The Complete Poetical Works | Page 9

little circumstance, discovered by Mr. Charles Welsh when preparing his Life of John Newbery, is to be brought into agreement with the time-honoured story, related (with variations) by Boswell and others, to the effect that Johnson negotiated the sale of the manuscript for Goldsmith when the latter was arrested for rent by his incensed landlady--has not yet been satisfactorily suggested. Possibly the solution is a simple one, referable to some of those intricate arrangements favoured by 'the Trade' at a time when not one but half a score publishers' names figured in an imprint. At present, the fact that Collins bought a third share of the book from the author for twenty guineas, and the statement that Johnson transferred the entire manuscript to a bookseller for sixty pounds, seem irreconcilable. That 'The Vicar of Wakefield' was nevertheless written, or was being written, in 1762, is demonstrable from internal evidence.
About Christmas in the same year Goldsmith moved into lodgings at Islington, his landlady being one Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming, a friend of Newbery, to whose generalship this step seems attributable. From the curious accounts printed by Prior and Forster, it is clear that the publisher was Mrs. Fleming's paymaster, punctually deducting his disbursements from the account current between himself and Goldsmith, an arrangement which as plainly indicates the foresight of the one as it implies the improvidence of the other. Of the work which Goldsmith did for the businesslike and not unkindly little man, there is no very definite evidence; but various prefaces, introductions, and the like, belong to this time; and he undoubtedly was the author of the excellent 'History of England in a Series of Letters addressed by a Nobleman to his Son', published anonymously in June, 1764, and long attributed, for the grace of its style, to Lyttelton, Chesterfield, Orrery, and other patrician pens. Meanwhile his range of acquaintance was growing larger. The establishment, at the beginning of 1764, of the famous association known afterwards as the 'Literary Club' brought him into intimate relations with Beauclerk, Reynolds, Langton, Burke, and others. Hogarth, too, is said to have visited him at Islington, and to have painted the portrait of Mrs. Fleming. Later in the same year, incited thereto by the success of Christopher Smart's 'Hannah', he wrote the Oratorio of 'The Captivity', now to be found in most editions of his poems, but never set to music. Then after the slow growth of months, was issued on the 19th December the elaboration of that fragmentary sketch which he had sent years before to his brother Henry from the Continent, the poem entitled 'The Traveller; or, A Prospect of Society'.
In the notes appended to 'The Traveller' in the present volume, its origin and progress are sufficiently explained. Its success was immediate and enduring. The beauty of the descriptive passages, the subtle simplicity of the language, the sweetness and finish of the versification, found ready admirers,--perhaps all the more because of the contrast they afforded to the rough and strenuous sounds with which Charles Churchill had lately filled the public ear. Johnson, who contributed a few lines at the close, proclaimed 'The Traveller' to be the best poem since the death of Pope; and it is certainly not easy to find its equal among the works of contemporary bards. It at once raised Goldsmith from the condition of a clever newspaper essayist, or--as men like Sir John Hawkins would have said--a mere 'bookseller's drudge,' to the foremost rank among the poets of the day. Another result of its success was the revival of some of his earlier work, which, however neglected by the author, had been freely appropriated by the discerning pirate. In June, 1765, Griffin and Newbery published a little volume of 'Essays by Mr. Goldsmith', including some of the best of his contributions to 'The Bee', 'The Busy Body', 'The Public Ledger', and 'The British Magazine', besides 'The Double Transformation' and 'The Logicians Refuted,' two pieces of verse in imitation of Prior and Swift, which have not been traced to an earlier source. To the same year belongs the first version of a poem which he himself regarded as his best work, and which still retains something of its former popularity. This was the ballad of 'Edwin and Angelina', otherwise known as 'The Hermit'. It originated in certain metrical discussions with Percy, then engaged upon his famous 'Reliques of English Poetry'; and in 1765, Goldsmith, who through his friend Nugent (afterwards Lord Clare) had made the acquaintance of the Earl of Northumberland, printed it privately for the amusement of the Countess. In a revised and amended form it was subsequently given to the world in 'The Vicar of Wakefield'.
With the exception of an abortive attempt to resume his practice as a medical man,--an attempt which seems to have been frustrated