OLIVER GOLDSMITH S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK ill.
1759. by bookseller Millar, lie told the world to honour him for
jEt.3l. raising the rewards of hooks: and treating authorship, since
the world would have it so, as any other trade, and still
heartily embracing poverty as a trusted and honourable com-
panion, was content in Grub-street, or any other street, to
work out his case as he could. " Seven years, my lord, have
"now past," he wrote to Lord Chesterfield, on appearance of
the Dictionary four years before, " since I waited in your
" outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during
" which time I have been pushing on my work through
" difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have
" brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one
" act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile
" of favour. ... Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks
" with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water,
"and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with
" help ? The notice which you have been pleased to take of
" my labours, had it been early, had been kind: but it has
"been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it;
" till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known,
" and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity
" not to confess obligations where no benefit has been
" received; or to be unwilling that the public should con-
" sider me as owing that to a patron, which Providence has
"enabled me to do for myself." What! said he in more
familiar mood to Garrick, have I sailed a long and difficult
voyage round the world of the English language, and does he
now send out his cock-boat to tow me into harbour ? *
* His letter to Thomas Warton announcing the near completion of his Dictionary
is less known ; yet I do not know that his manly courage and self-reliance have
anywhere found more masterly expression. " I now begin to see land, after
4' having wandered, according to Mr. Wafburton's phrase, in this vast sea of words.
" What reception I shall meet with on the shore, I know not : whether the sound