The interval in time was not wide that divided the last triumph from
the last day of Goldsmith's life. He was still toiling amid many
monetary perplexities, that he had not bettered by accepting payment
for works before they were completed. It was now all pouring out and
nothing coming in, and there was no hope. He projected a _Dictionary
of Arts and Sciences_ upon a comprehensive system, at once practical
and ambitious. Failing health had made him sadly dilatory. The
booksellers, who had lost confidence in his schemes, did not hold him
the man for this encyclopaedic labour or suited for long and strenuous
strain. Friends ineffectually tried to procure him a pension. He had
made many notes and written sundry essays, intended for a treatise in
two volumes, to be entitled _A Survey of Experimental Philosophy_. In
the midst of vain strivings he died. The knack of hoping could not do
all. The heart was broken and the soul passing. It is a tragedy to
remember that his one chance lay now in writing another comedy. In
these distressed days Garrick came to his aid, helping him over one
stile, at least, by paying liberally, and probably from charity, for
the promise of a play. The poet's physical strength was poorer even
than his empty purse. In this sad state he pursued his labours,
toiling like a slave almost to the last, looking back and recovering
nothing, forward and seeing nothing, pressing on with all the poor
power he had left, and making no headway. He gave one last extravagant
dinner to his old friends, which in his poverty, and for very shame
and pity, and a little even in rebuke, they would not take at his
expense. Then for a time he sought once again the fresh, sweet country
air. He returned to town. The old talent was not yet fled. He wrote
that fine _Retaliation_ at this time. It is pathetically possible that
the weakening appearance of the poet induced his lively friends to pen
epitaphs upon the little man. Many jests have their serious motives,
not wholly known to those who perpetrate the jokes. If unconscious of
the forces really leading to the episode, little did they dream that
its results would live till now, and to all intents for ever. Each
wrote an epitaph on Noll, and he in turn an epitaph on all. The
_Retaliation_ shows his power in compressed expression, and his fine
discernment of men and character. The little poem lives, a veritable,
and, in its way, a wholesale contribution to national biography. It