9e. 8bre. 1773. a ferney. Sr. Thanks to yr muse a foreign copper shines Turn'd in to gold, and coin'd in sterling lines. You have done to much honour to an old sick man of eighty. I am with the most sincere esteem and gratitude Sr. Yr. obdt. Servt. Voltaire. A Monsieur Monsieur J. Cradock.

The text of the prologue is here given as printed in Cradock's 'Memoirs', 1828, iii. 8-9. It is unnecessary to specify the variations between this and the earlier issue of 1771.

l. 1. ——- "In these bold times, etc." The reference is to Cook, who, on June 12, 1771, had returned to England in the 'Endeavour', after three years' absence, having gone to Otaheite to observe the transit of Venus (l. 4).

l. 5. ——- "Botanists". Mr. (afterward Sir Joseph) Banks and Dr. Solander, of the British Museum, accompanied Cook.

l. 6. ——- "go simpling", i.e. gathering simples, or herbs. Cf. 'Merry Wives of Windsor', Act iii, Sc. 3:— '— These lisping hawthorn buds that... smell like Bucklersbury in 'simple'-time.' In the caricatures of the day Solander figured as 'The 'simpling' Macaroni.' (See note, p. 247, l. 31.)

l. 11. ——- "With Scythian stores". The scene of the play was laid in Scythia ('v. supra').

l. 28. ——- "to make palaver", to hold a parley, generally with the intention of cajoling. Two of Goldsmith's notes to Garrick in 1773 are endorsed by the actor — 'Goldsmith's parlaver.' (Forster's 'Life', 1871, ii. 397.)

l. 32. ——- "mercenary". Cradock gave the profits of 'Zobeide' to Mrs. Yates. 'I mentioned the disappointment it would be to you' — she says in a letter to him dated April 26, 1771 —' as you had generously given the emoluments of the piece to me.' ('Memoirs', 1828, iv. 211.)



THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS.

Augusta, widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and mother of George the Third, died at Carlton House, February 8, 1772. This piece was spoken and sung in Mrs. Teresa Cornelys's Great Room in Soho Square, on the Thursday following (the 20th), being sold at the door as a small quarto pamphlet, printed by William Woodfall. The author's name was not given; but it was prefaced by this 'advertisement,' etc.:—

'The following may more properly be termed a compilation than a poem. It was prepared for the composer in little more than two days: and may be considered therefore rather as an industrious effort of gratitude than of genius. In justice to the composer it may likewise be right to inform the public, that the music was adapted in a period of time equally short.

SPEAKERS.

'Mr. Lee and Mrs. Bellamy'.

SINGERS.

'Mr. Champnes, Mr. Dine, and Miss Jameson; with twelve chorus singers. The music prepared and adapted by Signor Vento.'

It is — as Cunningham calls it — a 'hurried and unworthy off-spring of the muse of Goldsmith.'

(Part I).

l. 122 "——- Celestial-like her bounty fell". The Princess's benefactions are not exaggerated. 'She had paid off the whole of her husband's debts, and she had given munificent sums in charity. More than 10,000'l.' a year were given away by her in pensions to individuals whom she judged deserving, very few of whom were aware, until her death, whence the bounty came. The whole of her income she spent in England, and very little on herself' ('Augusta: Princess of Wales', by W. H. Wilkins, 'Nineteenth Century', October, 1903, p. 675).

l. 132. ——- "There faith shall come". This, and the three lines that follow, are borrowed from Collins's 'Ode written in the beginning of the year' 1746.

(Part II).

l. 22 "——- The towers of Kew". 'The embellishments of Kew palace and gardens, under the direction of [Sir William] Chambers, and others, was the favourite object of her [Royal Highness's] widowhood' (Bolton Corney).

l. 77. ——- "Along the billow'd main". Cf. 'The Captivity', Act ii, I. 18.

l. 83. ——- "Oswego's dreary shores". Cf. 'The Traveller', l. 411.

l. 91. ——- "And with the avenging fight". Varied from Collins's 'Ode on the Death of Colonel Charles Ross at Fontenoy'.

l. 177. ——- "Its earliest bloom". Cf. Collins's 'Dirge in Cymbeline'.



SONG

FROM 'SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.'

This thoroughly characteristic song, for a parallel to which one must go to Congreve, or to the 'Here's to the maiden of bashful fifteen' of 'The School for Scandal', has one grave defect, — it is too good to have been composed by Tony Lumpkin, who, despite his inability to read anything but 'print-hand,' declares, in Act i. Sc. 2 of 'She Stoops to Conquer', 1773, that he himself made it upon the ale-house ('The Three Pigeons') in which he sings it, and where it is followed by the annexed comments, directed by the author against the sentimentalists, who, in 'The Good Natur'd Man' of five years before, had insisted upon the omission of the Bailiff scene:—

'OMNES. Bravo, bravo!

'First' FELLOW. The 'Squire has got spunk in him.

'Second' FELLOW. I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never gives us nothing that's 'low'...

'Fourth' FELLOW. The genteel thing is the genteel thing at any time. If so be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.

'Third' FELLOW. I like the maxum of it, Master Muggins. What, tho' I am obligated to dance a bear, a man may be a gentleman for all that. May this be my poison if my bear ever dances but to the very genteelest of tunes. 'Water parted'*, or the minuet in 'Ariadne'.'

[footnote] *i.e. Arne's 'Water Parted from the Sea', — the song of Arbaces in the opera of 'Artaxerxes, 1762. The minuet in 'Ariadne' was by Handel. It came at the end of the overture, and is said to have been the best thing in the opera.

l. 9. ——- "When Methodist preachers, etc." Tony Lumpkin's utterance accurately represents the view of this sect taken by some of his contemporaries. While moderate and just spectators of the Johnson type could recognize the sincerity of men, who, like Wesley, travelled 'nine hundred miles in a month, and preached twelve times a week' for no ostensibly adequate reward, there were others who saw in Methodism, and especially in the extravagancies of its camp followers, nothing but cant and duplicity. It was this which prompted on the stage Foote's 'Minor' (1760) and Bickerstaffe's 'Hypocrite' (1768); in art the 'Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism' of Hogarth (1762); and in literature the 'New Bath Guide' of Anstey (1766), the 'Spiritual Quixote' of Graves, 1772, and the sarcasms of Sterne, Smollett and Walpole.

