1761. Æt. 33. into oblivion. But the friend-"with good effect; but there, ship which dates from it will "neither that nor anything that never pass away. "can sully shall appear as comWriting to Percy about that "ing from you.”* So the supper while the Memoir was in Perrot anecdote is also progress, Doctor Campbell says: lost, and the basket of ab"The anecdote of Johnson I had surdities by no means full! "recollected, but had forgot that "Farewell," says Milton, at the "it was at Goldsmith's you were close of one of his early letters "to sup. The story of the Valet to his friend Gill, "and on Tues"de Chambre will, as Lord Bristol "day next expect me in London "says, fill the basket of his ab- "among the booksellers."** The "surdities; and really we may booksellers were of little mark “have a hamper full of them."* in Milton's days; but the preUnfortunately the anecdote of sence of such men among them the Valet de Chambre has not began a social change important emerged; and to another anec- to both, and not ill expressed in dote, also unluckily lost, Camp- an incident of the days I am debell refers in a previous letter to scribing, when Horace Walpole Percy. "One thing, however, I met the wealthy representative "could wish, if it met your ap- of the profits of Paradise Lost at a "probation, that I had before me great party at the Speaker's, "some hints respecting the affair while Johnson was appealing to "of Goldsmith and Perrot: it public charity for the last desti"may, without giving offence, be tute descendant of Milton. But “related; at least so as to em- from the now existing compact "bellish the work, by showing between trade and letters, the "more of Goldsmith's character, popular element could not wholly "which he himself has fairly be excluded; and, to even the "drawn: fond of enjoying the weariest drudge, hope was a part "present, careless of the future, of it. From the loopholes of "his sentiments those of a man Paternoster-row, he could catch "of sense, his actions those of a glimpses of the world. Churchill "fool; of fortitude able to stand had emerged, and Sterne, for a “unmoved at the bursting of an few brief years; and but that "earthquake, yet of sensibility Johnson had sunk into idleness, "to be affected by the breaking he might have been reaping a "of a tea-cup." ** To which, in harvest more continuous than a later letter, this is added: theirs, and yet less dependent "Your sketch of Sir Richard "Perrot will come in as an "episode towards the conclusion, Nichols's Illustrations, vII. 780. ** Ibid, 779. *Nichols's Illustrations, VII. 781. **Todd's Milton, VII. 176-7. See also Aubrey's Letters and Lives, II. 285, 440; and my Life of Eliot, II. 175, Second Edi tion. on the trade. Drudgery is not wise purposes of satire; or only good, but flattery and falsehood laughed at it, as Churchill did; are worse; and it had become it is not quite certain that the 1761. plain to Goldsmith, even pamphlet has survived to inform since the days of the En- us. But if, as appears probable, Et. 33. quiry, how much better it a tract on the Mystery Reveal'd, was for men of letters to live by published by Newbery's neighthe labour of their hands till bour Bristow,* be Goldsmith's more original labour became three-guinea contribution, the popular with trading patrons, last is the most correct surmise. than to wait with their hands It is, however, a poor producacross, as Johnson contemptu- tion. ** His next labour, which ously described it, till great men has been attributed to him on came to feed them. Whatever the authority of "several perthe call that Newbery or any "sonal acquaintances,' was other bookseller made, then, he the revision of a History of was there to answer it. He had Mecklenburgh from the first settlement the comfort of remembering that of the Vandals in that country, which the patron had himself patrons; the settlement of the young that something of their higher Queen Charlotte in this country influence had been attracted to his was expected to make popular; Chinese Letters; and that he was and for which, according to his not slaving altogether without ordinary rates of payment, he hope. would have received £20. This 1762. His first undertaking in 1762 was a pamphlet on *Newbery certainly had occasional Et. 34 the Cock-lane Ghost, for Mr. Crossley, who possesses a copy of business connection with Bristow; and which Newbery paid him three Bristow's pamphlet, says (Notes and guineas: ** but whether, with Queries, v. 77) that he thinks the beginJohnson, he thought the impudent imposture worth grave inquiry; or, with Hogarth, turned it to "written in haste, are not without marks ning and conclusion, "though evidently "of Goldsmith's serious and playful man"ner." Of course all this can only be conjecture, but it is at the least very unOccasions for observing with what likely that Newbery should have decheerful acquiescence Goldsmith here- clined to issue what he had consented to after accepted these relations of author pay Goldsmith for writing; and that and bookseller, will frequently occur. Bristow published for him is certain, for According to his friend Cooke, indeed, it at his shop the Public Ledger was first seems to have been a favourite topic with him to "tell pleasant stories of Mr. New"bery, who, he said, was the patron of more distressed authors than any man "of his time." Europ. Mag. XXIV. 92. **"Received from Mr. Newbery three guineas for a pamphlet respecting the "Cock Lane Ghost. OLIVER GOLD66 SMITH, March 5th, 1762." Newbery MSS. in Mr. Murray's possession. 