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The time will come when Mr. Griffiths, with accomEt. 31. paniment such as that of his ancient countryman's friend when the leek was offered, will publicly withdraw these vulgar falsehoods; and meanwhile they are not deserving of remark. Indeed the quarrel, or interchange of foul reproach, as between author and bookseller, may claim at all times the least possible part of attention. It is a third more serious influence to which appeal is made, and on whose right interference the righteous arrangement must at last depend. But at the close of the second epoch, so brief yet so sorrowful, in the life of this great and genuine man-of-letters, it becomes us at least to understand the appeal he would have entered against the existing controul and government of the destinies of literature. It was manifestly premature, and some passages of his after-life will plainly avow as much but it had too sharp an experience in it not to have also much truth, and it would better have become certain bystanders in that age to have gone in and parted the combatants, than, as they did, make a ring around them for enjoyment of the sport, or in philosophic weariness abandon the scene altogether.

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"You know," said Walpole to one of his correspondents, "how I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company. "They are always in earnest, and think their profession "serious, and dwell upon trifles, and reverence learning. "I laugh at all these things, and divert myself." "It is

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probable," said David Hume, "that Paris will be long my "home.. I have even thoughts of settling in Paris for the

rest of my life.. I have a reluctance to think of living among the factious barbarians of London. Letters are "there held in no honour. The taste for literature is

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"neither decayed nor depraved here, as with the barbarians who inhabit the banks of the Thames.. Learning and the "learned are on a very different footing here, from what they are among the factious barbarians." *

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Matter of diversion for one, of disgust and avoidance for others, the factious barbarian struggle was left to a man more single-hearted, who thought the business of life a thing to be serious about, and who, unlike the Humes and Walpoles, was solely dependent for his bread on the very booksellers, of the danger of whose absolute power he desired to give timely warning. This he might do, as it seems to me, without personal injustice, and without pettish spite to the honest craft of bookselling, or to any other respectable trade. He might believe that those tradeindentures would turn out ill for literature; that in enlarging its channels by vulgar means, might be mischief rather than good; that facilities for appeal to a wide circle of uninformed readers, were but facilities for employment to a circle of writers nearly as wide and quite as uninformed; that, in raising up a brood of writers whom any other earthly employment would have better fitted, lay the danger of bringing down the man of genius to their level; and, in short, that literature, properly understood and rightly cherished, had altogether a higher duty and significance than the profit or the loss of a tradesman's counter. In this I hold him to have taken fair ground. The reputations. we have lived to see raised on these false foundations, the good clerks and accountants whom magazines have turned into bad literary men, the readers whose tastes have been pandered to and yet further lowered, the writers whose better talents have been disregarded and wasted, the venal

See various letters, Burton's Life, ii. 196, 268, 278, 290, 292, &c.

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puffery and pretence which have more depressed the modern Et. 31. man-of-letters than ever shameless flattery and beggary reduced his predecessors; are good evidence on that point.

But when Goldsmith wrote, there was still a certain recognised work for the bookseller to do. With the aftercourse of this narrative it will more fully appear, even in that entire assent and adhesion of Goldsmith himself which he certainly did not contemplate when the Enquiry was planned, yet which, at the close of the experience of his life, he would almost seem to have silently withdrawn, by leaving the book revised for a posthumous edition with its protest against booksellers unabated and unmodified. To complete that protest now (a most essential part of this chapter in his fortunes), I will add proof, from other parts of the Enquiry of the manly tendency, and freedom from personal spleen, apparent in the structure of the appeal which was built upon it. There will be found no inconsistency between the opening and closing lines of the sentences first given, by those who have studied the disclosures made recently by men who take the deepest interest in the welfare of our universities; and who contrast them, as they now are, with the original purpose for which the grand foundations of princely prelates and nobles in advance of their age first arose in Cambridge and Oxford.

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"No nation gives greater encouragements to learning than we do; "yet none are so injudicious in the application. We seem to confer "them with the same view that statesmen have been known to grant 'employments at Court, rather as bribes to silence than incentives to "emulation. All our magnificent endowments of colleges are erro"neous ;* and at best, more frequently enrich the prudent than reward "the ingenious. Among the universities abroad I have ever observed

* A kind of endowment partaking of both pension list and college lectureship, yet free from the vice of both, has been suggested in a generous criticism on the first edition of this biography in the Edinburgh Review (lxxxviii. 218-20). "The "principle of a pension list is not one that dignifies the community of letters, nor

"their riches and their learning in a reciprocal proportion, their "stupidity and pride encreasing with their opulence.

