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though it is of some importance, since he made slight alterations in most of his works after their first publication, and in the case of 'The Traveller' may be said almost to have re-written a great part of it. He thus belongs to the authors whose first editions are of interest to collectors for their differences from the final text, while editors have only to determine which is the earliest edition which received his final corrections. It is pleasant to note that in the case of Goldsmith these questions seem to have been settled, or to have settled themselves, from the first, quite correctly, and that passing this edition through the press has involved no more serious task than that of correcting a few errors of the press, such as inevitably creep in when one edition is printed from another without reference to the original.

Taking the chief works here printed in the order of their publication, The Traveller was first published by J. Newbery in December 1764, bearing the date of the succeeding year. It was priced at "One Shilling and Six Pence," and Goldsmith received twenty guineas for it on publication, and perhaps another twenty when it proved a success. The text here printed is taken from the sixth edition published in 1770 (four had appeared in 1765 and a fifth in 1768) which contains Goldsmith's last additions and corrections. These affect every page of the poem, varying from trivial changes to the substitution of eighteen new lines (pp. 350 sq. 'Ye powers of truth' 'approaching danger warns') for the one

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vigorous couplet

'Perish the wish, for, inly satisfied,

Above their pomps I hold my ragged pride'

which the poet in his more prosperous days not unreason

ably wished to alter.

With the Vicar of Wakefield, the bibliographer reaches the one gleam of personal interest which he can connect with the publication of Goldsmith's works. Every one knows the story told in varying forms by Mrs. Piozzi, Hawkins, and Boswell, of Goldsmith's arrest by his landlady for arrears of rent, of Johnson's intervention, the sale by him of the copyright of The Vicar of Wakefield for sixty pounds or guineas, and his triumphant return with at least money enough to enable Goldsmith to pay his rent and scold his landlady. Mr. Austin Dobson (who has made the whole literature of the 18th century so much his province that it is impossible to touch any point in it without acknowledging obligations to him) has fairly harmonized these discrepant accounts, not only with each other, but with the discovery by Mr. Charles Welsh of the sale by Goldsmith of a third share in the Vicar to B. Collins of Salisbury as early as October 1762, for the sum of twenty guineas. The book did not appear till 1766 (after the success of The Traveller), when it was printed by Collins for Newbery; internal evidence shows that it was begun in 1762, but not completed till a later date, and it is evident that Johnson must have sold the work in an unfinished state, probably only obtaining an advance on it at the time of Goldsmith's trouble. The book was published in March 1766, in two volumes, "price six shillings bound or five shillings sewed," and was reprinted in May and again in August. A few readers will be interested to know that the sixty pounds. or sixty guineas which Goldsmith received for the copyright are the commonest prices for an average copy of the first edition in the original calf to fetch at auction. Our text is taken from that of the fifth edition, dated 1773, but not issued till April of the following year.

Goldsmith's first comedy, 'The Good-Natured Man,' was acted for ten nights at Covent Garden in the early months of 1768, and was published by W. Griffin (price Is. 6d.) in the same year, the author obtaining between three and four hundred pounds from the theatre and another hundred for the copyright. Our text is taken from the fifth edition, printed the same year, which contains a few slight corrections, not very carefully made.1

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The Good-Natured Man' was followed in 1770 by The Deserted Village,' published by W. Griffin, with an engraving by Isaac Taylor on the titlepage, at the price of two shillings. Six similar editions were quickly called for; the text here printed follows the last of these, published by Griffin in 1772. Much more carefully written than The Traveller,' this later poem required, and received, far less revision. The most important change in the text which I have noted is the substitution of silent' for 'decent' as the epithet for the 'manliness of grief.'

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Goldsmith's last great work, She Stoops to Conquer,' was produced at Covent Garden in March, 1773, and ran for twelve nights, the profit to the author being stated at

1 When Leontine is comforting Olivia, in the first act, he tells her the world can only say "that you formed a resolution of flying with the man of your choice; that you confided in his honour, and took refuge in this house; the only one where yours could remain without censure." Even here the reference of yours' rests on the reader's good nature, but when "this house" was altered to "my father's house" (the conversation takes place at Honeywood's), good nature is overtaxed. 'Yours' in the new edition, by all the rules of syntax, should refer, not to Leontine's honour but to her father.

All these are handsome quartos. Mr. Luther S. Livingston has lately pointed out the existence of some early octavo editions, probably piratical.

between four and five hundred pounds. It ran through five editions in 1773, all printed for Newbery (price Is. 6d.). I have noticed no variations between these, and think that the type must have been kept standing.

'Retaliation' and 'The Haunch of Venison' were both published posthumously, in 1774 and 1776 respectively, and are here printed in each case from the later editions of these years, which contain corrections. The smaller poems follow the received text, checked with the editions which appeared to have the best authority.

ALFRED W. POLLARD.

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