introduce them to public favour made by some admirers in Scotland have failed, either from being deficient in true poetical power, or from the subject of the principal piece-the Sugar Cane-possessing little interest for general readers; and so slightly was poetry valued on the spot where the theme was sufficiently familiar, that though advertised for a charitable purpose, no more, as he admits, than twelve subscribers could be obtained in the West India Islands. With its fate in England he was better satisfied, as appears by the extract already given from his letters. It is now seldom read, orno imperfect test of merit-quoted. Neither has the Ode on Solitude retained firm hold on the public mind. The neglect is said by some of his countrymen-if indeed he be really a Scotsman-to be unjust; but to what other tribunal than the mass of readers shall we appeal? The version of Tibullus, though not without spirit and tenderness in parts, is deficient as a whole in that felicitous execution which stamps the genuine poet of a high order.

It was through Grainger that the acquaintance of the Rev. Mr. Percy with Goldsmith commenced in the year 1758. The latter alludes to his former friend in the description of fishes in Animated Nature, when speaking of such as are poisonous.‡

CHAPTER VII.

Visit of his Brother to London.-Letter to Mr. Hodson.-Memoirs of a Protestant. Grand Magazine.-Letters to Mr. Mills, to Mr. Bryanton, and to Mrs. Jane Lawder.-Appointment to India.-Letter to Mr. Hodson.-Attempts to pass Surgeon's Hall,

HAVING inadvertently mentioned in a letter to Mrs. Lawder, in Ireland, his acquaintance with several names eminent in literature, he was surprised shortly after by the arrival thence of his brother Charles. No previous intimation of the design preceded this visit, -the object of which was, with the characteristic simplicity of a

*An edition of his poems, with a new life prefixed, was undertaken and printed by Dr. Anderson, Editor of the British Poets, chiefly at the suggestion of Bishop Percy, by whom many new pieces were supplied; but the work has not been published. A long correspondence on this subject has been examined by the writer. A critic of the present day will find fault with the rhyme even of the first lines

"O Solitude, romantic maid !

Whether by nodding towers you tread."

"The fact of their (certain descriptions of fish) being poisonous when eaten is equally notorious; and the cause equally inscrutable. My poor worthy friend Dr. Grainger, who resided for many years at St. Christopher's assured me, that of the fish caught of the same kind at one end of the island, some were the best and most wholesome in the world; while others, taken at a different end, were always dangerous and most commonly fatal."

country youth, to be provided for by some of his brother's influential friends; for although at the age of twenty-one, he possessed neither provision nor profession to enable him to obtain it.

The error as to his brother's power of serving him was soon apparent. However eminent might be his friends, the honour of their acquaintance by no means implied the freedom of drawing upon their persons or their patronage, had they such to bestow; while Oliver, pressed by the difficulty of providing for his own wants, found no little embarrassment in the demands of another. When Charles expressed disappointment, as he told Mr. Bindley many years afterwards at not finding his brother in better circumstances, the latter gaily replied, "All in good time, my dear boy; I shall be richer by-and-by. Besides you see, I am not in positive want. Addison, let me tell you, wrote his poem of the Campaign in a garret in the Haymarket, three stories high; and you see I am not come to that yet, for I have only got to the second story."

The stay in London of Charles was not therefore protracted; and as he came without previous communication with his brother, quitted it in nearly a similar manner. Tinctured with an equal spirit of adventure, dispirited by ill success, loath to return to Ireland no better than he quttted it, and determined to try his fortune in some way, he is said to have embarked in a humble capacity for Jamaica. Here, and in others of the islands, he continued, by his own account, for above thirty years without communicating with his family, who consequently believed him dead. Thus Oliver writes to his brother Maurice in January, 1770:-"You talked of being my only brother; I don't understand you-where is Charles." There is reason, however, to believe that he visited Ireland previous to the voyage, otherwise it would seem incredible how the Poet could be so long unacquainted with his destination or supposed death. He did not revisit England till 1791, some of the particulars of which bear an air of romance; they belong, however, to a future page.

