book of mine will be published in a few days: the Life of a very
extraordinary man: no less than the great Voltaire. You know
already by the title that it is no more than a catch-penny. How-
ever, I spent but four weeks on the whole performance, for which
I received twenty pounds. When published, I shall take some
method of conveying it to you: unless you may think it dear of the
postage, which may amount to four or five shillings. However, I
fear you
will not find an equivalent of amusement. Your last letter,
I repeat it, was too short: you should have given me your opinion of
the design of the heroi-comical poem which I sent you. You re-
member I intended to introduce the hero of the poem as lying in a
paltry ale-house. You may take the following specimen of the
manner, which I flatter myself is quite original. The room in
which he lies may be described somewhat in this way:

The window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray,
That feebly showed the state in which he lay ;
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread,
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread ;
The game of goose was there expos'd to view,
And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew;
The Seasons, fram'd with listing, found a place,
And Prussia's monarch show'd his lamp-black face.
The morn was cold; he views with keen desire

A rusty grate unconscious of a fire;

An unpaid reckoning on the frieze was scored,

And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney-board.

And now imagine, after his soliloquy, the landlord to make his appearance, in order to dun him for the reckoning:

Not with that face, so servile and so gay,
That welcomes every stranger that can pay ;
With sulky eye he smok'd the patient man,
Then pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began

All this is taken, you see, from Nature. It is a good remark of

Montaigne's, that the wisest men often have friends with whom they do not care how much they play the fool. Take my present follies as instances of my regard. Poetry is a much easier and more agreeable species of composition than prose; and could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet. I am resolved to leave no space, though I should fill it up only by telling you, what you know very well already. I mean that I am your most affectionate friend and brother, OLIVER GOLDSMITH."

There is a practical condition of mind in this letter, notwithstanding its self-reproachful pictures, and protestations of sorrowful disgust. It is very clear, were it only by the ale-house hero's example, that not all the miseries which surround him will again daunt his perseverance, or tempt him to begin life anew. If the bowl is now to be broken, it will be broken at the fountain. Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet but as he has made up his mind to live, and on the world's beggarly terms, he will take what practicable work he can get, and be content with its fare till pleasant employment comes. When the Man in Black describes the change of good humour with which he went to his precarious meals; how he forbore rants of spleen at his situation, ceased to call down heaven and the stars to behold him dining on a half-pennyworth of radishes, taught his very companions to believe that he liked salad better than mutton, laughed when he was not in pain, took the world as it went, and read his Tacitus for want of more books and company; it figures some such change

as this which I notice here. Whatever the work may be, the resolution to stick to Nature is a good and hopeful one, and will admit of wise application, and many original results.

The poem seems to have gone no further: but its cheerful hero reappeared, after some months, in a Club of Authors; protested that the alehouse had been his own bed-chamber often; reintroduced the description with six new lines; Where the Red Lion flaring o'er the way, Invites each passing stranger that can pay ;

Where Calvert's butt, and Parson's black champagne,
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane;

There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,

The muse found Scroggen stretch'd beneath a rug.

flattered himself that his work should not be of the order of your common epic poems, which come from the press like paper kites in summer; swore that people were sick of your Turnuses and Didos, and wanted an heroical description of Nature; offered, for proof of sound, and sense, and truth, and nature, in the trifling compass of ten syllables, the last of two added lines;

A night-cap deck'd his brows instead of bay,

A cap by night, a stocking all the day!

and having quoted them, was so much elated and selfdelighted, that he was quite unable to proceed.

Thus could Goldsmith already turn aside the sharpest edge of poverty; thus wisely consent to be Scroggen till he could be Goldsmith; in the paltry, slovenly pothouse of Drury-lane, give promise of the neat village alehouse

of Auburn; and betake himself meanwhile to less agreeable daily duties, in a spirit that would make them, also, the not indifferent source of profit and delight.

'Speedily will be published,' said the Public Advertiser of the 7th of February 1759, 'Memoirs of the Life of 'Monsieur de Voltaire, with critical observations on the writings of that celebrated poet, and a new Translation of the Henriade. Printed for R. Griffiths, in Paternoster 'Row.' Nevertheless, the publication did not take place. The Translation was by Purdon: the poor uncertain hack, whose notoriety rests on Goldsmith's epigram, as his hunger was, even at this time, supposed to be mainly appeased by a share of Goldsmith's crust. It was probably not completed in time. Some months later, it appeared in a Magazine, and the Life was given to the public through the same bookselling channel; but it is clear that Goldsmith, when he wrote to his brother, had really performed his share of the contract. It was but a catchpenny matter, as he called it; yet with passages of interesting narrative as well as just remark, and gracefully written. It announces that early admiration of the genius of Voltaire and Rousseau, which he consistently maintained against some celebrated friends of his later life it contains the best existing notice known to me of Voltaire's residence in England: and for proof of the time at which it was written, passages might be given in exact paraphrase of the argument of his Polite Learning; such sayings from the last-quoted letter to his

brother, as frugality in the lower orders of mankind may be considered as a substitute for ambition;' and such apophthegms from his recent sharp experience, as 'the 'school of misery is the school of wisdom.'

The Polite Learning was now completed, and passing through the press: the Dodsleys of Pall Mall, who gave Johnson ten guineas for the poem of London, having taken it under their charge. This too was the time when, being accidentally in company with Grainger at the Temple Exchange Coffee House, he was introduced to Thomas Percy, afterward collector of the Reliques, and Bishop of Dromore. Percy, who had a great love of letters and of literary men, was attracted to this new acquaintance; for before he returned to his rectory of Eastern Mauduit in Northamptonshire, he discovered his address in Green Arbour Court, and resolved to call upon him. 'I called on Goldsmith,' said the grave church dignitary, and descendant of the ancient Earls of Northumberland, when asked to relate the visit some years after his friend's death, 'in the beginning of March

1759, and found him in lodgings so poor and miserable, 'that I should not think it proper to mention the circum'stance, if I did not consider it as the highest proof of 'the splendour of Doctor Goldsmith's genius and talents, that by the bare exertion of their powers, under every 'disadvantage of person and fortune, he could gradually emerge from such obscurity, to the enjoyment of all 'the comforts, and even luxuries of life, and admission