[I’ll give thee.] See an anecdote à propos of this anticlimax in Trevelyan’s Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, ed. 1889, p. 600:—‘There was much laughing about Mrs. Beecher Stowe [then (16th March, 1853) expected in England], and what we were to give her. I referred the ladies to Goldsmith’s poems for what I should give. Nobody but Hannah understood me; but some of them have since been thumbing Goldsmith to make out the riddle.’
[THE LOGICIANS REFUTED.]
These lines, which have often, and even of late years, been included among Swift’s works, were first printed as Goldsmith’s by T. Evans at vol. i. pp. 115–17 of The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Oliver Goldsmith, M.B., 1780. They originally appeared in The Busy Body for Thursday, October the 18th, 1759 (No. v), having this notification above the title: ‘The following Poem written by DR. SWIFT, is communicated to the Public by the BUSY BODY, to whom it was presented by a Nobleman of distinguished Learning and Taste.’ In No. ii they had already been advertised as forthcoming. The sub-title, ‘In imitation of Dean Swift,’ seems to have been added by Evans. The text here followed is that of the first issue.
[Wise Aristotle and Smiglecius.] Cf. The Life of Parnell, 1770, p. 3:—‘His imagination might have been too warm to relish the cold logic of Burgersdicius, or the dreary subtleties of Smiglesius; but it is certain that as a classical scholar, few could equal him.’ Martin Smiglesius or Smigletius, a Polish Jesuit, theologian and logician, who died in 1618, appears to have been a special bête noire to Goldsmith; and the reference to him here would support the ascription of the poem to Goldsmith’s pen, were it not that Swift seems also to have cherished a like antipathy:—‘He told me that he had made many efforts, upon his entering the College [i.e. Trinity College, Dublin], to read some of the old treatises on logic writ by Smeglesius, Keckermannus, Burgersdicius, etc., and that he never had patience to go through three pages of any of them, he was so disgusted at the stupidity of the work.’ (Sheridan’s Life of Swift, 2nd ed., 1787, p. 4.)
[Than reason-boasting mortal’s pride.] So in The Busy Body. Some editors—Mitford, for example—print the line:—
Than reason,—boasting mortals’ pride.
[Deus est anima brutorum.] Cf. Addison in Spectator, No. 121 (July 19, 1711): ‘A modern Philosopher, quoted by Monsieur Bale in his Learned Dissertation on the Souls of Brutes delivers the same Opinion [i.e.—That Instinct is the immediate direction of Providence], tho’ in a bolder form of words where he says Deus est Anima Brutorum, God himself is the Soul of Brutes.’ There is much in ‘Monsieur Bayle’ on this theme. Probably Addison had in mind the following passage of the Dict. Hist. et Critique (3rd ed., 1720, 2481b.) which Bayle cites from M. Bernard:—‘Il me semble d’avoir lu quelque part cette Thèse, Deus est anima brutorum: l’expression est un peu dure; mais elle peut recevoir un fort bon sens.’
[ B—b]=Bob, i.e. Sir Robert Walpole, the Prime Minister, for whom many venal ‘quills were drawn’ circa 1715–42. Cf. Pope’s Epilogue to the Satires, 1738, Dialogue i, ll. 27–32:—
Go see Sir ROBERT—
P. See Sir ROBERT!—hum—
And never laugh—for all my life to come?
Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of Social Pleasure, ill-exchang’d for Pow’r;
Seen him, uncumber’d with the Venal tribe,
Smile without Art, and win without a Bribe.
[A courtier any ape surpasses.] Cf. Gay’s Fables, passim. Indeed there is more of Gay than Swift in this and the lines that follow. Gay’s life was wasted in fruitless expectations of court patronage, and his disappointment often betrays itself in his writings.