It is notable that the most generous contemporary portrait of these much satirised sectaries came from one of the originals of the 'Retaliation' gallery. Scott highly praises the character of Ezekiel Daw in Cumberland's 'Henry', 1795, adding, in his large impartial fashion, with reference to the general practice of representing Methodists either as idiots or hypocrites, 'A very different feeling is due to many, perhaps to most, of this enthusiastic sect; nor is it rashly to be inferred, that he who makes religion the general object of his life, is for that sole reason to be held either a fool or an impostor.' (Scott's 'Miscellaneous Prose Works', 1834, iii. 222.)

l. 23. ——- "But of all the birds in the air". Hypercriticism may object that 'the hare' is not a bird. But exigence of rhyme has to answer for many things. Some editors needlessly read 'the 'gay' birds' to lengthen the line. There is no sanction for this in the earlier editions.



EPILOGUE TO 'SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.'

This epilogue was spoken by Mrs. Bulkley in the character of Miss Hardcastle. It is probably the epilogue described by Goldsmith to Cradock, in the letter quoted at p. 246, as 'a very mawkish thing,' a phrase not so incontestable as Bolton Corney's remark that it is 'an obvious imitation of Shakespere.'

l. 6. ——- "That pretty Bar-maids have done execution". Cf. 'The Vicar of Wakefield', 1766, i. 7:— 'Sophia's features were not so striking at first; but often did more certain execution.'

l. 16. ——- "coquets the guests". Johnson explains this word 'to entertain with compliments and amorous tattle,' and quotes the following illustration from Swift, 'You are 'coquetting' a maid of honour, my lord looking on to see how the gamesters play, and I railing at you both.'

l. 26. ——- "Nancy Dawson". Nancy Dawson was a famous 'toast' and horn-pipe dancer, who died at Haverstock Hill, May 27, 1767, and was buried behind the Foundling, in the burial-ground of St. George the Martyr. She first appeared at Sadler's Wells, and speedily passed to the stage of Covent Garden, where she danced in the 'Beggar's Opera'. There is a portrait of her in the Garrick Club, and there are several contemporary prints. She was the heroine of a popular song, here referred to, beginning:—

Of all the girls in our town, The black, the fair, the red, the brown, Who dance and prance it up and down, There's none like Nancy Dawson: Her easy mien, her shape so neat, She foots, she trips, she looks so sweet, Her ev'ry motion is complete; I die for Nancy Dawson.

Its tune — says J. T. Smith ('Book for a Rainy Day', Whitten's ed., 1905, p. 10) was 'as lively as that of "Sir Roger de Coverley."'

"Che faro", i.e. 'Che faro senza Euridice', the lovely lament from Gluck's 'Orfeo', 1764.

l. 28. ——- "the Heinel of Cheapside". The reference is to Mademoiselle Anna-Frederica Heinel, 1752-1808, a beautiful Prussian, subsequently the wife of Gaetano Apollino Balthazar Vestris, called 'Vestris the First.' After extraordinary success as a 'danseuse' at Stuttgard and Paris, where Walpole saw her in 1771 (Letter to the Earl of Strafford 25th August), she had come to London; and, at this date, was the darling of the Macaronies (cf. the note on p. 247, l. 31), who, from their club, added a 'regallo' (present) of six hundred pounds to the salary allowed her at the Haymarket. On April 1, 1773, Metastasio's 'Artaserse' was performed for her benefit, when she was announced to dance a minuet with Monsieur Fierville, and 'Tickets were to be hand, at her house in Piccadilly, two doors from Air Street.'

l. 31. ——- "spadille", i.e. the ace of spades, the first trump in the game of Ombre. Cf. Swift's 'Journal of a Modern Lady in a Letter to a Person of Quality', 1728:—

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.

l. 35. ——- "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 Cradock's 'Zobeide', 1771:—

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!



RETALIATION.

'Retaliation: A Poem. By Doctor Goldsmith. Including Epitaphs on the Most Distinguished Wits of this Metropolis', was first published by G. Kearsly in April, 1774, as a 4to pamphlet of 24 pp. On the title-page is a vignette head of the author, etched by James Basire, after Reynolds's portrait; and the verses are prefaced by an anonymous letter to the publisher, concluding as follows:— 'Dr. Goldsmith 'belonged to a Club of' Beaux Esprits, 'where Wit sparkled sometimes at the Expence of Good-nature. It was proposed to write Epitaphs on the Doctor; his Country, Dialect and Person, furnished Subjects of Witticism. — The Doctor was called on for' Retaliation, 'and at their next Meeting produced the following Poem, which I think adds one Leaf to his immortal Wreath.' This account seems to have sufficed for Evans, Percy, and the earlier editors. But in vol. i. p. 78 of his edition of Goldsmith's 'Works', 1854, Mr. Peter Cunningham published for the first time a fuller version of the circumstances, derived from a manuscript lent to him by Mr. George Daniel of Islington; and (says Mr. Cunningham) 'evidently designed as a preface to a collected edition of the poems which grew out of Goldsmith's trying his epigrammatic powers with Garrick.' It is signed 'D. Garrick.' 'At a meeting' — says the writer — 'of a company of gentlemen, who were well known to each other, and diverting themselves, among many other things, with the peculiar oddities of Dr. Goldsmith, who would never allow a superior in any art, from writing poetry down to dancing a horn-pipe, the Dr. with great eagerness insisted upon trying his epigrammatic powers with Mr. Garrick, and each of them was to write the other's epitaph. Mr. Garrick immediately said that his epitaph was finished, and spoke the following distich extempore:—

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 thoughtful, and either would not, or could not, write anything at that time: however, he went to work, and some weeks after produced the following printed poem called 'Retaliation', which has been much admired, and gone through several editions.' This account, though obviously from Garrick's point of view, is now accepted as canonical, and has superseded those of Davies, Cradock, Cumberland, and others, to which some reference is made in the ensuing notes.

A few days after the publication of the first edition, which appeared on the 18th or 19th of April, a 'new' or second edition was issued, with four pages of 'Explanatory Notes, Observations, etc.' At the end came the following announcement:— 'G. Kearsly, the Publisher, thinks it his duty to declare, that Dr. Goldsmith wrote the Poem as it is here printed, a few errors of the press excepted, which are taken notice of at the bottom of this page.' From this version 'Retaliation' is here reproduced. In the third edition, probably in deference to some wounded susceptibilities, the too comprehensive 'most Distinguished Wits of the Metropolis' was qualified into ''some of the most' Distinguished Wits,' etc., but no further material alteration was made in the text until the suspicious lines on Caleb Whitefoord were added to the fifth edition.

