often a question of the profoundest difficulty; it is true, lastly, that no civil constitution relieves anyone enjoying the benefit of it from his own proper duties and responsibilities but it is assuredly not true that there is no relation whatever between the government of a country and the happiness of its inhabitants. A government can, as it pleases, or according to its enlightenment, make circumstances favourable or unfavourable to individual development and happiness. So a priori one would suppose; so a posteriori one sees that it is. The political indifferentism set forth in The Traveller is in fact merely paradoxical. Fortunately one's enjoyment of the poem does not depend upon the accuracy of the creed it professes. 91. 1. [Describe the course of the Scheld. Why is it called lazy?] Slow. See Boswell's Johnson, chap. lxiii. 2. Wandering Po. = the ancient Lat. Padus, Ligurian Bodencus, Greek Eridanus. Virgil refers to its terrible floods; See Georg. i. 481, iv. 372. 3. [Where is Carinthia?] 6. [Explain expanding to the skies.] 19. pranks Welsh pranc, a frolic. 21. There are many negligences of style in this poem, as always in Goldsmith's writings. The echo of the word stranger in l. 16 has scarcely died out of the reader's ear before here it occurs again. So bending and bend in ll. 48 and 52. Comp. the double recurrence of the word ill in Des. Vill. 1. 51: "Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey;" where the fact that in the former case it is an advb., in the latter a subst., rather makes matters worse. 23. Cowper must have had this passage, consciously or unconsciously, in his ear when he wrote l. 100 et seq. in his lines On the receipt of my Mother's Picture out of Norfolk. 92. 27. [Explain the circle bounding earth and skies.] 32. me. See note to L'Alleg. 25. 33. [Why is the d in plac'd pronounced as t?] 34. an hundred. See note on Des. Vill. 93. 35. [What part of the sentence is cities?] 41. [Explain dissemble.] [How would you analyze all it can?] 42. these little things. See 1. 45-49. See ll. 34-36. 48. [Explain bending.] 40. swains. Swain was the poet's word for peasant in the last century. It is of Teutonic origin, and means properly a young man, then a servant ; cf. maís, garçon, knave, &c. [What does he mean by dress here?] 50. [What part of the sentence is creation's heir?] 52. As if the reckoning of his treasure was his work. 53. [What is meant by fill here ?] 55. [How would you explain to here?] 57. sorrows fall. sorrows = signs of sorrow, i. e. tears. 64. [What is the government of to find here ?] 93. 72. See Alex. Feast, 88. 74. [What is meant by his here ?] 77. [What difference in the meaning would will, instead of shall, make?] 84. Idra Idria in Carniola, a town amidst mountains on the river Idria. Near it are the famous quicksilver mines. 84. Shelvey gently sloping. See Merry W. of W. III. v. 15. = 85. rocky crested is really one word. 87. With the use of the word Art here comp. Johnson's first definition: "The power of doing something not taught by nature or instinct." In ll. 146 and 304 arts the Fine Arts. 90. either is not very accurately used here; the ther is properly dual. It is as if uterque should be used for quisque, ἑκάτερος for ἕκαστος. But this careless use of either is not so unfrequent: thus Bacon apud Johnson: "Henry VIII, Francis I. and Charles V. were so provident as scarce a palm of ground could be gotten by either of the three but that the other two would set the balance of Europe upright again," &c. So Wither, &c. So neither in the Auth. V. of Rom. viii. 38, &c. But perhaps either may be justified here by supposing the "blessings" just enumerated, to be considered as divided in a two-fold manner: (i.) the one prevailing, (ii.) the others, which are cast into the shade by that prevailing one. 95. the favourite happiness. Comp. Pope on the Ruling Passion, Moral Essays, 1. 98. peculiar pain = its proper pain, the pain that especially results from that "fav'rite good." 108. in gay theatric pride. The stage often borrows similes and metaphors from nature; here nature is made indebted to the stage! 109. [What "part of speech," and what part of the sentence is between here ?] 94. 113. Thus cherries (Pruni Cerasi) were imported by Lucullus, &c. &c. 114. Comp. Tusc. Disp. V. xiii. 37: "arbores et vites et ea quæ sunt humiliora neque se tollere a terra altius possunt." 115. [blooms. Explain this word here.] 119. the kindred sail. Obs. the proleptic use of the adj. So often in Greek and Latin; as Soph. Antig. 881, ed. Dindorf: “ τὸν δ' ἐμὸν πότμον ἀδάκρυτον οὐδεὶς φίλων στενάζει. 120. [Explain this line. Which is the emphatic word?] 122. winnow here waft, blow, with no notion of separating and sifting as commonly. Of course the word is directly connected with wind. Obs. the use of this verb in Par. Lost, v. 269: "then with quick fan Winnows the buxom air;" i. e. strikes the air as if winnowing, in a winnowing or fanning manner. Ultimately, fan and winnow are connected. 127. manners in the sense of the Lat. mores. 132. Genoa and Venice and Florence reached their commercial prime about the close of the Middle Ages. 135-138. [Of what architects, painters, sculptors, is he thinking?] 