Oliver Goldsmith by Washington Irving (page 3)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

JOHNSON A MONITOR TO GOLDSMITH–FINDS HIM IN DISTRESS WITH HIS LANDLADY–RELIEVED BY THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD–THE ORATORIO–POEM OF THE TRAVELER–THE POET AND HIS DOG–SUCCESS OF THE POEM–ASTONISHMENT OF THE CLUB–OBSERVATIONS ON THE POEM

Johnson had now become one of Goldsmith’s best friends and advisers. He knew all the weak points of his character, but he knew also his merits; and while he would rebuke him like a child, and rail at his errors and follies, he would suffer no one else to undervalue him. Goldsmith knew the soundness of his judgment and his practical benevolence, and often sought his counsel and aid amid the difficulties into which his heedlessness was continually plunging him.

“I received one morning,” says Johnson, “a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion: I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it and saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon return; and, having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him go ill.”

The novel in question was the Vicar of Wakefield; the bookseller to whom Johnson sold it was Francis Newbery, nephew to John. Strange as it may seem, this captivating work, which has obtained and preserved an almost unrivaled popularity in various languages, was so little appreciated by the bookseller that he kept it by him for nearly two years unpublished!

Goldsmith had, as yet, produced nothing of moment in poetry. Among his literary jobs, it is true, was an oratorio entitled The Captivity, founded on the bondage of the Israelites in Babylon. It was one of those unhappy offsprings of the muse ushered into existence amid the distortions of music. Most of the oratorio has passed into oblivion; but the following song from it will never die:

“The wretch condemned from life to part, Still, still on hope relies,
And every pang that rends the heart Bids expectation rise.

“Hope, like the glimmering taper’s light, Illumes and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night, Emits a brighter ray.”

Goldsmith distrusted his qualifications to succeed in poetry, and doubted the disposition of the public mind in regard to it. “I fear,” said he, “I have come too late into the world; Pope and other poets have taken up the places in the temple of Fame; and as few at any period can possess poetical reputation, a man of genius can now hardly acquire it.” Again, on another occasion, he observes: “Of all kinds of ambition, as things are now circumstanced, perhaps that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest. What from the increased refinement of the tunes, from the diversity of judgment produced by opposing systems of criticism, and from the more prevalent divisions of opinion influenced by party, the strongest and happiest efforts can expect to please but in a very narrow circle.”

At this very time he had by him his poem of The Traveler. The plan of it, as has already been observed, was conceived many years before, during his travels in Switzerland, and a sketch of it sent from that country to his brother Henry in Ireland. The original outline is said to have embraced a wider scope; but it was probably contracted through diffidence, in the process of finishing the parts. It had laid by him for several years in a crude state, and it was with extreme hesitation and after much revision that he at length submitted it to Dr. Johnson. The frank and warm approbation of the latter encouraged him to finish it for the press; and Dr. Johnson himself contributed a few lines toward the conclusion.

We hear much about “poetic inspiration,” and the “poet’s eye in a fine frenzy rolling”; but Sir Joshua Reynolds gives an anecdote of Goldsmith while engaged upon his poem, calculated to cure our notions about the ardor of composition. Calling upon the poet one day, he opened the door without ceremony, and found him in the double occupation of turning a couplet and teaching a pet dog to sit upon his haunches. At one time he would glance his eye at his desk, and at another shake his finger at the dog to make him retain his position. The last lines on the page were still wet; they form a part of the description of Italy:

“By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, The sports of children satisfy the child.”

Goldsmith, with his usual good-humor, joined in the laugh caused by his whimsical employment, and acknowledged that his boyish sport with the dog suggested the stanza The poem was published on the 19th of December, 1764, in a quarto form, by Newbery, and was the first of his works to which Goldsmith prefixed his name. As a testimony of cherished and well-merited affection, he dedicated it to his brother Henry. There is an amusing affectation of indifference as to its fate expressed in the dedication. “What reception a poem may find,” says he, “which has neither abuse, party, nor blank verse to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I solicitous to know.” The truth is, no one was more emulous and anxious for poetic fame; and never was he more anxious than in the present instance, for it was his grand stake. Dr. Johnson aided the launching of the poem by a favorable notice in the “Critical Review”; other periodical works came out in its favor. Some of the author’s friends complained that it did not command instant and wide popularity; that it was a poem to win, not to strike; it went on rapidly increasing in favor; in three months a second edition was issued; shortly afterward a third; then a fourth; and, before the year was out, the author was pronounced the best poet of his time.

The appearance of The Traveler at once altered Goldsmith’s intellectual standing in the estimation of society; but its effect upon the club, if we may judge from the account given by Hawkins, was most ludicrous. They were lost in astonishment that a “newspaper essayist” and “bookseller’s, drudge” should have written such a poem. On the evening of its announcement to them Goldsmith had gone away early, after “rattling away as usual,” and they knew not how to reconcile his heedless garrulity with the serene beauty, the easy grace, the sound good sense, and the occasional elevation of his poetry. They could scarcely believe that such magic numbers had flowed from a man to whom in general, says Johnson, “it was with difficulty they could give a hearing.” “Well”, exclaimed Chamier, “I do believe he wrote this poem himself, and, let me tell you, that is believing a great deal.”

At the next meeting of the club Chamier sounded the author a little about his poem. “Mr. Goldsmith,” said he, “what do you mean by the last word in the first line of your Traveler, ‘remote, unfriended, solitary, slow?’ do you mean tardiness of locomotion?” “Yes,” replied Goldsmith inconsiderately, being probably flurried at the moment. “No, sir,” interposed his protecting friend Johnson, “you did not mean tardiness of locomotion; you meant that sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in solitude.” “Ah,” exclaimed Goldsmith, “that was what I meant.” Chamier immediately believed that Johnson himself had written the line, and a rumor became prevalent that he was the author of many of the finest passages. This was ultimately set at rest by Johnson himself, who marked with a pencil all the verses he had contributed, nine in number, inserted toward the conclusion, and by no means the best in the poem. He moreover, with generous warmth, pronounced it the finest poem that had appeared since the days of Pope.

