106. a very grave personage.-Samuel Johnson, whose acquaintance Goldsmith had not yet made. 107. another. David Hume, whose History of the House of Tudor appeared in 1758. 108. a person.-Tobias Smollett, for whose British Magazine, perhaps on account of this very paper, Goldsmith presently began to write. 108. Segrais.-Jean Regnault de Segrais, 1624-1701. 109. to hear the conversation on the way.-This paper, in the original, is marked "To be continued." But it was never resumed. 109. High Life below Stairs.-This was by the Rev. James Townley of Merchant Taylors' School. It was produced 31 October 1759, three days before the appearance of No. V. of The Bee. 110. my Lord Duke and Sir Harry.—Palmer (see ante p. 9) played the Duke's servant; King, Sir Harry's servant. Goldsmith 111. Mrs Clive took the part of Kitty. seems to have admired her as much as Fielding. "Mrs Clive in her Walk on the Stage is the greatest Actress the World ever saw; and if as many really understood true Humour as pretend to understand it, she would have nothing to wish, but that the House [Drury Lane] was six Times as large as it is " (Covent Garden Journal, 8 February 1752). 111. the subordinate ranks of people.-According to Genest's Account of the English Stage, iv. 577, the footmen at Edinburgh raised a riot on the second night, and had to be expelled from the theatre. 113. painters and sculptors.-By "sculptors," Goldsmith here plainly means 66 engravers." Johnson uses "sculptures" for " engravings " in his letter to the librarian of Buckingham House (Hill's Johnson's Letters, 1892, i., 145). 114. Caravaggio. The painter here referred to was no doubt Michelangelo Merisi, or Amerighi, called from his birthplace near Bergamo, Caravaggio (15691609). The accounts of his death do not coincide with that here given. 116. On Education. This is reprinted in the Essays, No. vii., and is here reproduced from the edition of 1766, where the following note is prefixed to it:-" N.B. This treatise was published before Rousseau's Emilius; if there be a similitude in any one instance, it is hoped the author of the present essay will not be deemed a plagiarist." Rousseau's Emile; ou, de l'Éducation appeared in 1762. 119. the usher.-Cf. chap. xx. of the Vicar of Wakefield (Temple Classics), pp. 125-6). Goldsmith himself had been an usher at Dr Milner's academy at Peckham. 123. misers. Cf. pp. 63 and 91. Goldsmith seems to have had a kindness for misers. 123. Instead... of romances.-This sentence (down to "possessed of"), without actually mentioning names, seems to prefer the method of Richardson and Hogarth before that of Fielding. 126. There has of late a gentleman appeared.-Thomas Sheridan, father of the dramatist, who was, at this date, delivering a Course of Lectures on Elocution and the English Language. 130. On the Instability, etc.-This is reprinted in the Essays, No. viii., and is here reproduced from the edition of 1766. 132. the late Duke of Marlborough.-Charles Spencer, third Duke of Marlborough, who died of a fever, 20 October 1758, at Munster in Westphalia. 132. A Chinese. .. once took it into his head to travel into Europe. This shows that the idea which prompted the Citizen of the World was already a familiar one with Goldsmith. 133. an undiscovered property in the polype.-Perhaps a reference to the paper published by the Royal Society on the Fresh Water Polypus which Fielding ridiculed in vol. i. of his Miscellanies, 1743, p. 253 ("The Terrestrial Chrysipus "). 134, the herring fishery employed all Grub-Street.-The British White Herring Fishery Company was instituted in 1750, and under its protection herrings became very plentiful. Its secretary and laureate one John Lockman, known popularly as the Herring Poet." In Hogarth's Beer Street, 1751, was 66 the fishwomen are shewn singing one of Lockman's latest ballads on this theme, which had created a furore at Vauxhall Gardens. The "Herring Poet" was an industrious translator from the French; and gained some reputation with that nation for a version of the Henriade, a subject afterwards essayed by Goldsmith's friend, Ned Purdon For vol. i. of another of Lockman's translations, the Abbé de St Fontaine's Travels of Mr John Gulliver, 1731, Hogarth, who seems to have been intimate with the translator, executed a frontispiece (see also Citizen of the World (Temple Classics), ii. pp. 231 and 245). 