OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK m.
1759. hour; still further demonstrate how competent he was to
Mt. 31. this department of criticism.
But, like Hume's Epigoniad effort, all this was uphill
work: his first Bee had an idle time of it, and greater favour
was asked for the second in a paid-for newspaper paragraph
of particular earnestness. " The public," said this advertise-
ment, which had a pathetic turn in it, "is requested to compare
" this with other periodical performances which more pomp-
" ously solicit their attention. If upon perusal it be found
" deficient either in humour, elegance, or variety, the author
" will readily acquiesce in their censure. It is possible the
" reader may sometimes draw a prize, and even should it
" turn up a blank it costs him but threepence." In number
the second, for that small sum, was a most agreeable little
lesson on Dress, against fault-finders and dealers in ridicule,
proving by example of cousin Hannah that such folks are
themselves the most ridiculous; and a much sounder notion
of a patriot king than Bolingbroke's, in homely sketches of
Charles the Twelftll of Sweden, in remark on the difficulties
of so educating princes that " the superior dignity of man
" to that of royalty " should be their leading lesson, and in
warning against the folly of entrusting a charge so sacred
to men " who themselves have acted in a sphere too high to
" know mankind." A delightful essay in the same number,
with Cardinal de Eetz and Dick Wildgoose side by side, to
prove that pleasure is in ourselves, not in the objects offered
for our amusement, and that philosophy should force the
trade of happiness when nature has denied the means, also
well deserves mention.
The. third number opened with a paper on the Use of
Language: to which the grave philologist resorting, found
language he was little used to. It was a plea for the poor :
an essay to prove that he who best knew how to conceal his