" Meanwhile,
this _Animated Nature_ being in hand, the _Roman History_ was
published, and was very well received by the critics and by the
public. "Goldsmith's abridgment," Johnson declared, "is better than
that of Lucius Florus or Eutropius; and I will venture to say that if
you compare him with Vertot, in the same places of the _Roman
History_, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the art of
compiling, and of saying everything he has to say in a pleasing
manner."

[Footnote 2: See _Citizen of the World_, Letter XVII.]

So thought the booksellers too; and the success of the _Roman History_
only involved him in fresh projects of compilation. By an offer of
L500 Davies induced him to lay aside for the moment the _Animated
Nature_ and begin "An History of England, from the Birth of the
British Empire to the death of George the Second, in four volumes
octavo." He also about this time undertook to write a Life of Thomas
Parnell. Here, indeed, was plenty of work, and work promising good
pay; but the depressing thing is that Goldsmith should have been the
man who had to do it. He may have done it better than any one else
could have done--indeed, looking over the results of all that
drudgery, we recognise now the happy turns of expression which were
never long absent from Goldsmith's prose-writing--but the world could
well afford to sacrifice all the task-work thus got through for
another poem like the _Deserted Village_ or the _Traveller_. Perhaps
Goldsmith considered he was making a fair compromise when, for the
sake of his reputation, he devoted a certain portion of his time to
his poetical work, and then, to have money for fine clothes and high
jinks, gave the rest to the booksellers. One critic, on the appearance
of the _Roman History_, referred to the _Traveller_, and remarked that
it was a pity that the "author of one of the best poems that has
appeared since those of Mr. Pope, should not apply wholly to works of
imagination." We may echo that regret now; but Goldsmith would at the
time have no doubt replied that, if he had trusted to his poems, he
would never have been able to pay L400 for chambers in the Temple. In
fact he said as much to Lord Lisburn at one of the Academy dinners: "I
cannot afford to court the draggle-tail muses, my Lord; they would let
me starve; but by my other labours I can make shift to eat, and drink,
and have good clothes." And there is little use in our regretting now
that Golds