OLIYEB, GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK m.
1763. derived his only help from the booksellers, for whom he had
M. 35. some time written, and continued still to write, the historical
portion of the Annual Register. He had heen but a few
months in enjoyment of Hamilton's pension, and was already
extremely uneasy as to the conditions on which he began to
suspect it had been granted. His patron does not seem to
have relished his proposed return to London society.
" I know your business ought on all occasions to have the
" preference," wrote Burke, in deprecation; " to be the first,
" and the last, and indeed in all respects the main concern.
" All I contend for is, that I may not be considered as
" absolutely excluded from all other thoughts, in their proper
" time and due subordination." * The whole truth was not
made obvious to him. till two years later. He then found, and
on finding it flung up the pension, that Hamilton had thought
him placed by it in " a sort of domestic situation." It was the
consideration of a bargain and sale of independence. It was a
claim for absolute servitude. " Not to value myself as a gentle-
" man," remonstrated Burke, " a freeman, a man of education,
" and one pretending to literature, is there any situation in
" life so low, or even so criminal, that can subject a man to
" the possibility of such an engagement ? "Would you dare
" attempt to bind your footman to such terms ? " t Mr.
Hawkins, it is clear, would have thought the terms suitable
" last year, called a Treatise on the Subliine and the Beautiful. I must farther
"say of him, that his chief application has been to the knowledge of public
" business, and our commercial interests; that he seems to have a most extensive
" knowledge, with extraordinary talents for business, and to want nothing but
"ground to stand upon to do his country very important services." ChatJiam
Correspondence, i. 432. Brake's first piece was the Vindication (not the advan-
tages) of Natural Society, which up to 1763 Johnson seems to have thought a
serious and "imprudent" assertion of the opinions of Bolingbrote. It was not till
two years later (1765) that the irony was explicitly laid aside in a preface to the
edition then published, and meanwhile both Bishop Warburton and Lord Chesterfield
are said to have been deceived.
* Correspondence, i. 49-50. f H>id, i. 73,