MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. THE CLOWN'S REPLY. [This piece is traced in print no farther back than 1777, though the date attached shows that it was written while Goldsmith was a medical student in Edinburgh.-ED.] JOHN TROTT was desir'd by two witty peers To tell them the reason why asses had ears; "An't please you," quoth John, "I'm not given to letters, A PROLOGUE, 1 WRITTEN AND SPOKEN BY THE POET LABERIUS, A ROMAN KNIGHT, WHOM CÆSAR FORCED UPON THE STAGE. PRESERVED BY MACROBIUS. 6 [First printed in the chapter on the stage in Goldsmith's Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning,' 1759. In the second edition of the Enquiry' (1774), which the author revised just before his death, this poem was amongst the matter omitted. Goldsmith has translated, or rather imitated, only about the fore-half of the Latin original.—ED.] WHAT! no way left to shun th' inglorious stage, 1 Decimus Laberius, a Roman knight and popular farce-writer. Julius Cæsar commanded his appearance in one of his own plays.— -ED. A time there was, when glory was my guide, No more niy titles shall my children tell, THE LOGICIANS REFUTED.' [IN IMITATION OF DEAN SWIFT.] [First appeared in the 'Busy Body,' No. 5, Oct. 18, 1759, where it is heralded by the statement that it is "an original poem by the late Dean Swift, communicated to the 'Busy Body' by a nobleman of distinguished learning_and_taste. It seems to have first appeared as the work of Goldsmith in Evans's edition of the Poems, 1780, where it got the sub-heading (which we put in brackets), "In imitation of Dean Swift." Percy and his successors have since included the poem in the 'Works,' though the doubt of its being by Goldsmith, caused by Faulkner's claiming it for Swift (as mentioned in the note below), has never been set at rest.—ED.] LOGICIANS have but ill defined As rational, the human kind: 2 1 This singularly happy imitation was adopted by Mr. Faulkner, the Dublin publisher of Swift, as a genuine poem by that author, and as such it has been reprinted in almost every successive edition of the Dean's works. Even Sir Walter Scott has fallen into the same mistake, and has inserted this piece, without any remark, in his excellent edition of Swift's 'Works' published in 1814.—B. [It also appears in Scott's second edition, 1824.]-ED. 2 So in Busy Body' edition. Nearly all the editors have substituted "mind" for "kind."-ED. REASON, they say, belongs to man, By ratiocinations specious, 5 Have strove to prove with great precision, Homo est ratione præditum ; They never importune his Grace, Nor draw the quill to write for B-b.3 1 Smiglecius, a Polish logician: died 1618.-ED. 2 Busy Body' edition reads "reason-boasting mortal's pride."-ED. 3 So in Busy Body.' The editors make the word Bob, and annotate it as a reference to Sir Robert Walpole. This no doubt is right, whether the piece was written by Goldsmith or Swift, though Walpole was the contemporary of Swift, and not of Goldsmith.-ED. No single brute his fellows leads. At court, the porters, lacqueys, waiters, [STANZAS] ON THE TAKING OF QUEBEC, [AND DEATH OF GENERAL WOLFE.] [First published in the 'Busy Body,' Oct. 22, 1759, on receipt of the news of Ĝeneral Wolfe's victory and death (Sept. 13, 1759).—ÊD.] AMIDST the clamour of exulting joys, Which triumph forces from the patriot heart, Whilst thy sad fate extorts the heart-wrung tear. 1 Goldsmith claimed relationship with this gallant soldier, whose character he greatly admired, and whose death he thus laments in his Alive, the foe thy dreadful vigour fled, And saw thee fall with joy pronouncing eyes: Yet they shall know thou conquerest, though dead! Since from thy tomb a thousand heroes rise. ON A BEAUTIFUL YOUTH, STRUCK BLIND BY LIGHTNING. Imitated from the Spanish. [This seems to have been first printed in The Bee,' No. 1, 1759. -ED.] SURE 'twas by Providence design'd, That he should be, like Cupid, blind, A SONNET. [First printed in 'The Bee,' No. 3, 1759. Mr. Bolton Corney says it is an imitation from the French of Saint-Pavin.-ED.] WEEPING, murmuring, complaining, Fears th' approaching bridal night. Yet, why this killing soft dejection, She long had wanted cause of fear. History of England' (first edition, 1771, v. iv., p. 400): "Perhaps the loss of the English that day was greater, than the conquest of Canada was advantageous. But it is the lot of mankind only to know true merit on that dreadful occasion when they are going to lose it."-B. Prior says Wolfe's mother was Henrietta Goldsmith, of Limerick.-ED. 1 We restore 'The Bee' text here. Most editions have in lieu of this couplet "Yet why impair thy bright perfection, The change was made in the first collected edition of the Poems and Plays, that by Evans, 1780, and thence has been adopted by most of the succeeding editors, Percy included.-ED. |