1759.

Æt. 31.

"actors"); on skilful manage- |ficulties of so educating princes ment of gesture (in which he ex- that "the superior dignity of man cepts Garrick and Mrs. Clive "to that of royalty" should be from his censure, placing them their leading lesson, and in on a level with the French); and warning against the folly in explanation of the ill-success of entrusting a charge so of the English operatic stage, sacred to men "who themselves where he touches the springs "have acted in a sphere too high that operate to this hour; still "to know mankind." A delightfurther demonstrate how com- ful essay in the same number, petent he was to this department with Cardinal de Retz and Dick Wildgoose side by side, to prove But, like Hume's Epigoniad ef- that pleasure is in ourselves, not fort, it was all uphill work: his in the objects offered for our first Bee had an idle time of it, amusement, and that philosophy and greater favour was asked for should force the trade of hapthe second in a paid-for news-piness when nature has denied paper paragraph of particular the means,* also well deserves earnestness. "The public," said mention.

of criticism.

All

this advertisement, which had a The third number opened with pathetic turn in it, "is requested a paper on the Use of Language: "to compare this with other to which the grave philologist "periodical performances which resorting found language he was "more pompously solicit their little used to. It was a plea for "attention. If upon perusal it the poor: an essay to prove that "be found deficient either in he who best knew how to con"humour, elegance, or variety, ceal his necessities and desires, "the author will readily acquiesce was the most likely person to "in their censure. It is possible find redress, and that the true "the reader may sometimes draw use of speech was not to express “a prize, and even should it turn wants, but conceal them.*** "up a blank it costs him but "threepence." In number the This latter remark, I should add second, for that small sum, was its reprint in 1765. however, did not appear in the essay until a most agreeable little lesson on ** I learn from the valuable and wellDress, against fault-finders and conducted Notes and queries (1. 83) the dealers in ridicule, proving by mark had thus been made by Goldsmith, example of cousin Hannah that it was repeated by Voltaire (from whom, such folks are themselves the no doubt, Talleyrand afterwards stole it) most ridiculous; and a much in his satiric little dialogue of Le Chapon Sounder notion of a patriot king 83, 84. Ed. 1822), where the capon, sketches of Charles the Twelfth than Bolingbroke's, in homely plaining of the treachery of men, says, of Sweden, in remark on the dif

curious fact, that four years after this re

et la Poularde (Euvres Complètes, XXIX.

com

Ils n'emploient les paroles que pour "déguiser leurs pensées." But see post,

Book IV, Chap. XIII.

1759.

I

of us have known the Jack him far behind; they had got to Spindle of this exquisite sketch, Islington at least, while the sound some perhaps relieved him; and of Bow-bell still stayed in his many have undergone the ears: nevertheless, "if it were truth of his life's phi- "only to spite all Grub-street,' Æt. 31. losophy, that to have he was resolved to write on; and much, or to seem to have it, is he made light-hearted announcethe only way to have more, since ment to the world of what he had it is the man who has no occa- written to Bryanton.* "If the sion to borrow that alone finds "present generation will not hear plenty willing to lend. "You "my voice, hearken, O Posterity! "then, O ye beggars of my ac- "to you I call, and from you "quaintance;" exclaimed Gold-", 'expect redress! What rapture smith, "whether in rags or lace, "will it not give, to have the "whether in Kent-street or the 66 Scaligers, Daciers, and War"Mall, whether at Smyrna or St. "burtons of future times com"Giles's, might I advise you as a "menting with admiration upon "friend, never seem in want of "every line I now write, and "the favour you solicit. Apply "working away those ignorant "to every passion but pity for "creatures who offer to arraign "redress. You may find relief "my merit, with all the virulence "from vanity, from self-interest, "of learned reproach. Ay, my "or from avarice, but seldom "friends, let them feel it; call "from compassion." Following "names; never spare them; they this were three well-written cha-"deserve it all, and ten times racters: of Father Feyjoo, whose "more." In a like playful tone popular essays against degrading are his closing threats, that, it superstitions have since pro- not better supported, he must cured him the title of the Spanish throw off all connection with Addison; of Alexandrian Hypa- taste, and fairly address his tia, afterwards immortalised by countrymen in the engaging style Gibbon; and of Lysippus, an and manner of other periodical imaginary representative of some pamphlets. He will change his peculiarities in the essayist him- title into the Royal Bee, he says, self, and timely assertor of the the Anti-gallican Bee, or the Bee's ordinary virtues as opposed to Magazine. He will lay in a proper what are commonly mistaken for stock of popular topics; such as the great ones. encomiums on the King of PrusStill the churlish public would sia, invectives against the Queen not buy the Bee; and the fourth of Hungary and the French, the number's opening article was a necessity of a militia, our ungood-humoured comment on that doubted sovereignty of the seas, fact. Not a newspaper or ma- reflections upon the present state gazine, he said, that had not left

