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| 1773 | March 24. Kenrick's libel in the London Packet. March 31. Letter in the Daily Advertiser. May 8. The Grumbler produced. Projects a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. |
| 1774 | March 25. Illness. April 4. Death. April 9. 'Buried 9th April, Oliver Goldsmith, MB, late of Brick-court, Middle Temple' (Register of Burials, Temple Church). April 19. Retaliation published. April. Vicar of Wakefield, 5th edition (dated 1773). June. Song ('Ah me, when shall I marry me?') published. June 28. Letters of Administration granted. June. An History of the Earth and Animated Nature published. 'Translation from Addison.' (History, etc., 1774.) |
| 1776 | The Haunch of Venison published. 'Epitaph on Thomas Parnell,' and 'Two Songs from The Captivity (Haunch of Venison). Monument with medallion by Nollekens erected in the south transept of Westminster Abbey. |
| 1777 | Poems and Plays published. 'The Clown's Reply,' 'Epitaph on Edward Purdon' (Poems, etc., 1777). |
| 1779 | Vicar of Wakefield, 6th edition. |
| 1780 | Poetical and Dramatic Works, Evans's edition, published. 'Epilogue for Lee Lewes' (Poetical, etc., Works, 1780). |
| 1801 | Miscellaneous Works, Percy's edition, published. 'Epilogues (unspoken) to She Stoops to Conquer' (Misc. Works, 1801). |
| 1820 | Miscellaneous Works, 'trade' edition, published. An Oratorio' (The Captivity). (Misc. Works, 1820.) |
| 1837 | Miscellaneous Works, Prior's edition, published. 'Verses in Reply to an Invitation to Dinner'; 'Letter in Prose and Verse to Mrs. Bunbury' (Misc. Works, 1837). Tablet erected in the Temple Church. |
| 1854 | Goldsmith's Works, Cunningham's edition, published. 'Translation of Vida's Game of Chess' (Works, 1854, vol. iv). |
| 1864 | January 5. J. H. Foley's statue placed in front of Dublin University. |
Poetical Works of Goldsmith / Contents / Chronology /
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DESCRIPTIVE POEMS
THE TRAVELLER
OR
A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY
DEDICATION TO THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH
DEAR SIR,
I am sensible that the friendship between us can acquire no new force from the ceremonies of a Dedication; and perhaps it demands an excuse thus to prefix your name to my attempts, which you decline giving with your own. But as a part of this Poem was formerly written to you from Switzerland, the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you. It will also throw a light upon many parts of it, when the reader understands, that it is addressed to a man, who, despising Fame and Fortune, has retired early to Happiness and Obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year.
I now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom of your humble choice. You have entered upon a sacred office, where the harvest is great, and the labourers are but few; while you have left the field of Ambition, where the labourers are many, and the harvest not worth carrying away. But of all kinds of ambition, what from the refinement of the times, from different systems of criticism, and from the divisions of party, that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest.
Poetry makes a principal amusement among unpolished nations; but in a country verging to the extremes of refinement, Painting and Music come in for a share. As these offer the feeble mind a less laborious entertainment,
notes
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they at first rival Poetry, and at length supplant her; they engross all that favour once shown to her, and though but younger sisters, seize upon the elder's birthright.
Yet, however this art may be neglected by the powerful, it is still in greater danger from the mistaken efforts of the learned to improve it. What criticisms have we not heard of late in favour of blank verse, and Pindaric odes, choruses, anapaests and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence! Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it; and as he is generally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say; for error is ever talkative.
But there is an enemy to this art still more dangerous, I mean Party. Party entirely distorts the judgment, and destroys the taste. When the mind is once infected with this disease, it can only find pleasure in what contributes to increase the distemper. Like the tiger, that seldom desists from pursuing man after having once preyed upon human flesh, the reader, who has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes, ever after, the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers generally admire some half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the name of poet; his tawdry lampoons are called satires, his turbulence is said to be force, and his frenzy fire.
What reception a Poem may find, which has neither abuse, party, nor blank verse to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I solicitous to know. My aims are right. Without espousing