Page xcv. Epitaph. Had Goldsmith outlived Johnson, he probably would have written his life. He once asked Mrs. Piozzi Who will be my biographer do you think?' Goldsmith, no doubt,' she replied, and he will do it best among us.' The dog would write it best to be sure,' replied he, but his particular malice towards me, and general disregard of truth, would make the book useless to all, and injurious to my character.'-Piozzi's Anecdotes, p. 24.-I find the ladies are rather bitter against poor Goldsmith in their Recollections. These words of Johnson are very strong, and I trust not correctly repeated; besides, it must be considered, that they were thrown off in the heat and hurry of conversation, and might be contrasted with some declarations of a different nature. Ed. Some observations on Goldsmith's character and writings may be seen in Prior's Life of Burke, p. 86. Page xcvi. 1. 9. See Warton's edit. of Pope, i. 105. See Mélanges de Littérature par D'Alem 1. 18. bert, v. 198. Page xcvii. 1. 1. After were' add simple and concise. Neatness of arrangement, and chastity of expression were always desired.' Page xcix. 1. 30. See Anecdotes Littér. iii. p. 201. on La Dans Houdart souvent un âne raisonne en Académicien, &c. Page c. 1. 7. See Crabbe's Poems, (Tales.) And he the sweetest poet of the day,' &c. Page cxxx. 1. 3. See Cradock's Memoirs, iv. 336. On Goldsmith's genius, see Payne Knight's "Progress of Civil Society." P. xiv. 119. "How frail, alas, are all human pleasures!" I was witness to an entire separation between Percy and Goldsmith, about Rowley's Poems. Cradock's Mem. i. 206. It ought to be stated that when the great moralist in an evening was giving a serious lecture to the company, no one paid more respect, or was more attentive than Goldsmith.Cradock's Mem. iv. 304. I little thought what I should have to boast, when Goldsmith taught me to play Jack and Gill by two bits of paper on his fingers.-Miss Hawkins' Anecd. ii. 7. A letter to R. Bryanton, Esq. by Goldsmith, in Elegant Extracts, edited by Davenport. Vol. v. p. 252. Whittingham, Chiswick. 18mo. Review of the Traveller, by Dr. Johnson, in Critical Review, 1764. Vol. xviii, p. 458. "Canonbury Castle is an antient brick tower hard by mery Islington, the remains of a hunting-seat of Queen Elizabeth, where she took the pleasure of the country, when the neighbourhood was all woodland. What gave it particular interest in my eyes was the circumstance that it had been the residence of a poet. It was here Goldsmith resided when he wrote his Deserted Village." I was shewn the very apartment; it was a relique of the original style of the castle, with panneled wainscots, and Gothic windows. I was pleased with its air of antiquity, and with its having been the residence of poor Goldy."-W. Irving's Tales of a Traveller, i. 214. 66 'Poor Goldsmith! what a time must he have had of it, with his quiet disposition and nervous habits, penned up in this den of noise and vulgarity. How strange that while every sight and sound was sufficient to embitter the heart, and fill it with misanthropy, his pen should be dropping the honey of Hybla. Yet it is more than probable, that he drew many of his inimitable pictures of low life from the scenes which surrounded him in this abode. The circumstance of Mrs. Tibbs being obliged to wash her husband's two shirts in a neighbour's house, who refused to lend her wash-tub, may have been no sport of fancy, but a fact passing under his own eye. His landlady may have sate for the picture, and Beau Tibbs' scanty wardrobe have been a fac-simile of his own."-Ditto, p. 200. On Green-Arbour Court, see p. 198, 199. This GreenArbour Court I found to be a small square of tall and miserable houses, the very intestines of which seemed turned inside out, to judge from the old garments and frippery that fluttered from every window.-It appeared to be a region of washerwomen, and lines were stretched about the little square on which clothes were dangling to dry. n APPENDIX II. POEMS. ADDITIONAL NOTES. Page 7. 1. 27. TRAVELLER. See also Dryden's Ant. and Cleopatra, Act ii. Sc. 1. - he still drags a chain along, That needs must clog his flight.' Page 8. 1. 3. Yet at her board with decent plenty blest, The journeying stranger sate a welcome guest.' Savage's Poems, ii. 210. Page 10. 1. 3. Page 12. 1. 26. Page 13. 1. 22. Page 15. 1. 17. See P. Knight's Landscape. p. 89, note. — 'nor the shepherd drive And like a bird, when prying boys molest, Page 18. 