"To the last moment of his breath,
On Hope the wretch relies ;
And e'en the pang preceding death
Bids expectation rise.

Hope, like the glimmering taper's light,
Adorns and cheers our way;

And still as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray."

The night was very dark round Goldsmith just now, yet the ray was shining steadily too. In few of the years of his life have we more decisive evidence of struggles and distress; in none did he accomplish so much for an enduring fame. But it is a year very difficult to describe with any accuracy of detail. We have little to guide us beyond the occasional memoranda of publishers and the accounts of Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming. To the Islington lodging he returned at the beginning of April (having paid 'rent' for the retention of 'the room,' meanwhile, at the rate of about three shillings a week); and his expenses to the end of June are contained in his landlady's bill. They seem to argue fewer enjoyments, and less credit with Mrs. Fleming. dinners or teas are thrown into the bargain. The 'sixpence' for 'sassafras' (a humble decoction which the poet does not seem to have despised, now dealt in by apothecaries chiefly) is always carefully charged. The loans are only four, and of moderate amount; a shilling to pay the laundress,' and ten-pence, one and two-pence, and sixpence, 'in cash.' There are none of the old entries for port wine. Two-pence, twice, for a pint of ale,' and two-pence for 'opodeldock,'

No

express his very humble 'extras.' The impression left by this bill is borne out by Newbery's concurrent memoranda of money advanced; in sums ridiculously small, and for such work as the revision of short translations, and papers for the Christian Magazine. What were not unusual in the previous year, as cash advances of one, two, and even four and five guineas, from the publisher, have now dwindled down to 'shillings' and 'half-crowns;' and it is matter of doubt whether Newbery, to satisfy outstanding claims, did not engage him for some part of his time in work for his juvenile library. The author of Caleb Williams, who had been a child's publisher himself, had always a strong persuasion that Goldsmith wrote Goody Two Shoes (an ingenious living critic has claimed Tom Hickathrift for Fielding); and if so, the effort belongs to the present year; for Mrs. Margery, radiant with gold and ginger-bread, and rich in pictures as extravagantly ill-drawn as they are dear and well-remembered, made her appearance at Christmas. Other aid was also sought to eke out that of Newbery; and a sum of thirteen guineas is acknowledged from Mr. Griffin (joint publisher in the Essays the following year), but without mention of the labours it rewarded.

That, in all these memoranda, the entire labours of the year cannot yet be accounted for, it is hardly necessary to add we are left to guess what other work was in progress, for which advances were not available; and in this, an anecdote told by Reynolds will be some assistance. He went out to call upon Goldsmith, he says, not having seen

him for some time; and no one answering at his door, he opened it without announcement, and walked in. His friend was at his desk, but with hand uplifted, and a look directed to another part of the room; where a little dog sat with difficulty on his haunches, looking imploringly at his teacher, whose rebuke for toppling over he had evidently just received. Reynolds advanced, and looked past Goldsmith's shoulder at the writing on his desk. It seemed to be some portions of a poem. He looked more closely,

and was able to read a couplet which had been that instant written. The ink of the second line was wet.

This visit of Reynolds is one of the few direct evidences which the year affords of his usual intercourse with his more distinguished friends. There is no reason to doubt, however, that he had been pretty constant in his attendance at the Club during the past winter; he was a member of the Society of Arts, and had been often at their meetings; and his miseries and necessities must have been great indeed, that would have kept him long a stranger to the Theatre.

The last season had been one of peculiar interest. The year 1763 had opened with evil omen to Garrick. For the first time since the memorable performance at Goodman's Fields, now twenty-two years ago, when, in the midst of unexampled enthusiasm, his eye fell upon a little deformed figure in a side box, was met by the approving glance of an eye as bright as his own, and, in the admiration of Alexander Pope, his heart swelled with the sense of fame, Garrick, at the commencement of that year, felt his influence shaken and his ground insecure. On a question of prices, the Fribble whom Churchill has gibbetted in the Rosciad led a riotous opposition in his theatre, to which he was compelled to offer a modified submission; and not many weeks later, after appearing in a comedy by Mrs. Sheridan and giving it out to be his last appearance in any new play (the character was a solemn old coxcomb, and one of his happiest performances), he announced his determination to go abroad for two years. The pretence was health; but the real cause (resentment

of what he thought the public indifference, and a resolve that they should feel his absence) is surmised in a note of Lord Bath's which lies before me, addressed to his nephew Colman, the ad interim manager of the theatre.

Garrick left London in the autumn; and his first letter to Colman from Paris describes the honours which were showering upon him, the plays revived to please him, the veteran actors recalled to act before him. He had supped with Marmontel and d'Alembert; 'the Clairon' was at the supper and recited them a charming scene from Athalie; and he had himself given the dagger scene in Macbeth, the curse in Lear, and the falling asleep in Sir John Brute, with such extraordinary effect, that the most wonderful 'wonder of wonders' was nothing to it. Yet on the very day that letter was written (the 8th of October, 1763), a more wonderful wonder was enacting on his own theatre. A young bankers' clerk named Powell, to whom, on hearing him rehearse, he had given an engagement before he left London of three pounds a week for three years, appeared on that day in Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster, and took the audience by storm. Foote is described to have been the only unmoved spectator. The rest of the audience were not content with clapping; they stood up and shouted; and Foote's jeering went for nothing. Walpole describes the scene with what seems to be a satisfied secret persuasion (in which Goldsmith certainly shared) that Garrick had at last a dangerous rival. He calls the new actor 'what Mr. Pitt called my Lord Clive,' a heaven-born hero;