1. 117. And when beside me, &c. For this 'additional stanza,' says the Percy Memoir, p. 76, the reader is indebted to Richard Archdal, Esq., late a member of the Irish Parliament, to whom it was presented by the author himself.' It was first printed in the Miscellaneous Works, 1801, ii. 25. In Prior's edition of the Miscellaneous Works, 1837, iv. 41, it is said to have been written some years after the rest of the poem.' 1. 121. The blossom opening to the day, &c. For this and the next two stanzas the first version substitutes: Whene'er he spoke amidst the train, Repaid his love with pride. 1. 129. For still I tried each fickle art, &c. Percy finds the prototype of this in the following stanza of Gentle Herdsman :— And grew soe coy and nice to please, As women's lookes are often soe, He might not kisse, nor hand forsoothe, 1. 133. Till quite dejected with my scorn, &c. The first edition reads this stanza and the first two lines of the next thus : Till quite dejected by my scorn, He left me to deplore; And sought a solitude forlorn, And ne'er was heard of more. Then since he perish'd by my fault, This pilgrimage I pay, &c. : 1. 135. And sought a solitude forlorn. Cf. Gentle Herdsman :— He gott him to a secrett place, And there he dyed without releeffe. 1. 141. And there forlorn, despairing, hid, &c. The first edition for this and the next two stanzas substitutes the following: And there in shelt'ring thickets hid, I'll linger till I die; 'Twas thus for me my lover did, And so for him will I. Thou shalt not thus,' the Hermit cried, And clasp'd her to his breast; For now no longer could he hide, His looks resume their youthful pride, 1. 143. 'Twas so for me, &c. Cf. Gentle Herdsman :— And ever will doe till I dye; And gett me to some secret place, For soe did hee, and soe will I. 1. 145. Forbid it, Heaven. Vicar of Wakefield, first edition, like the version of 1765, has 'Thou shalt not thus.' 1. 156. My life. Vicar of Wakefield, first edition, has '0 thou.' 1. 157. No, never from this hour, &c. The first edition reads : No, never, from this hour to part, Our love shall still be new ; And the last sigh that rends thy heart, The poem then concluded thus : Here amidst sylvan bowers we'll rove, And innocent as they. To all that want, and all that wail, And when this life of love shall fail, These couplets, with certain alterations in the first and last lines, are to be found in the version printed in Poems for Young Ladies, 1767, P. 98. AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG. This poem was first published in The Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, i. 175-6, where it is sung by one of the little boys. In common with the Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize (p. 47) it owes something of its origin to Goldsmith's antipathy to fashionable elegiacs, something also to the story of M. de la Palisse. As regards mad dogs, its author seems to have been more reasonable than many of his contemporaries, since he ridiculed, with much common sense, their exaggerated fears on this subject (v. Chinese Letter in The Public Ledger for August 29, 1760, afterwards Letter lxvi of The Citizen of the World, 1762, ii. 15). But it is ill jesting with hydrophobia. Like Madam Blaize, these verses have been illustrated by Randolph Caldecott. Goldsmith had lodgings at 1. 5. In Islington there was a man. Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming's in Islington (or 'Isling town' as the earlier editions have it) in 1763-4; and the choice of the locality may have been determined by this circumstance. But the date of the composition of the poem is involved in the general obscurity which hangs over the Vicar in its unprinted state. (See Introduction, pp.xviii-xix.) 1. 19. The dog, to gain some private ends. The first edition reads his private ends.' 1. 32. The dog it was that died. This catastrophe suggests the couplet from the Greek Anthology, ed. Jacobs, 1813-7, ii. 387: Καππαδόκην ποτ ̓ ἔχιδνα κακὴ δάκεν· ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὴ κάτθανε, γευσαμένη αἵματος ἰοβόλου. Goldsmith, however, probably went no farther back than Voltaire on Fréron : L'autre jour, au fond d'un vallon, Ce fut le serpent qui creva. This again, according to M. Edouard Fournier (L'Esprit des Autres, sixth edition, 1881, p. 288), is simply the readjustment of an earlier quatrain, based upon a Latin distich in the Epigrammatum delectus, 1659: Un gros serpent mordit Aurelle. First published in The Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, ii. 78 (chap. v). It is there sung by Olivia Primrose, after her return home with her father. 'Do, my pretty Olivia,' says Mrs. Primrose, 'let us have that little melancholy air your pappa was so fond of, your sister Sophy has already obliged us. Do child, it will please your old father.' 'She complied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic,' continues Dr. Primrose, as moved me.' The charm of the words, and the graceful way in which they are introduced, seem to have blinded criticism to the impropriety, and even inhumanity, of requiring poor Olivia to sing a song so completely applicable to her own case. No source has been named for this piece; and its perfect conformity with the text would appear to indicate that Goldsmith was not indebted to any earlier writer for his idea. His well-known obligations to French sources seem, however, to have suggested that, if a French original could not be discovered for the foregoing lyric, it might be desirable to invent one. A clever paragraphist in the St. James's Gazette for January 28th, 1889, accordingly reproduced the following stanzas, which, he alleged, were to be found in the poems of Ségur, 'printed in Paris in 1719' : Lorsqu'une femme, après trop de tendresse, Comment, pour cette si douce foiblesse Peut-elle trouver une guérison? Le seul remède qu'elle peut ressentir, Hélas! trop tard-est la mort. As a correspondent was not slow to point out, Goldsmith, if a copyist, at all events considerably improved his model (see in particular lines 7 and 8 of the French). On the 30th of the month the late Sir William Fraser gave it as his opinion, that, until the volume of 1719 should be produced, the 'very inferior verses quoted' must be classed with the fabrications of 'Father Prout,' and he instanced that very version of the Burial of Sir John Moore (Les Funérailles de Beaumanoir) which has recently (August 1906) been going the round of the papers once again. No Ségur volume of 1719 was, of course, forthcoming. Kenrick, as we have already seen, had in 1767 accused Goldsmith of taking Edwin and Angelina from Percy (p. 206). Thirty years later, the charge of plagiarism was revived in a different way when Raimond and Angéline, a French translation of the same poem, appeared, as Goldsmith's original, in a collection of Essays called The Quiz, 1797. It was eventually discovered to be a translation from Goldsmith by a French poet named Léonard, who had included it in a volume dated 1792, entitled Lettres de deux Amans, Habitans de Lyon (Prior's Life, 1837, ii. 89-94). It may be added that, according to the Biographie Universelle, 1847, vol. 18 (Art. 'Goldsmith '), there were then no fewer than at least three French imitations of The Hermit besides Léonard's. EPILOGUE TO THE GOOD NATUR'D MAN.' Goldsmith's comedy of The Good Natur'd Man was produced by Colman, at Covent Garden, on Friday, January 29, 1768. The following note was appended to the Epilogue when printed : -'The Author, in expectation of an Epilogue from a friend at Oxford, deferred writing one himself till the very last hour. What is here offered, owes all its success to the graceful manner of the Actress who spoke it.' It was spoken by Mrs. Bulkley, the 'Miss Richland' of the piece. In its first form it is to be |