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pasty to a plate of potatoes. Want of delicacy is not in him, but in those who deny him the opportunity of making an elegant choice. Wit certainly is the property of those who have it; nor should we be displeased if it is the only property a man sometimes has. We must not underrate him who uses it for subsistence, and flees from the ingratitude of the age, even to a bookseller, for redress." * "If the author be necessary among us, let us treat him with proper consideration as a child of the public, not as a rent-charge on the community. And indeed a child of the public he is in all respects; for while so well able to direct others, how frequently is he found incapable of guiding himself. His simplicity exposes him to all the insidious approaches of cuuning-his sensibility to the slightest invasions of contempt. Though possessed of fortitude to stand unmoved the expected bursts of an earthquake, yet of feelings so exquisitely poignant as to agonize under the slightest disappointmeut. Broken rest, tasteless meals, and causeless anxieties shorten life, and render it unfit for active enjoyments; prolonged vigils and intense application still farther contract his span, and make his time glide insensibly

away."

While poor Goldsmith was thus struggling with the difficulties and discouragements which in those days beset the path of an author, his friends in Ireland received accounts of his literary success, of the distinguished acquaintances he was making. This was enough to put the wise heads at Lissoy and Ballymahon in a ferment of conjectures. With the exaggerated notions of provincial relatives concerning the family great man in the metropolis, some of Goldsmith's poor kindred pictured him to themselves seated in high places, clothed in purple and fine linen, and hand and glove with the givers of gifts and dispensers of patronage. Accordingly, he was one day surprised at the sudden apparition, in his miserable lodging, of his younger brother Charles, a raw youth of twenty-one, endowed with a double share of the family heedlessness, and who expected to be forthwith helped into some snug by-path to fortune by one or other of Oliver's great friends. Charles was sadly disconcerted on learning that, so far form being able to provide for others, his brother could scarcely take care of himself. He looked round with a rueful eye on the poet's quarters, and could not help expressing his sur prise and disappointment at finding him no better off. All in good time, my dear boy," replied poor Goldsmith, with infinite good humour; "I shall be richer by-andby. Addison, let me tell you, wrote his poem of the Campaign' in a garret in the Haymarket, three stories higher and you see I am not come to that yet, for I have only got to the second story."

Charles Goldsmith did not remain long to embarrass his brother in London. With the same roving disposition and inconsiderate temper of Oliver, he suddenly departed in an humble capacity to seek his fortune in the West Indies, and nothing was heard of him for above thirty years, when, after having been given up as dead by friends, he made his reappearance in England.

Shortly after his departure, Goldsmith wrote a letter to his brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson, Esq., of which the following is an extract; it was partly intended, no doubt, to dissipate any further illusions concerning his fortunes which might float on the magnificent imagination of his friends in Ballymahon.

"I suppose you desire to know my present situation. As there is nothing in it at which I should blush or which mankind could censure, I see no reason for making it a secret. In short, by a very little practice as a physician, and a very little reputation as a poet, I make a shift to live. Nothing is more apt to introduce us to the gates of the muses than poverty; but it were well if they only left us at the door. The mischief is, they sometimes choose to give us their company to the

entertainment; and Want, instead of being gentleman usher, often turns master of the ceremonies.

