SONG.1

LET Schoolmasters puzzle their brain
With grammar, and nonsense, and learning:
Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,

Gives genius a better discerning.

Let them brag of their heathenish gods,

Their Lethes, their Styxes, and Stygians; Their quis, and their quæs, and their quods, They're all but a parcel of pigeons.

Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.

When methodist preachers come down,
A preaching that drinking is sinful,
I'll wager the rascals a crown,

They always preach best with a skinful.
But when you come down with your pence
For a slice of their scurvy religion,

I'll leave it to all men of sense,

But you, my good friend, are the pigeon. Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.

Then come, put the jorum about,

And let us be merry and clever;
Our hearts and our liquors are stout;
Here's the three jolly pigeons for ever.

1 See She Stoops to Conquer,' p. 147.

Let some cry up woodcock or hare,

Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeons; But of all the birds in the air,

Here's a health to the thrée jolly pigeons.

Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.

NOTE. We drank tea with the ladies, and Goldsmith sung Tony Lumpkins' song in his comedy, and a very pretty one, to an Irish tune (The Humours of Ballanagairy), which he had designed for Miss Hardcastle; but as Mrs. Bulkley, who played the part, could not sing, it was left out. He afterwards wrote it down for me, by which means it was preserved, and now appears among his poems.

Boswell's Johnson, v. ii. p. 217.

THE CAPTIVITY,

AN ORATORIO. 1

THE PERSONS.

FIRST JEWISH PROPHET.

SECOND JEWISH PROPHET.

ISRAELITISH WOMAN.

FIRST CHALDEAN PRIEST.

SECOND CHALDEAN PRIEST.

CHALDEAN WOMAN.

CHORUS OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS.

SCENE The Banks of the river Euphrates, near Babylon.

This Oratorio was never published by the author: it was written in 1761, four years before the publication of the Traveller, which was in 1765. Two of the Songs appeared in some editions of Goldsmith's Poems, but with considerable alterations; they may be found at pages 111, 112, of the Aldine edition. The original MS. from which it is printed is now in the possession of the publisher. The first thoughts, or scription, which were afterwards altered or improved by the author in the MS., have been preserved as a curiosity, and are given as variations at the foot of the page.

THE CAPTIVITY.

ACT I.

FIRST PROPHET.

RECITATIVE.

YE captive tribes, that hourly work and weep
Where flows Euphrates murmuring to the deep,
Suspend your woes awhile, the task suspend,
And turn to God, your father and your friend.
Insulted, chain'd, and all the world our foe,
Our God alone is all we boast below.

AIR.

FIRST PROPHET.

Our God is all we boast below,

To him we turn our eyes;
And every added weight of woe

Shall make our homage rise.