But one of the highest testimonials to the charm of the poem was given by Miss Reynolds, who had toasted poor Goldsmith as the ugliest man of her acquaintance. Shortly after the appearance of The Traveler, Dr. Johnson read it aloud from beginning to end in her presence. “Well,” exclaimed she, when he had finished, “I never more shall think Dr. Goldsmith ugly!”

On another occasion, when the merits of The Traveler were discussed at Reynolds’ board, Langton declared “There was not a bad line in the poem, not one of Dryden’s careless verses.” “I was glad,” observed Reynolds, “to hear Charles Fox say it was one of the finest poems in the English language.” “Why was you glad?” rejoined Langton; “you surely had no doubt of this before.” “No,” interposed Johnson, decisively; “the merit of The Traveler is so well established that Mr. Fox’s praise cannot augment it, nor his censure diminish it.”

Boswell, who was absent from England at the time of the publication of The Traveler, was astonished, on his return, to find Goldsmith, whom he had so much undervalued, suddenly elevated almost to a par with his idol. He accounted for it by concluding that much both of the sentiments and expression of the poem had been derived from conversations with Johnson. “He imitates you, sir,” said this incarnation of toadyism. “Why, no, sir,” replied Johnson, “Jack Hawksworth is one of my imitators, but not Goldsmith. Goldy, sir, has great merit.” “But, sir, he is much indebted to you for his getting so high in the public estimation.” “Why, sir, he has, perhaps, got _sooner to it by his intimacy with me.”

The poem went through several editions in the course of the first year, and received some few additions and corrections from the author’s pen. It produced a golden harvest to Mr. Newbery, but all the remuneration on record, doled out by his niggard hand to the author, was twenty guineas!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

NEW LODGINGS–JOHNSON’S COMPLIMENT–A TITLED PATRON–THE POET AT NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE–HIS INDEPENDENCE OF THE GREAT–THE COUNTESS OF NORTHUMBERLAND–EDWIN AND ANGELINA–GOSFORD AND LORD CLARE–PUBLICATION OF ESSAYS–EVILS OF A RISING REPUTATION–HANGERS-ON–JOB WRITING–GOODY TWO SHOES–A MEDICAL CAMPAIGN–MRS. SIDEBOTHAM

Goldsmith, now that he was rising in the world, and becoming a notoriety, felt himself called upon to improve his style of living. He according emerged from Wine-Office Court, and took chambers in the Temple. It is true they were but of humble pretensions, situated on what was then the library staircase, and it would appear that he was a kind of inmate with Jeffs, the butler of the society. Still he was in the Temple, that classic region rendered famous by the “Spectator” and other essayists, as the abode of gay wits and thoughtful men of letters; and which, with its retired courts and embowered gardens, in the very heart of a noisy metropolis, is, to the quiet-seeking student and author, an oasis freshening with verdure in the midst of a desert. Johnson, who had become a kind of growling supervisor of the poet’s affairs, paid him a visit soon after he had installed himself in his new quarters, and went prying about the apartment, in his near-sighted manner, examining everything minutely. Goldsmith was fidgeted by this curious scrutiny, and apprehending a disposition to find fault, exclaimed, with the air of a man who had money in both pockets, “I shall soon be in better chambers than these.” The harmless bravado drew a reply from Johnson which touched the chord of proper pride. “Nay, sir,” said he, “never mind that. Nil te quaesiveris extra,” implying that his reputation rendered him independent of outward show. Happy would it have been for poor Goldsmith could he have kept this consolatory compliment perpetually in mind, and squared his expenses accordingly.

Among the persons of rank who were struck with the merits of The Traveler was the Earl (afterward Duke) of Northumberland. He procured several other of Goldsmith’s writings, the perusal of which tended to elevate the author in his good opinion, and to gain for him his good will. The earl held the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and understanding Goldsmith was an Irishman, was disposed to extend to him the patronage which his high post afforded. He intimated the same to his relative, Dr. Percy, who, he found, was well acquainted with the poet, and expressed a wish that the latter should wait upon him. Here, then, was another opportunity for Goldsmith to better his fortune, had he been knowing and worldly enough to profit by it. Unluckily the path to fortune lay through the aristocratical mazes of Northumberland House, and the poet blundered at the outset. The following is the account he used to give of his visit: “I dressed myself in the best manner I could, and, after studying some compliments I thought necessary on such an occasion, proceeded to Northumberland House, and acquainted the servants that I had particular business with the duke. They showed me into an antechamber, where, after waiting some time, a gentleman, very elegantly dressed, made his appearance; taking him for the duke, I delivered all the fine things I had composed in order to compliment him on the honor he had done me; when, to my great astonishment, he told me I had mistaken him for his master, who would see me immediately. At that instant the duke came into the apartment, and I was so confounded on the occasion that I wanted words barely sufficient to express the sense I entertained of the duke’s politeness, and went away exceedingly chagrined at the blunder I had committed.”