Thus, upon learning I write, no doubt you imagine I starve; and the name of an author naturally reminds you of a garret. In this particular I do not think proper to undeceive my friends. But, whether I eat or starve, live in a first floor or four pair of stairs high, I still remember them with ardour; nay, my very country comes in for a share of my affection. Unaccountable fondness for country, this maladie du pais, as the French call it! Unaccountable that he should still have an affection for a place, who never, when in it, received above common civility; who never brought anything out of it except his brogue and his blunders. Surely my affection is equally ridiculous with the Scotchman's, who refused to be cured of the itch, because it made him unco' thoughtful of his wife and bonny Inverary. But now, to be serious: let me ask myself what gives me a wish to see Ireland again? The country is a fine one, perhaps? No. There is good company in Ireland? No. The conversation there is generally made up of a smutty toast or a bawdy song; the vivacity supported by some humble cousin, who had just folly enough to earn his dinner. Then, perhaps, there's more wit and learning among the Irish? Oh, Lord, no! There has been more money spent in the encouragement of the Padareen mare there in one season than given in rewards to learned men since the time of Usher. All their productions in learning amount to perhaps a translation, or a few tracts in divinity; and all their productions in wit to just nothing at all. Why the plague, then, so fond of Ireland? Then, all at once, because you, my dear friend, and a few more who are exceptions to the general picture, have a residence there. This it is that gives me all the pangs I feel in separa tion. I confess I carry this spirit sometimes to the souring of the pleasures I at present possess. If I go to the opera, where Signora Columba pours out all the mazes of melody, I sit and sigh for Lissoy fireside, and Johnny Armstrong's Last Good-night' from Peggy Golden. If I climb Hampstead-bill, than where nature never exhibited a more magnificent prospect, I confess it fine; but then I had rather be placed on the little mount before Lissoy gate, and there take in, to me, the most pleasing horizon in nature.

"Before Charles came hither, my thoughts sometimes found refuge from severer studies among my friends in Ireland I fancied strange revolutions at home; but I find it was the rapidity of my own motion that gave an imaginary one to objects really at rest. No alterations there. Some friends, he tells me, are still lean, but very rich; others very fat, but still very poor. Nay, all the news I hear of you is, that you sally out in visits among the neighbours, and sometimes make a migration from the blue bed to the brown. I could from my heart wish that you and she (Mrs. Hodson) and Lissoy and Ballymahon, and all of you, would fairly make a migration into Middlesex; though, upon second thoughts, this might be attended with a few inconveniences. Therefore, as the mountain will not come to Mohammed, why Mohammed shall go to the mountain; or, to speak plain English, as you cannot conveniently pay me a visit, if next summer I can contrive to be absent six weeks from London, I shall spend three of them among my friends in Ireland. But first, believe me, my design is purely to visit, and neither to cut a figure nor levy contributions-neither to excite envy nor solicit favour; in fact, my circumstances are adapted to neither, I am to poor too be gazed at, and too rich to need assistance."

d

CHAP. IX.

Hackney authorship-Thoughts of literary suicide-return to Peckham-Oriental projects-Literary enterprise to raise funds-Letter to Edward Wells-To Robert Bryanton

Death of Uncle Contarine-Letter to Cousin Jane.

For some time Goldsmith continued to write miscellaueously for reviews and other periodical publications, but without making any decided hit, to use a technical term. Indeed, as yet he appeared destitute of the strong excitement of literary ambition, and wrote only on the spur of necessity and at the urgent importunity of his bookseller. His indolent and truant disposition, ever averse from labour and delighting in holiday, had to be Scourged up to his task; still it was this very truant disposition which threw an unconscious charm over everything he wrote; bringing with it honeyed thoughts and pictured images which had sprung up in his mind in the sunny hours of idleness: these effusions, dashed off on compulsion in the exigency of the moment, were published anonymously; so that they made no collective impression on the public, and reflected no fame on the

name of their author.

In an essay, published some time subsequently in the "Bee," Goldsmith adverts in his own humorous way to his impatience at the tardiness with which his desultory and acknowledged essays crept into notice. "I was once induced," says he, "to show my indignation against the public by discontinuing my efforts to please; and was bravely resolved, like Raleigh, to vex them by burning my manuscript in a passion. Upon reflection, however, I considered what set or body of people would be displeased at my rashness. The sun, after so sad an accident, might shine next morning as bright as usual; men might laugh and sing the next day, and transact business as before, and not a single creature feel any regret but myself. Instead of having Apollo in mourning or the Muses in a fit of the spleen-instead of having the learned world apostrophising at my untimely decease, perhaps all Grub-street might laugh at my fate, and selfapproving dignity be unable to shield me from ridicule." Circumstances occurred about this time to give a new direction to Goldsmith's hopes and schemes. Having resumed for a brief period the superintendence of the Peckham school during a fit of illness of Dr. Milner, that gentleman, in requital for his timely services, promised to use his influence with a friend, an East India director, to procure him a medical appointment

in India.

