Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy!
Sure these denote one universal joy!

Are these thy serious thoughts?-Ah! turn thine eyes
Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.
She once, perhaps, in village plenty blessed,
Has wept at tales of innocence distressed;
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;
Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head,

And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the shower,
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
When idly first, ambitious of the town,

She left her wheel and robes of country brown..

Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest train,
Do thy fair tribes participate her pain?
E'en now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led,
At proud men's doors they ask a little bread.

Ah, no! To distant climes, a dreary scene,
Where half the convex world intrudes between,
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.

Far different there from all that charmed before,
The various terrors of that horrid shore;
Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,
And fiercely shed intolerable day;

Those matted woods where birds forget to sing;
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling;

Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned,
Where the dark scorpion gathers death around;
Where at each step the stranger fears to wake
The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake;
Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,
And savage men more murderous still than they;
While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,

Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.
Far different these from every former scene,
The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green,
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,
That only sheltered thefts of harmless love.

Good Heaven! what sorrows gloomed that parting day,
That called them from their native walks away;
When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,

Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last,
And took a long farewell, and wished in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main,
And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.
The good old sire the first prepared to go
To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe;
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
He only wished for worlds beyond the grave.
His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears,
The fond companion of his helpless years,
Silent went next, neglectful of her charms,
And left a lover's for a father's arms.

With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
And blessed the cot where every pleasure rose,

And kissed her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear,
Whilst her fond husband strove to lend relief
In all the silent manliness of grief.

O luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree,

How ill-exchanged are things like these for thee!
How do thy potions, with insidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy!

Kingdoms, by thee to sickly greatness grown,
Boast of a florid vigour not their own.

At every draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mass of rank unwieldy woe;

Till, sapped their strength, and every part unsound,
Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round.

30

35

Even now the devastation is begun,

And half the business of destruction done;
Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
I see the rural virtues leave the land.

Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail
That idly waiting flaps with every gale,
Downward they move, a melancholy band,
Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand.
Contented toil, and hospitable care,

And kind connubial tenderness are there;
And piety with wishes placed above,
And steady loyalty, and faithful love.
And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade;
Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame,
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame:
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe,
Thou found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so;
Thou guide, by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!
Farewell; and oh! where'er thy voice be tried,
On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side,
Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of the inclement clime;
Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain;
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him, that states of native strength possessed,
Though very poor, may still be very blest;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.

NOTES

PREFACE

p. 4, 1. 15. Tu se' lo mio maestro, etc. "Thou art my master

and my author; thou alone art he from whom I took the fair style that hath done me honor." - DANTE, Inferno, Canto I. Norton's

translation.

CHAPTER I

p. 6, 1. 26. Curacy. In the Church of England a curate is an assistant to the rector. Rev. Charles Goldsmith was assistant to his wife's uncle, who lived at Kilkenny West.

p. 7, 1. 15. He succeeded to the rectory. Most of the country parishes of the Church of England, and many city parishes as well, have rented lands or other interest-bearing property. The income goes to the rector for his support and for the care of the church. In such a case the rector is said to hold a living in the church. Some of these livings formerly, and perhaps a few even yet, might be handed down by a law of inheritance.

p. 7, 1. 16. p. 7, 1. 33. of the World.

Lissoy. Village near Kilkenny West.

Man in Black. A character in Goldsmith's Citizen

p. 9, 1. 17. Hornbook. A primer or first reading book, so called because it was bound with horn covers.

p. 9, 1. 28. Wars of Queen Anne's time. The great war of Queen Anne's time was the War of the Spanish Succession, in which England, Germany, and the protestant countries of Europe were allied against France and Spain.

p. 11, 1. 4. Sibylline leaves. The Sibylline books were documents in the time of ancient Rome written in verse and supposed to have been given by one of the Sibyls or prophetesses to the king of Rome and to contain a prophecy of the Roman Empire.

p. 12, 1. 9. Bishop Berkeley. An Irish philosopher of considerable reputation, born 1685, died 1753.

p. 13, l. 16. Shakspeare and his deer-stealing colleagues. A doubtful tradition relates that Shakespeare was prosecuted for stealing deer from the game preserve of Sir Thomas Lucy.

CHAPTER II

p. 16, 1. 7. June, 1745. Austin Dobson in his Life of Goldsmith shows that this date is an error. Oliver entered Trinity, June 11, 1744, when he was less than sixteen years old.

1. 9. Pensioner. There were several classes of students at Trinity. The pensioner was in the class above the sizer and paid for his board and other expenses.

p. 16, l. 14. Window-frame. Dobson says that the windowpane with Goldsmith's name scratched upon it has been removed to the manuscript room of the college, where it may still be seen. p. 18, 1. 3. A lad. Quoted from Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning in Europe, Chap. IX.

p. 18, 1. 37. Edmund Burke. An Irishman, 1729-1797, who became a member of the English Parliament and a powerful advocate for America in the struggle that preceded the American Revolution.

p. 19, l. 15. Catch-pole (catch-poll). A bailiff's assistant.

p. 21, 1. 28. O. S. stands for old style. In 1751 the calendar was changed in England by act of Parliament so that eleven days were dropped; i.e. the 3d of September, 1752, was declared by Parliament to be the 14th.

p. 25, 1. 4. Tony Lumpkin and his associates. These are characters in Goldsmith's play She Stoops to Conquer.