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XIV. Essays Erroneously Attributed to Goldsmith

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Caroline F. Tupper
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Extract

In the 1801 edition of Goldsmith's Miscellaneous Works were collected for the first time seven essays republished from the British Magazine (July 1761-January 1763) where they appeared under the general heading, “On the Study of the Belles Lettres.” Grouped under this title these essays have been included in all subsequent editions of Goldsmith's Works and, so far as I know, only one editor—Peter Cunningham, whose opinion will be discussed presently—has decided against their authenticity.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , June 1924 , pp. 325 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1924

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References

1 The Works of Oliver Goldsmith, New York 1854, III. 260.

2 R. P. Cowl. Theory of Poetry in England. (London 1914) pp. 45-46 and 75-76.

3 Illustration of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century. John Nichols (London 1831) VI, 583 f.

4 Quoted from the N. E. Dict. which cites the reference thus,—“C 1660 J. Gibbon in Spurgeon Treas. Dav. CXIX. 9. A young man, etc.”

5 See Gibbs Edition, London, 1901, IV. 8. Gibbs does not quote this sentence because this work was not published under Goldsmith's name by its original publishers. Its authorship, however, is quite certain. The date of its composition is not definitely known. See Editor's note, IV. 2.

All references in my footnotes are to the Edition of Gibbs.

6 Gibbs remarks: “It must be confessed that the passage on Shakespere in the chapter on the Stage in the ‘Enquiry into Polite Learning,‘ a work to whose second edition Goldsmith put his name, comes somewhat near to the captiousness of the Belles Lettres passages” (Appendix to the Essays, I, 408).

7 III. 5-13.

8 I. 372-373.

9 The quotation is from Summer.

10 IV. 418.

11 V. 159

12 I. 384.

13 See I. 350-351. Could the author of these passages ever have written the Reverie at the Boer's Head Tavern and delighted in the “low” personality of Dame Quickly's ghost?

14 It must be noted, however, that this criticism occurs in the Sequel to the Poetical Balance which is not definitely proved to be Goldsmith's although it bears many evidences of his thought and style.

15 For example, see the Life of Thomas Parnell, IV. 173.

16 See Critical Rev., V. 300.

17 John Armstrong Miscellanies (1770) II, 158.

18 See also the “peculiar approbation” of himself expressed in his Preface to the Continuation of his History of England.

19 The Works of M. de Voltaire. Translated from the French with Notes Historical and Critical. London. MDCCLXII. Vol. 13, p. 137.