in transcription presenting only a few changes of text from the other), in the octavo edition of the Miscellaneous Works published by the London "trade" in 1820.

At p. 55 a story is repeated from the recollections of Miss Reynolds, communicated to Mr. Croker, which had already been far better told in the Gentleman's Magazine for July 1797. In pp. 80-94 a great clutter is made about the ballad of Edwin and Angelina, as to which all that was really essential is told in pp. 74-76 of the Memoir by Percy, whose personal connection with the dispute arising out of it gives peculiar authority to his statement.

At p. 130 the assertion about Goldsmith's having got a large sum for what might seem a small labour, put forth as an exaggeration reported by others which "he took no pains to "contradict," but to which he would " in substance reply " &c. is all taken without acknowledgment from Cooke's narrative in the European Magazine (xxiv. 94); in which the exaggeration, such as it is, is most emphatically assigned to Goldsmith himself. At p. 135 the whimsical anecdote described to have been told to Dr. Percy, "with some humour by the Duchess "of Northumberland," might more correctly have been quoted from p. 68-69 of the Percy Memoir.

At p. 139 there occurs, at last, formal mention of a person "admitted to considerable intimacy with him, Mr. William Cooke, a barrister, known as the writer of a work on dramatic genius, and of a poem, &c"; of whom it is added that "he "related many amusing anecdotes of the poet from personal knowledge;" but where the anecdotes are to be found is carefully suppressed, nor indeed could any one imagine that they had ever found their way into print. At p. 139-140 a highly characteristic story of Goldsmith is given as from the relation of this Mr. Cooke, "corroborated to the writer by the late "Richard Sharpe, Esq., to whom Mr. Cooke told it more than 66 once ; "the story being nothing more than a transcript from

Taylor's Records of his Life (i. 107-110), published four years before Mr. Prior wrote.

At p. 140-141, one of Cooke's most amusing stories is ill-told without a mention of its printed source (Europ. Mag. xxiv. 260). At p. 167 an incident is given from Mrs. Piozzi's relation, though with no mention of her book (Anecdotes, 244-246); and connected with it is a formal confirmation of her mistake as to the club's night of meeting, which the very slight diligence of turning to p. 72 of the Percy Memoir would have enabled Mr. Prior to correct. And at pp. 175, 178 (where certain lines are quoted without allusion to an anecdote current at the time which had given them their only point), 181, 182, and 197, circumstances and traits of character are set forth without the least acknowledgment from Cooke's printed papers (European Magazine, xxiv. 170, 422, xxv. 184, xxiv. 172, 261, and 429), with only such occasional mystification of the reader as that "a jest of the poet was repeated by Mr. Cooke" (197), or that "Bishop Percy in "conversation frequently alluded to these habits " (182).

66

At pp. 194-196, a long passage is given from Colman's Random Records (i. 110-113); at p. 207 a business-agreement of Goldsmith's as "drawn up by himself" is given from the Percy Memoir (78); and at pp. 220-223 a letter from Oliver to Maurice Goldsmith is copied from the same source (86-89),— without a clue in any of these cases to the book which contains

the original.

At p. 237-238 we are informed that Mr. Percival Stockdale's Memoirs "furnishes scarcely an allusion to Goldsmith. His papers, however, supply an anecdote communicated by a lady eminent for her writings in fiction, his friend, and whom "the writer has likewise the honour, &c. &c. &c." And then the anecdote, professing to be transcribed by Miss Jane Porter from the manuscripts of Mr. Stockdale, turns out to be a literal transcription from that very Memoirs of the worthy gentleman (ii. 136-137), which had been published nearly thirty years

before Mr. Prior's book, and in which Mr. Prior had been able to find "scarcely an allusion" to Goldsmith.

At pp. 254-269 there is a long rigmarole about the identity of Lissoy and Auburn, and about the alehouse &c rebuilt by Mr. Hogan, all professing to be the result of written communication or personal inquiry,-not a syllable of which may not be found in Mangin's Essay (140-143); in Mr. Newell's elaborate and highly illustrated quarto edition of the Poetical Works (1811: "with remarks attempting to ascertain chiefly "from local observation the actual scene of the Deserted Vil"lage:" 61-80), and in Mr. Hogan's own account in the Gentleman's Magazine (xc. 618-622),—not one of these authorities being once named by Mr. Prior.

