CHAP. VL] WORK AND HOPE.

" Two Misses, just taken home from the boarding-school, are 1759.
" prodigious great friends, and so they tell each other their secrets jjt. 31.
" by way of letter. In the first letter, Miss Jemima Courtly,
" or Mima for shortness* sake, lets her old and intimate friend
" know that her mother died when she was eight years old; that
" she had one brother and one sister-, with several other secrets of
" this kind, all delivered in the confidence of friendship. In the
" progress of this correspondence we find she has been taken from
" home for carrying on an intrigue with Horatio, a gentleman of the
" neighbourhood, and by means of her sister's insinuations, for she
" happens to be her enemy, confined to her chamber, her father at the
" same time making an express prohibition against her writing love-
" letters for the future. This command Miss Mima breaks, and of con-
" sequence is turned out of doors; so up she gets behind a servant
" without a pillion, and is set down at Mrs. Weller's house, the mother
" of her friend Miss Fanny. Here, then, we shall leave, or rather
" forget her, only observing that she is happily married, as we are told
" in a few words towards the conclusion. We are next served up with
" the history of Miss Louisa Blyden, a story no way connected with the
" former. Louisa is going to be married to Mr. Evanion; the
" nuptials, however, are interrupted by the death of Louisa's father,
" and at last broke off by means of a sharper, who pretends to be
" miss's uncle, and takes her concerns under his direction. What
" need we tell as how the young lovier runs mad, Miss is spirited away
" into France; at last returns; the sharper and his accomplices
" hang or drown themselves, her lover dies, and she, oh tragical!
" keeps her chamber ? However,' to console us for this calamity, there
" are two or three other very good matches struck up; a great deal
K of money, a great deal of beauty, a world of love, and days and
K nights as happy as heart could desire ; the old butt-end of a modern
" romance." *

And so Goldsmith's adieu to botli Eeviews was said, and
he left them to fight out their quarrels with each other.

* Critical Review, viii. 165-6, August 1759. Letmehere add that our knowledge
of Goldsmith's labours in the Critical Review is mainly derived from the fact
mentioned in a letter by George Steevens (Sept. 3, 1797) giving information about
" our little poet's works " to Bishop Percy, then engaged in preparing the edition
delayed by so many mischances. After remarking that "several pieces of the
" Doctor's are still in MS. in the hands of various people" (tin's could hardly be
news to the bishop, who had himself moi-e than one unpublished piece, which heimitation of Shakspeare in point of style, but on a plan &c. wholly