Part 1
# The Poems of Oliver Goldsmith ### By Goldsmith, Oliver
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THE POEMS
OF
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
[Illustration:
THE POEMS OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH ]
[Illustration]
THE POEMS OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
EDITED BY ROBERT ARIS WILLMOTT,
AUTHOR OF THE “PLEASURES OF LITERATURE,” “SUMMER TIME IN THE COUNTRY,” ETC., ETC.
A NEW EDITION, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY BIRKET FOSTER AND H. N. HUMPHREYS, PRINTED IN COLOURS BY EDMUND EVANS.
[Illustration]
LONDON AND NEW YORK GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS. 1877.
[Illustration:
EDMUND EVANS
ENGRAVER & PRINTER]
[Illustration: PREFACE]
Oliver Goldsmith, the fifth child of Charles and Ann Goldsmith, was born at Pallas, a hamlet of the parish of Forney, county of Longford, Ireland, November 10th, 1728. His father, the “Preacher” of the “Deserted Village,” having been presented to the Rectory of Kilkenny-West, about the year 1730, removed his family to Lissoy, the “Auburn” of the Poet. The “modest mansion” is a ruin, or, by this time, has quite disappeared. His first schoolmaster is described, by one who remembered him, as a man “stern to view,” in whose “morning face” the disasters of the day might be easily read. Goldsmith made small progress under the ferule of Paddy Burns, and, after being for some time a pupil in the diocesan school of Elphin, he was placed with a competent teacher at Athlone, where he remained two years. He was then transferred to the care of Mr. Hughes, vicar of Shruel, who treated him with kindness, and whom he always mentioned with respect and gratitude. His eldest sister has given a specimen of her brother’s early and ready humour. A large company of young people had assembled in his uncle’s house, at Elphin, and Oliver, then nine years old, was desired to dance a hornpipe, under very unfavourable circumstances, for his figure was short and thick, and the marks of recent small-pox were still conspicuous. A young man, who played the violin, compared him to Æsop dancing; but Oliver, stopping short in the performance, immediately disabled his satirist with a sharp epigram:--
“Our herald hath proclaim’d this saying, See Æsop dancing, and his monkey playing.”
On the 11th of June, 1745, he was admitted a Sizar of Trinity College, Dublin--a fact which denoted a considerable proficiency in classical learning; but he was unfortunate in his tutor, who deserved, and has won, the title of “Savage;” and, perhaps, the promise of Oliver was blighted by his severity. He neglected his studies, and was seen “perpetually lounging about the college gates.” We find him elected, June 15th, 1747, to an Exhibition, on the foundation of Erasmus Smith, obtaining a premium at the Christmas examination, and, after a delay of two years, taking his Bachelor’s degree, February 27th, 1750. His father died in 1747, but he found a second parent in the Rev Thomas Contarine, who was descended from a noble ancestry in Venice, and had been a contemporary and friend of Berkeley. The relatives of the poet now advised him to “go into orders,” and yielding to the persuasion of Mr. Contarine, he presented himself before the Bishop of Elphin, and was rejected. Tradition ascribes the failure to his uncanonical costume, and the episcopal dislike of scarlet breeches.
His kind friends might now, as he afterwards wrote, be perfectly satisfied that he was undone; but they did not abandon him. He was enabled to proceed to Edinburgh, towards the end of 1752, where he attended the lectures of Monro and the other Medical Professors. Scotland did not please him. “Shall I tire you,” he wrote to a friend, “with a description of this unfruitful country, where I must lead you over their hills all brown with heath, or their valleys scarcely able to feed a rabbit? Man alone seems to be the only creature who has arrived to the natural size in this poor soil.”
His design of completing his studies at Leyden was nearly frustrated by an act of generous imprudence, from which two college friends set him free. From Leyden, in the April or May of 1754, he sent a letter to Mr. Contarine, containing an account of his journey, and some lively sketches of the “downright Hollander,” with lank hair, laced hat, no coat, and seven waistcoats, the lady with her portable stove, the lugubrious Harlequin, and the domestic interior, which reminded him of a magnificent Egyptian temple dedicated to an ox. He remained in Leyden nearly a year, deriving small benefit from the instruction of the Professors, who, with the exception of Gaubius, the teacher of Chemistry, were as indolent as himself. Meanwhile, the necessaries of life were costly, and the attractions of the gaming-table proved to be overpowering and ruinous. At length, having emptied his purse, and reduced his wardrobe to a single shirt, he boldly resolved to make the tour of Europe. This characteristic chapter of the Poet’s history is yet to be written, if his lost letters should ever be recovered. The interesting and copious narrative which he communicated to Dr. Radcliff is known to have been destroyed by fire.
