OLIVER GOLDSMITH S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK n.
1758. more books and company; it figures some such change
SLSQ. as this which I notice here. "Whatever the work may he,
the resolution to stick to nature is a good and hopeful one,
and will admit of wise application, and many original results.
The poem seems to have gone no farther: but its cheerful
hero reappeared, after some months, in a " club of authors; "
protested that the alehouse had been his own bed-chamber
often; reintroduced the description with six new lines;
Where tlte Eed Lion flaring o'er the way,
Invites each passing stranger that can pay;
Where Calvert's butt, and Parson's black champagne,
Eegales the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane ;
There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,
The muse found Scroggen stretch'd beneath a rug .,
flattered himself that his work should not be of the order
of your common epic poems, which come from the press
like paper kites in the summer; swore that people were sick
of your Turnuses and Didos, and-wanted an heroical
description of nature; offered, for proof of sound, and
sense, and truth, and nature, in the trifling compass of
ten syllables, the last of two added lines;
A night-cap deck'd his brows instead of bay,
A cap ly night, a stocking all the day !
and having quoted them, was so much elated and self-
delighted, that he was quite unable to proceed.
Thus could Goldsmith already turn aside the sharpest
edge of poverty; thus wisely consent to be Scroggen till
he could be Groldsmith; in the paltry, slovenly pothouse
of Drury-lane, give promise of the neat village alehouse
of Auburn; and betake himself meanwhile to less agreeable
daily duties, in a spirit that would make them, also, the not
indifferent source of profit and delight.