The Complete Poetical Works | Page 7

author of
'Clarissa'. Later still he is acting as help or substitute in Dr. Milner's
'classical academy' at Peckham. Here, at last, chance seemed to open to
him the prospect of a literary life. He had already, says report,
submitted a manuscript tragedy to Richardson's judgement; and
something he said at Dr. Milner's table attracted the attention of an
occasional visitor there, the bookseller Griffiths, who was also
proprietor of the 'Monthly Review'. He invited Dr. Milner's usher to try
his hand at criticism; and finally, in April, 1757, Goldsmith was bound
over for a year to that venerable lady whom George Primrose dubs 'the
'antiqua mater' of Grub Street'--in other words, he was engaged for bed,
board, and a fixed salary to supply copy-of-all-work to his master's
magazine.
The arrangement thus concluded was not calculated to endure. After

some five months of labour from nine till two, and often later, it came
suddenly to an end. No clear explanation of the breach is forthcoming,
but mere incompatability of temper would probably supply a sufficient
ground for disagreement. Goldsmith, it is said, complained that the
bookseller and his wife treated him ill, and denied him ordinary
comforts; added to which the lady, a harder taskmistress even than the
'antiqua mater' above referred to, joined with her husband in 'editing'
his articles, a course which, hard though it may seem, is not
unprecedented. However this may be, either in September or October,
1757, he was again upon the world, existing precariously from hand to
mouth. 'By a very little practice as a physician, and very little
reputation as a poet [a title which, as Prior suggests, possibly means no
more than author], I make a shift to live.' So he wrote to his
brother-in-law in December. What his literary occupations were cannot
be definitely stated; but, if not prepared before, they probably included
the translation of a remarkable work issued by Griffiths and others in
the ensuing February. This was the 'Memoirs of a Protestant,
condemned to the Galleys of France for his Religion', being the
authentic record of the sufferings of one Jean Marteilhe of Bergerac, a
book of which Michelet has said that it is 'written as if between earth
and heaven.' Marteilhe, who died at Cuylenberg in 1777, was living in
Holland in 1758; and it may be that Goldsmith had seen or heard of
him during his own stay in that country. The translation, however, did
not bear Goldsmith's name, but that of James Willington, one of his old
class-fellows at Trinity College. Nevertheless, Prior says distinctly that
Griffiths (who should have known) declared it to be by Goldsmith.
Moreover, the French original had been catalogued in Griffiths'
magazine in the second month of Goldsmith's servitude, a circumstance
which colourably supplies the reason for its subsequent rendering into
English.
The publication of Marteilhe's 'Memoirs' had no influence upon
Goldsmith's fortunes, for, in a short time, he was again installed at
Peckham, in place of Dr. Milner invalided, waiting hopefully for the
fulfilment of a promise by his old master to procure him a medical
appointment on a foreign station. It is probably that, with a view to
provide the needful funds for this expatriation, he now began to sketch

the little volume afterwards published under the title of 'An Enquiry
into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe', for towards the
middle of the year we find him addressing long letters to his relatives in
Ireland to enlist their aid in soliciting subscriptions for this book. At
length the desired advancement was obtained,--a nomination as a
physician and surgeon to one of the factories on the coast of
Coromandel. But banishment to the East Indies was not to be his
destiny. For some unexplained reason the project came to nothing; and
then--like Roderick Random--he presented himself at Surgeons' Hall
for the more modest office of a hospital mate. This was on the 21st of
December, 1758. The curt official record states that he was 'found not
qualified.' What made matters worse, the necessity for a decent
appearance before the examiners had involved him in new obligations
to Griffiths, out of which arose fresh difficulties. To pay his landlady,
whose husband was arrested for debt, he pawned the suit he had
procured by Griffiths' aid; and he also raised money on some volumes
which had been sent him for review. Thereupon ensued an angry and
humiliating correspondence with the bookseller, as a result of which
Griffiths, nevertheless, appears to have held his hand.
By this time Goldsmith had moved into those historic but now
non-existent lodgings in 12 Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey, which
have been photographed for ever in Irving's 'Tales of a Traveller'. It
was here that the foregoing incidents took place; and it was here also