140. What we clearly conceive.-See Boileau, L'Art Poétique, Chant I.:— "Ce que l'on concoit bien s'énonce clairement, 142. a celebrated preacher.-Jean-Baptiste Massillon, Bishop of Clermont, 1663-1742. Much of what follows on preaching was more or less advocated in a paper not here reprinted, but which forms No. xvii. of the Essays of 1765 and 1766. See list at note to p. 167. 144. the Bangorian Controversy.-Arose out of a sermon preached before George I. (31 March 1717) by Dr Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Bangors, upon John xviii. 36" My kingdom is not of this world." It was printed by royal command, and gave rise to a storm of clerical pamphlets. 150. the present King of Prussia.-In the so-called Gode Frédérique. Napoleon did the same in the Code Napoléon. 154. the E. O. table." E. O." was another name for roulette, E and O being the letters on the bands or rings. There is an early and well-known caricature by Rowlandson entitled "E. O.; or, the Fashionable Vowels" (28 October 1781). 160. Prince Vologeso. This was the character taken by Cornacini at the Haymarket in the Opera of Vologeso. 162. Mr Rameau. — Jean-Philippe Rameau, 16831764. 162. Matei.-The famous Italian songstress, Colomba Mattei. "The Mattei (I assure you) is much improved by his [Elisi's] example, and by her great success this winter" (Gray to Mason, 22 January 1761). See also p. 160. 163. Cornacini. See note to page 160. 167. Miscellaneous Essays Goldsmith's Essays were first published in 1765 by W. Griffin in Fetter Lane, in 12mo; and contained twenty-seven essays. A second edition followed in 1766 (when Griffin had moved to Catherine Street), and included two more essays (Nos. XXVI. and XXVII.). The second edition, like the first, has no table of Contents," but the twenty-nine essays are as specified below. Those already printed in this volume, and those not reprinted here at all, are shown in Italic type :The Preface. I. Introductory. (From No. 1 of The Bee, see II. Alcander and Septimius. III. Happiness of Temper. (From No. 1 of The (From No. 2 of The (From No. 3 of The IV. A Description of various Clubs. V. On the Use of Language. VI. Generosity and Justice. VIII. Worldly Grandeur. see p. 130 ante.) (From No. 3 of The (From No. 6 of The Bee, (From No. 6 of The Bee, IX. Specimen of a Magazine in Miniature. X. Beau Tibbs. [See Citizen of the World (Temple Classics), i. p. 263.] XI. Beau Tibbs, continued. [See Citizen of the World (Temple Classics), i. p. 267.] XII. Counsel to Youth. [See Citizen of the World (Temple Classics), ii. p. 33.] XIII. On Mad Dogs. [See Citizen of the World (Temple Classics), ii, p. 71.] XIV. Life and Age. [See Citizen of the World XV. Dress. (From No. 2 of The Bee, see p. 26 ante.) XVII. On the English Clergy and Popular Preachers. XVIII. The Exploration of Asia. [See Citizen of the XIX. A Reverie at the Boar's Head. XX. Quacks. [See Citizen of the World (Temple XXII. Rules to be observed at a Russian Assembly XXIII, The Genius of Love. [See Citizen of the World (Temple Classics), ii. p 262 ] XXIV. Life of a Common Soldier. [See Citizen of the XXV. Supposed to have been written by the XXVI. On the Superabundance of Addresses to XXVII. Seeing the Coronation. XXVIII. The Double Transformation. [See Poems (Temple Classics), p. 90.] XXIX. (marked XIX.) A New Simile. [See Poems (Temple Classics), p. 95.] 167. The Preface.-This first appeared in the Essays of 1765. It is here reprinted from the Essays of 1766. 167. the Ghost in Cock Lane.-Goldsmith himself wrote a pamphlet on this subject which has been plausibly, but not conclusively, identified with one bearing the title of The Mystery Revealed, put forth in 17421762] by Newbery's rival, W. Bristow, of St Paul's Churchyard. 167. the siege of Ticonderago.-Ticonderaga (North America) was taken from the French by Abercromby, 26th July 1759. 167. kennel. Goldsmith probably employed this orthography of "channel" intentionally. |