BOOK THE THIRD. (CONTINUED.) AUTHORSHIP BY CHOICE. 1759 TO 1767. CHAPTER XIV. Old Drudgery with a New Hope. 1766. struggle. He had always his ac- 1766. "SATURDAY will be "lished," said the Public Ad-guineas for compiling a vertiser of the 20th of May, 1766, duodecimo volume of "Poems for "in two volumes in twelves, price" Young Ladies. In three parts: "6s. bound, or 5s. sewed, the "Devotional, Moral, and Ênter"second edition of The Vicar of "taining." It was a respectable "Wakefield. A Tale. Supposed to selection of pieces, chiefly from "be written by himself. Sperate Parnell, Pope, Thomson, Addi"miseri, cavete felices. Printed for son, and Collins; with additions "F. Newbery, at the Crown in of less importance from less "Pater-noster Row."- And on eminent hands, and some occathat very Saturday a bill which sional verses which he supposed Oliver Goldsmith had drawn to be his friend Robert Nugent's,* upon Mr. John Newbery, for fif- but which were really written by teen guineas, was returned dishonoured. But the old time did not come back with the old necessities. If solid rewards were not now to wait on even the happiest of Goldsmith's achievements, he was never again to lose courage and hope, or to show signs of yielding in the pub-gave him in this month ten Æt. 38. Oliver Goldsmith's Life and Times. II. Nugent had written an "Epistle to-," beginning *The origin of the mistake is obvious. "Clarinda, dearly lov'd, attend The counsels of a faithful friend;" and this had become confounded in Gold"vice to a Lady," beginning smith's recollection with Lyttelton's "Ad "The counsels of a friend, Belinda, hear." I 1766. Lord Lyttelton. It has been as-them as illustrating, better than sumed to have been in this book any other kind of compilations, "for young ladies" that two ob- "the art of profession" in authorjectionable pieces by Prior ship. "Judgment," he said, "is were inserted; but the "to be paid for in such selecÆt. 38. statement, though sanc-"tions; and a man may be twenty tioned by Percy, is incorrect. It "years of his life cultivating his was in a more extensive com- "judgment."* But he has also, pilation of Beauties of English with its help, to be mindful of Poetry Selected, published in the changes in the public taste, to following year, and for the gather-which he may himself have coning together of which Griffin the tributed. Nothing is more frebookseller gave him fifty pounds, quent than these, and few things that he made that questionable so sudden. Staid wives will choice of the "Ladle" and "Hans shrink with abhorrence in their "Carvel," which for once in- fortieth autumn, from what they terdicted from general reading read with delight in their twena book with his name upon tieth_summer; and it was now its title-page. It was unlucky; even less than twenty years since for the selection in other re- that faultless "family expositor" spects, making allowance for a Dr. Doddridge (as we learn from limited acquaintance with the the letters of the pious divine) earlier English poets, was a thought it no sin to read the reasonably good one; and in this, Wife of Bath's Tale to young as well as in its preface and brief Nancy Moore, and take his notices of the pieces quoted, share in the laugh it raised.** though without any claim to originality or critical depth, was a poet excels himself" but is it not not undeserving of what he true? Which of the Pastorals has surclaimed generally for books of vived with it in the love and admiration the kind as entitling them to fair of the readers of poetry? reward.* He used to point to was "one of those happinesses in which *Europ. Mag. XXIV. 94. Cooke tells us that his own account of this selection He was "that he did nothing but mark the *His old friend Griffiths nevertheless laid hold of it to assail him in the Monthly Review, which had the good taste thus to speak of the now avowed author of The Citizen of the World, The Vicar of Wakefield, and The Traveller. "Though Mr. Gold-Club. "smith hath written some little pieces that **Memoirs and Correspondence of Dod"have been read and approved of, yet, from dridge, IV. 182. Walter Scott was ac"his preface, notes, and introductions to quainted with an old lady of family, who "these poems, one would almost be in-assured him that, in her younger days, "clined to think he had never written Mrs. Behn's novels were as currently "before." Monthly Review, XXXVI. 490, upon the toilet as the works of Miss June 1767. The reviewer's wrath was Edgeworth at present; and described greatly excited by Goldsmith's having with some humour her own surprise said of Shenstone's Schoolmistress that it when, the book falling into her hands |