Sir John Hawkins, in his life of Dr. Johnson, gives some further particulars of this visit, of which he was, in part, a witness. “Having one day,” says he, “a call to make on the late Duke, then Earl, of Northumberland, I found Goldsmith waiting for an audience in an outer room; I asked him what had brought him there; he told me an invitation from his lordship. I made my business as short as I could, and, as a reason, mentioned that Dr. Goldsmith was waiting without. The earl asked me if I was acquainted with him. I told him that I was, adding what I thought was most likely to recommend him. I retired, and stayed in the outer room to take him home. Upon his coming out, I asked him the result of his conversation. ‘His lordship,’ said he, ‘told me he had read my poem, meaning The Traveler, and was much delighted with it; that he was going to be lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and that, hearing I was a native of that country, he should be glad to do me any kindness.’ ‘And what did you answer,’ said I, ‘to this gracious offer?’ ‘Why,’ said he, ‘I could say nothing but that I had a brother there, a clergyman, that stood in need of help: as for myself, I have no great dependence on the promises of great men; I look to the booksellers for support; they are my best friends, and I am not inclined to forsake them for others.'” “Thus,” continues Sir John, “did this idiot in the affairs of the world trifle with his fortunes, and put back the hand that was held out to assist him.”

We cannot join with Sir John in his worldly sneer at the conduct of Goldsmith on this occasion. While we admire that honest independence of spirit which prevented him from asking favors for himself, we love that warmth of affection which instantly sought to advance the fortunes of a brother: but the peculiar merits of poor Goldsmith seem to have been little understood by the Hawkinses, the Boswells, and the other biographers of the day.

After all, the introduction to Northumberland House did not prove so complete a failure as the humorous account given by Goldsmith, and the cynical account given by Sir John Hawkins, might lead one to suppose. Dr. Percy, the heir male of the ancient Percies, brought the poet into the acquaintance of his kinswoman, the countess, who, before her marriage with the earl, was in her own right heiress of the House of Northumberland. “She was a lady,” says Boswell, “not only of high dignity of spirit, such as became her noble blood, but of excellent understanding and lively talents.” Under her auspices a poem of Goldsmith’s had an aristocratical introduction to the world. This was the beautiful ballad of the Hermit, originally published under the name of Edwin and Angelina. It was suggested by an old English ballad beginning “Gentle Herdsman,” shown him by Dr. Percy, who was at that time making his famous collection, entitled Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, which he submitted to the inspection of Goldsmith prior to publication. A few copies only of the Hermit were printed at first, with the following title page: “Edwin and Angelina: a Ballad. By Mr. Goldsmith. Printed for the Amusement of the Countess of Northumberland.”

All this, though it may not have been attended with any immediate pecuniary advantage, contributed to give Goldsmith’s name and poetry the high stamp of fashion, so potent in England; the circle at Northumberland House, however, was of too stately and aristocratical a nature to be much to his taste, and we do not find that he became familiar in it.

He was much more at home at Gosford, the noble seat of his countryman, Robert Nugent, afterward Baron Nugent and Viscount Clare, who appreciated his merits even more heartily than the Earl of Northumberland, and occasionally made him his guest both in town and country. Nugent is described as a jovial voluptuary, who left the Roman Catholic for the Protestant religion, with a view to bettering his fortunes; he had an Irishman’s inclination for rich widows, and an Irishman’s luck with the sex; having been thrice married and gained a fortune with each wife. He was now nearly sixty, with a remarkably loud voice, broad Irish brogue, and ready, but somewhat coarse wit. With all his occasional coarseness he was capable of high thought, and had produced poems which showed a truly poetic vein. He was long a member of the House of Commons, where his ready wit, his fearless decision, and good-humored audacity of expression, always gained him a hearing, though his tall person and awkward manner gained him the nickname of Squire Gawky, among the political scribblers of the day. With a patron of this jovial temperament Goldsmith probably felt more at ease than with those of higher refinement.

The celebrity which Goldsmith had acquired by his poem of The Traveler, occasioned a resuscitation of many of his miscellaneous and anonymous tales and essays from the various newspapers and other transient publications in which they lay dormant. These he published in 1765, in a collected form, under the title of “Essays by Mr. Goldsmith.” “The following essays,” observes he in his preface, “have already appeared at different times, and in different publications. The pamphlets in which they were inserted being generally unsuccessful, these shared the common fate, without assisting the booksellers’ aims, or extending the author’s reputation. The public were too strenuously employed with their own follies to be assiduous in estimating mine; so that many of my best attempts in this way have fallen victims to the transient topic of the times–the Ghost in Cock Lane, or the Siege of Ticonderoga.

“But, though they have passed pretty silently into the world, I can by no means complain of their circulation. The magazines and papers of the day have indeed been liberal enough in this respect. Most of these essays have been regularly reprinted twice or thrice a year, and conveyed to the public through the kennel of some engaging compilation. If there be a pride in multiplied editions, I have seen some of my labors sixteen times reprinted, and claimed by different parents as their own. I have seen them flourished at the beginning with praise, and signed at the end with the names of Philautos, Philalethes, Phileleutheros, and Philanthropos. It is time, however, at last to vindicate my claims; and as these entertainers of the public, as they call themselves, have partly lived upon me for some years, let me now try if I cannot live a little upon myself.”

It was but little, in fact, for all the pecuniary emolument he received from the volume was twenty guineas. It had a good circulation, however, was translated into French, and has maintained its stand among the British classics.

Notwithstanding that the reputation of Goldsmith had greatly risen, his finances were often at a very low ebb, owing to his heedlessness as to expense, his liability to be imposed upon, and a spontaneous and irresistible propensity to give to every one who asked. The very rise in his reputation had increased these embarrassments. It had enlarged his circle of needy acquaintances, authors poorer in pocket than himself, who came in search of literary counsel; which generally meant a guinea and a breakfast. And then his Irish hangers-on! “Our doctor,” said one of these sponges, “had a constant levee of his distressed countrymen, whose wants, as far as he was able, he always relieved; and he has often been known to leave himself without a guinea, in order to supply the necessities of others.”

