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followed within six months by a fourth, the Complete History of England, deduced from the Descent of Julius Cæsar to the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle in 1748. Containing the Transactions of One Thousand Eight Hundred and Three Years. By T. Smollett, M.D. The wonder of this performance had been its incredibly rapid production: the author of Random and Pickle having in the space of fourteen months scoured through those eighteen centuries. It was a scheme of the London booksellers to thwart the success of Hume, which promised just then to be too considerable for an undertaking in which The Craft had no concern. The Commonwealth volume, profiting by religious outcry against its author, was selling vigorously; people were inquiring for the preceding Stuart volume; and Paternoster Row, alarmed for its rights and properties in Standard History Books, resolved to take the field before the promised Tudor volumes could be brought to market. They backed their best man, and succeeded. The Complete History, we are told, had a very disagree'able effect on Mr. Hume's performance.' It had also, it would appear, a very disagreeable effect on Mr. Hume's temper. 'A Frenchman came to me,' he writes to Robertson, and spoke of translating my new volume of 'history but as he also mentioned his intention of trans'lating Smollett, I gave him no encouragement to proceed.' It had beside, it may be added, a very disagreeable effect on the tempers of other people. Warburton heard of its swift sale while his own Divine Legation lay heavy and

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quiet at his publisher's; and the Vagabond Scot who 'writes nonsense', was the character vouchsafed to Smollett by the vehement proud priest. But it is again incumbent on me to say that Goldsmith keeps his temper: that, in this as in former instances, there is no disposition to carp at a great success or quarrel with a celebrated name. His notice has evident marks of the interpolation of Griffiths, though that worthy's more deadly hostility to Smollett had not yet begun; but even as it stands, in the Review which had so many points of personal and political opposition to the subject of it, it is manly and kind. The weak places were pointed out with gentleness, while Goldsmith strongly seized on what he felt to be the strength of Smollett. "The Style of this historian,' he said, 'is clear, nervous, and flowing. It is impossible for 'a reader of taste not to be pleased with the perspicuity ' and elegance of his style.'

For the critic's handling in lighter matters, I will mention what he said of a book by Jonas Hanway. This was the Jonas of whom Doctor Johnson affirmed, that he acquired some reputation by travelling abroad, but lost it all by travelling at home: not a witticism, but a sober truth. His book about Persia was excellent, and his book about Portsmouth indifferent. But though an eccentric, he was a very benevolent and earnest man. He made the common mistake of thinking himself even more wise than he was good, but he had too much reason to complain, which he was always doing, of a general want of earnestness

and seriousness in his age. His larger schemes of benevolence have connected his name with the Marine Society, and the Magdalen, both of which he originated; as well as with the Foundling, which he was active in improving; and to his courage and perseverance in smaller fields of usefulness (his determined contention with extravagant vails to servants not the least), the men of Goldsmith's day were indebted for liberty to use an Umbrella. Gay's pleasant poem of Trivia commemorates its earlier use by poor women; by 'tuck'd-up sempstresses' and 'walking 'maids ;' but with even this class it was a winter privilege, and woe to the woman of a better sort, or to the man, whether rich or poor, who dared at any time so to invade the rights of coachmen and chairmen. But Jonas steadily underwent the staring, laughing, jeering, hooting, and bullying; and having punished some insolent knaves who struck him with their whips as well as tongues, he finally established a privilege which, when the Journal des Débats gravely assured its readers that the King of the Barricades was to be seen walking the streets of Paris with an umbrella under his arm, had reached its culminating point and played a part in state affairs. Excellent Mr. Hanway, having settled the use of the umbrella, made a less successful move when he would have written down the use of tea.

This is one of the prominent subjects in the Journey from Portsmouth: the book which Griffiths had now placed in his workman's hands. Doctor Johnson's review of it for the Literary Magazine is widely known: but

Goldsmith's deserved notoriety as well. It is more kindly, and as effectively, written. He saw what allowance could be made for a writer, however mistaken, who 'shews great 'goodness of heart, and an earnest concern for the welfare ' of his country.' Where the book was at its worst, the man might be at his best, he very agreeably shews. 'The appearance of an inn on the road suggests to our 'philosopher an eulogium on temperance; the confusion · of a disappointed landlady gives rise to a letter on resent'ment; and the view of a company of soldiers furnishes 'out materials for an essay on war.' As to the antisouchong mania, Goldsmith laughs at it: and this was doubtless the wisest way. 'He', exclaimed Jonas in horror, who should be able to drive three Frenchmen before 'him, or she who might be a breeder of such a race of 'men, are to be seen sipping their tea! What a wild 'infatuation is this! The suppression of so dangerous a 'custom depends entirely on the example of ladies of rank in this country. Some indeed have resolution enough in their own houses to confine the use of tea to their own 'table but their number is so extremely small, amidst a 'large acquaintance I know only of Mrs. . . . whose 'name ought to be written out in letters of gold.' Thus 'we see,' rejoins Goldsmith, how fortunate some folks ( are. Mrs. . . . is praised for confining luxury to her own 'table: she earns fame, and saves something in domestic 'expenses!' In subsequent serious expostulation with Mr. Hanway on some medical assumptions in his book,

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the reviewer lays aside his humble patched velvet of Bankside, and speaks as though with nothing less invested than the President's gold-headed cane: after which he closes with this piece of quiet good-sense. Yet after all, why so 'violent an outcry against this devoted article of modern 'luxury? Every nation that is rich hath had, and will 'have, its favourite luxuries. Abridge the people in one, 'they generally run into another. And the reader may 'judge which will be most conducive to either mental or 'bodily health the watery beverage of a modern fine 'lady, or the strong beer, and stronger waters, of her great'grandmother?'

This paper had appeared in July: in which number there was also a clever notice from the same hand of Dobson's translation of the First Book of Cardinal de Polignac's Latin poem of Anti-Lucretius: the poem whose ill success stopped Gray in what he playfully called his Tommy Lucretius (De Principiis Cogitandi'). The Cardinal's work I may mention as a huge monument of vanity the talk of the world in those days, now forgotten. It was the work of a life; could boast of having been corrected by Boileau and altered by Louis the Fourteenth; and was kept in manuscript so long, and so often, with inordinate self-complacency, publicly recited from by the author in kind earnest of what the world was to expect, that some listeners with good memories (Le Clerc among them) stole its best passages, and published them for the world's earlier benefit as their own.

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