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262 OLIYEK GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK in.

1759. strained or excessive song of triumph. " The favor I meet
JiuJl. " with from y^e Greatest men," he writes to his brother on
the 19th of April, " has made me far from repenting of
" my choice. I am very intimate with Mr. Glover, who will
" bring out a Tragedy next winter upon my ace*. Twice I
" have sup'd w^th y^e Great Mr. Murray, Counsell¹', and shall
« _wth jy/Q.. Pope, by his Introduction. I sup'd with y^e Mr.
" Littleton, y^e Prince's Favourite, last Thursday night, and
"that with y^e highest Civility and complaisance. He told
" me he never knew what Acting was till I appeared, and said
" I was only born to act w* Shakespear writ. These things
" daily occurring give me Great Pleasure. I din'd^awith L^d"Hallifax and L^d Sandwich, two very ingenious Noblemen,
"yesterday, and am to dine at L^d Hallifax's next Sunday
" with L^d Chesterfield. I have the Pleasure of being very
" intimate, too, with Mr. Hawkins Browne, of Burton.* In
"short, I believe nobody (as an Actor) was ever more
" caress'd, and my Character as a private Man makes 'em
" more desirous of my Company. (All this entre nous, as one
" Broth^r to another.) I am not fix'cl for next year, but shall
" certainly be at y^e Other End of y^e Town. I arn offered 500
" guineas and a Clear Benefit, or part of y^e Management."

Here, then, I leave him, rapidly on his way to the other
end of town, manager in expectancy already, the architect in
six months of a fortune which went on increasing for thirty-
six years, now as always the darling of the great,f and a

* The author, among other things, of A Pipe of Tobacco (the original of the
Rejected Addresses, Odes and Addresses, &c. &e.), -which Goldsmith praises
deservedly in his Beauties of English Poetry, not on the ground that the parody is
ridiculous, but that the imitation is excellent. " I am told" he remarks "that
" he had no good original manner of his own, yet we see how well he succeeds
" when he turns an imitator." i. 261. Johnson thought him the best " converger"
he had ever met. Mrs. Piozzi, 173.

• t " I dined to-day at Garrick's," writes Horace Walpole to Bentley (August 15,
1755): "there were the Duke of Grrafton, Lord and Lady Eochford, Lady Holder-