OLIVER GOLDSMITH S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK n.

1758. more books and company; it figures some such change

SLSQ. as this which I notice here. "Whatever the work may he,

the resolution to stick to nature is a good and hopeful one,

and will admit of wise application, and many original results.

The poem seems to have gone no farther: but its cheerful

hero reappeared, after some months, in a " club of authors; "

protested that the alehouse had been his own bed-chamber

often; reintroduced the description with six new lines;

Where tlte Eed Lion flaring o'er the way,

Invites each passing stranger that can pay;

Where Calvert's butt, and Parson's black champagne,

Eegales the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane ;

There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,

The muse found Scroggen stretch'd beneath a rug .,

flattered himself that his work should not be of the order
of your common epic poems, which come from the press
like paper kites in the summer; swore that people were sick
of your Turnuses and Didos, and-wanted an heroical
description of nature; offered, for proof of sound, and
sense, and truth, and nature, in the trifling compass of
ten syllables, the last of two added lines;

A night-cap deck'd his brows instead of bay,
A cap ly night, a stocking all the day !

and having quoted them, was so much elated and self-
delighted, that he was quite unable to proceed.

Thus could Goldsmith already turn aside the sharpest
edge of poverty; thus wisely consent to be Scroggen till
he could be Groldsmith; in the paltry, slovenly pothouse
of Drury-lane, give promise of the neat village alehouse
of Auburn; and betake himself meanwhile to less agreeable
daily duties, in a spirit that would make them, also, the not
indifferent source of profit and delight.on, ceased to call down heaven and the