Chapter XXV: Appendix: B

DESCRIPTIONS OF NEWELL’S VIEWS OF LISSOY, ETC.

In 1811, the Rev. R. H. Newell, B.D. and Fellow of St. John’s College,
Cambridge, issued an edition of the _ Poetical Works_ of
Goldsmith. The distinctive feature of this lay in the fact that it was
illustrated by a number of aquatints ‘by Mr. Alkin’ (i.e. Samuel Alken),
after drawings made by Newell in 1806–9, and was accompanied by a series
of ‘Remarks, attempting to ascertain, chiefly from local observation, the
actual scene of _The Deserted Village_.’ Some quotations from
these ‘Remarks’ have already been made in the foregoing notes; but as
copies of six of the drawings are given in this volume, it may be well, in
each case, to reproduce Newell’s ‘descriptions.’

LISHOY, OR LISSOY MILL.

The west end of it, as seen from a field near the road; to the north the
country slopes away in coarsely cultivated enclosures, and the distance
eastward is bounded by the Longford hills. The stream ran from the south
side of the mill (where it is still of some width though nearly choked
up), and fell over the once busy wheel, into a deep channel, now overgrown
with weeds. Neglect and poverty appear all around. The farm house and
barn-like buildings, which fill up the sketch, seem to have no
circumstances of interest attached to them (p. 83).

LISSOY MILL

(R. H. Newell)

KILKENNY WEST CHURCH.

This south-west view was taken from the road, which passes by the church,
towards Lishoy, and overlooks the adjacent country to the west. The church
appears neat, its exterior having been lately repaired. The tree added to
the foreground is the only liberty taken with the subject (p. 83).

HAWTHORN TREE.

An east view of the tree, as it stood in August, 1806. The Athlone road
occupies the centre of the sketch, winding round
the stone wall to the right, into the village, and to the left leading
toward the church. The cottage and tree opposite the hawthorn, adjoin the
present public-house; the avenue before the parsonage tops the distant
eminence (p. 84).

SOUTH VIEW FROM GOLDSMITH’S MOUNT.

In this sketch ‘the decent church,’ at the top of the hill in the
distance, is an important object, from its exact correspondence with the
situation given it in the poem. Half-way up stands the solitary ruin of
Lord Dillon’s castle. The hill in shadow, on the left, is above the
village, and is supposed to be alluded to in the line—

Up yonder hill the distant murmur rose.

A flat of bogland extends from the narrow lake in the centre to the mount
on the right of the foreground (p. 84).

THE PARSONAGE.

A south view from the Athlone road, which runs parallel with the stone
wall, and nearly east and west: the gateway is that mentioned in
Goldsmith’s letter,* the mount being directly opposite, in a field
contiguous with the road.

* See note to l. 114 of _The Deserted Village_.

The ruinous stone wall in this and three other sketches, which is a
frequent sort of fence in the neighbourhood, gives a characteristic
propriety to the line (48)

And the long grass o’ertops the mould’ring wall.

(pp. 84–5).

THE PARSONAGE

(R. H. Newell)

THE SCHOOL-HOUSE.

This cottage is situated, as the poem describes it, by the road-side, just
where it forms a sharp angle by branching out from the village eastward:
at this point a south-west view was taken (p. 85).

Newell’s book was reissued in 1820; but no alterations were made in the
foregoing descriptions which, it must be borne in
mind, refer to 1806–9. His enthusiastic identifications will no doubt be
taken by the reader with the needful grain of salt. Goldsmith probably
remembered the hawthorn bush, the church upon the hill, the watercress
gatherer, and some other familiar objects of the ‘seats of his youth.’ But
distance added charm to the regretful retrospect; and in the details his
fancy played freely with his memories. It would be unwise, for example, to
infer—as Mr. Hogan did—the decorations of the _Three
Pidgeons_ at Lissoy from the account of the inn in the poem.* Some
twelve years before its publication, when he was living miserably in Green
Arbour Court, Goldsmith had submitted to his brother Henry a sample of a
heroi-comic poem describing a Grub Street writer in bed in ‘a paltry
ale-house.’ In this ‘the sanded floor,’ the ‘twelve good rules’ and the
broken tea-cups all played their parts as accessories, and even the
double-dealing chest had its prototype in the poet’s night-cap, which was
‘a cap by night—a stocking all the day.’ A year or two later he
expanded these lines in the _Citizen of the World_, and the
scene becomes the Red Lion in Drury Lane. From this second version he
adapted, or extended again, the description of the inn parlour in _The
Deserted Village_. It follows therefore, either that he borrowed for
London the details of a house in Ireland, or that he used for Ireland the
details of a house in London. If, on the other hand, it be contended that
those details were common to both places, then the identification in these
particulars of Auburn with Lissoy falls hopelessly to the ground.

* What follows is taken from the writer’s ‘Introduction’ to Mr.
Edwin Abbey’s illustrated edition of _ The Deserted Village_,
1902, p. ix.