* Ante, p. 102.

1759.

of affairs, a dissertation upon wretched home. As he watches liberty, some seasonable thoughts its naked cobwebbed walls, he upon the intended bridge of finds matter for amusement to Blackfriars, and an address to the readers of the Bee, in Britons; the history of an old watching the spiders that woman whose tooth grew three have refuge there; and in t. 31. inches long shall not be omitted, his fourth number puts forth an nor an ode upon "our victories," instructive paper on the habits nor a rebus, nor an acrostic upon and predatory life of that most Miss Peggy P, nor a journal of wary, ingenious, hungry, and perthe weather; and he will wind severing insect.

He was not to be daunted now.

the whole, so that the public shall have no choice but to pur- Looking closely into his life, one chase, with four extraordinary finds that other works beside pages of letterpress, a beautiful this of the Bee were eking out its map of England, and two prints scanty supplies. He was writing curiously coloured from nature. for the Busy Body, published Such was the booksellers' litera- thrice a week for twopence by ture of the day: the profitable worthy Mr. Pottinger, and brought contribution of Paternoster-row out but three days after the Bee. and Grub-street, to the world's He was writing for the Lady's intellectual cultivation. Magazine, started not many days While he satirised it thus good- later by persevering Mr. Wilkie, naturedly, Goldsmith took care in the hope of propping up the to append also graver remarks Bee. He had taken his place, on the more serious matter it in- and would go to his journey's volved, and which with his own end. Since the "pleasure stage experience lay so near his heart; "coach" had not opened its door querulous spirit. He is to him, he had mounted "the now content to have found out "waggon of industry;" not yet the reason why mediocrity should despairing, it might be, to be have its rewards at once, and ex- overtaken again by his old cellence be paid in reversion. "vanity whim;" and with such There is in these earliest essays help, even hopeful to come up Something more pleasing than with the "landau of riches," and even their undoubted elegance find lodgment at last in the and humour, in that condition of "fame machine." We note this mind. If neglects and injuries pleasant current of his thoughts are still to be his portion, you do in the Bee's fifth number. There, despair that he will turn in that last conveyance he places them to commodities. It is not Addison, Swift, Steele, Pope, and by his cries and complainings Congreve; and, vainly stretching You shall hereafter trace him out a number of his own little to his neglected, ill-furnished, blue-backed book to entice the

but in no

not now

goodly company, resolves to be copy. The landlady of Greenuseful since he may not be arbour-court remembered one ambitious, and to earn by as- festivity there, which seems to

