It is the
editor's experience that references to external authorities are, as a
general rule, sign-posts to routes which are seldom travelled*.
[footnote] *In this connexion may be recalled the dictum of Hume quoted
by Dr. Birkbeck Hill:--'Every book should be as complete as possible
within itself, and should never refer for anything material to other
books' ('History of England', 1802, ii. 101).
THE TRAVELLER.
It was on those continental wanderings which occupied Goldsmith between
February, 1755 and February, 1756 that he conceived his first idea of
this, the earliest of his poems to which he prefixed his name; and he
probably had in mind Addison's 'Letter from Italy to Lord Halifax', a
work in which he found 'a strain of political thinking that was, at that
time [1701]. new in our poetry.' ('Beauties of English Poesy', 1767, i.
III). From the dedicatory letter to his brother--which says expressly,
'as a part of this Poem was formerly written to you from Switzerland,
the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you'--it is
plain that some portion of it must have been actually composed abroad.
Pages:
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249