ley's comedy of "The Grumbler" to a farce of one act; and it was performed for the be

coherent piece of stuff, the figure of a woman with a fish's tail, without plot, incident, or intrigue? We are made to laugh at stale, dull jokes, wherein we mistake pleasantry for wit, and grimace for humour: wherein every scene is unnatural, and inconsistent with the rules, the laws of nature and of the drama; viz. Two gentlemen come to a man of fortune's house, eat, drink, sleep, &c. and take it for an inn. The one is intended as a lover to the daughter; he talks with her for some hours, and when he sees her again in a different dress, he treats her as a bar-girl, and swears she squinted. He abuses the master of the house, and threatens to kick him out of his own doors. The 'Squire, whom we are told is to be a fool, proves to be the most sensible being of the piece; and he makes out a whole act by bidding his mother lie close behind a bush, persuading her, that his father, her own husband, is a highwayman, and that he is come to cut their throats; and to give his cousin an opportunity to go off, he drives his mother over hedges, ditches, and through ponds. There is not, sweet. sucking Johnson, a natural stroke in the whole play, but the young fellow's giving the stolen jewels to the mother, supposing her to be the landlady. That Mr. Colman did no justice to this piece, I honestly allow; that he told all his friends it would be damned, I positively aver; and from such ungenerous insinuations, without a dramatic merit, it rose to public notice; and it is now the ton to go to see it, though I never saw a person, that either liked it or approved it, any more than the absurd plot of the Home's tragedy of

nefit of that comedian on the 8th of May. The principal character of this petite piece

Alonzo. Mr. Goldsmith, correct your arrogance, reduce your vanity, and endeavour to believe, as a man, you are of the plainest sort; and as an author, but a mortal piece of mediocrity.

"Brisez le miroir infidele,

"6 Qui vous cache la verité.

"TOM TICKLE."

Dr. Goldsmith, immediately on the appearance of this letter, went to the publisher's house (Mr. T. Evans, in Paternoster-row,) and, after having argued on the malignity of this unmerited attack on his character, applied a cane to his shoulders with all his might. The publisher thought it necessary to stand in his own defence; and it is not easy to say when, or how, this combat would have ended, had not Dr. Kenrick (the suspected author of the scurrilous letter), who was sitting in a room behind the shop, stepped forward, and parted them. Goldsmith, much hurt, was put into a

coach, and sent home.

This affair was so much misrepresented in the newspapers, to the disadvantage of Goldsmith, that on the 31st of March he published the following address in the Daily Advertiser:

"TO THE PUBLIC.

"LEST it should be supposed that I have been willing to correct in others an abuse of which I have been guilty myself, I beg leave to declare, that in all my life I never wrote, or dictated, a single paragraph, letter, or essay, in a newspaper, except a few moral essays, under the character of

(the Grumbler) was acted by Mr. Quick, and furnished great entertainment, especially in

a Chinese, about ten years ago, in the Ledger; and a letter, to which I signed my name, in the St. James's Chronicle, If the liberty of the press therefore has been abused, I have had no hand in it.

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I have always considered the press as the protector of our freedom, as a watchful guardian, capable of uniting the weak against the encroachments of power. What concerns the public most properly admits of a public discussion. But, of late, the press has turned from defending public interest, to making inroads upon private life; from combating the strong, to overwhelming the feeble. No condition is now too obscure for its abuse, and the protector is become the tyrant of the people. In this manner the freedom of the press is beginning to sow the seeds of its own dissolution; the great must oppose it from principle, and the weak from fear; till at last every rank of mankind shall be found to give up its benefits, content with security from its insults.

"How to put a stop to this licentiousness, by which all are indiscriminately abused, and by which vice consequently escapes in the general censure, I am unable to tell; all I could wish is, that, as the law gives us no protection against the injury, so it should give calumniators no shelter after having provoked correction. The insults which we receive before the public, by being more open, are the more distressing. By treating them with silent contempt, we do not pay a sufficient deference to the opinion of the world. By recurring to legal redress, we too

a scene with a dancing-master, who insists upon teaching the touchy old man to dance an allemande against his inclination. The piece upon the whole was well received, but wanted incident, and, excepting the parts represented by Mr. Quick and Mr. Saunders, was but indifferently supported in the performance. The London Chronicle, however, asserted, that "Goldsmith had no further concern in that production than merely revising it."

One of the last of his publications of any consequence was, "An History of the Earth and Animated Nature," in 8 vols. 8vo. which was printed in 1774, and for which he received £. 850. He had at this time ready for the press "The Grecian History, from the earliest State to the Death of Alexander the Great," which was afterwards printed in

often expose the weakness of the law, which only serves to increase our mortification by failing to relieve us. In short, every man should singly consider himself as a guardian of the liberty of the press, and, as far as his influence can extend, should endeavour to prevent its licentiousness becoming at last the grave of its freedom.

"OLIVER GOLDSMITH."

2 vols. 8vo. He had also written, at intervals, about this time, his "Haunch of Venison," "Retaliation," and some other little sportive sallies, which were not printed till after his death. "Retaliation," indeed, was left unfinished.-But, though his receipts had for a long time been very considerable*, yet by his liberal and indiscreet benefactions to poor authors, as Purdon, Pilkington, Hiffernan, Lloyd, &c. and poor Irishmen, (in fact, needy adventurers from all countries) together with an unhappy attachment to gaming, and an habitual carelessness as to money matters, he became much embarrassed in his circumstances, and, in consequence, uneasy, fretful, and peevish.

To this mental inquietude was superadded a violent strangury, with which he had been some years afflicted; and this at length brought on a sort of occasional despondency, in which he used to express his great indifference about life. A nervous fever added to this despondency, which induced him,

The produce of one year was estimated at £.1800.