OLIYER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK m.

1765. Goldsmith's habit of elaboration and pains-taking in the
-ZEU57. correction of his verse. By comparing it with what was
afterwards published, we perceive that even the gentle open-
ing line has been an after-thought; that four stanzas have
been re-written; and that the two which originally stood
last have -been removed altogether. These, for their simple
beauty of expression, it is worth while here to preserve.
The action of the poem having closed without them, they
were on better consideration rejected; and young writers
should study and make profit of such lessons. . Posterity has
always too much upon its hands to attend to what is
irrelevant or needless; and no one so well as Goldsmith
seems to have known that the writer who would hope to live,
must live by the perfection of his style, and by the cherished
and careful beauty of unsuperfluous writing.

" Here amidst sylvan bowers we'll rove,

From lawn to woodland stray ;
Blest as the songsters of the grove,
And innocent as they.

" To all that want, and all that wail,

Our pity shall be given ;
And when this life of love shall fail,
We'll love again in heaven."

Intercourse with Northumberland-house, except when
Mr. Percy's library was open to him during his chaplaincy

" think so still. I said I was told "by the bookseller that it 'was then first published,
" but in that it seems I was misinformed, and my reading was not extensive enough
" to set me right. Another correspondent of yours accuses me of having taken a
" ballad I published some time ago from one by the ingenious Mr. Percy. I do not
'' think there is any great resemblance between the two pieces in question. If there
'' be any, his ballad was taken from mine. I read it to Mr. Percy some years ago ;
" and he, as we both considered these things as trifles at best, told me with his
" usual good-humour the next time I saw.him, that he had taken my plan to form the
" fragments of Shakspeare into a ballad of his own. He then read me his little
" cento, if I may so call it, and I highly approved it. Such petty anecdotes as
" these are scarcely worth printing ; and were it not for the busy disposition of
".some of your correspondents, the public should never have known that he owesat I recom-