world, and had read books only; I wrote, and fancied perfection in my compositions; when I wanted bread they promised me affluence, and soothed me with dreams of reputation, whilst my appearance subjected me to contempt. "Time, reflection, and want, have shown me my mistake. I see my trifles in that which I think the true light; and, whilst I deem them such, have yet the opinion that holds them superior to the common run of poetical publications. "I had some knowledge of the late Mr. Nassau, the brother of Lord Rochford; in consequence of which, I asked his lordship's permission to inscribe my little work to him. Knowing it to be free from all political allusions and personal abuse, it was no very material point to me to whom it was dedicated. His lordship thought it none to him, and obligingly consented to my request. “I was told that a subscription would be the more profitable method for me, and, therefore, endeavoured to circulate copies of the enclosed proposals. "I am afraid, sir, I disgust you with this very dull narrative, but believe me punished in the misery that occasions it. You will conclude that, during this time, I must have been at more expense than I could afford; indeed, the most parsimonious could not have afforded it. The printer deceived me, and my little business has had every delay. The people with whom I live perceive my situation, and find me to be indigent and without friends. About ten days since, I was compelled to give a note for seven pounds, to avoid an arrest for about double that sum, which I owe. I wrote to every friend I had, but my friends are poor likewise; the time of payment approached, and I ventured to represent my case to Lord Rochford. I begged to be credited for this sum till I received it of my subscribers, which, I believe, will be within one month; but to this letter I had no reply, and I have probably offended by my importunity. Having used every honest means in vain, I yesterday confessed my inability, and obtained, with much entreaty, and as the greatest favour, a week's forbearance, when I am positively told that I must pay the money, or prepare for a prison. "You will guess the purpose of so long an introduction. you, sir, as a good, and let me add, a great man. I have no other pretensions to your favour than that I am an unhappy one. It is not easy to support the thoughts of confinement; and I am coward enough to dread such an end to my suspense. I appeal to "Can you, sir, in any degree, aid me with propriety? Will you ask any demonstrations of my veracity? I have imposed upon myself, but I have been guilty of no other imposition. Let me, if possible, interest your compassion. I know those of rank and fortune are teased with frequent petitions, and are compelled to refuse the requests even of those whom they know to be in distress; it is, therefore, with a distant hope I ventured to solicit such favour; but you will forgive me, sir, if you do not think proper to relieve. It is impossible that sentiments like yours can proceed from any but a humane and generous heart. "I will call upon you, sir, to-morrow, and if I have not the happiness to obtain credit with you, I must submit to my fate. My existence is a pain to myself, and every one near and dear to me are distressed in my distresses. My connexions, once the source of happiness, now embitter the reverse of my fortune, and I have only to hope a speedy end to a life so unpromisingly begun ; in which (though it ought not to be boasted of) I can reap some consolation from looking to the end of it. I am, sir, with the greatest respect, your obedient and most humble servant, GEORGE CRABBE." Mr. Burke was, at this period, (1781,) engaged in the hottest turmoils of parliamentary opposition, and his own pecuniary circumstances were by no means very affluent: yet he gave instant attention to this letter, and the verses which it enclosed. He immediately appointed an hour for my father to call upon him at his house in London; and the short interview that ensued entirely and for ever changed the nature of his worldly fortunes. He was, in the common phrase, "a made man" from that hour. He went into Mr. Burke's room a poor young adventurer, spurned by the opulent, and rejected by the publishers, his last shilling gone, and all but his last hope with it; he came out virtually secure of almost all the good fortune that, by successive steps, afterwards fell to his lot-his genius acknowledged by one whose verdict could not be questioned his character and manners appreciated and approved by a noble and capacious heart, whose benevolence knew no limits but its power-that of a giant in intellect, who was, in feeling, an unsophisticated child—a bright example of the close affinity between superlative talents, and the warmth of the generous affections. Mr. Crabbe had afterwards many other friends, kind, liberal, and powerful, who assisted him in his professional career; but