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; In thee must ever find a foe. 1. 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, And still, as darker grows the night, 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 MajorGeneral 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. 1. 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. 1. 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 1. 44 below. 1. 14. the Jessamy Bride. This was Goldsmith's pet-name for Mary, the younger Miss Horneck, at this time a girl of seventeen. 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. 1. 16. The Reynoldses two, i. e. Sir Joshua and his sister, Miss Reynolds. 1. 17. Little Comedy's face. 'Little Comedy' was Goldsmith's name for the elder Miss Horneck, Catherine, then nineteen, 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. 1. 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.) 1. 44. to-day's Advertiser. The lines referred to are said by Prior to have been as follows: While fair Angelica, with matchless grace, 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, 1. 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.' 6 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 pecu liarity 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, Et pueri nasum Rhinocerotis habent. 1. 2. Loo, i. e. Lanctre- or Lanterloo, a popular eighteenthcentury game, in which Pam, 1. 6, the knave of clubs, is the highest card. Cf. Pope, Rape of the Lock, 1714, iii. 61: Ev'n mighty Pam, that Kings and Queens o'erthrew, and Colman's epilogue to The School for Scandal, 1777 :— That pants for loo, or flutters at a vole? 1. 17. Miss Horneck. Miss Mary Horneck, the 'Jessamy Bride' (vide note, p. 251, 1. 14). 1. 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. 1. 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, 1. 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. 1. 45. mobs. The mob was a loose undress or déshabillé, 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). 1. 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). 1. 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.' 1. 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 perma nence. |