1759. "other gentlemen to write original pieces." The Doctor, in £t.31. truth, had but lately left the "Bench," at the close of that three months' imprisonment for libel into which his spirited avowal of the authorship of a criticism on Admiral Knowles had betrayed him; and the king's patronage had probably been sought as a counterpoise to the king's prison. But the punishment had not been without its uses. In the nature of Smollett, to the last, there were not a few of the heedless impulses of boyhood; and from this three months' steady gaze on the sadder side of things, he seems to have turned with tempered and gentler thoughts. In the first number of the British Magazine was the opening of the tale which contained his most feminine heroine (Aurelia Darnel), and the most amiable and gentlemanly of his heroes (Sir Launcelot Greaves); for, though Sir Launcelot is mad, wise thoughts have made him so; and in the hope to "remedy "evils which the law cannot reach, to detect fraud and "treason, to abase insolence, to mortify pride, to discourage 1760. 66 slander, to disgrace immodesty, and to stigmatise ingratitude," he stumbles through his odd adventures. There is a pleasure in connecting this alliance of Smollett and Goldsmith, with the first approach of our great humourist to that milder humanity and more genial wisdom which shed its mellow rays on Matthew Bramble. Nor were the services engaged from Oliver unworthy of Et. 32. his friend's Sir Launcelot. Side by side with the kindly enthusiast, appeared some of the most agreeable of the Essays which were afterwards re-published with their writer's name; and many which were never connected with it, until half a century after the writer's death. Here Mr. Rigmarole fell into that Boar's Head reverie in Eastcheap, since so many times dreamt over, and so full of kindly rebuke to undiscriminating praisers of the past. Here the shabby 1760. man in St. James's Park (Goldsmith, like Justice Woodcock, Et. 32. loved a vagabond) recounted his strolling adventures, with a vivacity undisturbed by poverty; and, with his MerryAndrew, Bajazet, and Wildair, laughed at Garrick in his glory. Here journey was made to the Fountain in whose waters sense and genius mingled, and by whose side, the traveller found Johnson and Gray (a pity it did not prove so!) giving and receiving fame.* And here, above all, the poor, hearty, wooden-legged beggar, first charmed the world with a philosophy of content and cheerfulness which no misfortune could subdue. This was he who had lost his leg and the use of his hand, and had a wound in his breast which was troublesome, and was obliged to beg, but with these exceptions blessed his stars for knowing no reason to complain: some had lost both legs and an eye, but thank Heaven it was not so bad with him. This was he who remarked that people might say this and that of being in gaol, but when he was found guilty of being poor, and was sent to Newgate, he found it as agreeable a place as ever he was in, in all his life:† who fought the French in six pitched battles, and verily believed, that, but for some good reason or other his captain would have given him promotion and made him a corporal: who was beaten cruelly by a boatswain, but the boatswain did it without considering what he was about: who * Another proof that Goldsmith had not yet surrendered his own judgment to Johnson's in the matter of Gray. The four papers enumerated will be found in Miscell. Works, i. 179, 229, 195, and ii. 461; the last having been transferred to the Citizen of the World. "O liberty! liberty! liberty! that is the property of every Englishman, and I "will die in its defence; I was afraid, however, that I should be indicted for a vagabond once more, so did not much care to go into the country, but kept about "town, and did little jobs when I could get them. I was very happy in this manner "for some time; till one evening, coming home from work, two men knocked me "down, and then desired me to stand still. They belonged to a press-gang." ii. 465. 1760. Et. 32. slept on a bed of boards in a French prison, but with a warm blanket about him, because, as he remarked, he always loved to lie well: and to whom, when he came to sum up and balance his life's adventures, it occurred that had he had the good fortune to have lost his leg and the use of his hand on board a king's ship, and not a privateer, he should have had his sixpence a week for the rest of his days; but that was not his chance; one man was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and another with a wooden ladle: "however, "blessed be God, I enjoy good health." This was as wise philosophy as Candide's, at which Europe was then laughing heartily; and it is worth mention that from the countrymen of Voltaire this little essay should first have derived its