said Goldsmith, «< when I paid him the first visit, and it is to be supposed I was dressed in my best clothes. Sleigh scarcely knew me; such is the tax the unfortunate pay to poverty. However, when he did recollect me, I found his heart as warm as ever, and he shared his purse and his friendship with me during his continuance in London."

The friendship of Dr Sleigh1 was not confined to the mere relief of our poet's immediate wants, but showed itself in an anxious solicitude for his permanent success in life. Nobody better knew how to appreciate his talents and acquirements, and the accurate knowledge that Sleigh possessed of London qualified him to advise and direct the poet in his subsequent pursuits. Accordingly we find that Goldsmith, encouraged by his friend's advice, commenced medical practitioner at Bankside, in Southwark, whence he afterwards removed to the Temple and its neighbourhood. In Southwark it appears that his practice did not answer his expectations, but in the vicinity of the Temple he was more successful. The fees of the physician, however, were little, and that little, as is usual among the poorer classes, was very ill paid. He found it necessary, therefore, to have recourse likewise to his pen, and being introduced by Dr Sleigh to some of the booksellers, was almost immediately engaged in their service;and thus, << with very little practice as a physician, and very little reputation as a poet," as he himself expresses it, he made « a shift to live." The peculiarities of his situation at this period are described in the following letter, addressed to the gentleman who had married his eldest sister. It is dated Temple Exchange Coffee-house, December 27, 1757, and addressed to Daniel Hodson, Esq., at Lishoy, near Ballymahon, Ireland.

« DEAR SIR,-It may be four years since my last letters went to Ireland; and from you in particular I received no answer, probably because you never wrote to me. My brother Charles, however, informs me of the fatigue you were at in soliciting a

1 This gentleman subsequently settled in Cork, his native city, and was rapidly rising into eminence in his profession, when he was cut off in the flower of his age by an inflammatory fever, which deprived the world of a fine scholar, a skilful physician, and an honest man.

subscription to assist me, not only among my friends and relations, but acquaintance in general. Though my pride might feel some repugnance at being thus relieved, yet my gratitude can suffer no diminution. How much am I obliged to you, to them, for such generosity, or (why should not your virtues have the proper name) for such charity to me at that juncture. Sure I am born to ill-fortune, to be so much a debtor, and unable to repay. But to say no more of this: too many professions of gratitude are often considered as indirect petitions for future favours; let me only add, that my not receiving that supply was the cause of my present establishment at London. You may easily imagine what difficulties I had to encounter, left as I was without friends, recommendations, money, or impudence; and that in a country where being born an Irishman was sufficient to keep me unemployed. Many in such circumstances would have had recourse to the friar's cord, or the suicide's halter. But, with all my follies, I had principle to resist the one, and resolution to combat the other.

« I suppose you desire to know my present situation. As there is nothing in it at which I should blush, or which mankind could censure, I see no reason for making it a secret. In short, by a very little practice as a physician, and a very little reputation as a poet, I make a shift to live. Nothing is more apt to introduce us to the gates of the Muses than poverty; but it were well for us if they only left us at the door-the mischief is, they sometimes choose to give us their company at the entertainment, and want, instead of being gentleman-usher, often turns master of the ceremonies. Thus, upon hearing I write, no doubt you imagine I starve; and the name of an author naturally reminds you of a garret. In this particular I do not think proper to undeceive my friends. But whether I eat or starve; live in a first floor, or four pair of stairs high, I still remember them with ardour; nay, my very country comes in for a share of my affection. Unaccountable fondness for country, this maladie du pays, as the French call it! Unaccountable, that he should still have an affection for a place, who never received, when in it, above common civility; who never brought any thing out of it, except

