and combined, what store of literary fruit he had gathered in his travel; and no longer commanded by a bookseller, or overawed by an old woman, he might frankly deliver to the world some wholesome truths as to the decay of letters and the rewards of genius. In this spirit he conceived the Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe. And if he had reason bitterly

to feel, in his own case, that he had failed to break down the barriers which encircled the profession of literature, here might a helping hand be stretched forth to the relief of others, still struggling for a better fate in its difficult environments.

With this design another expectation arose,-that the publication, properly managed, might give him means for the outfit his appointment would render necessary. And he bethought him of his Irish friends. The zeal so lately professed might now be exerted with effect, and without greatly plaguing either their pockets or his own pride. In those days, and indeed until the Act of Union was passed, the English writer had no copyright in Ireland: it being a part of the independence of Irish booksellers to steal from English authors, and of the Irish parliament to protect the theft; just as, not twenty years before this date, that excellent native parliament had, on the attempt of a Catholic to recover estates which in the manner of the booksellers a Protestant had seized, voted "all barristers, solicitors, attorneys, and proctors "who should be concerned for him," public enemies! But that serviceable use might be made of the early transmission to Ireland of a set of English copies of the Enquiry, by one who had zealous private friends there, was Goldsmith's not unreasonable feeling ; and he would try this, when the time came. Meanwhile he began the work; and it was probably to some extent advanced, when, with little savings from the school, and renewed assurances of the foreign appointment, Doctor Milner released him from duties which the necessity (during the Doctor's illness) of flogging the boys as well as teaching them, appears to have made more intolerable to the child-loving usher. The reverend Mr. Mitford knew a lady whose husband had been at this time under Goldsmith's cane; but with no very serious consequence.

Escape from the school might not have been so easy, but for the lessening chances of Dr. Milner's recovery having made more permanent arrangements advisable. Some doubt has been expressed, indeed, whether the worthy schoolmaster's illness had not already ended fatally; and if the kindness I have recorded should not rather be attributed to his son and successor in the school, Mr. George Milner. But other circumstances clearly invalidate this, and show that it must have been the elder Milner's. In August 1758, however, Goldsmith again had bidden him adieu; and once more

had secured a respectable town address for his letters, and, among the Graingers and Kippises and other tavern acquaintance, obtained the old facilities for correspondence with his friends, at the Temple-exchange Coffee-house, Temple-bar.

CHAPTER III.

ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE FROM LITERATURE. 1758.

GRAINGER, his friend Percy, and others of the Griffiths connection, were at this time busy upon a new magazine:

1758. begun with the present year, and dedicated to the " great

Æt. 30.

"Mr. Pitt," whose successful coercion of the king made him just now more than ever the darling of the people. Griffiths was one of the publishing partners in The Grand Magazine of Universal Intelligence and Monthly Chronicle of our own Times: and perhaps on this account, as well as for the known contributions of some of his acquaintance, traces of Goldsmith's hand have been sought in the work; in my opinion without success. In truth the first number was hardly out when he went back to the Peckham school; and on his return to London, though he probably eked out his poor savings by casual writings here and there, it is certain that on the foreign appointment his hopes continued steadily fixed, and that the work which was to aid him in his escape from literature (the completion of the Enquiry into the State of Polite Learning, or, as he called it before publication, the Essay on the Present State of Taste and Literature) occupied nearly all his thoughts. He was again in London, and again working with the pen; but he was no longer the bookseller's slave, nor was literary toil his impassable and hopeless doom. Therefore, in the confidence of swift liberation, and the hope of the new career that brightened in his sanguine heart, he addressed himself cheerily enough to the design in hand, and began solicitation of his Irish friends.

