Mr. J. H. Lobban, 'Goldsmith, Select Poems', 1900, notes a
hitherto undetected similarity between this and the 'It 'must',
and it 'shall' be a barrack, my life' of Swift's 'Grand Question
Debated'. See also ll. 56 and 91.
l. 56. "No stirring, I beg -- my dear friend -- my dear
friend". In the first edition --
No words, my dear GOLDSMITH! my very good Friend!
Mr. Lobban compares:--
'Good morrow, good captain.' 'I'll wait on you down,' --
'You shan't stir a foot.' 'You'll think me a clown.'
l. 60. -----
"'And nobody with me at sea but myself.'" This is
almost a textual quotation from one of the letters of Henry
Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, to Lady Grosvenor, a
correspondence which in 1770 gave great delight to contemporary
caricaturists and scandal-mongers. Other poets besides Goldsmith
seem to have been attracted by this particular lapse of his
illiterate Royal Highness, since it is woven into a ballad
printed in 'The Public Advertiser' for August 2 in the above
year:--
The Miser who wakes in a Fright for his Pelf,
And finds 'no one by him except his own Self', etc.
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