and may read this, he would do better to acknowledge his imitation, than take to himself the silent enjoyment of an honour not his due -perhaps an honour unsought and unapproved.

6

"As I would wish this point should be determined upon principles of taste and judgment, (for the assertion of an anonymous correspondent, that other proof could be obtained, cannot be supposed to have much weight,) it may be observed, that the title of Raymond and Angelina' does as well for an English as a French poem; but as Edwin and Angelina' would not be so well in French, the translator rejected the original title and adopted another. Let it also be remembered that the French were once in the habit of making popular English poems of this kind their own. Old Robin Grey was translated by Florian; to whom, from mere circumstances, I should attribute the poem in question but I may be mistaken, and, as is above mentioned, the author may be living to own his agreeable imitation, which I should be glad to see without the faults that at present disguise it.*

"My zeal for the honour of an original English poet has occasioned the above remarks, which I have purposely contracted, out of a proper regard to your limits for insertion."

To this letter the Reviewers append the following note:

"Begging our correspondent's pardon, we did not consider the French poem as really the original of Goldsmith's Edwin and Angelina. The parenthesis, (" barely possible,") in our observation, pointed obliquely another way; and perhaps our delicacy has occasioned our being misunderstood: but we did apprehend that we had sufficiently manifested our scepticism, without presuming to decide on a point which required more examination than we had leisure to afford to the subject. On the whole, our ideas and those of our correspondent seem to be nearly the same. We shall be happy to hear again from him, on any future occasion."

With this the controversy seems to have rested for some time, till it was revived in the European Magazine for April, 1812, in the following letter, the writer of which had probably never seen the papers in the Monthly Review, as he quotes the French ballad, without any reference to the Quiz, the Review, or the work of M. Leonard, from a volume called Tales of Other Realms. Besides, his edition slightly differs from that given in the Review.

"TO THE EDITOR OF THE EUROPEAN MAGAZINE.

"SIR, -Much has been said lately on the claim of Dr Goldsmith and of Dr Percy to the original merit of their respective poems, the Hermit and the Friar of Orders Grey.

*The writer probably alludes to the numerous blunders in spelling which the Reviewers omitted to correct when they reprinted the poem.-B.

"When Dr Goldsmith was collecting materials for his Traveller, he, most probably, met with the ballad that gave birth to his Hermit, - Raimond et Angeline, of which it is a fine translation, and not an original poem, nor an imitation of Mr Percy's Friar of Orders Grey. "This original, of higher antiquity by a century than its translation, may be seen at length in a volume of travels, denominated by its author Tales of other Realms, and which, by accident, fell into my hands this morning: the prototype was manifest to me on the first reading; although the author of the book which contains it, did not seem aware, when he gave it to the public, that it should have any other claim to notice than its intrinsic beauty.

"It were desirable that you would give it a place in your pages, together with a free translation, stanza by stanza, that the public might be enabled to judge of its being the true parent of the Hermit. And I am, sir, your obedient servant, AN IDLER." "BATH, March 3, 1812."

This letter was answered rather angrily, by another Idler, in the number for May of the same Magazine, who reprinted a former note by him, which appeared in the Monthly Review for 1798. With this letter, which appears to be sufficiently conclusive on the subject, we close this curious controversy.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE EUROPEAN MAGAZINE.

"SIR, I must confess I was not a little offended at the letter signed 'An Idler,' inserted in your last Magazine. The writer has, indeed, written a letter in character, for it is a very idle one. I regret my language is not more urbane; but when you come to the close of this letter, I flatter myself you will perceive it is not improper. If the productions of deceased authors are to be liable to be accused of plagiarism, on weak surmises and false statements, it would be difficult to mark where this evil is to end.

"The Idler' sets off by informing us, that Dr Goldsmith's popular ballad of Edwin and Angelina is not an original poem, but a fine imitation; that the original is of higher antiquity by a century than its translation;' and that this original may be seen at length in a volume of travels, denominated by its author, Tales of other Realms,' which The Idler' has transcribed for you. With these travels I am unacquainted; I imagine this book to be some modern publicationhowever, with the writer of those travels I have no quarrel; for, though he gives the poem in question, we are told he raises no accusation against Goldsmith.

"In the year 1798, I had to perform the duty I am now doing to the manes of Goldsmith. A certain publication, entitled The Quiz, by a Society of Gentlemen, Vol. I.' for the world was fortunately deprived of a second, presented us with the same poem, but in a manner which evidently betrayed a purposed design to deceive the world, and to injure our favourite poet; for the Quiz told us, that it was taken from an old and scarce French novel, entitled Les deux Habitans de

Lausanne.' On this subject I addressed a note to the Monthly Review, which may be found in the Review for July, 1798, and which I will now transcribe, as The Idler' may be answered as the Quiz has been, and retreat from the field in silence,

"In the Review for September 1797, p. 113, in the critique on a publication entitled the Quiz, given a French poem, which the writers have ventured to tell the public is taken from an old and scarce French novel,' and which, they have the effrontery to add, is the original of Goldsmith's charming ballad. The title which they give to the work is, Les deux Habitans de Lausanne.

"For the honour of Goldsmith, and the love of truth, I beg leave to inform you, that the poem, literally as those writers have given it, is to be found in so modern a book as Lettres de deux Amans, Habitans de Lyon, by M. Leonard, 1792. Their accusation of Goldsmith being, probably, the only part of this work which has been deemed worth notice, and much inquiry having been ineffectually made for a book under the title which they have given to it, this notice may not be unnecessary.