He commenced his travels about February, 1755. “A good voice,” adopting his own account of an earlier adventurer, “and a trifling skill in music, were the only finances he had to support an undertaking so extensive.” Thus he journeyed, and at night sang at the doors of peasants’ houses, to get himself a lodging. Once or twice, he “attempted to play to people of fashion,” but they despised his performance, and never rewarded him even with a trifle. We are told by Bishop Percy, that he reached Padua, and visited all the northern parts of Italy, returning, on foot, through France, and landing at Dover, about the beginning of the war, in 1756. We may believe his own assurance, that he fought his way homewards, examining mankind with near eyes, and seeing both sides of the picture.
He appeared in London, without means or interest. England, he complained, was a country, where being born an Irishman was sufficient to keep a man unemployed. With much difficulty he obtained the situation of usher at a school. Johnson did not remember the occupation with a fiercer disgust; and the redolent French teacher, papering his curls at night, was a frequent spectre of his memory. A migration from the school-room to the chemist’s shop slightly improved his condition. Better days were coming. By the aid of an Edinburgh acquaintance, Dr. Sleigh, and other friends, he was “set up” as a practitioner at Bankside, Southwark, where, in his pleasant confession, he got plenty of patients, but no fees. A physician, Dr. Farr, who had known him in Scotland, thus describes his appearance:--“He called upon me one morning, before I was up, and, on entering the room, I recognized my old acquaintance, dressed in a rusty, full-trimmed black suit, with his pockets full of papers, which instantly reminded me of the poet in Garrick’s farce of ‘Lethe.’ On this occasion he read portions of a ‘Tragedy,’ and talked of a journey to decipher the inscriptions on the Written Mountains.” In later days, when writing an “Essay on the advantages to be derived from sending a judicious traveller into Asia,” Goldsmith professed to feel the difficulty of choosing a proper person for such an enterprise, and indicated the qualifications demanded:--“He should be a man of a philosophical turn, one apt to deduce consequences of general utility from particular occurrences--neither swollen with pride, nor hardened by prejudice--neither wedded to one particular system, nor instructed only in one particular science--neither wholly a botanist, nor wholly an antiquarian; his mind should be tinctured with miscellaneous knowledge, and his manners humanized by an intercourse with men. He should be, in some measure, an enthusiast to the design; fond of travelling, from a rapid imagination and an innate love of change; furnished with a body capable of sustaining every fatigue, and a heart not easily terrified at danger.”
With the year 1757, the prospects of Goldsmith brightened, and the papers which filled the pockets of the rusty black coat began to get abroad. He wrote several articles for the “Monthly Review,” translated the “Mémoires d’un Protestant,” and composed his “Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.” The object of the work was special. He had obtained the appointment of physician to a factory on the coast of Coromandel, and was providing funds for the voyage. A considerable sum was needed. The Company’s warrant cost ten pounds, and the passage and equipment required one hundred and thirty pounds in addition; but the emoluments were expected to be large. The salary was one hundred pounds; the average returns of the general practice amounted to a thousand; there was an opening for commercial enterprise, and invested money brought twenty per cent. These were flattering inducements; but time deadened their charm, and he shrank from so distant a banishment, and beginning life again at the age of thirty-one. Eight years of anxiety and trial had done their work on his face and temper. His picture of himself was most discouraging. He had “contracted a hesitating, disagreeable manner of speaking, and a visage that looked ill-nature itself.” Home news deepened his melancholy, for his mother was almost blind.
