A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.
If Goldsmith’s lines did not belong to 1759, one might suppose he had in mind the later Pauvre Diable of his favourite Voltaire. (See also [APPENDIX B.])
[ON SEEING MRS. ** PERFORM IN THE CHARACTER OF ****.]
These verses, intended for a specimen of the newspaper Muse, are from Letter lxxxii of The Citizen of the World, 1762, ii. 87, first printed in The Public Ledger, October 21, 1760.
[ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. ***]
From Letter ciii of The Citizen of the World, 1762, ii. 164, first printed in The Public Ledger, March 4, 1761. The verses are given as a ‘specimen of a poem on the decease of a great man.’ Goldsmith had already used the trick of the final line of the quatrain in An Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize, ante, p. 198.
[AN EPIGRAM.]
From Letter cx of The Citizen of the World, 1762, ii. 193, first printed in The Public Ledger, April 14, 1761. It had, however, already been printed in the ‘Ledger’, ten days before. Goldsmith’s animosity to Churchill (cf. note to l. 41 of the dedication to The Traveller) was notorious; but this is one of his doubtful pieces.
[virtue.] ‘Charity’ (Author’s note).
[bounty.] ‘Settled at One Shilling—the Price of the Poem’ (Author’s note).