siduity what merit does have been highly characteristic. 1759. not open to him. But not A "gentleman" called on a cerEt. 31. the less cheerfully does he tain evening, and asking to see concede to others, what for him- her lodger, went unannounced self he may not yet command. up-stairs. She then heard GoldHe shuts fame's door, indeed, smith's room door pushed open, on Arthur Murphy, but opens it closed again sharply from within, to Hume and to Johnson: he and the key turned in the lock; closes it against Smollett's His- after this, the sound of a sometory, but opens it to his Peregrine what noisy altercation reached Pickle and his Roderick Random. her; but it soon subsided; and to And with this paper, I doubt not, her surprise, not unmingled with began his first fellowship of let-alarm, the perfect silence that ters in a higher than the Grub- followed continued for more than street region. Shortly after this, three hours. It was a great reI trace Smollett to his door; and, lief to her, she said, when the for what he had said of the au- door was again opened, and the thor of the Rambler, Johnson soon "gentleman," descending more grasped his hand. "This was a cheerfully than he had entered, "very grave personage, whom sent her out to a neighbouring "at some distance I took for one tavern for some supper. * Mr. "of the most reserved and even Wilkie or Mr. Pottinger had obdisagreeable figures I had seen; tained his arrears, and could af"but as he approached, his ap- ford a little comforting reward to "pearance improved; and when I the starving author. "could distinguish him thoroughPerhaps he carried off with him "ly, I perceived that in spite of "the severity of his brow, he of London, to which a pleasant that mirthful paper on the clubs "had one of the most good"natured countenances that could "be imagined." In that sentence lay the germ of one of the pleasantest of literary friend-on public rejoicings for a vic

66

ships.

The poor essayist's habits, however, know little change as yet. His single chair and his window-bench have but to accommodate Mr. Wilkie's devil, waiting for proofs; or Mr. Wilkie himself, resolute for arrears of

imagination most loved to pay festive visits on solitary and supperless days. Perhaps that paper

tory which described the writer's lonely wanderings a few nights before, from Ludgate-hill to Charing-cross, through crowded and illuminated streets, past punchwhere excited shoemakers, thinkhouses and coffee-houses, and

* Prior, 1. 328, 329.

وو.

ing wood to be nothing like very doors of their betrayers; leather, were asking with fright-"poor houseless creatures to ful oaths what ever would be- whom the world, responsible come of religion if the wooden- for their guilt, gives re- 1759. soled French papishes came over! proaches, but will not give Perhaps that more affecting lone- relief. These were teachers Æt. 31. ly journey through the London in life's truths, who spoke with a streets, which the Bee soon after sterner and wiser voice than that published with the title of the of mere personal suffering. "The City Night Piece, in which there "slightest misfortunes of the was so much of the past struggle "great, the most imaginary unand the lesson it had left, so "easiness of the rich, are agmuch of the grief-taught sym-"gravated with all the power of pathy, so much of the secret of "eloquence, and held up to enthe genius, of tolerant, gentle-"gage our attention and symhearted Goldsmith. What he "pathetic sorrow. The poor weep was to the end of his London "unheeded, persecuted by every life, when miserable outcasts had "subordinate species of tyranny; cause with the great and learned "and every law which gives to lament him, this paper shows "others security, becomes an him to have been at its begin-"enemy to them. Why was this ning. The kind-hearted man "heart of mine formed with so would wander through the streets "much sensibility, or why was at night, to console and reassure "not my fortune adapted to its the misery he could not other-"impulse?" In thoughts like wise give help to. While he these, and in confirmed resoluthought of the rich and happy tion to make the poor his clients who were at rest, while he looked and write down those tyrannies up even to the wretched roof of law, the night wanderings that gave shelter to himself, he of the thoughtful writer not unCould not bear to think of those profitably ended.*

to whom the streets were the It was a resolution very manionly home. "Strangers, wan- fest in his next literary labour. "derers, and orphans," too humble in their circumstances to gars in the metropolis, as originally pub*Elia's complaint of the Decay of Begexpect redress, too completely lished in the London Magazine, closed with and utterly wretched for pity; suppressed when the essays were col"poor shivering girls" who had lected, which I am happy to preserve happier days, and been here: "My friend has a curious manuflattered into beauty and into sin, | lying peradventure at the "tion (who cannot say by heart the Beg66 gar's Petition?), as it was written by "some school usher (as I remember) with "corrections interlined from the pen of "Oliver Goldsmith. As a specimen of the

a characteristic mention of Goldsmith

seen

ΠΟΥ

The

greater portion of this striking Paper was repeated in Letter CXVII. of the Citizen of the World,

"script in his possession, the original "draught of the celebrated Beggar's Peti