then, no costly arts for making and marring fortunes; cultivated to a perfection high as the pigeon's flight, swift as the courier's horse, or deep as the secret drawer of the diplomatist's bureau. Then, it was no more essential to a paper's existence, that countless advertisements should be scattered broadcast through its columns; than to a city's business, that puffing vans should perambulate its highways, and armies of placard-bearing paupers seize upon its pavements. Neither as a perfect spy of the time, nor as a full informer or high improver of the time, did a daily journal yet put forth its claims. Neither to prompt and correct intelligence, nor to great political or philanthropic aims, did it as yet devote itself. The triumphs or discomfitures of Freedom were not yet its daily themes. Not yet did it assume, or dare, to ride in the whirlwind and direct the storm of great political passions; to grapple resistlessly with social abuses; or to take broad and philosophic views of the world's contemporaneous history, the history which is a-making from day to day. It was content with humbler duties. It called itself a daily register of commerce and intelligence, and fell short of even so much modest pretension. The letter of a Probus or a Manlius sufficed for discussion of the war; and a modest rumour in some dozen lines, for what had occupied parliament during as many days. "We are unwilling," said the editor of the Public Ledger (Mr. Griffith Jones, who wrote children's books for Mr. Newbery)* in his first number, . "It is not, perhaps, generally known, that to Mr. Griffith Jones, and a brother "of his, Mr. Giles Jones, in conjunction with Mr. John Newbery, the public are in"debted for the origin of those numerous and popular little books for the amusement "and instruction of children, the Lilliputian histories of Goody Two-shoes, Giles "Gingerbread, Tommy Trip, &c. &c. which have been ever since received with "universal approbation." Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, iii. 466. Hereafter are given some reasons for suspecting that Newbery may have had a more distinguished fellow-labourer than Mr. Jones; but I believe that to himself the great merit is due of having first sought to reform in some material points the moral of these 1760. Æt. 82. 1760. Æt. 32. to raise expectations which we may perhaps find ourselves "unable to satisfy: and therefore have made no mention of "criticism or literature, which yet we do not professedly "exclude; nor shall we reject any political essays which are "apparently calculated for the public good." Discreetly avoiding, thus, all undue expectation, there quietly came forth into the world, from Mr. Bristow's office "next the "great toy-shop in St. Paul's-churchyard," the first number of the Public Ledger. It was circulated gratis: with announcement that all future numbers would be sold for two-pence half-penny each. The first four numbers were enlightened by Probus in politics and Sir Simeon Swift in literature; the one defending the war, the other commencing the "Ranger," and both very mildly justifying the modest editorial announcements. The fifth number was not so common-place. It had a letter (vindicating with manly assertion the character and courage of the then horribly unpopular French, and humorously condemning the national English habit of abusing rival nations), which implied a larger spirit as it showed a livelier pen. The same hand again appeared in the next number but one; and the correspondent of Green Arbour Court became entitled to receive two guineas from Mr. Newbery for his first week's contributions to the Public Ledger. His arrangement was to write twice in the week, and to be paid a guinea for each article. books. He did not thrust all naughty boys into the jaws of the dragon, nor elevate all good boys to ride in King Pepin's coach. That Goldsmith had a hankering to write for children he more than once confessed; and if he had realised his intention of composing the fables in which little fishes and other creatures should talk, our children's libraries would have had one rich possession the more. CHAPTER IV. THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD. 1760. 1760. WITH the second week of his engagement on the Public Ledger, Goldsmith had taken greater courage. The letter Et. 32. which appeared on the 24th of January, though without title or numbering to imply intention of continuance, threw out the hint of a series of letters, and of a kind of narrative as in the Lettres Persanes. The character assumed was that of a Chinese visitor to London: the writer's old interest in the flowery people having received new strength, of late, from the Chinese novel on which his dignified acquaintance Mr. Percy had been recently engaged.* The second letter, still without title, appeared five days after the first; some inquiry seems to have been made for their continuance; and thence uninterruptedly the series went on. Not until * "I will endeavour," writes Shenstone in the following year (Nichols's Illustrations, vii. 222), "to procure and send you a copy of Percy's translation of a 66 genuine Chinese novel in four small volumes, printed months ago, but not to be 66 published before winter." Percy was the editor, and wrote the preface and notes; but the actual translation of Hau Kiou Choaan from the Chinese was executed by Mr. Wilkinson, and all that Percy did in that respect was to translate the translator "into good reading English." It may be worth remarking, that, three years before, some noise had been made by a smart political squib of Horace Walpole's, which he protested he had writ in an hour-and-a-half, and which passed through five editions in a fortnight, the Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese Philosopher at London, to his friend Lien Chi at Pekin. See Coll. Lett. iv. 289, 290. T 1760. 274 somewhat advanced, were they even numbered; they never Æt. 32. received a title, until republished; but they were talked of as the Chinese Letters, assumed the principal place in the paper. and contributed more than any other cause to its successfu establishment. Sir Simeon Swift and his "Ranger Mr. Philanthropy Candid and his "Visitor," struggled and departed as newspaper shadows are wont to do; Lien Ch Altangi became real, and lived. From the ephemeral sprang the immortal. On that column of ungainly-looking, perish able type, depended not alone the paper of the day, but book to last throughout the year, a continuous pleasure fr the age, and one which was for all time. It amused the hour, was wise for the interval beyond it, is still diverting and instructing us, and will delight generations yet unborn. At the close of 1760, ninety-eight of the letters had been published; within the next few months, at less regular intervals, the series was brought to completion; and in the following year, the whole were republished by Mr. Newbery "for the author," in two duodecimo volumes, but without any author's name, as "Letters from a Chinese Philosopher in London, to his "The Citizen of the World; or, "Friend in the East." "Light, agreeable, summer reading," observed the British This specification, which appears upon no other book written by Goldsmith, 1760. ind his pliant cur Mr. Kenrick, having taken his orders to 66 66 66 66 Letters, which were first printed in The Ledger, and are supposed to have contributed not a little towards the success of that paper. They are said to be the work of "the lively and ingenious Writer of An Enquiry into the "Present State of Polite Learning in Europe; a Writer whom, "it seems, we undesignedly offended by some Strictures on the conduct of many of our modern Scribblers. As the "observation was entirely general, in its intention, we were surprised to hear that this Gentleman had imagined himself in any degree pointed at, as we conceive nothing can be more illiberal in a Writer, or more foreign to the character "of a Literary Journal, than to descend to the meanness "of personal reflection."* Pity might be reasonably given. to men humiliated thus; but Goldsmith withheld forgiveness. Private insults could not so be retracted; nor could imputations which sink deepest in the simplest and most honourable natures, be thus easily purged away. Mr. Griffiths was left to the consolation of reflecting, that he had himself eaten the dirt which it would have made him far happier to have flung at the Citizen of the World. In what different language, by what different men, how highly and justly this book has since been praised, for its fresh original perception, its delicate delineation of life and manners, its wit and humour, its playful and diverting satire, its exhilarating gaiety, and its clear and lively style, * Monthly Review, xxvi. 477, June 1762. |