תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

yet, for the soul of me,' I can't till I have said all. 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 in which 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 gratitude alone, when I was conscious of having bestowed it on much more disinterested principles. It is true, this conduct might have been simple enough; but yourself must confess it was in character. Those who know me at all, know that I have always been actuated by different principles from the rest of mankind; and while none regarded the interest of his friend more, no man on earth regarded his own less. I have often affected bluntness to avoid the imputation of flattery; have frequently seemed to overlook those merits too obvious to escape notice, and pretended disregard to those instances of good nature and good sense, which I could not fail tacitly to applaud; and all this lest I should be ranked among the grinning tribe, who say 'very true' to all that is said; who fill a vacant chair at a tea-table; whose narrow souls never moved in a wider circle than the circumference of a guinea; and who had rather be reckoning the money in your pocket than the virtue of your breast. All this, I say, I have done, and a thousand other very silly, though very disinterested, things in my time; and for all which no soul cares a farthing about me.

God's curse, Madam! is it to be wondered that he should once in his life forget you, who has been all his life forgetting himself? However, it is probable you may one of these days see me turned into a perfect hunks, and as dark and intricate as a mouse-hole. I have already given my landlady orders for an entire reform in the state of my finances. I declaim against hot suppers, drink less sugar in my tea, and check my grate with brick bats. Instead of hanging my room with pictures, I intend to adorn it with maxims of frugality. Those will make pretty furniture enough, and won't be a bit too expensive; for I will draw them all out with my own hands, and my landlady's daughter shall frame them with the parings of my black waistcoat. Each maxim is to be inscribed on a sheet of clean paper, and wrote with my best pen; of which the following will serve as a specimen. Look sharp: Mind the main chance: Money is money now: If you have a thousand pounds you can put your hands by your sides, and say you are worth a thousand pounds every day of the year: Take a farthing from a hundred and it will be a hundred no longer. Thus, which way soever I turn my eyes, they are sure to meet one of those friendly monitors; and as we are told of an actor who hung his room round with looking-glass to correct the defects of his person, my apartment shall be furnished in a peculiar manner, to correct the errors of my mind. Faith! Madam, I heartily wish to be rich, if it were only for this reason, to say without a blush how much I esteem you. But, alas! I have many a fatigue to encounter before that happy time comes, when your poor old simple friend may again give a loose to the luxuriance of his nature; sitting by Kilmore fire-side, recount the various adventures of a hard-fought life; laugh over the follies of the day; join his flute to your harpsichord; and forget that ever he starved in those streets where Butler and Otway starved before him. And now I mention those great names... my Uncle! he is no more that soul of fire as when once I knew him. Newton and Swift grew dim with

age as well as he. But what shall I say? His mind was too active an inhabitant not to disorder the feeble mansion of its abode: for the richest jewels soonest wear their settings. Yet who but the fool would lament his condition! He now forgets the calamities of life. Perhaps indulgent Heaven has given him a foretaste of that tranquillity here, which he so well deserves hereafter... But I must come to business; for business, as one of my maxims tells me, must be minded or lost. I am going to publish in London, a book entitled The Present State of Taste and Literature in Europe. The booksellers in Ireland republish every performance there without making the author any consideration. I would, in this respect, disappoint their avarice, and have all the profits of my labour to myself. I must therefore request Mr. Lauder to circulate among his friends and acquaintances a hundred of my proposals, which I have given the bookseller, Mr. Bradley in Dame Street, directions to send to him. If, in pursuance of such circulation, he should receive any subscriptions, I entreat, when collected, they may be sent to Mr. Bradley, as aforesaid, who will give a receipt, and be accountable for the work, or a return of the subscription. If this request (which, if it be complied with, will in some measure be an encouragement to a man of learning) should be disagreeable or troublesome, I would not press it; for I would be the last man on earth to have my labours go a-begging; but if I know Mr. Lauder (and sure I ought to know him), he will accept the employment with pleasure. All I can say if he writes a book, I will get him two hundred subscribers, and those of the best wits in Europe. Whether this request is complied with or not, I shall not be uneasy; but there is one petition I must make to him and to you, which I solicit with the warmest ardour, and in which I cannot bear a refusal. I mean, dear Madam, that I may be allowed to subscribe myself, your ever affectionate and obliged kinsman, OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Now see how I blot and blunder, when I am asking a favour."

[ocr errors]

In none of these letters, it will be observed, is allusion made to the expected appointment. To make jesting boast of a visionary influence with two hundred of the best wits in Europe, was pleasanter than to make grave confession of himself, as a wit taking sudden flight from the scene of defeat and failure. It was the old besetting weakness. But shortly after the date of the last letter, the appointment was received. It was that of medical officer to one of the factories on the coast of Coromandel; was forwarded by Doctor Milner's friend, Mr. Jones, an East India Director; and the worthy schoolmaster did not outlive. more than a few weeks this honest redemption of his promise. It was now necessary that the matter should be broken to his Irish friends; and he wrote to his brother Henry. The letter is lost; but some passages of one of nearly the same date to Mr. Hodson, have had a better fortune.

'Dear Sir,' it began, in obvious allusion to some staid and rather gratuitous reproach from the prosperous brother-in-law, You cannot expect regularity in one who is 'regular in nothing. Nay, were I forced to love you by 'rule, I dare venture to say I could never do it sincerely. 'Take me, then, with all my faults. Let me write when I 'please; for you see I say what I please, and am only thinking aloud when writing to you. I suppose you have heard of my intention of going to the East Indies. The place " of my destination is one of the factories on the coast of 'Coromandel, and I go in quality of physician and surgeon;

'for which the Company has gned my warrant, which 'has already cost me ten pounds. I must also pay fifty 'pounds for my passage, and ten pounds for my sea stores; and the other incidental expenses of my equipment will 'amount to sixty or seventy pounds more. The salary 'is but trifling, namely a hundred pounds a year; 'but the other advantages, if a person be prudent, are 'considerable. The practice of the place, if I am rightly 'informed, generally amounts to not less than a thousand 'pounds a year, for which the appointed physician 'has an exclusive privilege. This, with the advantages ' resulting from trade, and the high interest which money 'bears (namely twenty per cent), are the inducements 'which persuade me to undergo the fatigues of sea, the 'dangers of war, and the still greater dangers of the 'climate; which induce me to leave a place where I am every day gaining friends and esteem, and where I 'might enjoy all the conveniences of life.'

[ocr errors]

The time for fine clothes had not come; but the same weakness prompted fine words, in that hour of dire extremity. Of the 'friends and esteem' he was gaining; of the conveniences of life' that were awaiting him to enjoy; these pages have told, and have more to tell. But why, in the confident hope of brighter days, dwell on the darkness of the past? or show the squalor that still surrounded him? Of already sufficiently low esteem were wit and intellect in Ireland, to give purse-fed ignorance another triumph over them, or again needlessly invite to

« הקודםהמשך »