OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S UFK AND TIMBH, iiu-mi.
1757. or wringing of the hands. Among the lowest of human
J3t29. beings he could take his place, as ho afterwardH proved hit*
right to sit among the highest, by tho strength of hw
affectionate sympathies with tho nature common to nil,
And so sustained through the scenes of wretehednenH ho
passed, he had done more, though with little eonHeuwKWHH
of his own, to achieve his destiny, than if, trnnseendiitju; the
worldly plans of wise Irish friends, he had even eluwbered
to the bishops' bench, or out-practised tho whole eollege
of physicians,
The time is at hand in his history, when all this be.euiww
clear. Outside tho garret-window of Mr, (IrillttltH, by tho
light which the miserable labour of the Monthly Review
will let in upon the heart-sick labourer, it may Kcnm bo
seen. Stores of observation, of feeling, ami experience,
hidden from himself at present, are by that light to bo
revealed. It is a thought to carry us through this runv
scene of suffering, with new and unaccustomed, hope,
Goldsmith never publicly avowed what he had written in
the Monthly Review; any more; than tho Roman poet talked
of the millstone he turned in bin days of hunger, Men
who have been at the galleys, though for no erime of their
own committing, are wiser than to brag of the work they
performed, there. All he stated wan, that all lit? wrote wn«
tampered with by Griffiths or his wife, Smollett hm di-piettni
this lady as an antiquated female critic ; and when " Hlitemtn,
" bookselling " Griffiths declared unequal war KgwiiHt thut
potent antagonist, protesting that the Mnntltly tieview
"JJunciad dates from 1727; GtoMsinitlt'e tiintriuulttUun hi CiruU Btrtml ifotv*
"from 1767—juut thirty years later; wliioh in «»w «0uornUw». And It «
"important to remember that Goldsmith, at thin time hi liw Mwity<ninth yr*r,
"was simply an tinker at an nlisinire boarding'Mchtml j IIH<! never prti(iUiw<4
"writing for tlie prosH, and had not oven liimaclf any feith tit all in Iiin own
"cityfor writing." North Ih'iliA Knieu\ is, 108—200,