With the exception of Garrick's couplet, and the fragment of Whitefoord referred to at p. 234, none of the original epitaphs upon which Goldsmith was invited to 'retaliate' have survived. But the unexpected ability of the retort seems to have prompted a number of 'ex post facto' performances, some of which the writers would probably have been glad to pass off as their first essays. Garrick, for example, produced three short pieces, one of which ('Here, Hermes! says Jove, who with nectar was mellow') hits off many of Goldsmith's contradictions and foibles with considerable skill ('v'. Davies's 'Garrick', 2nd ed., 1780, ii. 157). Cumberland ('v. Gent. Mag'., Aug. 1778, p. 384) parodied the poorest part of 'Retaliation', the comparison of the guests to dishes, by likening them to liquors, and Dean Barnard in return rhymed upon Cumberland. He wrote also an apology for his first attack, which is said to have been very severe, and conjured the poet to set his wit at Garrick, who, having fired his first shot, was keeping out of the way:—

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.

For these, and other forgotten pieces arising out of 'Retaliation', Garrick had apparently prepared the above-mentioned introduction. It may be added that the statement, prefixed to the first edition, that 'Retaliation', as we now have it, was produced at the 'next meeting' of the Club, is manifestly incorrect. It was composed and circulated in detached fragments, and Goldsmith was still working at it when he was seized with his last illness.

l. 1. ——- "Of old, when Scarron, etc." Paul Scarron (1610-60), the 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.

l. 2. ——- "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 Mesdames Deshoulieres, de Scudery, de la Sabliere, and de Sevigne, to say nothing of Ninon de Lenclos and Marion Delorme. (Cf. also Guizot, 'Corneille et son Temps', 1862, 429-30.)

l. 3. ——- "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', 1826, i. 228-30) speaks of dining 'at the bottom of St. James's 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."'

l. 5. ——- "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.

(Northcote's 'Life of Reynolds', 2nd ed., 1819, i. 221.) According to Cumberland ('Memoirs', 1807, i. 370), 'The dean 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 1883-4.

l. 6. ——- "Our Burke". The Right Hon. Edmund Burke, 1729-97.

l. 7. ——- "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. Nat. Biography', Art. 'William Burke.')

l. 8. ——- "And Dick". Richard Burke, Edmund Burke's younger brother. He was for some years Collector to the Customs at Grenada, being on a visit to London when 'Retaliation' was written (Forster's 'Life', 1871, ii. 404). He died in 1794, Recorder of Bristol.

l. 9. ——- "Our Cumberland's sweetbread". Richard Cumberland, the poet, novelist, and dramatist, 1731-1811, author of 'The West Indian', 1771, 'The Fashionable Lover', 1772, and many other more or less sentimental plays. In his 'Memoirs', 1807, i. 369-71, he gives an account of the origin of 'Retaliation', which adds a few dubious particulars to that of Garrick. But it was written from memory long after the events it records.

l. 10. ——- "Douglas". 'Dr. Douglas, since Bishop of Salisbury,' says Cumberland. He died in 1807 ('v. infra').

l. 14. ——- "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.)

l. 15. ——- "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 8, 1774). He was a jovial, good-natured, over-blunt Irishman, 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 Royal Academy in 1772 (No. 208). In 1833 it belonged to Mr. T. 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.

l. 16. ——- "Magnanimous Goldsmith". According to Malone (Reynolds's 'Works', second edition, 1801, i. xc), Goldsmith intended to have concluded with his own character.

l. 34. ——- "Tommy Townshend", M.P. for Whitchurch, Hampshire, 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 'Boswell', 1887, iv. 318.)

l. 35. ——- "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, 209-10.)

l. 36. ——- "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 'Dinner Bell.'

l. 42. ——- "To eat mutton cold". There is a certain resemblance between this character and Gray's lines on himself written in 1761, beginning 'Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune.' (See Gosse's 'Gray's Works', 1884, i. 127.) But both 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.

l. 43. ——- "honest William", i.e. William Burke ('v. supra').

l. 54. ——- "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.'

l. 61. ——- "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 to Conquer'.

l. 66. ——- "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 truly pathetic.' ('Westminster Magazine', 1772, i. 5.) Cf. also 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.'

l. 80. ——- "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.'

l. 86. ——- "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 Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell', 1887, iii. 139-48.) There is an account of Dodd's execution at the end of vol. i of Angelo's 'Reminiscences', 1830.

"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.

l. 87. ——- "Macpherson". 'David [James] Macpherson, Esq.; who lately, from the mere 'force of his style', wrote down the first poet of all antiquity.' (Note to second edition.) This was 'Ossian' Macpherson, 1738-96, who, in 1773, had followed up his 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, ii. 298.)

l. 88. ——- "Our Townshend". See note to line 34.

l. 89. ——- "New Lauders and Bowers". See note to l. 80.

l. 92. ——- "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).

l. 93. ——- "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 of Garrick', 2nd ed., 1780, ii. 159. Posterity has been less 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.'

l. 115. ——- "Ye Kenricks". See note to line 86.

"ye Kellys". Hugh Kelly (1739-1777), an Irishman, the author of 'False Delicacy', 1768; 'A Word to the Wise', 1770; 'The School 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 (Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell', 1887, ii. 48) — 'was totally void 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 few years, effectually retarded the wholesome reaction towards 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 note to l. 162.)

l. 120. ——- "To act as an angel". There is a sub-ironic touch in this phrase which should not be overlooked. Cf. l. 102.

l. 125. ——- "Here Hickey reclines". See note to l. 15. In Cumberland's 'Poetical Epistle to Dr. Goldsmith; or Supplement to his Retaliation' {'Gentleman's Magazine', Aug. 1778, p. 384) Hickey's genial qualities are thus referred to:—

Give RIDGE and HICKY, generous souls! Of WHISKEY PUNCH convivial bowls.

l. 134. ——- "a special attorney". A special attorney was merely an attorney who practised in one court only. The species is now said to be extinct.

l. 135. ——- "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 people.'

l. 137. ——- "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.'

l. 140. ——- "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 ed., 1861, ii. 175-6.

l. 146. ——- "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', 1865, i. 50.) This instrument figures in a portrait of himself 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 unaltered.' ('Life', 1837, ii. 499.) See notes to ll. 53, 56, and 91 of 'The Haunch of Venison'.

l. 147. ——- "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. T. Smith, in his 'Life of Nollekens', 1828, i. 333-41, devotes 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,' November, 16, 1807; and Wilkie's 'Letter of Introduction', 1814, 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.

l. 148. ——- "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.)

l. 150. ——- "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.)

l. 160. ——- '"if the table he set on a roar".' Cf. 'Hamlet', Act v, Sc. I.

l. 162. ——- "Woodfall", i.e. Henry Sampson Woodfall, printer of 'The Public Advertiser'. He died in 1805. (See note to l. 115.)

l. 170. ——- "Cross-Readings, Ship-News, and Mistakes of the Press". 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 The Companion to the Playhouse. or 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 'Life of Reynolds', 2nd ed., 1819, i. 217). What is perhaps more 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 [1720].

