CHAP. IX.] THE ARREST A~ND WHAT PRECEDED IT.
things are viewed from a luxurious seat in the private boxes, 1754.
or from a hard bench in the upper gallery. JBUJ6.
Poverty pressed heavily just now upon Goldsmith, as I have
said. His old friend Grainger came over on leave from his
West India station, to bring out Ms poem of the Sugar
Cane,- and found him in little better plight than in his
garret days. " "When I taxed little Goldsmith for not writing."
he says to Percy, " as he promised me, his answer was, that
" he never wrote a letter in his life; and 'faith I believe him,
" unless to a bookseller for money." * In the present year,
it would seem, he had more experience than success in
" makes everything feel less so. Whenever I meet •with anything I think •worth
'' your -while accepting, you may be sure I -won't forget you. In the mean time
" I beg you'll do me the favor to desire Mr. Woodfall will send me the Public
'' Advertisers that I may see the progress of Politics and Plays at one view. He
'' may send them regularly by the packets as they come; and if possible let me
'' have them from the first day the house opened, and so on day by day; I'll have
" them all the while I continue in this country. I'll pay him either by the year
'' at once, or if he must be paid constantly every day order him to leave them at
" Mr. Towchet's as they come out, and he will send them to me and pay him for
'' them. I hope all your little family are well, give my love to them all. Present
'' my compliments to Mr. Lacy . . tell him I expect to hear from him . . Give my
"compliments to Mr. Colman, whom I hope also to hear from, and Hollond.
'' I hope they won't take it ill, I don't write to them; but I have so little to say
'' and so many letters to write, that I must beg they will excuse me this packet.
" As I expect they'll write to me soon, and let me know all the news, they may
'' depend on hearing from me again by the return of every ship. Hearing from
" England will be my greatest pleasure, therefore I hope you among the rest won't
" forget me. East, West, Forth or South, I am ever, Dear George, Yours most
" sincerely War. O'BRIEN." After his return to England, O'Brien got the place
of receiver-general of the county of Dorset. See note to Garrick Coi-respondence,
L 170. See also Taylor's Records ofJiis own Life, i. 176, and Selwyn Correspon-
dence, i. 273.
* Letter to Percy, dated March 24, 1764, in Nichols's Ittustratiom, vii. 286.
In the same letter he describes himself to have been robbed, " about three o'clock
" of the day we parted, about three miles on this [London] side of St. Albans.
'' Luckily he did not ask for my watch, and went off by telling me he was sorry to be
'' obliged to take our money. So civil are our highwaymen. In France or Spain
" our death would have preceded the robbery." I may here take the opportunity
of saying that in the fifty-first volume of the Gentleman's Magazine, 39, there is
given an " Epitaph in Jamaica. By Dr. Goldsmith, Not printed in his works;"
and it is quite possible that this may in some way be connected with Grainger,