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number of stanzas is forty-one; when reprinted in the Vicar of Wakefield these were reduced to thirty-nine; to which some years afterward he added another, or wrote one at least with that view, which was presented in manuscript to Richard Archdal, Esq. of Ireland, and now stands the thirtieth in the ballad; it renders the number of stanzas forty, and is beautiful in itself, though being merely descriptive it does not tend to advance the action of the poem.

"And when beside me in the dale,

He carol'd lays of love,

His breath lent fragrance to the gale,
And music to the grove."

The stanzas of Edwin and Angelina, for which no substitutes are provided in the Hermit, are the last two; the conclusion of the poem as it now stands, being considered by him more complete without than with their aid

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"No, never from this hour to part,

We 'll live and love so true,

The sigh that rends thy constant heart,

Shall break thy Edwin's too."

Those however which are omitted, possess too much merit, as well as from being fragments of Goldsmith, to be lost to the reader of taste:

"Here amidst sylvan bowers we'll rove,

VOL. II.

From lawn to woodland stray,

Blest as the songsters of the grove,
And innocent as they.

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"To all that want, and all that wail,
Our pity shall be given,

And when this life of love shall fail,

We'll love again in heaven."

Three other stanzas in the body of the tale, part of the self-accusation of Angelina, are replaced by others which he deemed better, but as of none would we willingly be deprived, they are these:"Whene'er he spoke amidst the train, How would my heart attend;

And still delighted ev'n to pain,
How sigh for such a friend!

"And when a little rest I sought
In sleep's refreshing arms,
How have I mended what he taught,
And lent him fancied charms.

"Yet still (and woe betide the hour)
I spurn'd him from my side,
And still with ill-dissembled power
Repaid his love with pride."

Even the opening lines are varied, for instead

of the present

"Turn, gentle hermit of the dale,

And guide my lonely way

To where yon taper cheers the vale,
With hospitable ray -"

we find when first printed—

"Deign saint-like tenant of the dale
To guide my nightly way

To yonder fire that cheers the vale
With hospitable ray :"

alterations obviously for the better; but for the

satisfaction of the reader the whole of the original

poem will be given in the Works. It may be remarked likewise that in addition to its improvements when introduced into the first edition of the Vicar of Wakefield, a few, though less important alterations chiefly verbal, occur between that and the copy as it now stands; so that much care was devoted to its polish and correctness. These things are not unworthy of notice; we are so rarely admitted into the laboratory of genius to see all, or nearly all the extent and variety of her operations, that whenever a glimpse however slight, can be obtained, we seize the opportunity with avidity. A charge has been advanced against him of transferring to his ballad without acknowledgment, the following thought of Young,

"Man wants but little, nor that little long,"

which in the ballad runs

"Man wants but little here below

Nor wants that little long."

The accusation happens to be satisfactorily disproved by finding in the original copy the passage given with inverted commas, in the usual manner of quotations; and the subsequent change appears to have arisen from the whole of the dialogue between the Hermit and the Wanderer being when reprinted, marked in a similar manner, which was not at first the case. The omission therefore of a third comma, a fault much more likely to proceed from the printer than the writer, forms the only ground for the imputation.

When the popularity of the Vicar of Wakefield gave the Hermit extensive circulation, (for the copy addressed to Lady Northumberland seems to have been unknown to the public) its originality and merit were both assailed. Error or envy is so quick to detect supposed faults, or to take from one writer in order to appropriate to another, that a man of genius is not always permitted to retain without a struggle the credit of what is nevertheless his own.

In the St. James's Chronicle, then a favourite journal of criticism for several chief writers of the day, July 18-21. 1767, appeared the following letter:

"To the Printer of the St. James's Chronicle.

"SIR,

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"In the Reliques of Ancient Poetry published about two years ago, is a very beautiful little ballad called A Friar of Orders Grey.' The ingenious editor, Mr. Percy, supposes that the stanzas sung by Ophelia in the play of Hamlet, were parts of some ballad well known in Shakspeare's time, and from these stanzas, with the addition of one or two of his own to connect them, he has formed the above-mentioned ballad; the subject of which is, a lady comes to a convent to inquire for her love who had been driven there by her disdain. She is answered by a friar that he is dead —

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No, no he is dead, gone to his death's bed.

He never will come again.'

The lady weeps and laments her cruelty; the friar endeavours to comfort her with morality and religion, but all in vain; she expresses the deepest grief and the most tender sentiments of love, till at last the friar discovers himself—

• And lo! beneath this gown of grey
Thy own true love appears.'

"This catastrophe is very fine, and the whole, joined with the greatest tenderness has the greatest simplicity; yet though this ballad was so recently published in the Ancient Reliques, Dr. Goldsmith has been hardy enough to publish a poem called the Hermit, where the circumstances and catastrophe are exactly the same, only with this difference, that the natural simplicity and tenderness of the original is almost entirely lost in the languid smoothness and tedious paraphrase of the copy, which is as short of the merits of Mr. Percy's ballad as the insipidity of negus is to the genuine flavour of Champagne. I am, Sir,

"Yours, &c.

"DETECTOR."

Kenrick, always a persecutor of the Poet, who laboured more diligently to pull down the reputation of others than to elevate his own, was supposed to be the writer. The taste displayed in the criticism might well have been left to its fate; but to the charge of being an unblushing plagiary, and likewise to another accusation in the same journal of erroneously recommending a book of

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