There was every reason to believe that the influence of Dr. Milner would be effectual; but how was Goldsmith to find the ways and means of fitting himself out for a voyage to the Indies? In this emergency he was driven to a more extended exercise of the pen than he had yet attempted. His skirmishing among books as a reviewer, and his disputatious ramble among the schools and universities and literati of the continent, had filled his mind with facts and observations which he now set about digesting into a treatise of some magnitude, to be entitled "An Inquiry into the present State of Polite Learning in Europe." As the work grew on his hands his sanguine temper ran ahead of his labours. Feeling secure of success in England, he was anxious to forestall the piracy of the Irish press; for as yet the Union not having taken place, the English law of copyright did not extend to the other side of the Irish channel. He wrote, therefore, to his friends in Ireland, urging them to circulate his proposals for his contemplated work, and obtain subscriptions payable in advance-the money to be transmitted to a Mr. Bradley, an eminent bookseller in Dublin, who would give a receipt for it, and be accountable for the delivery of the books. The letters written by him on this occasion are worthy of copious citation, as being full of character and interest. One was to his relative and college intimate, Edward Wells,

66

who had studied for the bar, but was now living at ease on his estate at Roscommon. You have quitted," writes Goldsmith, "the plan of life which you once intended to pursue, and given up ambition for domestic tranquility. I cannot avoid feeling some regret that one of my few friends has declined a pursuit in which he had every reason to expect success. I have often let my fancy loose when you were the subject, aud have imagined you gracing the bench, or thundering at the bar; while I have taken no small pride to myself, and whispered to all that I could come near that this was my cousin. Instead of this, you are merely content to be a happy man-to be esteemed by your acquaintances to cultivate your paternal acres to take unmolested a nap under one of your own hawthorns, or in Mrs. Wells's bed-chamber, which even a poet must confess is rather the more comfortable of the two. But, however your resolutions may be altered with regard to your situation in life, I persuade myself they are unalterable with respect to your friends in it. I cannot think the world has taken such entire possession of that heart (once so susceptible of friendship) as not to have left a corner there for a friend or two, but I flatter myself that even I have a place among the number. This I have a claim to from the similitude of our dispositions; or setting that aside, I can demand it as a right by the most equitable law of nature-I mean that of retaliation; for indeed you have more than your share in mine. I am a man of few professions; and yet at this very instant I cannot avoid the painful apprehension that my present professions (which speak not half my feelings) should be considered only as a pretext to cover a request, as I have a request to make. No, my dear Ned, I know you are too generous to think so, and you know me too proud to stoop to unnecessary insincerity. I have a request, it is true, to make; but as I know to whom I am a petitioner, I make it without diffidence or confusion. It is in short this I am going to publish a book in London," &c. The residue of the letter specifies the nature of the request, which was merely to aid in circulating his proposals and obtaining subscriptions. The letter of the poor author, however, was unattended to and unacknowledged by the prosperous Mr. Wells, of Roscommon, though in after years he was proud to claim relationship to Dr. Goldsmith, when he had risen to celebrity.

