Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 April 1905 — Unwritten Books. [ARTICLE]

Unwritten Books.

Goldsmith often raised money on some projected work, then put it aside and started another. lie once drew up a prospectus for a "Dictionary of Arts and Sciences” and obtained promises of help from his friends, Johnson, Reynolds and Burke, but the booksellers were too wary for once, and the scheme fell through. One of his last proposals was the “Survey of Experimental rhllosophy,” which mot with the same fate. The more practical Dr. Johnson could himself devise and not undertake. He once thought of writing a life of Oliver Cromwell, but it is as well perhaps that he changed his mind. His constitutional Indolence was too great to admit of Ills undertaking many great literary enterprises, and, unlike Coleridge, he was well aware of the fact. He dawdled over his edition of Shakespeare for nine years, although lie had promised it in n year, and only finished it in consequence of the attack of Churchill, who accused him of cheating his subscribers: He for subscribers baits his hook And takes your cash, but -where’s your book? No matter where; wise fear, you know, Forbids the robbing of a foe. But what to serve our private ends Forbids the cheating of our friends? —Chamber?' Journal.