of the press, and the dangerous consequences which may ensue, we shall here transcribe.

"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 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.

"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 into 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 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.

Another theatrical piece produced by our author was The Grumbler, a farce altered from Sedley. It was acted at Covent-Garden in 1772, for the benefit of Mr. Quick; but it was acted only one night, and was never printed.

His last work was An history of the earth and animated nature, in

eight vols. 8vo. for which his bookseller paid him 8501.

A short time before his death, he had formed a design of compiling an universal dictionary of arts and sciences, and actually printed proposals for it, which he distributed among his acquaintance. Several of his literary friends (particularly Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Garrick) had promised to assist him in this undertaking; from which he naturally entertained the most sanguine expectations of success; but it did not meet with proportionate encouragement from the booksellers; and he used, it is said, to lament this circumstance almost to the last hour of his existence.