00000184.htm

TO EXIST.

** ill! k** was at last set at the intercession of the 1758.

" CVrtirt yf Gr/-3t Britain, Translated from the Original,
"jzM pniJit&tril at the Hague, by James Willington."
Willie! ».'ii was in reality Oliver Goldsmith,* The
propvrty uf the bo-Jk belonged to Griffiths, who valued one
as much as the other; and the position of the
translator in the subsequent assignment of the

Manuscript, at no Sinai profit to Griffiths, by the Pater-
noster-Row to bookseller Dilly of the Poultry,
for the sum of twenty guineas.! But though the trans-

for TFIUington, the writer could
as Goldsmith; though with bitterness he calls
Limst-lf " the obscure prefacer/' the preface is clear, graceful,
characteristic, as in brighter days. The book cannot
be recommended, he says, " as a grateful entertainment to
** the readers of reigning romance, as it is strictly true.
^u Xo events are here to astonish; no unexpected incidents
" to surprise; no such high-finished pictures, as captivate
** the imagination and have made fiction fashionable. Our
" must be content with the simple exhibition of

" truth, consequently of nature; he must be satisfied to
" see vice triumphant and virtue in distress; to see men
" or rewarded, not as his wishes, but as Provi-

" dence has thought proper to direct; for all here wears
" the face of sincerity." He glances at the scenes • of
dungeon, rack, and scaffold through which the narrative will
pass, and calls them but a part of * the accumulated wretch-
edness of a miscalled glorious time, " while Louis, surnamed
" the Great, was feasting at Versailles, fed with the incense

* Wfllington, it would seem, from an entry in the register of Trinity College
(/Vior, i. 253-4), was the name of one of Goldsmith's fellow students ia Dublin.
f Xjfg by Eeed (Ed. of P>oems, 1795), p. rv. Allan's Life, p. xvi



	TO EXIST. ill! k was at last set at the intercession of the 1758. " CVrtirt yf Gr/-3t Britain, Translated from the Original, "jzM pniJit&tril at the Hague, by James Willington." Willie! ».'ii was in reality Oliver Goldsmith,* The propvrty uf the bo-Jk belonged to Griffiths, who valued one as much as the other; and the position of the translator in the subsequent assignment of the Manuscript, at no Sinai profit to Griffiths, by the Pater- noster-Row to bookseller Dilly of the Poultry, for the sum of twenty guineas.! But though the trans- for TFIUington, the writer could as Goldsmith; though with bitterness he calls Limst-lf " the obscure prefacer/' the preface is clear, graceful, characteristic, as in brighter days. The book cannot be recommended, he says, " as a grateful entertainment to the readers of reigning romance, as it is strictly true. ^u Xo events are here to astonish; no unexpected incidents " to surprise; no such high-finished pictures, as captivate the imagination and have made fiction fashionable. Our " must be content with the simple exhibition of " truth, consequently of nature; he must be satisfied to " see vice triumphant and virtue in distress; to see men " or rewarded, not as his wishes, but as Provi- " dence has thought proper to direct; for all here wears " the face of sincerity." He glances at the scenes • of dungeon, rack, and scaffold through which the narrative will pass, and calls them but a part of * the accumulated wretch- edness of a miscalled glorious time, " while Louis, surnamed " the Great, was feasting at Versailles, fed with the incense * Wfllington, it would seem, from an entry in the register of Trinity College (/Vior, i. 253-4), was the name of one of Goldsmith's fellow students ia Dublin. f *Xjfg* by Eeed (Ed. of P>oems, 1795), p. rv. Allan's Life, p. xvi