NOTESINTRODUCTIONHe 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 Lecture on ‘The Country and Kindred of Oliver Goldsmith,’ published in vol. 1, pt. 2, of theJournalof 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’sHistory 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’sWorksof Goldsmith, [1864–5], pp. xiii-xiv n.)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 revolutionary wars. (Prior,Life, 1837, i, pp. 171, 178).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 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. xii-xviii.)12, Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey.This was a 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 theEuropean Magazinefor January, 1803.or some of his imitators.The proximate cause of theCitizen of the World, as the present writer has suggested elsewhere,mayhave been Horace Walpole’sLetter 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 theMonthly Reviewfor 1757, to which Goldsmith was a contributor (Eighteenth Century Vignettes, first series, second edition, 1897, pp. 108–9).demonstrable from internal evidence.e.g.—The references to the musical glasses (ch. ix), which were the rage in 1761–2; and to theAuditor(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’sLife of Oliver Goldsmith(‘Great Writers’ series), 1888, pp. 110–21.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 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[John Newbery] by Charles Welsh, 1885, p. 61). The writer based his statement upon Collins’s ‘Publishing book, account of books printed and shares therein, No. 3, 1770 to 1785.’James’s Powder.This was a famous patent panacea, invented by Johnson’s Lichfield townsman, Dr. Robert James of theMedicinal 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 Deffandin extremis, said he should use it if the house were on fire. William Hawes, the Strand apothecary who attended Goldsmith, wrote an interestingAccount 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, 1906).[Illustration: Green Arbour Court, Little Old Bailey.]GREEN ARBOUR COURT,LITTLE OLD BAILEY(as it appeared in 1803)EDITIONS OF THE POEMS.No collected edition of Goldsmith’s poetical works appeared until after his death. But, in 1775, W. Griffin, who had published theEssaysof ten years earlier, issued a volume entitledThe Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M.B., containing all his Essays and Poems. The ‘poems’ however were confined to ‘The Traveller,’ ‘The Deserted Village,’ ‘Edwin and Angelina,’ ‘The Double Transformation,’ ‘A New Simile,’ and ‘Retaliation,’—an obviously imperfect harvesting. In the following year G. Kearsly printed an eighth edition ofRetaliation, with which he included ‘The Hermit’ (‘Edwin and Angelina’), ‘The Gift,’ ‘Madam Blaize,’ and the epilogues toThe SisterandShe stoops to Conquer;* while to an edition ofThe Haunch of Venison, also put forth in 1776, he added the ‘Epitaph on Parnell’ and two songs from the oratorio ofThe Captivity. The next collection appeared in a volume ofPoems and Playspublished at Dublin in 1777, where it was preceded by a ‘Life,’ written by W. Glover, one of Goldsmith’s ‘Irish clients.’ Then, in 1780, came vol. i of T. Evans’sPoetical and Dramatic Works, etc., now first collected, also having a ‘Memoir,’ and certainly fuller than anything which had gone before. Next followed the long-deferredMiscellaneous Works,etc., of 1801, in four volumes, vol. ii of which comprised the plays and poems. Prefixed to this edition is the important biographical sketch, compiled under the direction of Bishop Percy, and usually described as thePercy Memoir, by which title it is referred to in the ensuing notes. The next memorable edition was that edited for the Aldine Series in 1831, by the Rev. John Mitford. Prior and Wright’s edition in vol. iv of theMiscellaneous Works, etc., of 1837, comes after this; then Bolton Corney’s excellentPoetical Worksof 1845; and vol. i of Peter Cunningham’sWorks, etc. of 1854. There are other issues of the poems, the latest of which is to be found in vol. ii (1885) of the completeWorks, in five volumes, edited for Messrs. George Bell and Sons by J. W. M. Gibbs.* Some copies of this are dated 1777, and containThe Haunch of Venisonand a few minor pieces.Most of the foregoing editions have been consulted for the following notes; but chiefly those of Mitford, Prior, Bolton Corney, and Cunningham. Many of the illustrations and explanations now supplied will not, however, be found in any of the sources indicated. When an elucidatory or parallel passage is cited, an attempt has been made, as far as possible, to give the credit of it to the first discoverer. Thus, some of the illustrations in Cunningham’s notes are here transferred to Prior, some of Prior’s to Mitford, and so forth. As regards the notes themselves, care has been taken to make them full enough to obviate the necessity, except in rare instances, of further investigation. It is the editor’s experience that references to external authorities are, as a general rule, sign-posts to routes which are seldom travelled.** In this connexion may be recalled the dictum of Hume quoted by Dr. Birkbeck Hill:—‘Every book should be as complete as possible within itself, and should never refer for anything material to other books’ (History of England, 1802, ii. 101).THE TRAVELLER.It was on those continental wanderings which occupied Goldsmith between February, 1755 and February, 1756 that he conceived his first idea of this, the earliest of his poems to which he prefixed his name; and he probably had in mind Addison’sLetter from Italy to Lord Halifax, a work in which he found ‘a strain of political thinking that was, at that time [1701]. new in our poetry.’ (Beauties of English Poesy, 1767, i. III). From the dedicatory letter to his brother—which says expressly, ‘as a part of this Poem was formerly written to you from Switzerland, the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you’—it is plain that some portion of it must have been actually composed abroad. It was not, however, actually published until the 19th of December, 1764, and the title-page bore the date of 1765.* The publisher was John Newbery, of St. Paul’s Churchyard, and the price of the book, a quarto of 30 pages, was 1s. 6d. A second, third and fourth edition quickly followed, and a ninth, from which it is here reprinted, was issued in 1774, the year of the author’s death. Between the first and the sixth edition of 1770 there were numerous alterations, the more important of which are indicated in the ensuing notes.* This is the generally recognized first edition. But the late Mr. Frederick Locker Lampson, the poet and collector, possessed a quarto copy, dated 1764, which had no author’s name, and in which the dedication ran as follows:—‘This poem is inscribed to the Rev. Henry Goldsmith, M.A. By his most affectionate Brother Oliver Goldsmith.’ It was, in all probability, unique, though it is alleged that there are octavo copies which present similar characteristics. It has now gone to America with the Rowfant Library.In 1902 an interesting discovery was made by Mr. Bertram Dobell, to whom the public are indebted for so many important literary ‘finds.’ In a parcel of pamphlets he came upon a number of loose printed leaves entitledA Prospect of Society. They obviously belonged toThe Traveller; but seemed to be its ‘formless unarranged material,’ and contained many variations from the text of the first edition. Mr. Dobell’s impression was that ‘the author’s manuscript, written on loose leaves, had fallen into confusion, and was then printed without any attempt at re-arrangement.’ This was near the mark; but the complete solution of the riddle was furnished by Mr. Quiller Couch in an article in theDaily Newsfor March 31, 1902, since recast in his charming volumeFrom a Cornish Window, 1906, pp. 86–92. He showed conclusively thatThe Prospectwas ‘merely an early draft ofThe Travellerprinted backwards in fairly regular sections.’ What had manifestly happened was this. Goldsmith, turning over each page as written, had laid it on the top of the preceding page of MS. and forgotten to rearrange them when done. Thus the series of pages were reversed; and, so reversed, were set up in type by a matter-of-fact compositor. Mr. Dobell at once accepted this happy explanation; which—as Mr. Quiller Couch points out—has the advantage of being a ‘blunder just so natural to Goldsmith as to be almost postulable.’ One or two of the variations of Mr. Dobell’s ‘find’—variations, it should be added, antecedent to the first edition—are noted in their places.The didactic purpose ofThe Travelleris defined in the concluding paragraph of theDedication; and, like many of the thoughts which it contains, had been anticipated in a passage ofThe Citizen of the World, 1762, i. 185:—‘Every mind seems capable of entertaining a certain quantity of happiness, which no institutions can encrease, no circumstances alter, and entirely independent on fortune.’ But the best short description of the poem is Macaulay’s:—‘In theTravellerthe execution, though deserving of much praise, is far inferior to the design. No philosophical poem, ancient or modern, has a plan so noble, and at the same time so simple. An English wanderer, seated on a crag among the Alps, near the point where three great countries meet, looks down on the boundless prospect, reviews his long pilgrimage, recalls the varieties of scenery, of climate, of government, of religion, of national character, which he has observed, and comes to the conclusion, just or unjust, that our happiness depends little on political institutions, and much on the temper and regulation of our own minds.’ (Encyclop. Britannica, Goldsmith, February, 1856.)The only definite record of payment forThe Travelleris ‘Copy of the Traveller, a Poem, 21l,’ in Newbery’s MSS.; but as the same sum occurs in Memoranda of much later date than 1764, it is possible that the success of the book may have prompted some supplementary fee.A Prospect, i.e. ‘a view.’ ‘I went to Putney, and other places on the Thames, to take ‘prospects’ in crayon, to carry into France, where I thought to have them engraved’ (Evelyn,Diary, 20th June, 1649). And Reynolds uses the word of Claude in his Fourth Discourse:—‘His pictures are a composition of the various draughts which he had previously made from various beautiful scenes and prospects’ (Works, by Malone, 1798, i. 105). The word is common on old prints, e.g.An Exact Prospect of the Magnificent Stone Bridge at Westminster, etc., 1751.Dedication.The Rev. Henry Goldsmith, says the PercyMemoir, 1801, p. 3, ‘had distinguished himself both at school and at college, but he unfortunately married at the early age of nineteen; which confined him to a Curacy, and prevented his rising to preferment in the church.’with an income of forty pounds a year.Cf.The Deserted Village, ll. 141–2:—A man he was, to all the country dear,And passing rich withforty pounds a year.Cf. also Parson Adams in ch. iii ofJoseph Andrews, who has twenty-three; and Mr. Rivers, in theSpiritual Quixote, 1772:—‘I do not choose to go into orders to be a curate all my 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 onforty pounds a year.’ The latter words are Churchill’s own, and sound like a quotation; but he was dead long beforeThe Deserted Villageappeared in 1770. There is an interesting paper in theGentleman’s Magazinefor November, 1763, on the miseries and hardships of the ‘inferior clergy.’But of all kinds of ambition, etc.In the first edition of 1765, p. ii, this passage was as follows:—‘But of all kinds of ambition, as things are now circumstanced, perhaps that which pursues poetical fame, is the wildest. What from the encreased refinement of the times, from the diversity of judgments produced by opposing systems of criticism, and from the more prevalent divisions of opinion influenced by party, the strongest and happiest efforts can expect to please but in a very narrow circle. Though the poet were as sure of his aim as the imperial archer of antiquity, who boasted that he never missed the heart; yet would many of his shafts now fly at random, for the heart is too often in the wrong place.’ In the second edition it was curtailed; in the sixth it took its final form.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 epistleTo 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 inRetaliation:—Who, born for the Universe, narrow’d his mind,And topartygave 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, 1837, ii. 54) quotes a portion of a contemporary article in theSt. James’s Chroniclefor 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 ofThe 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.tawdrywas added in the sixth edition of 1770.blank verse.Cf.The Present State of Polite Learning, 1759, p. 150—‘From a desire in the critic of grafting the spirit of ancient languages upon the English, has proceeded of late several disagreeable instances of pedantry. Among the number, I think we may reckonblank 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 onThe Monthly Review, Dr. James Grainger, author ofThe Sugar Cane, which was published in June, 1764. (Cf. alsoThe Beefor 24th November, 1759, ‘An account of the Augustan Age of England.’)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.Metamorphoses, xiv. 217.Exsul, inops erres, alienaque limina lustres, etc.Ibis. 113.slow.A well-known passage from Boswell must here be reproduced:—‘Chamier once asked him [Goldsmith], what he meant byslow, the last word in the first line ofThe Traveller,Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.Did he mean tardiness of locomotion? Goldsmith, who would say something without consideration, answered “yes.” I [Johnson] was sitting by, and said, “No, Sir, you do not mean tardiness of locomotion; you mean, that sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in solitude.” Chamier believed then that I had written the line as much as if he had seen me write it.’ [Birkbeck Hill’sBoswell, 1887, iii. 252–3.) It is quite possible, however, 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 denoteLa campagna di Roma. The portion of it which extends from Rome to Terracina is scarcely habitable.’a lengthening chain.Prior compares Letter iii ofThe 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 hisComical Lovers, 1707, Act v:—‘When I am with Florimel, it [my heart] is still your prisoner,it only draws a longer chain after it.’ And earlier still in Dryden’s ‘All for Love’, 1678, Act ii, Sc. 1:—My life on’t, he still drags a chain along,That needs must clog his flight.with simple plenty crown’d.In the first edition this read ‘where mirth and peace abound.’the luxury of doing good.Prior compares Garth’sClaremont, 1715, where he speaks of the Druids:—Hard was their Lodging, homely was their Food,For all theirLuxury 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 Wakefield, 1766, ii. 160–1 (ch. x):—‘Death, the only friend of the wretched, for a little while mocks the weary traveller with the view, and like his horizon, still flies before him.’ [Prior.]And find no spot of all the world my own.Prior compares his namesake’s linesIn the Beginning of[Jacques]Robbe’s Geography, 1700:—My destin’d Miles I shall have gone,By THAMES or MAESE, by PO or RHONE,Andfound no Foot of Earth my own.above the storm’s career.Cf. 1. 190 ofThe Deserted Village.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’dhoard.‘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 here.’ (Mr. J. H. Lobban’sSelect Poems of Goldsmith, 1900, p. 87). Lines 84–5, it may be added, are not in the first edition.And though the rocky-crested summits frown.In the first edition:—And though rough rocks or gloomy summits frown.lines 91–2.are not in the first editions.peculiar,i.e. ‘proper,’ ‘appropriate.’winnow,i.e. ‘waft,’ ‘disperse.’ John Evelyn refers to these ‘sea-born gales’ in the ‘Dedication’ of hisFumifugium, 1661:— ‘Those who take notice of the scent of the orange-flowers from the rivage of Genoa, and St. Pietro dell’ Arena; the blossomes of the rosemary from the Coasts of Spain, many leagues off at sea; or the manifest, and odoriferous wafts which flow from Fontenay and Vaugirard, even to Paris in the season of roses, with the contrary effect of those less pleasing smells from other accidents, will easily consent to what I suggest [i.e. the planting of sweet-smelling trees].’ (Miscellaneous Writings, 1825, p. 208.)Till, more unsteady, etc.In the first edition:—But, more unsteady than the southern gale,Soon Commerce turn’d on other shores her sail.There is a certain resemblance between this passage and one of the later paradoxes of Smollett’s Lismahago;—‘He affirmed, the nature of commerce was such, that it could not be fixed or perpetuated, but, having flowed to a certain height, would immediately begin to ebb, and so continue till the channels should be left almost dry; but there was no instance of the tide’s rising a second time to any considerable influx in the same nation’ (Humphry Clinker, 1771, ii. 192. Letter of Mr. Bramble to Dr. Lewis).lines 141–2.are not in the first edition.Its former strength was but plethoric ill.Cf.The Citizen of the World, 1762, i. 98:—‘In short, the state resembled one of those bodies bloated with disease, whose bulk is only a symptom of its wretchedness.’ [Mitford.]Yet still the loss, etc.In the first edition:—Yet, though to fortune lost, here still abideSome 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 theArcadi]. Where in the midst of porticos, processions, and cavalcades, abbes turn’d into shepherds, and shepherdesses without sheep, indulge their innocentdivertimenti.’ (Present State of Polite Learning, 1759, pp. 50–1.) Some of the ‘paste-board triumphs’ may be 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.(Forster’sLife, 1871, i. pp. 347–8).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’sAye and No, a Fable.breastsThis 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’ inThe Citizen of the World, 1762, ii. 99:—‘The best manner to draw up thefinny 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 thereluctant savageinto the toils, as the Indians when they hunt the hyena or the rhinoceros.’ (Citizen of the World, 1762, i. 112.) See also Pope’sIliad, Bk. xvii:—But if thesavageturns his glaring eye,They howl aloof, and round the forest fly.lines 201–2are not in the first edition.For every want,etc. Mitford quotes a parallel passage inAnimated Nature, 1774, ii. 123:—‘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. Cf. Fielding,Tom Jones, 1749, iii. 6:— ‘Some of the Author’s Friends cry’d—“Look’e, Gentlemen, the Man is a Villain; but it is Nature for all that.” And all the young Critics of the Age, the Clerks, Apprentices, etc., called itLowand fell a Groaning.’ See alsoTom Jones, iv. 94, and 226–30. ‘There’s nothing comes out but the ‘most lowest’ stuff in nature’—says Lady Blarney in ch. xi of theVicar, whose author is eloquent on this topic inThe Present State of Polite Learning, 1759, pp. 154–6, and inShe Stoops to Conquer, 1773 (Act i); while Graves (Spiritual Quixote, 1772, bk. i, ch. vi) gives the fashion the scientific appellation oftapino-phoby,which he defines as ‘a dread of everything that islow, either in writing or in conversation.’ To Goldsmith, if we may trust George Colman’sPrologueto Miss Lee’sChapter of Accidents, 1780, belongs the credit of exorcising this particular form of depreciation:—When Fielding, Humour’s fav’rite child, appear’d,Lowwas 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’sLavengro, 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 inThe Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, ii. 24–5 (ch. i):—‘I passed among the harmless peasants of Flanders, and among such of the French as were poor enough to be very merry; for I ever found them sprightly in proportion to their wants. Whenever I approached a peasant’s house towards night-fall, I played one of my most merry tunes, and that procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next day.’gestic lore,i.e. traditional gestures or motions. Scott uses the word ‘gestic’ inPeveril 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 thegesticart.’ [Hales.]Thus idly busy rolls their world away.Pope has ‘Life’sidle business’ (Unfortunate Lady, l. 81), and—Thebusy, idleblockheads of the ball.Donne’sSatires, iv. l. 203.And all are taught an avarice of praise.Professor Hales (Longer English Poems) compares Horace of the Greeks:—Praeter laudem, nullius avaris.Ars Poetica, l. 324.copper lace.‘St Martin’s lace,’ for which, in Strype’s day, Blowbladder St. was famous. Cf. the actress’s ‘copper tail’ inCitizen of the World, 1762, ii. 60.To men of other minds, etc.Prior compares with the description that follows a passage in vol. i. p. 276 ofAnimated 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. Dryden inAnnus Mirabilis, 1666, st. clxiv. l. 654:—And view the ocean leaning on the sky.the tall rampire’s,i.e. rampart’s (Old French,rempart, rempar). Cf.Timon of Athens, Act v. Sc. 4:—‘Our rampir’d gates.’bosom reignin 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 ofThe Citizen of the World, 1762, i. 147.dishonourable graves.Julius Caesar, Act i. Sc. 2.Heavens! how unlike, etc.Prior compares a passage from a manuscriptIntroduction 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.’** J. W. M. Gibbs (Works, v. 9) discovered that parts of thisHistory, hitherto supposed to have been written in 1761, were published in theLiterary Magazine, 1757–8.famed Hydaspes,i.e. thefabulosus Hydaspesof Horace, Bk. i. Ode xxii, and theMedus Hydaspesof 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 tieswas ‘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.’ (Preface toEnglish History.) [Mitford.]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 omittedHaud inexpertus loquorof theEnquiry, it involved an undignified admission.lines 365–80are 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 their primaeval authority.’ (Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, i. 202, ch. xix.)When I behold, etc.Prior compares a passage in Letter xlix ofThe 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 inThe Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, i. 206, ch. xix:—‘What they may then expect, may be seen by turning our eyes to Holland, Genoa, or Venice, where the laws govern the poor, and the rich govern the law.’I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.Cf. Dr. Primrose,ut supra, p. 201:—‘The generality of mankind also are of my way of thinking, and have unanimously created one king, whose election at once diminishes the number of tyrants, and puts tyranny at the greatest distance from the greatest number of people.’ Cf. also Churchill,The Farewell, ll. 363–4 and 369–70:—Let not a Mob of Tyrants seize the helm,Nor titled upstarts league to rob the realm...Let us, some comfort in our griefs to bring,Be slaves to one, and be that one a King.lines 393–4.Goldsmith’s first thought was—Yes, my lov’d brother, cursed be that hourWhen first ambition toil’d for foreign power,—an entirely different couplet to that in the text, and certainly more logical. (Dobell’sProspect 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 ofThe Deserted Village(q.v.).Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around.The Oswego is a river which runs between Lakes Oneida and Ontario. In theThrenodia 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 inAn History of England, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son, 1764, ii. 202–4.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 Hill’sBoswell, 1887, ii. 6). Goldsmith’s original ran:—And faintly fainter, fainter seems to go.(Dobell’sProspect of Society, 1902, p. 3).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’sBoswell,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 ownRasselas, 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’sJohnson, 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’sBoswell, 1887, ii. 170).The lifted axe.Mitford here recalls Blackmore’sSome 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’sMontaigne, 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 thePoetical Works, 1845, p. 36, corrected the line to—Zeck’siron crown, etc.,an alteration which has been adopted by other editors. (See also Forster’sLife, 1871, i. 370.)Damien’s bed of steel.Robert-Francois Damiens, 1714–57. Goldsmith writes ‘Damien’s.’ In theGentlemen’s Magazinefor 1757, vol. xxvii. pp. 87 and 151, where there is an account of this poor half-witted wretch’s torture and execution for attempting to assassinate Louis XV, the name is thus spelled, as also in other contemporary records and caricatures. The following passage explains the ‘bed of steel’:—‘Being conducted to the Conciergerie, an ‘iron bed’, which likewise served for a chair, was prepared for him, and to this he was fastened with chains. The torture was again applied, and a physician ordered to attend to see what degree of pain he could support,’ etc. (Smollett’sHistory of England, 1823, bk. iii, ch. 7, § xxv.) Goldsmith’s own explanation—according to Tom Davies, the bookseller—was that he meant the rack. But Davies may have misunderstood him, or Goldsmith himself may have forgotten the facts. (See Forster’sLife, 1871, i. 370.) At pp. 57–78 of theMonthly Reviewfor July, 1757 (upon which Goldsmith was at this date employed), is a summary, ‘from our correspondent at Paris,’ of the official record of the Damiens’ Trial, 4 vols. 12 mo.; and his deed and tragedy make a graphic chapter in the remarkableStrange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, by George Augustus Sala, 1863, iii. pp. 154–180.line 438.In the first edition of ‘The Traveller’ there are only 416 lines.THE DESERTED VILLAGE.After having been for some time announced as in preparation,The Deserted Villagemade its first appearance on May 26, 1770.* It was received with great enthusiasm. In June a second, third, and fourth edition followed, and in August a fifth was published. The text here given is that of the fourth edition, which was considerably revised. Johnson, we are told, thoughtThe Deserted Villageinferior toThe Traveller: but ‘time,’ to use Mr. Forster’s words, ‘has not confirmedthatjudgment.’ Its germ is perhaps to be found in ll. 397–402 of the earlier poem.* In the AmericanBookmanfor February, 1901, pp. 563–7, Mr. Luther S. Livingston gives an account (with facsimile title-pages) of threeoctavo(or rather duodecimo) editions all dated 1770; and ostensibly printed for ‘W. Griffin, at Garrick’s Head, in Catherine-street, Strand.’ He rightly describes their existence as ‘a bibliographical puzzle.’ They afford no important variations; are not mentioned by the early editors; and are certainly not in the form in which the poem was first advertised and reviewed, as this was a quarto. But they are naturally of interest to the collector; and the late Colonel Francis Grant, a good Goldsmith scholar, described one of them in theAthenaeumfor June 20, 1896 (No. 3582).Much research has been expended in the endeavour to identify the scene with Lissoy, the home of the poet’s youth (seeIntroduction, p. ix); but the result has only been partially successful. The truth seems that Goldsmith, living in England, recalled in a poem that was English in its conception many of the memories and accessories of his early life in Ireland, without intending or even caring to draw an exact picture. Hence, as Lord Macaulay has observed, in a much criticized and characteristic passage, ‘it is made up of incongruous parts. The village in its happy days is a true English village. The village in its decay is an Irish village. The felicity and the misery which Goldsmith has brought close together belong to two different countries, and to two different stages in the progress of society. He had assuredly never seen in his native island such a rural paradise, such a seat of plenty, content, and tranquillity, as his “Auburn.” He had assuredly never seen in England all the inhabitants of such a paradise turned out of their homes in one day and forced to emigrate in a body to America. The hamlet he had probably seen in Kent; the ejectment he had probably seen in Munster; but, by joining the two, he has produced something which never was and never will be seen in any part of the world.’ (Encyclop. Britannica, 1856.) It is obvious also that in some of his theories—the depopulation of the kingdom, for example—Goldsmith was mistaken. But it was not for its didactic qualities then, nor is it for them now, thatThe Deserted Village’ delighted and delights. It maintains its popularity by its charminggenre-pictures, its sweet and tender passages, its simplicity, its sympathetic hold upon the enduring in human nature. To test it solely with a view to establish its topographical accuracy, or to insist too much upon the value of its ethical teaching, is to mistake its real mission as a work of art.Dedication. 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 inThe Citizen of the World, 1762, i. 145, announcing that a famous ‘torse’ has been discovered to be not ‘a Cleopatra bathing’ but ‘a Hercules spinning’; and Charles Primrose’s experiences at Paris (Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, ii. 27–8).He is since dead.Henry Goldsmith died in May, 1768, at the age of forty-five, being then curate of Kilkenny West. (See note, p. 164.)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’sWorks, at end.)the increase of our luxuries.The evil of luxury was a ‘common topick’ with Goldsmith. (Birkbeck Hill’sBoswell, 1887, ii. 217–8.) Smollett also, speaking with the voice of 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, 1771, ii. 192.—Letter of Mr. Bramble to Dr. Lewis.)SweetAUBURN. Forster,Life, 1871, ii. 206, says 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.
