[TO G. C. AND R. L.]
From the same letter as the preceding. George Colman and Robert Lloyd of the St. James’s Magazine were supposed to have helped Churchill in The Rosciad, the ‘it’ of the epigram.
[TRANSLATION OF A SOUTH AMERICAN ODE.]
From Letter cxiii of The Citizen of the World, 1762, ii. 209, first printed in The Public Ledger, May 13, 1761.
[THE DOUBLE TRANSFORMATION.]
The Double Transformation first appeared in Essays: By Mr. Goldsmith, 1765, where it figures as Essay xxvi, occupying pp. 229–33. It was revised for the second edition of 1766, becoming Essay xxviii, pp. 241–45. This is the text here followed. The poem is an obvious imitation of what its author calls (Letters from a Nobleman to his Son, 1764, ii. 140) that ‘French elegant easy manner of telling a story,’ which Prior had caught from La Fontaine. But the inherent simplicity of Goldsmith’s style is curiously evidenced by the absence of those illustrations and ingenious allusions which are Prior’s chief characteristic. And although Goldsmith included The Ladle and Hans Carvel in his Beauties of English Poesy, 1767, he refrained wisely from copying the licence of his model.
[Jack Book-worm led a college life.] The version of 1765 reads ‘liv’d’ for ‘led’.
[And freshmen wonder’d as he spoke.] The earlier version adds here—
Without politeness aim’d at breeding,
And laugh’d at pedantry and reading.
[Her presence banish’d all his peace.] Here in the first version the paragraph closes, and a fresh one is commenced as follows:—