to see the shop, which was at the corner of Bell-yard, near the Monument.

Several months had passed in this way, when, hearing accidentally that his Edinburgh fellow-student, Sleigh, was in London, he went to call on him; and he afterwards told the story in these words to his friend Mr. Cooke: Notwithstanding it was Sunday, and I had on my best clothes, Sleigh scarcely knew me; such is the tax the unfortunate pay to poverty. However, when he did recollect me, I found his heart as warm as ever, and he shared his purse with me so long as he remained in London.' By this gentleman's assistance, Goldsmith was enabled to set up as a physician, somewhere on the Bankside, in Southwark ; and one of his Trinity chums already named, the Rev. Mr. Beatty, being in town soon after, met him in the street, in a suit of green velvet and gold, but with a shirt and neckcloth which he must have worn for a fortnight,' when, however, he seemed in excellent spirits, and said he was now practising his profession, and doing very well.' Mr. Prior quotes a lady still living for a story that Sir Joshua Reynolds used to tell of this period. The green velvet coat had been bought second-hand; he discovered presently an unseemly patch, and one of his patients was highly amused when, after several visits, he discovered why the doctor always placed his hat over his left breast while delivering his opinion.

We should think his patients were not likely to be critical as to such matters. One of them, and probably the most useful he had, was a journeyman-printer, in the employment of the author of Clarissa,' and by this man's means he was introduced to Richardson, who, finding that the ill-paid doctor was a scholar, suggested that he might fill up his vacant hours by acting as reader, or last corrector of proof-sheets, in his office. Many good scholars are still found employed in this manner, and more fortunate men of letters must confess their frequent obligations to the intelligence with which such persons discharge their functions.

With Goldsmith's just estimation of himself, however, the employment must have been sufficiently irksome; and it is not surprising that he should have soon abandoned both it and his medical practice even for a situation so humble as that of usher to a school at Peckham, in Surrey. He met in the streets another of his old Edinburgh acquaintance, by name Milner, whose father was at the head of this establishment, and his young friend, discovering the state of the Bankside physician's affairs, easily persuaded him to go down with him in this capacity. The elder Milner and his wife were kind people, and did what they could to make him comfortable beneath their roof. Mrs. Milner seems to have speedily penetrated his weaker point, for she proposed to take

care

care of his money for him, and he answered placidly, Indeed, Madam, I have as much need that you should do so as any of the young gentlemen.' The trickery of the said young gentlemen, however, with the dulness of his drudgery by day, and last, not least, the misery of being obliged to sleep on the same pillow with a Frenchman, who stunk him dead with rancid pomatums,' presently completed his disgust. He returned to town, made another medical attempt and again failed, and then went back once more to Peckham, where the Milners again found or made room for him. In this way passed another miserable and uncertain year. In the Vicar of Wakefield, and others of his subsequent works, we have many sad and some bitter allusions to the pains of usherdom.

From Mr. Prior's chapter on Peckham we must take a couple of anecdotes:

One of the pupils particularly noticed by him for possessing promising talents, and who ever after felt a strong regard for his tutor, was the late Samuel Bishop, Esq., of London, in whose family a few traditional notices of his peculiarities are still remembered. Always sociable and ready to join in whatever was going forward, his good-nature led him to mingle in the sports of the boys, and submit to their wit or even their reproof for occasional want of dexterity. In such a rude community, however, familiarity has its disadvantages, by the opening it affords to youthful insubordination or impertinence, an instance of which is recorded. When amusing his younger companions during play-hours with the flute, and expatiating on the pleasures derived from music, in addition to its advantages in society as a gentlemanlike acquirement, a pert boy, looking at his situation and personal disadvantages with something of contempt, rudely replied to the effect that he surely could not consider himself a gentleman; an offence which, though followed by instant chastisement, disconcerted and pained him extremely.

