CHAP. VI.] PECKHAM SCHOOL AND GKUB STREET.
was opposition in the field; Archibald Hamilton the book- 1757.
seller, with the powerful aid of Smollett, had set afloat the jStoH®
Critical Review; the talk of the table turned upon this, and
some remarks by the usher attracted the attention of Griffiths.
He took Mia aside : " Could he furnish a few specimens of
" criticism ? " The offer was accepted, and the specimens ;*
and before the close of April 1757, Goldsmith was bound by
Griffiths in an agreement for one year. He was to leave
Doctor Milner's, to board and lodge with the bookseller, to
have a small regular salary, and to devote himself to the
Monthly Remew.\
One sees something like the transaction in the pleasant
talk of George Primrose. " ' Come, I see you are a lad
" ' of spirit and some learning, what do you think of
" ' commencing author, like me ? You have read in books
" ' no doubt, of men of genius starving at the trade; at
" ' present 111 show you forty very dull fellows about town
" ' that live by it in opulence. All honest, jog-trot men,
" ' who go on smoothly and dully, and write history and
" ' politics, and are praised: men, sir, who, had they been
" ' bred cobblers, would all their lives have only mended
" ' shoes, but never made them.' Finding that there was
" no great degree of gentility affixed to the character of an
" usher, I resolved to accept his proposal; and having the
" highest respect for literature, hailed the antiqua mater
* The most important of those sent was a notice of a book by Professor Mallet,
to be hereafter described, which was printed in the April number of the review,
with this note prefixed : "The following paper was sent in by the gentleman who
'' signs D, and who, we hope, will excuse our striking out a few paragraphs, for
'' the sake of brevity." In the next number of the review Goldsmith's contribution
is of course not marked by any signature or prefatory notice. He had become part
of the establishment.
^ The agreement is correctly enough described in the Percy Memoir (60), but
is dated a year later than that in which it was really entered into.