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 Lecture on ‘The Country and Kindred of Oliver Goldsmith,’ published in vol. 1, pt. 2, of theJournalof 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’sHistory 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’sWorksof Goldsmith, [1864–5], pp. xiii-xiv n.)
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 revolutionary wars. (Prior,Life, 1837, i, pp. 171, 178).
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 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. xii-xviii.)
12, Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey.This was a 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 theEuropean Magazinefor January, 1803.
or some of his imitators.The proximate cause of theCitizen of the World, as the present writer has suggested elsewhere,mayhave been Horace Walpole’sLetter 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 theMonthly Reviewfor 1757, to which Goldsmith was a contributor (Eighteenth Century Vignettes, first series, second edition, 1897, pp. 108–9).
demonstrable from internal evidence.e.g.—The references to the musical glasses (ch. ix), which were the rage in 1761–2; and to theAuditor(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’sLife of Oliver Goldsmith(‘Great Writers’ series), 1888, pp. 110–21.
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 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[John Newbery] by Charles Welsh, 1885, p. 61). The writer based his statement upon Collins’s ‘Publishing book, account of books printed and shares therein, No. 3, 1770 to 1785.’
James’s Powder.This was a famous patent panacea, invented by Johnson’s Lichfield townsman, Dr. Robert James of theMedicinal 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 Deffandin extremis, said he should use it if the house were on fire. William Hawes, the Strand apothecary who attended Goldsmith, wrote an interestingAccount 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, 1906).
[Illustration: Green Arbour Court, Little Old Bailey.]GREEN ARBOUR COURT,LITTLE OLD BAILEY(as it appeared in 1803)
GREEN ARBOUR COURT,LITTLE OLD BAILEY(as it appeared in 1803)
No collected edition of Goldsmith’s poetical works appeared until after his death. But, in 1775, W. Griffin, who had published theEssaysof ten years earlier, issued a volume entitledThe Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M.B., containing all his Essays and Poems. The ‘poems’ however were confined to ‘The Traveller,’ ‘The Deserted Village,’ ‘Edwin and Angelina,’ ‘The Double Transformation,’ ‘A New Simile,’ and ‘Retaliation,’—an obviously imperfect harvesting. In the following year G. Kearsly printed an eighth edition ofRetaliation, with which he included ‘The Hermit’ (‘Edwin and Angelina’), ‘The Gift,’ ‘Madam Blaize,’ and the epilogues toThe SisterandShe stoops to Conquer;* while to an edition ofThe Haunch of Venison, also put forth in 1776, he added the ‘Epitaph on Parnell’ and two songs from the oratorio ofThe Captivity. The next collection appeared in a volume ofPoems and Playspublished at Dublin in 1777, where it was preceded by a ‘Life,’ written by W. Glover, one of Goldsmith’s ‘Irish clients.’ Then, in 1780, came vol. i of T. Evans’sPoetical and Dramatic Works, etc., now first collected, also having a ‘Memoir,’ and certainly fuller than anything which had gone before. Next followed the long-deferredMiscellaneous Works,etc., of 1801, in four volumes, vol. ii of which comprised the plays and poems. Prefixed to this edition is the important biographical sketch, compiled under the direction of Bishop Percy, and usually described as thePercy Memoir, by which title it is referred to in the ensuing notes. The next memorable edition was that edited for the Aldine Series in 1831, by the Rev. John Mitford. Prior and Wright’s edition in vol. iv of theMiscellaneous Works, etc., of 1837, comes after this; then Bolton Corney’s excellentPoetical Worksof 1845; and vol. i of Peter Cunningham’sWorks, etc. of 1854. There are other issues of the poems, the latest of which is to be found in vol. ii (1885) of the completeWorks, in five volumes, edited for Messrs. George Bell and Sons by J. W. M. Gibbs.
* Some copies of this are dated 1777, and containThe Haunch of Venisonand a few minor pieces.
Most of the foregoing editions have been consulted for the following notes; but chiefly those of Mitford, Prior, Bolton Corney, and Cunningham. Many of the illustrations and explanations now supplied will not, however, be found in any of the sources indicated. When an elucidatory or parallel passage is cited, an attempt has been made, as far as possible, to give the credit of it to the first discoverer. Thus, some of the illustrations in Cunningham’s notes are here transferred to Prior, some of Prior’s to Mitford, and so forth. As regards the notes themselves, care has been taken to make them full enough to obviate the necessity, except in rare instances, of further investigation. It is the editor’s experience that references to external authorities are, as a general rule, sign-posts to routes which are seldom travelled.*
* In this connexion may be recalled the dictum of Hume quoted by Dr. Birkbeck Hill:—‘Every book should be as complete as possible within itself, and should never refer for anything material to other books’ (History of England, 1802, ii. 101).
It was on those continental wanderings which occupied Goldsmith between February, 1755 and February, 1756 that he conceived his first idea of this, the earliest of his poems to which he prefixed his name; and he probably had in mind Addison’sLetter from Italy to Lord Halifax, a work in which he found ‘a strain of political thinking that was, at that time [1701]. new in our poetry.’ (Beauties of English Poesy, 1767, i. III). From the dedicatory letter to his brother—which says expressly, ‘as a part of this Poem was formerly written to you from Switzerland, the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you’—it is plain that some portion of it must have been actually composed abroad. It was not, however, actually published until the 19th of December, 1764, and the title-page bore the date of 1765.* The publisher was John Newbery, of St. Paul’s Churchyard, and the price of the book, a quarto of 30 pages, was 1s. 6d. A second, third and fourth edition quickly followed, and a ninth, from which it is here reprinted, was issued in 1774, the year of the author’s death. Between the first and the sixth edition of 1770 there were numerous alterations, the more important of which are indicated in the ensuing notes.
* This is the generally recognized first edition. But the late Mr. Frederick Locker Lampson, the poet and collector, possessed a quarto copy, dated 1764, which had no author’s name, and in which the dedication ran as follows:—‘This poem is inscribed to the Rev. Henry Goldsmith, M.A. By his most affectionate Brother Oliver Goldsmith.’ It was, in all probability, unique, though it is alleged that there are octavo copies which present similar characteristics. It has now gone to America with the Rowfant Library.In 1902 an interesting discovery was made by Mr. Bertram Dobell, to whom the public are indebted for so many important literary ‘finds.’ In a parcel of pamphlets he came upon a number of loose printed leaves entitledA Prospect of Society. They obviously belonged toThe Traveller; but seemed to be its ‘formless unarranged material,’ and contained many variations from the text of the first edition. Mr. Dobell’s impression was that ‘the author’s manuscript, written on loose leaves, had fallen into confusion, and was then printed without any attempt at re-arrangement.’ This was near the mark; but the complete solution of the riddle was furnished by Mr. Quiller Couch in an article in theDaily Newsfor March 31, 1902, since recast in his charming volumeFrom a Cornish Window, 1906, pp. 86–92. He showed conclusively thatThe Prospectwas ‘merely an early draft ofThe Travellerprinted backwards in fairly regular sections.’ What had manifestly happened was this. Goldsmith, turning over each page as written, had laid it on the top of the preceding page of MS. and forgotten to rearrange them when done. Thus the series of pages were reversed; and, so reversed, were set up in type by a matter-of-fact compositor. Mr. Dobell at once accepted this happy explanation; which—as Mr. Quiller Couch points out—has the advantage of being a ‘blunder just so natural to Goldsmith as to be almost postulable.’ One or two of the variations of Mr. Dobell’s ‘find’—variations, it should be added, antecedent to the first edition—are noted in their places.
