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Title: The Poems of Oliver Goldsmith

Author: Oliver Goldsmith

Editor: Robert Aris Willmott

Illustrator: Birket Foster, H. N. Humphreys and Edmund Evans

Release Date: August 17, 2015 [EBook #49723]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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THE POEMS
OF
OLIVER GOLDSMITH

THE
POEMS
OF
OLIVER GOLDSMITH

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.

LONDON AND NEW YORK
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS.
1877.

EDMUND EVANS
ENGRAVER & PRINTER

ix

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 thex violin, compared him to Æsop dancing; but Oliver, stopping short in the performance, immediately disabled his satirist with a sharp epigram:—

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 Mayxi 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 frequentxii 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. Axiii 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. Inxiv 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 ofxv 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 Cunningham1 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:—

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,xvi 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 Johnsonxvii 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.

HERE LIES OLIVER GOLDSMITH

xviii

CONTENTS

xx

ILLUSTRATIONS

ENGRAVED BY EDMUND EVANS,
FROM DRAWINGS BY BIRKET FOSTER.

The Ornamental Illustrations designed by H. Noel Humphreys1

3

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. What4 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.

But there is an enemy to this art still more dangerous; I mean party. Party entirely distorts the judgment and destroys the taste. When the mind is once infected with this disease, it can only find pleasure in what contributes to increase the distemper. Like the tiger, that seldom desists from pursuing man after having once preyed upon human flesh, the reader who has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes ever after the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers generally admire some half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the name of poet: his tawdry lampoons are called satires; his turbulence is said to be force, and his frenzy fire.

What reception a poem may find, which has neither abuse, party, nor blank verse to support it, I cannot tell; nor am I solicitous to know. My aims are right. Without espousing the cause of any party, I have attempted to moderate the rage of all. I have endeavoured to show that there may be equal happiness in states that are differently governed from our own; that every state has a particular principle of happiness; and that this principle in each may be carried to a mischievous excess. There are few can judge better than yourself how far these positions are illustrated in this poem.

I am, dear Sir,
Your most affectionate brother,
Oliver Goldsmith.

5

THE TRAVELLER

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow—

Or by the lazy Scheldt, or wandering Po,
Or onward where the rude Carinthian boor
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door,
6 Or where Campania’s plain forsaken lies,
A weary waste expanding to the skies—
Where’er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart, untravell’d, fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.
Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend:
Bless’d be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire;
Bless’d that abode, where want and pain repair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair;
Bless’d be those feasts, with simple plenty crown’d,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,
Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good.

7

27

29

THE DESERTED VILLAGE

30

DEDICATION.
TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

Dear Sir,

I can have no expectation, in an address of this kind, either to add to your reputation or to establish my own. You can gain nothing from my admiration, as I am ignorant of that art in which you are said to excel; and I may lose much by the severity of your judgment, as few have a juster taste in poetry than you. Setting interest therefore aside, to which I never paid much attention, I must be indulged at present in following my affections. The only dedication I ever made was to my brother, because I loved him better than most other men. He is since dead. Permit me to inscribe this poem to you.

How far you may be pleased with the versification and mere mechanical parts of this attempt, I do not pretend to inquire: but I know you will object—and indeed several of our best and wisest friends concur in the opinion—that the depopulation it deplores is nowhere to be seen, and the disorders it laments are only to be found in the poet’s own imagination. To this I can scarce make any other answer, than that I sincerely believe what I have written; that I have taken all possible pains in my country excursions, for these four or five years past, to be certain of what I allege; and that all my views and inquiries have led me to believe those miseries real, which I here attempt to display. But this is not the place to enter into an inquiry, whether the country be depopulating or not; the discussion would take up much room, and I should prove myself, at best, but an indifferent politician to tire the reader with a long preface, when I want his unfatigued attention to a long poem.

31 In regretting the depopulation of the country, I inveigh against the increase of our luxuries; and here also I expect the shout of modern politicians against me. For twenty or thirty years past, it has been the fashion to consider luxury as one of the greatest national advantages, and all the wisdom of antiquity, in that particular, as erroneous. Still, however, I must remain a professed ancient on that head, and continue to think those luxuries prejudicial to states, by which so many vices are introduced, and so many kingdoms have been undone. Indeed, so much has been poured out of late on the other side of the question, that, merely for the sake of novelty and variety, one would sometimes wish to be in the right.

I am, dear Sir,
Your sincere friend and ardent admirer,
Oliver Goldsmith.

