The Complete Poetical Works | Page 7

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 that, early in 1759, 'in a wretched dirty room, in which there was but one chair,' the Rev. Thomas Percy, afterwards Bishop of Dromore, found him composing (or more probably correcting the proofs of) 'The Enquiry'. 'At least spare invective 'till my book with Mr. Dodsley shall be publish'd,'--he had written not long before to the irate Griffiths--'and then perhaps you may see the bright side of a mind when my professions shall not appear the dictates of necessity but of choice.' 'The Enquiry' came out on the 2nd of April. It had no author's name, but it was