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CHAP.V.] DISCIPLINE OF SORROW.

after this he was able to retire from bookselling, and hand 1758.
over to Becket the publication of his Review. As time wore Mt. so.
on, he became a more and more reg'ular attendant at the
meeting-house, rose higher and higher in the world's esteem,
and at last kept his two carriages, and " lived in style/' But he
lived, too, to see the changes of thirty years after the grave had
received the author of the Vicar of Wakefield; and though he
had some recollections of the errors of his youth to disturb
his decorous and religious peace of mind,—such as having
become the proprietor of an infamous novel, and dictated
the praise of it in his Review,—such as having exposed him-
self to a remark reiterated in Grainger's letters to Bishop
Percy, that he was not to be trusted in any verbal agreement
upon matters of his trade,*—it may not have been the least
bitter of his remembrances, if it ever happened to occur
to him, that to Oliver Goldsmith, in the depths of a helpless
distress, he had applied the epithets of sharper and villain.

From Goldsmith himself they fell harmless. His letter
is most affecting: but the truth is manfully outspoken in
it, and for that reason it is less painful to me than those
in which the truth is concealed. When such a mind is
brought to look its sorrow in the face, and understand
clearly the condition in which it is,—without further doubling,
shrinking, or weak compromise with false hopes,—it is master
of a great gain. In the accession of strength it receives, it
may see the sorrow anyway increase, and calm its worst
apprehension. The most touching passage of that letter is
the reference to his project, and the bright side of his mind
it may reveal. I will date from, it the true beginning of

* " Ton must have little dependence upon Griffiths. . . Do not go on with him
¹' without a positive bargain, &c. &c." Grainger to Percy, Nichols's Illustrations,
vii. 259.



	CHAP.V.] DISCIPLINE OF SORROW. after this he was able to retire from bookselling, and hand 1758. over to Becket the publication of his Review. As time wore Mt. so. on, he became a more and more reg'ular attendant at the meeting-house, rose higher and higher in the world's esteem, and at last kept his two carriages, and " lived in style/' But he lived, too, to see the changes of thirty years after the grave had received the author of the Vicar of Wakefield; and though he had some recollections of the errors of his youth to disturb his decorous and religious peace of mind,—such as having become the proprietor of an infamous novel, and dictated the praise of it in his Review,—such as having exposed him- self to a remark reiterated in Grainger's letters to Bishop Percy, that he was not to be trusted in any verbal agreement upon matters of his trade,—it may not have been the least bitter of his remembrances, if it ever happened to occur to him, that to Oliver Goldsmith, in the depths of a helpless distress, he had applied the epithets of sharper* and villain. From Goldsmith himself they fell harmless. His letter is most affecting: but the truth is manfully outspoken in it, and for that reason it is less painful to me than those in which the truth is concealed. When such a mind is brought to look its sorrow in the face, and understand clearly the condition in which it is,—without further doubling, shrinking, or weak compromise with false hopes,—it is master of a great gain. In the accession of strength it receives, it may see the sorrow anyway increase, and calm its worst apprehension. The most touching passage of that letter is the reference to his project, and the bright side of his mind it may reveal. I will date from, it the true beginning of

	* " Ton must have little dependence upon Griffiths. . . Do not go on with him ¹' without a positive bargain, &c. &c." Grainger to Percy, Nichols's Illustrations, vii. 259.