Edward Mills he thought of first, as a person of some influence. He was his relative, had been his fellow collegian, and was a prosperous, wealthy man. In a letter to him dated from the Templeexchange Coffee-house, on the 7th of August, and published by Bishop Percy, after some allusion to his having given up the pursuit of law for the privacy of a country life, he continues,

It seems you are contented to be merely an happy man; to be esteemed only by your acquaintance-to cultivate your paternal acres-to take unmo

lested a nap under one of your own hawthorns, or in Mrs. Mills's bedchamber, which even a poet must confess, is rather the most comfortable place of the two. But however your resolutions may be altered with regard to your situation in life, I persuade myself they are unalterable with regard to your friends in it. I cannot think the world has taken such entire possession of that heart (once so susceptible of friendship) as not to have left a corner there for a friend or two; but I flatter myself that even I have my place among the number. This I have a claim to from the similitude of our dispositions; or, setting that aside, I can demand it as my right by the most equitable law in nature, I mean that of retaliation for indeed you have more than your share in mine. I am a man of few professions, and yet this very instant I cannot avoid the painful apprehension that my present professions (which speak not half my feelings) should be considered only a pretext to cover a request, as I have a request to make. No, my dear Ned, I know you are too generous to think so; and you know me too proud to stoop to mercenary insincerity. I have a request it is true to make; but as I know to whom I am a petitioner, I make it without diffidence or confusion. It is in short this, I am going to publish a book in London, entitled An Essay on the present State of Taste and Literature in Europe. Every work published here the printers in Ireland republish there, without giving the author the least consideration for his copy. I would in this respect disappoint their avarice, and have all the additional advantages that may result from the sale of my performance there to myself. The book is now printing in London, and I have requested Dr. Radcliff, Mr. Lawder, Mr. Bryanton, my brother Mr. Henry Goldsmith, and brother-in-law Mr. Hodson, to circulate my proposals among their acquaintance. The same request I now make to you; and have accordingly given directions to Mr. Bradley, bookseller in Dame-street Dublin, to send you a hundred proposals. Whatever subscriptions pursuant to those proposals, you may receive, when collected, may be transmitted to Mr. Bradley, who will give a receipt for the money, and be accountable for the books. I shall not, by a paltry apology, excuse myself for putting you to this trouble. Were I not convinced that you found more pleasure in doing good-natured things, than uneasiness at being employed in them, I should not have singled you out on this occasion. It is probable you would comply with such a request, if it tended to the encouragement of any man of learning whatsoever; what then may not he expect who has claims of family and friendship to enforce his ?

What indeed may he not freely expect, who is to receive nothing? Nevertheless, there is a worse fool's paradise than that of expectation. To teach our tears the easiest way to flow, should be no unvalued part of this world's wisdom; hope is a good friend, even when the only one; and Goldsmith was not the worse for expecting, though he received nothing. Mr. Mills left his poor requests unheeded, and his letter unacknowledged. Sharking booksellers and starving authors might devour each other before he would interpose; being a man, as his old sizar-relative delicately hinted, with paternal acres as well as boyish friendships to cultivate, and fewer thorns of the world to struggle with, than hawthorns of his own to sleep under. He lived to repent it certainly, and to profess great veneration for the distinguished writer to whom he boasted relationship; but Goldsmith had no more pleasant hopes or friendly correspondences to fling away upon

Mr. Mills of Roscommon. Not that even this letter, as it seems to me, had been one of very confident expectation. Unusual effort is manifest in it; a reluctance to bring unseemly fancies between the wind and Mr. Mills's gentility; a conventional style of balance between the "pleasure" and the "uneasiness" it talks about; in short, a forced suppression of everything in his own state that may affront the acres and the hawthorns.

Seven days afterwards he wrote to Bryanton, with a curious contrast of tone and manner. Even Bryanton had not inquired for him since the scenes of happier years. The affectionate rememberings of the lonely wanderer, as of the struggling author, he had in carelessness, if not in coldness, passed without return; yet here heart spoke to heart, buoyant, unreserved, and sanguine. That sorrow lay beneath the greetings, was not to be concealed, else had the words which cheerily rose above it been perhaps less sincere ; but see, and make profit of it,-how, depressed by unavailing labours, and patiently awaiting the disastrous issue of defeat and flight, he shows to the last a bright and cordial happiness of soul, unconquered and unconquerable.

The letter, which, like that to Mills, is also dated from the Temple coffee-house, was first printed by permission of Bryanton's son-in-law, the reverend Doctor Handcock of Dublin, and where the paper is torn or has been worn away by time, there are several erasures that the reader will easily supply.

