1774.

Æt. 46.

Dr. Johnson argued that it was,* should not be beggared of their to surrender a part for greater inheritance as soon as his own efficiency of protection to the capacity to provide for them may rest, yet the commonest dictates have ceased. In every conof natural justice might at least tinental country this is require that an author's family cared for, the lowest term secured by the most niggardly * Dr. Johnson, says Boswell, speaking| of the part he took when the question arrangement being twenty-five was under debate in the House of Lords, years; whereas in England it is was zealous against a perpetuity; but the munificent number of seven. "he thought that the term of the exclu"sive right of authors should be con- Yet the most laborious works, "siderably enlarged. He was then for and often the most delightful, 26 granting a hundred years." (11. 223.) I will here subjoin also the argument by are for the most part of a kind which Johnson, at Langton's dinner which the hereafter only can retable, illustrated this zeal against a per- pay. The poet, the historian, petuity to which Boswell refers. It really the scientific investigator, do inbeen, or can be, urged against the author deed find readers to-day; but if on behalf of the public; and which no they have laboured with success, author would think of resisting, if only they have produced books whose honest effect were given to the important substantial reward is not the admission with which it closes. "There

contains the substance of all that has

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seems," said he, "to be in authors a large and temporary, but the "stronger right of property than that by limited and constant, nature of occupancy; a metaphysical right, a right, as it were, of creation, which their sale. No consideration of "should from its nature be perpetual: moral right exists, no principle "but the consent of nations is against it; of economical science can be

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"and indeed reason and the interests of

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learning are against it; for were it to stated, which would justify the "be perpetual, no book, however useful, seizure of such books by the "could be universally diffused amongst mankind, should the proprietor take it public, before they have had "into his head to restrain its circulation. the chance of remunerating the "No book could have the advantage of genius and labour of their pro"being edited with notes, however neces- ducers. 66 sary to its elucidation, should the pro66 prietor perversely oppose it. For the general good of the world, therefore,

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"whatever valuable work has once been "created by an author, and issued out by "him, should be understood as no longer "in his power, but as belonging to the public; at the same time the author is "entitled to an adequate reward. This

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But though parliament can easily commit this wrong, it is not in such case the quarter to look to for redress. There is no hope of a better state of things till the author shall enlist upon his side the power of which parliament is but the inferior ex

"he should have by an exclusive right to "his work for a considerable number of years. Boswell, III. 302-3. As Mr. Carlyle put it, in his immortal petition tirely unconcerned in an author's advenon the Copyright Bill printed among his ture to steal from him his small winMiscellanies, to which no answer by way nings for a space of sixty years at of argument will be found possible, the shortest. "After sixty years, unless your Legislature should forbid all Thomas "Honourable House provide otherwise, Teggs and other extraneous persons en-"they may begin to steal."

1774.

pression. The true remedy for ly the gainer when such time shall literary wrongs must flow from a arrive; and when the biography higher sense than has at any of the man of genius shall no period yet prevailed in longer be a picture of the most England, of the duties and harsh struggles and mean necesAt. 46. responsibilities assumed sities to which man's life is subby the public writer; and of the ject, exhibited as in shameful social consideration and respect contrast to the glory of his fame. that their effectual discharge With society itself rests the adshould have an undisputed right vent of that time.

to claim. The world will be great

THE MEN WHO TO MANKIND MOST GOOD HAVE BROUGHT,

HAVE HAD THE WORLD'S WORST EVIL TO ENDURE;

NOR, TILL THE WORLD, FOR WHICH ITS FOOLS HAVE THOUGHT,
THINKS FOR ITSELF, CAN WISDOM BRING THE Cure,

APPENDIX TO VOLUME II.

"guinea a piece from the mem

A. (I. 10, 92; II. 301, 308, 331, "bers of the Club" would be a

&c. &c.)

great relief to him. Nevertheless this modest suggestion failed;

WHAT WAS PROPOSED AND WHAT and it was not till near two years

WAS DONE FOR THE RELATIVES

OF GOLDSMITH.

from the time when the bishop first discovered Maurice's destitution (the "poor creature," as

FOR nearly thirty years no- he calls him, having been "starvthing was done. Thirteen years “ing” in that interval), that a had passed before it was dis- little place was obtained for him covered that anything might or in the License-office of Dublin, could be done. The project of and, for the scanty help of an edition with a life by Johnson its additional pittance, he was was overthrown by a paltry dis- made mace-bearer to the Irish pute about the copyright of She Academy. Stoops to Conquer, and no one ap- What meanwhile had been peared to have anything to sug-started in another way for his regest in its place. At last the at- lief, and the result of it, I must tention of Dr. Percy, then the relate as distinctly as I can from Bishop of Dromore, was called, the imperfect memoranda left in when in Dublin, to the destitute Percy's correspondence. state of Maurice Goldsmith, in a bishop had of course been conmanner which it was difficult to sulted as to the proposed ediresist; and he opened a cor- tion and life by Johnson, to whom respondence on the subject with indeed, for a time, he had his London friends. He de- handed materials for it possessed scribed Maurice to them as a by himself (many of which, I cabinet-maker, who had been a regret to say, Johnson lost); and decent tradesman, a very honest now, somewhat precipitately, worthy man, very unfortunate, under an impulse of compassion and in great indigence. He for the wretched poverty of urged subscriptions for his pre- these relatives of their old friend, sent help, and said that even al particularly, as has been seen,

