that edition I have not been able to
find. The praises bestowed on this poem are more than have been
given to any other; but our approbation, at present, is cooler,
for it owed part of its fame to party.*
The following eclogues*, written by Mr. Collins, are very
pretty: the images, it must be owned, are not very local; for
the pastoral subject could not well admit of it. The description
of Asiatic magnificence, and manners, is a subject as yet
unattempted amongst us, and I believe, capable of furnishing a
great variety of poetical imagery.
Goldsmith admired Collins, whom he calls in the 'Enquiry', 1759,
p. 143, 'the neglected author of the Persian eclogues, which,
however inaccurate, excel any in our language.' He borrowed
freely from him in the 'Threnodia Augustalis', q.v.
This is reckoned the best parody of Milton in our language:  it
has been an hundred times imitated, without success. The truth
is, the first thing in this way must preclude all future
attempts; for nothing is so easy as to burlesque any man's
manner, when we are once showed the way.
Mr. Hawkins Browne, the author of these, as I am told, had no
good original manner of his own, yet we see how well he
succeeded when he turns an imitator; for the following are
rather imitations than ridiculous parodies.
The great fault of this piece, written by Dr. Parnell, is that
it is in eight-syllable lines, very improper for the solemnity
of the subject; otherwise, the poem is natural, and the
reflections just.
Never was the old manner of speaking more happily applied, or a
tale better told, than this.
Mr. Thomson, though, in general, a verbose and affected poet,
has told this story with unusual simplicity: it is rather given
here for being much esteemed by the public, than by the editor.
Almost all things written from the heart, as this certainly was,
have some merit. The poet here describes sorrows and misfortunes
which were by no means imaginary; and, thus, there runs a truth
of thinking through this poem, without which it would be of
little value, as Savage is, in other respects, but an
indifferent poet.
Mr. Mo[o]re was a poet that never had justice done him while
living; there are few of the moderns have a more correct taste,
or a more pleasing manner of expressing their thoughts. It was
upon these fables [Nos. v, vi, and xvi of the 'Fables for the
Ladies'] he chiefly founded his reputation; yet they are, by no
means, his best production.
This little poem, by Mr. Nugent [afterwards Lord Clare] is very
pleasing. The easiness of the poetry, and the justice of the
thoughts, constitute its principal beauty.
This bagatelle, for which, by the by, Mr. Prior has got his
greatest reputation, was a tale told in all the old Italian
collections of jests, and borrowed from thence by Fontaine. It
had been translated once or twice before into English, yet was
never regarded till it fell into the hands of Mr. Prior. A
strong instance how everything is improved in the hands of a man
of genius.
This poem [by Swift] is very fine; and though in the same strain
with the preceding [Prior's 'Ladle'] is yet superior.
This elegy (by Mr. Ticknell) is one of the finest in our
language; there is so little new that can be said upon the death
of a friend, after the complaints of Ovid and the Latin
Italians, in this way, that one is surprised to see so much
novelty in this to strike us, and so much interest to affect.
Through all Tickell's works there is a strain of
ballad-thinking, if I may so express it; and, in this professed
ballad, he seems to have surpassed himself. It is, perhaps, the
best in our language in this way.
This ode, by Dr. Smollett, does rather more honour to the
author's feelings than his taste. The mechanical part, with
regard to numbers and language, is not so perfect as so short a
work as this requires; but the pathetic it contains,
particularly in the last stanza but one, is exquisitely fine.
Our poetry was not quite harmonized in Waller's time; so that
this, which would be now looked upon as a slovenly sort of
versification, was, with respect to the times in which it was
written, almost a prodigy of harmony. A modern reader will
chiefly be struck with the strength of thinking, and the turn of
the compliments bestowed upon the usurper. Everybody has heard
the answer our poet made Charles II; who asked him how his poem
upon Cromwell came to be finer than his panegyric upon himself.
'Your majesty,' replies Waller, 'knows, that poets always
succeed best in fiction.'
The French claim this [by Mr. Waller] as belonging to them. To
whomsoever it belongs the thought is finely turned.
These seem to be the best of the collection; from whence only
the two first are taken. They are spoken of differently, either
with exaggerated applause or contempt, as the reader's
disposition is either turned to mirth or melancholy.
Young's Satires were in higher reputation when published, than
they stand in at present. He seems fonder of dazzling than
pleasing; of raising our admiration for his wit, than our
dislike of the follies he ridicules.
These ballads of Mr. Shenstone are chiefly commended for the
natural simplicity of the thoughts and the harmony of the
versification. However, they are not excellent in either.
This, by Dr. Byrom, is a better effort than the preceding [a
ballad by Shenstone].
This ['Despairing beside a clear stream'] by Mr. Rowe, is better
than anything of the kind in our language.
This work, by the Duke of Buckingham, is enrolled among our
great English productions. The precepts are sensible, the poetry
not indifferent, but it has been praised more than it deserves.
This is thought one of Dr. Swift's correctest pieces; its chief
merit, indeed, is the elegant ease with which a story, but
ill-conceived in itself, is told.
What Prior meant by this poem I can't understand; by the Greek
motto to it one would think it was either to laugh at the
subject or the reader. There are some parts of it very fine; and
let them save the badness of the rest.