The “Enquiry” appeared, without the Author’s name, April, 1759--a small volume, price half-a-crown; and in the autumn of the same year, the commencement of a weekly paper, called “The Bee,” afforded him an opportunity of showing his skill as an Editor. His plan was to “rove from flower to flower, with seeming inattention, but concealed choice, expatiate over all the beauties of the season, and make his industry his amusement.” The “Bee” expired with its eighth number, but he was more successful in his next enterprise. To the “Public Ledger,” of which the first number appeared January 12th, 1760, Goldsmith contributed one hundred and twenty-three letters, which were afterwards collected as the “Citizen of the World.”
The last day of May, 1761, was memorable in his life, as witnessing the commencement of his intimacy with Johnson. His miscellaneous productions in 1762-4 included a “Life of Richard Nash, of Bath,” an “Introduction to Natural History,” an “Abridgment of Plutarch,” a “History of England,” and the “Traveller.” For the poem he received only twenty guineas, but the applause of its readers was loud and unanimous. “I was glad,” said Sir Joshua, “to hear Sir Charles Fox say it was one of the finest poems in the English language.” A fourth edition was required within eight months, and the Author lived to see the ninth. In 1764, he wrote the “Captivity,” for which the sum of ten guineas was paid by Dodsley.
Poetry kept him poor, and we still see him writing for bread in a garret, and expecting to be “dunned for a milk score.” However, he cleared and warmed the future with the hopefulness of his genial nature, and comforted himself by the recollection that while Addison wrote the “Campaign” in a third storey, he had only got to the second. Reckless improvidence multiplied his difficulties. “Those who knew him,” he told a correspondent, “knew his principles to differ from those of the rest of mankind, and while none regarded the interest of his friend more, none regarded his own less.”
Among his disappointments, at this period, are to be numbered an unsuccessful application for a Gresham Lectureship, and Garrick’s refusal of the “Good-Natured Man.” But Colman put the drama on the stage, January 29th, 1768, and the Professorship of Ancient History in the Royal Academy was agreeably bestowed. His “Roman History,” published in 1769, was received with favour; and in the May of 1770, the “Deserted Village” appeared.
In that year, Gray travelled through a part of England and South Wales, and Mr. Norton Nichols was with him at Malvern when he received the new poem, which he desired his friend to read to him. He listened with fixed attention, and soon exclaimed, “This man is a Poet.” In twelve days the poem was reprinted, and before the 5th of August the public admiration exhausted a fifth impression. His comedy, the “Mistakes of a Night” (represented March 15th, 1773), obtained a success, of its kind, not inferior. Johnson said that it answered the great end of a comedy--“making an audience merry.” For an impertinent letter in the “London Packet,” Goldsmith caned the editor; having found, was the remark of a friend, a new pleasure, for he believed that it was the “first time he had beat,” though “he may have been beaten before.”
I may add, that the Ballad of “Edwin and Angelina,” having been privately printed for the amusement of the Countess of Northumberland, was inserted in the “Vicar of Wakefield,” when that charming fiction first came out, March 27th, 1766, to delight the young by its adventures, and the old by its wisdom. For two years the manuscript had lain in the desk of the Publisher, until the fame of the “Traveller” encouraged him to send it to the press.
He was now engaged in the compilation of the “History of the Earth and Animated Nature,” for which he was to receive eight hundred guineas; and about this time, according to Percy, he wrote “the ‘Haunch of Venison,’ ‘Retaliation,’ and some other little sportive sallies, which were not printed until after his death.” Mr. Peter Cunningham[1] has, for the first time, related the true story of “Retaliation,” in the original words of Garrick:--A party of friends, at the St. James’s Coffee House, were diverting themselves with the peculiar oddities of Goldsmith, who insisted upon trying his epigrammatic powers with Garrick. Each was to write the other’s epitaph. Garrick immediately spoke the following lines:--
“Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness call’d Noll, Who wrote like an angel, and talk’d like poor Poll.”
The company laughed, and Goldsmith grew serious; he went to work, and some weeks after produced “Retaliation,” which was not written in anger, but with the utmost good humour.
