"Berlin.—We have received certain advices that a party of twenty-thousand Prussians, having attacked a much superior body of Austrians, put them to flight, and took a great number of prisoners with their military chest, cannon, and baggage."
The Chinaman observing the laudatory character of epitaphs, suggests a plan by which flattery might be indulged, without sacrificing truth. The device is that anciently called "contrary to expectation," but apparently borrowed by Goldsmith from some French poem. Here is a specimen.
"Ye Muses, pour the pitying tear,
For Pollio snatched away;
O, had he lived another year
He had not died to-day."...
He gives another on Madam Blaize—
"Good people all with one accord
Lament for Madam Blaize,
Who never wanted a good word
From those who spoke her praise."
The Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog terminates in a stroke taken from the old epigram of Demodocus—
"Good people all, of everysort,
Give ear unto my song,
And if you find it wondrous short,
It cannot hold you long.
"In Islington there was a man,
Of whom the world might say,
That still a godly race he ran,
Whene'er he went to pray.
"A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes,
The naked every day he clad,
When he put on his clothes.
"And in this town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelps, and hound,
And curs of low degree.
"This dog and man at first were friends,
But when a pique began,
The dog to gain some private ends,
Went mad, and bit the man.
"Around from all the neighbouring streets
The wondering neighbours ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.
"The wound, it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And, while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.
"But soon a wonder came to light
That showed the rogues they lied,
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died."
The fine and elegant humour in "The Vicar of Wakefield" and "The Deserted Village," has greatly contributed to give those works a lasting place in the literature of this country. Goldsmith attacked, among other imposters, the quacks of his day, who promised to cure every disease. Reading their advertisements, he is astonished that the English patient should be so obstinate as to refuse health on such easy terms. We find from Swift that astrologers and fortune-tellers were very plentiful in these times. The following lament was written towards the end of the last century upon the death of one of them—Dr. Safford, a quack and fortune-teller.
"Lament, ye damsels of our London City,
Poor unprovided girls, though fair and witty,
Who masked would to his house in couples come,
To understand your matrimonial doom;
To know what kind of man you were to marry,
And how long time, poor things, you were to tarry;
Your oracle is silent; none can tell
On whom his astrologic mantle fell;
For he, when sick, refused the doctor's aid,
And only to his pills devotion paid,
Yet it was surely a most sad disaster,
The saucy pills at last should kill their master."
The travels of Baron Münchausen were first published in 1786, and the esteem in which they were held, and we may conclude their merit, was shown by the numbers of editions rapidly succeeding each other, and by the translations which were made into foreign languages. It is somewhat strange that there should be a doubt with regard to the authorship of so popular a work, but it is generally attributed to one Raspi, a German who fled from the officers of justice to England. As, however, there is little originality in the stories, we feel the less concerned at being unable satisfactorily to trace their authorship—they were probably a collection of the tales with which some old German baron was wont to amuse his guests. A satire was evidently intended upon the marvellous tales in which travellers and sportsmen indulged, and the first edition is humbly dedicated to Mr. Bruce, whose accounts of Abyssinia were then generally discredited. With the exception of this attack upon travellers' tales there is nothing severe in the work—there is no indelicacy or profanity—considerable falsity was, of course, necessary, otherwise the accounts would have been merely fanciful. We have nothing here to mar our amusement, except infinite extravagance. The author does not claim much originality, and he admits an imitation of Gulliver's Travels. But, no doubt, something is due to his insight in selection, and to his ingenuity in telling the stories well and circumstantially; otherwise this book would never have become historical, when so many similar productions have perished. The stories in the first six chapters, which formed the original book, are superior to those in the continuation; there is always something specious, some ground work for the gross improbabilities, which gives force to them. Thus, for instance, travelling in Poland over the deep snow he fastens his horse to something he takes to be a post, and which turns out to be the top of a steeple. By the morning the snow has disappeared—he sees his mistake, and his horse is hanging on the top of the church by its bridle. When on his road to St. Petersburgh, a wolf made after him and overtook him. Escape was impossible.