but let Waller1 tease him, without however coming to extremities; let him haggle after him and he will get it. I will draw upon you one month after date for sixty pound, and your acceptance will be ready money, part of which I want to go down to Barton2 with. May God preserve my honest little man, for he has my heart.

Ever,

DOCTOR GOLDSMITH's compliments to Mr. Cadell, and desires a set of the History of England for correction, if interleaved the better.

LETTER XXXIV.

TO MR. CADELL.

[1773.]

MR. GOLDSMITH's compliments to Mr. Cadell, begs for an hour or two, the use of Millot's History by Mrs. Brooke.5

Mr. Cadell, Strand.

1 Mr. Cunningham says this should be Wallis, for Albany Wallis, Garrick's solicitor and executor.-ED.

2 The residence of Goldsmith's friends the Bunburys: see' Poems,' p. 106.-ED.

3 Mr. Cunningham says that Goldsmith's draft on Garrick for £60, dated 1773, and accepted by Garrick, was sold at Sotheby and Wilkinson's, Aug. 5, 1851, for £3 168.—ED.

4 This and the next note bear no date, but are supposed to have been written in 1773. Prior first published them. Mr. Cadell, the publisher to whom they were addressed, had at that time become part proprietor of Goldsmith's History of England,' and the books asked for were no doubt wanted for preparing a new edition.-Ed.

6

5 This book, we suppose, was The Elements of English History' by the Abbé Millot, translated by Mrs. Brooke, 1771, 2 vols. 12mo. -ED.

SIR,

2

As the work for which we engaged is now near coming out, and for the over payment for which I return you my thanks, I would consider myself still more obliged to you, if you would let my friend Griffin have a part of it. He is ready to pay you for any part you will think proper to give him, and as I have thoughts of extending the work into the vegetable and fossil kingdoms, you shall share with him in any such engagement as may happen to ensue. I am, Sir,

Your very humble servant,

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

LETTER XXXVI.

TO A PUPIL.3

[About 1753 ?]

[A doubtful Letter, and therefore ranged here out of date order. -Ed.]

I HAVE thought it advisable, my dear young pupil, to adopt this method of giving my thoughts to you on some

1 First published by Prior. The original is undated, but endorsed "Feb. 20, 1774." The "work" referred to was the Animated Nature.' Goldsmith, it will be seen, wanted Nourse to let Grifin, his former publisher, have a share in this work.-ED.

2 The History of the Earth and Animated Nature' was in fact published in July, 1774; but by that time Goldsmith was in his grave. He died just forty-three days after "Feb. 20, 1774," the endorsed date of this note.-ED.

3 This Letter is from the Annual Register of 1801 (Otridge's edition, p. 503 of the Chronicle), where it is given as "A Letter of the late Dr. Goldsmith, when about twenty-five years old, to a Young Gentle man whom he had for a short time instructed in different branches of learning." Regarded as a veritable letter by Goldsmith to a pupil we think it very doubtful; or at least we think "about twenty-five years

subjects which I find myself not well disposed to speak of in your presence. The reason of this you will yourself perceive in the course of reading this letter. It is disagreeable to most men, and particularly so to me, to say any thing which has the appearance of a disagreeable truth; and, as what I have now to say to you is entirely respecting yourself, it is highly probable that, in some respect or other, your view of things and mine

ably differ.

may considerIn the various objects of knowledge, which I have had the pleasure of seeing you study under my care, as well as those which you have acquired under the various teachers who have hitherto instructed you, the most material branch of information which it imports a human being to know, has been entirely overlooked,-I mean the knowledge of yourself. There are, indeed, very few persons who possess at once the capability and the disposition to give you this instruction. Your parents, who alone are perhaps sufficiently acquainted with you for the purpose, are usually disqualified for the task, by the very affection and partiality which would prompt them to undertake it. Your masters, who probably labour under no such prejudices, have seldom either sufficient opportunities, of knowing your character, or are so much interested in your wel

