'lius.' 'Well! and what does the public, I mean those 'who are out of the university, say of those mutual com'pliments?' 'The public are a parcel of blockheads, and 'all blockheads are critics, and all critics are spiders, and 'spiders are a set of reptiles that all the world despises.'

Noticeable, also, in recapitulation of this drudgery, are papers on President Goguet's Origin of Laws, and Formey's Philosophical Miscellanies, written with lively understanding of the characters of French and German intellect on Van Egmont's Travels in Asia, wherein a scheme of later life was shadowed forth; a man shall 'go a hundred miles to admire a mountain, only because 'it was spoken of in Scripture, yet what information can 'be received from hearing, that Ægidius Van Egmont 'went up such a hill, only in order to come down again? 'Could we see a man set out upon this journey, not with an intent to discover rocks and rivers, but the manners, 'the mechanic inventions, and the imperfect learning ' of the inhabitants; resolved to penetrate into countries ' as yet little known, and eager to pry into all their 'secrets, with a heart not terrified at trifling dangers; if 'there could be found a man who could thus unite true courage with sound learning, from such a character we might expect much information:' on Guicciardini's History of Italy, showing considerable knowledge of Italian literature: on Montesquieu's Miscellaneous Pieces, justifying, by many expressions, such rapid indication as I now give of his own earlier and less known performances;

Y

'Cicero observes, that we behold with transport the little 'barren spot, or ruins of a house, in which a person cele'brated for his wisdom, his valour, or his learning, lived; 'when he coasted along the shore of Greece, all the heroes, 'statesmen, orators, philosophers, and poets of those 'famed republics, rose in his memory, and were present 'to his sight; how much more would he have been delighted with any of their posthumous works, however 'inferior to what he had before seen :' and finally, for my summary must be brief, on Parson Hawkins' Miscellanies; where, he having before reviewed the tragedy, 'the Siege of Something' (whereof Boswell records a Johnsonian sneer against Garrick, at which the little man started, and twisted himself, and seemed sorely vexed'), and the author now retorting on the reviewer, Goldsmith thus drily put the difference between himself and the reverend writer. He was for putting his own works 'beside Milton and Shakspeare; he would have the delicacy of Addison, and the purity of Hawkins, talked of in 'the same breath; and the reader who praises Pope's

Rape of the Lock, speak with like feeling of Hawkins' 'Thimble. But we, alas! could not so speak of Mr. 'Hawkins. Perhaps our malevolence in this might have

been, that Mr. Hawkins stood between us and a good 'living: yet 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.'

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 Caucus, Goldsmith 'knew a better way:' and in this 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.

"The female muse, it must be owned, has of late been tolerably fruitful. Novels written by ladies; poems, morality, essays, and letters, all written by ladies; shew that this beautiful sex are resolved to be, one way or other, the joyful mothers of children. Happy it is that the same conveyance which brings an heir to a family, shall at the same time produce a book to mend his manners; or to teach him to make love, when ripe for the occasion. Yet let not the ladies carry off all the glory of the late productions ascribed to them: it is plain by the style, and a nameless somewhat in the manner, that pretty fellows, coffee-critics, and dirtyshirted dunces, have sometimes a share in the achievement. have detected so many of these impostors already, that for the future it is resolved to look upon every publication that shall be ascribed to a lady, as the work of one of this amphibious fraternity. Thus, by wholesome severity, many a fair creature may be prevented from writing, that cannot spell; and many a blockhead may be deterred from commencing author, that never thought. plan of the work is as follows: Two Misses, just taken home from the boarding-school, are prodigious great friends, and so they tell each other their secrets by way of letter. It cannot be expected, and

We

The

truly it would be out of question, to suppose persons so young, and so very pretty, capable of writing proper English: so they transgress in this particular almost in every sentence: you was, and they is, being frequent expressions between them. In the first letter, Miss Jemima Courtly, 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 that she has been taken home for carrying on an intrigue with Horatio, a gentleman of the neighbourhood, and by means of her sister's insinuations, for she happens to be her enemy, confined to her chamber; the father at the 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! 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 nights as happy as heart could desire: the old butt-end of a modern romance."

Meanwhile the Dodsleys had issued their advertisements, and the London Chronicle of the third 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 author's name on the title-page, though Goldsmith was anxious to have the authorship widely known; and had two learned mottoes. The Greek signifying 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 brought to it. But it was in advance of any similar composition of the day. No one was prepared, in a treatise so grave, for a style so enchantingly graceful. To combine liveliness with learning, is thought something of a 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