The didactic purpose ofThe Travelleris defined in the concluding paragraph of theDedication; and, like many of the thoughts which it contains, had been anticipated in a passage ofThe Citizen of the World, 1762, i. 185:—‘Every mind seems capable of entertaining a certain quantity of happiness, which no institutions can encrease, no circumstances alter, and entirely independent on fortune.’ But the best short description of the poem is Macaulay’s:—‘In theTravellerthe execution, though deserving of much praise, is far inferior to the design. No philosophical poem, ancient or modern, has a plan so noble, and at the same time so simple. An English wanderer, seated on a crag among the Alps, near the point where three great countries meet, looks down on the boundless prospect, reviews his long pilgrimage, recalls the varieties of scenery, of climate, of government, of religion, of national character, which he has observed, and comes to the conclusion, just or unjust, that our happiness depends little on political institutions, and much on the temper and regulation of our own minds.’ (Encyclop. Britannica, Goldsmith, February, 1856.)
The only definite record of payment forThe Travelleris ‘Copy of the Traveller, a Poem, 21l,’ in Newbery’s MSS.; but as the same sum occurs in Memoranda of much later date than 1764, it is possible that the success of the book may have prompted some supplementary fee.
A Prospect, i.e. ‘a view.’ ‘I went to Putney, and other places on the Thames, to take ‘prospects’ in crayon, to carry into France, where I thought to have them engraved’ (Evelyn,Diary, 20th June, 1649). And Reynolds uses the word of Claude in his Fourth Discourse:—‘His pictures are a composition of the various draughts which he had previously made from various beautiful scenes and prospects’ (Works, by Malone, 1798, i. 105). The word is common on old prints, e.g.An Exact Prospect of the Magnificent Stone Bridge at Westminster, etc., 1751.
Dedication.The Rev. Henry Goldsmith, says the PercyMemoir, 1801, p. 3, ‘had distinguished himself both at school and at college, but he unfortunately married at the early age of nineteen; which confined him to a Curacy, and prevented his rising to preferment in the church.’
with an income of forty pounds a year.Cf.The Deserted Village, ll. 141–2:—
A man he was, to all the country dear,And passing rich withforty pounds a year.
Cf. also Parson Adams in ch. iii ofJoseph Andrews, who has twenty-three; and Mr. Rivers, in theSpiritual Quixote, 1772:—‘I do not choose to go into orders to be a curate all my 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 onforty pounds a year.’ The latter words are Churchill’s own, and sound like a quotation; but he was dead long beforeThe Deserted Villageappeared in 1770. There is an interesting paper in theGentleman’s Magazinefor November, 1763, on the miseries and hardships of the ‘inferior clergy.’
But of all kinds of ambition, etc.In the first edition of 1765, p. ii, this passage was as follows:—‘But of all kinds of ambition, as things are now circumstanced, perhaps that which pursues poetical fame, is the wildest. What from the encreased refinement of the times, from the diversity of judgments produced by opposing systems of criticism, and from the more prevalent divisions of opinion influenced by party, the strongest and happiest efforts can expect to please but in a very narrow circle. Though the poet were as sure of his aim as the imperial archer of antiquity, who boasted that he never missed the heart; yet would many of his shafts now fly at random, for the heart is too often in the wrong place.’ In the second edition it was curtailed; in the sixth it took its final form.
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 epistleTo 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 inRetaliation:—
Who, born for the Universe, narrow’d his mind,And topartygave 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, 1837, ii. 54) quotes a portion of a contemporary article in theSt. James’s Chroniclefor 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 ofThe 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.
tawdrywas added in the sixth edition of 1770.
blank verse.Cf.The Present State of Polite Learning, 1759, p. 150—‘From a desire in the critic of grafting the spirit of ancient languages upon the English, has proceeded of late several disagreeable instances of pedantry. Among the number, I think we may reckonblank 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 onThe Monthly Review, Dr. James Grainger, author ofThe Sugar Cane, which was published in June, 1764. (Cf. alsoThe Beefor 24th November, 1759, ‘An account of the Augustan Age of England.’)
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.Metamorphoses, xiv. 217.Exsul, inops erres, alienaque limina lustres, etc.Ibis. 113.
slow.A well-known passage from Boswell must here be reproduced:—‘Chamier once asked him [Goldsmith], what he meant byslow, the last word in the first line ofThe Traveller,
Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.
Did he mean tardiness of locomotion? Goldsmith, who would say something without consideration, answered “yes.” I [Johnson] was sitting by, and said, “No, Sir, you do not mean tardiness of locomotion; you mean, that sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in solitude.” Chamier believed then that I had written the line as much as if he had seen me write it.’ [Birkbeck Hill’sBoswell, 1887, iii. 252–3.) It is quite possible, however, 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 denoteLa campagna di Roma. The portion of it which extends from Rome to Terracina is scarcely habitable.’
a lengthening chain.Prior compares Letter iii ofThe 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 hisComical Lovers, 1707, Act v:—‘When I am with Florimel, it [my heart] is still your prisoner,it only draws a longer chain after it.’ And earlier still in Dryden’s ‘All for Love’, 1678, Act ii, Sc. 1:—
My life on’t, he still drags a chain along,That needs must clog his flight.
with simple plenty crown’d.In the first edition this read ‘where mirth and peace abound.’
the luxury of doing good.Prior compares Garth’sClaremont, 1715, where he speaks of the Druids:—
Hard was their Lodging, homely was their Food,For all theirLuxury 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 Wakefield, 1766, ii. 160–1 (ch. x):—‘Death, the only friend of the wretched, for a little while mocks the weary traveller with the view, and like his horizon, still flies before him.’ [Prior.]
