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seen in no such respectable garb since he appeared behind Garrick's scenes on the first of the nine nights of Irene, in a scarlet gold-laced waistcoat, and rich gold-laced hat. In fact, says Percy, 'he had on a new suit of clothes, a 'new wig nicely powdered, and everything so dissimilar 'from his usual habits, that I could not resist the impulse ' of inquiring the cause of such rigid regard in him to 'exterior appearance. "Why, sir," he answered, "I hear "" that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his "“disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting my

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"practice; and I am desirous this night to show him "a better example."' The example was not lost, as extracts from tailors' bills will shortly show; and the anecdote, which offers pleasant proof of the interest already felt by Johnson for his new acquaintance, is our only record connected with that memorable supper. It had no Boswell-historian, and is gone into oblivion. But the friendship which dates from it will never pass away.

'Farewell,' says Milton, at the close of one of his early letters to his friend Gill, and on Tuesday next expect 'me in London among the booksellers.' The booksellers were of little mark in Milton's days; but the presence of such men among them began a social change important to both, and not ill expressed in an incident of the days I am describing, when Horace Walpole met the wealthy representative of the profits of Paradise Lost at a great party at the Speaker's, while Johnson was appealing to public charity for the last destitute descendant of Milton.

But from the now existing compact between trade and letters, the popular element could not wholly be excluded; and, to even the weariest drudge, hope was a part of it. From the loopholes of Paternoster Row, he could catch glimpses of the world. Churchill had emerged, and Sterne, for a few brief years; and but that Johnson had sunk into idleness, he might have been reaping a harvest more continuous than theirs, and yet less dependant on the trade. Drudgery is not good, but flattery and falsehood are worse; and it had become plain to Goldsmith, even since the days of the Enquiry, how much better it was for men of letters to live by the labour of their hands till more original labour became popular with trading patrons, than to wait with their hands across till great men came to feed them. Whatever the call that Newbery or any other bookseller made, then, he was there to answer it. He had the comfort of remembering that the patron had himself patrons; that something of their higher influence had been attracted to his Chinese Letters; and that he was not slaving altogether without hope.

His first undertaking in 1762 was a pamphlet on the Cock Lane Ghost, for which Newbery paid him three guineas but whether, with Johnson, he thought the impudent imposture worth grave enquiry; or, with Hogarth, turned it to wise purposes of satire; or only laughed at it as Churchill did; the pamphlet has not survived to inform us. His next labour was the revision of a History of Mechlenburg from the first settlement of the Vandals

in that country, which the settlement of the young Queen Charlotte in this country was expected to make popular; and for which he received £20. For a subsequent payment of £10, he assisted Newbery with an Art of Poetry on a New Plan; in other words, a compilation of poetical extracts; and concurrently with this, Mr. Newbery begged leave to offer to the young gentlemen and ladies of these kingdoms a Compendium of Biography; or an history of the lives of those great personages, both ancient and modern, who are most worthy of their esteem and imitation, and most likely to inspire their minds with a love of virtue; for which offering to the juvenile mind, being a sort of abridgment of Plutarch, he paid Goldsmith at the rate of about eight pounds a volume. The volumes were brief, published monthly, and to have gone through many months if the scheme had thriven; but it fell before Dilly's British Plutarch, and perished with the seventh volume. Nor did it run without danger even this ignoble career. Illness fell upon the compiler in the middle of the fifth volume. 'Dear Sir,' he wrote to Newbery, 'As I have been out of order for some time past, and am 'still not quite recovered, the fifth volume of Plutarch's 'Lives remains unfinished. I fear I shall not be able to do 'it unless there be an actual necessity, and that none ' else can be found. If therefore you would send it to 'Mr. Collier, I should esteem it a kindness, and I will 'pay for whatever it may come to. N.B. I received 'twelve guineas for the two volumes.

I am, Sir, Your

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obliged humble servant, OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

Pray

'let me have an answer.' The answer was not favourable. Twelve guineas had been advanced, the two volumes were due, and Mr. Collier, though an ingenious man, was not Mr. Goldsmith. 'Sir,' returned the latter coldly, 'One volume is done, namely the fourth. When I said 'I should be glad Mr. Collier would do the fifth for 'me, I only demanded it as a favour; but if he cannot conveniently do it, though I have kept my chamber 'these three weeks, and am not quite recovered, yet I will 'do it. I send it per bearer; and if the affair puts 'you to the least inconvenience, return it, 'be done immediately. I am, &c. O. G. has the copy of the rest.' To this, his having returned, Newbery acceded; and the book was finished by Collier, to whom a share of the pittance advanced had of course to be returned.

and it shall

The printer

good nature

These paltry advances are a hopeless entanglement. They bar freedom of judgment on anything proposed, and escape is felt to be impossible. Some days, some weeks perhaps, have been lost in idleness or illness; the future becomes a mortgage to the past; every hour has its want, forestalled upon the labour of the succeeding hour; and Gulliver lies bound in Lilliput. Sir,' said Johnson, who had excellent experience on this head, 'you may escape a heavy debt, but not a small one. Small 'debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every 'side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound.

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'Great debts are like cannon, of loud noise but little 'danger.'

Mention of Goldsmith's illness now frequently recurs. It originated in the habits of his London life, contrasting with the activity and movement they had replaced; and the remedy prescribed was change of scene, if change of life was impossible. He is to be traced in this year to Tunbridge and Bath; I find him known to Mr. Wood, whose solid and tasteful architecture was ennobling the latter city; and one of Mr. Newbery's pithy acknowledgments is connected with those brief residences, where the improbus labor had not failed to follow him. Received from Mr. Newbery at 'different times, and for which gave receipts, fourteen 'guineas, which is in full for the copy of the Life of Mr. 'Nash. Oliver Goldsmith.' The recent death of the celebrated Beau had suggested a subject, which, with incidents in its comedy of manners that recommended it to a man of wit in our own day, had some to recommend it to Goldsmith. The king of fashion had at least the oddity of a hero; and harmlessness, not to say usefulness, to make him original among heroes and kings. It is a clever book; and as one examines the original edition with its 234 goodly pages, still not uncommon on the book-stalls, it appears quite a surprising performance for fourteen guineas. No name was on the title-page; but the writer, whose powers were so various and performance so felicitous, that he always seemed to do best that which 'he was doing,' finds it difficult not to reveal his name.

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