139. Two of the main causes, certainly, of the decay of Italian commerce were the discovery of America, and that of the sea-route to India. 143. [What is meant by skill here ?j 144. [What is meant by plethoric ill?] 95. 167. bleak and black are primitively identical words. The radical notion is pale. Bleach to make bleak. Here bleak has its secondary meaning of chill, cheerless. 170. From the 15th century downwards the Swiss were the chief mercenary soldiers of Europe. See Hamlet, IV. v. 97. 178. [What part of the sentence is the lot of all?] 181. [Explain deal here.] 182. loath. See note to London, 40. 187. trolls. One of Johnson's definitions of troll is: "to fish for a pike with a rod which has a pulley towards the bottom, which I suppose gives occasion to the term." He quotes from Gray: "Nor drain I ponds the golden carp to take, Nor trowle for pikes, dispeoplers of the lake." The word is akin to thrill, drill, Germ. trollen, Fr. trôler, &c. 187. finny. See Rape of the Lock, 174. This application of the word to the sea itself is bold, and perhaps unique; as if squamigerum or squamosum should be applied to the sea! 190. savage. We now confine this word as a substantive to members of the human species. 191. [What part of the sentence is every labour sped? Parse sped. What does the word mean?] 193. him. See me, 1. 32. Comp. Burns' Cotter's Sat. Night. 196. platter is of course derived from plate. 198. nightly. See note on Hymn Nat. 179. 96. 202. enhance. Lit. forward, put forward. The stem is the Lat, ante. 206. close and closer. Perhaps closer and closer; but the former comparative inflection is omitted for euphony's, or for the metre's sake, just as one adverbial inflection is omitted in "safe and nicely," King Lear, V. iii., "fair and softly," John Gilpin, &c. 216. supplies = satisfies. 221. [What is the force of level here ?] 224. The of serves to make once a year adjectival to festival. It has the force of ly in yearly. Once is treated as a subst. = one occurrence. 232. [Can fall be justified here? What led him to write so?] 235. Such "morals" as "play" in the Tatler and Spectator. 97. 243. Compare Tristram Shandy, end of Book 7. 244. tuneless. See below, II. 247, 248. 253. Gestic is cognate with gesture, gesticulate, jest (originally gest), gest in Spenser's F. Q. Scott speaks of the "gestic art" in Peveril of the Peak, chap. xxx. 256. [Explain their world.] 259. Obs. this definition of what is here called honour. 262. traffic, derived ultimately from Lat. trans, and facio, is said to mean originally "something done beyond," i. e. beyond the seas. With the use here comp. "commercing with the skies," Il Pens. 39, where see note. 264. Comp. Horace of the Greeks, (Ep. ad Pis. 324): "Præter laudem nullius avaris." 273. tawdry. This word is said to be derived from Saint Audrey (= Saint Ethelreda), at the fairs held on whose days gay finery, especially laces, was sold. In Spenser's Shepheards Calendar, April, it has scarcely acquired its depreciatory sense: Binde your fillets faste, And gird in your waste, For more finenesse, with a tawdrie lace." 277. [What is the meaning of cheer here? What other meanings has the word?] 98. 285. See Andrew Marvell's bitter satirical description of Holland in his Character of Holland. He most unjustly taunts the Dutch with what they might and may well be proud of the vigour and industry which rescued and protected their country from the sea. = 286. rampire the old French form rampar. This form occurs often, if not generally, in the Elizabethan writers. So in Tim. of Ath. V. iv. 47. "Our rampired gates." So Chapman, &c. Holland, in his translation of Pliny, writes rampiar. Milton uses the form rampart (Par. Lost, i. 678). 288. bulwark etymologically, bole-work, that a rampart made of tree-trunks. Bouleard is but a corrupted form of bulwark. "Les boulevards de Paris n'étaient sous Louis XIV. que l'enceinte même [= le terre-plein des ramparts] de Paris" (Brachet's Dict. Etym.). 291. "A stranger can have a full impression of this [the critical condition of certain parts of the provinces] only when he walks at the foot of one of those vast dykes, and hears the roar of the waves on the outside, 16 or 20 feet higher than his head." (Murray's Handbook to North Germany, Holland, &c.) 302. [Is are defensible here?] 304. [What is meant here by convenience?] 305. See what the Vicar says on the dangers of a commercial community, in V. of Wakefield, Chap. xix. 312. [What lakes are there in Holland?] 313. The Roman Belgica included a vast number of various tribes, lying between the Sequana (Seine) and Matrona (Marne) in the West and the Rhine in the East. That tribe, which was settled nearest the Holland of Goldsmith's and our day, was the Batavi, a branch of the Chatti. It was settled between the two great branches of the Rhine. Lucan speaks of its furious warlike ardour (i. 431): It was a Teutonic race, as were other tribes comprised in Belgica. According to Tacitus' account, North-western Germania was occupied by the Ingævones. The "Belgic sires" of the text is therefore a somewhat loose phrase. 