“‘The land to hast’ning ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.’
“But it is very natural to suppose that, at the same time, his imagination had in view the scenes of his youth, which give such strong features of resemblance to the picture.”
Best, an Irish clergyman, told Davis, the traveler in America, that the hawthorn-bush mentioned in the poem was still remarkably large. “I was riding once,” said he, “with Brady, titular Bishop of Ardagh, when he observed to me, ‘Ma foy, Best, this huge overgrown bush is mightily in the way. I will order it to be cut down.’ ‘What, sir!’ replied I, ‘cut down the bush that supplies so beautiful an image in The Deserted Village?’—‘Ma foy!’ exclaimed the bishop, ‘is that the hawthorn-bush? Then let it be sacred from the edge of the ax, and evil be to him that should cut off a branch.’ “—The hawthorn-bush, however, has long since been cut up, root and branch, in furnishing relics to literary pilgrims.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE POET AMONG THE LADIES—DESCRIPTION OF HIS PERSON AND MANNERS—EXPEDITION TO PARIS WITH THE HORNECK FAMILY—THE TRAVELER OF TWENTY AND THE TRAVELER OF FORTY—HICKEY, THE SPECIAL ATTORNEY—AN UNLUCKY EXPLOIT
The Deserted Village had shed an additional poetic grace round the homely person of the author; he was becoming more and more acceptable in ladies’ eyes, and finding himself more and more at ease in their society; at least in the society of those whom he met in the Reynolds circle, among whom he particularly affected the beautiful family of the Hornecks.
But let us see what were really the looks and manners of Goldsmith about this time, and what right he had to aspire to ladies’ smiles; and in so doing let us not take the sketches of Boswell and his compeers, who had a propensity to represent him in caricature; but let us take the apparently truthful and discriminating picture of him as he appeared to Judge Day, when the latter was a student in the Temple.