has mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave; and, in general, take the word of a man who has seen the world, and who has studied human nature more by experience than precept; take my word for it, I say, that books teach us very little of the world. The greatest merit in a state of 5 poverty would only serve to make the possessor ridiculous may distress, but cannot relieve him. Frugality, and even avarice, in the lower orders of mankind, are true ambition. These afford the only ladder for the poor to rise to preferment. Teach then, my dear sir, to your son, thrift and economy. Let 10 his poor wandering uncle's example be placed before his eyes. I had learned from books to be disinterested and generous, before I was taught from experience the necessity of being prudent. I had contracted the habits and notions of a philosopher, while I was exposing myself to the approaches of insid- 15 ious cunning; and often by being, even with my narrow finances, charitable to excess, I forgot the rules of justice, and placed myself in the very situation of the wretch who thanked me for my bounty. When I am in the remotest part of the world, tell him this, and perhaps he may improve from my example. But 20 I find myself again falling into my gloomy habits of thinking. "My mother, I am informed, is almost blind; even though I had the utmost inclination to return home, under such circumstances I could not, for to behold her in distress without a capacity of relieving her from it, would add much to my splene- 25 tic habit. Your last letter was much too short; it should have answered some queries I had made in my former. Just sit down as I do, and write forward until you have filled all your paper. It requires no thought, at least from the ease with which my own sentiments rise when they are addressed to you. 30 For, believe me, my head has no share in all I write; my heart dictates the whole. Pray give my love to Bob Bryanton, and entreat him from me not to drink. My dear sir, give me some account about poor Jenny.1 Yet her husband loves her: if so, she cannot be unhappy. "I know not whether I should tell you - yet why should I conceal these trifles, or, indeed, anything from you? There is 1 His sister, Mrs. Johnston; her marriage, like that of Mrs. Hodson, was private, but in pecuniary matters much less fortunate. G 35 a book of mine will be published in a few days: the life of a very extraordinary man; no less than the great Voltaire. You know already by the title that it is no more than a catchpenny. However, I spent but four weeks on the whole performance, for 5 which I received twenty pounds. When published, I shall take some method of conveying it to you, unless you may think it dear of the postage, which may amount to four or five shillings. However, I fear you will not find an equivalent of 10 amusement. "Your last letter, I repeat it, was too short; you should have given me your opinion of the design of the heroi-comical poem which I sent you. You remember I intended to introduce the hero of the poem as lying in a paltry ale-house. You may take the following specimen of the manner, which I flatter myself is 15 quite original. The room in which he lies may be described somewhat in this way: 20 25 666 "The window, patched with paper, lent a ray An unpaid reckoning on the frieze was scored, And five crack'd tea-cups dress'd the chimney-board.' "And now imagine, after his soliloquy, the landlord to make 30 his appearance in order to dun him for the reckoning: 35 "Not with that face, so servile and so gay,. Then pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began,' &c.1 "All this is taken, you see, from nature. It is a good remark of Montaigne's, that the wisest men often have friends with whom they do not care how much they play the fool. Take 1 The projected poem, of which the above were specimens, appears never to have been completed. my present follies as instances of my regard. Poetry is a much easier and more agreeable species of composition than prose; and, could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet. I am resolved to leave no space, though I should fill it up only by telling you, what you very well know already, 5 I mean that I am your most affectionate friend and brother "OLIVER GOLDSMITH." O The Life of Voltaire, alluded to in the latter part of the preceding letter, was the literary job undertaken to satisfy the demands of Griffiths. It was to have preceded a translation 10 of the Henriade, by Ned Purdon, Goldsmith's old schoolmate, now a Grub-Street writer, who starved rather than lived by the exercise of his pen, and often tasked Goldsmith's scanty means to relieve his hunger. His miserable career was summed up by our poet in the following lines written some years after the 15 time we are treating of, on hearing that he had suddenly dropped dead in Smithfield: "Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed, Who long was a bookseller's hack; He led such a damnable life in this world, The memoir and translation, though advertised to form a volume, were not published together, but appeared separately in a magazine. 