in exacting aid. The bookseller, to whom the precise temporary purpose for which the clothes were wanted does not seem to have been told, consented to furnish them on certain conditions. Goldsmith was to write at once four articles (he had given three to the Critical) for the Monthly Review. Griffiths would then become security with a tailor for a new suit of clothes; which were either to be returned, or the debt for them discharged, within a given time. This pauper proposal acceded to, Goldsmith doubtless returned to Green Arbour-court with the four books under his arm.

They were: Some Enquiries Concerning the First Inhabitants of Europe, by a member of the Society of Antiquaries, known afterwards as Francis Wise, and Thomas Warton's friend; Anselm Bayly's Introduction to Languages; the Pentalogia of Doctor Burton; and a new Translation of Cicero's Tusculan Disputations. The notices of them thus extorted made due appearance, as the first four articles of the Monthly Review for December 1758; the tailor was then called in, and the compact completed.

Equipped in his new suit, and one can well imagine with what an anxious, hopeful, quaking heart, Goldsmith offered himself for examination at Surgeons' Hall (the new building erected six years before in the Old Bailey), on the 21st December. "The beadle "called my name," says Roderick Random, when he found himself in similar condition at that place of torture, "with a voice that "made me tremble as much as if it had been the sound of the last 66 trumpet: however there was no remedy: I was conducted into “a large hall, where I saw about a dozen of grim faces sitting at 66 a long table, one of whom bade me come forward in such an "imperious tone, that I was actually for a minute or two bereft of my senses. Whether the same process, conducted through a like memorable scene, bereft poor Goldsmith altogether of his, cannot now be ascertained. All that is known, is told in a dry extract from the books of the College of Surgeons. "At a Court "of Examiners held at the Theatre 21st December, 1758. Present" -the names are not given, but there is a long list of the candidates who passed, in the midst of which these occur: "James Bernard, "mate to an hospital. Oliver Goldsmith, found not qualified for "ditto." A rumour of this rejection long existed, and on a hint from Maton the king's physician, the above entry was found.

66

دو

A harder sentence, a more cruel doom, than this at the time must have seemed, even the Old Bailey has not often been witness to; yet, far from blaming that worthy court of examiners, should we not rather feel that much praise is due to them? That they really did their duty in rejecting the short, thick, dull, ungainly, over-anxious, over-dressed, simple-looking Irishman who presented

himself that memorable day, can hardly, I think, be doubted; but unconsciously they also did a great deal more. They found him not qualified to be a surgeon's mate, and left him qualified to heal the wounds and abridge the sufferings of all the world. They found him querulous with adversity, given up to irresolute fears, too much blinded with failures and sorrows to see the divine uses to which they tended still; and from all this, their sternly just decision resolutely drove him back. While the door of the surgeons' hall was shut upon him that day, the gate of the beautiful mountain was slowly opening. Much of the valley of the shadow he had still indeed to pass; but every outlet save the one was closed upon him, it was idle any longer to strike or struggle against the visions which sprang up in his desolate path, and as he so passed steadily if not cheerily on, he saw them fade and become impalpable before him. Steadily, then, if not cheerily, for some months more! " Sir," said Johnson, "the man who has vigour may walk to the East just as well as to the West, if he "happens to turn his head that way.' So, honour to the court of examiners, I say, for that whether he would or would not they turned back his head to the East! The hopes and promise of the world have a perpetual springtime there; and Goldsmith was hereafter to enjoy them, briefly for himself, but for the world unceasingly.

وو

IT was four days after the rejection at Surgeons' Hall, the Christmas day of 1758, when, to the ordinary filth and 1758.

noise of number twelve in Green Arbour-court, there was Æt. 30. added an unusual lamentation and sorrow. An incident had occurred, of which, painful as were the consequences involved in it, the precise details can but be surmised and guessed at, and must be received with that allowance, though doubtless in the main correct. It would appear that the keeper of this wretched lodging had been suddenly dragged by bailiffs from his home on the previous night, and his wife, with loud wailings, now sought the room of her poorer lodger. He was in debt to the unfortunate couple, who, for the amusement of their children by his flute, had been kind to him according to their miserable means and it was the woman's sobbing petition that he should try to help them. There was but one way; and in the hope, through Hamilton or

Griffiths to be able still to meet the tailor's debt, the gay suit in which he went to Surgeons' Hall, and in which he was dressed for his doleful holiday, appears to have

been put off and carried to the pawnbroker's. Nor had a week passed, before the pangs of his own destitution sharply struck him again; and, without other remaining means of earthly aid, for death had taken in Doctor Milner his apparently last friend, he carried the four books he had recently reviewed for Griffiths to a neighbouring house, and left them in pledge with an acquaintance for a trifling loan. It was hardly done when a letter from Griffiths was put into his hand, peremptorily demanding the return of the books and the suit of clothes, or instant payment for both.

Goldsmith's answer, and the bookseller's violent retort, are to be presumed from the poor debtor's second letter: the only one preserved of this unseemly correspondence. He appears first to have written in a tone of mixed astonishment, anger, and solicitation; to have prayed for some delay; and to have been met by coarse insult, threats, and the shameless imputation of crime. These forced from him the rejoinder found in the bookseller's papers, endorsed by Griffiths with the writer's name, and as "Recd. "in Jany 1759;" which passed afterwards into the manuscript collections of Mr. Heber, and is now in my possession. The appearance of this remarkable letter harmonises with its contents, for there is nothing of the freedom or boldness of hand in it which one may perceive in his ordinary manuscript. The original has been followed with the strictest accuracy in the copy here given, and it will be observed that the pointing is imperfect and confused, nor is there any break or paragraph from the first line to the signature. But all concealment at least is ended, and stern plain truth is told.

