OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK m.
1760. Earl Ferrers glides through them again, with Ms horrible
m?2. passion and yet more ghastly composure. The theatres
again contend with their Pollys and Macheaths, and tire
the town with perpetual Beggars' Operas. Merry and
fasMonable crowds repeople WMte Conduit and Vauxhall.
We get occasional glimpses of even the stately commoner
and his unstately ducal associate. Old George the Second
dies, and young George the TMrd ascends the throne.
Churchill makes Ms hit with the Rosciad; and Sterne,
having startled the town with the humour and extrava-
gance of Ms Tristram Shandy, conies up from country quiet
to enjoy popularity.
How sudden and decisive it was, need not be related.
No one was so talked of in London tMs year, and no one
so admired, as that tall, thin, hectic -looking Yorkshire
parson. He who was to die within eight years, unheeded
and untended, in a common lodging-house, was every-
where the honoured guest of the rich and noble. His
book had become a fasMon, and east and west were moved
alike. Mr. Dodsley offered him 650L for a second edition
and two more volumes; Lord Falconberg gave him a
curacy of 150Z. a-year; Mr. Eeynolds painted Ms portrait;
and Warburtou, not having yet pronounced Mm an " irre-
" coverable scoundrel," went round to the bishops and told
them he was the English Eabelais. " They had never
" heard of such a writer," adds the sly narrator of the
incident* " One is invited to dinner where he dines," said
Gray, " a fortnight beforehand:" f and he was boasting,
* Walpole's Coll. Lett. iv. 39.
f Letter to Wharton, 22d April, 1760. Works, Hi. 241. In another letter to
Wharton, two months later, he writes, with his usual manly appreciation of all that
is good and original "there is much good fun in Tristram, and humour some-
" times hit, and sometimes missed. I agree with your opinion of it, and shall see