their ecstasies felt from Hunter-presbytery. No man better than square to Grub-street and St. Hume knew that. The first James's, for no rise in the price volume of his History had lain of claret had yet imperilled the hopelessly on Millar's 1757. continuance of those social shelves after sale of fortygatherings. Without stint or five copies in a twelve- Æt. 29. measure to their warmth the cool- month, when, on inquisitorial ing beverage flowed; and bottle proceedings of the General Asafter bottle (at eighteen-pence a sembly against Lord Kames and quart*) disappeared in honour of himself, the public in turn bethe Scottish Shakespeare, whom came inquisitive and began to the most illustrious of the Pokers buy. And surely as the History pronounced better than the Eng- of Hume must even puffery of lish because free from 66 un- Home have languished, but for "happy barbarism." Yes, refined that resolve of the presbytery to from the unhappy barbarism of eject from his pulpit a parson our southern Shakespeare, and who had written a play. This purged from the licentiousness carried Douglas to London for a of our poor London-starved Ot- nine nights' frantic wonder; and way, here at last was a master- the numbers and noise of the piece of the stage. It was David carriages on their way to the Hume's opinion, and still stands Norval of silver-tongued Barry at prefixed to the Four Dissertations Covent-garden, were now giving he was bringing out at the time, sudden headaches to David Garthat "Johnny Home" had all the rick in Drury-lane, and suggesttheatric genius of those two poets ing strange comparisons of silver so refined and purged. But little tongues to the hooting of owls. was even a philosopher's exalta- But out of reach of every intion, to the persecution of a fluence to raise or to depress, unless it be a passing thought travelled to Leyden, as he did, after now and then to his own tragic leaving the Edinburgh class-rooms; fragments, sits the critic with visited London from time to time, on the thin duodecimo before him. familiar terms with Garrick, Smollett, The popular stir affects even smith, up to within four years of the quiet Gray in his cloistered nook death of the latter, when his auto- of Pembroke-hall; but the sharp, biography closes; yet he never, from clear, graceful judgment now Let me borrow here that exquisite lodged and boarded at The burst of humour with which Johnson met Dunciad, shows itself quite unBoswell's grave assurances that Scotch moved. "When the town," it claret could really make a man drunk. "I assure you, sir, there was a great deal began, "by a tedious succession of drunkenness." "No, sir, there were "of indifferent performances, has "people who died of dropsies, which they been long confined to censure, contracted in trying to get drunk." Life, IV. 273. "it will naturally wish for an

smith, and outlived him thirty-one years;

and other friends common also to Gold

first to last, mentions Goldsmith's name.

1757.

"opportunity of praise." ."* That ing the writer, said that all this was is, as I understand it, the town, malignant;* but really no such sick of Doctor Brown's Athelstan spirit is apparent in it. Very and Barbarossa, of Mr. goodnaturedly does Goldsmith Whitehead's Creusa, of Mr. close with quotation of two of Et. 29. Crisp's Virginia, of Mr. the best passages in the poem, Glover's Boadicea, of Doctor emphatically marking with exFrancis's Eugenia, of Mr. Aaron cellent taste five lines of allusion Hill's Merope, of the Regulus of Mr. to the wars of Scotland and EngHavard, and the Mahomet of Mr. land.

forth

morn,

Miller, on which lean fare it has Gallant in strife, and noble in their ire, had perforce to diet itself for The Battle is their pastime. They go several seasons, turns to anything of the reasonable promise Gay in the morning, as to Summer sport: When evening comes, the glory of the of a Douglas with disposition to enjoy it if it can. But the more The youthful warrior, is a clod of clay.' marked, Goldsmith felt, was the If Boswell, on Johnson's chalcritical folly that could obtrude lenge to show any good lines out such a work as "perfect:" in of Douglas, had mustered sense proof of which he made brief but and discrimination to offer these, keen mention of its leading de- the Doctor could hardly have exfects; while to those who would ploded his emphatic pooh! Goldplead in arrest particular beauties smith differed little from Johnof diction, he directed a remark son in the matter, it is true: but which seems to belong to a his pooh was more polite. subtler style of criticism than his A Scottish Homer in due time own. "In works of this nature, followed the Shakespeare: Mr. "general observation often char- Griffiths submitting to his boarder, "acterises more strongly than a in a very thick duodecimo, The particular criticism could do; Epigoniad, A Poem in Nine Books. "for it were an easy task to Doctor Wilkie's ** laboured ver"point out those passages in "any indifferent author where he *Common-Place Book, III. 713. He was "has excelled himself, and yet Monthly, in which he had himself become "these comparative beauties, if a writer. In the same passage he calls we may be allowed the ex-Griffiths's shop "the appropriate sign of "pression, may have no real **There are several allusions to him in "merit at all. Poems, like build-Carlyle's Autobiography, and notably in "ings, have their point of view; the description of a magistrate's feast at "and too near a situation gives Musselburgh when Charles Townshend was present, and among the company, "but a partial conception of the besides Wilkie, were Home, Robertson, "whole."** Southey, not know- Ferguson, and (I may add) a gallant Col. Parr who "literally wept and shed bitter "tears" because the haunch of venison that Townshend had given to the feast