Sir, I know of no misery but a gaol to which my own imprudencies and your letter seem to point. I have seen it inevitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens! request it as a favour, as a favour that may prevent somewhat more fatal. I have been some years struggling with a wretched being, with all that contempt which indigence brings with it, with all those strong passions which make contempt insupportable. What then has a gaol that is formidable, I shall at least have the society of wretches, and such is to me true society. I tell you again and again I am now neither able nor willing to pay you a farthing, but I will be punctual to any appointment you or the

taylor shall make; thus far at least I do not act the sharper, since unable to pay my debts one way I would willingly give some security another. No Sir, had I been a sharper, had I been possessed of less good nature and native generosity I might surely now have been in better circumstances. I am guilty I own of meannesses which poverty unavoidably brings with it, my reflections are filled with repentance for my imprudence but not with any remorse for being a villain, that may be a character you unjustly charge me with. Your books I can assure you are neither pawn'd nor sold, but in the custody of a friend from whom my necessities oblig'd me to borrow some money, whatever becomes of my person, you shall have them in a month. It is very possible both the reports you have heard and your own suggestions may have brought you false information with respect to my character, it is very possible that the man whom you now regard with detestation may inwardly burn with grateful resentment, it is very possible that upon a second perusal of the letter I sent you, you may see the workings of a mind strongly agitated with gratitude and jealousy, if such circumstances should appear at least spare invective 'till my book with Mr. Dodsley shall be publish'd, and then perhaps you may see the bright side of a mind when my professions shall not appear the dictates of necessity but of choice. You seem to think Dr. Milner knew me not. Perhaps so; but he was a man I shall ever honour; but I have friendship only with the dead! I ask pardon for taking up so much time. Nor shall I add to it by any other professions than that I am Sir your Humble Servt.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

P.S. I shall expect impatiently the result of your resolutions.

Now, this Ralph Griffiths the bookseller, whom the diploma of some American university as obscure as himself made subsequently Doctor Griffiths, was one of the most thriving men of the day. In little more than three years after this he was able to retire from bookselling, and hand over to Becket the publication of his Review. As time wore on, he became a more and more regular attendant at the meeting-house, rose higher and higher in the world's esteem, and at last kept his two carriages, and "lived in "style." But he lived, too, to see the changes of thirty years after the grave had received the author of the Vicar of Wakefield ; and though he had some recollections of the errors of his youth to disturb his decorous and religious peace of mind,—such as having become the proprietor of an infamous novel, and dictated the praise of it in his Review,-such as having exposed himself to a remark reiterated in Grainger's letters to Bishop Percy, that he was not to be trusted in any verbal agreement upon matters of his trade, it may not have been the least bitter of his remembrances, if it ever happened to occur to him, that to Oliver Goldsmith, in the depths of a helpless distress, he had applied the epithets of sharper and villain.

From Goldsmith himself they fell harmless. His letter is most affecting but the truth is manfully outspoken in it, and for that reason it is less painful to me than those in which the truth is concealed. When such a mind is brought to look its sorrow in

the face, and understand clearly the condition in which it is,— without further shrinking, doubling, or weak compromise with false hopes,—it is master of a great gain. In the accession of strength it receives, it may see the sorrow anyway increase, and calm its worst apprehension. The most touching passage of that letter is the reference to his project, and the bright side of his mind it may reveal. I will date from it the true beginning of Goldsmith's literary career. Not till he was past thirty, he was wont to say, did he become really attached to literature: not till then was the discipline of his endurance complete, his wandering impulses settled firmly to the right object of their aptitude, or his real destiny revealed to him. He might have still to perish in unconquered difficulties, and with the word that was in him unspoken; but it would be at his post, and in a manly effort to speak the word. Whatever the personal weaknesses that yet remain,- -nor are they few or trifling,-his confidence and self-reliance in literary pursuits date from this memorable time. They rise above the cares and cankers of his life, above the lowness of his worldly esteem, far above the squalor of his homes. They take the undying forms which accident or wrong cannot alter or deface; they are the tenants of a world where distress and failure are unknown; and perpetual cheerfulness sings around them. "The night can never endure so long but at length the "morning cometh;" and with these sudden and sharp disappointments of his second London Christmas, there came into Green Arbour-court the first struggling beams of morning. Till all its brightness follows, let him moan and sorrow as he may ;-the more familiar to himself he makes those images of want and danger, the better he will meet them in the lists where they still await him; the more he cultivates those solitary friendships with the dead, the more elevating and strengthening the influence that will reward him from their graves. The living, busy, prosperous world about him, might indeed have saved him much, by stretching forth its helping hand : but it had not taught him little in its lesson of unrequited expectation, and there was nothing now to distract him with delusive hope from meditation of the wisest form of revenge.

The "impatient expectation" of the result of Griffiths's resolutions, ended in a contract to write him a Life of Voltaire for a translation of the Henriade he was about to publish the payment being twenty pounds, and the price of the clothes to be deducted from that sum. His brother Henry wrote to him of the Polite Learning scheme, while engaged on this trade task; and the answer he made at its close, written early in February 1759, is in some sort the indication of his altered mind and purpose. There is still