Another of Goldsmith's letters was to Robert Bryanton, with whom he had long ceased to be in correspondence. I believe," writes he that they who are drunk, or out of their wits, fancy everybody else in the same condition. Mine is a friendship that neither distance nor time can efface, which is probably the reason that for the soul of me I can't avoid thinking yours of the same complexion; and yet I have many reasons for being of a contrary opinion, else why, in so long an absence, was I never made a partner in your concerns? To hear of your success would have given me the utmost pleasure; and a communication of your very disappointments would divide the uneasiness I too frequently feel for my own. Indeed, my dear Bob, you don't conceive how unkindly you have treated one whose circumstances afford him few prospects of pleasure, except those reflected from the happiness of his friends. However, since you have not let me hear from you, I have in some measure disappointed your neglect by frequently thinking of you. Every day or so I remember the calm anecdotes of your life, from the fireside to the easy chair; recal the various adventures that first cemented our friendship-the school, the college, or the tavern; preside in fancy over your cards; and am displeased at your bad play when the rubber goes against you, though not with all that agony of soul as when I was once your partner. Is it not strange that two of such like affections should be so much separated, and so differently employed as we are? You seem placed at the centre of fortune's wheel, and,

let it revolve ever so fast, are insensible of the motion. I seem to have been tied to the circumference, and whirled disagreeably round, as if on a whirligig."

He then runs into a whimsical and extravagant tirade about his future prospects the wonderful career of fame and fortune that awaits him; and, after indulging in all kinds of humorous gasconades, concludes:-"Let me, then, stop my fancy to take a view of my future self-and, as the boys say, light down to see myself on horseback. Well, now that I am down, where the d-1 is I? Oh gods! gods! here in a garret, writing for bread, and expecting to be dunned for a milkscore!"

He would on this occasion have doubtless written to his uncle Contarine, but that generous friend was sunk into a helpless, hopeless state, from which death soon released him.

Cut off thus from the kind co-operation of his uncle, he addressed a letter to his daughter Jane, the companion of his school-boy and happy days, now the wife of Mr. Lawder. The object was to secure her interest with her husband in promoting the circulation of his proposals. The letter is full of character.

"If you should ask," he begins, "why, in an interval of so many years, you never heard from me, permit me, madam, to ask the same question. I have the best excuse in recrimination. I wrote to Kilmore from Leyden in Holland, from Louvain in Flanders, and Rouen in France, but received no answer. To what could I attribute this silence but to displeasure or forgetfulness? Whether I was right in my conjecture I do not pretend to determine; but this I must ingenuously own, that I have a thousand times in my turn endeavoured to forget them, whom I could not but look upon as forgetting me. I have attempted to blot their names from my memory, and, I confess it, spent whole days in efforts to tear their image from my heart. Could I have succeeded, you would not now have been troubled with this renewal of a discontinued correspondence; but, as every effort the restless make to procure sleep serves but to keep them waking, all my attempts contributed to impress what I would forget deeper on my imagination. But this subject I would willingly turn from, and yet, for the soul of me,' I can't tell I have said all. I was, madam, when I discontinued writing to Kilmore, in such circumstance that all my endeavours to continue your regards might be attributed to wrong motives. My letters might be looked upon as the petitions of a beggar, and not the offerings of a friend: while all my professions, instead of being considered as the result of disinterested esteem, might be ascribed to venal insincerity. I believe, indeed, you had too much generosity to place them in such a light, but I could not bear even the shadow of such a suspicion. The most delicate friendships are always most sensible of the slightest invasion, and the strongest jealousy is ever attendant on the warmest regard. I could not-I own I could not continue a correspondence in which every acknowledgment for past favours might be considered as an indirect request for future ones; and where it might be thought I gave my heart from a motive of gratitude alone, when I was conscious of having bestowed it on much more disinterested principles. It is true, this conduct might have been simple enough: but yourself must confess it was in character. Those who know me at all know that I have always been actuated by different principles from the rest of mankind, and while none regarded the interest of his friend more, no man on earth regarded his own less. I have often affected bluntness to avoid the imputation of flattery; have frequently seemed to overlook those merits too obvious to escape notice, and pretended disregard to those instances of good nature and good sense, which I could not fail taci ly to applaud; and all this lest I should be ranked