Of that simplicity or absence of mind so well known as one of his characteristics, Mr. Bishop mentioned an amusing instance when they met several years afterwards in the streets of London; for which and the preceding anecdote the writer is indebted to his son, the Rev. H. Bishop, Chaplain to the Archbishop of Dublin :—

"After an interval of some years, my father, while walking in London with my mother, to whom he was just married, met Goldsmith, and addressing him, an immediate recognition took place. The tutor was delighted to see his former pupil, and expressed great pleasure at the introduction to his wife. Still the associations in his mind of their former school connexion were too strong to be overcome. 'Come, my boy,' said he, addressing my father by his Christian name, I am delighted to see you; I must treat you to something; what shall it be? will you have some apples?' and immediately turned to the display of fruit furnished by a basket-woman who stood near.

"In the course of conversation, he mentioned his picture by Sir

Joshua

Joshua Reynolds, which had been recently engraved; and immediately added, Have you seen it, Sam? Have you got an engraving?' My father, not to appear negligent of the rising fame of his old preceptor, replied that he had not yet procured it; he was just furnishing his house, but had fixed upon the spot the print was to occupy as soon as he was ready to receive it.' Sam,' he said, with some emotion, if your picture had been published, I should not have suffered an hour to elapse without procuring it.' After some further conversation, the sense of this seeming neglect was appeased by apologies."-Life, vol. i. p. 218.

6

The elder Milner was a dissenter, and an occasional contributor to the Monthly Review, then conducted by its projector and proprietor, the bookseller Griffiths. One day Griffiths dined at Peckham, and Goldsmith's conversation made such an impression on him, that he asked him to try his hand on an article. Goldsmith did so—and Griffiths invited him to come to London, and assist him regularly in his Review, boarding and lodging in his house, and receiving moreover a certain sum by way of salary. The agreement, dated in April, 1757, was for a year; but they parted by mutual consent at the end of half that period. Goldsmith complained that his articles were twisted about and interpolated, not only by the illiterate bookseller himself, but by his still more ignorant and presumptuous wife; and they on their part alleged, that though by his own account he wrote every day from nine till two, and often all the evening besides, he did not produce the stipulated quantity of MS. in the month. Mr. Prior, however, having made prize of Griffiths' own copy of his journal, in which the names of the different authors are regularly inscribed, has now been able to father on Goldsmith various short essays, well deserving a place in his works; they embrace a wide range of subjects, are written uniformly in a candid and generous strainand, if he did not as yet compose with rapidity, he had mastered the art of concealing his labour. With elegant little papers of the same description he continued from time to time to supply Griffiths after the close of their original paction; but Goldsmith, having no longer his board and lodging provided for, soon fell into straits again; asking petty sums in advance, he was presently in the bookseller's power, and subjected consequently to a long series of humiliating mortifications and perplexing embarrassments-Mr. Prior's detail of which may furnish the materials of another melancholy chapter to the next edition of The Calamities and Quarrels of Authors.

By contributions to the Monthly Review and six different magazines (all long since extinct), Goldsmith supported for some months this uneasy existence; but ambition was not deadened by his poverty, and he stole time enough to prepare a separate work,

by

by which he hoped to raise a name, and emancipate himself in some measure at least from his bondage. This was the Enquiry into the State of Polite Literature in Europe;' having finished part of it, he carried the MS. to the benevolent Robert Dodsley, who encouraged him to go on, agreed to publish the book, and advanced him various small sums on account of it. Still his distress was great and urgent; and the letters in which he communicated his views to Irish friends, whom he thought capable of assisting him in procuring subscribers, paint his feelings and struggles in a manner so interesting, that we cannot but extract two or three specimens of them. The first is addressed to the husband of his eldest sister;-but we must explain its allusion to his younger brother, Charles Goldsmith. The poet, when first established under the roof of Griffiths, where he met of course some literary men of established name, appears to have written of his new position in terms of such elation that this young man conceived his literary brother was now not only beyond the reach of difficulties, but able, if he chose, to make the fortune of another. He came over to London to be patronized, he cared not exactly how, by some of Oliver's great friends,' and found this friend of the great scribbling for bread in a garret.

