CHAP. X.] THE TEA VELLER AND WHAT FOLLOWED IT.

self-preservation, in collecting such fragments. As many 1705.
entertainers of the public, he said, had been partly living upon m7tf
him for some years, he was now resolved to try if he could
not live a little upon himself; and he compared his case
to that of the fat man he had heard of in a shipwreck,
who, when the sailors, pressed by famine, were taking
slices off him to satisfy their hunger, insisted with great
justice on having the first cut for himself. " Most of
" these essays," continued Goldsmith, " have been regularly
" reprinted twice or thrice a year, and conveyed to the
" public through the kennel of some engaging compilation.
" If there be a pride in multiplied editions, I have seen
" some of my labours sixteen times reprinted, and claimed
" by different parents as their own. I have seen them
" flourished at the 'beginning with praise, and signed at
" the end with the names of Philantos, Philalethes, Phila-
" lutheros, and Philanthropes." * Names that already
figured, as the reader will hardly need to be reminded,
in those adventures of a philosophic vagabond which
formed part of the little manuscript novel t now lying,

* Even the Monthly Review cannot but admit (xxxiii. 82, July 1765) that "Mr.
'' Goldsmith hath here published a collection of Essays, which have been so often
"printed in the newspapers, magazines, and other periodical productions, that we
" despair of selecting a specimen from any one that will not be previously known to
"our readers. But notwithstanding their being so well calculated for cursory
'' inspection, and notwithstanding their transient success among the duller topics
" of the day, we apprehend, &c. &c. &c," and then follows the usual depreciation ;
as for instance, " It is easy to collect from books and conversation, a sufficiency of
" superficial knowledge to enable a writer to flourish, away with tolerable propriety
" through a news-paper-essay ; but when these his lucubrations assume the form of
" a book, it is, &c. &c. &c. The author tells us, in his preface, that he could
"have made these Essays more metaphysical, had he thought fit; for our part,
" we do not find any of them, with which metaphysics have much to do. But be
•"this as it may, we look upon it as a great mark of Mr. Goldsmith's prudence,
" that he did neither meddle nor make with them." Considerate Mr. Griffiths !

f See chapter xx. of the Vicar of Wakefield, one of the evidences which
Goldsmith so frequently tenders us of the identity of his own experiences with those
narrated in his books. In the same portion of George Primrose's narrative hents