Griffiths, to be able still to meet the tailor's debt, the gay suit in which he went to Surgeons' Hall, and in which he was dressed for his doleful holiday, appears to have

been put off and carried to the pawnbroker's. Nor had a week passed, before the pangs of his own destitution sharply struck him again; and, without other remaining means of earthly aid, for death had taken in Doctor Milner his apparently last friend, he carried the four books he had recently reviewed for Griffiths to a neighbouring house, and left them in pledge with an acquaintance for a trifling loan. It was hardly done when a letter from Griffiths was put into his hand, peremptorily demanding the return of the books and the suit of clothes, or instant payment for both.

Goldsmith's answer, and the bookseller's violent retort, are to be presumed from the poor debtor's second letter: the only one preserved of this unseemly correspondence. He appears first to have written in a tone of mixed astonishment, anger, and solicitation; to have prayed for some delay; and to have been met by coarse insult, threats, and the shameless imputation of crime. These forced from him the rejoinder found in the bookseller's papers, endorsed by Griffiths with the writer's name, and as "Recd. "in Jan 1759;" which passed afterwards into the manuscript collections of Mr. Heber, and is now in my possession. The appearance of this remarkable letter harmonises with its contents, for there is nothing of the freedom or boldness of hand in it which one may perceive in his ordinary manuscript. The original has been followed with the strictest accuracy in the copy here given, and it will be observed that the pointing is imperfect and confused, nor is there any break or paragraph from the first line to the signature. But all concealment at least is ended, and stern plain truth is told.

Sir, I know of no misery but a gaol to which my own imprudencies and your letter seem to point. I have seen it inevitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens! request it as a favour, as a favour that may prevent somewhat more fatal. I have been some years struggling with a wretched being, with all that contempt which indigence brings with it, with all those strong passions which make contempt insupportable. What then has a gaol that is formidable, I shall at least have the society of wretches, and such is to me true society. I tell you again and again I am now neither able nor willing to pay you a farthing, but I will be punctual to any appointment you or the

taylor shall make; thus far at least I do not act the sharper, since unable to pay my debts one way I would willingly give some security another. No Sir, had I been a sharper, had I been possessed of less good nature and native generosity I might surely now have been in better circumstances. I am guilty I own of meannesses which poverty unavoidably brings with it, my reflections are filled with repentance for my imprudence but not with any remorse for being a villain, that may be a character you unjustly charge me with. Your books I can assure you are neither pawn'd nor sold, but in the custody of a friend from whom my necessities oblig'd me to borrow some money, whatever becomes of my person, you shall have them in a month. It is very possible both the reports you have heard and your own suggestions may have brought you false information with respect to my character, it is very possible that the man whom you now regard with detestation may inwardly burn with grateful resentment, it is very possible that upon a second perusal of the letter I sent you, you may see the workings of a mind strongly agitated with gratitude and jealousy, if such circumstances should appear at least spare invective 'till my book with Mr. Dodsley shall be publish'd, and then perhaps you may see the bright side of a mind when my professions shall not appear the dictates of necessity but of choice. You seem to think Dr. Milner knew me not. Perhaps so; but he was a man I shall ever honour; but I have friendship only with the dead! I ask pardon for taking up so much time. Nor shall I add to it by any other professions than that I am Sir your Humble Serv1.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

P.S. I shall expect impatiently the result of your resolutions.

Now, this Ralph Griffiths the bookseller, whom the diploma of some American university as obscure as himself made subsequently Doctor Griffiths, was one of the most thriving men of the day. In little more than three years after this he was able to retire from bookselling, and hand over to Becket the publication of his Review. As time wore on, he became a more and more regular attendant at the meeting-house, rose higher and higher in the world's esteem, and at last kept his two carriages, and "lived in "style." But he lived, too, to see the changes of thirty years after the grave had received the author of the Vicar of Wakefield; and though he had some recollections of the errors of his youth to disturb his decorous and religious peace of mind,—such as having become the proprietor of an infamous novel, and dictated the praise of it in his Review,-such as having exposed himself to a remark reiterated in Grainger's letters to Bishop Percy, that he was not to be trusted in any verbal agreement upon matters of his trade, it may not have been the least bitter of his remembrances, if it ever happened to occur to him, that to Oliver Goldsmith, in the depths of a helpless distress, he had applied the epithets of sharper and villain.

