OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES, [».»<« »i.
1757, stands in the dedication to the Four Dinwrttttfanit he WIIH
man. bringing out at the time, that "Johnny Home " had nil t!»t«
theatric genius of those two poets HO refined and purged.
But little was even a philosopher's exaltation* to the perneeu»
tion of ft presbytery. No man better than Hume know that.
The first volume of Imlliatwy had lain hopelosnly on Millur'H
shelves, after Halo of forty-live copies in a twelvemonth,
when, on inquisitorial proceedings of the General Assembly
against Lord Kames and himself, the public in turn foeeamu
inquisitive and began to buy. And, Muroly an the 'History
of Hume, must even puffery of Home have languished,
but for that resolve of the presbytery to eject from hi»
pulpit a parson who had written a play. It curried Ikmtjltw
to London; secured a nine nightH* reasonable wotuler;
and the noise of the carriages on their way to Co vent
Garden to see the Norval of silver-tongued Barry, went
now giving sudden headaches to David (Sarriek, and Htouigti
comparisons of silver tongues to the hooting of mvln.
But out of reach of every influence to raino or to depresn,
unless it be a passing thought now and then to liin own
tragic fragments, sits the critic, with the thin duodecimo
before him. The popular stir affeetH even quiet Clrtiy in
his cloistered nook of Pembroke Hall; but the nharp, clear,
graceful judgment now lodged and boarded at The 1 hmeiwt,
shows itself quite un-affected, " When the town," it begun,
" by a tedious sueccB«ion of indifferent piTformnwum, linn
" been long confined to censure, it will naturally wish for
" an opportunity of praise," * That in, as I traiinbito it,
the town, sick of Doctor Brown's Athefafait find J'iarbtirit»*iti
of Mr. Whitehead's Creusat of Mr. ('risp's Virginia, of
Mr. (Hover's Hoadicea, of Doctor FranciH's Eugenia, of
Mr, Aaron Hill's Mcrope, of the Residua of Mr. Havarcl,
* MwilMif Rm't'tn, xvi, 42(1, May I7f'7,