his brogue and his blunders. Surely my affection is equally ridiculous with the Scotchman's, who refused to be cured of the itch because it made him unco thoughtful o' his wife and bonnie Inverary. But now to be serious; let me ask myself what gives me a wish to see Ireland again? The country is a fine one, perhaps? No.-There are good company in Ireland? No. The conversation there is generally made up of a smutty toast, or a bawdy song. The vivacity supported by some humble cousin, who has just folly enough to earn his dinner.—Then, perhaps, there is more wit and learning among the Irish? Oh, Lord, no! There has been more money spent in the encouragement of the Podareen mare there in one season, than given in rewards to learned men since the time of Usher. All their productions in learning amount to perhaps a translation, or a few tracts in divinity; and all their productions in wit to just nothing at all.— Why the plague, then, so fond of Ireland? Then, all at once, because you, my dear friend, and a few more, who are exceptions to the general picture, have a residence there. This it is that gives me all the pangs I feel in separation. I confess I carry this spirit sometimes to the souring the pleasures I at present possess. If I go to the opera, where Signora Columba pours out all the mazes of melody, I sit and sigh for Lishoy fireside, and Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night, from Peggy Golden. If I climb Flamstead-hill, than where nature never exhibited a more magnificent prospect, I confess it fine, but then I had rather be placed on the little mount before Lishoy gate, and there take in, to me, the most pleasing horizon in nature. Before Charles came hither, my thoughts sometimes found refuge from severe studies among my friends in Ireland. I fancied strange revolutions at home; but I find it was the rapidity of my own motion that gave an imaginary one to objects really at rest. No alterations there. Some friends, he tells me, are still lean, but very rich; others very fat, but still very poor. Nay, all the news I hear of you is, that you and Mrs Hodson sometimes sally out in visits among the neighbours, and sometimes make a migration from the blue bed to the brown. I could from my heart wish that you and she, and Lishoy and Ballymahon, and all of you, would

fairly make a migration into Middlesex; though, upon second thoughts, this might be attended with a few inconveniencies: therefore, as the mountain will not come to Mahomet, why Mahomet shall go to the mountain; or, to speak plain English, as you cannot conveniently pay me a visit, if next summer I can contrive to be absent six weeks from London, I shall spend three of them among my friends in Ireland. But first believe me, my design is purely to visit, and neither to cut a figure nor levy contributions, neither to excite envy nor solicit favour; in fact, my circumstances are adapted to neither. I am too poor to be gazed at, and too rich to need assistance.

« You see, dear Dan, how long I have been talking about myself; but attribute my vanity to my affection: as every man is fond of himself, and I consider you as a second self, I imagine you will consequently be pleased with these instances of egotism."

Goldsmith then alludes to some concerns of a private nature, and concludes:

« My dear sir, these things give me real uneasiness, and I could wish to redress them. But at present there is hardly a kingdom in Europe in which I am not a debtor. I have already discharged my most threatening and pressing demands, for we must be just before we can be grateful. For the rest I need not say, (you know I am), your affectionate kinsman.">

The medical and literary pursuits of our author, though productive, at this period, of little emolument, gradually extended the sphere of his acquaintance. Several of his fellow-students at Edinburgh and Dublin were now resident in London, and, by degrees, he continued to renew the intimacy that had formerly subsisted between them. Some of them occasionally assisted him with their purse, and others procured him the notice of the polite and the learned. Among the friendships thus agreeably renewed, there was one with a medical character,' afterwards eminent in his profession, who used to give the following account of our author's first interview with him in London.

It is presumed that Dr Sleigh meant.

« From the time of Goldsmith's leaving Edinburgh in the year 1754, I never saw him till the year 1756, when I was in London attending the hospitals and lectures: early in January he called upon me one morning before I was up, and on my entering the room I recognized my old acquaintance, dressed in a rusty full-trimmed black suit, with his pockets full of papers, which instantly reminded me of the poet in Garrick's farce of Lethe. After we had finished our breakfast he drew from his pocket part of a tragedy, which he said he had brought for my correction. In vain I pleaded inability, when he began to read, and every part on which I expressed a doubt as to the propriety, was immediately blotted out. I then more earnestly pressed him not to trust to my judgment, but to take the opinion of persons better qualified to decide on dramatic compositions. He now told me that he had submitted his production, so far as he had written, to Mr Richardson, the author of Clarissa, on which I peremptorily declined offering another criticism on the performance. The name and subject of the tragedy have unfortunately escaped my memory, neither do I recollect, with exactness, how much he had written, though I am inclined to believe that he had not completed the third act; I never heard whether he afterwards finished it. In this visit, I remember his relating a strange Quixotic scheme he had in contemplation, of going to decipher the inscriptions on the Written Mountains, though he was altogether ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which they might be supposed to be written. The salary of three hundred pounds per annum, which had been left for the purpose, was the temptation !»

With regard to the sketch of a tragedy here alluded to, the piece never was completed, nor did he afterwards attempt any thing in the same line. His project respecting the Written Mountains, was certainly an undertaking of a most extravagant description; but, if we consider how little qualified he was for such a task, it can hardly be supposed that the scheme ever entered seriously into his mind. It was not unusual with him to hazard opinions and adopt resolutions, without much consideration, and often without calculating the means to the end.

VOL. I.

C