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of Auburn; and betake himself meanwhile to less agreeable daily duties, in a spirit that would make them, also, the not indifferent source of profit and delight.

'Speedily will be published,' said the Public Advertiser of the 7th of February 1759, 'Memoirs of the Life of 'Monsieur de Voltaire, with critical observations on the 'writings of that celebrated poet, and a new Translation ' of the Henriade. Printed for R. Griffiths, in Paternoster 'Row.' Nevertheless, the publication did not take place. The Translation was by Purdon: the poor uncertain hack, whose notoriety rests on Goldsmith's epigram, as his hunger was, even at this time, supposed to be mainly appeased by a share of Goldsmith's crust. It was probably not completed in time. Some months later, it appeared in a Magazine, and the Life was given to the public through the same bookselling channel; but it is clear that Goldsmith, when he wrote to his brother, had really performed his share of the contract. It was but a catchpenny matter, as he called it; yet with passages of interesting narrative as well as just remark, and gracefully written. It announces that early admiration of the genius of Voltaire and Rousseau, which he consistently maintained against some celebrated friends of his later life it contains the best existing notice known to me of Voltaire's residence in England: and for proof of the time at which it was written, passages might be given in exact paraphrase of the argument of his Polite Learning; such sayings from the last-quoted letter to his

brother, as 'frugality in the lower orders of mankind may be considered as a substitute for ambition;' and such apophthegms from his recent sharp experience, as 'the 'school of misery is the school of wisdom.'

The Polite Learning was now completed, and passing through the press: the Dodsleys of Pall Mall, who gave Johnson ten guineas for the poem of London, having taken it under their charge. This too was the time when, being accidentally in company with Grainger at the Temple Exchange Coffee House, he was introduced to Thomas Percy, afterward collector of the Reliques, and Bishop of Dromore. Percy, who had a great love of letters and of literary men, was attracted to this new acquaintance; for before he returned to his rectory of Eastern Mauduit in Northamptonshire, he discovered his address in Green Arbour Court, and resolved to call upon him. I called on Goldsmith,' said the grave church dignitary, and descendant of the ancient Earls of Northumberland, when asked to relate the visit some years after his friend's death, 'in the beginning of March 1759, and found him in lodgings so poor and miserable, ' that I should not think it proper to mention the circumstance, if I did not consider it as the highest proof of 'the splendour of Doctor Goldsmith's genius and talents, that by the bare exertion of their powers, under every 'disadvantage of person and fortune, he could gradually emerge from such obscurity, to the enjoyment of all 'the comforts, and even luxuries of life, and admission

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into the best societies of London. He was writing his

Enquiry in a miserable dirty-looking room, in which there was but one chair; and when, from civility, he ' resigned it to me, he was himself obliged to sit on the 'window. While we were conversing together, some one

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'gently tapped at the door, and being desired to come in, ' a poor ragged little girl, of a very becoming demeanour,

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' entered the room, and dropping a curtsey, said, "My ""mama sends her compliments, and begs the favour of ""you to lend her a chamberpot full of coals."'

If the February number of the Critical Review lay by the reverend, startled, and long-descended visitor, perhaps good-natured Goldsmith, as he scraped together his

answer to that humble petition, pointed with a smile to a description of the fate of poets which he had just published there. There is a strong similitude,' he had said, reviewing a new edition of the Fairy Queen, between 'the lives of almost all our English poets. The Ordinary ' of Newgate, we are told, has but one story, which serves 'for the life of every hero that happens to come within the 'circle of his pastoral care; and however unworthy the re'semblance appears, it may be asserted that the history of ' one poet might serve with as little variation for that of any other. Born of creditable parents, who gave him a pious ' education; in spite of all their endeavours, in spite of all 'the exhortations of the minister of the parish on Sundays, 'he turned his mind from following good things, and fell 'to... writing verses! Spenser lived poor, was reviled by 'the critics of the time, and died in the utmost distress.'

He was again working for Hamilton. Smollett himself had not seen his new reviewer, but the success of the Ovid papers proclaimed the value of his assistance, and sent the publisher to Green Arbour Court. He had resumed with this notice of Spenser; a discriminating proof of his appreciation of all great mastery in the divine art. Popular and practical himself, he wonders not the less at the 'Great Magician:' suddenly taken from the 'ways of the present world,' and far from Drury Lane alehouses or Auburn villages, in the sequestered remoteness of a gorgeous and luxurious fancy he thinks of Virgil, and even Homer, as moderns in comparison with

Elizabeth's Englishman: and when he wakes from this Elysium, and comes back to the ways of the world, his conclusions are, that 'no poet enlarges the imagination 'more than Spenser'; that 'Cowley was formed into 'poetry by reading him'; that Gray and Akenside have profited by their study of him; and that 'his verses may one 'day come to be considered the standard of English poetry.' Following this review, was a notice of young Langhorne's translation of Bion's Elegy on Adonis; wherein he happily contrasted the false and florid tastes of the day with the pure simplicity of the Greek. If a hero or poet happens 'to die with us, the whole board of elegiac poets raise the dismal chorus, adorn his hearse with all the paltry 'escutcheons of flattery, rise into bombast, and paint him at the head of thundering legions, or reining Pegasus in 'his rapid career. They are sure to strew cypress enough ' upon the bier, dress up all the muses in mourning, and 'look as dismal and sorrowful themselves as an under'taker's shop. But neither pomp nor flattery agrees with 'real affliction it is not thus that Marcellus, even that 'Marcellus who was adopted by the emperor of the world, is bewailed by Propertius. His beauty, his 'strength, his milder virtues, had caught the poet's affec'tions, and inspired his affliction. Were a person to die ' in these days, though he was never at a battle in his life, 'our elegiac writers would be sure to make one for the 'occasion.' Subsequently, and with as happy and clear a spirit, he discussed a book on Oratory by a Gresham

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