OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AHD TIMES. i"Bo(m n<
1757. months scoured through, those eighteen centuries. ^ was
J5t729. a scheme of the London booksellers to tlawart; the success of
Hume, which promised just then to be too considerable for
an undertaking in which the craft laacl no concern. His
Commonwealth volume, profiting by religious outcry against
its author, was selling vigorously ; people -were inquiring
for the preceding Stuart volume ; an.cl Paternoster Bow,
alarmed for its rights and properties iii standard history
books, resolved to take the field before tlie promised Tudor
volumes could be brought to market. They backed their
best man, and succeeded. The Complete History * wo are
told, " had a very disagreeable effect on. Mr. Hume's
" performance." It had also, it woxild appear, a very
disagreeable effect on Mr, Hume's temper. *c A Frenchman
" came to me," he writes to Robertson, fe and spoke of
" translating my new volume of history : butt as lie also
" mentioned his intention of translating Sra.ollett, I gave
" him no encouragement to proceed." * It laad besides, it
may be added, a very disagreeable effect on tlie tempers of
other people. Warburton heard of its swift sale wliile Ins
own Divine Legation lay heavy and quiet at Ills publisher's ,;
and " the vagabond Scot who writes 3tionseao.se/* was the
character vouchsafed to Smollett by tlie vehement proud
priest. But it is again incumbent on me to say that
Goldsmith keeps his temper : that, in this as in. former
instances, there is no disposition to carp at a great success
or quarrel with a celebrated name. HCis notice lias evident
marks of the interpolation of Griffiths, tlaougli that worthy's
more deadly hostility to Smollett had not yet begun j but
even as it stands, in the Review which, liad so many points
* " I am afraid," he mites in a letter to Millar (6£h April, 1 758), ' ' the extra-
" ordinary run upon Dr. Smollett has a little hurt your sales ; but tlieae things
" are only temporary." Burton's JAfe, ii. 135.