mean opinions and prostituted learning: but in which Mrs. Macaulay's history is compared to Robertson's, Mr. Richard Bentley's Patriotism thought next in merit to the Dunciad, and Mr. Dalrymple's Rodondo counted hardly inferior to Hudibras; in which Mr. Hoole is discovered to be a poet, and an elegant five shilling quarto which had appeared within the last few months with the title of the New Bath Guide, is proclaimed to have distinguished and marked out its writer from all other men, for possession of the easiest wit, the most genuine humour, the most inoffensive satire, the most unaffected poetry, and the most harmonious melody in every kind of metre. Is not the fashion as well as faction of the time thus reflected to us vividly? Now, all excepting Christopher Anstey are forgotten, of these admired ones; nor is it likely that even Anstey would have been noticed with anything but a sneer, if, besides being a scholar and a wit, he had not also been a member of parliament. Beyond the benches of the houses, too, or the gossip of St. James's, this influence reached. It was social rank that had helped Anstey for this poem of the New Bath Guide to no less a sum than two hundred pounds; it was because Goldsmith had no other rank than as a man of letters, depressed and at that time very slowly rising, that his Traveller had obtained for him only twenty guineas. Even David Hume, though now accepted into the higher circles, undisturbed any longer by the 'factious barbarians,' and somewhat purified of late from

history and philosophy by employment as under-secretary of state, had not lost that painful sense of the social differences between Paris and London which he expressed twelve months before the present date. If a man have 'the misfortune in London to attach himself to letters,

even if he succeeds, I know not with whom he is to live, 'nor how he is to pass his time in a suitable society. The 'little company there, that is worth conversing with, are 'cold and unsociable, or are warmed only by faction and cabal; so that a man who plays no part in public affairs 'becomes altogether insignificant; and if he is not rich, ' he becomes even contemptible. But in Paris a man that distinguishes himself in letters, meets immediately with regard and attention.' The best company here in Lon'don,' he complains in another letter are in a flame of politics. Men of letters are sunk and forgot in the 'general torrent of the world.' Only one such man there was who would not be so sunk and forgot; his own unluckily chosen protégé Rousseau. That horrible English habit of indifference, Jean Jacques conceived to be a conspiracy to destroy him (for how could he live without being talked about); and so straightway resolving to make fight against it, surrendered, on the instant, all claim to be considered a Socrates, and, in the self-same judgment which not a year before had thus honourably characterised him, and had praised his mildness, modesty, gentleness, and good-nature, became a compound of whim, affectation, wickedness, vanity, ferocity,

' and lying,' as well as the blackest and most atrocious 'villain beyond comparison that now exists in the world.' For he had first indicted Hume as the leader of the conspiracy, and brought him forward to answer the indictment in the St. James' Chronicle; and had next fallen foul of Horace Walpole as Hume's vicious instrument, Bishop Warburton crying out with delight to see 'so seraphic a madman' attack 'so insufferable a cox'comb.' Nothing of a literary sort, indeed, made so much noise or amusement at the close of the year as these mad libels of Rousseau, and the caricatures made of them: unless it were the newspaper cross readings, which, with the witty signature of Papyrius Cursor, Caleb Whitefoord published in December (wherein the public were informed that 'this morning the Rt. Hon. 'the Speaker was convicted of keeping a disorderly 'house,' that 'Lord Chatham took his seat and was 'severely handled by the populace,' with other as surprising items of information), and at which the whole town is described to have wept with laughter. Goldsmith envied nothing so much, we are assured, as the authorship of this humourous sally; and would gladly have exchanged for it his own most successful writings. Half sad, and half satirical, perhaps he thus contrasted its reception with their's.

The young German student to whom allusion has been made, speaking from his judgment of the book that so enchanted him, had thought its author must have reason 'thankfully to acknowledge he was an Englishman, and to

reckon highly the advantages which his country and 'nation afforded him.' But would Goethe without limitation have said this, if there had lain before him the two entries from Newbery's papers wherewith the biographer of the author of the Vicar of Wakefield must close the year 1766 and open the year 1767? 'Received from Mr. Newbery,' says the first, dated the 28th of December, five guineas for writing a short 'English grammar. OLIVER GOLDSMITH.' 'To cash,' says the second, dated the 6th of January, 'lent Doctor 'Goldsmith one pound one.'

Thus scantily eking out his necessities with hack employment and parsimonious lendings, his dramatic labour was meanwhile in progress. He had taken for his model the older English comedy. He thought Congreve's astonishing wit too exuberant for the stage; and for truth to nature, vivacity, life, and spirit, placed Farquhar first. With what was called the genteel or sentimental school that had since prevailed, and of which Steele was the originator, he felt no sympathy; and cared chiefly for the Jealous Wife and Clandestine Marriage because they had shown the power to break those trammels. What his countryman Farquhar had done, he resolved to attempt; and in that hearty hope had planned his play. With the help of nature, humour, and character, should these be in his reach, he would invoke the spirit of laughter, happy, unrestrained, and cordial; all the more surely, as he reckoned, if with Garrick's help, and King's, and

Yates's though without them, if so compelled. For not in their names, or after Garrick's fashion, had he set down his exits and entrances, nor to suit peculiarities of their's were his mirthful incidents devised. Upon no stage picture of the humourous, however vivid, but upon what he had seen and known, himself, of the humourous in actual life, he was determined to venture all; believing that what was real in manners, however broad or low, if in decency endurable and pointing to no illiberal moral, could never justly be condemned as vulgar. And for this he had Johnson's approval. Indifferent to nothing that affected his friend, nor ever sluggish where help was wanted or active kindness needed to be done, Johnson promised to write a prologue to the comedy. For again had he lately shown himself in Gerrard Street; again had the Club reunited its members; and once more in the society of Reynolds, Johnson, and Burke, was Goldsmith eager to forget his carking poverty, and count up his growing pretensions to greatness and esteem.

What Boswell calls one of the most remarkable inci'dents of Johnson's life,' was now matter of conversation at the Club. In February, the king had taken occasion to see and hold some conversation with him on one of his visits to the royal library, where by permission of the librarian he frequently consulted books. The effect produced by the incident is a social curiosity of the time. Endless was the interest of it; the marvel of it never to be done with. He loved to relate it with all its circumstances,' says Boswell, 'when requested by his friends:' and 'Come