Dec. 27, 1757.-You may easily imagine what difficulties I have had to encounter, left as I was without friends, recommendations, money, or impudence; and that in a country where being born an Irishman was sufficient to keep me unemployed. Many in such circumstances would have had recourse to the friar's cord, or the suicide's halter. But with my follies I had principle to resist the one, and resolution to combat the other.

الله

I suppose you desire to know my present situation. As there is nothing in it at which I should blush, or which mankind could censure, I see no reason for making it a secret. In short, by a very little practice as a physician, and a very little reputation as a poet, I make a shift to live. Nothing is more apt to introduce us to the gates of the Muses than poverty; but it were well if they only left us at the door. The mischief is, they sometimes choose to give us their company at the entertainment; and Want, instead of being gentleman-usher, often turns master of the ceremonies.

Thus, upon learning I write, no doubt you imagine I starve; and the name of an author naturally reminds you of a garret. In this particular I do not think proper to undeceive my friends; but whether I eat or starve, live in a first floor or four pair of stairs high, I still remember them with ardour; nay, my very country comes in for a share of my affection. Unaccountable fondness for country, this maladie du pais, as the French call it! Unaccountable that he should still have an affection for a place who never, when in it, received above common civility; who never brought any thing out of it except his brogue and his blunders. Surely my affection is equally ridiculous with the Scotch

man'

man's, who refused to be cured of the itch, because it made him unco' thoughtful of his wife and bonny Inverary.

But now to be serious,-let me ask myself what gives me a wish to see Ireland again? The country is a fine one, perhaps? no. There are good company in Ireland? no. The conversation there is generally made up of a toast or a song; the vivacity supported by some humble cousin, who has just folly enough to earn his dinner. Then perhaps there's more wit and learning among the Irish? Oh, Lord, no! There has been more money spent in the encouragement of the Padareen mare there one season, than given in rewards to learned men since the times of Usher. All their productions in learning amount to perhaps a translation, or a few tracts in divinity; and all their productions in wit to just nothing at all. Why the plague, then, so fond of Ireland? Then, all at once, because you, my dear friend, and a few more who are exceptions to the general picture, have a residence there. This it is that gives me all the pangs I feel in separation. I confess I carry this spirit sometimes to the souring the pleasures I at present possess. If I go to the Opera where Signora Columba pours out all the mazes of melody, I sit and sigh for Lishoy fireside, and Johnny Armstrong's "Last Good Night," from Peggy Golden. If I climb Hampstead Hill, than where nature never exhibited a more magnificent prospect, I confess it fine; but then I had rather be placed on the little mount before Lishoy gate, and there take in―to me—the most pleasing horizon in nature.

'Before Charles came hither, my mind sometimes found refuge from severer thoughts among my friends in Ireland. I fancied strange revolutions at home; but I find it was the rapidity of my own motion that gave an imaginary one to objects really at rest. No alterations there. Some friends, he tells me, are still lean, but very rich; others very fat, but still very poor. Nay, all the news I hear of you is, that you sally out in visits among the neighbours, and sometimes make a migration from the blue bed to the brown. I could from my heart wish that Lishoy and Ballymahon, and all of you, would fairly make a migration into Middlesex.'-Life, vol. i. p. 251.

A year later he thus writes to Mrs. Lawder, the daughter of his uncle Contarine:—

'I was, madam, when I discontinued writing to Kilmore, in such circumstances, that all my endeavours to continue your regards might be attributed to wrong motives. My letters might be looked upon as the petitions of a beggar, and not the offerings of a friend; while all my professions, instead of being considered as the result of disinterested esteem, might be ascribed to venal insincerity. I believe indeed you had too much generosity to place them in such a light, but I could not bear even the shadow of such a suspicion. The most delicate friendships are always most sensible of the slightest invasion, and the strongest jealousy is ever attendant on the warmest regard. I could not-I own I could not-continue a correspondence; for every acknowledgment for past favours might be considered as an indirect request for future ones, and where it might be thought I gave my heart from a motive of grati

tude