[Pride in their port,] etc. In the first edition these two lines were inverted.
[Here by the bonds of nature feebly held.] In the first edition—
See, though by circling deeps together held.
[Nature’s ties] was ‘social bonds’ in the first edition.
[Where kings have toil’d, and poets wrote for fame.] In the first edition this line read:—
And monarchs toil, and poets pant for fame.
[Yet think not, etc.] ‘In the things I have hitherto written I have neither allured the vanity of the great by flattery, nor satisfied the malignity of the vulgar by scandal, but I have endeavoured to get an honest reputation by liberal pursuits.’ (Preface to English History.) [Mitford.]
[Ye powers of truth, etc.] The first version has:—
Perish the wish; for, inly satisfy’d,
Above their pomps I hold my ragged pride.
Mr. Forster thinks (Life, 1871, i. 375) that Goldsmith altered this (i.e. ‘ragged pride’) because, like the omitted Haud inexpertus loquor of the Enquiry, it involved an undignified admission.