OLIYER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK m.
1760. somewhat advanced, were they even numbered; they never
,ffit32. received a title, until republished; but they were talked of as
the Chinese Letters, assumed the principal place in the paper,
and contributed more than any other cause to its successful
establishment. Sir Simeon Swift and his " Eanger,"
Mr. Philanthropy Candid and his " Visitor," struggled and
departed as newspaper shadows are wont to do; Lien Chi
Altangi became real, and lived. From the ephemeral sprang
the immortal. On that column of ungainly-looking, perish-
able type, depended not alone the paper of the day, but a
book to last throughout the year, a continuous pleasure for
the age, and one which was for all time. It amused the
hour, was wise for the interval beyond it, is still diverting
and instructing us, and will delight generations yet unborn.
At the close of 1760, ninety-eight of the letters had been
published; within the next few months, at less regular
intervals, the series was brought to completion; and in the
following year, the whole were republished by Mr. Newbery
" for the author,"* in two duodecimo volumes, but without
any author's name, as " The Citizen of the World; or,
" Letters from a Chinese Philosopher in London, to his
'' Friend in the East."
"•Light, agreeable, summer reading," observed the British
Magazine, with but dry and laconic return for the Wow-wow.
The Monthly Review had to make return of a different kind,
Mr. Griffiths now decently resolving to swallow his leek;
* This specification, which appears upon no other "book written by Goldsmith,
appears to imply either some reluctance on Newbery's part to undergo the risk
of the repnblication, or some quarrel as to terms; but whichever it may have
been, it is clear that a very small payment a few months later put the book-
seller in possession of the whole "copy" [copyright] of the book. "Received of
" Mr. Newbery, five guineas, which, with what I have received at different times
" before, is in full for the copy of the Chinese Letters, as witness my hand, Oliver
" Goldsmith. March 5, 1762." Newbery MSS, Prior, i. 397.