The fashion of the 'Ship-News' was in this wise: 'August 25 [1765]. 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 'Life of Nollekens', 1828, i. 336-7; Debrett's 'New Foundling Hospital for Wit', 1784, vol. ii, and 'Gentleman's Magazine', 1810, p. 300.)

l. 172. ——- "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.

l. 174. ——- "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 pp. 217-8 of Northcote's 'Life', 2nd ed., 1819. See also Forster's 'Goldsmith', 1871, ii. 408-9.



SONG FOR 'SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.'

Boswell, to whom we are indebted for the preservation of this lively song, sent it to 'The London Magazine' for June, 1774 (vol. xliii, p. 295), with the following:—

'To the Editor of 'The London Magazine'. SIR, — I send you a small production of the late Dr. 'Goldsmith', which has never been published, and which might perhaps have been totally lost had I not secured it. He intended it as a song in the character of Miss 'Hardcastle', in his admirable comedy, 'She stoops to conquer'; but it was left out, as Mrs. 'Bulkley' who played the part did not sing. He sung it himself in private companies very agreeably. The tune is a pretty Irish air, called 'The Humours of Balamagairy', to which, he told me, he found it very difficult to adapt words; but he has succeeded happily in these few lines. As I could sing the tune, and was fond of them, he was so good as to give me them about a year ago, just as I was leaving London, and bidding him adieu for that season, little apprehending that it was a last farewell. I preserve this little relick in his own handwriting with an affectionate care. I am, Sir, Your humble Servant, JAMES BOSWELL.'

When, seventeen years later, Boswell published his 'Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.', he gave an account of his dining at General Oglethorpe's in April, 1773, with Johnson and Goldsmith; and he says that the latter sang the 'Three Jolly Pigeons', and this song, to the ladies in the tea-room. Croker, in a note, adds that the younger Colman more appropriately employed the 'essentially low comic' air for Looney Mactwolter in the ['Review; or the] Wags of Windsor', 1808 [i.e. in that character's song beginning — 'Oh, whack! Cupid's a mannikin'], and that Moore tried to bring it into good company in the ninth number of the 'Irish Melodies'. But Croker did not admire the tune, and thought poorly of Goldsmith's words. Yet they are certainly fresher than Colman's or Moore's:—

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.



TRANSLATION.

These lines, which appear at p. 312 of vol. V of the 'History of the Earth and Animated Nature', 1774, are freely translated from some Latin verses by Addison in No 412 of the 'Spectator', where they are introduced as follows:— 'Thus we see that every different Species of sensible Creatures has its different Notions of Beauty, and that each of them is most affected with the Beauties of its own kind. This is nowhere more remarkable than in Birds of the same Shape and Proportion, where we often see the Male determined in his Courtship by the single Grain or Tincture of a Feather, and never discovering any Charms but in the Colour of its own Species.' Addison's lines, of which Goldsmith translated the first fourteen only, are printed from his corrected MS. at p. 4 of 'Some Portions of Essays contributed to the Spectator by Mr. Joseph Addison [by the late J. Dykes Campbell], 1864.



THE HAUNCH OF VENISON.

It is supposed that this poem was written early in 1771, although it was not printed until 1776, when it was published by G. Kearsly and J. Ridley under the title of 'The Haunch of Venison, a Poetical Epistle to the Lord Clare. By the late Dr. Goldsmith. With a Head of the Author, Drawn by Henry Bunbury, Esq; and Etched by [James] Bretherton.' A second edition, the text of which is here followed, appeared in the same year 'With considerable Additions and Corrections, Taken from the Author's 'last' Transcript.' The Lord Clare to whom the verses are addressed was Robert Nugent, of Carlanstown, Westmeath, M.P. for St. Mawes in 1741-54. In 1766 he was created Viscount Clare; in 1776 Earl Nugent. In his youth he had himself been an easy if not very original versifier; and there are several of his performances in the second volume of Dodsley's 'Collection of Poems by Several Hands', 4th ed., 1755. One of the Epistles, beginning 'Clarinda, dearly lov'd, attend The Counsels of a faithful friend,' seems to have betrayed Goldsmith into the blunder of confusing it, in the 'Poems for Young Ladies'. 1767, p. 114, with Lyttelton's better-known 'Advice to a Lady' ('The counsels of a friend, Belinda, hear'), also in Dodsley's miscellany; while another piece, an 'Ode to William Pultney, Esq.', contains a stanza so good that Gibbon worked it into his character of Brutus:—

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.

Detraction, however, has insinuated that Mallet, his step-son's tutor, was Nugent's penholder in this instance. 'Mr. Nugent sure did not write his own Ode,' says Gray to Walpole (Gray's 'Works', by Gosse, 1884, ii. 220). Earl Nugent died in Dublin in October, 1788, and was buried at Gosfield in Essex, a property he had acquired with his second wife. A 'Memoir' of him was written in 1898 by Mr. Claud Nugent. He is described by Cunningham as 'a big, jovial, voluptuous Irishman, with a loud voice, a strong Irish accent, and a ready though coarse wit.' According to Percy ('Memoir', 1801, p. 66), he had been attracted to Goldsmith by the publication of 'The Traveller' in 1764, and he mentioned him favourably to the Earl of Northumberland, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. A note in Forster's 'Life', 1871, ii. 329-30, speaks of Goldsmith as a frequent visitor at Gosfield, and at Nugent's house in Great George Street, Westminster, where he had often for playmate his host's daughter, Mary, afterwards Marchioness of Buckingham.

