'
ll. 427-30. "That trade's proud empire", etc. These last four
lines are attributed to Johnson on Boswell's authority:--'Dr.
Johnson...favoured me by marking the lines which he furnished to
Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village', which are only the 'last four'.'
(Birkbeck Hill's 'Boswell', 1887, ii. 7.)
PROLOGUE OF LABERIUS.
This translation, or rather imitation, was first published at pp. 176-7
of 'An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe',
1759 (Chap. xii, 'Of the Stage'), where it is prefaced as
follows:--'MACROBIUS has preserved a prologue, spoken and written by the
poet [Decimus] Laberius, a Roman knight, whom Caesar forced upon the
stage, written with great elegance and spirit, which shews what opinion
the Romans in general entertained of the profession of an actor.' In the
second edition of 1774 the prologue was omitted. The original lines, one
of which Goldsmith quotes, are to found in the 'Saturnalia' of
Macrobius, lib.
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