THE GIFT.

TO IRIS, IN BOW-STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

6

[First printed in The Bee,' 1759. It is an imitation of a French piece titled, Etrene a Iris,' and given by La Monnoye in the ' Ménagiana,' 1715, v. iii. p. 397.-ED.]

I'll give but not the full-blown rose,
Or rosebud more in fashion;

Such short-lived off'rings but disclose
A transitory passion.

15

I'll give thee something yet unpaid,

Not less sincere than civil,

I'll give thee-ah! too charming maid!

I'll give thee to the Devil!

20

AN ELEGY

ON THAT GLORY OF HER SEX,

MRS. MARY BLAIZE.

[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,
Lament for Madam Blaize,
Who never wanted a good word-
From those who spoke her praise.

The needy seldom pass'd her door,
And always found her kind;

5

She freely lent to all the poor-
Who left a pledge behind.

She strove the neighbourhood to please,
With manners wond'rous winning,

And never follow'd wicked ways

Unless when she was sinning.

At church, in silks and satins new,
With hoop of monstrous size,
She never slumber'd in her pew-
But when she shut her eyes.

10

15

Her love was sought, I do aver,

By twenty beaux and more;

The king himself has follow'd her—
When she has walk'd before.

20

But now, her wealth and finery fled,
Her hangers-on cut short all;

The doctors found, when she was dead-
Her last disorder mortal.

Let us lament, in sorrow sore,

25

For Kent Street well may say,

That had she lived a twelvemonth more-
She had not died to-day.

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,
That welcomes every stranger that can pay;
With sulky eye he smok'd the patient man,

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,
Invites each passing stranger that can pay;
Where Calvert's butt, and Parson's black champagne,
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane :
There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,
The Muse found Scroggen stretch'd beneath a rug.
A window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray,
That dimly show'd the state in which he lay
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread;
The humid wall, with paltry pictures spread;
The Royal Game of Goose was there in view,
And the Twelve Rules the Royal Martyr drew; '
The Seasons, fram'd with listing, found a place,
And brave Prince William show'd his lamp-black face.2

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
The rusty grate unconscious of a fire:

With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scor'd,'
And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney-board; 2
A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay,

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,
Adorns and cheers the way;

And still,

as darker grows the night, Emits a brighter ray.

SONG.

O MEMORY! thou fond deceiver,
Still importunate and vain,
To former joys recurring ever,

And turning all the past to pain.

Thou, like the world, th' oppress'd oppressing,
Thy smiles increase the wretch's woe:
And he who wants each other blessing,
In thee must ever find a foe.

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;
A fellowship at twenty-five
Made him the happiest man alive;

He drank his glass, and crack'd his joke,
And freshmen wonder'd as he spoke.1

Such pleasures, unalloy'd with care,
Could any accident impair?

Could Cupid's shaft at length transfix
Our swain, arrived at thirty-six ?
O, had the archer ne'er come down
To
ravage in a country town!

Or Flavia been content to stop

At triumphs in a Fleet Street shop!
O, had her eyes forgot to blaze!
Or Jack had wanted eyes to gaze!
O!-but let exclamation cease,
Her
banish'd all his peace ; 2

presence

The following additional couplet is in the first edition :-
Without politeness aim'd at breeding,

And laugh'd at pedantry and reading.

" After this, the following lines were in the first edition :-
Our alter'd parson now began
To be a perfect ladies' man;

Made sonnets, lisp'd his sermons o'er,
And told the tales he told before,
Of bailiffs pump'd, and proctors bit;
At college how he show'd his wit;
And, as the fair one still approv'd,
He fell in love-or thought he lov❜d.
&c.

So,