EPISTLE XV.

Page 133. OLIVER, or, as he was commonly called, DOCTOR GOLDSMITH, was the third son of a clergy-man in Ireland, and born 1729 at Elphin in the county of Roscommon. Having received his classical instruction at the school of Mr. Hughes, he was admitted a sizer of Trinity College, Dublin; where, though not till two years after the ordinary period, he took the first degree in arts. Turning his thoughts to the study of medicine, he proceeded to Edinburgh for that purpose; but was soon obliged to leave Scotland, through an embarrassment in which his good nature had involved him, and from which he was set free, by his two fellow-students, Laughlin Maclane and Dr. Sleigh. Thence, passing over to Holland, he visited Brussels, Strasburgh, and Louvain, and having, in the last university, taken the degree of Bachelor in Physic, he proceeded on to Geneva. The greater part of this tour he travelled on foot, subsisting on such casual hospitalities as fell in his way. His learning was a sufficient passport to most of the religious houses, and the music of his flute to the sheds of the peasants.

During his stay at Geneva, where he engaged himself as Tutor to an attorney's clerk just come to a fortune, he improved his poetic talents, and thence transmitted to his brother the first sketch of his Tra

veller. From Switzerland, he accompanied his pupil to the South of France, where, being unhandsomely discharged, he had fresh difficulties to encounter. Shaping his course towards England, he at length reached the metropolis, possessed only of two pence. Destitute of every resource he sought employment as a shopman, and at length was employed by a chymist. In this situation he continued, till finding his old friend Dr. Sleigh, he was recommended by him to assist Dr. Milner in his Academy at Peckham. Here, commencing writer, he was engaged by Mr. Griffiths in the Monthly Review; and the better to carry on his literary pursuits, he took lodgings in London. Green-Arbor-Court in the Old Bailey, was the first situation he chose; but on being employed by Newbery in the Ledger, and becoming more known, he moved thence to the Temple. The publication of his Traveller, Vicar of Wakefield, (in which he pourtrayed himself) and Good-natured Man, acquired him considerable reputation; which the Deserted Village augmented. His other Comedy was also attended with unexpected success. Indeed such now was his literary fame that he is said to have clearéd in one year by his pen no less a sum than 1800l. His imprudencies, however, kept pace with his gains, for, having an unfortunate attachment to gaming, he became a constant dupe of the crafty and unprincipled.

Depending still on his pen, he projected a Dictionary of the Sciences, and actually printed the pro

speclus of his plan, but not succeeding as he wished, the scheme was reluctantly dropped.

Having at times been afflicted with the stranguary, and harrassed with various vexations, he fell into a state of despondence. This being followed by a nervous fever, which was improperly treated, he was cut off in the 45th year of his age. As he lived in esteem with some amongst the first characters of the time, he was to have been buried by them in Westminster Abbey, but the design was somehow relinquished, and his body interred in the Temple. A monument, however, in the Abbey, is erected to his memory, with an inscription by Johnson, in latin.

This Epistle was introduced by the following DE

DICATION:

TO THE

REV. HENRY GOLDSMITH.

DEAR SIR,

I AM sensible that the friendship between us can acquire no new force from the ceremonies of a Dedication; and perhaps it demands an excuse thus to prefix your name to my attempts which you decline giving with your own. But as a part of this Poem was formerly written to you from Switzerland, the whole can now, with propriety, be only inscribed to you. It will also throw a light upon many parts of it, when the reader understands, that it is addressed to a man, who, despising Fame and Fortune, has re1 tired early to Happiness and Obscurity, with an income of forty pounds a year.

I now perceive, my dear brother, the wisdom of your humble choice. You have entered upon a sacred office, where the harvest is great, and the lạborers are but few; while you have left the field of Ambition, where the laborers are many, and the harvest not worth carrying away. But of all kinds of ambition, what from the refinement of the times, from different systems of criticism, and from the divisions of party, that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest.

Poetry makes a principle amusement among unpolished nations: but in a country verging to the extremes of refinement, Painting and Music come in for a share. As these offer the feeble mind a less laborious entertainment, they at first rival Poetry, and at length supplant her; they engross all that favor once shewn to her, and though but younger sisters, seize upon the elder's birth-right.

Yet, however this art may be neglected by the powerful, it is still in greater danger from the mistaken efforts of the learned to improve it. What criticisms have we not heard of late in favor of blank verse, and Pindaric odes, chorusses, anapests and iambics, alliterative care and happy negligence! Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it, and as he is generally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say; for error is ever talkative.

But there is an enemy to this art still more dangerous, I mean Party. Party entirely distorts the judgment, and destroys the taste. When the mind is once infected with this disease, it can only find plea

sure in what contributes to increase the distemper. Like the tyger, that seldom desists from pursuing man after having once preyed upon human flesh, the reader, who has once gratified his appetite with calumny, makes, ever after, the most agreeable feast upon murdered reputation. Such readers generally admire some half-witted thing, who wants to be thought a bold man, having lost the character of a wise one. Him they dignify with the name of poet; his tawdry lampoons are called satires, his turbulence is said to be force, and his phrenzy fire.

What reception a Poem may find, which has neither abuse, party, nor blank verse to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I solicitous to know. My aims are right. Without espousing the cause of any party, I have attempted to moderate the rage of all. I have endeavoured to shew, that there may be equal happiness in states, that are differently governed from our own; that every state has a particular principle of happiness, and that this principle in each may be carried to a mischievous excess. There are few can judge, better than yourself, how far these positions are illustrated in this Poem.

I am, dear Sir,

Your most affectionate Brother,

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

THE END.