AN ELEGY ON THAT GLORY OF HER SEX, MRS. MARY BLAIZE. 6 [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, The doctors found, when she was dead- Let us lament, in sorrow sore, 25 For Kent Street well may say, That had she lived a twelvemonth more- 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, 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, 1 See 'Deserted Village,' p. 39, and the note there.-ED. 1 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. The morn was cold; he views with keen desire With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scor'd,' A cap by night-a stocking all the day ! FROM THE ORATORIO OF THE CAPTIVITY, [The publication of this and the following song we have traced back to 1776, when they appeared, as here given, added to the first edition of 'The Haunch of Venison' (4to, Kearsley and Ridley, 1776). The oratorio from which they were extracted, though probably written about 1761, was not printed till 1820. See p. 61 for the Oratorio, and pp. 63 and 67, for the previous forms of these two songs.-ED.] SONG. THE wretch condemn'd with life to part, Still, still on hope relies; And ev'ry pang that rends the heart Bids expectation rise. Hope, like the glim'ring taper's light, SONG. O MEMORY! thou fond deceiver, To former joys recurring ever, And turning all the past to pain. Thou, like the world, th' oppress'd oppressing, ! Var.-An unpaid reck'ning on the frieze, &c. 2 The author has given a similar, or rather, with a very slight alteration, the same description of the alehouse, in the 'Deserted Village.' -PRIOR. THE DOUBLE TRANSFORMATION: A TALE. [This and the next poem have not been traced farther back in print than the 'Essays' volumes (1765-6), though, doubtless, as Goldsmith's motto for the Essays' was "Collecta revirescunt," these two poems, which were respectively Essays XXVI. and XXVII. in the first edition, and XXVIII. and XXIX. in the second edition, had appeared in print before. Our text is that of the author-revised second edition of the Essays,' 1766, the variations being from the first edition.-ED.] SECLUDED from domestic strife, Jack Book-worm led a college life; He drank his glass, and crack'd his joke, Such pleasures, unalloy'd with care, Could Cupid's shaft at length transfix Her presence 2 1 The following additional couplet is in the first edition : Without politeness aim'd at breeding, And laugh'd at pedantry and reading. 2 After this, the following lines were in the first edition :- Made sonnets, lisp'd his sermons o'er, 5 10 10 15 So, with decorum all things carried, Miss frown'd, and blush'd, and then was-married. Need we expose to vulgar sight The honey-moon like lightning flew, 21 25 30 The fifth was friendship mix'd with bliss: Jack found his goddess made of clay; Found half the charms that deck'd her face 35 In short, by night, 'twas fits or fretting; 1 Var.-And though she felt his visage rough.-First edition. 2 Var.-Now tawdry Madam kept a bevy.-First edition. |