Here to return—and die at home at last. Forster compares a passage in _The Citizen of the World_, 1762, ii. 153:—‘There is something so seducing in that spot in which we first had existence, that nothing but it can please; whatever vicissitudes we experience in life, however we toil, or wheresoever we wander, our fatigued wishes still recur to home for tranquillity, we long to die in that spot which gave us birth, and in that pleasing expectation opiate every calamity.’ The poet Waller too—he adds—wished to die ‘like the stag where he was roused.’ (_Life_, 1871, ii. 202.) [Illustration: ] South View from Goldsmith’s Mount (R.H. Newell) How happy he. ‘How blest is he’ in the first edition. And, since ’tis hard to combat, learns to fly. Mitford compares _The Bee_ for October 13, 1759, p. 56:—‘By struggling with misfortunes, we are sure to receive some wounds in the conflict. The only method to come off victorious, is by running away.’ surly porter. Mr. J. M. Lobban compares the _Citizen of the World_, 1762, i. 123:—‘I never see a nobleman’s door half opened that some surly porter or footman does not stand full in the breach.’ (_Select Poems of Goldsmith_, 1900, p. 98.) Bends. ‘Sinks’ in the first edition. _unperceived decay_. Cf. Johnson, _Vanity of Human Wishes_, 1749, l. 292:— An age that melts with unperceiv’d decay, And glides in modest innocence away; and _Irene_, Act ii, Sc. 7:— And varied life steal unperceiv’d away. While Resignation, etc. In 1771 Sir Joshua exhibited a picture of ‘An Old Man,’ studied from the beggar who was his model for Ugolino. When it was engraved by Thomas Watson in 1772, he called it ‘Resignation,’ and inscribed the print to Goldsmith in the following words:—‘This attempt to express a Character in _The Deserted Village_, is dedicated to Dr. Goldsmith, by his sincere Friend and admirer, JOSHUA REYNOLDS.’ Up yonder hill. It has been suggested that Goldsmith was here thinking of the little hill of Knockaruadh (Red Hill) in front of Lissoy parsonage, of which there is a sketch in Newell’s _Poetical Works_, 1811. When Newell wrote, it was already known as ‘Goldsmith’s mount’; and the poet himself refers to it in a letter to his brother-in-law Hodson, dated Dec. 27, 1757:—‘I had rather be placed on the little mount before Lishoy gate, and there take in, to me, the most pleasing horizon in nature.’ (_Percy Memoir_, 1801, p. 43.) And fill’d each pause the nightingale had made. In _Animated Nature_, 1774, v. 328, Goldsmith says:—‘The nightingale’s pausing song would be the proper epithet for this bird’s music.’ [Mitford.]