No single brute his fellows leads.
Brutes never meet in bloody fray,
Nor cut each others' throats for pay.
Of beasts, it is confess'd, the ape
Comes nearest us in human shape:
Like man, he imitates each fashion,
And malice is his ruling passion :
But both in malice and grimaces,
A courtier any ape surpasses.
Behold him humbly cringing wait
Upon the minister of state:
View him soon after to inferiors
Aping the conduct of superiors:
He promises with equal air,
And to perform takes equal care.
He in his turn finds imitators ;
At court, the porters, lacqueys, waiters,
Their master's manners still contract,
And footmen lords and dukes can act.
Thus at the court, both great and small
Behave alike, for all ape all.

40

AMIDST the clamour of exulting joys,

Which triumph forces from the patriot heart, Grief dares to mingle her soul-piercing voice,

And quells the raptures which from pleasures start. O Wolfe!' to thee a streaming flood of woe,

Sighing we pay, and think e'en conquest dear; Quebec in vain shall teach our breast to glow,

Whilst thy sad fate extorts the heart-wrung tear.

45

50

55

[STANZAS]

ON THE TAKING OF QUEBEC,
[AND DEATH OF GENERAL WOLFE.]

[First published in the Busy Body,' Oct. 22, 1759, on receipt of the news of General Wolfe's victory and death (Sept. 13, 1759).-ED.]

1 Goldsmith claimed relationship with this gallant soldier, whose character he greatly admired, and whose death he thus laments in his

Alive, the foe thy dreadful vigour fled,

And saw thee fall with joy pronouncing eyes :
Yet they shall know thou conquerest, though dead!
Since from thy tomb a thousand heroes rise.

ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH,

STRUCK BLIND BY LIGHTNING.

Imitated from the Spanish.

[This seems to have been first printed in The Bee,' No. 1, 1759. -ED.] SURE 'twas by Providence design'd, Rather in pity than in hate, That he should be, like Cupid, blind, To save him from Narcissus' fate.

A SONNET.

[First printed in 'The Bee,' No. 3, 1759. Mr. Bolton Corney says it is an imitation from the French of Saint-Pavin.-Ed.]

WEEPING, murmuring, complaining,
Lost to every gay delight,
Myra, too sincere for feigning,
Fears th' approaching bridal night.
Yet, why this killing soft dejection,

Why dim thy beauty with a tear? 1
Had Myra follow'd my direction,
She long had wanted cause of fear.

'History of England' (first edition, 1771, v. iv., p. 400): "Perhaps the loss of the English that day was greater, than the conquest of Canada was advantageous. But it is the lot of mankind only to know true merit on that dreadful occasion when they are going to lose it."—B. Prior says Wolfe's mother was Henrietta Goldsmith, of Limerick.—ED.

1 We restore 'The Bee' text here. Most editions have in lieu of this couplet

"Yet why impair thy bright perfection,
Or dim, &c."

The change was made in the first collected edition of the Poems and Plays, that by Evans, 1780, and thence has been adopted by most of the succeeding editors, Percy included.—ED.

THE GIFT.

TO IRIS, IN BOW-STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

6

[First printed in 'The Bee,' 1759. It is an imitation of a French piece titled, Etrene a Iris,' and given by La Monnoye in the ' Ménagiana,' 1715, v. iii. p. 397.-ED.]

SAY, cruel Iris, pretty rake,
Dear mercenary beauty,
What annual offering shall I make
Expressive of my duty?

My heart, a victim to thine eyes,
Should I at once deliver,
Say, would the angry fair one prize
The gift, who slights the giver?

A bill, a jewel, watch, or toy,

My rivals give-and let 'em ;
If gems, or gold, impart a joy,

I'll give them—when I get 'em.

I'll give but not the full-blown rose,
Or rosebud more in fashion;

ach short-lived off'rings but disclose
A transitory passion.

I'll give thee something yet unpaid,
Not less sincere than civil,-

I'll give thee-ah! too charming maid!—
I'll give thee to the Devil!

5

10

15

20

AN ELEGY

ON THAT GLORY OF HER SEX,

MRS. MARY BLAIZE.

[First printed in The Bee,' 1759. See introductory note to 'Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog,' p. 89.-ED.]

Good people all, with one accord,
Lament for Madam Blaize,
Who never wanted a good word-
From those who spoke her praise.

The needy seldom pass'd her door,
And always found her kind;
She freely lent to all the poor—
Who left a pledge behind.

She strove the neighbourhood to please,
With manners wond'rous winning,
And never follow'd wicked ways—
Unless when she was sinning.

At church, in silks and satins new,
With hoop of monstrous size,
She never slumber'd in her pew-
But when she shut her eyes.

Her love was sought, I do aver,
By twenty beaux and more;
The king himself has follow'd her—
When she has walk'd before.

But now, her wealth and finery fled,
Her hangers-on cut short all;

The doctors found, when she was dead-
Her last disorder mortal.

Let us lament, in sorrow sore,

For Kent Street well may say,
That had she lived a twelvemonth more-
She had not died to-day.

DESCRIPTION

OF AN

AUTHOR'S BED-CHAMBER.

[1759-60. Goldsmith intended this for the commencement of a "heroicomic poem." After the description below, the hero of the piece, Scroggen, indulges in a soliloquy, which is interrupted by the entrance of the landlord, to dun him for his reckoning

"Not with that face, so servile and so gay,
That welcomes every stranger that can pay;
With sulky eye he smok'd the patient man,
Then pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began," &c.

Our author does not appear to have proceeded farther with his plan, which is to be regretted, as he would in all probability have made it a very humorous account of the shifts and adventures of a needy author.-B. The above, with the extra lines of the fragment, are gleaned from Goldsmith's letter to his brother Henry, 1759; see Letters, vol. i. The lines of our text following differ otherwise slightly from the version in the letter. As here given they are the same as Goldsmith gave them, a year later, in his Citizen of the World' (Letter XXX.), where, probably, they first appeared in print.—ED.]

WHERE the Red Lion, staring o'er the way,
Invites each passing stranger that can pay;
Where Calvert's butt, and Parson's black champagne,
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane :
There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,
The Muse found Scroggen stretch'd beneath a rug.
A window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray,
That dimly show'd the state in which he lay;
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread;
The humid wall, with paltry pictures spread;
The Royal Game of Goose was there in view,
And the Twelve Rules the Royal Martyr drew;1
The Seasons, fram'd with listing, found a place,
And brave Prince William show'd his lamp-black face."

1 See 'Deserted Village,' p. 39, and the note there.-ED.

2 Var. The version in the letter gives, "And Prussia's monarch show'd", &c. "Prince William" applied to Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, the hero of Culloden, who died in 1765.-ED.