66 66 sold. **With one or two lively passages, notwithstanding, which may be seen in an account given of it by Mr. Rimbault in Notes and Queries (3rd Series, vII. 371). A particular passage, there quoted, satis-` factorily shows that our modern spiritrapping impostures are merely a reproduction of the Ghost of Cock-lane. *** Prior, 1. 388. 1762. may have been that first great personages, both ancient and advance "in a lump," which modern, who are most worthy seemed to his moneyed inex- of their esteem and imitation, perience a sum so enormous as and most likely to inspire to require the grandest schemes their minds with a love of for disposing of it.* For a sub- virtue; for which offering Et. 34. sequent payment of £10, he as- to the juvenile mind, beginning sisted Newbery with an Art of with an abridgment of Plutarch,* Poetry on a New Plan, or in other he was to pay Goldsmith at the words, a compilation of poetical rate of about eight pounds a extracts; ** and concurrently with volume. The volumes were brief, this, Mr. Newbery begged leave published monthly, and meant to offer to the young gentlemen to have gone through many and ladies of these kingdoms a months if the scheme had thriven; Compendium of Biography, or an but it fell before Dilly's British history of the lives of those great Plutarch, and perished with the Europ. Mag. XXIV. 92. seventh volume. **Goldsmith confessed to Percy that he had helped Newbery with this book, Nor did it run without danger which was the bookseller's own design even this ignoble career. Illness and selection; and an ingenious writer, fell upon the compiler in the Mr. Yeowell, has gone far to show in middle of the fifth volume. "Dr Notes and Queries (3rd Series, Iv. 61), that a four-line paraphrase of a couplet in "Sir," he wrote to Newbery, Hudibras, still often quoted instead of the "As I have been out of order for original, and which has baffled many a", 'some time past and am still seeker for it in the pages of Butler, is an insertion by Goldsmith while engaged in the revision of this Art of Poetry. If that be so, it would seem, that, in midst of a long extract among Newbery's selections, coming upon the couplet, For those who fly may fight again, Which he can never do that's slain, Goldsmith found it to be an irresistible temptation to expand it thus: 66 "not quite recovered, the fifth "volume of Plutarch's lives re"mains unfinished. I fear I shall not be able to do it, unless "there be an actual necessity "and that none else can be "found. If therefore you would "send it to Mr. Collier I should "esteem it a kindness, and will 'pay for whatever it may come "to. N.B. I received twelve Which accordingly he did, leaving all the rest of the original untouched, much to "guineas for the two Volumes. the confusion of many later learned in- "I am Sir Your obliged humble quirers. Even so, however, Goldsmith "servt, OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Pray had but imitated the parody of a maga-let me have an answer.” The zine of six-and-twenty years' earlier date, which was probably known to him. (Grub Street Journal, May 1736.) For he who fights and runs away "The coiner that extends a rope, "Received from Mr. Newbery eleven "guineas and a half for an abridgment "of Plutarch's Lives, March 5th, 1762. "OLIVER GOLDSMITH." Newbery MSS. in Mr. Murray's possession. Æt. 34. answer was not favourable. in idleness or illness, and the Twelve guineas had been ad- future becomes a mortgage to vanced, the two volumes were the past; every hour has its want due, and Mr. Collier, forestalled upon the labour of 1762. though an ingenious man, the succeeding hour, and Gulwas not Mr. Goldsmith. liver lies bound in Lilliput. "Sir," "Sir," rejoined the latter coldly, said Johnson, who had excellent on a scrap of paper not even experience on this head, "You wafered like the last, "One "may escape a heavy debt, but "Volume is done, namely the "not a small one. Small debts "fourth. When I said I should "are like small shot; they are "be glad Mr. Collier would do "rattling on every side, and can "the fifth for me, I only de- "scarcely be escaped without a "manded it as a favour, but if "wound. Great debts are like "he cannot conveniently do it, "cannon, of loud noise but little "tho' I have kept my chamber "danger."