OLIVEE GOLDSMITH S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK in.
1762. " be done immediately. I am, &c. 0. G. The printer lias
MUM. "the copy of the rest" To this, his good nature having
returned, Newbery acceded; and the book was finished by
Mr. Collier, to whom a share of the pittance advanced had
of course to be returned. *
These paltry advances are a hopeless entanglement. They
bar freedom of judgment on anything proposed, and escape
is felt to be impossible. Some days, some weeks perhaps,
have been lost in idleness or illness; the future becomes a
mortgage to the past; every hour has its want, forestalled
upon the labour of the succeeding hour; and Gulliver lies
bound in Lilliput. " Sir," said Johnson, who had excellent
experience on this head, "you may escape a heavy debt, but
"not a small one. Small debts are like small shot; they
" are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped
" without a wound. Great debts are like cannon, of loud
" noise but little danger, "t
Mention of Goldsmith's illness now frequently recurs.
It originated in the habits of his London life, contrasting
with the activity and movement they had replaced; and the
remedy prescribed was change of scene, if change of life was
impossible. Pie is to be traced in this year to Tunbridge
and Bath; I find him known to Mr. Wood, whose solid and
tasteful architecture was ennobling the latter city; and one
of Mr. Newbery's pithy acknowledgments is connected with
those brief residences, where the improbus labor had not
failed to follow him. " Received from Mr. Newbery at
" different times, and for which gave receipts, fourteen
* Prior, i. 391—398. Mr. Fewbery's grandson appears to have collected all
such papers as he could find of his grandfather's, throwing light on Goldsmith's
connexion with him; and to these I shall have frequent occasion to refer as the
Newbery MSS.
f From a letter written in 1759, to the son of an old Lichfield friend.