Why in so long an absence was I never made a partner in your concerns? To hear of your successes would have given me the utmost pleasure; and a communication of your very disappointments, would divide the uneasiness I too frequently feel for my own. Indeed, my dear Bob, you don't conceive how unkindly you have treated one whose circumstances afford him few prospects of pleasure, except those reflected from the happiness of his friends. However, since you have not let me hear from you, I have in some measure disappointed your neglect by frequently thinking of you. Every day do I remember the calm anecdotes of your life, from the fireside to the easychair; recall the various adventures that first cemented our friendship,the school, the college, or the tavern; preside in fancy over your cards; and am displeased at your bad play when the rubber goes against you, though not with all that agony of soul as when I once was your partner.

Is it not strange that two of such like affections should be so much separated and so differently employed as we are? You seem placed at the centre of fortune's wheel, and let it revolve never so fast, seem insensible of the motion. I seem to have been tied to the circumference, and. . . . disagreeably round like an whore in a whirligig .... down with an intention to chide, and yet methinks. . . . my resentment already. The truth is, I am regard to you; I may attempt to bluster, Anacreon, my

a

heart is respondent only to softer affections. And yet, now I think on't again, I will be angry. God's curse, sir! who am I? Eh! what am I? Do you know whom you have offended? A man whose character may one of these days be mentioned with profound respect in a German comment or Dutch dictionary; whose name you will probably hear ushered in by a Doctissimus

Doctissimorum, or heel-pieced with a long Latin termination. Think how Goldsmithius, or Gubblegurchius, or some such sound, as rough as a nutmeggrater, will become me? Think of that !-God's curse, sir! who am I? I must own my ill-natured contemporaries have not hitherto paid me those honours I have had such just reason to expect. I have not yet seen my face reflected in all the lively display of red and white paints on any sign-posts in the suburbs. Your handkerchief weavers seem as yet unacquainted with my merits or my physiognomy, and the very snuff-box makers appear to have forgot their respect. Tell them all from me, they are a set of Gothic, barbarous, ignorant scoundrels. There will come a day, no doubt it will-I beg you may live a couple of hundred years longer only to see the day—when the Scaligers and Daciers will vindicate my character, give learned editions of my labours, and bless the times with copious comments on the text. You shall see how they will fish up the heavy scoundrels who disregard me now, or will then offer to cavil at my productions. How will they bewail the times that suffered so much genius to lie neglected. If ever my works find their way to Tartary or China, I know the consequence. Suppose one of your Chinese Owanowitzers instructing one of your Tartarian Chinanobacchhi-you see I use Chinese names to show my own erudition, as I shall soon make our Chinese talk like an Englishman to show his. This may be the subject of the lecture.

Oliver Goldsmith flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He lived to be an hundred and three years old.... age may justly be styled the sun of.... and the Confucius of Europe learned world, were anonymous, and have probably been lost, because united with those of others. The first avowed piece the world has of his is entitled an Essay on the present State of Taste and Literature in Europe,'— -a work well worth its weight in diamonds. In this he profoundly explains what learning is, and what learning is not. In this he proves that blockheads are not men of wit, and yet that men of wit are actually blockheads.

But as I choose neither to tire my Chinese Philosopher, nor you, nor myself, I must discontinue the oration, in order to give you a good pause for admiration; and I find myself most violently disposed to admire too. Let me, then, stop my fancy to take a view of my future self; and, as the boys say, light down to see myself on horseback. Well, now I am down, where the devil is I? Oh Gods! Gods! here in a garret, writing for bread, and expecting to be dunned for a milk-score! However, dear Bob, whether in penury or affluence, serious or gay, I am ever wholly thine,

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

Give my-no, not compliments neither, but something. . . most warm and sincere wish that you can conceive, to your mother, Mrs. Bryanton, to Miss Bryanton, to yourself; and if there be a favourite dog in the family, let me be remembered to it.

"In a garret, writing for bread, and expecting to be dunned "for a milk-score." Such was the ordinary fate of letters in that age. There had been a Christian religion extant for now seventeen hundred and fifty-seven years; for so long a time had the world been acquainted with its spiritual necessities and responsibilities; yet here, in the middle of the eighteenth century, was the eminence ordinarily conceded to the spiritual teacher, to the man who comes upon the earth to lift his fellow men above its miry ways. He is up in a garret, writing for bread he cannot get, and