translation of a book

uncertainty. But his letters were addressed to the Temple Exchange Coffee-House, near Temple-Bar, where the 'George' he celebrates in one of his Essays took charge of them; the garret where he wrote and slept is supposed to have been in one of the courts near the neighbouring Salisbury Square; Doctor Kippis, one of the Monthly Reviewers, 'was impressed by some faint recollection of 'his having made translations from the French, among 'others of a tale from Voltaire;' and the recollection is made stronger by one of his autographs in Heber's Collection, which purports to be a receipt from Mr. Ralph Griffiths for ten guineas, probably signed a day or two before he left the Monthly, for entitled Memoirs of my Lady B. Review, Doctor James Grainger, to whom his residence at The Dunciad had made him known; and of whom the translation of Tibullus, the Ode to Solitude, and the poem of the Sugar-Cane, have kept a memory very pleasant, though very limited; made the same Coffee-House his place of call, and often saw Goldsmith there. The month in which he separated from Griffiths was that in which Newberry's Literary Magazine lost Johnson's services; but this seems the only ground for a surmise that those services were replaced by Goldsmith's. The book itself shows little mark of his hand until his admitted connection with it, some months later.

Another writer in the

Toiling thus through an obscurity dark as the life itself, the inquirer finds on a sudden a glimpse of light,

which for an instant places him in that garret near Salisbury Square. Its inmate sits alone in wretched drudgery, when the door opens, and a raw-looking country youth of twenty stands doubtfully on the doleful threshold. Goldsmith sees at once his youngest brother Charles; but Charles cannot bring himself to see, in the occupier of this miserable dwelling, the brother on whose supposed success he had already built his own! Without educa

tion, profession, friends, or resource of any kind, it had suddenly occurred to this enterprising Irish lad, as he lounged in weary idleness round Ballymahon, that as brother Oliver had not been asking for assistance lately, but was now a settled author in London, perhaps he had

gotten great men for his friends, and a kind word to one of them might be the making of his fortune. Full of this, he scrambled to London as he could, won the secret of the house from the Temple Exchange waiter to whom he confided his relationship, and found the looked-for architect of wealth and honour, here! All in good time, my 'dear boy,' cried Oliver joyfully, to check the bitterness of despair. 'All in good time: I shall be richer by and by. 'Beside you see, I am not in positive want. Addison, 'let me tell you, wrote his poem of the Campaign in a 'garret in the Haymarket, three stories high; and you see I am not come to that yet, for I have only got to 'the second story.' He made Charles sit and answer questions about his Irish friends: but at this point the light is again withdrawn, and for some two months there is greater darkness than before.

Charles quitted London in a few days, suddenly and secretly as he had entered it, and shortly sailed, ‘in a 'humble capacity' it is said, for Jamaica: whence he did not return till after thirty years, to tell this anecdote. The next clear view of Oliver is from a letter to his brother-in-law Hodson, with the date of Temple 'Exchange Coffee-House (where you may direct an an'swer), Dec. 27, 1757: fortunately kept. The miserable year had brought no happier Christmas to Goldsmith; but he writes with a manly cheerfulness, which offers no selfish affront to the unselfish spirit of the season. Some unsuccessful efforts of this Hodson to raise a subscription,

in answer to the supplication for Irish aid during the travel abroad, seems to have been mentioned by Charles; and gratitude, for a little made Goldsmith grateful, prompted the letter. He begins by reminding his kinsman that his last letter to him was left unanswered. 'My brother Charles, however, informs me of the fatigue you were at in soliciting a subscription to assist me, not only among 'my friends and relatives, but acquaintances in general. 'Though my pride might feel some repugnance at being 'thus relieved, yet my gratitude can suffer no diminution. 'How much am I obliged to you, to them, for such 'generosity, or.. why should not your virtues have their 'proper name?.. for such charity to me at that juncture. 'My not receiving that supply was the cause of my 'present establishment in London. You may easily 'imagine what difficulties I had to encounter, left as I was 'without friends, recommendations, money, or impudence : ' and that in a country where being born an Irishman was 'sufficient to keep me unemployed. Many, in such 'circumstances, would have had recourse to the friar's 'cord, or the suicide's halter. But, with all my follies, I 'had principle to resist the one and resolution to combat 'the other. 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 at the enter'tainment; 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.'

This glance at the gloomy aspect of his present fortunes, were less pathetic to me if it had been less playful. His Irish friends had shown the charitable wish, however unavailing; and he would not trouble friendly eyes with needless exhibition of his sufferings, or make Grim Want the Master of other than somewhat cheerful Ceremonies. Lightly and quickly he passes from the subject, to that unaccountable fondness for Ireland already mentioned in connection with this letter. What little pleasures he had ever tasted in London, he says, Irish memories had soured. Signora Columba had never poured out all the mazes of melody, that he did not sit and sigh for Lissoy fireside, and Peggy Golden's song of Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night. If I climb Hampstead Hill, 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

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