old" in the heading is wrong. At twenty-five Goldsmith was a student of medicine in Edinburgh. From that time till he was twenty-seven he was a student and wanderer, rather than a teacher, abroad; see the Life,' pp. 11-15. Afterwards, on his return to England, he taught youth; and before, when he was twenty-three, he was for a time tutor to one Flinn in Ireland (according to Mrs. Hodson, see Prior's Life,' vol. i. p. 117). But at the earliest of these periods we imagine our author was hardly grave enough to have written such a letter; and at the later date, we should say, he had not time so to write. There is, to be sure, a tradition that he served as tutor in the Duke of Hamilton's family while he was in Edinburgh. On this see the end of Letter IV., and its note. Regarded as a fictitious performance-as an essay thrown into the form of a letter-it is more likely to be by Goldsmith; though, even taking this view, there is not much in it either characteristic or worthy of him. Had the Annual Register of 1801, however, been edited by Edmund Burke, Goldsmith's friend, as were its earliest volumes, the letter's genuineness might be assumed in spite of the evidence against it; but in 1801 Burke was dead, and the Annual Register which he, through Dodsley, had started forty-three years before, was split into two rival publications, published respectively by Otridge and the Rivingtons.-ED.

fare, as to undertake an employment so unpleasant and laborious. You are, as yet, too young and inexperienced to perform this important office for yourself, or, indeed, to be sensible of its very great consequence to your happiness. The ardent hopes and the extreme vanity natural to early youth, blind you at once to every thing within and every thing without, and make you see both yourself and the world in false colours. This illusion, it is true, will gradually wear away as your reason matures, and your experience increases; but the question is, What is to be done in the mean time? Evidently there is no plan for you to adopt but to make use of the reason and experience of those who are qualified to direct you.

Of this, however, I can assure you, both from my own experience, and from the opinions of all those whose opinions deserve to be valued, that if you aim at any sort of eminence or respectability in the eyes of the world, or in those of your friends; if you have any ambition to be distinguished in your future career for your virtues, or talents, or accomplishments, this self-knowledge of which I am speaking is above all things requisite. For how is your moral character to be improved, unless you know what are the virtues and vices which your natural disposition is calculated to foster, and what are the passions which are most apt to govern you? How are you to attain eminence in any talent or pursuit, unless you know in what particular way your powers of mind best capacitate you for excelling? It is therefore my intention, in this letter, to offer you a few hints on this most important subject.

When you come to look abroad into the world, and to study the different characters of men, you will find that the happiness of any individual depends not, as you would suppose, on the advantages of fortune or situation, but principally on the regulation of his own mind. If you are able to secure tranquillity within, you will not be much annoyed by any disturbance without. The great art of doing this consists in a proper government of the passions -in taking care that no propensity is suffered to acquire so much power over your mind as to be the cause of immoderate uneasiness, either to yourself or others. I insist particularly on this point, my dear young friend, because,

if I am not greatly deceived, you are yourself very much disposed by nature to two passions, the most tormenting to the possessor, and the most offensive to others, of any which afflict the human race,-I mean pride and anger. Indeed, those two dispositions seem to be naturally connected with each other; for you have probably remarked, that most proud men are addicted to anger, and that most passionate men are also proud. Be this as it may, I can confidently assure you, that if an attempt is not made to subdue those uneasy propensities now, when your temper is flexible, and your mind easy of impression, they will most infallibly prove the bane and torment of your whole life. They will not only destroy all possibility of your enjoying any happiness yourself, but they will produce the same effect on those about you; and by that means you will deprive yourself both of the respect of others, and the approbation of your own heart,-the only two sources from which can be derived any substantial comfort, or real enjoyment.

It is, moreover, a certain principle in morals, that all the bad passions, but especially those of which we are speaking, defeat, in all cases, their own purposes,-a position which appears quite evident, on the slightest examination. For what is the object which the proud man has constantly in view? Is it not to gain distinction, and respect, and consideration among mankind? Now, it is unfortunately the nature of pride to aim at this distinction, not by striving to acquire such virtues and talents as would really entitle him to it, but by labouring to exalt himself above his equals by little and degrading methods; by endeavouring, for example, to outvie them in dress, or show, or expense, or by affecting to look down, with haughty superciliousness, on such as are inferior to himself only by some accidental advantages for which he is no way indebted to his own merit. The consequence of this is, that all mankind declare war against him; his inferiors, whom he affects to despise, will hate him, and consequently will exert themselves to injure and depress him; and his superiors, whom he attempts to imitate, will ridicule his absurd and unavailing efforts to invade what they consider as their own peculiar province.