00000270.htm

- ^T-l WRITING TEE BEK

" paper, containing two sheets or thirty-two pages, stitched
" in blue covers." In other respects also it kept the book-
seller's advertised promise; " consisting of a variety of
" essays on the amusements, follies, and vices in fashion,
" particularly the most recent topics of conversation, remarks
" on theatrical exhibitions, memoirs of modern literature,
" &c. £c." And on the back of the blue cover, Mr. Wilkie
begged leave to inform the public "that every twelve numbers
" would make a handsome pocket volume, at the end of which
" should be given an emblematical frontispiece, title, and
" table of contents." So there was reasonable hope at start-
ing; and no doubt a long line of handsome pocket volumes
already jostled each other, in Goldsmith's lively brain.

The first number, it must be said, was of good promise.
One finds a lack of its wisdom, and its lightness in books
" stitched in blue covers " now. The introduction dis-
claimed relationship to the magazine trade and family;
refused to tempt its readers with " three beautiful prints,
" curiously coloured from nature," or to take any kind of
merit from "its bulk or its frontispiece;" and invoked for
itself, with mixed mirth and earnestness, a class of readers
that should know the distinction between a bon-mot for
White's, and a jest for the Cat and Bagpipes in St. Giles's.
There was a letter on the Poles; a notice of the death of
Voltaire's victim, Maupertuis; and, under the title of
Alcander and Septimius, a popular version of that beautiful
tale of Boccaccio, which afterwards suggested to a writer who
belonged to Goldsmith's country, took early inspiration from
his genius, and bore up uncrushed against as desperate
poverty by the force of his example, the manly and earnest
tragedy of Gisippus* Nor, since the delightful gossip of

* Gerald Griffin's life was one of those strange, silent romances •which pass
quite unheeded amid the roar and movement of the busier life around them ; yet



	- ^T-l WRITING TEE BEK " paper, containing two sheets or thirty-two pages, stitched " in blue covers." In other respects also it kept the book- seller's advertised promise; " consisting of a variety of " essays on the amusements, follies, and vices in fashion, " particularly the most recent topics of conversation, remarks " on theatrical exhibitions, memoirs of modern literature, " &c. £c." And on the back of the blue cover, Mr. Wilkie begged leave to inform the public "that every twelve numbers " would make a handsome pocket volume, at the end of which " should be given an emblematical frontispiece, title, and " table of contents." So there was reasonable hope at start- ing; and no doubt a long line of handsome pocket volumes already jostled each other, in Goldsmith's lively brain. The first number, it must be said, was of good promise. One finds a lack of its wisdom, and its lightness in books " stitched in blue covers " now. The introduction dis- claimed relationship to the magazine trade and family; refused to tempt its readers with " three beautiful prints, " curiously coloured from nature," or to take any kind of merit from "its bulk or its frontispiece;" and invoked for itself, with mixed mirth and earnestness, a class of readers that should know the distinction between a bon-mot for White's, and a jest for the Cat and Bagpipes in St. Giles's. There was a letter on the Poles; a notice of the death of Voltaire's victim, Maupertuis; and, under the title of Alcander and Septimius, a popular version of that beautiful tale of Boccaccio, which afterwards suggested to a writer who belonged to Goldsmith's country, took early inspiration from his genius, and bore up uncrushed against as desperate poverty by the force of his example, the manly and earnest tragedy of Gisippus* Nor, since the delightful gossip of * Gerald Griffin's life was one of those strange, silent romances •which pass quite unheeded amid the roar and movement of the busier life around them ; yet