Monthly Review, XVI. 426, May 1757. ** Ibid, XVI. 428, May 1757,

at the time out of humour with the

"the Dunciad."

1757.

Æt.

29.

sification of the adventures of "trary, if he be detected of the descendants of the Theban "ignorance when he pretends to warriors got into Anderson's col- "learning, his case will deserve lection, the editor being a Scotch- "our pity: too antique to man: though candid enough to "please one party, and too say of it, that "too antique to "modern for the other, he "please the unlettered reader, "is deserted by both, read by "and too modern for the scholar, "few, and soon forgotten by all, "it was neglected by both, read "except his enemies." Perhaps "by few, and soon forgotten by if his friends had forgotten him, "all."* Yet this not very pro- the Doctor might have profited. found editor might have been "The Epigoniad," continued Goldmore candid, and told us that his smith, " 'seems to be one of those sentence was stolen and adapted "new old-performances; a work from the Monthly Review. After "that would no more have pleased discussion of the claims justly "a peripatetic of the academic due and always conceded to a "grove, than it will captivate the writer of genuine learning, Gold- "unlettered subscriber to one smith remarked: "on the con- "of our circulating libraries.”* was sent up underdone. "Townshend Nevertheless the Scottish clique "said to me afterwards that he had made a stand for their rough "never met with a man who approached Homeric doctor. Smith, Robert"so near the two extremes of a god and "a brute as Wilkie did." p. 394. For a Son, and Home were vehement very curious account of Wilkie, who was in laudation; Charles Townshend the son of a farmer near Edinburgh, and ("who," writes Hume to Adam is said to have conceived the subject of his poem while he stood as a scarecrow Smith, **"passes for the cleverest against the pigeons in one of his father's "fellow in England") said aye fields of wheat, see a letter of Hume in to all their praises; and when, his Life by Burton, n. 25-9. "Wilkie," adds Hume at the close of his letter some months afterwards, Hume (dated 3rd July, 1757), "is now a settled came up to London to bring out "minister at Ratho, within four miles of the Tudor volumes of his History, "the town. He possesses about £80 or £90 "a-year, which he esteems exorbitant he published puffs of Wilkie "riches. Formerly, when he had only under assumed signatures both "£20 as helper, he said that he could in the Critical Review and in "not conceive what article, either of

66

He

"human convenience or pleasure, he was various magazines, and reported "deficient in, nor what any man could progress to the Edinburgh circle. mean by desiring more money. It was somewhat "uphill work," possesses several branches of erudition, "besides the Greek poetry; and par- he told Adam Smith; *** and "ticularly is a very profound geome- with much mortification hinted "trician. Yet this man, who has to Robertson that the verdict of "composed the second epic poem in our "language, understands so little of ortho"graphy," &c. &c. The great painter of the Rent Day was his nephew,

...

* British Poets, XI. Prefatory notice to Wilkie,

*Monthly Review, XVII. 228, September 1757. **Burton's Life, 11. 58. *** Ibid. 56.

