1759.

taster by anticipation of the bitters as well as the sweets of the cup so plentifully filled for him. For those reproaches Et. 31. of his brother's had a sting to be remembered when his brother's outraged dignity had been long forgotten. The latter we have seen sensibly assuaged even in the letters quoted; and its conclusion and moral might be yet more pointedly drawn out of others of later date in the same collection, which show Mr. Peter Garrick solely indebted to the actor for retrieval of his shattered fortune, a successful suppliant for favours over and over again conferred on him, and finally indebted to no less a friend and patron of David's than the Duke of Devonshire for "the finger" that "lifted" himself "out of those cursed wine-vaults." But notwithstanding all this, very correctly did Peter's first shock of horror on learning that David had become a player, reflect a feeling which others used throughout his life to gall and to humiliate him; which, while it could not shut against him the favours of the great, for that reason more bitterly exposed him to the malice and insult of the little; which threw him into uneasy relations with men of his own social station; obscured too often his better nature; and remains for us the clue by which, if we would judge him favourably, we may unravel what appears least consistent in his character. I have had the less scruple in giving at some length, therefore, even to the temporary interruption of my narrative, that critical passage of his life which till now has never been authentically told.

ness, the crooked Mostyn, and Dabreu the Spanish minister; two regents, of "which one is lord chamberlain, the other groom of the stole; and the wife of a secretary of state. This is being sur un assez bon ton for a player! Don't you "want to ask me how I like him? Do want, and I will tell you. I like her "exceedingly; her behaviour is all sense, and all sweetness too. I don't know "how, he does not improve so fast upon me: there is a great deal of parts, and "vivacity, and variety, but there is a great deal too of mimicry and burlesque." Coll. Lett. iii. 139.

CHAPTER III.

1759.

OVERTURES FROM SMOLLETT AND MR. NEWBERY.

1759-1760.

BUT, at the door of Mr. Oliver Goldsmith, Doctor Smollett

and Mr. Newbery have been waiting us all this while, and Æt. 31. neither of them belonged to that leisurely class which can very well afford to wait. The Doctor was full of energy and movement always, as one of his own headlong heroes; and who remembers not the philanthropic bookseller in the Vicar of Wakefield, the good-natured man with the redpimpled face, who had no sooner alighted but he was in haste to be gone, "for he was ever on business of the utmost impor"tance, and was at that time actually compiling materials "for the history of one Mr. Thomas Trip." But not on Mr. Thomas Trip's affairs had the child-loving publisher* now ventured up Break-neck Steps; and upon other than the old Critical business was the author of Peregrine Pickle a visitor in Green Arbour Court. Both had new and important schemes in hand, and with both it was an object to secure the alliance and services of Goldsmith. Smollett had

"He called himself their friend," says Doctor Primrose, "but he was the "friend of all mankind. . . he had published for me against the Deuterogamists "of the age, and from him I borrowed a few pieces." And see Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, iii. 731-2.

1759.

at all times not a little of the Pickle in him, and Newbery much of the Mr. Trip; but there was a genial good-hearted- Et. 31. ness in both, which makes it natural and pleasant to have to single out these two men, as the first active friends and patrons of the author of the unsuccessful Bee. Their offers were of course accepted; and it seems to imply something, however slight, of a worldly advance in connection with them, that, in the month which followed, the luckless Bee was issued in the independent form of a small half-crown volume by Mr. Wilkie, and Kenrick received instructions from Mr. Ralph Griffiths to treat it in the Monthly Review "with the greatest candour toward an unsuccessful Author."* The 1st of January, 1760, saw the first venture launched. It was published for sixpence, "embellished with curious copperplates," and entitled "The British Magazine, or "Monthly Repository for Gentlemen and Ladies. By "T. Smollett, M.D., and others." It was dedicated with much fervour to Mr. Pitt; and Mr. Pitt's interest (greatly to the spleen of Horace Walpole, who thinks the matter worthy of mention in his Memoirs of George the Second †) enabled Smollett to put it forth with a royal license, granted in consideration of the fact that Doctor Smollett had "represented "to his Majesty that he has been at great labour and expense in writing original pieces himself, and engaging