1. 18, ii. c. xxi. Page 19. 1. 6. Page 20. 1. 5. Ad litus adclinata levè A new creation rises to my sight.' Addison's Ep. from Italy. Fired at the thought, methinks on sacred ground I tread.' Mickle's Ep. from Lisbon. ed. Anderson. 665. Fir'd with the name.' Addison's Letter from Italy. See Goldsmith's Beauties, i. p. 116, and p. 112. Page 24. 1. 22. Through the deep forest's tangled way.' T. Warton's Ode sent to a friend: and see Warton's Milton, p. 270. Page 25. 1. 13. 1. 29. Page 26. 1. 1. See Gibbon's Roman History. ii. 61. 'Luke's iron crown,' &c. See Steevens's note on Richard III. act iv. sc. 1. note seven, and Gough's Camden, vol. iii. p. 369. Page 34. 1. 23. Deserted VILLAGE. See Todd's Milton, vol. vi. p. 149. Tickell's Kens. Gardens. Page 35. 1. 2. 'A shapeless ruin, and a barren cave.' 1. 9. - C'est un verre qui luit, Qu'un souffle peut détruire, et qu'un soufe a produit!' Page 36. 1. 21. The following couplet occurs in the first edition : Here as with doubtful, pensive steps I range, Page 37. 1. 3 and 4, variation. 'My anxious day to husband near the close, Page 39. 1. 6. See Fielding's Pars. Adams, and Mandeville's Fable of the Bees, i. p. 113. and Henry's Hist. of England, vol. xii. 339. Page 41. 1. 1. They which come to spy, or wonder, or gaze, or scoff, have changed their minds, before they went home.'-H. Smith's Sermons, p. 647. ed. 1592. Page 42.1.1. See Antoninus de Seipso. Lib. iv. 31. ""Opolov εινᾶι τῆ ἄκρα. &c. Page 48. 1. 21. For then more fierce than cruel tigers lay. S. Pordage's Poems, p. 31, 1660. Page 55. HAUNCH OF VENISON. See Boileau's Satire III. vol. i. p. 58, which Goldsmith had in his mind when he wrote this poem.-Lord Clare was afterwards Earl Nugent, his only daughter married the Marquess of Buckingham. He wrote a few odes, a stanza in one of which is known to every body. Alluding to this, Gray said, 'Surely Nugent did not write his own ode,' meaning that to Lord Pulteney. Page 63. RETALIATION. Compare a Paper in the World, vol. i. No. 18. p. 111. Page 63. 1. 7. Our dean shall be venison.'-On the behaviour of Dr. Johnson to Dean Bernard, which was the occasion of his verses, see Miss Reynolds's Recollections in Boswell's Johnson, ed. Croker, vol. iv. p. 448. Page 65. 1. 12. To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote.' In the original copy another person's name stood in this couplet. It is supposed that Townshend's name was introduced on account of the reflections which he threw out in the house against Johnson's pension; or, as Sir James Mackintosh explains it, from his persisting to clear the gallery of the house against Burke and Fox's remonstrance, when Garrick was present. See Boswell's Johnson, vol. v. p. 214. Page 69. 1. 21. See Davies's Life of Garrick, ii. 140. Page 71. 1. 16. See La Vie de Le Sage, p. xiii. Il faisait usage d'un Cornet qu'il appeloit son bienfaiteur. Quand je trouve, disoit-il, des visages nouveaux, et que j'espère rencontrer des gens d'esprit, je tire mon Cornet; quand ce sont des sots, je le resserve et je les défie de m'ennuyer. Page 72. 'Here Whitefoord reclines.' · C. Whitefoord followed his Cross Readings' by a still more witty paper on the Errors of the Press,' preserved in the Foundling Hospital for Wit. Goldsmith was so delighted with those jeux d'esprit, that he declared it would give him more pleasure to have been the author, than of all the works he had ever published of his own. See his poem to Sir Joshua Reynolds, in Northcote's Life, p. 128. Page 79. THE HERMIT. See Var. Readings in Annual Page 80. 1. 3.Taught by that power that pities me, Conf. Virg. Æn. i. 630, Haud ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco.' Page 80. 1. 17. This, the only bad stanza in the poem, is not in the French original. Page 108. EPITAPH ON EDWARD PURDON. This is taken from Pope's and Swift's Miscellanies; See Scott's Swift, vol. xiii. p. 372. 'Well then, poor G- lies under ground, So there's an end of honest Jack; So little justice here he found, 'Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back." Page 112. SONG. Translated by A. Brown into Latin verse. See Arthur Browne's Miscell. Sketches, vol. ii. p. 389. Page 114. 1. 29. See a Greek translation of this poem, by Scaliger. Vide Poemata, p. 91. Page 156. 1. 4. J. Lowin, the original Falstaff, kept the Three Pigeons at Brentford. See Davies' Dram. Miscell. i. p. 325. |