America, which is usually called the Red Tiger, but Mr. Buffon calls it the Cougar, which, no doubt, is very different from the tiger of the east. Some, however, have thought proper to rank both together, and I will take leave to follow their example.' 1. 371. The good old sire. Cf. Threnodia Augustalis, 11. 16-17:The good old sire, unconscious of decay, The modest matron, clad in homespun gray. 1. 378. a father's. Her father's' in the first edition. 1. 384. silent. 'Decent' in the first edition. 'Torno': = 1. 418. On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side. Tornea, a river which falls into the Gulf of Bothnia; Pambamarca is a mountain near Quito, South America. The author'— says Bolton Corney- bears in memory the operations of the French philosophers in the arctic and equatorial regions, as described in the celebrated narratives of M. Maupertuis and Don Antonio de Ulloa.' 11. 427-30. That trade's proud empire, &c. These last four lines are attributed to Johnson on Boswell's authority :—' Dr. Johnson . . . favoured me by marking the lines which he furnished to Goldsmith's Deserted Village, which are only the last four.' (Birkbeck Hill's Boswell, 1887, ii. 7.) PROLOGUE OF LABERIUS. This translation, or rather imitation, was first published at pp. 176-7 of An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe, 1759 (Chap. xii, ‘Of the Stage'), where it is prefaced as follows:- MACROBIUS has preserved a prologue, spoken and written by the poet [Decimus] Laberius, a Roman knight, whom Cæsar forced upon the stage, written with great elegance and spirit, which shews what opinion the Romans in general entertained of the profession of an actor.' In the second edition of 1774 the prologue was omitted. The original lines, one of which Goldsmith quotes, are to be found in the Saturnalia of Macrobius, lib. ii, cap. vii (Opera, London, 1694). He seems to have confined himself to imitating the first fifteen :— Necessitas, cujus cursus transversi impetum Quo me detrusit paene extremis sensibus ? Domum revertar mimus. nimirum hoc die Rollin gives a French translation of this prologue in his Traité des Études. It is quoted by Bolton Corney in his Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith, 1845, pp. 203-4. In his Aldine edition of 1831, p. 114, Mitford completed Goldsmith's version as follows: Too lavish still in good, or evil hour, To show to man the empire of thy power, Macrobius, it may be remembered, was the author, with a quotation from whom Johnson, after a long silence, electrified the company upon his first arrival at Pembroke College, thus giving (says Boswell) the first impression of that more extensive reading in which he had indulged himself' (Birkbeck Hill's Boswell, 1887, i. 59). If the study of Macrobius is to be regarded as a test of 'more extensive reading,' that praise must therefore be accorded to Goldsmith, who cites him in his first book. ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH STRUCK BLIND WITH LIGHTNING. This quatrain, the original of which does not appear to have been traced, was first published in The Bee for Saturday, the 6th of October, 1759, p. 8. It is there succeeded by the following Latin epigram, 'in the same spirit' : : LUMINE Acon dextro capta est Leonida sinistro Et poterat forma vincere uterque Deos. There are several variations of this in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1745, pp. 104, 159, 213, 327, one of which is said to be 'By a monk of Winchester,' with a reference to 'Cambden's Remains, p. 413.' None of these corresponds exactly with Goldsmith's text; and the lady's name is uniformly given as 'Leonilla.' A writer in the Quarterly Review, vol. 171, p. 296, prints the 'original' thus Lumine Acon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinistro, Et potis est forma vincere uterque Deos. and says 'it was written by Girolamo Amalteo, and will be found in any of the editions of the Trium Fratrum Amaltheorum Carmina, under the title of 'De gemellis, fratre et sorore, luscis.' According to Byron on Bowles (Works, 1836, vi. p. 390), the persons referred to are the Princess of Eboli, mistress of Philip II of Spain, and Maugiron, minion of Henry III of France, who had each of them lost an eye. But for this the reviewer above quoted had found no authority. THE GIFT. This little trifle, in which a French levity is wedded to the language of Prior, was first printed in The Bee, for Saturday, the 13th of October, 1759. Its original, which is as follows, is to be found where Goldsmith found it, namely in Part iii of the Ménagiana, (ed. 1729, iii, 397), and not far from the ditty of le fameux la Galisse. (See An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize, infra, p. 198): ETRENE A IRIS. Pour témoigner de ma flame, Quoi donc ? Attendez, je vous donne Je vous donne: Ah! le puis-je dire ? Patience va m'échaper, Fussiez-vous cent fois plus aimable, Belle Iris, je vous donne . au Diable. In Bolton Corney's edition of Goldsmith's Poetical Works, 1845, p. 77, note, these lines are attributed to Bernard de la Monnoye (1641-1728), who is said to have included them in a collection of Étrennes trennes en vers, published in 1715. 1. 20. I'll give thee. See an anecdote à propos of this anticlimax in Trevelyan's Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, ed. 1889, p. 600:- There was much laughing about Mrs. Beecher Stowe [then (16th March, 1853) expected in England], and what we were to give her. I referred the ladies to Goldsmith's poems for what I should give. Nobody but Hannah understood me; but some of them have since been thumbing Goldsmith to make out the riddle.' THE LOGICIANS REFUTED. These lines, which have often, and even of late years, been included among Swift's works, were first printed as Goldsmith's by T. Evans at vol. i. pp. 115-17 of The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M.B., 1780. They originally appeared in The Busy Body for Thursday, October the 18th, 1759 (No. v), having this notification above the title: 'The following Poem written by DR. SWIFT, is communicated to the Public by the BUSY BODY, to whom it was presented by a Nobleman of distinguished Learning and Taste.' In No. ii they had already been advertised as forthcoming. The sub-title, 'In imitation of Dean Swift,' seems to have been added by Evans. The text here followed is that of the first issue. 1. 5. Wise Aristotle and Smiglecius. Cf. The Life of Parnell, 1770, p. 3:-' - His imagination might have been too warm to relish the cold logic of Burgersdicius, or the dreary subtleties of Smiglesius; but it is certain, that as a classical scholar, few could equal him.' Martin Smiglesius or Smigletius, a Polish Jesuit, theologian and logician, who died in 1618, appears to have been a special bête noire to Goldsmith; and the reference to him here would support the ascription of the poem to Goldsmith's pen, were it not that Swift seems also to have cherished a like antipathy: He told me that he had made many efforts, upon his entering the College [i. e. Trinity College, Dublin], to read some of the old treatises on logic writ by Smeglesius, Keckermannus, Burgersdicius, &c., and that he never had patience to go through three pages of any of them, he was so disgusted at the stupidity of the work.' (Sheridan's Life of Swift, 2nd ed., 1787, p. 4.) 1. 16. Than reason-boasting mortal's pride. So in The Busy Body. Some editors-Mitford, for example-print the line :Than reason,-boasting mortals' pride. 1. 18. Deus est anima brutorum. Cf. Addison in Spectator, No. 121 (July 19, 1711): A modern Philosopher, quoted by Monsieur Bale in his Learned Dissertation on the Souls of Brutes delivers the same Opinion [i. e.-That Instinct is the immediate direction of Providence], tho' in a bolder form of words, where he says Deus est Anima Brutorum, God himself is the Soul of |