VIDA'S GAME OF CHESS.
Forster thus describes the MS. of this poem in his 'Life of Goldsmith':
-- 'It is a small quarto manuscript of thirty-four pages, containing 679
lines, to which a fly-leaf is appended in which Goldsmith notes the
differences of nomenclature between Vida's chessmen and our own. It has
occasional interlineations and corrections, but such as would occur in
transcription rather than in a first or original copy. Sometimes indeed
choice appears to have been made (as at page 29) between two words
equally suitable to the sense and verse, as "to" for "toward"; but the
insertions and erasures refer almost wholly to words or lines
accidentally omitted and replaced. The triplet is always carefully
marked; and seldom as it is found in any other of Goldsmith's poems. I
am disposed to regard its frequent recurrence here as even helping, in
some degree, to explain the motive which had led him to the trial of an
experiment in rhyme comparatively new to him.
Pages:
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