The Complete Poetical Works | Page 8

an open secret that Goldsmith had written it; and to this day it remains to the critic one of the most interesting of his works. Obviously, in a duodecimo of some two hundred widely-printed pages, it was impossible to keep the high-sounding promise of its title; and at best its author's knowledge of the subject, notwithstanding his continental wanderings, can have been but that of an external spectator. Still in an age when critical utterance was more than ordinarily full-wigged and ponderous, it dared to be sprightly and epigrammatic. Some of its passages, besides, bear upon the writer's personal experiences, and serve to piece the imperfections of his biography. If it brought him no sudden wealth, it certainly raised his reputation with the book-selling world. A connexion already begun with Smollett's 'Critical Review' was drawn closer; and the shrewd Sosii of the Row began to see the importance of securing so vivacious and unconventional a pen. Towards the end of the year he was writing for Wilkie the collection of periodical essays entitled 'The Bee'; and contributing to the same publisher's 'Lady's Magazine', as well as to 'The Busy Body' of one Pottinger. In these, more than ever, he was finding his distinctive touch; and ratifying anew, with every fresh stroke of his pen, his bondage to authorship as a calling.
He had still, however, to conquer the public. 'The Bee', although it contains one of his most characteristic essays ('A City Night-Piece'), and some of the most popular of his lighter verses ('The Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize'), never attained the circulation essential to healthy existence. It closed with its eighth number in November, 1759. In the following month two gentlemen called at Green Arbour Court to enlist the services of its author. One was Smollett, with a new serial, 'The British Magazine'; the other was Johnson's 'Jack Whirler,' bustling Mr. John Newbery from the 'Bible and Sun' in St. Paul's Churchyard, with a new daily newspaper, 'The Public Ledger'. For Smollett, Goldsmith wrote the 'Reverie at the Boar's Head Tavern' and the 'Adventures of a Strolling Player,' besides a number of minor papers. For Newbery, by a happy recollection of the 'Lettres Persanes' of Montesquieu, or some of his imitators, he struck almost at once into that charming epistolary series, brimful of fine observation, kindly satire, and various fancy, which was ultimately to become the English classic known as 'The Citizen of the World'. He continued to produce these letters periodically until the August of the following year, when they were announced for republication in 'two volumes of the usual 'Spectator' size.' In this form they appeared in May, 1762.
But long before this date a change for the better had taken place in Goldsmith's life. Henceforth he was sure of work,--mere journey-work though much of it must have been;--and, had his nature been less improvident, of freedom from absolute want. The humble lodgings in the Old Bailey were discarded for new premises at No. 6 Wine Office Court, Fleet Street; and here, on the 31st of May, 1761, with Percy, came one whose name was often in the future to be associated with Goldsmith's, the great Dictator of London literary society, Samuel Johnson. Boswell, who made Johnson's acquaintance later, has not recorded the humours of that supper; but it marks the beginning of Goldsmith's friendship with the man who of all others (Reynolds excepted) loved him most and understood him best.
During the remainder of 1761 he continued busily to ply his pen. Besides his contributions to 'The Ledger' and 'The British Magazine', he edited 'The Lady's Magazine', inserting in it the 'Memoirs of Voltaire', drawn up some time earlier to accompany a translation of the 'Henriade' by his crony and compatriot Edward Purdon. Towards the beginning of 1762 he was hard at work on several compilations for Newbery, for whom he wrote or edited a 'History of Mecklenburgh', and a series of monthly volumes of an abridgement of 'Plutarch's Lives'. In October of the same year was published the 'Life of Richard Nash', apparently the outcome of special holiday-visits to the then fashionable watering-place of Bath, whence its fantastic old Master of the Ceremonies had only very lately made his final exit. It is a pleasantly gossiping, and not unedifying little book, which still holds a respectable place among its author's minor works. But a recently discovered entry in an old ledger shows that during the latter half of 1762 he must have planned, if he had not, indeed, already in part composed, a far more important effort, 'The Vicar of Wakefield'. For on the 28th of October in this year he sold to one Benjamin Collins, printer, of Salisbury, for 21 pounds, a third in a work with that title, further described as '2 vols. 12mo.' How this