The presence of Charles in London, and the nature of his own pursuits there, are alluded to in the following letter of Oliver to his brother-in-law, which breathes great affection for his friends, a strong attachment to the scenes of his youth and with some sharp strictures on his country, no inconsiderable regard for it. It was written soon after quitting the Review. In the opening passage there is some obscurity. He talks of four years having elapsed since his last letters went to Ireland; this can apply only to such as were addressed to Mr. Hodson, which was correct; but he had written from the Continent to his brother Henry, to Mr. Contarine, to Mrs. Lawder, and, it is believed, to Mr. Mills of Roscommon.

“To Daniel Hodson, Esq., at Lishoy, near Ballymahon, Ireland. "DEAR SIR,

"It may be four years since my last letters went to Ireland,

to you in particular. I received no answer; probably because you never wrote to me. My brother Charles, however, informs me of the fatigue you were at in soliciting a subscription to assist me, not only among my friends and relatives, but acquaintance in general. Though my pride might feel some repugnance at being thus relieved, yet my gratitude can suffer no diminution. How much am I obliged to you, to them, for such generosity, or (why should not your virtues have their proper name?) for such charity to me at that juncture. Sure I am born to ill fortune, to be so much a debtor and unable to repay. But to say no more of this: too many professions of gratitude are often considered as indirect petitions for future favours. Let me only add, that my not receiving that supply was the cause of my present establishment at London. You may easily imagine what difficulties I had to encounter, left as I was without friends, recommendations, money, or imprudence; and that in a country where being born an Irishman was sufficient to keep me unemployed. Many in such circumstances would have had recourse to the friar's cord, or the suicide's halter. But with all my follies I had principle to resist the one, and resolution to combat the other.

"I suppose you desire to know my present situation. As there is nothing in it at which I should blush, or which mankind could censure, I see no reason for making it a secret. In short, by a very little practice as a physician, and a very little reputation as a poet, I make a shift to live. Nothing is more apt to introduce us to the gates of the muses than poverty; but it were well if they only left us at the door. The mischief is, they sometimes choose to give us their company to the entertainment; and want, instead of being gentlemanusher, often turns master of the ceremonies.

“Thus, upon learning I write, no doubt you imagine I starve ; and the name of an author naturally reminds you of a garret. In this particular I do not think proper to undeceive my friends. But whether I eat or starve, live in a first floor or four pair of stairs high, I still remember them with ardour; nay, my very country comes in for a share of my affection. Unaccountable fondness for country, this maladie du pais, as the French call it! Unaccountable that he should still have an affection for a place who never, when in it, received above common civility; who never brought any thing out of it except his brogue and his blunders. Surely my affection is equally ridiculous with the Scotchman's, who refused to be cured of the itch, because it made him unco' thoughtful of his wife and bonny Inverary.

"But now to be serious,-let me ask myself what gives me a wish to see Ireland again? The country is a fine one, perhaps? no. There are good company in Ireland? no. The conversation there is generally made up of a smutty toast or a bawdy song; the vivacity sup ported by some humble cousin, who had just folly enough to earn his dinner. Then perhaps there's more wit and learning among the Irish? Oh, lord, no! There has been more money spent in the encouragement of the Padareen mare there one season, than given in

rewards to learned men since the time of Usher. All their productions in learning amount to perhaps a translation, or a few tracts in divinity; and all their productions in wit to just nothing at all. Why the plague, then, so fond of Ireland? Then all at once, because you, my dear friend, and a few more who are exceptions to the general picture, have a residence there. This it is that gives me all the pangs I feel in separation. I confess I carry this spirit sometimes to the souring the pleasures I at present possess. If I go to the opera where Signora Columba pours out all the mazes of melody, I sit and sigh for Lishoy fireside, and Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night, from Peggy Golden. If I climb Hampstead-hill, than where nature never exhibited a more magnificent prospect, I confess it fine; but then I had rather be placed on the little mount before Lishoy gate, and there take in-to me-the most pleasing horizon in nature. "Before Charles came hither, my thoughts sometimes found refuge from severer studies among my friends in Ireland. I fancied strange revolutions at home; but I find it was the rapidity of my own motion that gave an imaginary one to objects really at rest. No alterations there. Some friends, he tells me, are still lean, but very rich; others very fat, but still very poor. Nay, all the news I hear of you is, that you sally out in visits among the neighbours, and sometimes make a migration from the blue bed to the brown. I could from my heart wish that you and she (Mrs. Hodson,) and Lishoy and Ballymahon, and all of you, would fairly make a migration into Middlesex; though, upon second thoughts, this might be attended with a few inconveniences. Therefore, as the mountain will not come to Mahomet, why Mahomet shall go to the mountain; or, to speak plain English, as you cannot conveniently pay me a visit, if next summer I can contrive to be absent six weeks from London, I shall spend three of them among my friends in Ireland. But first, believe me, my design is purely to visit, and neither to cut a figure nor levy contributions,-neither to excite envy nor solicit favour; in fact, my circumstances are adapted to neither. I am too poor to be gazed at, and too rich to need assistance.