This constant drainage of the purse therefore obliged him to undertake all jobs proposed by the booksellers, and to keep up a kind of running account with Mr. Newbery; who was his banker on all occasions, sometimes for pounds, sometimes for shillings; but who was a rigid accountant, and took care to be amply repaid in manuscript. Many effusions, hastily penned in these moments of exigency, were published anonymously, and never claimed. Some of them have but recently been traced to his pen; while of many the true authorship will probably never be discovered. Among others it is suggested, and with great probability, that he wrote for Mr. Newbery the famous nursery story of Goody Two Shoes, which appeared in 1765, at a moment when Goldsmith was scribbling for Newbery, and much pressed for funds. Several quaint little tales introduced in his Essays show that he had a turn for this species of mock history; and the advertisement and title-page bear the stamp of his sly and playful humor.

“We are desired to give notice that there is in the press, and speedily will be published, either by subscription or otherwise, as the public shall please to determine, the History of Little Goody Two Shoes, otherwise Mrs. Margery Two Shoes; with the means by which she acquired learning and wisdom, and, in consequence thereof, her estate; set forth at large for the benefit of those

“Who, from a state of rags and care, And having shoes but half a pair,
Their fortune and their fame should fix, And gallop in a coach and six.”

The world is probably not aware of the ingenuity, humor, good sense, and sly satire contained in many of the old English nursery-tales. They have evidently been the sportive productions of able writers, who would not trust their names to productions that might be considered beneath their dignity. The ponderous works on which they relied for immortality have perhaps sunk into oblivion, and carried their names down with them; while their unacknowledged offspring, Jack the Giant Killer, Giles Gingerbread, and Tom Thumb, flourish in wide-spreading and never-ceasing popularity.

As Goldsmith had now acquired popularity and an extensive acquaintance, he attempted, with the advice of his friends, to procure a more regular and ample support by resuming the medical profession. He accordingly launched himself upon the town in style; hired a man-servant; replenished his wardrobe at considerable expense, and appeared in a professional wig and cane, purple silk small-clothes, and a scarlet roquelaure buttoned to the chin: a fantastic garb, as we should think at the present day, but not unsuited to the fashion of the times.

With his sturdy little person thus arrayed in the unusual magnificence of purple and fine linen, and his scarlet roquelaure flaunting from his shoulders, he used to strut into the apartments of his patients swaying his three-cornered hat in one hand and his medical scepter, the cane, in the other, and assuming an air of gravity and importance suited to the solemnity of his wig; at least, such is the picture given of him by the waiting gentlewoman who let him into the chamber of one of his lady patients.

He soon, however, grew tired and impatient of the duties and restraints of his profession; his practice was chiefly among his friends, and the fees were not sufficient for his maintenance; he was disgusted with attendance on sick-chambers and capricious patients, and looked back with longing to his tavern haunts and broad convivial meetings, from which the dignity and duties of his medical calling restrained him. At length, on prescribing to a lady of his acquaintance who, to use a hackneyed phrase, “rejoiced” in the aristocratical name of Sidebotham, a warm dispute arose between him and the apothecary as to the quantity of medicine to be administered. The doctor stood up for the rights and dignities of his profession, and resented the interference of the compounder of drugs. His rights and dignities, however, were disregarded; his wig and cane and scarlet roquelaure were of no avail; Mrs. Sidebotham sided with the hero of the pestle and mortar; and Goldsmith flung out of the house in a passion. “I am determined henceforth,” said he to Topham Beauclerc, “to leave off prescribing for friends.” “Do so, my dear doctor,” was the reply; “whenever you undertake to kill, let it be only your enemies.”

This was the end of Goldsmith’s medical career.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

PUBLICATION OF THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD–OPINIONS CONCERNING IT–OF DR. JOHNSON–OF ROGERS THE POET–OF GOETHE–ITS MERITS–EXQUISITE EXTRACT–ATTACK BY KENRICK–REPLY–BOOK-BUILDING–PROJECT OF A COMEDY

The success of the poem of The Traveler, and the popularity which it had conferred on its author, now roused the attention of the bookseller in whose hands the novel of The Vicar of Wakefield had been slumbering for nearly two long years. The idea has generally prevailed that it was Mr. John Newbery to whom the manuscript had been sold, and much surprise has been expressed that he should be insensible to its merit and suffer it to remain unpublished, while putting forth various inferior writings by the same author. This, however, is a mistake; it was his nephew, Francis Newbery, who had become the fortunate purchaser. Still the delay is equally unaccountable. Some have imagined that the uncle and nephew had business arrangements together, in which this work was included, and that the elder Newbery, dubious of its success, retarded the publication until the full harvest of The Traveler should be reaped. Booksellers are prone to make egregious mistakes as to the merit of works in manuscript; and to undervalue, if not reject, those of classic and enduring excellence, when destitute of that false brilliancy commonly called “effect.” In the present instance, an intellect vastly superior to that of either of the booksellers was equally at fault. Dr. Johnson, speaking of the work to Boswell, some time subsequent to its publication, observed, “I myself did not think it would have had much success. It was written and sold to a bookseller before The Traveler, but published after, so little expectation had the bookseller from it. Had it been sold after The Traveler, he might have had twice as much money; _though sixty guineas was no mean price_.”

Sixty guineas for the Vicar of Wakefield! and this could be pronounced _no mean_ price by Dr. Johnson, at that time the arbiter of British talent, and who had had an opportunity of witnessing the effect of the work upon the public mind; for its success was immediate. It came out on the 27th of March, 1766; before the end of May a second edition was called for; in three months more a third; and so it went on, widening in a popularity that has never flagged. Rogers, the Nestor of British literature, whose refined purity of taste and exquisite mental organization rendered him eminently calculated to appreciate a work of the kind, declared that of all the books which, through the fitful changes of three generations, he had seen rise and fall, the charm of the Vicar of Wakefield had alone continued as at first; and could he revisit the world after an interval of many more generations, he should as surely look to find it undiminished. Nor has its celebrity been confined to Great Britain. Though so exclusively a picture of British scenes and manners, it has been translated into almost every language, and everywhere its charm has been the same. Goethe, the great genius of Germany, declared in his eighty-first year that it was his delight at the age of twenty, that it had in a manner formed a part of his education, influencing his taste and feelings throughout life, and that he had recently read it again from beginning to end–with renewed delight, and with a grateful sense of the early benefit derived from it.