among the grinning tribe, who say, 'very true' to all that is said: who fill a vacant chair at a tea-table; whose narrow souls never moved in a wider circle than the circumference of a guinea; and who had rather be reckoning the money in your pocket than the virtue in your breast. All this, I say, I have done, and a thousand other very silly, though very disinterested, things in my time; and for all which no soul cares a farthing about me. * * * Is it to be wondered that he should once in his life forget you, who has been all his life forgetting himself? However, it is probable you may one of these days see me turned into a perfect hunks, and as dark and intricate as a mouse-hole. I have already given my landlady orders for an entire reform in the state of my finances. I declaim again hot suppers, drink less sugar in my tea, and check my grate with brickbats. Instead of hanging my room with pictures, I intend to adorn it with maxims of frugality. Those will make pretty furniture enough, and won't be a bit too expensive; for I will draw them all out with my own hauds, and my landlady's daughter shall frame them with the parings of my black waistcoat. Each maxim is to be inscribed on a clean sheet of paper, and wrote with my best pen; of which the following will serve as a specimen:-Look sharp: Mind the main chance: Money is money now: If you have a thousand pounds you can put your hands by your sides, and say you are worth a thousand pounds every day of the year: Take a farthing from a hundred and it will be a hundred no longer. Thus, which way soever I turn my eyes, they are sure to meet one of those friendly monitors; and as we are told of an actor who hung his room round with looking glass to correct the defects of his person, my apartments shall be furnished in a peculiar manner, to correct the errors of my mind. Faith! madam, I heartily wish to be rich, if it were only for this reason, to say without a blush how much I esteem you. But, alas! I have many a fatigue to encounter before that happy time comes, when your poor old simple friend may again give a loose to the luxuriance of his nature; sitting by Kilmore fireside, recount the various adven tures of a hard-fought life-laugh over the follies of the day-join his flute to your harpsichord, and forget that ever he starved in those streets where Butler and Otway starved before him. And now I mention those great names-my Uncle! he is no more that soul of fire as when I once knew him. Newton and Swift grew dim with age as well as he. But what shall I say? His mind was too active an inhabitant not to disorder the feeble mansion of its abode; for the richest jewels soonest wear their sittings. Yet who but the fool would lament his condition! He now forgets the calamities of life. Perhaps indulgent Heaven has given him a foretaste of that tranquillity here which he so well deserves hereafter. But I must come to business; for business, as one of my maxims tells me, must be minded or lost. I am going to publish in London a book, entitled 'The present State of Taste and Literature in Europe.' The booksellers in Ireland republish every performance there without making the author any consideration. I would, in this respect, disappoint their avarice, and have all the profits of my labour to myself. I must, therefore, request Mr. Lawder to circulate among his friends and acquaintances a hundred of my proposals, which I have given the bookseller, Mr. Bradley, in Damestreet, directions to send to him. If, in pursuance of such circulation, he should receive any subscriptions, I entreat, when collected, they may be sent to Mr. Bradley as aforesaid, who will give a receipt, and be accountable for the work or a return of the subscription. If this request (which, if it be complied with, will in some mea sure be an encouragement to a man of learning) should be disagreeable or troublesome, I will not press it; for I would be the last man on earth to have my labours go a-begging; but if I know Mr. Lawder (and sure I ought

to know him), he will accept the employment with pleasure. All I can say if he writes a book, I will get him two hundred subscribers, and these of the best wits in Europe. Whether this request is complied with or not, 1 shall not be uneasy; but there is one petition I must make to him and to you, which I solicit with the warmest ardour, and in which I cannot bear a refusal. I mean, dear madam, that I may be allowed to subscribe myself, your ever affectionate and obliged kinsman, OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Now see how I blot and blunder when I am asking a favour."

CHAP. X.

