held to congregate under the old sign, which Griffiths had removed to a new shop in Paternoster Row. The Monthly Review' was pronounced by its fierce rival, The Critical' which Smollett conducted, to be "written by a parcel of obscure hirelings, under the restraint of a bookseller and his wife, who presume to revise, alter, and amend, the articles occasionally." At this time Goldsmith had been taken by Griffiths from his occupation as an usher at Dr. Milner's school at Peckham, to become a monthly reviewer, under an agreement for a year that he was to receive board and lodging in Griffiths' house, and to be paid in addition a small salary. The most popular author of the Johnsonian era, who was then in his twenty-ninth year, had then published nothing which could give the least notion of the peculiar charm of his writings, or prove to the bookseller, who was experimenting upon a new hand, that it would be said of him that "he touched nothing which he did not adorn." Goldsmith's life with Griffiths must, no doubt, have been a hard and an unpleasant one; ill-paid, and adding very little to his reputation. But, as far as may be judged from very imperfect records, reviewing at or near the period when George III. came to the throne was not a very profitable employment. Dr. Shebbeare, a reviewer in the middle of the century, who was, no doubt, paid highly in proportion to his power of saying bitter things, was said to have received six guineas a sheet. Johnson, in 1783, when the price of literary labour had at least risen fifty per cent., doubted the fact, and said, "Sir, he might get six guineas for a particular sheet, but not communibus sheetibus."

The articles contributed by Goldsmith from April to September, 1757, are twelve in number. They are reprinted in Mr. Cunningham's edition of Goldsmith's works. There are four other articles by Goldsmith contributed to Griffiths' Review in December, 1758. In the interval the reviewer had quitted his employer, his garret, and his daily pittance. The articles written for the Review by Goldsmith have been ascertained from an inspection of Griffiths' own. marked copy of the Monthly Review,' which is now in the Bodleian Library. Including the extracts, they occupy in the reprint only seventy pages. Griffiths, it is said, accused Goldsmith of idleness. "Nor," says Mr. Forster, "would the reproach appear to be groundless, if the amount of his labour for Griffiths were to be measured by those portions only which have been traced; but this would be simply absurd, for the mass of it undoubtedly has perished." That Griffiths was a hard task-master we may conclude, without attempting to shew that Goldsmith was a diligent and faithful performer of the duties he had undertaken. But there is a letter extant which sufficiently proves that the prosperous bookseller was coarse-minded and unfeeling as regards one who was

"In wit a man, simplicity a child."

But the publisher of 'The Monthly Review' must have had higher qualities than those which fitted him to be a slave-driver of hackney writers. Josiah Wedgwood was his intimate friend, and writing to

*Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith.' Ed. 1855, p. 78.

his brother, in 1765, he says of this harsh man, who might be supposed to be utterly unloveable, "You know he hath one of the warmest places in my heart." Wedgwood also refers, more than once, to "the dining-room at Turnham Green." In this villa the bookseller, no doubt, gave better dinners than Goldsmith was accustomed to eat over the shop in Paternoster Row. Let me not dwell upon the shadow of Ralph Griffiths, threatening his poor author with a gaol, and calling him sharper and villain. Let me trust that the relations between publisher and author are now better understood, and that no struggling man of genius will again have to write to a bookseller in some such words as these:-"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 meanness, which poverty unavoidably 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."

When Dr. Johnson had an audience of George III. in 1767, the King "asked him if there were any other literary journals published in this kingdom except the Monthly and Critical Reviews; and on being answered there was no other, His Majesty asked which of them was the best: Johnson answered, that the Monthly Review' was done with most care, the 'Critical' upon the best principles; adding, that

* Miss Meteyard's Life of Wedgwood,' p. 186.

the authors of the Monthly Review' were enemies to the Church. This the King said he was sorry to hear." Impartiality from the very commencement of popular reviews would have been a very doubtful guarantee of success. They necessarily dealt with party subjects, and adopted the tone of partisans. And yet Johnson in 1776 said, talking of the Reviews, "I think them very impartial." This is certainly inconsistent with his statement that the Monthly Reviewers are for pulling down all establishments, and the Critical Reviewers are for supporting the Constitution in Church and State. Their different modes of accomplishing these feats may certainly appear very curious to the uninitiated, but we have had, and still have, many felicitous followers of the earlier masters of the reviewing art. "The Critical Reviewers, I believe, often review without reading the books through; but lay hold of a topic, and write chiefly from their own minds. The Monthly Reviewers are duller men, and are glad to read the books through."

The first of the magazines still lives, "a prosperous Gentleman," in the most select society. The 'Monthly Review' dwindled into the grave as recently as 1829. The 'Critical' completed its shorter term of life in 1817. When Reynolds wondered that so much good writing was employed in them, as the authors were to remain unknown, Johnson had his true commercial answer, "Nay, Sir, those who write in them write well, in order to be paid well."

CHAPTER IX.

ROBERT DODSLEY.

N one of his forgotten Poems, this literary Bookseller apostrophizes the famous district in which he was born—

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O, native Sherwood! happy were thy bard, Might these his rural notes, to future time, Boast of tall groves that, nodding o'er thy plain, Rise to their tuneful melody."

It was not for him, he says, without "the lore of Greece or Rome," to cherish such "vain presumption."

Robert Dodsley, born at Mansfield in 1703, is supposed to have been the son of a humble schoolmaster of that town, and to have received his only education under his father, who kept the Free-school. His early history is very imperfectly known. He was probably learning more out of doors than in his dreary school - tasks. His poem of Agriculture,' written in his fiftieth year, has some pleasing descriptions, which manifest a poetical acquaintance with rural life. His farce of The King and the Miller of Mansfield' was founded upon the traditionary ballad with which his boyhood was familiar,

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