His path seemed now to be winding out of gloom into the full sunlight,--but, of a sudden, there rose up in it the “Shadow feared of man.” He was busy with projects, and had prepared a “Prospectus of an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Science,” when a complaint, from which he had previously suffered, returned with extreme severity. His unskilful treatment of the disorder was aggravated by the agitation of his mind, and he gradually sank, until Monday, April 4th, 1774, when death released him, in the forty-sixth year of his age. His remains were interred in the burial-ground of the Temple; Nollekens carved his profile in marble, and Johnson wrote a Latin inscription for the monument, which was erected in the south transept of Westminster Abbey. The epitaph is thus given in English:--
OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH-- Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, and touched nothing that he did not adorn; of all the passions, whether smiles were to be moved, or tears, a powerful yet gentle master; in genius, sublime, lively, versatile; in style, elevated, clear, elegant-- the love of companions, the fidelity of friends, and the veneration of readers, have by this monument honoured the memory. He was born in Ireland, at a place called Pallas, [in the parish] of Forney, [and county] of Longford, On the 29th Nov., 1731;[2] educated at [the university of] Dublin; and died in London, 4th April, 1774.
Goldsmith, in the judgment of a friendly, but severe observer, always seemed to do best that which he was doing. Does he write History? He tells shortly, and with a pleasing simplicity of narrative, all that we want to know. Does he write Essays? He clothes familiar wisdom with an easy and elegant diction, of which the real difficulty is only known by those who seek to obtain it. Does he write the story of Animated Nature? He makes it “amusing as a Persian tale.” Does he write a Novel? Dr. Primrose sits in our chimney-corner to celebrate his biographer. Does he write Comedy? Laughter “holds both its sides” at the Incendiary Letter to “Muster Croaker.” Does he write Poetry? The big tears on the rugged face of Johnson bear witness to its tenderness, dignity, and truth. The naturalness of the Author pervaded the Man. Whose vanity was so transparent, and yet so harmless? He honestly believed himself qualified to explore Asia, and would have undertaken to read, at sight, the Manuscripts of Mount Athos. His tailor’s bill is a commentary on his life. But under the bloom-coloured coat beat the large heart of a kindly and generous nature, throwing up the spontaneous and abundant fruitfulness of charity to the needy, and sympathy with all. Thieves had only to plunder a stranger, to make him a neighbour. In reading Goldsmith, or reading of him, the touch of nature changes us into his kindred, and we do not more admire the Writer, than we love the Brother.
ST. CATHERINE’S, _September 15th, 1858_.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Miscellaneous Prose Works of Goldsmith, vol. i., p. 79.
[2] “The year of Dr. Goldsmith’s birth had been universally mistaken, till his family, some time after his death, furnished correct information of the circumstance.”--PERCY.
[Illustration: HERE LIES OLIVER GOLDSMITH]
[Illustration: CONTENTS]
PAGE
THE TRAVELLER 1
THE DESERTED VILLAGE 29
THE HERMIT 57
THE CAPTIVITY 67
THE HAUNCH OF VENISON 85
RETALIATION 91
THE DOUBLE TRANSFORMATION 99
THE GIFT TO IRIS 104
THE LOGICIANS REFUTED 105
AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG 108
THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS 110
A NEW SIMILE 122
ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH STRUCK BLIND BY LIGHTNING 125
STANZAS ON WOMAN 126
TRANSLATION FROM SCARRÒN 126
STANZAS ON THE TAKING OF QUEBEC 127
EPITAPH ON EDWARD PURDON 128
TRANSLATION OF A SOUTH AMERICAN ODE 128
EPITAPH ON THOMAS PARNELL 129
DESCRIPTION OF AN AUTHOR’S BED-CHAMBER 130
SONG, FROM THE COMEDY OF “SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER” 131
ANSWER TO AN INVITATION TO DINNER. 133
SONG, INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SUNG IN “SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER” 135
FROM THE LATIN OF VIDA 135
AN ELEGY ON MRS. MARY BLAIZE 136
ANSWER TO AN INVITATION TO PASS THE CHRISTMAS AT BARTON 138
ON SEEING A LADY PERFORM A CERTAIN CHARACTER 141
BIRDS 142
PROLOGUE WRITTEN AND SPOKEN BY THE POET LABERIUS 143
PROLOGUE TO “ZOBEIDE” 144
EPILOGUE TO “THE SISTER” 146
EPILOGUE INTENDED FOR “SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER” 148
ANOTHER INTENDED EPILOGUE 153
EPILOGUE TO “SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER” 155
EPILOGUE TO “THE GOOD-NATURED MAN” 157
ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. ---- 159
EPILOGUE WRITTEN FOR MR. CHARLES LEE LEWES 163
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATIONS]
ENGRAVED BY EDMUND EVANS,
FROM DRAWINGS BY BIRKET FOSTER.
