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just or lively writing on the theatres been given to the world, as the playhouse criticism of the Bee.

The first of his papers on this subject pointed out the superiority of French comic acting over English, and its causes; and had some happy illustrations from his own experience. His later remarks, on the want of general stage discipline in England ('dirty-shirted guards 'rolling their eyes round upon the audience, instead of 'keeping them fixed upon the actors' ;) on skilful management of gesture (in which he excepts Garrick and Mrs. Clive from his censure, placing them on a level with the French); and in 'explanation' of the ill success of the English operatic stage, where he touches the springs that operate to this hour; still further demonstrate how competent he was to this department of criticism.

But, like Hume's Epigoniad effort, all this was uphill work his first Bee had an idle time of it, and greater favour was asked for the second in a paid-for newspaper paragraph of particular earnestness. 'The public,' said this advertisement, which had a pathetic turn in it, is ' requested to compare this, with other periodical per'formances which more pompously solicit their attention. If upon perusal it be found deficient either in humour, elegance, or variety, the author will readily acquiesce in 'their censure. It is possible the reader may sometimes ' draw a prize, and even should it turn up a blank it costs ' him but threepence.' In number the second, for that small sum, was a most agreeable little lesson On Dress, against

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fault finders and dealers in ridicule, proving by example of cousin Hannah that such folks are themselves the most ridiculous; and a much sounder notion of a patriot king than Bolingbroke's, in homely sketches of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, in remark on the difficulties of so educating princes that the superior dignity of man to 'that of royalty' should be their leading lesson, and in warning against the folly of entrusting a charge so sacred to men who themselves have acted in a sphere too high to know mankind.' A delightful essay in the same number, with Cardinal de Retz and Dick Wildgoose side by side, to prove that pleasure is in ourselves, not in the objects offered for our amusement, and that philosophy should force the trade of happiness when nature has denied the means, also well deserves mention.

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The third number opened with a paper on the Use of Language: to which the grave philologist resorting, found language he was little used to. It was a plea for the poor: an essay to prove that he who best knew how to conceal his necessities and desires, was the most likely person to find redress, and that the true use of speech was not to express wants but conceal them. All of us have known the Jack Spindle of this exquisite sketch ; some perhaps relieved him; and many have undergone the truth of his life's philosophy, that to have much, or to seem to have it, is the only way to have more, since it is the man who has no occasion to borrow, that alone finds numbers willing to lend. 'You then, O ye beggars of

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'or lace, whether in Kent-street or the Mall, whether at Smyrna or St. Giles's, might I advise you as a friend,

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never seem in want of the favour you solicit. Apply to ' every passion but pity for redress. You may find relief from vanity, from self-interest, or from avarice, but 'seldom from compassion.' Following this were three wellwritten characters. Of Father Feyjoo, whose popular essays against degrading superstitions have since procured him the title of the Spanish Addison; of Alexandrian Hypatia, afterwards immortalized by Gibbon; and of Lysippus, an imaginary representative of some peculiarities in the essayist himself, and timely assertor of the ordinary virtues as opposed to what are commonly mistaken for the great ones.

Still the churlish public would not buy the Bee; and the fourth number's opening article was a good-humoured comment on that fact. Not a newspaper or magazine, he said, that had not left him far behind; they had got to Islington at least, while the sound of Bow bell still stayed in his ears; nevertheless, if it were only to spite all Grub'street,' he was resolved to write on; and he made lighthearted announcement to the world of what he had written to Bryanton. 'If the present generation will not hear

my voice, hearken, O Posterity! to you I call, and from 'you I expect redress! What rapture will it not give, to ' have the Scaligers, Daciers, and Warburtons of future 'times commenting with admiration upon every line I

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' now write, and working away those ignorant creatures 'who offer to arraign my merit, with all the virulence ' of learned reproach. Ay, my friends, let them feel it; 'call names; never spare them; they deserve it all, and 'ten times more.' In a like playful tone are his closing threats, that, if not better supported he must throw off all connection with taste, and fairly address his countrymen in the engaging style and manner of other periodical pamphlets. He will change his title into the Royal Bee, he says, the Anti-gallican Bee, or the Bee's Magazine. He will lay in a proper stock of popular topics; such as encomiums on the King of Prussia, invectives against the Queen of Hungary and the French, the necessity of a militia, our undoubted sovereignty of the seas, reflections upon the present state of affairs, a dissertation upon liberty, some seasonable thoughts upon the intended bridge of Blackfriars, and an address to Britons; the history of an old woman whose tooth grew three inches long, shall not be omitted; nor an ode upon our 'victories ;' nor a rebus; nor an acrostic upon Miss Peggy P—; nor a journal of the weather: and he will wind up the whole, so that the public shall have no choice but to purchase, with four extraordinary pages of letterpress, a beautiful map of England, and two prints. curiously coloured from nature. Such was the booksellers' literature of the day the profitable contribution of Paternosterrow and Grub-street, to the world's intellectual cultivation.

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While he satirized it thus good-naturedly, Goldsmith

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took care to append graver remarks on the more serious matter it involved, and which with his own experience lay so near his heart. But in no querulous spirit. He is now content to have found out the reason why mediocrity should have its rewards at once, and excellence be paid in reversion. There is in these earliest essays something more pleasing than even their undoubted elegance and humour, in that condition of mind. If neglects and injuries are still to be his portion, you do not now despair that he will turn them to commodities. by his cries and complainings you shall hereafter trace him to his neglected, ill-furnished, wretched home. As he watches its naked cobwebbed walls, he finds matter for amusement to the readers of the Bee, in watching the spiders that have refuge there; and in his fourth number puts forth an instructive paper on the habits and predatory life of that most wary, ingenious, hungry, and persevering insect.

He was not to be daunted, now. Looking closely into his life, one finds that other works beside this of the Bee were eking out its scanty supplies. He was writing for the Busy Body, published thrice a week for twopence, by worthy Mr. Pottinger, and brought out but three days

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