It is needless to expatiate upon the qualities of a work which has thus passed from country to country, and language to language, until it is now known throughout the whole reading world, and is become a household book in every hand. The secret of its universal and enduring popularity is undoubtedly its truth to nature, but to nature of the most amiable kind; to nature such as Goldsmith saw it. The author, as we have occasionally shown in the course of this memoir, took his scenes and characters in this as in his other writings, from originals in his own motley experience; but he has given them as seen through the medium of his own indulgent eye, and has set them forth with the colorings of his own good head and heart. Yet how contradictory it seems that this, one of the most delightful pictures of home and homefelt happiness, should be drawn by a homeless man; that the most amiable picture of domestic virtue and all the endearments of the married state should be drawn by a bachelor, who had been severed from domestic life almost from boyhood; that one of the most tender, touching, and affecting appeals on behalf of female loveliness should have been made by a man whose deficiency in all the graces of person and manner seemed to mark him out for a cynical disparager of the sex.

We cannot refrain from transcribing from the work a short passage illustrative of what we have said, and which within a wonderfully small compass comprises a world of beauty of imagery, tenderness of feeling, delicacy and refinement of thought, and matchless purity of style. The two stanzas which conclude it, in which are told a whole history of woman’s wrongs and sufferings, is, for pathos, simplicity, and euphony, a gem in the language. The scene depicted is where the poor Vicar is gathering around him the wrecks of his shattered family, and endeavoring to rally them back to happiness.

“The next morning the sun arose with peculiar warmth for the season, so that we agreed to breakfast together on the honeysuckle bank; where, while we sat, my youngest daughter at my request joined her voice to the concert on the trees about us. It was in this place my poor Olivia first met her seducer, and every object served to recall her sadness. But that melancholy which is excited by objects of pleasure, or inspired by sounds of harmony, soothes the heart instead of corroding it. Her mother, too, upon this occasion, felt a pleasing distress, and wept, and loved her daughter as before. ‘Do, my pretty Olivia,’ cried she, ‘let us have that melancholy air your father was so fond of; your sister Sophy has already obliged us. Do, child; it will please your old father.’ She complied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic as moved me.

“‘When lovely woman stoops to folly, And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy. What art can wash her guilt away?

“‘The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom–is to die.'”

Scarce had the Vicar of Wakefield made its appearance and been received with acclamation than its author was subjected to one of the usual penalties that attend success. He was attacked in the newspapers. In one of the chapters he had introduced his ballad of the Hermit, of which, as we have mentioned, a few copies had been printed some considerable time previously for the use of the Countess of Northumberland. This brought forth the following article in a fashionable journal of the day:

“_To the Printer of the ‘St. James’s Chronicle_.’

“Sir–In the Reliques of Ancient Poetry, published about two years ago, is a very beautiful little balled called A Friar of Orders Gray. The ingenious editor, Mr. Percy, supposes that the stanzas sung by Ophelia in the play of Hamlet were parts of some ballad well known in Shakespeare’s time, and from these stanzas with the addition of one or two of his own to connect them, he has formed the above-mentioned ballad; the subject of which is, a lady comes to a convent to inquire for her love who had been driven there by her disdain. She is answered by a friar that he is dead:

“‘No, no, he is dead, gone to his death’s bed. He never will come again.’

“The lady weeps and laments her cruelty; the friar endeavors to comfort her with morality and religion, but all in vain; she expresses the deepest grief and the most tender sentiments of love, till at last the friar discovers himself:

“‘And lo! beneath this gown of gray
Thy own true love appears.’

“This catastrophe is very fine, and the whole, joined with the greatest tenderness, has the greatest simplicity; yet, though this ballad was so recently published in the Ancient Reliques, Dr. Goldsmith has been hardy enough to publish a poem called The Hermit, where the circumstances and catastrophe are exactly the same, only with this difference, that the natural simplicity and tenderness of the original are almost entirely lost in the languid smoothness and tedious paraphrase of the copy, which is as short of the merits of Mr. Percy’s ballad as the insipidity of negus is to the genuine flavor of champagne.

“I am, sir, yours, etc., DETECTOR.”

This attack, supposed to be by Goldsmith’s constant persecutor, the malignant Kenrick, drew from him the following note to the editor:

“Sir–As there is nothing I dislike so much as newspaper controversy, particularly upon trifles, permit me to be as concise as possible in informing a correspondent of yours that I recommended Blainville’s travels because I thought the book was a good one; and I think so still. I said I was told by the bookseller that it was then first published; but in that it seems I was misinformed, and my reading was not extensive enough to set me right.

“Another correspondent of yours accuses me of having taken a ballad I published some time ago, from one by the ingenious Mr. Percy. I do not think there is any great resemblance between the two pieces in question. If there be any, his ballad was taken from mine. I read it to Mr. Percy some years ago; and he, as we both considered these things as trifles at best, told me, with his usual good-humor, the next time I saw him, that he had taken my plan to form the fragments of Shakespeare into a ballad of his own. He then read me his little Cento, if I may so call it, and I highly approved it. Such petty anecdotes as these are scarcely worth printing; and were it not for the busy disposition of some of your correspondents, the public should never have known that he owes me the hint of his ballad, or that I am obliged to his friendship and learning for communications of a much more important nature.

“I am, sir, yours, etc.,

“OLIVER GOLDSMITH.”

