1758.

Et. 30.

to recover estates which in the manner of the booksellers
a Protestant had seized, voted "all barristers, solicitors,
attorneys and proctors, who should be concerned for him,"
public enemies! But, that serviceable use might be made
of the early transmission to Ireland of a set of English
copies of the Enquiry, by one who had zealous private
friends there, was Goldsmith's not unreasonable feeling;
and he would try this, when the time came. Meanwhile he

began the work; and it was probably to some extent
advanced, when, with little savings from the school, and
renewed assurances of the foreign appointment, Doctor
Milner released him from duties which the necessity (during
the Doctor's illness) of flogging the boys as well as teaching
them, appears to have made more intolerable to the child-
loving usher. The reverend Mr. Mitford knew a lady whose
husband had been at this time under Goldsmith's cane; but
with no very serious
consequence.

Escape from the school might not have been so easy, but for the lessening chances of Doctor Milner's recovery having made more permanent arrangements advisable. Some doubt has been expressed indeed, whether the worthy schoolmaster's illness had not already ended fatally; and if the kindness I have recorded should not rather be attributed to his son and successor in the school, Mr. George Milner. But other circumstances clearly invalidate this, and show that it must have been the elder Milner's. In August 1758, however, Goldsmith again had bidden him adieu; and once more had secured a respectable town address for his letters, and, among the Graingers and Kippises and other tavern acquaintance, obtained the old facilities for correspondence with his friends, at the Temple Exchange coffee-house, Temple-bar.

CHAPTER III.

ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE FROM LITERATURE.

1758.

GRAINGER, his friend Percy,* and others of the Griffiths 1758. connection, were at this time busy upon a new magazine: Et.30. begun with the present year, and dedicated to the "great "Mr. Pitt," whose successful coercion of the king made him just now more than ever the darling of the people. Griffiths was one of the publishing partners in The Grand Magazine of Universal Intelligence and Monthly Chronicle of our own Times and perhaps on this account, as well as for the known contributions of some of his acquaintance, † traces of Goldsmith's hand have been sought in the work; in my opinion without success. In truth the first number was hardly out when he went back to the Peckham school; and on his return to London, though he probably eked out his poor savings by casual writings here and there, it is certain that on the foreign appointment his hopes continued steadily fixed, and that the work which was to aid him in his escape from literature (the completion of the Enquiry into the State

"My beloved friend," was Percy's description of Grainger, nearly forty years after the present date. Nichols's Illustrations, vii. 71.

+In the Grand Magazine first appeared Grainger's exquisite ballad of Bryan and Pereene, and other contributions which Bishop Percy describes in a letter to Dr. Anderson. Nichols's Illustrations, vii. 75.

1758.

of Polite Learning, or, as he called it before publication, the Et. 30. Essay on the Present State of Taste and Literature), occupied nearly all his thoughts. He was again in London, and again working with the pen; but he was no longer the bookseller's slave, nor was literary toil his impassable and hopeless doom. Therefore, in the confidence of swift liberation, and the hope of the new career that brightened in his sanguine heart, he addressed himself cheerily enough to the design in hand, and began solicitation of his Irish friends.

Edward Mills he thought of first, as a person of some influence. He was his relative, had been his fellowcollegian, and was a prosperous, wealthy man. "Dear Sir," he begins, in a letter dated from the Temple Exchange coffee-house, on the 7th of August, and published by Bishop Percy:*

"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 confess, is rather the most "comfortable place of the two.

"But however your resolutions may be altered with regard to your

*

1758.

Percy Memoir, 50-2. The date there given is 1759, an obvious misprint for

66

"

k

66

1758.

Æt. 30.

"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 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 so; 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 con-
"sideration for his copy. I would in this respect disappoint their
" avarice, and have all the additional 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 account-
"able for the books. I shall not, by 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

66

64

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 friend"ship to enforce his ?

1758.

What indeed may he not freely expect, who is to receive Æt. 30. nothing! Nevertheless, there is a worse fool's paradise than that of expectation. To teach our tears the easiest way to flow, should be no unvalued part of this world's wisdom; hope is a good friend, even when the only one; and Goldsmith was not the worse for expecting, though he received nothing. Mr. Mills left his poor requests unheeded, and his letter unacknowledged. Sharking booksellers and starving authors might devour each other before he would interpose; being a man, as his old sizar-relative delicately hinted, with paternal acres as well as boyish friendships to cultivate, and fewer thorns of the world to struggle with, than hawthorns of his own to sleep under. He lived to repent it certainly, and to profess great veneration for the distinguished writer to whom he boasted relationship; but Goldsmith had no more pleasant hopes or friendly correspondences to fling away upon Mr. Mills of Roscommon. Not that even this letter, as it seems to me, had been one of very confident expectation. Unusual effort is manifest in it;-a reluctance to bring unseemly fancies between the wind and Mr. Mills's gentility; a conventional style of balance between the "pleasure" and the "uneasiness" it talks about ;-in short, a forced suppression of everything in his own state that may affront the acres and the hawthorns.

Seven days afterwards he wrote to Bryanton, with a curious contrast of tone and manner. Even Bryanton had not inquired for him since the scenes of happier years. The affectionate rememberings of the lonely wanderer, as of the struggling author, he had in carelessness, if not in coldness, passed without return. Yet here heart spoke to heart; buoyant, unreserved, and sanguine. That sorrow