* "these three weeks and am not Mention of Goldsmith's ill'yet quite recovered yet I will ness now frequently recurs. It "do it. I send it per bearer, originated in the habits of his "and if the affair puts you to London life, contrasting with the "the least inconvenience return activity and movement they had "it, and it shall be done im- replaced; and the remedy pre"mediately. I am, &c. O. G. scribed was change of scene, if "The Printer has the Copy of change of life was impossible. "the rest." To this, his good- He is to be traced in this year nature having returned, Newbery to Tunbridge and Bath; to the acceded; and the book was latter place he seems to have finished by Mr. Collier, to whom been a frequent visitor,** and I a share of the pittance advanced find him known to Mr. Wood, had of course to be returned.* whose solid and tasteful archi These paltry advances are a tecture was then ennobling the hopeless entanglement. They bar city; one of Mr. Newbery's pithy freedom of judgment on anything acknowledgments being conproposed, and escape is felt to nected with those brief resibe impossible. Some days, some dences, where the improbus labor weeks perhaps, have been lost had not failed to follow him. * Newbery MSS. in Mr. Murray's pos- "March 5, 1762. Receiv'd from session. Mr. Newbery's grandson ap- "Mr. Newbery at different times pears to have collected all such papers as "and for which I gave receipts he could find of his grandfather's, throwing light on Goldsmith's connection with him; and to these, which are the property of Mr. Murray and have been placed at my disposal for the purposes of this work, I shall have frequent occasion to refer as the Newbery MSS. *From a letter written in 1759, to the son of an old Lichfield friend. **For an interesting recollection of visits made by him to Bath in later days see Mr. Mangin's letter to the author (Appendix A).! "fourteen guineas which is in "which he was doing,” finds it "full for the Copy of the life difficult not to reveal his name. "of Mr. Nash. OLIVER GOLD- The preface was discerningly 1762. "SMITH." The recent death of written. That a man who the celebrated Beau had sug- had diffused society and gested a subject, which, with in- made manners more cheer- t. 34. cidents in its comedy of manners ful and refined, should have that recommended it to a man of claims to attention from his own wit in our own day, had some to age, while his pains in pursuing recommend it to Goldsmith.** pleasure and his solemnity in The king of fashion had at least adjusting trifles were a claim to the oddity of a hero; and suf- even a smile from posterity, was ficient harmlessness, not to say so set forth as to reassure the usefulness, to make him original stateliest reader; and if someamong heroes and kings. It is a what thrown back by the bioclever book; and as one ex-grapher's bolder announcement, amines the original edition with in the opening of his book, that its 234 goodly pages, still not a page of Montaigne or Colley uncommon on the bookstalls, it Cibber was worth more than the appears quite a surprising per-most grandiose memoirs of "imformance for fourteen guineas."mortal statesmen already forNor was anything added to this "gotten," he had but to rememmunificent payment on the book ber after how many years of unreaching a second impression, interrupted power the old Duke though it then received curious of Newcastle had just resigned, and important additions, dictated to suspect that as worthy a lesdoubtless by a real love of the son might really await him in the subject. No name was on the reign of an old minister of title-page; but the writer, whose fashion. powers were so various and per- In truth the book is neither unformance so felicitous "that he instructive nor unamusing; and "always seemed to do best that it is difficult not to connect some points of the biographer's own Newbery MSS. **Davies and others speak of the history with its oddly-mixed book as Goldsmith's, which it was gener- anecdotes of silliness and shrewdally known to be at the time; Percy of ness, taste and tawdriness, bloscourse assigns it to him in the Memoir (63); som-coloured coats and gamand the cleverness of its treatment, with its touches of "knavish subtleties and bling debts, vanity, carelessness, compunctious visitings" in the letter of and good-heartedness. The latthe highway rogue, Poulter alias Baxter, ter quality in its hero was foiled suggested Mr. Jerrold's pleasant comedy of The King of Bath. It contains also by a want of prudence which 1149-154) some specimens of Nash's stories, deprived it of half its value: and and of his manner of telling them, given the extenuation is so frequently in the very best manner of Goldsmith and so earnestly set forth in himself. Oliver Goldsmith's Life and Times. I. 14 |