CHAPTER VII.

AN APPEAL FOR AUTHOES BY PROFESSION.
1759.

MEANWHILE the Dodsleys had issued their advertise- 1759.
naents, and the London Chronicle of the 3rd of April, 1759, Jit. 31.
announced the appearance, the day hefore, of An Enquiry
into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe. It was
a very respectable, well-printed duodecimo; was without
the author's name on the title-page, though Goldsmith was
anxious to have the authorship widely known; and had two
learned mottoes. The Greek signified that the writer
esteemed philosophers, but was no Mend to sophists; and
the Latin, that those only should destroy buildings who
could themselves build.

The first idea of the work has been seen; as it grew con-
solingly, like the plant in the Picciola, from between the
hard and stony environments of a desperate fortune. Some
modifications it received, as the prospects of the writer
were subjected to change; and in its scope became too
large for the limited materials, both of reading and expe-
rience, brought to its composition. But it was in advance of
any similar effort in that day. No one was prepared, in a
treatise so grave, for a style so enchantingly graceful. Tocal