1767. anything, that he was throughout all his correspondence Et. 39. employed in the War-office, under that model king's friend Lord Barrington himself.* But be this as it might, his letters, variously and oddly signed, had thus early excited attention; and would sufficiently, with other indications, have foretold the coming storm, even if the arch-priest of mischief had not suddenly himself arrived. Coolly, as if no outlawry existed, Wilkes crossed over to London; and his first careless business was to send an exquisite French letter to Garrick with the address of Master Kitely, to ask him how he felt since his reconciliation with his wife. none knew better than his quondam friend Sandwich what other business he was likely to have in hand. Though he had declined during the summer a "genteel letter" from Paoli, offering him a regiment in Corsica to advance the cause of liberty, he had put himself in motion at the first reasonable prospect of another campaign for liberty (and Wilkes) at home. No one could doubt that the struggle would be a sharp one, and the first care of ministers was directed to the press. But Excellent reasons existed, therefore, as I have thus * Since this remark was made in my first edition, the discussion as to the authorship of Junius has been re-opened, chiefly by an able writer in the Athenæum, who has given great study to the subject, and in illustrating it has thrown much valuable light on the political and personal history of the time. Lord Mahon has treated it at some length in his History, and other writers have largely engaged in it. This is, of course, no place for such an argument, but the belief that Francis was the man is so strongly stated in the course of my narrative, that I am in a manner bound to say whether or not, after all the recent discussion, it remains unaltered. Whilst I admit that such is the fact, I may add that I have not the same belief which I had formerly in the authenticity of all the letters with the earlier and various signatures ascribed to Junius to be found in Woodfall's edition. "J'ai connu à Paris l'aimable, le charmant Garrick. J'ai vu à Londres le "grand, le sublime Garrick. Je remercie Mr. Kitely de me l'avoir fait connaitre. "Si Mylord Maire ne s'emparoit pas de nous pour toute la journée, si nous n'allions pas diner et danser à Guildhall, j'aurai volé dans les bras de Mr. Kitely, et je "lui aurois demandé des nouvelles de sa nuit, et comment il se trouve de son "raccommodement avec sa femme." 9th Nov. 1767. Gar. Cor. i. 273. attempted to explain, for the great stress and storm which was now making itself felt in Downing Street. A necessity had unexpectedly appeared for better writers than the ordinary party hacks; the new and formidable pen in the Public Advertiser was piercing the sides of ministers from week to week; and the question naturally occurred to those ingenious gentlemen whether they might not, after all, become patrons of literature very serviceably to themselves. And hence it is that I am to introduce no less a person than a minister of the church, and chaplain to a minister of state, on a visit to the Temple to pay his respects to Goldsmith on his return from Canonbury-tower. Parson Scott, Sandwich's chaplain, was now busily going about to negociate for writers; and a great many years afterwards, when he was a rich old Doctor of Divinity, related an anecdote which was to illustrate the folly of men who are ignorant of the world, and the particular and egregious folly of the author of the Traveller. He describes himself applying to Goldsmith, among others, to induce him to write in favour of the administration. "I found him," he said, "in "a miserable set of chambers in the Temple. I told him my authority; I told him that I was empowered to pay most liberally for his exertions; and, would you believe it! "he was so absurd as to say, 'I can earn as much as will 'supply my wants without writing for any party; the "assistance you offer is therefore unnecessary to me.' "And so I left him," added the reverend Doctor Scott indignantly, "in his garret." 66 66 66 6 *The late Mr. Basil Montagu heard this statement from Dr. Scott himself. "A few months before the death of Dr. Scott, author of Anti-Sejanus and other "political tracts in support of Lord North's administration, I happened to dine "with him in company with my friend Sir George Tuthill, who was the Doctor's physician. After dinner Dr. Scott mentioned, as matter of astonishment and a "proof of the folly of men who are according to common opinion ignorant of the 1767. Et. 39. 