AIR.-A bonny young lad is my Jockey. I'll sing to amuse you by night and by day, With Sandy, and Sawney, and Jockey, With Sawney, and Jarvie, and Jockey. Mrs. B. Ye gamesters, who, so eager in pursuit, "My Lord, your Lordship misconceives the case;" Assist my cause with hands and voices hearty, AIR.-Ballinamony. Miss C. Ye brave Irish lads, hark away to the crack, Assist me, I pray, in this woful attack; For sure I don't wrong you-you seldom are slack, Still to amuse us inventive, And death is your only preventive : Your hands and your voices for me. Mrs. B. Well, Madam, what if, after all this sparring, We both agree, like friends, to end our jarring? Miss C. And that our friendship may remain unbroken, What if we leave the Epilogue unspoken? Mrs. B. Agreed. Miss C. Agreed. Mrs. B. And now with late repentance, Un-epilogued the Poet waits his sentence. Condemn the stubborn fool who can't submit To thrive by flattery, though he starves by wit. [Exeunt. AN EPILOGUE, INTENDED FOR MRS. BULKLEY. [This epilogue was first printed in Percy's edition, 1801. The editor added, in a note, that the MS. was given to him by Goldsmith, but that he, Percy, had forgotten to which comedy it belonged. Later editors. however, have viewed it as being one of the several unused epilogues written for She Stoops to Conquer,' of which Goldsmith has himself given the history in the letter quoted in the introduction to the preceding epilogue. Mr. Bolton Corney thought it was the one which Goldsmith says Colman judged as "too bad to be spoken.”—ED.] THERE is a place-so Ariosto sings A treasury for lost and missing things; Both shine at night, for, but at Foote's1 alone, 5 10 15 20 1 "Foote's" was "the little theatre in the Haymarket," where morning performances were sometimes given.-ED. 2 A popular air of the time; also the name of a famous hornpipe dancer.-ED. Comes here to saunter, having made his bets, 2 Still stoops among the low to copy Nature. 25 30 35 40 EPILOGUE, SPOKEN BY MR. LEE LEWES, IN THE CHARACTER OF HARLEQUIN, AT HIS BENEFIT. [The "benefit" took place at Covent Garden Theatre, May 7, 1773. Charles Lee Lewes, though famous as harlequin, was not a comedian of standing till, through the lucky refusal of the part by Smith, he became the original Young Marlow in 'She Stoops to Conquer.'-ED.] HOLD! Prompter, hold! a word before your nonsense : I'd speak a word or two, to ease my conscience. My pride forbids it ever should be said My heels eclips'd the honours of my head; London bully.-ED. 2 In this allusion to sentimental queens, it is probable that Goldsmith glanced in particular at Mr. Murphy's tragedy of 'Zenobia,' though his splenetic attack is directed generally against the comedy which was brought into fashion about this time by the great popularity of Kelly's "False Delicacy,' and effectually exploded some years after by Foote's clever satire of Piety in Pattens.'-B. That I found humour in a pye-bald vest, 5 10 15 Or ever thought that jumping was a jest. [Takes off his mask. 20 Ay, 'twas but a dream, for now there's no retreating, 25 If I cease Harlequin, I cease from eating. 'Twas thus that Æsop's stag, a creature blameless, Yet something vain, like one that shall be nameless, Once on the margin of a fountain stood, And cavill'd at his image in the flood: 30 “The deuce confound," he cries, "these drumstick shanks They never have my gratitude nor thanks; They're perfectly disgraceful! strike me dead! But for a head, yes, yes, I have a head : How piercing is that eye! how sleek that brow! 35 My horns! I'm told horns are the fashion now." Whilst thus he spoke, astonish'd, to his view, He quits the woods, and tries the beaten ways; 1 Rosin'd lightning stage lightning.-BOLTON CORNEY. 40 He starts, he pants, he takes the circling maze : 45 [Taking a jump through the stage door. VIDA'S GAME OF CHESS, AS IT HAS BEEN FOUND TRANSCRIBED IN THE HANDWRITING OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH. [The MS. of the following translation in the handwriting of Goldsmith was one of the literary treasures of Mr. Bolton Corney, and the publishers have to thank him for permission to reprint it. Mr. Corney did not become possessed of it until after he had published his own edition of the Poems, and he first gave printed publicity to this before quite unknown work through Mr. Cunningham's edition, 1854. Mr. Forster, to whom Mr. B. Corney also lent the MS., concurs in believing it to be the work of Goldsmith. He describes the MS. as follows ('Life of Goldsmith,' 1854, v. ii., p. 265):-"It is a small quarto manuscript of thirty-four pages, containing 679 lines, to which a fly-leaf is appended, in which Goldsmith notes the differences of nomenclature between Vida's chessmen and our own. It has occasional interlineations and corrections, but rather such as would occur in transcription, than in a first or original copy. Sometimes, indeed, choice appears to have been made between two words equally suitable to the sense and verse, as 'to' for 'toward;' but the insertions and erasures refer almost wholly to words or lines accidentally omitted and replaced." From the evidences of extra care which the MS. discloses, as well as from the apparent effort at "taking up" (as Mr. Forster says) "the manner of the great master of translation, Dryden," the work may be viewed as belonging to the middle-period of Goldsmith's career, that is, to the time immediately subsequent to the publication of the Traveller,' 1765. Marco Vida (b. about 1480; d. 1567), the Italian poet whom Clement VII. made Bishop of Alba, was but little known in England till Alexander Pope praised his work in his juvenile Essay on Criticism' (1709), thus: "Immortal Vida! on whose honoured brow The poet's bays and critic's ivy grow: Essay on Criticism, 11. 705-8. |