And find no spot of all the world my own.Prior compares his namesake’s linesIn the Beginning of[Jacques]Robbe’s Geography, 1700:—
My destin’d Miles I shall have gone,By THAMES or MAESE, by PO or RHONE,Andfound no Foot of Earth my own.
above the storm’s career.Cf. 1. 190 ofThe Deserted Village.
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 here.’ (Mr. J. H. Lobban’sSelect Poems of Goldsmith, 1900, p. 87). Lines 84–5, it may be added, are not in the first edition.
And though the rocky-crested summits frown.In the first edition:—
And though rough rocks or gloomy summits frown.
lines 91–2.are not in the first editions.
peculiar,i.e. ‘proper,’ ‘appropriate.’
winnow,i.e. ‘waft,’ ‘disperse.’ John Evelyn refers to these ‘sea-born gales’ in the ‘Dedication’ of hisFumifugium, 1661:— ‘Those who take notice of the scent of the orange-flowers from the rivage of Genoa, and St. Pietro dell’ Arena; the blossomes of the rosemary from the Coasts of Spain, many leagues off at sea; or the manifest, and odoriferous wafts which flow from Fontenay and Vaugirard, even to Paris in the season of roses, with the contrary effect of those less pleasing smells from other accidents, will easily consent to what I suggest [i.e. the planting of sweet-smelling trees].’ (Miscellaneous Writings, 1825, p. 208.)
Till, more unsteady, etc.In the first edition:—
But, more unsteady than the southern gale,Soon Commerce turn’d on other shores her sail.
There is a certain resemblance between this passage and one of the later paradoxes of Smollett’s Lismahago;—‘He affirmed, the nature of commerce was such, that it could not be fixed or perpetuated, but, having flowed to a certain height, would immediately begin to ebb, and so continue till the channels should be left almost dry; but there was no instance of the tide’s rising a second time to any considerable influx in the same nation’ (Humphry Clinker, 1771, ii. 192. Letter of Mr. Bramble to Dr. Lewis).
lines 141–2.are not in the first edition.
Its former strength was but plethoric ill.Cf.The Citizen of the World, 1762, i. 98:—‘In short, the state resembled one of those bodies bloated with disease, whose bulk is only a symptom of its wretchedness.’ [Mitford.]
Yet still the loss, etc.In the first edition:—
Yet, though to fortune lost, here still abideSome 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 theArcadi]. Where in the midst of porticos, processions, and cavalcades, abbes turn’d into shepherds, and shepherdesses without sheep, indulge their innocentdivertimenti.’ (Present State of Polite Learning, 1759, pp. 50–1.) Some of the ‘paste-board triumphs’ may be 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.
(Forster’sLife, 1871, i. pp. 347–8).
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’sAye and No, a Fable.
breastsThis 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’ inThe Citizen of the World, 1762, ii. 99:—‘The best manner to draw up thefinny 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 thereluctant savageinto the toils, as the Indians when they hunt the hyena or the rhinoceros.’ (Citizen of the World, 1762, i. 112.) See also Pope’sIliad, Bk. xvii:—
But if thesavageturns his glaring eye,They howl aloof, and round the forest fly.
lines 201–2are not in the first edition.
For every want,etc. Mitford quotes a parallel passage inAnimated Nature, 1774, ii. 123:—‘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. Cf. Fielding,Tom Jones, 1749, iii. 6:— ‘Some of the Author’s Friends cry’d—“Look’e, Gentlemen, the Man is a Villain; but it is Nature for all that.” And all the young Critics of the Age, the Clerks, Apprentices, etc., called itLowand fell a Groaning.’ See alsoTom Jones, iv. 94, and 226–30. ‘There’s nothing comes out but the ‘most lowest’ stuff in nature’—says Lady Blarney in ch. xi of theVicar, whose author is eloquent on this topic inThe Present State of Polite Learning, 1759, pp. 154–6, and inShe Stoops to Conquer, 1773 (Act i); while Graves (Spiritual Quixote, 1772, bk. i, ch. vi) gives the fashion the scientific appellation oftapino-phoby,which he defines as ‘a dread of everything that islow, either in writing or in conversation.’ To Goldsmith, if we may trust George Colman’sPrologueto Miss Lee’sChapter of Accidents, 1780, belongs the credit of exorcising this particular form of depreciation:—
When Fielding, Humour’s fav’rite child, appear’d,Lowwas 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’sLavengro, 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 inThe Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, ii. 24–5 (ch. i):—‘I passed among the harmless peasants of Flanders, and among such of the French as were poor enough to be very merry; for I ever found them sprightly in proportion to their wants. Whenever I approached a peasant’s house towards night-fall, I played one of my most merry tunes, and that procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next day.’
gestic lore,i.e. traditional gestures or motions. Scott uses the word ‘gestic’ inPeveril 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 thegesticart.’ [Hales.]
Thus idly busy rolls their world away.Pope has ‘Life’sidle business’ (Unfortunate Lady, l. 81), and—
Thebusy, idleblockheads of the ball.Donne’sSatires, iv. l. 203.
And all are taught an avarice of praise.Professor Hales (Longer English Poems) compares Horace of the Greeks:—
Praeter laudem, nullius avaris.Ars Poetica, l. 324.
copper lace.‘St Martin’s lace,’ for which, in Strype’s day, Blowbladder St. was famous. Cf. the actress’s ‘copper tail’ inCitizen of the World, 1762, ii. 60.
To men of other minds, etc.Prior compares with the description that follows a passage in vol. i. p. 276 ofAnimated 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. Dryden inAnnus Mirabilis, 1666, st. clxiv. l. 654:—
And view the ocean leaning on the sky.
the tall rampire’s,i.e. rampart’s (Old French,rempart, rempar). Cf.Timon of Athens, Act v. Sc. 4:—‘Our rampir’d gates.’
bosom reignin 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 ofThe Citizen of the World, 1762, i. 147.
dishonourable graves.Julius Caesar, Act i. Sc. 2.
Heavens! how unlike, etc.Prior compares a passage from a manuscriptIntroduction 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.’*
* J. W. M. Gibbs (Works, v. 9) discovered that parts of thisHistory, hitherto supposed to have been written in 1761, were published in theLiterary Magazine, 1757–8.
famed Hydaspes,i.e. thefabulosus Hydaspesof Horace, Bk. i. Ode xxii, and theMedus Hydaspesof 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 tieswas ‘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.’ (Preface toEnglish History.) [Mitford.]
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 omittedHaud inexpertus loquorof theEnquiry, it involved an undignified admission.
lines 365–80are 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 their primaeval authority.’ (Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, i. 202, ch. xix.)