From Goldsmith himself they fell harmless. His letter is most affecting but the truth is manfully outspoken in it, and for that reason it is less painful to me than those in which the truth is concealed. When such a mind is brought to look its sorrow in

the face, and understand clearly the condition in which it is,without further shrinking, doubling, or weak compromise with false hopes, it is master of a great gain. In the accession of strength it receive, it may see the sorrow anyway increase, and calm its worst apprehension. The most touching passage of that letter is the reference to his project, and the bright side of his mind it may reveal. I will date from it the true beginning of Goldsmith's literary career. Not till he was past thirty, he was wont to say, did he become really attached to literature: not till then was the discipline of his endurance complete, his wandering impulses settled firmly to the right object of their aptitude, or his real destiny revealed to him. He might have still to perish in unconquered difficulties, and with the word that was in him unspoken; but it would be at his post, and in a manly effort to speak the word. Whatever the personal weaknesses that yet remain,- -nor are they few or trifling,-his confidence and self-reliance in literary pursuits date from this memorable time. They rise above the cares and cankers of his life, above the lowness of his worldly esteem, far above the squalor of his homes. They take the undying forms which accident or wrong cannot alter or deface; they are the tenants of a world where distress and failure are unknown; and perpetual cheerfulness sings around them. "The night can never endure so long but at length the "morning cometh ;" and with these sudden and sharp disappointments of his second London Christmas, there came into Green Arbour-court the first struggling beams of morning. Till all its brightness follows, let him moan and sorrow as he may ;-the more familiar to himself he makes those images of want and danger, the better he will meet them in the lists where they still await him; the more he cultivates those solitary friendships with the dead, the more elevating and strengthening the influence that will reward him from their graves. The living, busy, prosperous world about him, might indeed have saved him much, by stretching forth its helping hand: but it had not taught him little in its lesson of unrequited expectation, and there was nothing now to distract him with delusive hope from meditation of the wisest form of revenge.

The "impatient expectation" of the result of Griffiths's resolutions, ended in a contract to write him a Life of Voltaire for a translation of the Henriade he was about to publish the payment being twenty pounds, and the price of the clothes to be deducted from that sum. His brother Henry wrote to him of the Polite Learning scheme, while engaged on this trade task; and the answer he made at its close, written early in February 1759, is in some sort the indication of his altered mind and purpose. There is still

evidence of his personal weakness in the idle distrusts and suspicion it charges on himself, and in its false pretences to conceal his rejection and sustain his poor Irish credit: yet the general tone of it marks not the less, a new, a sincerer, and a more active epoch in his life. Whilst the quarrel with Griffiths was still proceeding, he had again written of the Polite Learning essay, and sent some scheme of a new poem to Henry (first fruit of the better uses of his adversity); but absolute silence as to the Coromandel appointment appears to have suggested a doubt in his brother's answer, to which very cursory and slight allusion is made in this reply. The personal portrait, in which the "big wig" of his Bankside days plays its part, will hardly support his character for personal vanity!

The behaviour of Mr. Mills and Mr. Lawder is a little extraordinary. However, their answering neither you nor me is a sufficient indication of their disliking the employment which I assigned them. As their conduct is different from what I had expected, so I have made an alteration in mine. I shall the beginning of next month send over two hundred and fifty books, which are all that I fancy can be well sold among you, and I would have you make some distinction in the persons who have subscribed. The money, which will amount to sixty pounds, may be left with Mr. Bradley, as soon as possible. I am not certain but I shall quickly have occasion for it. I have met with no disappointment with respect to my East India voyage; nor are my resolutions altered; though, at the same time, I must confess it gives me some pain to think I am almost beginning the world at the age of thirty-one. Though I never had a day's sickness since I saw you, yet I am not that strong and active man you once knew me. You scarcely can conceive how much eight years of disappointment, anguish, and study, have worn me down. If I remember right, you are seven or eight years older than me, yet I dare venture to say, that if a stranger saw us both, he would pay me the honours of seniority. Imagine to yourself a pale melancholy visage, with two great wrinkles between the eye-brows, with an eye disgustingly severe, and a big wig; and you may have a perfect picture of my present appearance. On the other hand, I conceive you as perfectly sleek and healthy, passing many a happy day among your own children, or those who knew you a child. Since I knew what it was to be a man, this is a pleasure I have not known. I have passed my days among a parcel of cool designing beings, and have contracted all their suspicious manner in my own behaviour. I should actually be as unfit for the society of my friends at home, as I detest that which I am obliged to partake of here. I can now neither partake of the pleasure of a revel, nor contribute to raise its jollity. I can neither laugh nor drink, have contracted a hesitating disagreeable manner of speaking, and a visage that looks ill-nature itself; in short, I have thought myself into a settled melancholy, and an utter disgust of all that life brings with it-Whence this romantic turn, that all our family are possessed with? Whence this love for every place and every country but that in which we reside? for every occupation but our own? this desire of fortune, and yet this eagerness to dissipate? I perceive, my dear sir, that I am at intervals for indulging this splenetic manner, and following my own taste, regardless of yours.

