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OLIVER aOIJ>8MITH*fl IiIFB AND TIMES, 11*-* »
1757, " world," said Johnson in 1m old ngn to Fimuy Hitrmy,
-ZBtTib, " and was nothing and nobody, tho joy of my lifu wiw to " fire at all the established wita." Perhujw it w « iwtuml infirmity when one is nothing and nobody, ami when Goldsmith became something and Homebody MM frii'mU httil charged it upon him. They may Iwvo hud HOMO ivttHMti, for ho \vftH never very subtle1 or reliublu in liter«ry jutftf- inonts; but as yet, at any rate, thu purtKwbu' wtwUrn'MH does not appear, A critic of tho prufoumU»r sort Iw twwr was j criticism of that order was little known, itiul t**'!<lt*rii practised in his day: but UB it IB Ica« tho wiuit of tli'|»f,}i» than tho presence of envy, which it hns been tin* fitHhuttt to urge against him, it will bccoma UH in intnw«« l«> observe that here, in the garret of (!riitltit«, J»» ia tolerably free from it, Whother it in to HVI/.O liiiii i» the drawing-room of Reynoldw, will bo nmitfr of Iittfi" . inquiry. He has no pretension yt*t to enter hinuwlf hrothft* or craftsman of the guild of literature, mid we find him in his censures just and temperate, urnl libi'iiit UK wrll as candid in his praise: glad to gtvo nddtul fmuo t» n*tu- bliahed wits, as oven tho youths Bmmt'll Thuriittin mti) George Golnian were beginning already to bo eBUwinwt; and eager, in such a case its Bnrko's, to help tlmt tho wit should be established, In the game number of tho Hc*vu*w lie noticed the collection into four small volumes of tlu» Connoisseur, • and the appearance in its thwo-iihiHiittf pamphlet of A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin tif our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautl/id. The Cowwi»*nir \w honoured with the title of friend of society, wlitwin reference was possibly intended to the defective nido of that lectureship of society, to which the serious and rtwiluto author .of. the limnbkr had been lately self-appointed |
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