The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom-is to die.

ELEGY

ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG.'

GOOD people all, of every sort,

Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short,
It cannot hold you long.

In Islington there was a man

Of whom the world might say
That still a godly race he ran
Whene'er he went to pray.

A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad
When he put on his clothes.

And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,

Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,

And curs of low degree.

This dog and man at first were friends;

But when a pique began,

The dog, to gain some private ends,

Went mad, and bit the man.

First printed in "The Vicar of Wakefield,” 1766, though probably written at an earlier period; perhaps in 1760, as we find in The Citizen of the World (Letter lxix.) an amusing paper in which Goldsmith ridicules the fear of mad dogs as one of those epidemic terrors to which the people of England are occasionally subject.

Around from all the neighboring streets
The wondering neighbors ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.

The wound it seem'd both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;

And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.

But soon a wonder came to light,
That show'd the rogues they lied:
The man recover'd of the bite,
The dog it was that died.

EPITAPH

ON EDWARD PURDON.1

HERE lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed,
Who long was a bookseller's hack;

He led such a damnable life in this world,

I don't think he'll wish to come back.

1 From the "Poems and Plays," 1777. Mr. Purdon, "famous for his literary abilities," says the obituary of the Gentlemen's Magazine, died "suddenly in Smithfield,” 27th March, 1767. He was the college friend of Goldsmith, and the translator of "The Memoirs of a Protestant," to which Goldsmith wrote the printed preface (see Vol. III.).

The original of all is the epitaph on "La Mort du Sieur Étienne:"

"Il est au bout de ses travaux,

Il a passé le Sieur Étienne;

En ce monde il eut tant des maux

Qu'on ne croit pas qu'il revienne."

With this, perhaps, Goldsmith was familiar, and had therefore less scruple in laying felonious hands on the epigram in the Miscellanies (Swift, xiii. 372).

"Well, then, poor G- lies underground!.

So there's an end of honest Jack.

So little justice here he found,

'Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back.”

FORSTER, Goldsmith's Life and Times, ii. 80.

WHAT! five long acts--and all to make us wiser?
Our authoress sure has wanted an adviser.
Had she consulted me, she should have made
Her moral play a speaking masquerade;
Warm'd up each bustling scene, and in her rage
Have emptied all the greenroom on the stage.
My life on't, this had kept her play from sinking;
Have pleas'd our eyes, and sav'd the pain of thinking.
Well! since she thus has shown her want of skill,
What if I give a masquerade?—I will.

But how? ay, there's the rub! [pausing]--I've got my cue;
The world's a masquerade! the maskers, you, you, you.

[To Boxes, Pit, and Gallery.

Lud! what a group the motley scene discloses!

False wits, false wives, false virgins, and false spouses!
Statesmen with bridles on; and, close beside 'em,

Patriots in party-color'd suits that ride 'em.
There Hebes, turn'd of fifty, try once more
To raise a flame in Cupids of threescore;
These, in their turn, with appetites as keen,
Deserting fifty, fasten on fifteen.

Miss, not yet full fifteen, with fire uncommon,
Flings down her sampler and takes up the woman;
The little urchin smiles, and spreads her lure,

And tries to kill ere she's got power to cure.
Thus 'tis with all: their chief and constant care

Is to seem everything-but what they are.

Written by Mrs. Charlotte Lennox, and first acted at Covent Garden Theatre, 18th January, 1769. The audience expressed their disapprobation of it with so much clamor and appearance of prejudice that she would not suffer an attempt to exhibit it a second time, but published her play (unauthor-like) without either remonstrance or complaint. See Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1769, p. 199.

Yon broad, bold, angry spark I fix my eye on,
Who seems t' have robb'd his visor from the lion;
Who frowns, and talks, and swears, with round parade,
Looking as who should say, Dam'me! who's afraid?

Strip but his visor off, and sure I am
You'll find his lionship a very lamb.
Yon politician, famous in debate,

Perhaps, to vulgar eyes, bestrides the State;
Yet, when he deigns his real shape t' assume,
He turns old woman and bestrides a broom.
Yon patriot, too, who presses on your sight,
And seems, to every gazer, all in white,
If with a bribe his candor you attack,

[Mimicking.

He bows, turns round, and whip-the man's a black!
Yon critic, too-but whither do I run?

If I proceed, our bard will be undone!

Well, then, a truce, since she requests it too:
Do you spare her, and I'll for once spare you.'

"There are but two decent prologues in our tongue-Pope's to 'Cato'Johnson's to Drury Lane. These, with the epilogue to 'The Distrest Mother,' and, I think, one of Goldsmith's, and a prologue of old Colman's to Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster,' are the best things of the kind we have."-LORD BYRON, Works, vol. ii. p. 165.

2 Written about the year 1769, in reply to an invitation to dinner at Dr. (afterwards Sir George) Baker's (d. 1809), to meet the Misses Horneck, Angelica Kauffman, Miss Reynolds, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others. For the above verses, first published in 1837, the reader is indebted to Major-General Sir Henry Bunbury, Bart.

As I hope to be sav'd,
I put off being shav'd;
For I could not make bold,
While the matter was cold,
To meddle in suds,
Or to put on my duds:
So tell Horneck and Nesbitt,
And Baker and his bit,
And Kauffman beside,
And the Jessamy bride,'
With the rest of the crew,
The Reynoldses two,
Little Comedy's' face,
And the Captain in lace.3
(By-the-bye, you may tell him
I have something to sell him;
Of use, I insist,

When he comes to enlist.
Your worships must know
That, a few days ago,
An order went out,

For the foot-guards so stout
To wear tails in high taste,
Twelve inches at least.
Now I've got him a scale
To measure each tail,
To lengthen a short tail,
And a long one to curtail.)

Yet how can I, when vext,
Thus stray from my text?
Tell each other to rue

Your Devonshire crew,

Miss Mary Horneck, afterwards Mrs. Gwyn. She died in 1840, aged eighty-eight. 2 Miss Catherine Horneck, afterwards (1771) Mrs. Bunbury. Her portrait by Sir Joshua, one of his finest works, is now at Bowood.

Ensign (afterwards General) Horneck, son of Mrs. Horneck, widow of Captain Kane Horneck.