' What had manifestly
happened was this. Goldsmith, turning over each page as written, had
laid it on the top of the preceding page of MS. and forgotten to
rearrange them when done. Thus the series of pages were reversed; and,
so reversed, were set up in type by a matter-of-fact compositor. Mr.
Dobell at once accepted this happy explanation; which--as Mr. Quiller
Couch points out--has the advantage of being a 'blunder just so natural
to Goldsmith as to be almost postulable.' One or two of the variations
of Mr. Dobell's 'find'--variations, it should be added, antecedent to
the first edition--are noted in their places.
The didactic purpose of 'The Traveller' is defined in the concluding
paragraph of the 'Dedication'; and, like many of the thoughts which it
contains, had been anticipated in a passage of 'The Citizen of the
World', 1762, i. 185:--'Every mind seems capable of entertaining a
certain quantity of happiness, which no institutions can encrease, no
circumstances alter, and entirely independent on fortune.
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