“M. Leonard is the author of some pastorals, and a young writer; and, probably, had he seen our English journals, would have corrected the ignorance or malignity of these anonymous writers.

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"What particularly angered me at the time, was the deception practised on the reader: the writers of the Quiz were transcribing a French translation of Goldsmith's poem, published only four or five years from the time they were writing, and had the audacity to call it an old and scarce French novel;' and now our Idler' calls this poem of Raimond et Angeline, this original, of higher antiquity by a century than its translation,' meaning, by the translation, Goldsmith's Edwin and Angelina. Where did the Idler' derive his authority? No one who has the slightest knowledge of the French language, could ever suppose that a single verse of M. Leonard's poem was ancient it is the most modern French. A few years ago, it was a fashionable employment among the young French poets, to imitate or translate our little ballad poems, to which they gave the title of Romances. Old Robin Grey was translated by Florian. could adduce more instances, but you can fill your pages with more entertaining matter. And I, too, am AN IDLER." "May 2, 1812."

EPITAPH ON EDWARD PURDON. — (See vol. i. p. 138.)

I

THE thought of this epitaph is borrowed from the following one by Swift:.

LOCALITY OF AUBURN.

IT has been disputed among the admirers of Goldsmith, whether the scene of the Deserted Village is laid in England or in Ireland, and quotations from the poem itself have been adduced, in support of their opinion, by both parties. The truth seems to be, however, that while the poem generally refers to England,—and, indeed, there are particular allusions which cannot possibly apply to Ireland, the author, at the same time, naturally referred for his village description to the locality most familiar to his memory, and most intimately connected with his fondest associations. That his reflections refer to England is evident, from his dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds, where he says, I know you will object, (and indeed several of our best and wisest friends concur in the opinion,) that the depopulation it deplores is no where to be seen, and the disorders it laments are only to be found in the poet's own imagination. To this I can scarcely 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."

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That in his particular description of Auburn he drew from a scene endeared to him by many fond recollections, and that Auburn and Lishoy are the same, will, we think, be proved to the satisfaction of the most sceptical, by the following

extracts:

"The poem of the Deserted Village," says Dr Strean, in a letter printed in Mr Mangin's Essay on Light Reading," took its origin from the circumstance of General Robert Napier, the grandfather of the gentleman who now lives in the house, within half a mile of Lishoy, built by the General, having purchased an extensive tract of the country surrounding Lishoy, or Auburn; in consequence of which, many families, here called cottiers, were removed to make room for the intended improvements of what was now to become the wide domain of a rich man, warm with the idea of changing the face of his new acquisition, and were forced, with fainting steps,' to go in search of torrid tracts,' and 'distant climes.'

"This fact alone might be sufficient to establish the seat of the poem; but there cannot remain a doubt in any unprejudiced mind, when the following are added; viz. that the character of the Village Preacher, the above named Henry, the brother of the Poet, is copied from nature. He is described exactly as he lived; and his 'modest

1

mansion' as it existed. Burn, the name of the village master, and the site of his school-house, and Catharine Giraghty, a lonely widow,

The wretched matron, forced in age, for bread,

To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,

(and to this day the brook and ditches near the spot where her cabin stood abound with cresses,) still remain in the memory of the inhabitants, and Catharine's children live in the neighbourhood. The pool, the busy mill, the house where nut-brown draughts inspired,' are still visited as the poetic scene; and the 'hawthorn bush,' growing in an open space in front of the house, which I knew to have three trunks, is now reduced to one, the other two having been cut, from time to time, by persons carrying pieces of it away to be made into toys, &c. in honour of the bard, and of the celebrity of his poem. All these contribute to the same proof; and the decent church,' which I attended for upwards of eighteen years, and which tops the neighbouring hill,' is exactly described as seen from Lishoy, the residence of the Preacher."

The next extract is taken from a notice in a respectable periodical, and confirms the description given by Dr Strean:

: --

"About three miles from Ballymahon, a very central town in the sister kingdóm, is the mansion and village of Auburn, so called by their present possessor, Captain Hogan. Through the taste and improvement of this gentleman, it is now a beautiful spot, although fifteen years since it presented a very bare and unpoetical aspect. This, however, was owing to a cause which serves strongly to corroborate the assertion, that Goldsmith had this scene in view when he wrote his poem of the Deserted Village. The then possessor, General Napier, turned all his tenants out of their farms, that he might enclose them in his own private domain. Littleton, the mansion of the General, stands not far off, a complete emblem of the desolating spirit lamented by the poet, dilapidated and converted into a barrack.

"The chief object of attraction is Lishoy, once the parsonage-house of Henry Goldsmith, that brother to whom the poet dedicated his Traveller, and who is represented as the Village Pastor,

Passing rich with forty pounds a-year.

"When I was in the country, the lower chambers were inhabited by pigs and sheep, and the drawing-rooms by oats. Captain Hogan, however, has, believe, got it since into his possession, and has, of course, improved its condition.

"Though at first strongly inclined to dispute the identity of Auburn, Lishoy House overcame my scruples. As I clambered over the rotten gate, and crossed the grass-grown lawn, or court, the tide of association became too strong for casuistry: here the poet dwelt and wrote, and here his thoughts fondly recurred when composing his Traveller, in a foreign land. Yonder was the decent church, that literally 'topped the neigbouring hill.' Before me lay the little hill of Knockrue, on which he declares, in one of his letters, he had rather sit with a book