They probably appeared in the newspaper at some date between 1769, when the picture was painted, and August 1771, when ‘Little Comedy’ was married, after which time Goldsmith would scarcely speak of her except as ‘Mrs. Bunbury’ (see p. 132, l. 15).
[LETTER IN PROSE AND VERSE TO MRS. BUNBURY.]
This letter, which contains some of the brightest and easiest of Goldsmith’s familiar verses, was addressed to Mrs. Bunbury (the ‘Little Comedy’ of the Verses in Reply to an Invitation to Dinner, pp. 250–2), in answer to a rhymed summons on her part to spend Christmas at Great Barton in Suffolk, the family seat of the Bunburys. It was first printed by Prior in the Miscellaneous Works of 1837, iv. 148–51, and again in 1838 in Sir Henry Bunbury’s Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart., pp. 379–83. The text of the latter issue is here followed. When Prior published the verses, they were assigned to the year 1772; in the Hanmer Correspondence it is stated that they were ‘probably written in 1773 or 1774.’
[your spring velvet coat.] Goldsmith’s pronounced taste in dress, and his good-natured simplicity, made his costume a fertile subject for playful raillery,—sometimes, for rather discreditable practical jokes. (See next note.)
‘He always wore a wig’—said the ‘Jessamy Bride’ in her reminiscences to Prior—‘a peculiarity which those who judge of his appearance only from the fine poetical head of Reynolds, would not suspect; and on one occasion some person contrived to seriously injure this important adjunct to dress. It was the only one he had in the country, and the misfortune seemed irreparable until the services of Mr. Bunbury’s valet were called in, who however performed his functions so indifferently that poor Goldsmith’s appearance became the signal for a general smile’ (Prior’s Life, 1837, ii. 378–9).
[Naso contemnere adunco.] Cf. Horace, Sat. i. 6. 5:—
naso suspendis adunco
Ignotos,
and Martial, Ep. i. 4. 6:—
Et pueri nasum Rhinocerotis habent.
[Loo,] i.e. Lanctre- or Lanterloo, a popular eighteenth-century game, in which Pam, l. 6, the knave of clubs, is the highest card. Cf. Pope, Rape of the Lock, 1714, iii. 61:—