they commenced their military career was nearly as intenfely fevere as that of the year forty; the place where they were ftationed open to the Thames, and confequently expofed to every wind of heaven; and to add to their comfort, it was then the custom to relieve the Guard only once in two hours, even in the night.

How these affociates whiled away this time is uncertain; unqueftionably they told every quarter: the clock at length ftruck eleven; they difpofed of the remaining hour, which I have no doubt appeared the longest of the two, as well as they could; and finally the clock ftruck twelve: they were by this time nearly frozen to death, but the expected relief buoyed up their spirits; every minute now feemed ten; every minute they expected their comrades, and fancied they heard their feps in the reverberation of every edy of wind as it beat against the walls, or as it howled through the receffes of the audient buildings. While they were gged in this agreeable manner, the quarter truck. Out of patience, they walked from one wall of the place to the other, and, by the light of the moon, discovered the grave, which it was the practice to leave open after the interment of foldiers, &c. till it was full, and then make one covering of earth ferve for all.

Upon this discovery, one of thefe geniufes fuggefted to the other, that as it was impollible to be colder, they might play the Corporal a trick which would in future teach him to be lefs dilatory in his relief. An opportunity to play a trick was never neglected by either; therefore the idea was inftantly adopted. Cold as it was, they accordingly tripped in their fhirts, and put ting their crofs-belts and accoutrements over them, laid their muskets and clothes by the fide, and crouched down in the grave. They had but just time to make this arrangement, when the door unlocked, the hinges creaked, (as they used to do in Somerfet Garden, where the fame ceremony was nightly performed,) and the Corporal, who happened to be a North Briton of the name of Alexander Campbell, with his myrmidons, entered. Milling his fentinels, he exclaimed,

"Maifter Blacket and Maifter Vaughan! where are ye?" No antwer was returned.

"Maifter Blacket and Maister Vaughan;" he repeated.

Still, except from the refponfes of the wind, all was filent.

Confiderably alarmed, ftill this hero, with a tremulous voice, called Maister Blacket and Maister Vaughan.

"Blacket and Vaughan, where the devil are you?" repeated the Guard.

"Here! Here! He-r-e!" returned our two fentinels, flowly rifing out of the grave.

The Corporal and Guard, obferving thefe fpectre-like appearances rifing from the earth, wifely concluded, that the recruits were frozen to death, and their ghofts now appeared before them; they, therefore, did not stay to ask any farther questions, but flew to the gate, which they fortunately left open. The fpestres followed. In the long paffage they made a halt, where they put on their regimentals, which they took care to bring with them, and had got into tolerable order when the Officer and Guard arrived with lights.

"Who's there?" faid the first fentinel, as they stood on each fide the iron gate.

"Two pieces of ice," returned Vaughan.

"What!" faid the Corporal, " you have come to life again, have you? You have been at your tricks, but you had better been dead, for you will fuller for your counterfeiting most feverely.”

66

"Why," faid the Officer, you alarmed me with a foolish ftory that thefe young recruits were frozen to death, and that you had feen their gholts. How is this, Vaughan ?"

"That we did not come to this untimely end this terrible cold night," returned Vaughan, "is not owing to the attention of the Corporal. After we had flood our two hours unfheltered from the weather, and fronting the river, he indulged us with more than another half-hour's enjoyment in the fame fituation before he brought the relief, though your Honour knows that we were fecond fentinels from the Guard. I fuppofe his confcience upbraided him; for as foon as he ad vanced and called, as we were too cold to anfwer, he retreated; his brave companions followed the example of Alexander their leader; fo that we, Sir, thould have had another two hours to stay, if we had lived to long, had not your goodness relieved us."

"But

"But where are the ghosts?" "If there were any, they are laid in the burying-ground by this time," faid Vaughan.

"I fear, Gentlemen," returned the Officer, "as the Corporal fays, that you have been at your tricks. Take them into cuftody; this affair must be more particularly inquired into."

Upon the inquiry, as I have underftood, there appeared fo much neglect in the Serjeant that had the charge of this department of the relief Guard and the Corporal that fhould have attended, that our affociates got off with a flight confinement.

Soon after this adventure, Mr. Garrick interested himself to get a Lieutenancy of Marines for William Vaughan, in which he fucceeded: he was, I think, in this fituation fome years; then he returned to the ftage, on which he made no greater progrefs than before. In the American war he was again in the marine fervice, in which he gained confiderable credit, and at the time of his death was a Captain in that corps.

DOCTOR ROCK.

