These "Essays," collected by their author from his anonymous communications to periodicals, "The Bee,' "The Busy Body," 2 The British Magazine," &c.3 (with nine from "The Citizen of the World, 1762”), appeared on the 3rd of June, 1765, with the following title : Essays. By Mr. Goldsmith. Collecta Revirescunt. London: printed for W. Griffin, in Fetter Lane. 1765. [12°.] The second edition, corrected and enlarged by two Essays (now Nos. 26 and 27), appeared the next year : Essays by Oliver Goldsmith. Collecta Revirescunt. The second edition, corrected. London: printed for W. Griffin, in Catharine Street. 1766. pp. 248. [12°. Price 3s. bound.] This, the last edition published in Goldsmith's lifetime, is the foundation of the text of this reprint. I have, however, compared the text with the edition of 1775, containing the same number of Essays ("London : printed for J. and F. Rivington, B. Law, G. Robinson, S. Bladon, and T. Evans, Strand"), and with the edition of 1798 (3 vols. post 8vo.), said to be superintended by Mr. Thomas Wright, the father of Mr. J. Wright, who saw the edition of 1837 (4 vols. 8vo.-Murray) through the press. 1 See vol. iii., p. ii. 2 The first number of "The Busy Body" appeared on Tuesday the 9th of November, 1759, three days after the appearance of "The Bee." "The Busy Body" was a periodical paper, printed by J. Pottinger, at the Dunciad in Paternoster Row, price two-pence, every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. After its twelfth number it ceased as a distinct work. The numbers were then collected into a thin volume, now very scarce. The papers contributed by Goldsmith were four in number: "The Logicians Refuted," a poem ; "On the Clubs of London" (Essay iv.); "On Public Rejoicings for Victory;" (Unacknowledged Essays, i.) and "Stanzas on the taking of Quebec." 3 Edited by Smollett. Goldsmith, it is said, contributed in all twentyone papers, only three of which he admitted into his Collected Essays. II. The Story of Alcander and Septimius; taken from a IV. Description of various Clubs. XXII. Rules enjoined to be observed at a Russian Assembly. THE PREFACE. THE following Essays have already appeared at different times, and in different publications. The pamphlets in which they were inserted being generally unsuccessful, these shared the common fate, without assisting the booksellers' aims, or extending the writer's reputation. The public was too strenuously employed with their own follies, to be assiduous in estimating mine; so that many of my best attempts in this way, have fallen victims to the transient topic of the times; the Ghost in Cock Lane,' or the Siege of Ticonderago. But though they have past pretty silently into the world, I can by no means complain of their circulation. The magazines and papers of the day have, indeed, been liberal enough in this respect. Most of these Essays have been regularly reprinted twice or thrice a year, and conveyed to the public through the kennel of some engaging compilation. If there be a pride in multiplied editions, I have seen some of my labours sixteen times reprinted, and claimed by different parents as their own. I have seen them flourished at the beginning with praise, and signed at the end with the names of Philautos, Philalethes, Philalutheros, and Philanthropos. These gentlemen have kindly stood sponsors to my productions, and to flatter me more, have always taken my errors on themselves.3 It is time, however, at last, to vindicate my claims; and as these entertainers of the public, as they call themselves, have partly lived upon me for some years, let me now try if I cannot live a little upon myself. I would desire, in this case, to imitate the fat man who I have somewhere read of in a shipwreck, who, when the sailors, prest by famine, were taking slices from his posteriors to satisfy their 1 See note at p. 159. 2 "The public were more importantly employed, than to observe the easy simplicity of my style, or the harmony of my periods. Sheet after sheet was thrown off to oblivion. My Essays were buried among the essays upon liberty, eastern tales, and cures for the bite of a mad dog; while Philautos, Philalethes, Philelutheros, and Philanthropos all wrote better, because they wrote faster, than I."-The Vicar of Wakefield, ch. xx, 3 Past them as their own.-First Edition. hunger, insisted, with great justice, on having the first cut for himself. Yet, after all, I cannot be angry with any one who have taken it into their heads to think that whatever I write is worth reprinting, particularly when I consider how great a majority will think it scarce worth reading. Trifling and superficial are terms of reproach that are easily objected, and that carry an air of penetration in the observer. These faults have been objected to the following Essays; and it must be owned, in some measure, that the charge is true. However, I could have made them more metaphysical had I thought fit, but I would ask whether in a short essay it is not necessary to be superficial? Before we have prepared to enter into the depths of a subject, in the usual forms, we have got to the bottom of our scanty page, and thus lose the honours of a victory, by too tedious a preparation for the combat. There is another fault in this collection of trifles, which, I fear, will not be so easily pardoned. It will be alleged that the humour of them (if any be found) is stale and hackneyed. This may be true enough as matters now stand, but I may with great truth assert, that the humour was new when I wrote it. Since that time, indeed, many of the topics which were first started here, have been hunted down, and many of the thoughts blown upon. In fact, these Essays were considered as quietly laid in the grave of oblivion, and our modern compilers, like sextons and executioners, think it their undoubted right to pillage the dead. However, whatever right I have to complain of the public, they can as yet have no just reason to complain of me. If I have written dull Essays, they have hitherto treated them as dull Essays. Thus far we are, at least, upon par, and until they think fit to make me their humble debtor, by praise, I am resolved not to lose a single inch of my self-importance. Instead, therefore, of attempting to establish a credit amongst them, it will perhaps be wiser to apply to some more distant correspondent, and as my drafts are in some danger of being protested at home, it may not be imprudent upon this occasion, to draw my bills upon Posterity.' 1 Here the first edition added:-"Mr. Posterity. Sir, Nine hundred and ninety-nine years after sight hereof, pay the bearer, or order, a thousand pounds' worth of praise, free from all deductions whatsoever, it being a commodity that will then be very serviceable to him, and place it to the accompt of, &c." This was omitted in the second edition of 1766, and in the edition of 1775 (the third, I see reason to believe) though restored to the text in the edition of 1798 (3 vols. post 8vo.), edited by Mr. Thomas Wright. |