The unexpected circulation of the Vicar of Wakefield enriched the publisher, but not the author. Goldsmith no doubt thought himself entitled to participate in the profits of the repeated editions; and a memorandum, still extant, shows that he drew upon Mr. Francis Newbery, in the month of June, for fifteen guineas, but that the bill was returned dishonored. He continued therefore his usual job-work for the booksellers, writing introductions, prefaces, and head and tail pieces for new works; revising, touching up, and modifying travels and voyages; making compilations of prose and poetry, and “building books,” as he sportively termed it. These tasks required little labor or talent, but that taste and touch which are the magic of gifted minds. His terms began to be proportioned to his celebrity. If his price was at anytime objected to, “Why, sir,” he would say, “it may seem large; but then a man may be many years working in obscurity before his taste and reputation are fixed or estimated; and then he is, as in other professions, only paid for his previous labors.”

He was, however, prepared to try his fortune in a different walk of literature from any he had yet attempted. We have repeatedly adverted to his fondness for the drama; he was a frequent attendant at the theaters; though, as we have shown, he considered them under gross mismanagement. He thought, too, that a vicious taste prevailed among those who wrote for the stage. “A new species of dramatic composition,” says he, in one of his essays, “has been introduced under the name of _sentimental comedy_, in which the virtues of private life are exhibited, rather than the vices exposed; and the distresses rather than the faults of mankind make our interest in the piece. In these plays almost all the characters are good and exceedingly generous; they are lavish enough of their tin money on the stage; and though they want humor, have abundance of sentiment and feeling. If they happen to have faults or foibles, the spectator is taught not only to pardon, but to applaud them in consideration of the goodness of their hearts; so that folly, instead of being ridiculed, is commended, and the comedy aims at touching our passions, without the power of being truly pathetic. In this manner we are likely to lose one great source of entertainment on the stage; for while the comic poet is invading the province of the tragic muse, he leaves her lively sister quite neglected. Of this, however, he is no ways solicitous, as he measures his fame by his profits….

“Humor at present seems to be departing from the stage; and it will soon happen that our comic players will have nothing left for it but a fine coat and a song. It depends upon the audience whether they will actually drive those poor merry creatures from the stage, or sit at a play as gloomy as at the tabernacle. It is not easy to recover an art when once lost; and it will be a just punishment, that when, by our being too fastidious, we have banished humor from the stage, we should ourselves be deprived of the art of laughing.”

Symptoms of reform in the drama had recently taken place. The comedy of the Clandestine Marriage, the joint production of Colman and Garrick, and suggested by Hogarth’s inimitable pictures of “Marriage a la mode,” had taken the town by storm, crowded the theaters with fashionable audiences, and formed one of the leading literary topics of the year. Goldsmith’s emulation was roused by its success. The comedy was in what he considered the legitimate line, totally different from the sentimental school; it presented pictures of real life, delineations of character and touches of humor, in which he felt himself calculated to excel. The consequence was that in the course of this year (1766), he commenced a comedy of the same class, to be entitled the Good Natured Man, at which he diligently wrought whenever the hurried occupation of “book building” allowed him leisure.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SOCIAL POSITION OF GOLDSMITH–HIS COLLOQUIAL CONTESTS WITH JOHNSON–ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

THE social position of Goldsmith had undergone a material change since the publication of The Traveler. Before that event he was but partially known as the author of some clever anonymous writings, and had been a tolerated member of the club and the Johnson circle, without much being expected from him. Now he had suddenly risen to literary fame, and become one of the _lions of the day. The highest regions of intellectual society were now open to him; but he was not prepared to move in them with confidence and success. Ballymahon had not been a good school of manners at the outset of life; nor had his experience as a “poor student” at colleges and medical schools contributed to give him the polish of society. He had brought from Ireland, as he said, nothing but his “brogue and his blunders,” and they had never left him. He had traveled, it is true; but the Continental tour which in those days gave the finishing grace to the education of a patrician youth, had, with poor Goldsmith, been little better than a course of literary vagabondizing. It had enriched his mind, deepened and widened the benevolence of his heart, and filled his memory with enchanting pictures, but it had contributed little to disciplining him for the polite intercourse of the world. His life in London had hitherto been a struggle with sordid cares and sad humiliations. “You scarcely can conceive,” wrote he some time previously to his brother, “how much eight years of disappointment, anguish, and study have worn me down.” Several more years had since been added to the term during which he had trod the lowly walks of life. He had been a tutor, an apothecary’s drudge, a petty physician of the suburbs, a bookseller’s hack, drudging for daily bread. Each separate walk had been beset by its peculiar thorns and humiliations. It is wonderful how his heart retained its gentleness and kindness through all these trials; how his mind rose above the “meannesses of poverty,” to which, as he says, he was compelled to submit; but it would be still more wonderful, had his manners acquired a tone corresponding to the innate grace and refinement of his intellect. He was near forty years of age when he published The Traveler, and was lifted by it into celebrity. As is beautifully said of him by one of his biographers, “he has fought his way to consideration and esteem; but he bears upon him the scars of his twelve years’ conflict; of the mean sorrows through which he has passed; and of the cheap indulgences he has sought relief and help from. There is nothing plastic in his nature now. His manners and habits are completely formed; and in them any further success can make little favorable change, whatever it may effect for his mind or genius.” [Footnote: Forster’s Goldsmith]

We are not to be surprised, therefore, at finding him make an awkward figure in the elegant drawing-rooms which were now open to him, and disappointing those who had formed an idea of him from the fascinating ease and gracefulness of his poetry.