Scott and others regarded 'The Haunch of Venison' as autobiographical. To what extent this is the case, it is difficult to say. That it represents the actual thanks of the poet to Lord Clare for an actual present of venison, part of which he promptly transferred to Reynolds, is probably the fact. But, as the following notes show, it is also clear that Goldsmith borrowed, if not his entire fable, at least some of its details from Boileau's third satire; and that, in certain of the lines, he had in memory Swift's 'Grand Question Debated', the measure of which he adopts. This throws more than a doubt upon the truth of the whole. 'His genius' (as Hazlitt says) 'was a mixture of originality and imitation'; and fact and fiction often mingle inseparably in his work. The author of the bailiff scene in the 'Good Natur'd Man' was quite capable of inventing for the nonce the tragedy of the unbaked pasty, or of selecting from the Pilkingtons and Purdons of his acquaintance such appropriate guests for his Mile End Amphitryon as the writers of the 'Snarler' and the 'Scourge'. It may indeed even be doubted whether, if 'The Haunch of Venison' had been absolute personal history, Goldsmith would ever have retailed it to his noble patron at Gosfield, although it may include enough of real experience to serve as the basis for a 'jeu d'esprit'.

l. 4. ——- "The fat was so white, etc." The first version reads — 'The white was so white, and the red was so ruddy.'

l. 5. ——- "Though my stomach was sharp, etc." This couplet is not in the first version.

l. 10. ——- "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.'

l. 14. ——- "a bounce", i.e. a braggart falsehood. Steele, in No. 16 of 'The Lover', 1715, p. 110, says of a manifest piece of brag, 'But this is supposed to be only a 'Bounce'.'

l. 18. ——- "Mr. Byrne", spelled 'Burn' in the earlier editions, was a relative of Lord Clare.

l. 24. ——- "M—r—'s." MONROE's in the first version. 'Dorothy Monroe,' says Bolton Corney, 'whose various charms are celebrated in verse by Lord Townshend.'

l. 27. ——- "There's H—d, and C—y, and H—rth, and H—ff". In the 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.

l. 29. ——- "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 (Prior, 'Life', 1837, ii. 411-12). This couplet is not in the first version

l. 33. ——- "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 shirt' ('Percy Memoir', 1801, 87-8). His source was probably, not Brown's 'Laconics', but those French 'ana' he knew so well. According to M. J. J. Jusserand ('English Essays from a French Pen', 1895, pp. 160-1), the originator of this conceit was M. 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 'Sorberiana', Toulouse, 1691.

"a flirt" is a jibe or jeer. 'He would sometimes...cast out a jesting 'flirt' at me.' (Morley's 'History of Thomas Ellwood', 1895, p. 104.) Swift also uses the word.

l. 37. ——- "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.

l. 44. ——- "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. 238.)

l. 49. ——- "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.

l. 53. ——- "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.'

l. 60. ——- "'And nobody with me at sea but myself.'" This is almost a textual quotation from one of the letters of Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, to Lady Grosvenor, a 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 year:—

The Miser who wakes in a Fright for his Pelf, And finds 'no one by him except his own Self', etc.

l. 67. ——- "When come to the place", etc. Cf. Boileau, 'ut supra', ll. 31-4:—

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.

l. 72. ——- "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 Hill's 'Boswell', 1887, iii. 225.) Line 72 in the first edition reads —

The one at the House, and the other with THRALE.

l. 76. ——- "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.

l. 78. ——- "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 Mann, March 21, 1766. According to Prior, it was Scott who 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 unnecessary to me.' ('Life', 1837, ii. 278.) There is a 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.

l. 82. ——- "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', 1834, i. 236.)

l. 84. ——- "pasty". The first version has 'Ven'son.'

l. 87. ——- "So there I sat, etc." This couplet is not in the first version.

l. 91. ——- "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' and 'Retaliation'.

l. 91. ——- "'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 Wakefield', 1766, i. 59.

l. 95. ——- "'The tripe,' quoth the Jew, etc". The first version reads —

'Your Tripe!' quoth the 'Jew', 'if the truth I may speak, I could eat of this Tripe seven days in the week.'

l. 103. ——- "Re-echoed", i.e. 'returned' in the first edition.

l. 104. ——- "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.

l. 110. ——- "Wak'd Priam". Cf. 2 'Henry IV', Act I, Sc. 1:—

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.

l. 120. ——- "sicken'd over by learning". Cf. 'Hamlet', Act iii, Sc. 1:

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.

l. 121. ——- "as very well known". The first version has,

''tis very well known.'



EPITAPH ON THOMAS PARNELL.

This epitaph, apparently never used, was published with 'The Haunch of Venison', 1776; and is supposed to have been written about 1770. In that year Goldsmith wrote a 'Life of Thomas Parnell, D.D.', to accompany an edition of his poems, printed for Davies of Russell Street. Parnell was born in 1679, and died at Chester in 1718, on his way to Ireland. He was buried at Trinity Church in that town, on the 24th of October. Goldsmith says that his father and uncle both knew Parnell ('Life of Parnell', 1770, p. v), and that he received assistance from the poet's nephew, Sir John Parnell, the singing gentleman who figures in Hogarth's 'Election Entertainment'. Why Goldsmith should write an epitaph upon a man who died ten years before his own birth, is not easy to explain. But Johnson also wrote a Latin one, which he gave to Boswell. (Birkbeck Hill's 'Life', 1887, iv. 54.)

l. 1. ——- "gentle Parnell's Name". Mitford compares Pope on Parnell ['Epistle to Harley', 1. iv]:—

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.

l. 3. ——- "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.

Of Parnell, Hume wrote ('Essays', 1770, i. 244) that 'after the 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 Grub Street' (Gosse's Gray's 'Works', 1884, ii. 372). Meanwhile, 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 — to an Old Beauty':—

And all that's madly wild, or oddly gay, We call it only 'pretty Fanny's way'.



THE CLOWN'S REPLY.

This, though dated 'Edinburgh 1753,' was first printed in 'Poems and Plays', 1777, p. 79.

l. 1. ——- "John Trott" is a name for a clown or commonplace character. Miss Burney ('Diary', 1904, i. 222) says of Dr. 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.

l. 6. ——- "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, p. 156.



EPITAPH ON EDWARD PURDON.

The occasion of this quatrain, first published as Goldsmith's* in 'Poems and Plays', 1777, p. 79, is to be found in Forster's 'Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith', 1871, ii. 60. Purdon died on March 27, 1767 ('Gentleman's Magazine', April, 1767, p. 192). '"Dr. Goldsmith made this epitaph," says William Ballantyne [the author of 'Mackliniana'], "in his way from his chambers in the Temple to the Wednesday evening's club at the Globe. 'I think he will never come back', I believe he said. I was sitting by him, and he repeated it more than twice. 'I think he will never come back."' Purdon had been at Trinity College, Dublin, with Goldsmith; he had subsequently been a foot soldier; ultimately he became a 'bookseller's hack.' He wrote an anonymous letter to Garrick in 1759, and translated the 'Henriade' of Voltaire. This translation Goldsmith is supposed to have revised, and his own life of Voltaire was to have accompanied it, though finally the Memoir and Translation seem to have appeared separately. (Cf. prefatory note to 'Memoirs of M. de Voltaire' in Gibbs's 'Works of Oliver Goldsmith', 1885, iv. 2.)