It may fill be within the memory of many, that molt of thofe Effays which now form a part of the works of Goldfmith were first published, I think, about the year 1765, in a weekly magazine, called the Bee. They were, if we may judge from their then extenfive circulation, read with great pleasure by the public, and perhaps contributed to the author's acquire ment of that popularity which he afterwards fo delervedly attained. But although I peruted thofe pieces, at that time, with all the avidity, and admired them with all the ardour concomitant to youth, I have, notwithftanding the deference due to the favourable opinion of Dr. Johnfon with respect to the power and felicity of Goldsmith in this kind of compofition, very much doubted whether the Eflays in queftion were to be ranked among the happiest efforts of his genius; for however we may have been ftruck with them collectively, as they are now exhibited, yet if we accurately confider their individual merit, many parts of them appear to

more

have been, at least, carelessly written, although there still seems to be want ing that elegant eafe, that natural flow of humour, for which the excellent models he had betore him were fo remarkable. In fome of the graver papers you may difcern the efforts of labour; while in many of the lighter you difcover that his misth is the production of art. But as this is, by no means, intended as a critique upon performances which, having long fince received the ftamp of public approbation, it would indeed indicate confiderable temerity to criticife, I fhall, with only one remark more, confign that talk to fuperior abilities.

The objection which I hinted, and which would, perhaps it may be faid, apply to almoft every author, ancient and modern, as well as to Goldsmith, is, that when he has taken up a fubject from which we conceive an infinite fund of wit and humour might be drawn, or by which the truths of religion, or maxims of morality, might be illuftrated and inculcated, he tre. quently fuffers, rather for want of exertion than trength, his mirthful efforts to fubfide, his pious and moral effufions to be reprefled, ere they have half attained the object within their view: like a careless archer, we often find that he lets his arrows wander from the butt, or, with unavailing efforts, exhaunts his quiver against col lateral objects.

An instance in point with refpe&t to his humorous productions, the only point I fhall at prefent exemplity, is to be found in his twentieth Effay, "On the Art of Healing," or, in other words, upon Quacks. Thefe are fubjects both for animadverfion and ridicule, upon which, from his genius, habits of ftudy, and early habits of life, we fhould have fuppofed the humour of Goldfmith would have had room to expand, would have feized the opportunity to luxuriate: yet we find in the purfuit he permits many excellent ideas to efcape the grafp of his mental powers, while he exhausts thofe that are les fleet, without once attaining the great end of a comic writer, the exciting our mirth and rifbility against, and ultimately our abhorrence of thofe

enormities,

upon them: but the dire difpute be twixt the philanthropic Franks and the benevolent Rock, though certainly mif. chievous to their patients, who, while they were thus employed, could not be fo regularly dispatched, had as certainly the very milk of human kindnefs for its bafis; for though their paffions were inflamed against each other in the way alluded to, it will be remembered, to the honour of either, that their contention was only who fhould do most good.

This controverfy I ftill remember; and although it will certainly reach pofterity in the machine where Dr. Goldfmith has placed it, I conceive he has not thrown into the basket all the luggage appendant to it. He has, it is true, told us, with furprize and horror, that the literally great Franks called the metaphorically great Rock "Dumpling Dick;" but he has not ftated, that this ingenious epithet was conveyed to the public in the bills which he launched of all fizes; for he did not, like his predeceffor Dr. Cafe, venture his fame and fortune upon a fingle diftich, fcrawled upon his door-pots on Ludgate-hill. No! he added reams upon reams to the lite rature of the country, and, calling the graphic mufe to his aid, exhibited on the top of his faid bills the elegant figure of himself in the character of the good Samaritan, applying fome of his fpecifics to a half-naked patient. Under the print we had this admonition: "Be not Rocked into eternity by that vain and impudent pretender Dumpling Dick, who ftill lives at the gate of an inn where he once was porter."

Nor has Dr. G. mentioned the elegant retort of Dumpling Dick, as his competitor termed him, which, while it glitters externally, like one of his own pills, is, to the full, as bitter at the core. In Dr. Rock's bill, ornamented, as defcribed in the effay to which I have alluded, the farcafin flood thus:

"If you would avoid destruction, avoid the Old Bailey!"

This, had it tood alone, appears,

in a moral point of view, an excellent admonition; but then followed the mes dical reason:

"For there lives an Old Soldier, difcharged by the beat of drum, who has killed his thousands, but not in battle: his pills are much more fatal than were his ballets."

