Maidstone.
"A BREATH CAN MAKE THEM AS A BREATH HAS MADE."
(Vol. iv., p. 482.)
With reference to the observations of HENRY H. BREEN upon a well-known
passage in Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_, a little consideration will
convince him that the view taken by D'Israeli and himself is not only
extremely superficial, but that the proposed emendation would entirely
destroy the poet's meaning.
The antithesis is not between flourishing and fading, but between the
difficult restoration of a bold peasantry and the easy reproduction of
princes and lords.
The first branch of the antithesis is between _wealth_ and _men_:
"Where wealth accumulates and men decay."
It then proceeds to set forth that it matters little whether nobles
flourish or fade, because a breath can make _them_ as easily as it has
originally made them: but not so with a bold peasantry. When once _they_
are destroyed, _they_ can never be replaced.
In fact, so far from the sense requiring the alteration of "makes" into
"_un_makes," the substitution, if we would preserve the author's
meaning, should be "remakes:"
"Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,
A breath _remakes them_, as a breath has made."
I only put this in illustration: Heaven forbid I should recommend it as
an improvement!
As for the cited "parallel passages," the best answer that can be given
to _them_ is, that they cease to be parallel passages!
I shall therefore take the liberty to repeat a sentence from MR. BREEN,
with a slight alteration:
"That Goldsmith wrote the line in question with the word
'unmakes,' there seems (_every_) reason to doubt."