statement of Boswell is simple and probable, taken from the mouth of Johnson when deliberately questioned on the subject, and therefore as nearly as possible we may believe exact. Mrs. Piozzi errs from carelessness, and perhaps from the desire of bringing her dinner table before the notice of the reader, as it is obvious from reference to minute circumstances, that the summons of Johnson to the prisoner must have occurred in the forenoon. Hawkins colours the matter in stating that he wished to get drunk, according to his peculiar ill humour, or the inaccuracy of his informant, who it appears did not even know the name of the work, the sale of which procured the release of the author. Cumberland's story seems wholly a fiction, or confounded with that of some other person, for none of the details agree with those of others or with fact, as we know that the sum received for the novel was sixty pounds, and that the purchaser was Newbery not Dodsley; he knew nothing personally of Goldsmith for about eight or nine years afterwards; and the proposal of marriage seems doubly improbable, from the hostess being said to be elderly, while to arrest the object of her passion seemed of all others the least dexterous mode of urging her suit.

The precise period at which this occurred is uncertain, neither of the narrators having recorded dates; Mrs. Piozzi says 1765 or 1766, but this vague account partakes of the loose inaccuracy of her anecdote. Dr. Johnson who being personally

concerned could not so well commit mistake, expressly says it preceded the publication of the "Traveller," and assigns that as a reason why less money was obtained for the copy than it would otherwise have been worth. He further relates that the bookseller thought so indifferently of his bargain as to keep it by him unprinted nearly two years after the purchase. These circumstances fix it beyond doubt in the year 1764. If it were previous to April, on the second of which month it will be seen the lodging bill just given commences, the time between the sale and the publication would be exactly two years; if in the autumn, it would be necessarily less; and as he was at the latter period with Mrs. Fleming, we may acquit her of the indignity inflicted upon her lodger, and infer that he was at temporary apartments in London; the probable date of the occurrence was therefore February or March 1764.

From several small sums of money received from Newbery about this period, he was doubtless engaged in the minor business of a professional author, such as revising short translations, and supplying papers for the "Christian's Magazine;" devoting such moments as he could spare to objects of a more imperishable character. To escape from the task-work of trade to the indulgence of the imagination, is one of the luxuries which an indigent man of genius enjoys with a zest unknown to his richer brethren who by happier circumstances are enabled to command their own time

and subject; and all who can appreciate the struggles of poverty with aspirations after excellence and reputation, will give him their sympathy. A large undertaking, the completion of the poem of "The Traveller," had been for some time before him; and this if successful, promised the gratifi. cation of his highest ambition.

It will be remembered that this work was commenced by his own account in Switzerland, whence a portion of it, the disjecta membra only we may believe, was transmitted to his brother in Ireland. For a time, the continued contest he had to sustain against want by such productions as were more profitable in the literary market precluded serious attention to it, but as he became more at ease, such additions were made as his plan or genius suggested; the original outline, said by his contemporaries to have been more extensive than now appears, was contracted and filled up; and in this state though still imperfect and without the title (that of "The Philosophical Wanderer" was first suggested) being positively fixed*, it was submitted to Dr. Johnson. He saw its merit at once, recommended it to be retouched and finished for publication, and towards the conclusion, voluntarily added a few lines of his own. The advice though not immediately followed, was not forgotten. A poem is one of those hazardous adven

According to Dr. M'Veagh M'Donnell, who had his information from Mr. Thomas English.

tures in literature in which failure seems the rule and success the exception; we cannot therefore be surprised at his hesitation to publish, or the desire to give it all the benefit that time and care could impart; fully aware of the risk of turning his venture adrift on the ocean of public opinion, the precaution he adopted displayed prudence; for who would not, if he could, acquire the reputation not of a tolerable, but of a good poet?

The state of poetry at this period was such that a fair opening appeared to offer to a new claimant for its honours. The great masters who had charmed the preceding age had passed away, away, and none of equal powers had arisen to take their place. Young was advanced in life and expired a few months afterwards; Gray was indolent and fastidious; and excepting in a few of his pieces, several of the wits and critics, among whom Johnson even at this time was one, declared against him. Mason and Glover were scarcely popular. Johnson himself was silent. Churchill had just expired; one of those poets who though of such reputation among his contemporaries as to be termed in a memoir written in the preceding year "the greatest English poet now living, or perhaps that this country ever produced," is now if not forgotten at least neglected, his works rarely perused for the pleasure they afford, and even his genius indifferently estimated. Lloyd died nearly on the day of the publication of the new poem, but his reputation was not great. Falconer who

had printed the Shipwreck two years before, was scarcely yet enrolled among the body of poets. Akenside, Armstrong, Smollett, Grainger, and Bonnell Thornton, all members of the medical profession, were otherwise occupied; and to this respectable list of five of the "two-fold disciples of Apollo," a term not unfelicitously applied to the former, was now to be added a sixth in the person of Goldsmith.

In sitting down to the composition of his poem, as well as in his general views of poetry, he had his eye fixed on the most popular models of the preceding age, which having undergone the test of time and given pleasure to every description of reader, he thought might be safely followed as the best. So likewise thought Dr. Johnson. Public opinion sided with both; and public opinion, as Aristotle and Cicero, and many others have told us, is after a moderate time for deliberation, rarely mistaken in matters of taste. The opinions of Goldsmith on the art as well as his practice, are In the Life of Parnell we find; "He appears to me to be the last of that great school that had modelled itself upon the ancients, and taught English poetry to resemble what the generality of mankind have allowed to excel. studious and correct observer of antiquity, he set himself to consider nature with the lights it lent him; and he found that the more aid he borrowed from the one, the more delightfully he resembled the other. To copy nature is a task

on record.

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