At p. 288-289 we have a charming fragment of a letter to Reynolds transferred without acknowledgment from the Percy Memoir (90-91); at p. 300, an agreement with Davies is silently taken from an earlier page (79); at p. 375, a curious letter of Tom Paine's to Goldsmith is so taken from a later page (96-98); and at pp. 328-330, an admirable letter is in like manner copied, and not even correctly copied, from the same mal-treated book (92-94).

At p. 309 an anecdote is given from an earlier volume of the magazine which contained the printed papers by Cooke (European Magazine, xxi. 88), but with careful avoidance of any clue to the authority. At pp. 313-321 not a few of the traits of Hiffernan are borrowed from one of Cooke's papers respecting him (European Magazine, xxv. 110-184), still with no hint of any such source. At p. 349-350, a very characteristic story of Goldsmith is copied without allusion from the Percy Memoir (100). At p. 353 an incident is mentioned as "according to the late Mr. John Taylor," which is simply copied from Taylor's Records (i. 118). And so, at pp. 370 and 401, where the incidents given are silently transcribed from Northcote (Life of Reynolds, i. 288 and 286).

At p. 381 a pleasant anecdote appears as though originally told, but which Cooke had long before related in print (European Magazine, xxiv. 261); at p. 386-387, two letters are appropriated without allusion to Colman's Posthumous Letters (ed: 1820; 180), or to Garrick's Correspondence (ed: 1830; i. 527), where they first appeared; at pp. 389, 465, and 481, anecdotes, full of character, which Cooke certainly deserved the credit of having told in print (European Magazine, xxiv. 173, 261, and 262), are given without an allusion to him; at pp. 421 and 473, two anecdotes, the former being one of the most charming recorded of Goldsmith, which had been told in the same magazine, but in a later and an earlier number than those in which Cooke wrote (lv. 443. and xix. 94), are silently taken in the same way; at p. 465-466, a curious trait given as "mentioned by Malone" might as well have been given as copied from his Life of Dryden (i. 518); and, for a final act of justice to the Percy Memoir, let me add that the libel at p. 408-409, the unfinished fragment at p. 410, the address to the public at p. 413-414, the amusing verses at p. 419, and the Oglethorpe letter at p. 422-423, are all drawn, with the same extraordinary absence of all mention of their source, from that first authentic record of Goldsmith's career (103-105, 105-106, 107-108, 102-103, and 95-96).

To close the ungracious task which has thus been forced upon me. Letters quoted by Mr. Prior are never referred to the place from which he draws them, except in the few instances where a really original letter happens to have fallen in his way. Whether it be at p. 390, where a letter of Goldsmith's to Cradock (in Memoirs, i. 225) is misplaced, and referred to what it has no connection with; or at p. 429, where a letter of Goldsmith's to Garrick (in Memoirs of Doctor Burney, i. 272273) is given as though personal communication had drawn it from Madame d'Arblay; or at p. 470, where a letter of Beattie's (in Forbes's Life, ii. 69) is made use of; or at pp. 369,

472, 482, 488, and 510, where quotations are printed, and in two instances misprinted, from letters of Beauclerc's (in Hardy's Life of Lord Charlemont, 178, 163, 177, 178, and 179); or at p. 526, where we find a letter from Maurice Goldsmith to Mr. Hawes (in Hawes's Account, 22),—still the reader is left without a clue to the source of these letters, in any single instance, and may suppose, for anything to the contrary revealed to him by Mr. Prior, that all have proceeded from that amazing fund of private and exclusive discovery, on which this gentleman founds his claim to an exclusive property in their use.

And now, having gone through Mr. Prior's volumes, as I hope for the last time, I shall content myself with this further remark, that I ground my claim to whatever merit my own volumes may possess, on the completeness of their contrast to his, and on the conviction that no two books so utterly unlike each other were ever before written on the same subject. For a help to the reader's judgment in one direction only, I subjoin a mention of those pages in my volumes which contain facts, anecdotes, or personal traits exclusively relating to Goldsmith himself, here included for the first time in any Life of him; and I have placed an asterisk before the new facts or characteristics so affecting him personally, added to the present edition. Were I to attempt so to distinguish the new matter introduced having relation to the time, and filling up the picture I seek to present of Goldsmith's associates and friends, it would involve a specification of almost every page.

In the first volume, 14, *39, *53-54, *61, 68, 82, *82-83, *83-85, *85-87, 129, 157-158, 169, *190, 265, 286, 287, *289, *296, 307, *311, 313, *325, 328, 366, 367, *379-380, *395, 397, *405, and *441-443.