Oriental appointment, and disappointment-Examination at the College of Surgeons-How to procure a suit of clothesFresh disappointment-A tale of distress-The suit of clothes in pawn-Punishment for doing an act of charity-Gaieties of Green Arbour Court-Letter to his brother-Life of Voltaire-Scroggins, an attempt at mock-heroic poetry. While Goldsmith was yet labouring at his treatise, the promise made him by Dr. Milner was carried into effect, and he was actually appointed physician and surgeon to one of the factories on the coast of Coromandel. His imagination was immediately on fire with visions of oriental wealth and magnificence. It is true the salary did not exceed one hundred pounds, but then, as appointed physician, he would have the exclusive practice of the place, amounting to one thousand pounds per annum; with advantages to be derived from trade and from the high interest of money-twenty per cent.; in a word, for once in his life the road to fortune lay broad and straight before him.

Hitherto, in his correspondence with his friends, be had said nothing of his India scheme; but now he imparted to them his brilliant prospects, urging the importance of their circulating his proposals and obtaining him subscriptions and advances on his forthcoming work, to furnish funds for his outfit.

In the meantime he had to task that poor drudge, his muse, for present exigencies. Ten pounds were demanded for his appointment-warrant. Other expenses pressed hard upon him. Fortunately, though as yet unknown to fame, his literary capability was known to the trade," and the coinage of his brain passed current in Grubstreet. Archibald Hamilton, proprietor of the "Critical Review," the rival to that of Griffiths, readily made him a small advance on receiving three articles for his periodical. His purse thus slenderly replenished, Goldsmith paid for his warrant; wiped off the score of his milkmaid; abandoned his garret, and moved into a shabby first floor in a forlorn court near the Old Bailey; there to await the time of his migration to the maguificent coast of Coromandel.

Alas! poor Goldsmith! ever doomed to disappoint ment. Early in the gloomy mouth of November-that month of fog and despondency in London-be learnt the shipwreck of his hope. The great Coromandel enterprise fell through or rather, the post promised to him was transferred to some other candidate. The cause of this disappointment it is now impossible to ascertain. The death of his quasi patron, Dr. Milner, which happened about this time, may have had some effect in producing it; or there may have been some heedlessness and blundering on his own part, or some obstacle arising from his insuperable indigence; whatever may have been the cause, he never mentioned it, which gives some ground to surmise that he himself was to blame. His friends learnt with surprise that he had suddenly relinquished his appointment to India, about which he had raised such sanguine expectatious: some accused him of fickleness and caprice; others supposed him unwilling to tear himself from the growing fascinations of the literary Society of London.

In the meantime, cut down in his hopes and humiliated in his pride by the failure of his Coromaudel scheme, he sought, without consulting his friends, to be examined at the College of Physicians for the humble situation of hospital mate. Even here poverty stood in his way. It was necessary to appear in a decent garb before the examining committee; but how was he to do so? He was literally out of elbows as well as out of cash. Here again the mnse, so often jilted and neglected by him, came to his aid. In consideration of four articles furnished to the "Monthly Review," Griffiths, his old task-master, was to become security to the tailor for a suit of clothes. Goldsmith said he wanted them but for a single occasion, on which depended his appointment to a situation in the army; as soon as that temporary purpose was served they would either be returned or paid for. The books to be reviewed were accordingly lent to him--the muse was again set to his compulsory drudgery-the articles were scribbled off and sent to the bookseller, and the clothes came in due time from the tailor.

From the records of the College of Surgeons, it appears that Goldsmith underwent his examination at Surgeons' Hall on the 21st December, 1758. Either from a confusion of mind incident to sensitive and imaginative persons on such occasions, or from a real want of surgical science, which last is extremely probable, he failed in his examination, and was rejected as unqualified. The effect of such rejection was to disqualify him for every branch of public service, though he might have claimed a re-examination, after the interval of a few months devoted to further study Such a re-examination he never attempted, nor did he ever communicate his discomfiture to any of his friends.