Even the literary club, and the circle of which it formed a part, after their surprise at the intellectual flights of which he showed himself capable, fell into a conventional mode of judging and talking of him, and of placing him in absurd and whimsical points of view. His very celebrity operated here to his disadvantage. It brought him into continual comparison with Johnson, who was the oracle of that circle and had given it a tone. Conversation was the great staple there, and of this Johnson was a master. He had been a reader and thinker from childhood; his melancholy temperament, which unfitted him for the pleasures of youth, had made him so. For many years past the vast variety of works he had been obliged to consult in preparing his Dictionary had stored an uncommonly retentive memory with facts on all kinds of subjects; making it a perfect colloquial armory. “He had all his life,” says Boswell, “habituated himself to consider conversation as a trial of intellectual vigor and skill. He had disciplined himself as a talker as well as a writer, making it a rule to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it in, so that by constant practice and never suffering any careless expression to escape him, he had attained an extraordinary accuracy and command of language.”

His common conversation in all companies, according to Sir Joshua Reynolds, was such as to secure him universal attention, something above the usual colloquial style being always expected from him.

“I do not care,” said Orme, the historian of Hindostan, “on what subject Johnson talks; but I love better to hear him talk than anybody. He either gives you new thoughts or a new coloring.”

A stronger and more graphic eulogium is given by Dr. Percy. “The conversation of Johnson,” says he, “is strong and clear, and may be compared to an antique statue, where every vein and muscle is distinct and clear.”

Such was the colloquial giant with which Goldsmith’s celebrity and his habits of intimacy brought him into continual comparison; can we wonder that he should appear to disadvantage? Conversation grave, discursive, and disputatious, such as Johnson excelled and delighted in, was to him a severe task, and he never was good at a task of any kind. He had not, like Johnson, a vast fund of acquired facts to draw upon; nor a retentive memory to furnish them forth when wanted. He could not, like the great lexicographer, mold his ideas and balance his periods while talking. He had a flow of ideas, but it was apt to be hurried and confused, and as he said of himself, he had contracted a hesitating and disagreeable manner of speaking. He used to say that he always argued best when he argued alone; that is to say, he could master a subject in his study, with his pen in his hand; but when he came into company he grew confused, and was unable to talk about it. Johnson made a remark concerning him to somewhat of the same purport. “No man,” said he, “is more foolish than Goldsmith when he has not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he has.” Yet with all this conscious deficiency he was continually getting involved in colloquial contests with Johnson and other prime talkers of the literary circle. He felt that he had become a notoriety; that he had entered the lists and was expected to make fight; so with that heedlessness which characterized him in everything else, he dashed on at a venture; trusting to chance in this as in other things, and hoping occasionally to make a lucky hit. Johnson perceived his hap-hazard temerity, but gave him no credit for the real diffidence which lay at bottom. “The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation,” said he, “is this, he goes on without knowing how he is to get off. His genius is great, but his knowledge is small. As they say of a generous man it is a pity he is not rich, we may say of Goldsmith it is a pity he is not knowing. He would not keep his knowledge to himself.” And, on another occasion he observes: “Goldsmith, rather than not talk, will talk of what he knows himself to be ignorant, which can only end in exposing him. If in company with two founders, he would fall a talking on the method of making cannon, though both of them would soon see that he did not know what metal a cannon is made of.” And again: “Goldsmith should not be forever attempting to shine in conversation; he has not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails. Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of chance; a man may be beat at times by one who has not the tenth part of his wit. Now Goldsmith, putting himself against another, is like a man laying a hundred to one, who cannot spare the hundred. It is not worth a man’s while. A man should not lay a hundred to one unless he can easily spare it, though he has a hundred chances for him; he can get but a guinea, and he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this state. When he contends, if he gets the better, it is a very little addition to a man of his literary reputation; if he does not get the better, he is miserably vexed.”

Johnson was not aware how much he was himself to blame in producing this vexation. “Goldsmith,” said Miss Reynolds, “always appeared to be overawed by Johnson, particularly when in company with people of any consequence; always as if impressed with fear of disgrace; and indeed well he might. I have been witness to many mortifications he has suffered in Dr. Johnson’s company.”

It may not have been disgrace that he feared, but rudeness. The great lexicographer, spoiled by the homage of society, was still more prone than himself to lose temper when the argument went against him. He could not brook appearing to be worsted; but would attempt to bear down his adversary by the rolling thunder of his periods; and when that failed, would become downright insulting. Boswell called it “having recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry”; but Goldsmith designated it much more happily. “There is no arguing with Johnson,” said he, _”for when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.”_ [Footnote: The following is given by Boswell as an instance of robust sophistry: “Once, when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus, ‘My dear Boswell, let’s have no more of this; you’ll make nothing of it. I’d rather hear you whistle a Scotch tune.'”]

In several of the intellectual collisions recorded by Boswell as triumphs of Dr. Johnson, it really appears to us that Goldsmith had the best both of the wit and the argument, and especially of the courtesy and good-nature.

On one occasion he certainly gave Johnson a capital reproof as to his own colloquial peculiarities. Talking of fables, Goldsmith observed that the animals introduced in them seldom talked in character. “For instance,” said he, “the fable of the little fishes, who saw birds fly over their heads, and, envying them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The skill consists in making them talk like little fishes.” Just then observing that Dr. Johnson was shaking his sides and laughing, he immediately added, “Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.”