316. now. In the 16th century they had fought stoutly against the same domineering enemy as England had withstood; in the 17th they had contested with England the queenship of the seas. But perhaps Goldsmith here refers to the fact that the Dutch are our nearest kinsmen. They belong to the same Low German race as ourselves. Their language and our own resemble each other very closely. They are our brothers; the Germans and the Danes are but cousins. 318. [What does he mean by courts the western spring?] 319. Arcadian pride. Arcadia, perhaps most noted in the Greek and Latin writers for the stupidity of its inhabitants (see Juv. vii. 160, and Mayor's note), was about the time of the revival of learning adopted as the ideal of rural beauty. It became the favourite "scene" with pastoral poets and romancists, as with Sanazzaro, Sidney, &c. 370. Hydaspes. The name is a corruption of the Sanscrit Vitastâ, "which is probably preserved in that of one of its modern titles, Behat. Its present most usual name is Jelum." (Smith's Dict. G. & R. Geog.). This river was reached by Alexander. It was the subject of many wild tales; hence Horace's "fabulosus" (Od. I. xxii. 8). One was that it ran gold and gems. 320. brighter streams, &c. In Goldsmith's time there was still a touch of silver in the Thames at London, as it may now be hoped there may be yet again. 324. That is, the extremes of climate cannot be palpably realized there by the happy proprietor; they can only be imagined. 325. [What "part of speech" is stern here?] 327. port. So "lion-port" in Gray's Bard, 117. 99. 333. boasts these rights to scan boasts that he scans these rights, that he takes his part in the discussion of public questions. 345. It was just at the time of the publication of The Traveller that Wilkes was issuing the North Briton. 346. [What is meant here by round her shore?] 348. [Parse fire here.] 351. fictitious. We should rather use factitious in this sense. [What is the sense?] 358. wrote. It may often seem as if the pret. of strong verbs was used as the past part.; but in fact the pret. seemingly so used is the past part. with its proper ending cut off. Thus the part. found, bound, drunk, &c., identical in form with the pret. of the verbs to which they belong, are in reality curtailed forms of founden, bounden, drunken, &c. Broke, spoke, &c., as past part., are defensible; being merely shortened from broken, spoken, &c. Of write the more common form of the part. was writen, as in Chaucer's Cant. Tales, 12052: "Sche never cessed, as I writen fynde, Of hire prayer." Writ would be correct enough. See Shakspere passim (with whom writ is the favourite form of the pret. also). So wrete in Rom, of Partenay, ed. Skeat, 6401. So ywrite. For the form wrote, and similar forms, they are probably the result of a false analogy. As find makes pret. found, part. found, write, &c., has been conjugated similarly. Shakspere uses wrote in Ant. and Cleop. III. v. 11, and Cymb. III, v. 2; and also "thou hast fell" (King Lear, IV. vi. 54); “has took” (Pericles I. iii. 35). Sterne has "had rose"; see the Death of Le Fevre in Tristram Shandy. 362. the great. This was a very favourite phrase about Goldsmith's time. See for instance Hume's essay on The Middle Station of Life, Johnson's Letter to the Earl of Chesterfield, &c. The Greeks and Romans used to speak of the good, the best, in the same sense. 365. The literature of the last century abounds with apostrophes to Liberty. That theme was the great common-place of the time. Goldsmith has his laugh at it in the Vicar of Wakefield, chap. xix. See Cowper's Task, v. 100. 375. Hear the Vicar on Monarchy, V. of W., chap. xix. 380. [Read carefully the history of England about the time of the accession of George III., and illustrate this paragraph.] 386. See V. of W., chap. xix.: "What they may then expect may be seen by turning our eyes to Holland, Genoa, or Venice, where the laws govern the poor, and the rich govern the law." 391. These are precisely the views enunciated by the Vicar; see the above-cited chapter. patriot. See note on London, 53. 394. Perhaps he is thinking of Oliver Cromwell; see note on Gray's Elegy. 411. Oswego. This river runs between Lakes Oneida and Ontario, as Niagara between Ontario and Erie. 412. It is said that the thunder of Niagara may be heard for 20 miles. 416. [What is meant by Indian here? meaning.] 431. Comp. Par. Lost, i. 254-7. Explain how the word comes to have that 436. Luke's iron crown. Goldsmith "dormitates" here. Of two brothers, Luke and George Dosa, who were engaged together in a desperate peasant war in Hungary in 1514, it was George, not Luke, who suffered the torture of the iron crown. See Nares' Glossary; and Boswell's Johnson, chap. xix. iron crown. "The putting on a crown of iron, heated red hot, was occasionally the punishment of regicides and rebels." See Rich. III. IV. i. 59. See Nares; and Boswell's Johnson, chap. xix. Damiens was executed with frightful tortures for his attempt on the life of Louis XV., 1757. His limbs were torn with red-hot pincers, &c. See Hist. France. The Deserted Village was published in May, 1770, six years after The Traveller, four after The Vicar of Wakefield. It ran through six editions before the year closed. In any period of English Literature such a poem would have won, and have deserved, notice; in the period of its appearance it stood almost alone. Goldsmith's was the one poetical voice of that |