OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK m.
1762. please them, that mth a sudden embrace they covered
Mi. 34. Ms cheeks with the oil and ochre that plentifully bedaubed
their own, and left him to discover, by the laughter which
greeted him in the street, the extent and fervour of their
gratitude.*
Not always such ready recipients, however, did Goldsmith
find the objects of his always ready kindness. One of the mem-
bers of this Eobin Hood was Peter Annet, a man, who, though
ingenious and deserving in other respects, became unhappily
notorious by a kind of fanatic crusade against the Bible, for
which (publishing weekly papers against the Book of
Genesis) he stood twice this year in the pillory, and was now
undergoing imprisonment in the King's Bench. To Annet's
rooms in St. Georgejs-fields we trace Goldsmith. He had
brought Newbery with him. to conclude the purchase of a
child's book on grammar by the prisoner, hoping so to
relieve his distress; but, on the prudent bookseller objecting
to a publication of the author's name, Annet accused him of
cowardice, rejected his assistance with contempt, and in a
furious rage bade him and his introducer good evening. Yet
the amount of Newbery's intended assistance was so liberal
as to have startled both Goldsmith and Annet, no less a sum
than ten guineas being offered for the child's granimar,f
though for the " completion of a history of England " he had
* "We have a very wrong idea of savage finery, and are apt to suppose that like
1 the beasts of the forest, they rise, and are dressed •with a shake; but the reverse
' is true : for no birth-night beauty takes more time or pains in the adorning her
' person than they. I remember, when the Cherokee kings were over here, that I
' have waited for three hours during the time they were dressing. . . they had their
' boxes of oil and ochre, their fat and their perfumes." Animated Nature, i. 420.
f It was the magnificence of the offer which brought about the catastrophe, such
a fervour of gratitude being excited in Annet that he suddenly protested he would
add a dedication and append his name, and Newbery should have the benefit of
both. I derive the anecdote from Oooke, who says it was one of those stories which
he had heard Goldsmith "relate with much colloquial humour ;" and he gives a