The window, patch’d with paper lent a ray,
That feebly show’d the state in which he lay
with the subsequent references to the “sanded floor” the “humid wall”
the game of goose, “the twelve rules the royal martyr drew,” etc. These
lines with a different setting reappeared in Letter XXX of the Citizen
of the World, which first appeared in the _Public Ledger_ for 2 May,
1760, and some of them were worked afterwards into lines 227-36 of the
Deserted Village, 1770, where they are improved by the addition of:
“The Chest contriv’d a double debt to pay
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.”
Following his usual practice when he does set to work on a letter,
Oliver writes on to the extreme bottom of the page, and finishes thus:
“I am resolved to leave no space, tho I should fill it up only by
telling you what you very well know already, I mean that I am your most
affectionate friend and brother, Oliver Goldsmith.”