The

of poor Maurice, and part of masquerade, and it is surely a Henry's family, he issued pro- pity, being of such consequence, posals and entered into engage- that the bishop should afterments for an edition, first of the wards have lost it, which he poems only, and afterwards of did *), "together with many the miscellaneous writings, to be "original and some very curious published with a view to their "letters." (Ibid.) There was thus benefit, which he seems to have no lack of materials for what had found it very difficult and irk- been proposed. some to redeem. Several years Still, year succeeded year, and passed in merely adding to his the biography was not begun. materials, for which Malone, Then, an enthusiastic Irish clergyMrs. Hodson, Henry Goldsmith's man, Dr. Thomas Campbell, who widow, Dr. Wilson, and many had been an occasional visitor to others, were placed under con- London about the time of Goldtribution. For, the foundations smith's death, a friend of the of such a memoir had been Thrales, a devoted admirer of earlier laid, even by Goldsmith Johnson, and fond of dabbling in himself; who, in the hope that literature, finding himself with Percy might become his biogra- leisure on his hands in his compher, had, "one rainy day" in fortable Irish rectory (that of Northumberland-house, dictated Clones, in Monaghan), offered certain facts and dates about him- his services to the bishop to self, and subsequently handed to Percy several pieces in manuscript, "among a parcel of let"ters and papers, some written "by himself, and some ad"dressed to him, with not" paper which you have recovered in my

* In a letter to Malone, in 1785, the bishop is less tolerant of Johnson's carelessness in this matter than he became in later years, when he had precisely the

same sin himself to answer for. "The

own handwriting, giving dates and "his life, and which I had concluded to "many interesting particulars relating to "be irrevocably lost, was dictated to me "by himself one rainy day at Northum

"afford materials for a life of Goldsmith

"much explanation." (Percy to Steevens, Nichols, VII. 31.) In the same letter, I may add, the bishop tells his friend, whose help he has been asking to de"berland-house, and sent by me to Dr. "Johnson. The other memoranda on termine the authenticity of a "the subject were transmitted to me by poem afterwards printed as Gold-"his brother and others of his family, to smith's and certainly his, that "which Johnson was to write and pubhe has "another printed poem "lish for their benefit. But he utterly "of Doctor Goldsmith's in his "forgot them and the subject; so that own handwriting that is un-"he gave a wrong place for that of his "when he composed Goldsmith's epitaph "doubtedly his, which is of more "birth." Such was both Percy's and consequence" (this was a copy Malone's impression at this time. But of verses addressed to a lady las was the place of birth, and not, as had subsequent information showed that Palgoing to Ranelagh, or to a been imagined, Elphin.

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throw what he had collected into manuscript of an outline memoir form. On this friendly work being then placed in the bishop's Campbell appears to have been hands, the latter made very engaged from the spring of 1790 copious notes in its margin, to the autumn of 1791.* The which his chaplain, Mr. Boyd, afterwards embodied in the text,

during its progress see the correspond

* For various allusions to the work re-writing portions at the bishop's ence of Campbell and Percy in Nichols's suggestion, and putting CampIllustr ations, VII. 759-95. The first sight bell's outline into reasonably we get of Campbell himself is in one of Mrs. Thrale's lively letters written to complete and final shape. Poor Johnson from Bath, in May 1776. "We Maurice (whose trade of cabinet"have a flashy friend here already, who making had never thriven with "is much your adorer: I wonder how him, and whose disappointment

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you will like him? An Irishman he is;

very handsome, very hot-headed, loud at his famous brother's in"and lively, and sure to be a favourite solvency I have described) had "with you, he tells us, for he can live meanwhile been "enquiring," "with a man of 'ever so odd a temper.'

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'My master laughs, but likes him; and with

a very natural anxiety "it diverts me to think what you will do (Campbell to Percy, Nichols, VII. "when he professes that he will clean

"shoes for you; that he could shed his 783), after the long-delayed "blood for you; with twenty more ex- scheme for his benefit; but not "travagant flights-and you say, I flat- till the summer of 1793 had the "ter! Upon my honour, sir, and in"deed now,' as Dr. Cl's phrase is, bishop any news to give, and it "I am but a twitter to him."" Piozzi then came too late for Maurice. Letters, 1. 329. [Dr. C-1 was certainly "I am glad to find," writes CampCampbell, but in supposing him to have bell (Nichols, VII. 790), "that you been also Mrs. Thrales's "flashy friend" I was misled by Mr. Nichols. The friend "have brought the affair of Golddescribed by Mrs. Thrale in May 1776 "smith to so good an issue-but, was a worshipper of Johnson, named "alas! poor Maurice. He is to Musgrave; his other Irish visitor, Camp- "receive no comfort from your bell, having come to London in May

1775, and being already well known to "lordship's labours in his bethe set. Of this earlier visit, I should "half. He departed from a add, curious revelation was made a few years ago in a little book published (1854) “miserable life last winter, and at Sydney with the title, Diary of a Visit "luckily has left no children; to England in 1775 by an Irishman (DR. "but he has left a widow, and THOMAS CAMPBELL). Edited with notes

by Samuel Raymond, M.A. Prothonotary ""faith a very nice one, who of the Supreme Court of New South

I

Wales. The MS, found in one of the of previous page (210n); and have only very fices of the Supreme Court, had doubt- much to regret that Goldsmith was dead less been left there by Campbell's eldest before Campbell came to London. nephew and heir, who went out to New quote the single reference to him. South Wales in 1810, and held a civil "When Dr. Goldsmith was mentioned, employment there. See Edinburgh Re-"and Dr. Percy's intention of writing view, cx. 322-42. The little book thus "his life, he" (Dr. Johnson) "expressed strangely exhumed is a worthy addition "his approbation, strongly adding that even to Boswell, going over some of his "Goldsmith was the best writer he ever ground with new and valuable touches. "knew upon every subject he wrote I have given one respecting Burke on a "upon." 1870.]