On Christmas-day, but four days after his rejection by the College of Surgeons, while he was suffering under the mortification of defeat and disappointment, and hard pressed for means of subsistence, he was surprised by the entrance into his room of the poor woman of whom he hired his wretched apartment, and to whom he owed some small arrears of rent. She had a piteous tale of distress, and was clamorous in her afflictions. Her husband had been arrested in the night for debt, and thrown into prison. This was too much for the quick feelings of Goldsmith; he was ready at any time to help the distressed, but in this instance he was himself in some measure a cause of the distress. What was to be done? He had no money, it is true; but there hung the new suit of clothes in which he had stood his unlucky examin ation at Surgeons' Hall. Without giving himself time for reflection, he sent it off to the pawnbroker's, and raised thereon a sufficient sum to pay off his own debt, and to release his landlord from prison.

Under the same pressure of penury and despondency, he borrowed from a neighbour a pittance to relieve his immediate wants, leaving as a security the books which he had recently reviewed. In the midst of these straits and harassments, he received a letter from Griffiths, demanding in peremptory terms the return of the clothes and books, or immediate payment for the same. It appears that he had discovered the identical suit at the pawnbroker's. The reply of Goldsmith is not known; it was out of his power to furnish either the clothes or the money; but he probably offered once more to make the muse stand his bail. His reply only increased the ire of the wealthy man of trade, and drew from him another letter, still more harsh than the first, using the epithets of knave and sharper, and containing threats of prosecution and a prison.

The following letter from poor Goldsmith gives the most touching picture of an inconsiderate but sensitive man, harassed by care, stung by humiliations, and driven almost to despondency :

“SIR,—I know of no misery but a jail to which my own imprudences and your letter seem to point. I have

seen it inevitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens! request it as a favour-as a favour that may prevent something more fatal. I have been some years struggling with a wretched being-with all that contempt and indigence brings with it—with all those passions which make contempt unsupportable. What, then, has a jail that is formidable? I shall at least have the society of wretches, and such is to me true society. I tell you, again and again, that I am neither able nor willing to pay you a farthing, but I will be punctual to any appointinent you or the tailor shall make; thus far, at least, I do not act the sharper, since unable to pay my own debts one way, I would generally give some security another. No, sir; had I been a sharper-had I been possessed of less good-nature and native generosity, I might surely now have been in better circumstances.

I am guilty, I own, of meannesses which poverty unavoidably brings with it: my reflections are filled with repentance for my imprudence, but not with any remorse for being a villain; that may be a character you unjustly charge me with. Your books, I can assure you, are neither pawned nor sold, but in the custody of a friend, from whom my necessities obliged me to borrow some money: whatever becomes of my person, you shall have them in a month. It is very possible both the reports you have heard and your own suggestions may have brought you false information with respect to my character; it is very possible that the man whom you now regard with detestation may inwardly burn with grateful resentment. It is very possible that, upon a second perusal of the letter I sent you, you may see the workings of a mind strongly agitated with gratitude and jealousy. If such circumstances should appear, at least spare invective till my book with Mr. Dodsley shall be published, and then, perhaps, you may see the bright side of a mind, when my professions shall not appear the dictates of necessity, but of choice.

You seem to think Dr. Milner knew me not. Perhaps so; but he was a man I shall ever honour; but I have friendships only with the dead! I ask pardon for taking up so much time; nor shall I add to it by any other professions than that I am, sir, your humble servant,

"OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

"P.S.-I shall expect impatiently the result of your resolutions."

The dispute between the poet and the publisher was afterward imperfectly adjusted, and it would appear that the clothes were paid for by a short compilation advertised by Griffiths in the course of the following month; but the parties were never really friends after ward, and the writings of Goldsmith were harshly and unjustly treated in the "Monthly Review."