MILL AT LISSOY (_Frontispiece_). PAGE GOLDSMITH’S TOMB IN THE TEMPLE CHURCHYARD xvii
THE TRAVELLER.
_Or where Campania’s plain forsaken lies_ 5
_Bless’d that abode, where want and pain repair_ 6
_Even now, where Alpine solitudes ascend_ 7
_Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale_ 8
_The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone_ 9
_Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave_ 10
_While oft some temple’s mouldering tops between_ 12
_In florid beauty groves and fields appear_ 13
_A mistress or a saint in every grove_ 14
_Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions tread_ 16
_With patient angle trolls the finny deep_ 17
_How often have I led thy sportive choir_ 18
_The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail_ 21
_There gentle music melts on every spray_ 24
_Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around_ 27
THE DESERTED VILLAGE.
_The never-failing brook, the busy mill_ 32
_The shelter’d cot, the cultivated farm_ 33
_And many a gambol frolick’d o’er the ground_ 34
_The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest_ 35
_Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew_ 37
_The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung_ 38
_And fill’d each pause the nightingale had made_ 39
_To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn_ 40
_The village preacher’s modest mansion rose_ 41
_Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride_ 42
_At church, with meek and unaffected grace_ 43
_Low lies that house, where nut-brown draughts inspir’d_ 45
_No more the farmer’s news, the barber’s tale_ 45
_Space for his lake, his park’s extended bounds_ 48
_Where the poor houseless, shivering female lies_ 50
_Her modest looks the cottage might adorn_ 51
_Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey_ 52
_The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green_ 53
_And left a lover’s for a father’s arms_ 54
_Downward they move, a melancholy band_ 56
THE HERMIT.
_Then turn, to-night, and freely share whate’er my cell bestows_ 58
_The hermit trimm’d his little fire, and cheer’d his pensive guest_ 61
_And when, beside me in the dale; he caroll’d lays of love_ 64
THE CAPTIVITY.
_Ye hills of Lebanon, with cedars crown’d_ 69
_Fierce is the tempest rolling along the furrow’d main_ 74
_As panting flies the hunted hind, where brooks refreshing stray_ 80
_O Babylon! how art thou fall’n_ 83
THE HAUNCH OF VENISON 90
THE DOUBLE TRANSFORMATION 102
AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG 109
THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS 116
ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH STRUCK BLIND BY LIGHTNING 125
SONG--“THE THREE PIGEONS” 130
BIRDS 142
EPILOGUE WRITTEN FOR MR. CHARLES LEE LEWES 162
_The Ornamental Illustrations designed by_ H. NOEL HUMPHREYS
[Illustration: THE TRAVELLER]
DEDICATION.
TO THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH.
DEAR SIR,
I am sensible that the friendship between us can acquire no new force from the ceremonies of a dedication; and perhaps it demands an excuse thus to prefix your name to my attempts, which you decline giving with your own. But as a part of this poem was formerly written to you from Switzerland, the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you. It will also throw a light upon many parts of it, when the reader understands that it is addressed to a man who, despising fame and fortune, has retired early to happiness and obscurity with an income of forty pounds a year.
I now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom of your humble choice. You have entered upon a sacred office, where the harvest is great, and the labourers are but few; while you have left the field of ambition, where the labourers are many, and the harvest not worth carrying away. But of all kinds of ambition--what from the refinement of the times, from different systems of criticism, and from the divisions of party--that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest.
Poetry makes a principal amusement among unpolished nations; but in a country verging to the extremes of refinement, Painting and Music come in for a share. As these offer the feeble mind a less laborious entertainment, they at first rival Poetry, and at length supplant her: they engross all that favour once shown to her; and, though but younger sisters, seize upon the elder’s birthright.
Yet, however this art may be neglected by the powerful, it is still in greater danger from the mistaken efforts of the learned to improve it. What criticisms have we not heard of late in favour of blank verse and pindaric odes, choruses, anapests, and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence! Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it; and as he is generally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say--for error is ever talkative.