it was one hand alone that rescued him when he was sinking. In reflecting upon the consequences of the letter to Burke-the happiness, the exultation, the inestimable benefits that resulted to my father,―ascribing, indeed, my own existence to that great and good man's condescension and prompt kindness, I may be pardoned for dwelling upon that interview with feelings of gratitude which I should but in vain endeavour to express. But, sensible as I am of the importance of Mr. Burke's interference in my father's behalf, I would not imply that there was not ample desert to call it forth. Enlarged as was Mr. Burke's benevolence, had not the writings which were submitted to his inspection possessed the marks of real genius, the applicant would probably have been dismissed with a little pecuniary assistance. I must add that, even had his poems bcen eminently meritorious, it is not to be supposed that the author would have at once excited the strongest personal interest in such a mind, unless he had, during this interview, exhibited the traits of a pure and worthy character. Nay, had there appeared any offensive peculiarities of manner and address-either presumption or meanness-though the young poet might have received both kindness and patronage, can any one dream that Mr. Burke would have at once taken up his cause with the zeal of a friend, domesticated him under his own roof, and treated him like a son? In mentioning his new protégé, a few days afterwards, to Reynolds, Burke said, "He has the mind and feelings of a gentleman. Sir Joshua told this, years later, to my grateful father himself. 115. THE HISTORY OF A PHILOSOPHIC VAGABOND. GOLDSMITH. [THE name of Oliver Goldsmith is, by most persons who are familiar with his writings, pronounced with a sort of affectionate warmth, not unmingled with pity. We know that he wanted strength of purpose, and that he was a creature of impulse, but we do not love him the less for these failings. He stands in singular contrast with the one other great literary name of his generation, Samuel Johnson; and, if truth be told, we have an irrepressible sympathy for Johnson's butt, "who wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll," which we cannot altogether feel for the literary dictator whom Boswell has immortalized. We should like to have some record of how "poor Poll" did talk, more full and less prejudiced than the testimony of the wondering Scot, whose only notion of conversation was discussion, discussion, discussion. We have no such record: but we have 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' 'The Citizen of the World,'' She Stoops to Conquer,' 'Retaliation,' and who then shall dare to think that Oliver Goldsmith could be prosy? We have, moreover, the admirable 'Life' of Mr. Forster, who has estimated Goldsmith at a higher worth than any previous biographer; and has cleared away many of the common notions of his loose gabble and childish vanity derived from Boswell. We give the following extract from 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' because it is generally thought to contain an outline of some passages of Goldsmith's own chequered life. He was born in 1728, in the county of Longford, Ireland, being the fifth of seven children of a poor clergyman; was educated at Trinity College, Dublin; studied physic at Leyden; led a wandering life for some time; and came to London a literary adventurer, about 1756. Much of his employment was taskwork; but in all he did there are to be found the traces of a facile genius. He died in 1774, at the early age of forty-five.] The first misfortune of my life, which you all know, was great; but though it distressed, it could not sink me. No person ever had a better knack at hoping than I. The less kind I found Fortune at one time, the more I expected from her another; and being now at the bottom of her wheel, every new revolution might lift, but could not depress me. I proceeded, therefore, towards London in a fine morning, no way uneasy about to-morrow, but cheerful as the birds that carolled by the road, and comforting myself with reflecting that London was the mart where abilities of every kind were sure of meeting distinction and reward. I have been an anodyne neckI was up early Upon my arrival in town, sir, my first care was to deliver your letter of recommendation to our cousin, who was himself in little better circumstances than I. My first scheme you know, sir, was to be usher at an academy, and I asked his advice on the affair. Our cousin received the proposal with a true sardonic grin. Ay, cried he, this is indeed a very pretty career that has been chalked out for you. usher at a boarding-school myself; and may I die by an lace, but I had rather be an under-turnkey in Newgate. and late; I was browbeat by the master, hated for my ugly face by the mistress; worried by the boys within, and never permitted to stir out to meet civility abroad.