[footnote] *It had previously appeared as an extempore by a correspondent in the 'Weekly Magazine', Edin., August 12, 1773 ('Notes and Queries', February 14, 1880).

Forster says further, in a note, 'The original...is the epitaph on "La Mort du Sieur Etienne":—

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.

With this perhaps Goldsmith was familiar, and had therefore less scruple in laying felonious hands on the epigram in the 'Miscellanies' (Swift, xiii. 372):—

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.'

Mr. Forster's 'felonious hands' recalls a passage in Goldsmith's 'Life of Parnell', 1770, in which, although himself an habitual sinner in this way, he comments gravely upon the practice of plagiarism:— 'It was the fashion with the wits of the last age, to conceal the places from whence they took their hints or their subjects. A trifling acknowledgment would have made that lawful prize, which may now be considered as plunder' (p. xxxii).



EPILOGUE FOR LEE LEWES'S BENEFIT.

This benefit took place at Covent Garden on May 7, 1773, the pieces performed being Rowe's 'Lady Jane Grey', and a popular pantomimic after-piece by Theobald, called 'Harlequin Sorcerer', Charles Lee Lewes (1740-1803) was the original 'Young Marlow' of 'She Stoops to Conquer'. When that part was thrown up by 'Gentleman' Smith, Shuter, the 'Mr. Hardcastle' of the comedy, suggested Lewes, who was the harlequin of the theatre, as a substitute, and the choice proved an admirable one. Goldsmith was highly pleased with his performance, and in consequence wrote for him this epilogue. It was first printed by Evans, 1780, i. 112-4.

l. 9. ——- "in thy black aspect", i.e. the half-mask of harlequin, in which character the Epilogue was spoken.

l. 18. ——- "rosined lightning", stage-lightning, in which rosin is an ingredient.



EPILOGUE INTENDED FOR 'SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.'

This epilogue was first printed at pp. 82-6, vol. ii, of the 'Miscellaneous Works of' 1801. Bolton Corney says it had been given to Percy by Goldsmith. It is evidently the 'quarrelling Epilogue' referred to in the following letter from Goldsmith to Cradock ('Miscellaneous Memoirs', 1826, i. 225-6):—

'MY DEAR SIR, The Play ['She Stoops to Conquer'] has met with a success much beyond your expectations or mine. I thank you sincerely for your Epilogue, which, however could not be used, but with your permission, shall be printed*. The story in short is this; Murphy sent me rather the outline of an Epilogue than an Epilogue, which was to be sung by Mrs. Catley, and which she approved. Mrs. Bulkley hearing this, insisted on throwing up her part, unless according to the custom of the theatre, she were permitted to speak the Epilogue. In this embarrassment I thought of making a quarrelling Epilogue between Catley and her, debating who should speak the Epilogue, but then Mrs. Catley refused, after I had taken the trouble of drawing it out. I was then at a loss indeed; an Epilogue was to be made, and for none but Mrs. Bulkley. I made one, and Colman thought it too bad to be spoken; I was obliged therefore to try a fourth time, and I made a very mawkish thing, as you'll shortly see. Such is the history of my Stage adventures, and which I have at last done with. I cannot help saying that I am very sick of the stage; and though I believe I shall get three tolerable benefits, yet I shall upon the whole be a loser, even in a pecuniary light; my ease and comfort I certainly lost while it was in agitation.

I am, my dear Cradock, Your obliged, and obedient servant, OLIVER GOLDSMITH P.S. — Present my most humble respects to Mrs. Cradock.'

[footnote] *It is so printed with the note — 'This came too late to be Spoken.'

According to Prior ('Miscellaneous Works', 1837, iv. 154), Goldsmith's friend, Dr. Farr, had a copy of this epilogue which still, when Prior wrote, remained in that gentleman's family.

l. 21. ——- "Who mump their passion", i.e. grimace their passion.

l. 31. ——- "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. 39, swarmed with satirical designs of which they were the 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', 1777, Act ii, Sc. 2:—

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.

l. 36. ——- "Their hands are only lent to the Heinel". See note to l. 28, p. 85.



EPILOGUE INTENDED FOR 'SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.'

This epilogue, given by Goldsmith to Dr. Percy in MS., was first published in the 'Miscellaneous Works' of 1801, ii. 87-8, as 'An Epilogue intended for Mrs. Bulkley'. Percy did not remember for what play it was intended; but it is plainly (see note to l. 40) the second epilogue for 'She Stoops to Conquer' referred to in the letter printed in this volume.

l. 1. ——- "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', Canto v, ll. 113-14:

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' of Astolpho's journey in his 'Letters', 1774, i. 557.

l. 9. ——- "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, March 6, 1773.

l. 27. ——- "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 'Spectator', No. 324. See also 'Spectator', No. 347; Gay's 'Trivia', 1716, Book iii. p. 74; Swift's 'Journal to Stella', March 8 and 26, 1712; and the 'Wentworth Papers', 1883, pp. 277-8.

l. 40. ——- "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.



THE CAPTIVITY.

The Oratorio of the 'Captivity' was written in 1764; but never set to music. It was first printed in 1820 at pp. 451-70 of vol. ii of the octavo edition of the 'Miscellaneous Works' issued by the trade in that year. Prior reprinted it in 1837 ('Works', iv. Pp. 79-95) from the 'original manuscript' in Mr. Murray's possession; and Cunningham again in 1854 ('Works', i. pp. 63-76). It is here reproduced from Prior. James Dodsley, who bought the MS. for Newbery and himself, gave Goldsmith ten guineas. Murray's copy was the one made for Dodsley, October 31, 1764; the one printed in 1820, that made for Newbery. The latter, which once belonged to the autograph collector, William Upcott, was in the market in 1887.

l. 23. ——- 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.

l. 33. ——- 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.



VERSES IN REPLY TO AN INVITATION TO DINNER.