We must not be displeased with Goldsmith for a sketch so remarkably corroborated by that of another of our able and intelligent countrymen, Lord Orrery. The coincidence is curious being written not long before, though not published till long afterwards, and could only arise from the representation being correct. It is useless to complain of this, irritable and sensitive as the national temperament is to reproof: the knowledge of our faults is a necessary step towards their corerction; and it should never be forgotten, that where letters are not cultivated with something like warmth by the gentry, the lower orders must be proportionably low in the scale of intelligence, to which no doubt, many of their excesses and irregularities in Ireland, are owing. Lord Orrery writes, May 1747, from his seat at Caledon:

"I have lately passed a fortnight in Dublin. All my leisure time was employed in the booksellers' shops, and particularly in search of such books as you have mentioned to me. Many of them are not to be found on our Hibernian coast. When St. Patrick banished poisonous animals, the saint in his fury probably cursed books into the bargain. He certainly wished ignorance might succeed him; and I am sorry to tell you that scarce a gentleman in Ireland (although he be a better Protestant than ever St. Patrick dreaded) goes further in literature than Urban's English Magazine, or Faulkner's Irish Journal."

"You see, dear Dan, how long I have been talking about myself; but attribute my vanity to my affection: as every man is fond of himself, and I consider you as a second self, I imagine you will consequently be pleased with these instances of egotism.

*

My dear Sir, these things give me real uneasiness, and I could wish to redress them. But at present there is hardly a kingdom in Europe in which I am not a debtor. I have already discharged my most threatening and pressing demands, for we must be just before we can be grateful. For the rest, I need not say (you know I am) "Your affectionate kinsman, "OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

"Temple Exchange Coffee-house,

near Temple Bar,

(where you may direct an answer,) December 27, 1757."

At this period he was occupied on a translation of some length from the French, bearing the following very ample and descriptive title-page; it came out toward the end of February, 1758:

"The Memoirs of a Protestant, condemned to the Galleys of France for his Religion. Written by himself. Comprehending an account of the various distresses he suffered in slavery, and his constancy in supporting almost every cruelty that bigoted zeal could inflict, or human nature sustain; also a description of the galleys, and the service in which they are employed. The whole interspersed with anecdotes relative to the general history of the times for a period of thirteen years, during which the author continued in slavery, till he was at last set free at the intercession of the Court of Great Britain. In two volumes. Translated from the original, just published at the Hague, by James Willington."

Griffiths, who had a proprietary interest in the work, and whose name appears in the titlepage as one of the publishers, acknowledged it to be by Goldsmith; the copyright however, as Isaac Reed ascertained, was sold by him to C. Dilly, the bookseller in the Poultry, for twenty guineas. Boswell, who was afterwards much connected with the Dillys, alludes probably to this among other pieces of the Poet which he had through that channel the opportunity of tracing, in a letter to Bishop Percy, of March 12, 1790, when the project alluded to seemed advancing to completion. "Pray, how does your edition of Goldsmith go on? I am in the way of getting at many additional works of his, which I shall communicate to your lordship."

The original in French, forming an octavo volume of nearly six hundred pages, now rendered into English in two duodecimos, was noticed in the Monthly Review of the preceding year; the version is executed with vigour, owing much no doubt to the taste and skill of the translator, who whatever be his correctness of interpretation, exhibits his usual ease and perspicuity of style. Griffiths, in an ar

• MS. Correspondence, in the possession of W. R. Mason, Esq.