- -But are you sure you are fit for a school? Let me examine you a little. Have you been bred apprentice to the business? No. Then you won't do for a school. boys' hair? No. Then you won't do for a school. small-pox? No. Then you won't do for a school? in a bed? No. Then you will never do for a school. Have you got a good stomach? Yes. Then you will by no means do for a school. No, sir, if you are for a genteel, easy profession, bind yourself for seven years as an apprentice to turn a cutler's wheel; but avoid a school by any means. Yet come, continued he, I see you are a lad of spirit and some learning, what do you think of commencing author, like me? You have read in books, no doubt, of men of genius starving at the trade; at present I'll show you forty very dull fellows about town that live by it in opulence. All honest jog-trot men, who go on smoothly and dully, and write history and politics, and are praised-men, sir, who, had they been bred cobblers, would all their lives have only mended shoes, but never made them. Can you dress the Finding that there was no great degree of gentility affixed to the character of an usher, I resolved to accept his proposal, and, having the highest respect for literature, hailed the antiqua mater of Grub-street with reverence. I thought it my glory to pursue a track which Dryden and Otway trod before me. I considered the goddess of this region as the parent of excellence; and, however an intercourse with the world might give us good sense, the poverty she entailed I supposed to be the nurse of genius. Big with these reflections, I sat down, and, finding that the best things remained to be said on the wrong side, I resolved to write a book that should be wholly new. I therefore dressed up three paradoxes with ingenuity. They were false, indeed, but they were new. The jewels of truth have been so often imported by others, that nothing was left for me to import, but some splendid thing that, at a distance, looked every bit as well. Witness, you powers, what fancied importance sat perched upon my quill while I was writing! The whole learned world, I made no doubt, would rise to oppose my systems; but then I was prepared to oppose the whole learned world. Like the porcupine I sat self-collected, with a quill pointed against every opposer. * * The learned world said nothing to my paradoxes-nothing at all. Every man of them was employed in praising his friends and himself, or condemning his enemies: and, unfortunately, as I had neither, I suffered the cruellest mortification, neglect. As I was meditating one day in a coffee-house on the fate of my paradoxes, a little man, happening to enter the room, placed himself in the box before me, and after some preliminary discourse, finding me to be a scholar, drew out a bundle of proposals, begging me to subscribe to a new edition he was going to give to the world of Propertius, with notes. This demand necessarily produced a reply that I had no money; and that concession led him to inquire into the nature of my expectations. Finding that my expectations were just as great as my purse, I see, cried he, you are unacquainted with the town: I'll teach you a part of it. Look at these proposals; upon these very proposals I have subsisted very comfortably for twelve years. The moment a nobleman returns from his travels, a Creolian arrives from Jamaica, or a dowager from her country seat, I strike for a subscription. I first besiege their hearts with flattery, and then pour in my proposals at the breach. If they subscribe readily the first time, I renew my request to beg a dedication fee. If they let me have that, I smite them once more for engraving their coat of arms at the top. Thus, continued he, I live by vanity, and laugh at it. But between ourselves, I am now too well known; I should be glad to borrow your face a bit: a nobleman of distinction has just returned from Italy; my face is familiar to his porter; but if you bring this copy of verses, my life for it you succeed, and we divide the spoil. * Having a mind too proud to stoop to such indignities, and yet a fortune too humble to hazard a second attempt for fame, I was now obliged to take a middle course, and write for bread. But I was unqualified for a profession where mere industry alone was too ensure success. I could not suppress my lurking passion for applause; but usually consumed that time in efforts after excellence, which takes up but little room, when it should have been more advantageously employed in the diffusive productions of fruitful mediocrity. My little piece would therefore come forth in the midst of periodical publications, unnoticed and unknown. The public were more importantly employed than to observe the easy simplicity of my style, or the harmony of my periods. Sheet after sheet was thrown off to oblivion. My essays were buried among the essays upon liberty, Eastern tales, and cures for the bite of a |