32

THE DESERTED VILLAGE

Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,

Where health and plenty cheer’d the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer’s lingering blooms delay’d—
33 Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please—
How often have I loiter’d o’er thy green,
Where humble happiness endear’d each scene;
How often have I paus’d on every charm—
The shelter’d cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church that topp’d the neighbouring hill,
The hawthorn-bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made;
How often have I bless’d the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labour free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree—
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old survey’d,
34 And many a gambol frolick’d o’er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round:
And still, as each repeated pleasure tir’d,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspir’d—
The dancing pair, that simply sought renown
By holding out to tire each other down,
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter titter’d round the place,
The bashful virgin’s side-long looks of love,
The matron’s glance that would those looks reprove.
These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught even toil to please;
35 These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms—but all these charms are fled.

36

45

53

56

57

THE HERMIT
A BALLAD

[A correspondent of the St. James’s Chronicle having accused Goldsmith of imitating a ballad by Percy, he addressed the following letter to the Editor. In a later edition of the “Reliques,” Percy vindicated his friend from the charge, and said, “If there is any imitation in the case, they will be found both to be indebted to the beautiful old ballad, ‘Gentle Herdsman,’ which the Doctor had much admired in manuscript, and has finely improved.”

Sir,—A correspondent of yours accuses me of having taken a ballad, I published some time ago, from one (the “Friar of Orders Gray”) by the ingenious Mr. Percy. I do not think there is any great resemblance between the two pieces in question. If there be any, his ballad is taken from mine. I read it to Mr. Percy, some years ago; and he (as we both considered these things as trifles at best) told me, with his usual good humour, the next time I saw him, that he had taken my plan to form the fragments of Shakspere into a ballad of his own. He then read me his little cento, if I may so call it, and I highly approved it. Such petty anecdotes as these are scarce worth printing; and, were it not for the busy disposition of some of your correspondents, the public should never have known that he owes me the hint of his ballad, or that I am obliged to his friendship and learning for communications of a much more important nature.

I am, Sir, yours, &c.
Oliver Goldsmith.]

58

61

67

THE CAPTIVITY

AN ORATORIO.

THE PERSONS.

Scene.—The Banks of the River Euphrates, near Babylon.

ACT THE FIRST.

69

73

ACT THE SECOND.

75

ACT THE THIRD.

Scene, as before.

81

83

85

THE HAUNCH OF VENISON
AN EPISTLE TO LORD CLARE.

91

RETALIATION

97

POSTSCRIPT

99

THE DOUBLE TRANSFORMATION
A TALE

Secluded from domestic strife,
Jack Book-Worm led a college life;
A fellowship at twenty-five
Made him the happiest man alive;
He drank his glass, and crack’d his joke,
And freshmen wonder’d as he spoke.

Such pleasures, unalloy’d with care,
Could any accident impair?
Could Cupid’s shaft at length transfix
Our swain, arriv’d at thirty-six?
Oh! had the Archer ne’er come down
To ravage in a country town;
100 Or Flavia been content to stop
At triumphs in a Fleet Street shop!
Oh! had her eyes forgot to blaze!
Or Jack had wanted eyes to gaze.
Oh!—but let exclamation cease;
Her presence banish’d all his peace!
So, with decorum all things carried,
Miss frown’d, and blush’d, and then was—married.

The honey-moon like lightning flew;
The second brought its transports, too;
A third, a fourth, were not amiss;
The fifth was friendship mix’d with bliss:
But when a twelvemonth pass’d away,
Jack found his goddess made of clay—
Found half the charms that deck’d her face
Arose from powder, shreds, or lace;
But still the worst remain’d behind—
That very face had robb’d her mind.

Skill’d in no other arts was she,
But dressing, patching, repartee;
And, just as humour rose or fell,
By turns a slattern or a belle.
’Tis true she dress’d with modern grace—
Half naked at a ball or race;
But when at home, at board or bed,
Five greasy night-caps wrapp’d her head.
Could so much beauty condescend
To be a dull domestic friend?
101 Could any curtain-lectures bring
To decency so fine thing?
In short—by night, ’twas fits or fretting;
By day, ’twas gadding or coquetting.
Fond to be seen, she kept a bevy
Of powder’d coxcombs at her levee;
The ’squire and captain took their stations,
And twenty other near relations.
Jack suck’d his pipe, and often broke
A sigh in suffocating smoke;
While all their hours were pass’d between
Insulting repartee or spleen.