These were first published in the 'Miscellaneous Works' of 1837, iv. 132-3, having been communicated to the editor by Major-General Sir H. E. Bunbury, Bart., the son of Henry William Bunbury, the well-known comic artist, and husband of Catherine Horneck, the 'Little Comedy' to whom Goldsmith refers. Dr. Baker, to whose house the poet was invited, was Dr. (afterwards Sir George) Baker, 1722-1809. He was Sir Joshua's doctor; and in 1776 became physician to George III, whom he attended during his illness of 1788-9. He is often mentioned by Fanny Burney and Hannah More.

l. 11. ——- "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.

l. 13. ——- "Kauffmann". Angelica Kauffmann, the artist, 1741-1807. 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 at l. 44 below.

l. 14. ——- "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.

l. 16. ——- "The Reynoldses two", i.e. Sir Joshua and his sister, Miss Reynolds.

l. 17. ——- "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 Reynolds.

l. 18. ——- "the Captain in lace". This was Charles Horneck, Mrs. Horneck's son, an officer in the Foot-guards. He afterwards became a general, and died in 1804. (See note, p. 247, l. 31.)

l. 44. ——- "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 1769, when the picture was painted, and August 1771, when 'Little Comedy' was married, after which time Goldsmith would scarcely speak of her except as 'Mrs. Bunbury' (see p. 132, l. 15).



LETTER IN PROSE AND VERSE TO MRS. BUNBURY.

This letter, which contains some of the brightest and easiest of Goldsmith's familiar verses, was addressed to Mrs. Bunbury (the 'Little Comedy' of the 'Verses in Reply to an Invitation to Dinner', pp. 250-2), in answer to a rhymed summons on her part to spend Christmas at Great Barton in Suffolk, the family seat of the Bunburys. It was first printed by Prior in the 'Miscellaneous Works' of 1837, iv. 148-51, and again in 1838 in Sir Henry Bunbury's 'Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart.', pp. 379-83. The text of the latter issue is here followed. When Prior published the verses, they were assigned to the year 1772; in the 'Hanmer Correspondence' it is stated that they were 'probably written in 1773 or 1774.'

P. 130. ——- "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.)

P. 131. ——- "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 'Life', 1837, ii. 378-9).

P. 131. ——- "Naso contemnere adunco". Cf. Horace, 'Sat'. i. 6. 5:—

naso suspendis adunco Ignotos,

and Martial, 'Ep'. i. 4. 6:— Et pueri nasum Rhinocerotis habent.

l. 2. ——- "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, iii. 61:—

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?

l. 17. ——- "Miss Horneck". Miss Mary Horneck, the 'Jessamy Bride' ('vide' note, p. 251, l. 14).

l. 36. ——- "Fielding". Sir John Fielding, d. 1780, Henry Fielding's blind half-brother, who succeeded him as a Justice of the Peace for the City and Liberties of Westminster. He was knighted in 1761. There are two portraits of him by Nathaniel Hone.

l. 40. ——- "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 Epistles', i. 147-8:— Consult the Statute: 'quart'. I think, it is, 'Edwardi sext.' or 'prim. et quint. Eliz.'

l. 44. ——- "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 [i.e. 1855] it has been usual to place sweet-smelling herbs in 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 of 'The Drunkard's Children', 1848, v.

l. 45. ——- "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 church.' ('Guardian', No. 65, May 26, 1713.) Cf. also Addison's 'Fine Lady's Diary' ('Spectator', No. 323); 'Went in our 'Mobbs' to the Dumb Man' (Duncan Campbell).

l. 50. ——- "yon solemn-faced". Cf. 'Introduction', p. xxvii. According to the 'Jessamy Bride,' Goldsmith sometimes aggravated his plainness by an 'assumed frown of countenance' (Prior, 'Life', 1837, ii. 379).

l. 55. ——- "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'. Cooke ('European Magazine', October, 1793, p. 259) says that Goldsmith 'rather cultivated (than endeavoured to get rid of) his brogue.'

l. 58. ——- "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.



VIDA'S GAME OF CHESS.

Forster thus describes the MS. of this poem in his 'Life of Goldsmith': — 'It is a small quarto manuscript of thirty-four pages, containing 679 lines, to which a fly-leaf is appended in which Goldsmith notes the differences of nomenclature between Vida's chessmen and our own. It has occasional interlineations and corrections, but such as would occur in transcription rather than in a first or original copy. Sometimes indeed choice appears to have been made (as at page 29) between two words equally suitable to the sense and verse, as "to" for "toward"; but the insertions and erasures refer almost wholly to words or lines accidentally omitted and replaced. The triplet is always carefully marked; and seldom as it is found in any other of Goldsmith's poems. I am disposed to regard its frequent recurrence here as even helping, in some degree, to explain the motive which had led him to the trial of an experiment in rhyme comparatively new to him. If we suppose him, half consciously, it may be, taking up the manner of the great master of translation, Dryden, who was at all times so much a favourite with him, he would at least, in so marked a peculiarity, be less apt to fall short than to err perhaps a little on the side of excess. Though I am far from thinking such to be the result in the present instance. The effect of the whole translation is pleasing to me, and the mock-heroic effect I think not a little assisted by the reiterated use of the triplet and alexandrine. As to any evidence of authorship derivable from the appearance of the manuscript, I will only add another word. The lines in the translation have been carefully counted, and the number is marked in Goldsmith's hand at the close of his transcription. Such a fact is, of course, only to be taken in aid of other proof; but a man is not generally at the pains of counting, still less, I should say in such a case as Goldsmith's, of elaborately transcribing, lines which are not his own.' (Forster's 'Goldsmith', 1871, ii. 235-6).

When Forster wrote the above, the MS. was in the possession of Mr. Bolton Corney, who had not been aware of its existence when he edited Goldsmith's Poems in 1845. In 1854 it was, with his permission, included in vol. iv of Cunningham's 'Works' of 1854, and subsequently in the Aldine 'Poems' of 1866.

Mark Jerome Vida of Cremona, 1490-1566, was Bishop of Alba, and favourite of Leo the Magnificent. Several translators had tried their hand at his 'Game of Chess' before Goldsmith. Lowndes mentions Rowbotham, 1562; Jeffreys, 1736; Erskine, 1736; Pullin, 1750; and 'Anon'. (Eton), 1769 (who may have preceded Goldsmith). But after his (Goldsmith's) death appeared another Oxford anonymous version, 1778, and one by Arthur Murphy, 1786.



