Nay, all the news I hear

'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. '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 your wife, and Lissoy, and Ballyma'hon, and all of you, would fairly make a migration 'into Middlesex.' He adds, that if they do not, he believes he must go next year to see them; and subscribes himself his dear Dan's affectionate kinsman.'

Poet and Physician: ragged livery of Grub Street under the one high-sounding name, and wretched fee-less patients beneath the other. He was the poet of Hogarth's print, which the common people then hailed with laughter at every print-shop; he was again, it would seem, the poor physician of the patched velvet among hovels of Bankside; and yet it was but pleasant colouring for the comfort of brother-in-law Hodson, when he said that with both he made a shift to live. With even more, he failed to attain that object of humble ambition.

In February, 1758, two duodecimos appeared with this most explanatory title: 'The Memoirs of a Protestant, con

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'demned to the Galleys of France for his Religion. Written by himself. Comprehending an account of the various distresses he suffered in slavery, and his constancy in supporting almost every cruelty that bigoted zeal could 'inflict, or human nature sustain. Also a description of 'the Galleys, and the service in which they are employed. 'The whole interspersed with anecdotes relative to the 'general history of the times for a period of thirteen 'years, during which the author continued in slavery, 'till he was at last set free at the intercession of the 'Court of Great Britain. Translated from the Original, 'just published at the Hague, by James Willington.' James Willington was in reality Oliver Goldsmith. The property of the book belonged to Griffiths, who valued one name quite as much as the other; and the position of the translator appears in the subsequent assignment of the manuscript, at no small profit to Griffiths, by the Paternoster-Row bookseller to bookseller Dilly of the Poultry, for the sum of twenty guineas. But though the translator's name might pass for Willington, the writer could only write as Goldsmith; though with bitterness he calls himself the obscure prefacer,' the preface is clear, graceful, and characteristic, as in brighter days. The book cannot be recommended, he says, 'as a grateful entertain'ment to the readers of reigning romance, for it is strictly 'true. No events are here to astonish; no unexpected 'incidents to surprise; no such high-finished pictures, as 'captivate the imagination, and have made fiction fashion

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'able. Our reader must be content with the simple 'exhibition of truth. He must be satisfied to see Vice

triumphant and Virtue in distress; to see men punished 'or rewarded, not as his wishes but as Providence has thought proper to direct; for all here wears the face of 'sincerity.' He glances at the scenes of dungeon, rack, and scaffold through which the narrative will pass, and calls them but a part of the accumulated wretchedness of a miscalled glorious time while Louis, surnamed the 'Great, was feasting at Versailles, fed with the incense. ' of flattery, or sunk in the lewd embraces of a prostitute.'

But why stood 'James Willington' on the title page of this book, instead of Oliver Goldsmith,' since the names were both unknown? The question will not admit of a doubtful answer, though a braver I could wish to have given. At this point there is evidence of despair.

Not without well-earned knowledge had Goldsmith passed through the task-work of the Monthly Review ; faculties which lay unused within him, were by this time not unknown; and a stronger man, with a higher constancy and fortitude, might with that knowledge have pushed resolutely on, and, conquering the fate of those who look back when their objects are forward, found earlier sight of the singing tree and the golden water. But to him it seemed hopeless to climb any further up the desperate steep; over the dark obstructions which the world is glad to interpose between itself and the best labourers in its service, he had not as yet risen high enough to see

the glimmering of light beyond. Even lower, therefore, than the school-room at Doctor Milner's, from which he had been taken to his literary toil, he thought himself now descended; and in a sudden sense of misery more intolerable, might have cried with Edgar,

O gods! who is 't can say I am at the worst'?

I am worse than e'er I was.

He returned to Doctor Milner's.

If ever again to return

to Literature, to embrace it for choice and with a braver heart endure its worst necessities.

There came that time; and when, eighteen months after the present date, he was writing the Bee, he thus turned into pleasant fiction the incidents now described. 'I was once induced to shew my indignation against the

public, by discontinuing my endeavours to please; and 'was bravely resolved, like Raleigh, to vex them by burn'ing my manuscripts in a passion. Upon recollection, 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 mournWing, 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 self-approving dignity be unable to shield me 'from ridicule.' Worse than ridicule had he spared

himself, with timely aid of these better thoughts; but they came too late. He made his melancholy journey to Peckham, and knocked at Doctor Milner's door.

The schoolmaster was not an unkind or unfriendly man, and would in any circumstances, there is little doubt, have given Goldsmith the shelter he sought. It happened now that he had special need of him: sickness disabling himself from the proper school-attendance. So again installed poor usher, week passed over week as of old, with suffering, contempt, and many forms of care. Milner saw what he endured; was moved by it; and told him that as soon as health enabled himself to resume the duties of the school, he would exert an influence to place his usher in some medical appointment at a foreign station. He knew an East India Director through whom it might be done. It was what he desired before all things, said Goldsmith fervently.

And now, with something like the prospect of a settled future to bear him up against the uncongenial and uncertain present, what leisure he had for other than school labour he gave to a literary project of his own designing. This was natural: for we cling with a strange new fondness to what we must soon abandon, and it is the strong resolve to separate which has most often made separation impossible. Nor, apart from this, is there ground for the feeling of surprise, or the charge of vacillating purpose. His daily bread provided here, literature again presented itself to his thoughts as in his foreign wanderings; and to