66

*Monthly Review, xxii. 42, January 1760. A specimen of the candour is worth quoting. "We do not mean " (after saying that experience had, no doubt, proved the justice of the author's anticipations of failure, as well as of his belief that nobody but himself would regret it) "to insinuate that his lucubrations are so void "of merit as not to deserve the public attention. On the contrary, we must "confess ourselves to have found no inconsiderable entertainment in their perusal. "His stile is not the worst, and his manner is agreeable enough, in our opinion, "however it may have failed of exciting universal admiration. The truth is, most "of his subjects are already sufficiently worn-out, and his observations frequently "trite and common."

iii. 259, 261. It follows an allusion to the abusive portrait of Lord Lyttelton in Roderick Random, "a novel of which sort he published two or three."

1759. "other gentlemen to write original pieces." The Doctor, in Et. 31. truth, had but lately left the "Bench," at the close of that

1760.

three months' imprisonment for libel into which his spirited avowal of the authorship of a criticism on Admiral Knowles had betrayed him; and the king's patronage had probably been sought as a counterpoise to the king's prison. But the punishment had not been without its uses. In the nature of Smollett, to the last, there were not a few of the heedless impulses of boyhood; and from this three months' steady gaze on the sadder side of things, he seems to have turned with tempered and gentler thoughts. In the first number of the British Magazine was the opening of the tale which contained his most feminine heroine (Aurelia Darnel), and the most amiable and gentlemanly of his heroes (Sir Launcelot Greaves); for, though Sir Launcelot is mad, wise thoughts have made him so; and in the hope to "remedy evils which the law cannot reach, to detect fraud and treason, to abase insolence, to mortify pride, to discourage slander, to disgrace immodesty, and to stigmatise ingrati"tude," he stumbles through his odd adventures. There is pleasure in connecting this alliance of Smollett and Goldsmith, with the first approach of our great humourist to that milder humanity and more genial wisdom which shed its mellow rays on Matthew Bramble.

66

Nor were the services engaged from Oliver unworthy of Et. 32. his friend's Sir Launcelot. Side by side with the kindly enthusiast, appeared some of the most agreeable of the Essays which were afterwards re-published with their writer's name; and many which were never connected with it, until half a century after the writer's death. Here Mr. Rigmarole fell into that Boar's Head reverie in Eastcheap, since so many times dreamt over, and so full of kindly rebuke to

undiscriminating praisers of the past. Here the shabby 1760. man in St. James's Park (Goldsmith, like Justice Woodcock, Et. 32. loved a vagabond) recounted his strolling adventures, with a vivacity undisturbed by poverty; and, with his MerryAndrew, Bajazet, and Wildair, laughed at Garrick in his glory. Here journey was made to the Fountain in whose waters sense and genius mingled, and by whose side the traveller found Johnson and Gray (a pity it did not prove so!) giving and receiving fame.* And here, above all, the poor, hearty, wooden-legged beggar, first charmed the world with a philosophy of content and cheerfulness which no misfortune could subdue. This was he who had lost his leg and the use of his hand, and had a wound in his breast which was troublesome, and was obliged to beg, but with these exceptions blessed his stars for knowing no reason to complain: some had lost both legs and an eye, but thank Heaven it was not so bad with him. This was he who remarked that people might say this and that of being in gaol, but when he was found guilty of being poor, and was sent to Newgate, he found it as agreeable a place as ever he was in, in all his life:† who fought the French in six pitched battles, and verily believed, that, but for some good reason or other his captain would have given him promotion and made him a corporal: who was beaten cruelly by a boatswain, but the boatswain did it without considering what he was about: who

Another proof that Goldsmith had not yet surrendered his own judgment to Johnson's in the matter of Gray. The four papers enumerated will be found in Miscell. Works, i. 179, 229, 195, and ii. 461; the last having been transferred to the Citizen of the World.

"O liberty! liberty! liberty! that is the property of every Englishman, and I "will die in its defence; I was afraid, however, that I should be indicted for a "vagabond once more, so did not much care to go into the country, but kept about 26 town, and did little jobs when I could get them. I was very happy in this manner "for some time; till one evening, coming home from work, two men knocked me 'down, and then desired me to stand still. They belonged to a press-gang." ii. 465.