1759. "the same shelf with Milton and Shakspeare, and we are "for allowing him an inferior situation; he would have Æt. 31. the same reader that commends Addison's delicacy to "talk with raptures of the purity of Hawkins; and he who praises the Rape of the Lock to speak with equal feelings "of that richest of all poems, Mr. Hawkins's Thimble. "But we, alas! cannot speak of Mr. H. with the same "unrestrained share of panegyric that he does of himself. Perhaps our motive to malevolence might have been, that "Mr. Hawkins stood between us and a good living: we can solemnly assure him we are quite contented with our "present situation in the church, are quite happy in a wife "and forty pounds a year, nor have the least ambition for "pluralities." * 66 66 I close this rapid account of his labours in the Critical Review, with a curious satire of the fashionable family novel of that day: the work with which the stately mother, and the boarding-school miss, were instructed to fortify themselves against the immoralities of Smollett and of Fielding. As with Jonathan Wild in the matter of Cacus, Goldsmith "knew a better way:" and in his witty exposure of Jemima and Louisa, he seems preparing to make it known. The tale professed to be written by a lady, in a series of letters; and thus he described it. would willingly be judged. And then he concludes. "If you please I will send the "performance in a few weeks to yourself, relying cheerfully on your candour and "impartiality. Having only to say farther, that in case it be honoured with your "acceptance, the copy shall be at your service upon your own terms of purchase. "These I shall leave with the most implicit confidence to your honor, as I choose "for many reasons, to be concerned in this business rather as an Author, than "Proprietor; and as (to say the truth honestly) I have herein principally in view "the cultivation of a correspondence, and give me leave to say and hope a friend"ship, with a gentleman to whom the Immortal Shakspeare is confessedly under "infinite obligations." * Critical Review, ix. 217, March 1760. "Two Misses, just taken home from the boarding-school, are 1759. "prodigious great friends, and so they tell each other their secrets Et. 31. by way of letter. In the first letter, Miss Jemima Courtly, 66 or Mima for shortness' sake, lets her old and intimate friend "know that her mother died when she was eight years old; that “she had one brother and one sister, with several other secrets of "this kind, all delivered in the confidence of friendship. In the progress of this correspondence we find she has been taken from "home for carrying on an intrigue with Horatio, a gentleman, of the 6 neighbourhood, and by means of her sister's insinuations, for she "happens to be her enemy, confined to her chamber, her father at the 66 same time making an express prohibition against her writing love"letters for the future. This command Miss Mima breaks, and of consequence is turned out of doors; so up she gets behind a servant "without a pillion, and is set down at Mrs. Weller's house, the mother "of her friend Miss Fanny. Here, then, we shall leave, or rather forget her, only observing that she is happily married, as we are told "in a few words towards the conclusion. We are next served up with "the history of Miss Louisa Blyden, a story no way connected with the "former. Louisa is going to be married to Mr. Evanion; the "nuptials, however, are interrupted by the death of Louisa's father, "and at last broke off by means of a sharper, who pretends to be "miss's uncle, and takes her concerns under his direction. What "need we tell as how the young lovier runs mad, Miss is spirited away "into France; at last returns; the sharper and his accomplices "hang or drown themselves, her lover dies, and she, oh tragical! แ keeps her chamber? However, to console us for this calamity, there are two or three other very good matches struck up; a great deal "of money, a great deal of beauty, a world of love, and days and 66 nights as happy as heart could desire; the old butt-end of a modern 66 romance." 66 And so Goldsmith's adieu to both Reviews was said, and he left them to fight out their quarrels with each other. * Critical Review, viii. 165-6, August 1759. Let me here add that our knowledge of Goldsmith's labours in the Critical Review is mainly derived from the fact mentioned in a letter by George Steevens (Sept. 3, 1797) giving information about our little poet's works" to Bishop Percy, then engaged in preparing the edition delayed by so many mischances. After remarking that "several pieces of the "Doctor's are still in MS. in the hands of various people" (this could hardly be news to the bishop, who had himself more than one unpublished piece, which he Mr. Griffiths might accuse Smollett of selling his praise for a fat buck, and Smollett retort upon Mrs. Griffiths that an antiquated Sappho sat ill in the chair of Aristarchus; but this interchange of abuse will in future cease to have a bitterness personal to his own fortunes. We are gradually now to follow him, and them, to "a more removed ground." Yet not until the scene of life shall entirely close will it be permitted him to forget that he once toiled in humiliating bondage at the sign of the Dunciad in Paternoster Row, and was paid retainer and servant to "those significant emblems, the owl and the long-ear'd animal, which Mr. Griffiths so 66 sagely displays for the mirth and information of man"kind."