15). But
it is ill jesting with hydrophobia. Like 'Madam Blaize', these verses
have been illustrated by Randolph Caldecott.
l. 5. -----
"In Islington there was a man". Goldsmith had lodgings at Mrs.
Elizabeth Fleming's in Islington (or 'Isling town' as the
earlier editions have it) in 1763-4; and the choice of the
locality may have been determined by this circumstance. But the
date of the composition of the poem is involved in the general
obscurity which hangs over the 'Vicar' in its unprinted state.
(See 'Introduction', pp. xviii-xix.)
l. 19. -----
"The dog, to gain some private ends". The first edition reads
'his private ends.'
l. 32. -----
"The dog it was that died". This catastrophe suggests the
couplet from the 'Greek Anthology',
ed. Jacobs, 1813-7, ii. 387:--
Kappadoken pot exidna kake daken alla kai aute
katthane, geusamene aimatos iobolou.
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