1757. 66

the Monthly Review (vulgarly in- Goldsmith became something terpolated, I should mention, by and somebody his friends still Griffiths himself*) would have charged it upon him. They may upon the whole to stand. have had some reason, for he However," he adds, in was never subtle and seldom even Et. 29. his letter to Robertson, reliable in literary judgments; "if you want a little flattery to but as yet, at any rate, the par"the author (which I own is very ticular weakness does not ap"refreshing to an author), you pear. A critic of the profounder "may tell him that Lord Chester- sort he never was; criticism of "field said to me he was a great that order was little known and "poet. I imagine that Wilkie seldom practised in his day, and "will be very much elevated by he seems to have had even less "praise from an English earl, than falls to the lot of most men "and a knight of the garter, and of letters of the clear insight and "an ambassador, and a secretary keen relish so essential to it. "of state, and a man of so great But as it is less the want of depth, "reputation. For I observe that than the presence of envy, which "the greatest rustics are com- it has been the fashion to urge "monly most affected with such against him, it will become us in 66 circumstances." ""** It is to be fairness to observe that at least hoped he was, and proportion- from the latter vice he is here, ately forgetful of low abuse from in the garret of Griffiths, tolerobscure hirelings in booksellers' ably free. Whether it is to seize garrets. him in the drawing-room of

"An Irish gentleman," Hume Reynolds, will be matter of later in another letter told Adam inquiry. He has no pretension Smith, "wrote lately a very pretty yet to enter himself brother or "treatise on the Sublime."*** craftsman of the guild of literaThis Irish gentleman had indeed ture, and we find him in his cenwritten so pretty a treatise on sures just and temperate, and the Sublime that the task-work liberal as well as candid in his of our critic became work of praise: glad to give added fame praise. "When I was beginning to established wits, as even the "the world," said Johnson in his youths Bonnell Thornton and old age to Fanny Burney, "and George Colman were beginning 'was nothing and nobody, the already to be esteemed; and "joy of my life was to fire at all eager, in such a case as Burke's, "the established wits." Perhaps to help that the wit should be it is a natural infirmity when one established. In the same number is nothing and nobody, and when of the Review he noticed the col

66

lection into four small volumes of the Connoisseur, and the appearance in its three-shilling

Æt. 29.

pamphlet of A Philosophical En-parts of the theory, and especially quiry into the Origin of our Ideas of to the materialism on which it the Sublime and Beautiful. The founded the connection of obConnoisseur he honoured with the jects of pleasure with a 1757. title of friend of society, wherein necessary relaxation of the reference was possibly intended nerves; but these objecto the defective side of that tions, discreet and thoroughly lectureship of society to which considered, gave strength as the serious and resolute author well as relish to its praise, and of the Rambler had been lately Burke spoke to many of his self-appointed perpetual profes- friends of the pleasure it had sor. "He rather converses," said given him. Goldsmith, "with the ease of a And now appeared, in three “cheerful companion, than dic- large quarto volumes, followed "tates, as other writers in this within six months by a fourth, "class have done, with the af- the Complete History of England, "fected superiority of an Author. deduced from the Descent of Julius "He is the first writer since Cæsar to the Treaty of Aix la Bickerstaff who has been per- Chapelle in 1748. Containing the "fectly satirical yet perfectly Transactions of One Thousand Eight "goodnatured; and who never, Hundred and Three Years. By T "for the sake of declamation, Smollett, M.D. The wonder of "represents simple folly as ab- this performance had been its in"solutely criminal. He has so- credibly rapid production: the "lidity to please the grave, and author of Random and Pickle hav"humour and wit to allure the ing in the space of fourteen "gay" Our author by com- months scoured through those pulsion seemed to be here an- eighteen centuries. It was a ticipating his authorship by scheme of the London bookchoice, and with indistinct yet sellers to thwart the success of hopeful glance beyond his Dun- Hume, which promised just then ciad and its deities perhaps he to be too considerable for an turned with better faith to Burke's undertaking in which the craft essay on the Beautiful. His cri- had no concern. His Commonticism ** was elaborate and well-wealth volume, profiting by restudied; he objected to many ligious outcry against its author, *Monthly Review, xvI. 444, May 1757. was selling vigorously; people ** Ibid, 473. I may add, that besides were inquiring for the preceding these and other detailed and important Stuart volume; and Paternosterarticles in this May number, he contributed also twenty-three notices of row, alarmed for its rights and minor works to the department of the properties in standard historyreview styled the Monthly Catalogue (for books, resolved to take the which indeed he wrote largely every field before the promised Tudor month), and a compilation of literary news from Italy, dated from Padua ! volumes could be brought to