The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith. Оливер Голдсмит

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СКАЧАТЬ it privately for the amusement of the Countess. In a revised and amended form it was subsequently given to the world in The Vicar of Wakefield.

      With the exception of an abortive attempt to resume his practice as a medical man—an attempt which seems to have been frustrated by the preternatural strength of his prescriptions—the next memorable thing in Goldsmith's life is the publication of The Vicar of Wakefield itself. It made its appearance on the 27th of March, 1766. A second edition followed in May, a third in August. Why, having been sold (in part) to a Salisbury printer as far back as October, 1762, it had remained unprinted so long; and why, when published, it was published by Francis Newbery and not by John Newbery, Goldsmith's

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      employer—are questions at present unsolved. But the charm of this famous novel is as fresh as when it was first issued. Its inimitable types, its happy mingling of Christianity and character, its wholesome benevolence and its practical wisdom, are still unimpaired. We smile at the inconsistencies of the plot; but we are carried onward in spite of them, captivated by the grace, the kindliness, the gentle humour of the story. Yet it is a mistake to suppose that its success was instantaneous. Pirated it was, of course; but, according to expert investigations, the authorized edition brought so little gain to its first proprietors that the fourth issue of 1770 started with a loss. The fifth, published in April, 1774, was dated 1773; and had apparently been withheld because the previous edition, which consisted of no more than one thousand copies, was not exhausted. Five years elapsed before the sixth edition made its tardy appearance in 1779. These facts show that the writer's contemporaries were not his most eager readers. But he has long since appealed to the wider audience of posterity; and his fame is not confined to his native country, for he has been translated into most European languages. Dr. Primrose and his family are now veritable 'citizens of the world.'

      A selection of Poems for Young Ladies, in the 'Moral' division of which he included his own Edwin and Angelina; two volumes of Beauties of English Poesy, disfigured with strange heedlessness, by a couple of the most objectionable pieces of Prior; a translation of a French history of philosophy, and other occasional work, followed the publication of the Vicar. But towards the middle of 1766, he was meditating a new experiment in that line in which Farquhar, Steele, Southerne, and others of his countrymen had succeeded before him. A fervent lover of the stage, he detested the vapid and colourless 'genteel'

       notes

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      comedy which had gradually gained ground in England; and he determined to follow up The Clandestine Marriage, then recently adapted by Colman and Garrick from Hogarth's Marriage A-la-Mode, with another effort of the same class, depending exclusively for its interest upon humour and character. Early in 1767 it was completed, and submitted to Garrick for Drury Lane. But Garrick perhaps too politic to traverse the popular taste, temporized; and eventually after many delays and disappointments, The Good Natur'd Man, as it was called, was produced at Covent Garden by Colman on the 29th of January, 1768. Its success was only partial; and in deference to the prevailing craze for the 'genteel,' an admirable scene of low humour had to be omitted in the representation. But the piece, notwithstanding, brought the author 400 pounds, to which the sale of the book, with the condemned passages restored, added another 100 pounds. Furthermore, Johnson, whose 'Suspirius' in The Rambler was, under the name of 'Croaker,' one of its most prominent personages, pronounced it to be the best comedy since Cibber's Provok'd Husband.

      During the autumn of 1767, Goldsmith had again been living at Islington. On this occasion he had a room in Canonbury Tower, Queen Elizabeth's old hunting-lodge, and perhaps occupied the very chamber generally used by John Newbery, whose active life was, in this year, to close. When in London he had modest housing in the Temple. But the acquisition of 500 pounds for The Good Natur'd Man seemed to warrant a change of residence, and he accordingly expended four-fifths of that sum for the lease of three rooms on the second floor of No. 2 Brick Court, which he straightway proceeded to decorate sumptuously with mirrors, Wilton carpets, moreen curtains, and Pembroke tables. It was an unfortunate step; and he would have done well to remember the Nil

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      te quaesiveris extra with which his inflexible monitor, Johnson, had greeted his apologies for the shortcomings of some earlier lodgings. One of its natural results was to involve him in a new sequence of task-work, from which he never afterwards shook himself free. Hence, following hard upon a Roman History which he had already engaged to write for Davies of Russell Street, came a more ambitious project for Griffin, A History of Animated Nature; and after this again, another History of England for Davies. The pay was not inadequate; for the first he was to have 250 guineas, for the second 800 guineas, and for the last 500 pounds. But as employment for the author of a unique novel, an excellent comedy, and a deservedly successful poem, it was surely—in his own words—'to cut blocks with a razor.'

      And yet, apart from the anxieties of growing money troubles, his life could not have been wholly unhappy. There are records of pleasant occasional junketings—'shoe-maker's holidays' he called them—in the still countrified suburbs of Hampstead and Edgware; there was the gathering at the Turk's Head, with its literary magnates, for his severer hours; and for his more pliant moments, the genial 'free-and-easy' or shilling whist-club of a less pretentious kind, where the student of mixed character might shine with something of the old supremacy of George Conway's inn at Ballymahon. And there must have been quieter and more chastened resting-places of memory, when, softening towards the home of his youth, with a sadness made more poignant by the death of his brother Henry in May, 1768, he planned and perfected his new poem of The Deserted Village.

      In December, 1769, the recent appointment of his friend Reynolds as President of the Royal Academy brought him the honorary office of Professor of History to that

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      institution; and to Reynolds The Deserted Village was dedicated. It appeared on the 26th of May, 1770, with a success equal, if not superior, to that of The Traveller. It ran through five editions in the year of its publication; and has ever since retained its reputation. If, as alleged, contemporary critics ranked it below its predecessor, the reason advanced by Washington Irving, that the poet had become his own rival, is doubtless correct; and there is always a prejudice in favour of the first success. This, however, is not an obstacle which need disturb the reader now; and he will probably decide that in grace and tenderness of description The Deserted Village in no wise falls short of The Traveller; and that its central idea, and its sympathy with humanity, give it a higher value as a work of art.

      After The Deserted Village had appeared, Goldsmith made a short trip to Paris, in company with Mrs. and the two Miss Hornecks, the elder of whom, christened by the poet with the pretty pet-name of 'The Jessamy Bride,' is supposed to have inspired him with more than friendly feelings. Upon his return he had to fall again to the old 'book-building' in order to recruit his exhausted finances. Since his last poem he had published a short Life of Parnell; and Davies now engaged him on a Life of Bolingbroke, and an abridgement of the Roman History. Thus, with visits to friends, among others to Lord Clare, for whom he wrote the delightful occasional verses called The Haunch of Venison, the months wore on until, in December, 1770, the print-shops began to be full of the well-known mezzotint which Marchi had engraved from his portrait by Sir Joshua.

      His chief publications in the next two years were the above- mentioned History of England, 1771; Threnodia Augustalis, a poetical lament-to-order on the death of the Princess Dowager of Wales, 1772; and the abridgement

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      of the Roman History, 1772. But in the former year he had completed a new comedy, She Stoops to Conquer; or, The Mistakes of a Night, which, after the usual vexatious negotiations, was brought out by Colman at Covent Garden on Monday, the 15th of March, 1773. The manager seems СКАЧАТЬ