1767. Æt. 39. An impatience very natural to the holy man (who within four years had his reward in two fat crown livings), as a like emotion had been to Hawkins, the respectable Middlesex magistrate; but on the other hand, a patience very natural to Goldsmith, and worthy of a noble remembrance. He knew, if ever man did, the chances he embraced in rejecting that offer. It is an easy transition from what the ministry were willing to do, if they could get return in kind; to what, in the opposite case, they found it impossible to do. Poor Smollett had lately returned from foreign travel with shattered health and spirits, which he had vainly attempted to recruit in his native Scottish air; and, feeling that a milder climate was his only hope, was now preparing again to go abroad for probably the last time, with hardly a hope of recovery and very scanty means of support. He stated his case to Hume, and Hume went to Lord Shelburne. The matter was very simple. The consulships of Leghorn and of Nice were both vacant at this very time; and, could either be obtained for Smollett, there might yet be hope for his broken health, or for quiet and repose till death should come. But this could not be. Just as, when Gray solicited from Lord Bute the office to which he had so righteous a claim, he found it promised to the tutor of Sir James Lowther, so, as to Hume's petition, Nice had "long been pre-engaged" by Lord "world, that he was once sent with a carte blanche from the ministry to Oliver "Goldsmith to induce him to write in favour of the administration, &c. &c." That the ministers at this time made such the condition of any favour granted by them to literary men, I could give many proofs. Poor Hugh Kelly will hereafter be seen to lose what little popularity he had acquired with audiences at the theatre, because he had so to work for a ministerial pittance; and even Johnson himself complained to Gerard Hamilton that "his pension having been given to him as a "literary character, he had been applied to by administration to write political "pamphlets; and he was even so much irritated, that he declared his resolution "to resign his pension. His friend showed him the impropriety of such a 66 measure, and he afterwards expressed his gratitude, and said he had received "good advice." Boswell, v. 255. Shelburne to the Spanish ambassador, Leghorn was under 1767. similar pledge to a friend of lawyer Dunning's, and there Et. 39. was no possibility of help for the author of Peregrine Pickle.* In that state he was left till the following summer; when, with the prospect now certain which earlier he had hoped might be averted, he wrote to bid Hume farewell before departing to "perpetual exile;" and Hume could only grieve and say to his brother man-of-letters, that "the "indifference of ministers towards literature, which has “been long, and indeed always, the case in England, gives "little prospect of any alteration in this particular." There was nothing for it but that this writer of genius, worn out in the service of booksellers, to whom his labours had been largely profitable; of the public, whose hours of leisure or of pain he had lightened; and of patrons, who at his utmost need deserted him; should pass abroad to labour, and to die. One year longer he stayed in England; published and proclaimed, in his last political romance, the universal falsehood of faction, his own remorse for having helped to sustain it, his farewell to the "rascally age," and the contempt for the Butes as well as Chathams it had for ever inspired him with; and in another year, having meanwhile written Humphry Clinker, was buried in the churchyard at Leghorn. * See Letter in Burton's Hume, ii. 406. + "With respect to myself," he writes, "I am sorry I cannot have the pleasure "of taking leave of you in person, before I go into perpetual exile. I sincerely "wish you all health and happiness. In whatever part of the earth it may be my "fate to reside, I shall always remember with pleasure, and recapitulate with pride, the friendly intercourse I have maintained with one of the best men, and undoubtedly the best writer of the age. 'Nos patriam fugimus: tu Tityre, lentus in umbrâ, Smollett to Hume, 31st of Aug. 1768. Burton's Life, ii. 419. CHAPTER XIX. 1767. CLOSE OF A TWELVE YEARS' STRUGGLE. 1767. SUCH a possible fate as that of poor Smollett, common in Æt. 39. all times in England and at this time nearly universal, was something to reflect upon in those Garden-court chambers, which Mr. Scott, swelling with his brace of livings, can only deign to call a "garret." A poor enough abode they were, perhaps deserving only a little less contemptuous name; and here Goldsmith found himself, after twelve years of hard struggle, doubtless unable at all times to repress, what is so often the unavailing bitterness of the successful as well as unsuccessful man, the consideration of what he had done compared with what he might have done.* The chances still remain, nevertheless, that he might not have done it; and the greater probability is that most people do what they are qualified to do, in the condition of existence imposed upon them. It is very doubtful to me, upon the whole, if Goldsmith, placed as he was throughout life, could have done better than he did. Beginning with not even the choice which Fielding admits was his, of hackney writer or * "He observed," says Doctor Maxwell, in the most interesting Collectanea of Johnson's sayings contributed to Boswell (iii, 145), "it was a most mortifying "reflection for any man to consider what he had done, compared with what he "might have done." |