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ORIENTAL APPOINTMENT.

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CHAPTER X.

Oriental appointment-and disappointment.-Examination at the College of Surgeons. How to procure a suit of clothes.-Fresh disappointment.- A tale of distress.-The suit of clothes in pawn -Punishment for doing an act of charity-Gayeties of Green Arbor Court.- Letter to his brother.Life of Voltaire.-Scroggins, an attempt at mock heroic poetry.

WHILE Goldsmith was yet laboring at his treatise, the promise made him by Dr. Milner was carried into effect, and he was actually appointed physician and surgeon to one of the factories on the coast of Coromandel. His imagination was immediately on fire with visions of Oriental wealth and magnificence. It is true the salary did not exceed one hundred pounds, but then, as appointed physician, he would have the exclusive practice of the place, amounting to one thousand pounds per annum; with advantages to be derived from trade and from the high interest of money-twenty per cent.; in a word, for once in his life, the road o fortune lay broad and straight before him.

Hitherto, in his correspondence with his friends, he had said othing of his India scheme; but now he imparted to them his brilliant prospects, urging the importance of their circulating his proposals and obtaining him subscriptions and advances on his forthcoming work, to furnish funds for his outfit.

In the meantime he had to task that poor drudge, his muse,

for present exigencies. Ten pounds were demanded for his ap pointment-warrant. Other expenses pressed hard upon him. Fortunately, though as yet unknown to fame, his literary capability was known to "the trade," and the coinage of his brain passed current in Grub-street. Archibald Hamilton, proprietor of the "Critical Review," the rival to that of Griffiths, readily made him a small advance on receiving three articles for hist periodical. His purse thus slenderly replenished, Goldsmith paid for his warrant; wiped off the score of his milkmaid, abandoned his garret, and moved into a shabby first floor in a forlorn court near the Old Bailey; there to await the time for his migration to the magnificent coast of Coromandel.

Alas! poor Goldsmith! ever doomed to disappointment. Early in the gloomy month of November, that month of fog and despondency in London, he learnt the shipwreck of his hope. The great Coromandel enterprise fell through; or rather the rost promised to him, was transferred to some other candidate. The cause of this disappointment it is now impossible to ascer tain. The death of his quasi patron, Dr. Milner, which happened about this time, may have had some effect in producing it; or there may have been some heedlessness and blundering on his own part; or some obstacle arising from his insuperable indigence; whatever may have been the cause, he never mentioned it, which gives some ground to surmise that he himself was to blame. His friends learnt with surprise that he had suddenly relinquished his appointment to India, about which he had raised such sanguine expectations: some accused him of fickleness and caprice; others supposed him unwilling to tear himself frem the growing fascinations of the literary society of London.

In the meantime cut down in his hopes, and huri'iated in his

FIRST DISAPPOINTMENT.

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pride by the failure of his Coromandel scheme he sought, without consulting his friends, to be examined at the College of Physi cians for the humble situation of hospital mate. Even here poverty stood in his way. It was necessary to appear in a decent garb before the examining committee; but how was he to do so? He was literally out at elbows as well as out of cash. Here again the muse, so often jilted and neglected by him, came to his aid. In consideration of four articles furnished to the Monthly Review," Griffiths, his old task-master, was to become his security to the tailor for a suit of clothes. Goldsmith said he wanted them but for a single occasion, on which depended his appointment to a situation in the army; as soon as that temporary purpose was served they would either be returned or paid for. The books to be reviewed were accordingly lent to him; the muse was again set to her compulsory drudgery; the articles were scribbled off and sent to the bookseller, and the clothes came in due time from the tailor.

From the records of the College of Surgeons, it appears that Goldsmith underwent his examination at Surgeons' Hall, on the 21st of December, 1758. Either from a confusion of mind incident to sensitive and imaginative persons on such occasions, or from a real want of surgical science, which last is extremely probable, he failed in his examination, and was rejected as unqualified. The effect of such a rejection was to disqualify him for every branch of public service, though he might have claimed a re-examination, after the interval of a few months devoted to further study. Such a re-examination he never attempted, nor did he ever communicate his discomfiture to any of his friends.

On Christmas Day, but four days after his rejection by the College of Surgeons, while he was suffering under the mortification

of defeat and disappointment, and hard pressed for means of subsistence, he was surprised by the entrance into his room of the poor woman of whom he hired his wretched apartment, and to whom he owed some small arrears of rent. She had a piteous tale of distress, and was clamorous in her afflictions. Her husband had been arrested in the night for debt, and thrown into prison. This was too much for the quick feelings of Goldsmith; he was -eady at any time to help the distressed, but in this instance he was himself in some measure a cause of the distress. What was to be done? He had no money it is true; but there hung the new suit of clothes in which he had stood his unlucky examination at Surgeons' Hall. Without giving himself time for reflection, he sent it off to the pawnbroker's, and raised thereon a sufficient sum to pay off his own debt, and to release his landlord from prison.

Under the same pressure of penury and despondency, he borrowed from a neighbor a pittance to relieve his immediate wants, leaving as a security the books which he had recently reviewed. In the midst of these straits and harassments, he received a letter from Griffiths, demanding in peremptory terms, the return of the clothes and books, or immediate payment for the same. It appears that he had discovered the identical suit at the pawnbroker's. The reply of Goldsmith is not known; it was out of his power to furnish either the clothes or the money; but he probably offered once more to make the muse stand his bail. His reply only increased the ire of the wealthy man of trade, and drew from him another letter still more harsh than the first; using the epithets of knave and sharper, and containing threats of prosecution and a prison.

The following letter from poor Goldsmith gives the most

PUNISHMENT FOR AN ACT OF CHARITY.

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touching picture of an inconsiderate but sensitive man, harassed by care, stung by humiliations, and driven almost to despondency.

SIR," I know of no misery but a jail to which my own impru dences and your letter seem to point. I have seen it inevitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens! request it as a favor --as a favor that may prevent something more fatal. I have been some years struggling with a wretched being-with all that contempt that indigence brings with it-with all those passions which make contempt insupportable. What, then, has a jail that is formidable? I shall at least have the society of wretches, and such is to me true society. I tell you, again and again, that I am neither able nor willing to pay you a farthing, but I will be punctual to any appointment you or the tailor shall make; thus far, at least, I do not act the sharper, since, unable to pay my own debts one way, I would generally give some security another. No, sir; had I been a sharper-had I been possessed of less good-nature and native generosity, I might surely now have been in better circumstances.

"I am guilty, I own, of meannesses which poverty unavoid ably brings with it: my reflections are filled with repentance for my imprudence, but not with any remorse for being a villain : that may be a character you unjustly charge me with. Your books, I can assure you, are neither pawned nor sold, but in the custody of a friend, from whom my necessities obliged me to borrow some money: whatever becomes of my person, you shall have them in a month. It is very possible both the reports you have heard and your own suggestions may have brought you. false information with respect to my character; it is very possible that the man whom you now regard with detestation may

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