CHAP, v.] DISCIPLINE OF SORROW.

The "impatient expectation" of the result of Grriffiths's 1758.
resolutions, ended in a contract to write him a Life of .ffit.30.
Voltaire for a translation of the Henriade he was ahout to
publish: the payment being twenty pounds, and the price
of the clothes to be deducted from that sum. His brother
Henry wrote to him. of the Polite Learning scheme, while
engaged on this trade task; and the answer he made at
its close, written early in February 1759, is in some sort
the indication of his altered mind and purpose. There is still
evidence of his personal weakness in the idle distrusts and
suspicion it charges on himself, and in its false pretences to
conceal his rejection and sustain his poor Irish credit: yet
the general tone of it marks not the less, a new, a sincerer,
and a more active epoch in his life. Whilst the quarrel
with Griffiths was still proceeding, he had again written of
the Polite Learning essay, and sent some scheme of a new
poem to Henry (first fruit of the better uses of his adversity);
but absolute silence as to the Coroniandel appointment
appears to have suggested a doubt in his brother's answer,
to wliich very cursory and slight allusion is made in this
reply. The personal portrait, in which the " big wig" of
his Bankside days plays its part, will hardly support his
character for personal vanity I "Dear Sir," the letter ran,*—

" Your punctuality in answering a man, whose trade is writing, is
" more than I had reason to expect; and yet you see me generally fill
" a whole sheet, which is all the recompense I can make for being so
" frequently troublesome. The behaviour of Mr. Mills and Mr. Lawder
" is a little extraordinary. However, their answering neither you nor
" me is a sufficient indication of their disliking the employment which
" I assigned them. As their conduct is different from what I had
" expected, so I have made an alteration in mine. I shall the beginning

* Percy Memoir, 53-9. It is addressed to "The Rev. Henry Goldsmith, at
" Lowfield, near Ballymore, in Westmeath, Ireland."ch time. Nor shall I add to it by any other professions than