continues to add its yearly sum to the harmless stock of public pleasure. Goldsmith had printed it with all dispatch, and dedicated it to Johnson. In inscribing this 'slight performance to you,' he said, 'I do not mean so 'much to compliment you as myself. It may do me some 'honour to inform the public, that I have lived many 'years in intimacy with you. It may serve the interests of mankind also to inform them, that the greatest wit 'may be found in a character, without impairing the most 'unaffected piety.'

One dark shadow fell upon him in the midst of his success, and came as usual from Kenrick. Nine days after the appearance of the comedy, a personal attack by that professional libeller appeared in an evening paper called the London Packet. It was not more gross than former favours from the same hand had been. All his writings were denounced in it. The Traveller was 'flimsy,' the Deserted Village without fancy or fire,' the Good-natur'd Man 'water-gruel,' and She Stoops to Conquer a speaking 'pantomime.' Harmless abuse enough, and such as plays the shadow to all success. Swift's sign of a genius is that the dunces are in confederacy against him; and there is always a large and active class of them in literature. To the end of the chapter, the Dryden will have his Shadwell, and the Pope his Dennis; and the signum fatale Minervæ be a signal for the huic date, the old cry of attack. Give it him' is the sentence, if he shows signs of life in genius or learning; and the execution seldom fails. But a man who

enters literature, enters it on this condition. He has to reflect that sooner or later he will be stamped for as much as he is worth; and meanwhile has to think that probably his height, dimensions, and prowess might not be so well discerned, if less men than himself did not thus surround and waylay him at his starting. Without extenuation of the unjust assailant, so much is fairly to be said; without in the least agitating the question whether a petty larceny or a petty libel be the more immoral, or whether it be the more criminal to filch a purse or a good name. Shakespeare has decided that. But the present libel in the London Packet went far beyond the bounds indicated; and to which allusion has only been made that the incident now to be related may be judged correctly. Goldsmith had patiently suffered worse public abuse; and would doubtless here have suffered as patiently, if baser matter had not been introduced. But the libeller had invaded private life, and dragged in the Jessamy Bride. Would man believe 'it,' he asked, 'and will woman bear it, to be told that for hours, the great Goldsmith will stand surveying his grotesque ourang-outang figure in a pier-glass. Was but the 'lovely H―k as much enamoured, you would not sigh, I my gentle swain, in vain.' Having read this, he felt it was his duty to resent it. Captain Horneck, the lady's brother, accompanied him to the office of the London Packet, but in ignorance of his precise intention.

Thomas Evans was the publisher (from a note found among his papers, Goldsmith at first seems to have thought

His

him the editor); and must not be confounded with the worthy bookseller of the same name, who first collected Goldsmith's writings. He was more eccentric than amiable. He let his son die in the streets because he had sided with his mother in a quarrel; and would have disinherited his heirs if they had not buried him without coffin or shroud, and limited his funeral expenses to forty shillings. assistant at this time was a young man named Harris, whose name afterwards rivalled Newbery's in the affection of children, having succeeded to Francis Newbery's business (carried on as the firm of Carnan and Newbery) in St. Paul's Churchyard. It was of him Goldsmith and Horneck inquired whether Evans was at home; and he has described what followed. He called Evans from an adjoining room, and heard him thus addressed: 'I have called in consequence of a scurrilous attack in your paper upon me '(my name is Goldsmith) and an unwarrantable liberty 'taken with the name of a young lady. As for myself I 'care little, but her name must not be sported with.' Evans, upon this, declaring ignorance of the matter, saying he would speak to the editor, and stooping as though to look for the libel, Goldsmith struck him smartly with his cane across the back. But Evans, being a strong sturdy man, returned the blow; and in the sudden scuffle a lamp suspended over-head was broken, the combatants covered with the oil, and the undignified affray brought to a somewhat ludicrous pause. Then there stepped from the adjoining editorial room, which Evans had lately quitted, no less a

person than Kenrick himself, who had certainly written the libel; and who is described to have separated the 'parties and sent Goldsmith home in a coach,' Captain Horneck standing transfixed with amazement. Evans subsequently indicted Goldsmith for the assault, but consented to a compromise on his paying fifty pounds to a Welch charity.

But this money payment was the least of the fines exacted. All the papers abused the poor sensitive poet, even such as were ordinarily favourable to him; and all of them steadily ignored the real point in issue. At last he stated it himself; in an Address to the Public which was published in the Daily Advertiser of the 31st of March, and which is well worth subjoining. The abuse at which it was aimed had at this time grown to an intolerable height. The Mr. Snakes whom Sheridan satirized a few years later, were spawning in abundance. I am not employed in 'the political line but in private disputes' said one of them this year to Tommy Townshend, explaining why he had preferred entering the service of the newspapers rather than that of the ministers. Attacks upon private character were the most liberal existing source of newspaper income.

'Lest it should be supposed that I have been willing to correct in others an abuse of which I have been guilty myself, I beg leave to declare, that in all my life I never wrote or dictated a single paragraph, letter, or essay in a newspaper, except a few moral essays, under the character of a Chinese, about ten years ago, in the Ledger, and a letter to which I signed my name, in the St. James's Chronicle. If the liberty of the press, therefore, has been abused, I have had no

hand in it. I have always considered the press as the protector of our freedom, as a watchful guardian, capable of uniting the weak against the encroachments of power. What concerns the public, most properly admits of a public discussion. But of late the press has turned from defending public interest, to making inroads upon private life; from combating the strong, to overwhelming the feeble. No condition is now too obscure for its abuse, and the protector has become the tyrant of the people. In this manner the freedom of the press is beginning to sow the seeds of its own dissolution: the great must oppose it from principle, and the weak from fear; till at last every rank of mankind shall be found to give up its benefits, content with security from insults. How to put a stop to this licentiousness, by which all are indiscriminately abused, and by which vice consequently escapes in the general censure, I am unable to tell; all I could wish is, that as the law gives us no protection against the injury, so it should give calumniators no shelter after having provoked correction. The insults which we receive before the public, by being more open are the more distressing; by treating them with silent contempt, we do not pay a sufficient deference to the opinion of the world. By recurring to legal redress we too often expose the weakness of the law, which only serves to increase our mortification by failing to relieve us. In short, every man should singly consider himself as a guardian of the liberty of the press, and as far as his influence can extend, should endeavour to prevent its licentiousness becoming at last the grave of its freedom. OLIVER GOLDSMITH.'

Johnson called this a foolish thing well done. Boswell had come up for his London holiday two days after it appeared, and thought it so well done, that (knowing Johnson to have dictated arguments in Scotch appeals and other like matters for himself) he assumed Johnson to have done it. 'Sir,' said Johnson, Doctor Goldsmith