forth. You have not been the editor of newspapers and magazines, not to discover the trick of literary humbug. But the gauze is so thin, that the very foolish part of the world see through it, and discover the Doctor's monkey face and cloven foot. Your poetic vanity is as unpardonable as your personal. Would man believe it, and will woman bear it, to be told that for hours the great Goldsmith will stand surveying his grotesque Oranhotan's figure in a pierglass? Was but the lovely H-k as much enamoured, you would not sigh, my gentle swain, in vain. But your vanity is preposterous. How will this same bard of Bedlam ring the changes in praise of Goldy! But what has he to be either proud or vain of? The "Traveller" is a flimsy poem, built upon false principles; principles diametrically opposite to liberty. What is "The Good-natured Man," but a poor, water-gruel, dramatic dose? What is "The Deserted Village," but a pretty poem of easy numbers, without fancy, dignity, genius, or fire? And pray what may be the last speaking pantomime, so praised by the Doctor himself, but an incoherent piece of stuff, the figure of a woman with a fish's tail, without plot, incident, or intrigue? We are made to laugh at stale, dull jokes, wherein we mistake pleasantry for wit, and grimace for humour: wherein every scene is unnatural, and inconsistent with the rules, the laws of nature, and of the drama; viz. Two gentlemen come to a man of fortune's house, eat, drink, sleep, &c. and take it for an inn. The one is intended as a lover to the daughter; he talks with her for some hours, and when he sees her again in a different dress, he treats her as a bar-girl, and swears she squinted. He abuses the master of the house, and threatens to kick him out of his own doors. The 'Squire, whom we are told is to be a fool, proves to be the most sensible being of the piece; and he makes out a whole act by bidding his mother lie close behind a bush, persuading her, that his father, her own husband, is a highwayman, • Meaning 'She Stoops to Conquer.'

and that he is come to cut their throats; and to give his cousin an opportunity to go off, he drives his mother over hedges, ditches, and through ponds. There is not, sweet sucking Johnson, a natural stroke in the whole play, but the young fellow's giving the stolen jewels to the mother, supposing her to be the landlady. That Mr. Colman did no justice to this piece, I honestly allow; that he told all his friends it would be damned, I positively aver; and from such ungenerous insinuations, without a dramatic merit, it rose to public notice; and it is now the ton to go to see it, though I never saw a person, that either liked it or approved it, any more than the absurd plot of the Home's tragedy of Alonzo. Mr. Goldsmith, correct your arrogance, reduce your vanity, and endeavour to believe, as a man, you are of the plainest sort; and as an author, but a mortal piece of mediocrity. • Brisez le miroir infidele, Qui vous cache la verité.

TOM TICKLE.'

By one of thosed-d good-natured friends" who are described by Sir Fretful Plagiary, the newspaper containing the foregoing offensive letter was eagerly brought to Goldsmith, who otherwise perhaps had never seen or heard of it. Our hero went to the shop brimful of ire, and finding Evans behind his counter, thus addressed him: You have published a thing in your paper (my name is Goldsmith) reflecting upon a young lady. As for myself, I do not mind it'-Evans at this moment stooped down, intending probably to look for a paper, that he might see what the enraged author meant; when Goldsmith, observing his back to present a fair mark for his cane, laid it on lustily. The bibliopolist, however, soon defended himself, and a scuffle ensued, in which our author got his full share of blows. Dr. Kenrick, who was sitting in Evans's counting-house (and who was strongly suspected to have been the writer of the letter), now came forward, parted the combatants,

and sent Goldsmith home in a coach grievously bruised.

This attack upon a man in his own house furnished matter of discussion for some days to the newspapers; and an action at law was threatened to be brought for the assault; but by the interposition of friends the affair was compromised; and on Wednesday the 31st of March, Goldsmith inserted the following Address in the Daily Advertiser:

'TO THE PUBLIC.

'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 1 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 is 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 its 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 guar dian 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.

V OLIVER GOLDSMITH.'

Mr. Boswell having intimated to Dr. Johnson his suspicions that he was the real writer of this Address, the latter said, Sir, Dr. Goldsmith would no more have asked me to have written such a thing as that for him, than he would have asked me to feed him with a spoon, or to do any thing else that denoted his imbecility. I as much believe that he wrote it, as if I had seen him do it. Sir, had he shewn it to any one friend, he would not have been allowed to publish it. He has indeed done it very well; but it is a foolish thing well done. I suppose he has been so much elated with the success of his new comedy, that he has thought every thing that concerns him must be of importance to the public.'

About a month after this, to oblige Mr. Quick, the comedian, who had very successfully exerted himself in the character of Tony Lumpkin, Goldsmith, we, believe, reduced Sedley's Grumbler' to a farce; and it was performed for Mr. Quick's benefit on the 8th of May, but was never printed: indeed, some persons doubt whether Goldsmith did more than revise an alteration which had been made by some other person.

Our author now, oddly enough, took it into his head to reject the title of Doctor (with which he had been self-invested), and to assume the plain address of Mr. Goldsmith; but whatever his motive to this might be, he could not effect it with the public, who to the day of his death called him Doctor; and the same title is usually annexed to his name even now, though the degree of Bachelor of Physic was the highest ever actually conferred upon him.

After having compiled a History of Rome, and two Histories of England, he undertook, and completed in 1773, A History of the Earth and Animated Nature,' in 8 vols. 8vo. which was printed in 1774, and he received for it 850l.

The emoluments which he had derived from his writings for some few years past were, indeed, very considerable; but were rendered useless in effect, by an incautious liberality, which prevented his distinguishing proper from improper objects of his bounty; and also by an unconquerable itch for gaming, a pursuit in which his impatience of temper, and his want of skill, wholly disqualified him for succeeding.

His last production, Retaliation,' was written for his own amusement, and that of his friends who were the subjects of it. That he did not live to finish it is to be lamented; for it is supposed that he would have introduced more characters. What he has left, however, is nearly perfect in its kind; with wonderful art he has traced all the leading features of his several portraits, and given with truth the characteristic peculiarities of each: no man is lampooned, and no man is flattered. The occasion of the poem was a circumstance of festivity. A literary party with which he occasionally dined at the St. James's coffee-house one day proposed to write epitaphs on him. In these, his person, dialect, &c. were good-humouredly ridiculed; and as Goldsmith could not disguise his feelings on the occasion, he was called upon for a Retaliation, which he produced at the next meeting of the party; but this, with his Haunch of Venison,' and some