[should thankless pride repine?] First edition, ‘’twere thankless to repine.’
[Say, should the philosophic mind, etc.] First edition:—
’Twere affectation all, and school-taught pride,
To spurn the splendid things by heaven supply’d
[hoard.] ‘Sum’ in the first edition.
[Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own.] In the first version this was—
Boldly asserts that country for his own.
[And yet, perhaps, etc.] In the first edition, for this and the following five lines appeared these eight:—
And yet, perhaps, if states with states we scan,
Or estimate their bliss on Reason’s plan,
Though patriots flatter, and though fools contend,
We still shall find uncertainty suspend;
Find that each good, by Art or Nature given,
To these or those, but makes the balance even:
Find that the bliss of all is much the same,
And patriotic boasting reason’s shame!
[On Idra’s cliffs.] Bolton Corney conjectures that Goldsmith meant ‘Idria, a town in Carniola, noted for its mines.’ ‘Goldsmith in his “History of Animated Nature” makes mention of the mines, and spells the name in the same way as here.’ (Mr. J. H. Lobban’s Select Poems of Goldsmith, 1900, p. 87). Lines 84–5, it may be added, are not in the first edition.
[And though the rocky-crested summits frown.] In the first edition:—