In Mr. Prior's _Life of Goldsmith_ (vol. i. p. 388.), he observes that
"one of his (Goldsmith's) labours, if we may believe the accounts of
several personal acquaintances, for no certain evidence of the fact is
at hand, and the work has been sought for in vain," was _The History of
Mecklenburgh_, published for Newbery in February, 1762. This work, which
seems to have eluded Mr. Prior's great diligence, I have now before me.
It is in 8vo., to which a portrait of Queen Charlotte is prefixed, and
is entitled, _The History of Mecklenburgh from the first Settlement of
the Vandals in that Country to the present Time, including a Period of
about Three Thousand Years_: London, printed for J. Newbery, at the
Bible and Sun, in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1762. Pages, Preface, xiv.;
History, 360. It is dedicated by Newbery to the Queen, in a short and
rather elegant address, in which, as well as in the Preface which
follows, there are marks of Goldsmith's style. The History itself
appears to have been compiled in haste, and certainly bears no decisive
internal evidence of having Goldsmith for its author. It is, however,
rather superior to the ordinary run of similar compilations, and in some
parts--(see account of the Vandals, pp. 11. to 22., and character of
Gustavus Adolphus, p. 271.)--is not without proofs that the writer had
powers of pleasing and vigorous composition. It may have proceeded from
Goldsmith, and, as it is attributed to him by the accounts of several
personal acquaintances, in all probability did so; though, without some
indication of that kind, its authorship would not perhaps have been
suspected. Mr. Forster (_Life of Goldsmith_, p. 241.) states that for
the revision of this work he (Goldsmith) received 20_l._: but is there
any proof of this? Mr. Prior, as I understand him (see _Life_, Vol. i.
p. 416.), merely supposes that he might receive that sum, from the
prices paid for the other works of a similar kind.