Thus, as her faults each day were known,
He thinks her features coarser grown:
He fancies every vice she shows
Or thins her lip, or points her nose;
102 Whenever rage or envy rise,
How wide her mouth, how wild her eyes!
He knows not how, but so it is,
Her face is grown a knowing phiz—
And, though her fops are wondrous civil,
He thinks her ugly as the devil.
Now, to perplex the ravell’d noose,
As each a different way pursues—
While sullen or loquacious strife
Promis’d to hold them on for life—
That dire disease, whose ruthless power
Withers the beauty’s transient flower,
Lo! the small-pox, whose horrid glare
Levell’d its terrors at the fair;
And, rifling every youthful grace,
Left but the remnant of a face.

The glass, grown hateful to her sight,
Reflected now a—perfect fright.
Each former art she vainly tries,
To bring back lustre to her eyes;
In vain she tries her pastes and creams,
To smooth her skin, or hide its seams:
Her country beaux and city cousins,
Lovers no more, flew off by dozens;
The ’squire himself was seen to yield,
And even the captain quit the field.

Poor madam, now condemn’d to hack
The rest of life with anxious Jack,
103 Perceiving others fairly flown,
Attempted pleasing him alone.
Jack soon was dazzled to behold
Her present face surpass the old.
With modesty her cheeks are dy’d;
Humility displaces pride:
For tawdry finery is seen,
A person ever neatly clean:
No more presuming on her sway,
She learns good-nature every day:
Serenely gay, and strict in duty,
Jack finds his wife a—perfect beauty.

104

THE GIFT TO IRIS

IN BOW STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

105

THE LOGICIANS REFUTED

IN IMITATION OF DEAN SWIFT.

108

AN ELEGY
ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG.37

109

110

THRENODIA AUGUSTALIS

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF HER LATE ROYAL HIGHNESS,
THE PRINCESS DOWAGER OF WALES.38

PART I.

Overture.—A solemn dirge.

116

PART II.

Overture.—Pastorale.

122

A NEW SIMILE

IN THE MANNER OF SWIFT.

125

ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH
STRUCK BLIND BY LIGHTNING

126

STANZAS ON WOMAN

TRANSLATION
FROM SCARRÒN.

127

STANZAS
ON THE TAKING OF QUEBEC

SEPTEMBER 13, 1759.

128

EPITAPH
ON EDWARD PURDON.42

TRANSLATION
OF A SOUTH AMERICAN ODE.

129

EPITAPH
ON THOMAS PARNELL.

130

DESCRIPTION
OF AN AUTHOR’S BED-CHAMBER.

131

SONG
FROM THE COMEDY OF “SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.”

Scene.—A Room in the Alehouse, “The Three Pigeons.”

132

133

ANSWER
TO AN INVITATION TO DINNER.

“This is a poem! This is a copy of verses!”

Oliver Goldsmith.

135

A SONG

[Intended to have been sung in the comedy of “She Stoops to Conquer.” Adapted to the Irish air, “The Humours of Ballamaguiry.”]

Ah, me! when shall I marry me?
Lovers are plenty, but fail to relieve me;
He, fond youth, that could carry me,
Offers to love, but means to deceive me.

But I will rally, and combat the ruiner:
Not a look, not a smile, shall my passion discover;
She that gives all to the false one pursuing her,
Makes but a penitent—loses a lover.

FROM THE LATIN
OF VIDA.

136

AN ELEGY
ON THAT GLORY OF HER SEX, MRS. MARY BLAIZE.

138

ANSWER
TO AN INVITATION TO PASS THE CHRISTMAS AT BARTON.48

“There’s the parish of Edmonton offers forty pounds—there’s the parish of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, offers forty pounds—there’s the parish of Tyburn offers forty pounds: I shall have all that, if I convict them.”

I challenge you all to answer this. I tell you, you cannot: it cuts deep. But now for the rest of the letter: and next—but I want room—so I believe I shall battle the rest out at Barton some day next week. I don’t value you all!

O. G.

141

ON SEEING A LADY
PERFORM A CERTAIN CHARACTER.

142

BIRDS

143

A PROLOGUE
WRITTEN AND SPOKEN BY THE POET LABERIUS, A ROMAN KNIGHT.

From the Latin, preserved by Macrobius.

144

PROLOGUE
TO “ZOBEIDE,” A TRAGEDY.50

Spoken by Mr. Quick.

146

EPILOGUE
TO “THE SISTER,” A COMEDY.53

Spoken by Mrs. Bulkley.

148

EPILOGUE
INTENDED FOR “SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.”

Enter Mrs. Bulkley, who curtsies very low, as beginning to speak; then enter Miss Catley, who stands full before her, and curtsies to the Audience.

153

ANOTHER INTENDED
EPILOGUE

To be spoken by Mrs. Bulkley.