The reasons you have given me for breeding up your son as a scholar, are judicious and convincing. I should however be glad to know for what particular profession he is designed. If he be assiduous, and divested of strong

passions (for passions in youth always lead to pleasure), he may do very well in your college; for it must be owned, that the industrious poor have good encouragement there, perhaps better than in any other in Europe. But if he has ambition, strong passions, and an exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not send him there, unless you have no other trade for him except your own. It is impossible to conceive how much may be done by a proper education at home. A boy, for instance, who understands perfectly well Latin, French, Arithmetic, and the principles of the civil law, and can write a fine hand, has an education that may qualify him for any undertaking. And these parts of learning should be carefully inculcated, let him be designed for whatever calling he will. Above all things let him never touch a romance or novel; those paint beauty in colours more charming than nature, and describe happiness that man never tastes. How delusive, how destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss. They teach the youthful mind to sigh after beauty and happiness which never existed; to despise the little good which fortune has mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave; and in general, take the word of a man who has seen the world, and has studied human nature more by experience than precept, take my word for it, I say, that books teach us very little of the world. The greatest merit in a state of poverty would only serve to make the possessor ridiculous; may distress, but cannot relieve him. Frugality, and even avarice, in the lower orders of mankind, are true ambition. These afford the only ladder for the poor to rise to preferment. Teach then, my dear sir, to your son thrift and economy. Let his poor wandering uncle's example be placed before his eyes. I had learned from books to be disinterested and generous, before I was taught from experience the necessity of being prudent. I had contracted the habits and notions of a philosopher, while I was exposing myself to the insidious approaches of cunning; and often by being, even with my narrow finances, charitable to excess, I forgot the rules of justice, and placed myself in the very situation of the wretch who thanked me for my bounty. When I am in the remotest part of the world, tell him this, and perhaps he may improve from my example. But I find myself again falling into my gloomy habits of thinking.

:

My mother, I am informed, is almost blind; even though I had the utmost inclination to return home, under such circumstances I could not for to behold her in distress without a capacity of relieving her from it, would add too much to my splenetic habit. Your last letter was much too short, it should have answered some queries I had made in my former. Just sit down as I do, and write forward until you have filled all your paper; it requires no thought, at least from the ease with which my own sentiments rise when they are addressed to you. For, believe me, my head has no share in all I write; my heart dictates the whole. Pray, give my love to Bob Bryanton, and intreat him, from me, not to drink. My dear sir, give me some account about poor Jenny [his younger sister, who had married unprosperously]. Yet her husband loves her; if so, she cannot be unhappy.

I know not whether I should tell you-yet why should I conceal those trifles, or indeed anything from you?—There is a book of mine will be published in a few days, the life of a very extraordinary man; no less than the great Voltaire. You know already by the title, that it is no more than a catchpenny. However I spent but four weeks on the whole performance, for which I received twenty pounds. When published, I shall take some method of conveying it to you, unless you may think it dear of the postage, which may amount to four or five shillings. However, I fear you will not find an equivalence of amusement. Your last letter, I repeat it, was too short: you should have given me your opinion of the design of the heroicomical poem which I sent you you remember I intended to introduce the hero of the poem, as lying in a paltry alehouse. You may take the following specimen of the