APPENDIXES

A. PORTRAITS OF GOLDSMITH. B. DESCRIPTIONS OF NEWELL'S VIEWS OF LISSOY, ETC. C. THE EPITHET 'SENTIMENTAL.' D. FRAGMENTS OF TRANSLATIONS, ETC. BY GOLDSMITH. E. GOLDSMITH ON POETRY UNDER ANNE AND GEORGE THE FIRST. F. CRITICISMS FROM GOLDSMITH'S 'BEAUTIES OF ENGLISH POESY.'



APPENDIX A

PORTRAITS OF GOLDSMITH.

PORTRAITS of Goldsmith are not numerous; and the best known are those of Reynolds and H. W. Bunbury. That by Sir Joshua was painted in 1766-70, and exhibited in the Royal Academy (No. 151) from April 24th to May 28th in the latter year. It represents the poet in a plain white collar, furred mantle open at the neck, and holding a book in his right hand. Its general characteristics are given at p. xxviii of the 'Introduction.' It was scraped in mezzotint in 1770 by Reynolds's Italian pupil, Giuseppe, or Joseph Marchi; and it is dated 1st December.* Bunbury's portrait first appeared, after Goldsmith's death, as a frontispiece to the 'Haunch of Venison'; and it was etched in facsimile by James Bretherton. The plate is dated May 24, 1776. In his loyal but despotic 'Life of Goldsmith' (Bk. iv, ch. 6), Mr. John Forster reproduces these portraits side by side; in order, he professes, to show 'the distinction between truth and a caricature of it.' Bunbury, it may be, was primarily a caricaturist, and possibly looked at most things from a more or less grotesque point of view; but this sketch — it should be observed — was meant for a likeness, and we have the express testimony of one who, if she was Bunbury's sister-in-law, was also Goldsmith's friend, that it rendered Goldsmith accurately. It 'gives the head with admirable fidelity' — says the 'Jessamy Bride' (afterwards Mrs. Gwyn) — 'as he actually lived among us; nothing can exceed its truth' (Prior's 'Life', 1837, ii. 380). In other words, it delineates Goldsmith as his contemporaries saw him, with bulbous forehead, indecisive chin, and long protruding upper lip, — awkward, insignificant, ill at ease, — restlessly burning 'to get in and shine.' It enables us moreover to understand how people who knew nothing of his better and more lovable qualities, could speak of him as an 'inspired idiot,' as 'silly Dr. Goldsmith,' as 'talking like poor Poll.' It is, in short, his external, objective presentment. The picture by Sir Joshua, on the contrary, is almost wholly subjective. Draped judiciously in a popular studio costume, which is not that of the sitter's day, it reveals to us the author of 'The Deserted Village' as Reynolds conceived him to be at his best, serious, dignified, introspective, with his physical defects partly extenuated by art, partly over-mastered by his intellectual power. To quote the 'Jessamy Bride' once more — it is 'a fine poetical head for the admiration of posterity, but as it is divested of his wig and with the shirt collar open, it was not the man as seen in daily life' ('Ib'. ii. 380). Had Goldsmith lived in our era of photography, photography would doubtless have given us something which would have been neither the one nor the other, but more like Bunbury than Reynolds. Yet we may be grateful for both. For Bunbury's sketch and Reynolds's portrait are alike indispensable to the true comprehension of Goldsmith's curiously dual personality.**

[footnote]* This was the print to which Goldsmith referred in a well-known anecdote. Speaking to his old Peckham pupil, Samuel Bishop, whom, after many years, he met accidentally in London, he asked him eagerly whether he had got an engraving of the new portrait, and finding he had not, 'said with some emotion, "if your picture had been published, I should not have suffered an hour to elapse without procuring it."' But he was speedily 'appeased by apologies.' (Prior's 'Life', 1837, i. 219-20.)

[footnote]** There is in existence another undated etching by Bretherton after Bunbury on a larger scale, which comes much nearer to Reynolds; and it is of course possible, though not in our opinion probable, that Mrs. Gwyn may have referred to this. But Forster selected the other for his comparison; it is prefixed to the 'Haunch of Venison'; it is certainly the better known; and (as we believe) cannot ever have been intended for a caricature.

The portrait by Reynolds, above referred to, was painted for the Thrale Gallery at Streatham, on the dispersion of which, in May, 1816, it was bought for the Duke of Bedford for 133 pounds 7s. It is now at Woburn Abbey (Cat. No. 254). At Knole, Lord Sackville possesses another version (Cat. No. 239), which was purchased in 1773 by the Countess Delawarr, and was shown at South Kensington in 1867. Here the dress is a black coat and a brown mantle with fur. The present owner exhibited it at the Guelph Exhibition of 1891. A third version, now in the Irish National Gallery, once belonged to Goldsmith himself, and then to his brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson. Finally there is a copy, by a pupil of Reynolds, in the National Portrait Gallery, to which it was bequeathed in 1890 by Dr. Leifchild, having formerly been the property of Caleb Whitefoord. Caleb Whitefoord also had an 'admirable miniature' by Reynolds, which belongs to the Rev. Benjamin Whitefoord, Hon. Canon of Salisbury ('Whitefoord Papers', 1898, p. xxvii). A small circular print, based upon Reynolds, and etched by James Basire, figures on the title-page of 'Retaliation'. Some of the plates are dated April 18, 1774.* The National Portrait Gallery has also a silhouette, attributed to Ozias Humphry, R.A., which was presented in 1883 by Sir Theodore Martin, K.C.B. Then there is the portrait by Hogarth shown at South Kensington in 1867 by the late Mr. Studley Martin of Liverpool. It depicts the poet writing at a round table in a black cap, claret-coloured coat and ruffles. Of this there is a wood-cut in the later editions of Forster's 'Life' (Bk. iii, ch. 14). The same exhibition of 1867 contained a portrait of Goldsmith in a brown coat and red waistcoat, 'as a young man.' It was said to be extremely like him in face, and was attributed to Gainsborough. In Evans's edition of the 'Poetical and Dramatic Works' is another portrait engraved by Cook, said, on some copies, to be 'from an original drawing'; and there is in the Print Room at the British Museum yet another portrait still, engraved by William Ridley 'from a painting in the possession of the Rev. Mr. Williams,' no doubt Goldsmith's friend, the Rev. David Williams, founder of the Royal Literary Fund. One of these last may have been the work to which the poet refers in a letter to his brother Maurice in January, 1770. 'I have sent my cousin Jenny [Jane Contarine] a miniature picture of myself...The face you well know, is ugly enough, but it is finely painted' ('Misc. Works', 1801, p. 88).