I have remarked, that the great object of the contention of these philofophers was, which of them should do the most good; but I am forry that I cannot inform the prefent age who was the most fuccefsful in this philanthropic purfuit, for this reafon, that the good they did was always in fecret; and I believe that neither of them, during their lives, had occafion to blush at finding it fame. I fhall therefore drop Franks, where he was taken up, in the Old Bailey; and, after relating a fhort anecdote of his equally illuftrious rival, confign him alfo to that applaufe and approbation which his exertions in favour of the human race deserved.

Doctor Rock, after an itinerant probation, fixed his mercurial difpofition in that permanent ftation Ludgate-hill, where he was every day to be seen fitting, juft within his thop-door, in a flowing flaxen wig, dark-coloured coat, and picture-frame wait coat, i. e. a waistcoat trimmed with broad gold lace; a drefs, together with his celebrity, calculated to attract the attention of paflengers, who were fure, if they turned their eyes upon him but for a moment, to have an imp of a boy dart out and pop bills into their hands,

When placed in this fituation, the great Rock feemed to have attained the acme of his fame and fortune, and to be as firmly fixed as the Edystone: but it has been already hinted, that, like other great practitioners in his way, he arrived at this height by steps, or, in the medical phrafe, by degrees. It is well known, that he first began practice as a pedestrian; then, fhort as his legs were, he became an equeftrian; then, like his celeftial progenitor Phœbus, a charioteer; in which character he used to difpenfe his pills,

recommended

recommended by rhetorical flourishes, fuch as, in that line of the profeffion, if I am rightly informed, have not fince been equalled. Not the great Doctor who preceded the great Doctor S, who ftill exifts, and ever will exift, if he does but take his own medicines, who about forty years fince offered to our obftinate ancestors, who might all have been alive now if they had wallowed it, A Solar Pill, faying, after he had faid every thing elfe, that it was the property of this ineftimable and divine pill to ftretch the line of existence to the longeft poffible extent, to counteract the operation of time upon the external form, to cheer, comfort, ftrengthen, and renovate the internal, to irradiate and gild the gloom of age, and to diffule a gleam of funshine even in the bour of death.

"I must stop here!" faid the learned Doctor; at which I must confefs I was difappointed, because I should have been delighted to hear what could have been faid in continuation.

Such were the effufions of the contemporaries of Rock; but in confequence of the force of his genius, his were faid to be ftill better: he never condefcended to talk to his auditors or patients of death or the grave, or fuch low fubjects; on the contrary, you might gather from his orations, that his pills nearly conferred immor, tality.

Dr. Rock, mounted in his chariot, en which was exhibited a graphical `pun instead of a creft, namely, a piece of Rock work, was one morning, in Covent Garden, haranguing a large audience, affembled around, upon the nature and excellence of his pills, with that delicacy and modefty which were fo peculiarly his characteristics, when Mr. William Hogarth and Mr. Francis Hayman, who were walking under the Piazza, mingled with the crowd, and amufed themselves with attentively obferving him.

Whether the Doctor knew thefe humourists, and feared that he should fuffer from their fatiric pencils, is uncertain; but it is most likely he did, as

he took this ingenious method to drive them off the field.

Holding up a box of pills, he began to celebrate their efficacy in the cure of all. diforders arifing from an impeded circulation and impure fyftem: under their powerful operation, all complaints of this nature were almoft initantly, at leaft" without lofs of time and hindrance of butinefs, (two im. portant confiderations, he observed, in a commercial country,) to vanish 3 but, my good friends," he continued, in the enumeration of the virtues of thefe fmall pills operating upon the branches, I have, as yet, faid nothing of their power over the root of a difeafe peculiarly incident to this part of the metropolis; though here they are an abfolute fpecific."

He then defcanted upon a complaint more common than reputable; and, after hinting that he had cured the greatest men in the nation, faid, “probably, my friends, you may be still incredulous; you may with me to give. the names of a few out of the multitude of my patients; but thefe my profeffional honour, my medica! fecrecy, obliges me to conceal: however, it fortunately happens that I can fatisfy you without any impeachment of my own character. Here are two Gentle men," pointing to Hogarth and Hayman, that I dare fay will have no objection to testify the truth of what I have advanced refpecting my pills; and I have no doubt but that teftimony fo honourable will be confidered by you as demonstration."

It is needlefs to fay, that the two painters inftantly made the best of their way out of the crowd, execrating the Doctor as they retreated; though I have been told, they did not get clear of the Garden without fuffering a good deal from the laughter of the audience.

ERRATA. In page 12, col. I, lines 13 and 24, and page 14, col. 1, line 19, for William read Henry.

VOL. XLV. Jan. 1804.

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