OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK in.
1766. character in particular had filled many of Ms best hours
mTsB. with what he oddly called " that noble admiration which a
"disinterested soul can enjoy in the bower of philosophy."
He told him he was going to publish an account of Corsica,
and of Paoli's gallant efforts against the tyrant Genoese.
He added that to please his father, "one of our Scots
" judges," he had himself studied law, and was now fairly
entered to the bar. And he concluded thus. " I begin to
" like it. I can labour hard; I feel myself coming forward,
" and I hope to be useful to my country. Could you find time
" to honour me noiv and then with a letter ? " * To no wiser
man than this, it should be always kept in mind, posterity
became chiefly indebted for its laugh at Goldsmith's
literary vanities, social absurdities, and so-called self-
important ways.
With Pitt's reappearance had meanwhile been connected
another event of not less mighty consequence. On the day
(the 14th of January) when he rose to support Conway's
repeal of the American stamp-act, and to resist his accom-
panying admission that such an act was not void in itself,;
when, in answer to Nugent's furious denunciation of rebel-
lious colonies, he rejoiced that Massachusetts had resisted,
and affirmed that colonies unrepresented could not be taxed
by parliament;—Burke took Ms seat, by an arrangement with
Lord Verney, for "Wendover borough. A fortnight later he
made Ms first speech, and divided the admiration of the
house with Pitt himself.t Afterwards, and with increased
* Oliatham Correspondence, iii. 247.
f la the best passages of his Memoirs of George III, Horace Walpole celebrates
Pitt's farewell, and Burke's accession, to the House of Commons. "Two great
" orators and statesmen," says Mr. Macaulay, speaking of the debates on Conway's
motion, "belonging to two different generations, repeatedly put forth all their powers
"in defence of the bill. The House of Commons heard Pitt for the last time, and
"Burke for the first time, and was'in doubt to which of them the palm of