OLIVER GOLDSMITH S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK in.
1765. poor Kit Smart went mad; and Goldsmith had but to
Mi. 37. remember how it was discovered, to forgive all the huffing
speeches that Johnson might ever make to him! " I wrote,
" sir," said the latter, " for some months in the Universal
" Visitor for poor Smart, not then knowing the terms on
" which he was engaged to write, and thinking I was doing
" him good. I hoped his wits would soon return to him.
" Mine returned to me, and I wrote in the Universal Visitor
" no longer." * It was a sixpenny weekly-pamphlet; the
agreement was for ninety-nine years ; and the terms were
that Smart was to write nothing else, and be rewarded with
one-sixth of the profits ! It was undoubtedly a thing to
remember, this agreement of old Gardener's. The most
thriving subject in the kingdom of the booksellers could
hardly fail to recall it now and then. And the very man to
remind Goldsmith of it, in good-natured contrast to the
opportunity he had lost, was the companion with whom he
left Northumberland-house that day. Nevertheless he left
it with greater cheerfulness^ and a better-founded sense of
independence, than if he had consented to substitute a
reliance " on the promises of great men."
* Boswell, v. 288.