'
l. 37. -----
"Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen". Strean's
explanation (Mangin, 'ut supra', pp. 140-1) of this is as
follows:--'The poem of 'The Deserted Village', took its origin
from the circumstance of general Robert Napper [Napier or
Naper], (the grandfather of the gentleman who now [1807] lives
in the house, within half a mile of Lissoy, and built by the
general) having purchased an extensive tract of the country
surrounding Lissoy, or 'Auburn'; in consequence of which many
families, here called 'cottiers', were removed, to make room for
the intended improvements of what was now to become the wide
domain of a rich man, warm with the idea of changing the face of
his new acquisition; and were forced, "with fainting steps," to
go in search of "torrid tracts" and "distant climes."'
Prior ('Life', 1837, i. 40-3) points out that Goldsmith was not
the first to give poetical expression to the wrongs of the
dispossessed Irish peasantry; and he quotes a long extract from
the 'Works' (1741) of a Westmeath poet, Lawrence Whyte, which
contains such passages as these:--
Their native soil were forced to quit,
So Irish landlords thought it fit;
Who without ceremony or rout,
For their improvements turn'd them out.
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