fame. So popular in France was the "humble optimist," as his translator called him, that he is not unlikely to have visited even the halls of Les Délices; to be read there, as everywhere, with mirth upon the face and tenderness at the heart; perhaps to reawaken recollections of the ungainly, wandering scholar. Of upwards of twenty essays thus contributed to Smollett's magazine, few were republished by Goldsmith; but from other causes, certainly, than lack of merit. One was a criticism of two rival singers, two Polly Peachums then dividing Vauxhall, so pleasantly worded that neither could take offence; but of temporary interest chiefly. Another was a caution against violent courtships, from a true story in the family of his uncle Contarine; perhaps thought too private for reappearance in more permanent form. A third (not reproduced, it may be, lest the wooden-legged philo sopher should lose in popularity by a companion less popular than himself) described, as a contrast to the happiness of the maimed and luckless soldier, the miseries of a healthy half-pay officer of unexpected fortune, unable to bear the transition from moderate to extravagant means, and rendered so insensible by unused indulgences that he had come to see Falstaff without a smile and the Orphan without emotion. A fourth was a little history of seduction, hasty, abrupt, and not very real; but in which the hero bore such a general though indistinct resemblance to the immortal family of the Primroses, as to have fitly merged and been forgotten in their later glory.* The last of these detached essays which I shall mention for the present, did not appear in the British Magazine, but much concerned it; and, though not reckoned worthy of preservation by its writer, is evidence not to be omitted of his hearty feeling to Smollett, and ready resource to serve a friend. It was in plain words a puff of the British Magazine and its projector; and a puff of as witty pretension as ever visited the ingenious brain of the yet unborn friend of Mr. Dangle. It purported to describe a Wow-wow; a kind of newspaper club of a country town, to which the writer amusingly described himself driven, by his unavailing efforts to find anybody anywhere else. All were at the Wow-wow, from the apothecary to the drawer of the tavern; and there he found, inspired by pipes and newspapers, such a smoke and fire of political discussion, such a setting right of all the mistakes of the generals in the war, such a battle, conducted with chalk, upon the blunders of Finck and Daun, and such quidnunc explosions against the Dutch in Pondicherry, that infallibly the Wow-wow must have come to a war of its own This "History of Miss Stanton " is included in Mr. Prior's edition of the Miscellaneous Works (i. 214) with many other pieces not before collected, which make the book by far the best of the collections that have yet appeared, though it is by no means carefully or accurately edited. The other three papers mentioned above are in i. 201, 205, 224; and for the Wow-wow, see i. 322. 1760. Æt. 32. 1760. Et. 32. "had not an Oxford Scholar, led there by curiosity, pulled 66 66 66 a new magazine out of his pocket, in which he said there were some pieces extremely curious and that deserved "their attention. He then read the Adventures of Sir "Launcelot Greaves, to the entire satisfaction of the audience, which being finished, he threw the pamphlet upon the table: That piece, gentlemen,' says he, 'is "written in the very spirit and manner of Cervantes; "there is great knowledge of human nature, and evident “'marks of the master in almost every sentence; and from "the plan, the humour, and the execution, I can venture "to say that it dropped from the pen of the ingenious ""Doctor Every one was pleased with the per"formance, and I was particularly gratified in hearing all "the sensible part of the company give orders for the "British Magazine." So said the not less anonymous or ingenious Doctor, in that venture of good Mr. Newbery's which started but twelve days after Smollett's, and in which also had been enlisted the services of the Green Arbour Court lodger. War is the time for newspapers; and the inventive head which planned the Universal Chronicle, with the good taste that enlisted Johnson in its service, now made a bolder effort in the same direction. The first number of The Public Ledger was published on the 12th of January 1760. Nothing less than a Daily Newspaper had the busy publisher of children's books projected. But a daily newspaper was not an appalling speculation, then. Not then, morning after morning, did it throw its eyes of Argus over all the world. No universal command was needed for it then, over sources of foreign intelligence that might controul and govern the money transactions of rival hemispheres. There existed with it, |