When I behold, etc.Prior compares a passage in Letter xlix ofThe 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 inThe Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, i. 206, ch. xix:—‘What they may then expect, may be seen by turning our eyes to Holland, Genoa, or Venice, where the laws govern the poor, and the rich govern the law.’
I fly from petty tyrants to the throne.Cf. Dr. Primrose,ut supra, p. 201:—‘The generality of mankind also are of my way of thinking, and have unanimously created one king, whose election at once diminishes the number of tyrants, and puts tyranny at the greatest distance from the greatest number of people.’ Cf. also Churchill,The Farewell, ll. 363–4 and 369–70:—
Let not a Mob of Tyrants seize the helm,Nor titled upstarts league to rob the realm...Let us, some comfort in our griefs to bring,Be slaves to one, and be that one a King.
lines 393–4.Goldsmith’s first thought was—
Yes, my lov’d brother, cursed be that hourWhen first ambition toil’d for foreign power,—
an entirely different couplet to that in the text, and certainly more logical. (Dobell’sProspect 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 ofThe Deserted Village(q.v.).
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around.The Oswego is a river which runs between Lakes Oneida and Ontario. In theThrenodia 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 inAn History of England, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son, 1764, ii. 202–4.
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 Hill’sBoswell, 1887, ii. 6). Goldsmith’s original ran:—
And faintly fainter, fainter seems to go.
(Dobell’sProspect of Society, 1902, p. 3).
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’sBoswell,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 ownRasselas, 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’sJohnson, 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’sBoswell, 1887, ii. 170).
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’sMontaigne, 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 thePoetical Works, 1845, p. 36, corrected the line to—
Zeck’siron crown, etc.,
an alteration which has been adopted by other editors. (See also Forster’sLife, 1871, i. 370.)
Damien’s bed of steel.Robert-Francois Damiens, 1714–57. Goldsmith writes ‘Damien’s.’ In theGentlemen’s Magazinefor 1757, vol. xxvii. pp. 87 and 151, where there is an account of this poor half-witted wretch’s torture and execution for attempting to assassinate Louis XV, the name is thus spelled, as also in other contemporary records and caricatures. The following passage explains the ‘bed of steel’:—‘Being conducted to the Conciergerie, an ‘iron bed’, which likewise served for a chair, was prepared for him, and to this he was fastened with chains. The torture was again applied, and a physician ordered to attend to see what degree of pain he could support,’ etc. (Smollett’sHistory of England, 1823, bk. iii, ch. 7, § xxv.) Goldsmith’s own explanation—according to Tom Davies, the bookseller—was that he meant the rack. But Davies may have misunderstood him, or Goldsmith himself may have forgotten the facts. (See Forster’sLife, 1871, i. 370.) At pp. 57–78 of theMonthly Reviewfor July, 1757 (upon which Goldsmith was at this date employed), is a summary, ‘from our correspondent at Paris,’ of the official record of the Damiens’ Trial, 4 vols. 12 mo.; and his deed and tragedy make a graphic chapter in the remarkableStrange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, by George Augustus Sala, 1863, iii. pp. 154–180.
line 438.In the first edition of ‘The Traveller’ there are only 416 lines.
After having been for some time announced as in preparation,The Deserted Villagemade its first appearance on May 26, 1770.* It was received with great enthusiasm. In June a second, third, and fourth edition followed, and in August a fifth was published. The text here given is that of the fourth edition, which was considerably revised. Johnson, we are told, thoughtThe Deserted Villageinferior toThe Traveller: but ‘time,’ to use Mr. Forster’s words, ‘has not confirmedthatjudgment.’ Its germ is perhaps to be found in ll. 397–402 of the earlier poem.
* In the AmericanBookmanfor February, 1901, pp. 563–7, Mr. Luther S. Livingston gives an account (with facsimile title-pages) of threeoctavo(or rather duodecimo) editions all dated 1770; and ostensibly printed for ‘W. Griffin, at Garrick’s Head, in Catherine-street, Strand.’ He rightly describes their existence as ‘a bibliographical puzzle.’ They afford no important variations; are not mentioned by the early editors; and are certainly not in the form in which the poem was first advertised and reviewed, as this was a quarto. But they are naturally of interest to the collector; and the late Colonel Francis Grant, a good Goldsmith scholar, described one of them in theAthenaeumfor June 20, 1896 (No. 3582).
Much research has been expended in the endeavour to identify the scene with Lissoy, the home of the poet’s youth (seeIntroduction, p. ix); but the result has only been partially successful. The truth seems that Goldsmith, living in England, recalled in a poem that was English in its conception many of the memories and accessories of his early life in Ireland, without intending or even caring to draw an exact picture. Hence, as Lord Macaulay has observed, in a much criticized and characteristic passage, ‘it is made up of incongruous parts. The village in its happy days is a true English village. The village in its decay is an Irish village. The felicity and the misery which Goldsmith has brought close together belong to two different countries, and to two different stages in the progress of society. He had assuredly never seen in his native island such a rural paradise, such a seat of plenty, content, and tranquillity, as his “Auburn.” He had assuredly never seen in England all the inhabitants of such a paradise turned out of their homes in one day and forced to emigrate in a body to America. The hamlet he had probably seen in Kent; the ejectment he had probably seen in Munster; but, by joining the two, he has produced something which never was and never will be seen in any part of the world.’ (Encyclop. Britannica, 1856.) It is obvious also that in some of his theories—the depopulation of the kingdom, for example—Goldsmith was mistaken. But it was not for its didactic qualities then, nor is it for them now, thatThe Deserted Village’ delighted and delights. It maintains its popularity by its charminggenre-pictures, its sweet and tender passages, its simplicity, its sympathetic hold upon the enduring in human nature. To test it solely with a view to establish its topographical accuracy, or to insist too much upon the value of its ethical teaching, is to mistake its real mission as a work of art.
Dedication. 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 inThe Citizen of the World, 1762, i. 145, announcing that a famous ‘torse’ has been discovered to be not ‘a Cleopatra bathing’ but ‘a Hercules spinning’; and Charles Primrose’s experiences at Paris (Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, ii. 27–8).
He is since dead.Henry Goldsmith died in May, 1768, at the age of forty-five, being then curate of Kilkenny West. (See note, p. 164.)
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’sWorks, at end.)
the increase of our luxuries.The evil of luxury was a ‘common topick’ with Goldsmith. (Birkbeck Hill’sBoswell, 1887, ii. 217–8.) Smollett also, speaking with the voice of 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, 1771, ii. 192.—Letter of Mr. Bramble to Dr. Lewis.)
SweetAUBURN. Forster,Life, 1871, ii. 206, says 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.