When Fielding, Humour’s fav’rite child, appear’d,
Low was the word—a word each author fear’d!
Till chas’d at length, by pleasantry’s bright ray,
Nature and mirth resum’d their legal sway;
And Goldsmith’s genius bask’d in open day.
According to Borrow’s Lavengro, ch. xli, Lord Chesterfield considered that the speeches of Homer’s heroes were frequently ‘exceedingly low.’
[How often, etc.] This and the lines which immediately follow are autobiographical. Cf. George Primrose’s story in The Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, ii. 24–5 (ch. i):—‘I passed among the harmless peasants of Flanders, and among such of the French as were poor enough to be very merry; for I ever found them sprightly in proportion to their wants. Whenever I approached a peasant’s house towards night-fall, I played one of my most merry tunes, and that procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next day.’
[gestic lore,] i.e. traditional gestures or motions. Scott uses the word ‘gestic’ in Peveril of the Peak, ch. xxx, where King Charles the Second witnesses the dancing of Fenella:—‘He bore time to her motions with the movement of his foot—applauded with head and with hand—and seemed, like herself, carried away by the enthusiasm of the gestic art.’ [Hales.]
[Thus idly busy rolls their world away.] Pope has ‘Life’s idle business’ (Unfortunate Lady, l. 81), and—
The busy, idle blockheads of the ball.
Donne’s Satires, iv. l. 203.
[And all are taught an avarice of praise.] Professor Hales (Longer English Poems) compares Horace of the Greeks:—
Praeter laudem, nullius avaris.
Ars Poetica, l. 324.
[copper lace.] ‘St Martin’s lace,’ for which, in Strype’s day, Blowbladder St. was famous. Cf. the actress’s ‘copper tail’ in Citizen of the World, 1762, ii. 60.
[To men of other minds, etc.] Prior compares with the description that follows a passage in vol. i. p. 276 of Animated Nature, 1774:—‘But we need scarce mention these, when we find that the whole kingdom of Holland seems to be a conquest upon the sea, and in a manner rescued from its bosom. The surface of the earth, in this country, is below the level of the bed of the sea; and I remember, upon approaching the coast, to have looked down upon it from the sea, as into a valley.’