Goldsmith uses a like rhyme in 'Edwin and Angelina',
Stanza xxxv:--
But mine the sorrow, mine the fault,
And well my life shall pay;
I'll seek the solitude he sought,
And stretch me where he lay.
Cf. also 'Retaliation', ll. 73-4. Perhaps--as indeed Prior
suggests--he pronounced 'fault' in this fashion.
l. 216. -----
"That one small head could carry all he knew". Some of
the traits of this portrait are said to be borrowed from
Goldsmith's own master at Lissoy:--'He was instructed in
reading, writing, and arithmetic'--says his sister Catherine,
Mrs. Hodson--'by a schoolmaster in his father's village, who had
been a quartermaster in the army in Queen Anne's wars, in that
detachment which was sent to Spain: having travelled over a
considerable part of Europe and being of a very romantic turn,
he used to entertain Oliver with his adventures; and the
impressions these made on his scholar were believed by the
family to have given him that wandering and unsettled turn which
so much appeared in his future life.
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