"Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,
A breath remakes them, as a breath has made."
I only put this in illustration: Heaven forbid I should recommend it as an improvement!
As for the cited "parallel passages," the best answer that can be given to them is, that they cease to be parallel passages!
I shall therefore take the liberty to repeat a sentence from MR. BREEN, with a slight alteration:
"That Goldsmith wrote the line in question with the word 'unmakes,' there seems (every) reason to doubt."
A. E. B.
Leeds.
P.S.—As a mere matter of fact, apart from other considerations, although a breath from the fountain of honour may create a noble, it may be questioned whether it would not require something more than a breath to unmake him?
[We have received many other excellent defences of the original reading of this passage in Goldsmith. We have selected the present as one of the shortest among those which first reached us. We will add to it a postscript from the communication of another correspondent, J. S. W., showing a curious typographical error which has crept into the recent editions of Goldsmith.]