TO EDWARD MILLS, ESQ. NEAR ROSCOMMON, IRELAND. DEAR SIR, YOU have quitted, I find, that plan of life which you once intended to pursue; and given up ambition for domestic tranquillity. Were I to consult your satisfaction alone in this change, I have the utmost reason to congratulate your choice; but when I consider my own, I cannot avoid feeling some regret, that one of my few friends has declined a pursuit, in which he had every reason to expect success. The truth is, like the rest of the world, I am self-interested in my concern; and do not so much consider the happiness you have acquired, as the honour I have probably lost in the change. I have often let my fancy loose when you were the subject, and have imagined you gracing the bench, or thundering at the bar; while I have taken no small pride to myself, and whispered all that I could come near, that this was my cousin. Instead of this, it seems you are contented to be merely an happy man; to be esteemed only by your acquaintance— to cultivate your paternal acres-to take unmolested a nap under one of your own hawthorns, or in Mrs. Mills's bed chamber, which even a poet must con fess, fess, is rather the most comfortable place of the But however, your resolutions may be altered with respect to your situation in life, I persuade myself they are unalterable with regard to your friends in it. I cannot think the world has taken such entire possession of that heart, (once so susceptible of friendship,) as not to have left a corner there for a friend or two; but I flatter myself that even I have my place among the number. This I have a claim to from the similitude of our dispositions; or, setting that aside, I can demand it as my right by the most equitable law in nature, I mean that of retaliation for indeed you have more than your share in mine. I am a man of few professions, and yet this very instant I cannot avoid the painful apprehension, that my present professions (which speak not half my feelings) should be considered only as a pretext to cover a request, as I have a request to make. No, my dear Ned, I know you are too generous to think and you know me too proud to stoop to mercenary insincerity. I have a request it is true to make; but, as I know to whom I am a petitioner, I make it without diffidence or confusion. It is in short this, I am going to publish a book in London, entitled An Essay on the present State of Taste and Literature in Europe. Every work published here the printers in Ireland republish there, without giving the author the least consideration for his copy. I would in this respect disappoint their avarice, and have € 2 have all the additioaal advantages that may result from the sale of my performance there to myself. The book is now printing in London, and I have requested Dr. Radcliff, Mr. Lawder, Mr. Bryanton, my brother Mr. Henry Goldsmith, and brother in law Mr. Hodson, to circulate my proposals among their acquaintance. The same request I now make to you, and have accordingly given directions to Mr. Bradley, bookseller in Dame-street, Dublin, to send you a hundred proposals. Whatever subscriptions, pursuant to those proposals, you may receive, when collected, may be transmitted to Mr. Bradley, who will give a receipt for the money, and be accountable for the books. I shall not, hy a paltry apology, excuse myself for putting you to this trouble. Were I not convinced that you found more pleasure in doing good-natured things, than uneasiness at being employed in them, I should not have singled you out on this occasion. It is probable you would comply with such a request, if it tended to the encouragement of any man of learning whatsoever; what then may not he expect who has claims of family and friendship to enforce his? I am, dear Sir, your sincere London, Temple Exchange- OLIVER GOLDSMITH. TO TO THE REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH, AT LOWFIELD, NEAR BALLYMORE, IN WEST · MEATH, IRELAND. [This is evidently a second letter, subsequent to all the preceding, and written about the year 1759. DEAR SIR, Your punctuality in answering a man, whose trade is writing, is more than I had reason to expect; and yet you see me generally fill a whole sheet, which is all the recompence I can make for being so frequently troublesome. The behaviour of Mr. Mills and Mr. Lawder is a little extraordinary. However, their answering neither you nor me is a sufficient indication of their disliking the employmen which I assigned them. As their conduct is different from what I had expected, so I have made an alteration in mine. I shall the beginning of next month send over two hundred and fifty books, which are all that I fancy can be well sold among you, and I would have you make some distinction in the persons who have subscribed. The money which will amount to sixty pounds, may be left with Mr. Bradley, as soon as possible. I am not * His book on The present State of Polite Literature in Europe, Subscription price 58 certain certain but I shall quickly have occasion for it. I have met with no disappointment with respect to my East India voyage; nor are my resolutions altered; though, at the same time, I must confess it gives me some pain to think I am almost beginning the world at the age of thirty-one. Though I never had a day's sickness since I saw you, yet I am not that strong active man you once knew me. You scarcely can conceive how much eight years of disappointment, anguish, and study, have worn me down. If I remember right, you are seven or eight years older than me, yet I dare venture to say, that if a stranger saw us both, he would pay me the honours of seniority. Imagine to yourself a pale melancholy visage, with two great wrinkles between the eye-brows, with an eye disgustingly severe, and a big wig; and you may have a perfect picture of my present appearance. On the other hand, I conceive you as perfectly sleek and healthy, passing many a happy day among your own children, or those who knew you a child. Since I knew what it was to be a man, this is a pleasure I have not known. I have passed my days among a parcel of cool designing beings, and have contracted all their suspicious manner in my own behaviour.* I should actually be as unfit for the society of my friends at home, as I detest that which I am obliged to par * This is all gratis dictum, for there never was a character so unsuspicious and so unguarded as the writer's. take |