* lost), he continues: "the late Mr. Wright, the printer, who had been either 66 apprentice to or in the service of Mr. Hamilton, at a time when Goldsmith 66 composed numerous essays for Magazines, articles for Reviews, &c. &c. preserved a list of these fugitive pieces, which are now reprinting, and will make their 66 appearance in the course of next winter. Goldsmith likewise began a periodical paper, which being unsuccessful, was laid aside, after a few numbers of it had "been issued out." Nichols's Illustrations, vii. 25. I cannot help doubting, however, if the true source has been at all times pointed out by Mr. Wright to the editor of these reprinted articles (Mr. Isaac Reed). * Critical Review, iv. 471. November 1757. See also viii, 82-3, July 1759. In the latter, the Monthly Review is characterised as "that repository of dullness "and malevolence, replenished by the indefatigable care of the industrious nightman "R-h G-s, and his spouse." Smollett, or his writer, is speaking of a translation of Ariosto attacked by the Monthly reviewers, which he had himself praised ; and characterises this review as "an instance of presumption in an illiterate bookseller "and his wife, which can scarcely be paralleled in the annals of dulness and "effrontery. . . Ha! ha ha! who is this venerable Aristarchus, who mounts the "chair of criticism? No Aristarchus, but an antiquated Sappho, a Sibyl, or rather 66 a Pope Joan in taste and literature, pregnant with abuse begot by rancour under "the canopy of ignorance. Purge your choler, goody; have recourse to your apothecary in this adust weather, who will keep you cool and temperate. Mean"while, you and your obsequious spouse may confer together on your vain importance, like the two owls in the fable, 66 "Husband, you reason well, replies The solemn mate with half-shut eyes: CHAPTER VII. AN APPEAL FOR AUTHORS BY PROFESSION. 1759. MEANWHILE the Dodsleys had issued their advertisements, and the London Chronicle of the 3rd of April, 1759, announced the appearance, the day before, of An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe. It was a very respectable, well-printed duodecimo; was without the author's name on the title-page, though Goldsmith was anxious to have the authorship widely known; and had two learned mottoes. The Greek signified that the writer esteemed philosophers, but was no friend to sophists; and the Latin, that those only should destroy buildings who could themselves build. The first idea of the work has been seen; as it grew consolingly, like the plant in the Picciola, from between the hard and stony environments of a desperate fortune. Some modifications it received, as the prospects of the writer were subjected to change; and in its scope became too large for the limited materials, both of reading and experience, brought to its composition. But it was in advance of any similar effort in that day. No one was prepared, in a treatise so grave, for a style so enchantingly graceful. To 1759. Et. 31. 1759. combine liveliness with learning, is thought something of a Et. 31. heresy still. With any detailed account of this well-known Enquiry I do not propose to detain the reader; but for illustration of the course I have taken in this memoir, some striking passages should not be overlooked; others will throw light forward on new scenes which await us; and the contents of the treatise, as found in the current collections, are wanting in much that gives interest to the duodecimo now lying before me, the first of the Dodsley editions. Manifest throughout the book is one over-ruling feeling, under various forms; the conviction that, in bad critics and sordid booksellers, learning has to contend with her most pernicious enemies. When he has described at the outset the wise reverence for letters which prevailed in the old Greek time, when "learning was encouraged, protected, "honoured, and in its turn adorned, strengthened, and har"monised the community," he turns to the sophists and critics for the day of its decline. By them the ancient polite learning was in his view "separated from common sense, "and made the proper employment of speculative idlers "The wiser part of mankind would not be imposed upon by unintelligible jargon, nor, like the knight in Pantagruel, "swallow a chimera for a breakfast, though even cooked by Aristotle."* Thus he distinguished three periods in the history of ancient learning: its commencement, or the age of poets; its maturity, or the age of philosophers; and its decline, or the age of critics. Corruptissima respublica, plurimæ leges. In like manner, when he turned to the consideration of the decay of modern letters, the critics are again brought up for judgment; though with a melancholy * Chap. ii. |