We have given the preceding anecdote in detail, as furnishing one of the many instances in which Goldsmith's prompt and benevolent impulses ontran all prudent forecast, and involved him in difficulties and dis graces which a more selfish man would have avoided. The pawning of the clothes, charged upon him as a crime by the grinding bookseller, and apparently admitted by him as one of "the meannesses which poverty unavoidably brings with it," resulted, as we have shown, from a tenderness of heart and generosity of haud in which another man would have gloried; but these were such natural elements with him that he was unconscious of their merit. It is a pity that wealth does not oftener bring such "meannesses" in its train.

And now let us be indulged in a few particulars about these lodgings in which Goldsmith was guilty of this thoughtless act of benevolence. They were in a very shabby house, No. 12, Green arbour-court, between the Old Bailey and Fleet Market. An old woman was still living in 1820, who was a relative of the identical landlady whom Goldsmith relieved by the money received from the pawnbroker. She was a child

about seven years of age at the time that the poet rented his apartment of her relative, and used frequently to be at the house in Green-arbour-court. She was drawn there, in a great measure, by the good-humored kindness of Goldsmith, who was always exceedingly fond of the society of children. He used to assemble those of the family in his room, give them cakes and sweetmeats, and set them dancing to the sound of his flute. He was very friendly to those around him, and cultivated a kind of intimacy with a watchmaker in the court, who possessed much native wit and humour. He passed most of the day, however, in his room, and only went out in the evenings. His days were no doubt devoted to the drudgery of the pen, and it would appear that he occasionally found the booksellers urgent taskmasters. On one occasion a visitor was shown up to his room, and immediately their voices were heard in high altercation, and the key was turned within the lock. The landlady, at first, was disposed to go to the assistance of her lodger; but a calm succeeding, she forbore to interfere.

Late in the evening the door was unlocked; a supper ordered by the visitor from a neighbouring tavern, and Goldsmith and his intrusive guest finished the evening in great good-humour. It was probably his old taskmaster Griffiths, whose press might have been waiting, and who found no other mode of getting a stipulated task from Goldsmith than by locking him in and staying by him until it was finished.

But we have a more particular account of these lodgings in Green-arbour-court from the Rev. Thomas Percy, afterward Bishop of Dromore, and celebrated for his relics of ancient poetry, his beautiful ballads, and other works. During an occasional visit to London he was introduced to Goldsmith by Grainger, and ever after continued one of his most steadfast and valued friends. The following is his description of the poet's squalid apartment :- I called on Goldsmith at his lodgings in March, 1759, and found him writing his Inquiry,' in a miserable, dirty-looking room, in which there was but one chair; and when, from civility, he resigned it to me, he himself was obliged to sit in the window. While we were conversing together some one tapped gently at the door, and being desired to come in, a poor, ragged little girl, of a very becoming demeanour, entered the room, and, dropping a courtsey, said, 'My mamma sends her compliments, and begs the favour of you to lend her a chamber-pot full of coals."

We are reminded in this anecdote of Goldsmith's picture of the lodgings of Beau Tibbs, and of the peep into the secrets of a make-shift establishment given to a visitor by the blundering old Scotchwoman.

"By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would permit us to ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously pleased to call the first-floor down the chimney; and knocking at the door, a voice from within demanded Who's there? My conductor answered that it was him. But this not satisfying the querist, the voice again repeated the demand, to which he answered louder than before; and now the door was opened by an old woman with cautious reluctance.

When we got in, he welcomed me to his house with great ceremony; and, turning to the old woman, asked where was her lady. Good troth,' replied she, in a peculiar dialect, she's washing your twa shirts at the next door, because they have taken an oath against lending the tub any longer.' 'My two shirts!' cried he, in a tone that faltered with confusion; what does the idiot mean? I ken what I mean weel enough,' replied the other; 'she's washing your twa shirts at the next door, because-Fire and fury! no more of thy stupid explanations,' cried he; go and inform her we have company. Were that Scotch hag to be for ever in my family, she would never learn politeness, nor forget that absurd poisonous accent of hers, or testify the smallest