ON A PASSAGE IN GOLDSMITH.
Goldsmith, in The Deserted Village, has the lines:
"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied."
In this passage the fourth line, which I have given in italics, is traced by D'Israeli, in Curiosities of Literature, under the head of "Imitations and Similarities," to the French poet, De Caux, who, comparing the world to his hour-glass, says—
——"C'est une verre qui luit,
Qu'un souffle peut détruire, et qu'un souffle a produit."
The turn given to the thought in the French has suggested to D'Israeli an emendation of the passage in Goldsmith. He proposes that the word "unmakes" should be substituted for "can make." The line would then read—
"A breath unmakes them, as a breath has made."
This emendation seems to me to be alike ingenious and well-founded. The line itself is but the corollary of the one that precedes it; and in order to make the sense complete, it should contain antithetical expressions to correspond with "flourish" and "fade." Now, between "can make" and "made" there is nothing antithetical; but between "made" and "unmakes" there is.
In support of this view, I may quote one or two parallel passages, in which the antithesis is preserved. The first is a quatrain commemorating the devastating effects of an earthquake in the valley of Lucerne in 1808:
"O ciel! ainsi ta Providence
A tous les maux nous condamna:
Un souffle éteint notre existence
Comme un souffle nous la donna."
The second is a line which occurs in Curiosities of Literature, and which I am compelled to quote from memory, having no access to that work. It is as follows:
"A breath revived him, but a breath o'erthrew."
That Goldsmith wrote the line in question with the word "unmakes," there seems little reason to doubt. To say of princes and lords that "a breath can make them, as a breath has made," far from conveying any idea of their "fading," would be, on the contrary, to indicate the facile process by which they may be perpetuated. It would show how they may "flourish," but not how they may "fade."
Although this emendation in Goldsmith was pointed out many years ago, and recommends itself by its appositeness, and its obvious adaptation to the context, yet I believe it has never been introduced into any edition of that poet. I have before me two copies of The Deserted Village, and both contain the words "can make." As, however, among the many useful hints thrown out by "NOTES AND QUERIES", that of suggesting the emendation of obscure or difficult passages in our poets, appears to have met with the approbation of your readers, I trust some future editor of Goldsmith may be induced to notice this passage, and restore the text to its original accuracy.
HENRY H. BREEN.
St. Lucia.