lt of this growing fame was a joint offer on the
part of Griffin and Newbery of L20 for a selection from his printed
essays; and this selection was forthwith made and published, with a
preface written for the occasion. Here at once we can see that
Goldsmith takes firmer ground. There is an air of confidence--of
gaiety, even--in his address to the public; although, as usual,
accompanied by a whimsical mock-modesty that is extremely odd and
effective. "Whatever right I have to complain of the public," he says,
"they can, as yet, have no just reason to complain of me. If I have
written dull Essays, they have hitherto treated them as dull Essays.
Thus far we are at least upon par, and until they think fit to make me
their humble debtor by praise, I am resolved not to lose a single inch
of my self-importance. Instead, therefore, of attempting to establish
a credit amongst them, it will perhaps be wiser to apply to some more
distant correspondent; and as my drafts are in some danger of being
protested at home, it may not be imprudent, upon this occasion, to
draw my bills upon Posterity.

"MR. POSTERITY,

"SIR,--Nine hundred and ninety-nine years after sight hereof
pay the bearer, or order, a thousand pounds worth of praise,
free from all deductions whatsoever, it being a commodity
that will then be very serviceable to him, and place it to
the account of, &c."

The bill is not yet due; but there can in the meantime be no harm in
discounting it so far as to say that these Essays deserve very decided
praise. They deal with all manner of topics, matters of fact, matters
of imagination, humorous descriptions, learned criticisms; and then,
whenever the entertainer thinks he is becoming dull, he suddenly tells
a quaint little story and walks off amidst the laughter he knows he
has produced. It is not a very ambitious or sonorous sort of
literature; but it was admirably fitted for its aim--the passing of
the immediate hour in an agreeable and fairly intellectual way. One
can often see, no doubt, that these Essays are occasionally written in
a more or less perfunctory fashion, the writer not being moved by much
enthusiasm in his subject; but even then a quaint literary grace
seldom fails to atone, as when, writing about the English clergy, and
complaining that they do not sufficiently in their addresses stoop to
mean capacities, he says--"Whatever may become of the higher orders of
mankind, who are ge