OLIVER GOLDSMITHS LIFE AND TIMES. .[BOOK n.
1759. Mr. Griffiths might accuse Smollett of selling Ms praise for
Mt.Bi. a fat buck, and Smollett retort upon Mrs. Griffiths that an
antiquated Sappho sat ill in the chair of Aristarchus; but
this interchange of abuse will in future cease to have a
bitterness personal to his own fortunes. We are gradually
now to follow him, and them, to " a more removed ground."
Yet not until the scene of life shall entirely close will it ba
permitted him to forget that he once toiled in humiliating1
bondage at the sign of the Dunciad in Paternoster Bow, and
was paid retainer and servant to " those significant emblems,
" the owl and the long-ear'd animal, which Mr. Griffiths so
" sagely displays for the mirth and information of rnan-
'"kind."*
lost), he continues : " the late Mr, Wright, the printer, •who had been either
" apprentice to or in the service of Mr. Hamilton, at a time when Goldsmith.
" composed numerous essays for Magazines, articles for Reviews, &c. &c. preserved
" a list of these fugitive pieces, -which are now reprinting, and -will mate their
<( appearance in the course of next winter. Goldsmith likewise began a periodical
*' paper, which being unsuccessful, was laid aside, after a few numbers of it had
" been issued out." Nichols's Illustrations, vii. 25. I cannot help doubting,
however, if the true source has been at all times pointed out by Mr, Wright to the
editor of these reprinted articles (Mr. Isaac Eeed).
* Critical Review, iv. 471. November 1757. See also viH, 82-3, July 1759.
In the latter, the Monthly Review is characterised as " that repository of dullness
" and malevolence, replenished by the indefatigable care of the industrious nightman
<£ E—h ft—s, and his spouse." Smollett, or his writer, is speaking of a translation
of Ariosto attacked by the Monthly reviewers, which he had himself praised ; and
characterises this review as " an instance of presumption in an illiterate bookseller
"and his wife, which can scarcely be paralleled in the annals of dulness and
'' effrontery . . . Ha ! ha ! ha ! who is this venerable Aristarchus, who mounts the
" chair of criticism ? No Aristarchus, but an antiquated Sappho, a Sibyl, or rather
" a Pope Joan in taste and literature, pregnant with abuse begot by rancour under
" the canopy of ignorance. Purge your choler, goody ; have recourse to your
" apothecary in this adust weather, who will keep you cool and temperate. Mean--
"while, you and your obsequious spouse may confer together on your vain import-
" ance, like the two owls in the fable,
" Husband, you reason well, replies
The solemn mate with half-shut eyes ;
My parlour is the seat of learning ;
In choosing authors you're discerning.
Besides, on saddled ass you sit
The type and ornament of wit."