' and lying,' as well as the blackest and most atrocious 'villain beyond comparison that now exists in the world.' For he had first indicted Hume as the leader of the conspiracy, and brought him forward to answer the indictment in the St. James' Chronicle; and had next fallen foul of Horace Walpole as Hume's vicious instrument, Bishop Warburton crying out with delight to see 'so seraphic a madman' attack 'so insufferable a cox'comb.' Nothing of a literary sort, indeed, made so much noise or amusement at the close of the year as these mad libels of Rousseau, and the caricatures made of them: unless it were the newspaper cross readings, which, with the witty signature of Papyrius Cursor, Caleb Whitefoord published in December (wherein the public were informed that 'this morning the Rt. Hon. 'the Speaker was convicted of keeping a disorderly 'house,' that 'Lord Chatham took his seat and was severely handled by the populace,' with other as surprising items of information), and at which the whole town is described to have wept with laughter. Goldsmith envied nothing so much, we are assured, as the authorship of this humourous sally; and would gladly have exchanged for it his own most successful writings. Half sad, and half satirical, perhaps he thus contrasted its reception with their's.

The young German student to whom allusion has been made, speaking from his judgment of the book that so enchanted him, had thought its author must have reason 'thankfully to acknowledge he was an Englishman, and to

reckon highly the advantages which his country and 'nation afforded him.' But would Goethe without limitation have said this, if there had lain before him the two entries from Newbery's papers wherewith the biographer of the author of the Vicar of Wakefield must close the year 1766 and open the year 1767? 'Received from Mr. Newbery,' says the first, dated the 28th of December, 'five guineas for writing a short ́English grammar. OLIVER GOLDSMITH.' 'To cash,' says the second, dated the 6th of January, 'lent Doctor 'Goldsmith one pound one.'

Thus scantily eking out his necessities with hack employment and parsimonious lendings, his dramatic labour was meanwhile in progress. He had taken for his model the older English comedy. He thought Congreve's astonishing wit too exuberant for the stage; and for truth to nature, vivacity, life, and spirit, placed Farquhar first. With what was called the genteel or sentimental school that had since prevailed, and of which Steele was the originator, he felt no sympathy; and cared chiefly for the Jealous Wife and Clandestine Marriage because they had shown the power to break those trammels. What his countryman Farquhar had done, he resolved to attempt; and in that hearty hope had planned his play.. With the help of nature, humour, and character, should these be in his reach, he would invoke the spirit of laughter, happy, unrestrained, and cordial; all the more surely, as he reckoned, if with Garrick's help, and King's, and

Yates's though without them, if so compelled. For not in their names, or after Garrick's fashion, had he set down his exits and entrances, nor to suit peculiarities of their's were his mirthful incidents devised. Upon no stage picture of the humourous, however vivid, but upon what he had seen and known, himself, of the humourous in actual life, he was determined to venture all; believing that what was real in manners, however broad or low, if in decency endurable and pointing to no illiberal moral, could never justly be condemned as vulgar. And for this he had Johnson's approval. Indifferent to nothing that affected his friend, nor ever sluggish where help was wanted or active kindness needed to be done, Johnson promised to write a prologue to the comedy. For again had he lately shown himself in Gerrard Street; again had the Club reunited its members; and once more in the society of Reynolds, Johnson, and Burke, was Goldsmith eager to forget his carking poverty, and count up his growing pretensions to greatness and esteem.

What Boswell calls one of the most remarkable inci'dents of Johnson's life,' was now matter of conversation at the Club. In February, the king had taken occasion to see and hold some conversation with him on one of his visits to the royal library, where by permission of the librarian he frequently consulted books. The effect produced by the incident is a social curiosity of the time. Endless was the interest of it; the marvel of it never to be done with. 'He loved to relate it with all its circumstances,' says Boswell, when requested by his friends:' and 'Come

now, sir, this is an interesting matter; do favour us with 'it,' was the cry of every friend in turn. So, often was the story repeated. How the king had asked Johnson if he was then writing anything, and he had answered he was not, for he had pretty well told the world what he knew, and must now read to acquire more knowledge. How the king said he did not think Johnson borrowed much from anybody; and the other venturing to think he had done his part as a writer, was handsomely assured 'I 'would have thought so too, if you had not written so well.' How his majesty next observed that he supposed he must already have read a great deal, to which Johnson replied that he thought more than he read, and for instance had not read much, compared with Doctor Warburton; whereto the king rejoined that he heard Doctor Warburton was a man of such general knowledge that his learning resembled Garrick's acting in its universality. How his majesty afterwards asked if there were any other literary journals published in the kingdom, except the Monthly and Critical Review, and being told there was no other, enquired which of them was best; whereupon Johnson replied that the Monthly Review was done with most care, and the Critical upon the best principles, for that the authors of the Monthly were enemies to the church; which the king said he was sorry to hear. How his majesty talked of the university libraries, of Sir John Hill's veracity, and of Lord Lyttelton's history; and how he proposed that the literary biography of the country

should be undertaken by Johnson, who thereupon signified his readiness to comply with the royal wishes (of which he never heard another syllable). How, during the whole of the interview, to use the description given to Boswell by the librarian, Johnson talked to his majesty with profound respect, but still in his firm manly manner, with a sonorous voice, and never in that subdued tone which is commonly used at the levee and in the drawingroom. And how, at the end of it, the flattered sage protested that the manners of the bucolic young sovereign, 'let them talk of them as they will,' were those of as fine a gentleman as Louis the Fourteenth or Charles the Second could have been. 'Ah!' said the charmed and charming Sévigné, when her king had danced with her, 'c'est le plus grand roi du monde !'

'And did you say nothing, sir,' asked one of the circle who stood round Johnson at Mr. Reynolds's when he detailed the interview there, to the king's high compliment on your writing?' No sir,' answered Johnson, with admirable taste. When the king had said it, it was to be so. It was not for me to bandy civilities with 'my sovereign.' Highly characteristic of him was what he added as his opinion of the advantage of such an interview. 'I found,' he said, in answer to the frank and lively questioning of Joseph Warton, his majesty wished I 'should talk, and I made it my business to talk. I find ' it does a man good to be talked to by his sovereign. In the 'first place a man cannot be in a passion...' Here he