20 As to the heroi-comical poem, also, cited in the foregoing 25 letter, it appears to have perished in embryo. Had it been brought to maturity, we should have had further traits of autobiography; the room already described was probably his own squalid quarters in Green Arbor Court; and in a subsequent morsel of the poem we have the poet himself, under the 30 euphonious name of Scroggin :— "Where the Red Lion peering o'er the way, Where Calvert's butt and Parson's black champaigne 35 The muse found Scroggin stretch'd beneath a rug; It is to be regretted, that this poetical conception was not carried out; like the author's other writings, it might have abounded with pictures of life and touches of nature drawn from his own observation and experience, and mellowed by his 5 own humane and tolerant spirit; and might have been a worthy companion or rather contrast to his Traveller and Deserted Village, and have remained in the language a first-rate speci men of the mock-heroic. CHAPTER XI Publication of The Inquiry. - Attack by Griffiths' Review. - Kenrick the Literary Ishmaelite. -Periodical Literature.-Goldsmith's Essays. - Garrick as a Manager. Smollett and his Schemes.- Change of Lodgings. The Robin Hood Club. TOWARDS the end of March, 1759, the treatise on which 10 Goldsmith had laid so much stress, on which he at one time had calculated to defray the expenses of his outfit to India, and to which he had adverted in his correspondence with Griffiths, made its appearance. It was published by the Dodsleys, and entitled An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning 15 in Europe. In the present day, when the whole field of contemporary literature is so widely surveyed and amply discussed, and when the current productions of every country are constantly collated and ably criticised, a treatise like that of Goldsmith would be 20 considered as extremely limited and unsatisfactory; but at that time it possessed novelty in its views and wideness in its scope, and being imbued with the peculiar charm of style inseparable from the author, it commanded public attention and a profitable sale. As it was the most important production that had 25 yet come from Goldsmith's pen, he was anxious to have the credit of it; yet it appeared without his name on the title-page. The authorship, however, was well known throughout the world of letters, and the author had now grown into sufficient literary importance to become an object of hostility to the underlings of the press. One of the most virulent attacks upon him was in a criticism on this treatise, and appeared in the Monthly Review to which he himself had been recently a contributor. It slandered him as a man while it decried him as an author, and 5 accused him, by innuendo, of "laboring under the infamy of having, by the vilest and meanest actions, forfeited all pretensions to honor and honesty," and of practising "those acts which bring the sharper to the cart's tail or the pillory." It will be remembered that the Review was owned by Griffiths 10 the bookseller, with whom Goldsmith had recently had a misunderstanding. The criticism, therefore, was no doubt dictated by the lingerings of resentment; and the imputations upon Goldsmith's character for honor and honesty, and the vile and mean actions hinted at, could only allude to the unfortunate 15 pawning of the clothes. All this, too, was after Griffiths had received the affecting letter from Goldsmith, drawing a picture of his poverty and perplexities, and after the latter had made him a literary compensation. Griffiths, in fact, was sensible of the falsehood and extravagance of the attack, and tried to ex- 20 onerate himself by declaring that the criticism was written by a person in his employ; but we see no difference in atrocity between him who wields the knife and him who hires the cutthroat. It may be well, however, in passing, to bestow our mite of notoriety upon the miscreant who launched the slander. He 25 deserves it for a long course of dastardly and venomous attacks, not merely upon Goldsmith, but upon most of the successful authors of the day. His name was Kenrick. He was originally a mechanic, but possessing some degree of talent and industry, applied himself to literature as a profession. This he pursued for 30 many years, and tried his hand in every department of prose and poetry; he wrote plays and satires, philosophical tracts, critical dissertations, and works on philology; nothing from his pen ever rose to first-rate excellence, or gained him a popular name, though he received from some university the degree of 35 Doctor of Laws. Dr. Johnson characterized his literary career in one short sentence. Sir, he is one of the many who have made themselves public without making themselves known." Soured by his own want of success, jealous of the success of 66 |