Every

encouragement given to stupidity, when known to be such, is also "a negative insult upon genius. This appears in nothing more evident "than the undistinguished success of those who solicit subscrip"tions. When first brought into fashion, subscriptions were con66 ferred upon the ingenious alone, or those who were reputed "such. But at present, we see them made a resource of indi"gence, and requested not as rewards of merit, but as a relief of "distress. If tradesmen happen to want skill in conducting their own "business, yet they are able to write a book; if mechanics want money, "or ladies shame, they write books and solicit subscriptions. Scarcely a morning passes, that proposals of this nature are not thrust "into the half-opening doors of the rich, with perhaps a paltry peti"tion, showing the author's wants, but not his merits.. What then

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'are the proper encouragements of genius? I answer, subsistence and respect, for these are rewards congenial to its nature.”*

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"does it meet the questions at issue. Even in a pecuniary point of view, a sum
might often be necessary for a limited period in the production of a particular
work, which it would not be necessary to continue for life, and which need not
"be applied to the mere relief of positive distress, or the support of infirmity
"and age.
Schiller was in the prime of his life, and quite capable of being a
"bookseller's drudge, perhaps of writing Grecian histories, and works on
"Animated Nature, when two noblemen, thinking that his genius was meant for
"other things, subscribed to endow him with a pension for three years, to enable
"him to do that which he was calculated best to do. It came to Schiller at the
right time of his existence. It served, we believe, not only to aid his genius,
"but to soften his heart. Some help of a similar nature, a national fund in
"connection with the pension list might not unprofitably bestow. Perhaps, in
any comprehensive system of national education which the conflicting opinions
"and prejudices of party may permit the legislature ultimately to accomplish,
means may be taken to render the Mechanics' Institutes (many of which are
"fast decaying, and cannot, we believe, long exist upon resources wholly voluntary)
"permanent and valuable auxiliaries to popular instruction; and endowed
lectureships or professorships, at the more important of these in our larger
"towns, might be devoted to men distinguished in letters and science, connect
"them more with the practical world, occupy but little of their time, and yield
"them emoluments, if modest, still sufficient to relieve them from actual
dependence on the ordinary public and trading booksellers. Perhaps, too, in
"the point of social consideration, it may be well to reflect whether it is wise or
just that England should be the only country in which men of letters are
"deprived of the ordinary social honours, which tend to raise literature to its
"proper place in the estimation of the crowd." I may refer also, with the pride
and interest of one associated in the scheme, to the recent project for a Guild
of Literature and Art, which, if it be permitted to realise the hopes and aim
of its originators, will accomplish much of what is here desired.
Chap. x.

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Æt. 31.

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puffery and pretence which have more depressed the m Æt. 31. man-of-letters than ever shameless flattery and be reduced his predecessors; are good evidence on that p

But when Goldsmith wrote, there was still a certain cognised work for the bookseller to do. With the afterco of this narrative it will more fully appear, even in that ent assent and adhesion of Goldsmith himself which he certai did not contemplate when the Enquiry was planned, which, at the close of the experience of his life, he wou almost seem to have silently withdrawn, by leaving the bo revised for a posthumous edition with its protest again. booksellers unabated and unmodified. To complete tha protest now (a most essential part of this chapter in hifortunes), I will add proof, from other parts of the Enquir of the manly tendency, and freedom from personal spleen. apparent in the structure of the appeal which was built upon it. There will be found no inconsistency between the opening and closing lines of the sentences first given, by those who have studied the disclosures made recently by men who take the deepest interest in the welfare of our universities; and who contrast them, as they now are, with the original purpose for which the grand foundations of princely prelates and nobles in advance of their age first arose in Cambridge and Oxford.

"No nation gives greater encouragements to learning than we do; "yet none are so injudicious in the application. We seem to confer "them with the same view that statesmen have been known to grant employments at Court, rather as bribes to silence than incentives to "emulation. All our magnificent endowments of colleges are erro"neous;* and at best, more frequently enrich the prudent than reward "the ingenious. Among the universities abroad I have ever observed

* A kind of endowment partaking of both pension list and college lectureship, yet free from the vice of both, has been suggested in a generous criticism in th first edition of this biography in the Edinburgh Review (lxxxviii, "principle of a pension list is not one that dignifies the