But though Goldsmith suffered frequent mortifications in society from the overbearing, and sometimes harsh, conduct of Johnson, he always did justice to his benevolence. When royal pensions were granted to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Shebbeare, a punster remarked that the king had pensioned a she-bear and a he-bear; to which Goldsmith replied, “Johnson, to be sure, has a roughness in his manner, but no man alive has a more tender heart. _He has nothing of the bear but the skin.”_

Goldsmith, in conversation, shone most when he least thought of shining; when he gave up all effort to appear wise and learned, or to cope with the oracular sententiousness of Johnson, and gave way to his natural impulses. Even Boswell could perceive his merits on these occasions. “For my part,” said he, condescendingly, “I like very well to hear _honest Goldsmith_ talk away carelessly”; and many a much, wiser man than Boswell delighted in those outpourings of a fertile fancy and a generous heart. In his happy moods, Goldsmith had an artless simplicity and buoyant good-humor that led to a thousand amusing blunders and whimsical confessions, much to the entertainment of his intimates; yet, in his most thoughtless garrulity, there was occasionally the gleam of the gold and the flash of the diamond.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SOCIAL RESORTS–THE SHILLING WHIST CLUB–A PRACTICAL JOKE–THE WEDNESDAY CLUB–THE “TUN OP MAN”–THE PIG BUTCHER–TOM KING–HUGH KELLY–GLOVER AND HIS CHARACTERISTICS

Though Goldsmith’s pride and ambition led him to mingle occasionally with high society, and to engage in the colloquial conflicts of the learned circle, in both of which he was ill at ease and conscious of being undervalued, yet he had some social resorts in which he indemnified himself for their restraints by indulging his humor without control. One of them was a shilling whist club, which held its meetings at the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, a place rendered classic, we are told, by a club held there in old times, to which “rare Ben Jonson” had furnished the rules. The company was of a familiar, unceremonious kind, delighting in that very questionable wit which consists in playing off practical jokes upon each other. Of one of these Goldsmith was made the butt. Coming to the club one night in a hackney coach, he gave the coachman by mistake a guinea instead of a shilling, which he set down as a dead loss, for there was no likelihood, he said, that a fellow of this class would have the honesty to return the money. On the next club evening he was told a person at the street door wished to speak with him. He went forth, but soon returned with a radiant countenance. To his surprise and delight the coachman had actually brought back the guinea. While he launched forth in praise of this unlooked-for piece of honesty, he declared it ought not to go unrewarded. Collecting a small sum from the club, and no doubt increasing it largely from his own purse, he dismissed the Jehu with many encomiums on his good conduct. He was still chanting his praises when one of the club requested a sight of the guinea thus honestly returned. To Goldsmith’s confusion it proved to be a counterfeit. The universal burst of laughter which succeeded, and the jokes by which he was assailed on every side, showed him that the whole was a hoax, and the pretended coachman as much a counterfeit as the guinea. He was so disconcerted, it is said, that he soon beat a retreat for the evening.

Another of those free and easy clubs met on Wednesday evenings at the Globe Tavern in Fleet Street. It was somewhat in the style of the Three Jolly Pigeons; songs, jokes, dramatic imitations, burlesque parodies and broad sallies of humor, formed a contrast to the sententious morality, pedantic casuistry, and polished sarcasm of the learned circle. Here is a huge “tun of man,” by the name of Gordon, use to delight Goldsmith by singing the jovial song of Nottingham Ale, and looking like a butt of it. Here, too, a wealthy pig butcher, charmed, no doubt, by the mild philanthropy of The Traveler, aspired to be on the most sociable footing with the author, and here was Tom King, the comedian, recently risen to consequence by his performance of Lord Ogleby in the new comedy of the Clandestine Marriage.

A member of more note was one Hugh Kelly, a second-rate author, who, as he became a kind of competitor of Goldsmith’s, deserves particular mention. He was an Irishman, about twenty-eight years of age, originally apprenticed to a staymaker in Dublin; then writer to a London attorney; then a Grub Street hack, scribbling for magazines and newspapers. Of late he had set up for theatrical censor and satirist, and, in a paper called Thespis, in emulation of Churchill’s Rosciad, had harassed many of the poor actors without mercy, and often without wit; but had lavished his incense on Garrick, who, in consequence, took him into favor. He was the author of several works of superficial merit, but which had sufficient vogue to inflate his vanity. This, however, must have been mortified on his first introduction to Johnson; after sitting a short time he got up to take leave, expressing a fear that a longer visit might be troublesome. “Not in the least, sir,” said the surly moralist, “I had forgotten you were in the room.” Johnson used to speak of him as a man who had written more than he had read.

A prime wag of this club was one of Goldsmith’s poor countrymen and hangers-on, by the name of Glover. He had originally been educated for the medical profession, but had taken in early life to the stage, though apparently without much success. While performing at Cork, he undertook, partly in jest, to restore life to the body of a malefactor, who had just been executed. To the astonishment of every one, himself among the number, he succeeded. The miracle took wind. He abandoned the stage, resumed the wig and cane, and considered his fortune as secure. Unluckily, there were not many dead people to be restored to life in Ireland; his practice did not equal his expectation, so he came to London, where he continued to dabble indifferently, and rather unprofitably, in physic and literature.

He was a great frequenter of the Globe and Devil taverns, where he used to amuse the company by his talent at story-telling and his powers of mimicry, giving capital imitations of Garrick, Foote, Coleman, Sterne, and other public characters of the day. He seldom happened to have money enough to pay his reckoning, but was always sure to find some ready purse among those who had been amused by his humors. Goldsmith, of course, was one of the readiest. It was through him that Glover was admitted to the Wednesday Club, of which his theatrical imitations became the delight. Glover, however, was a little anxious for the dignity of his patron, which appeared to him to suffer from the overfamiliarity of some of the members of the club. He was especially shocked by the free and easy tone in which Goldsmith was addressed by the pig butcher: “Come, Noll,” would he say, as he pledged him, “here’s my service to you, old boy.”

Glover whispered to Goldsmith that he “should not allow such liberties.” “Let him alone,” was the reply, “you’ll see how civilly I’ll let him down.” After a time, he called out, with marked ceremony and politeness, “Mr. B., I have the honor of drinking your good health.” Alas! dignity was not poor Goldsmith’s forte: he could keep no one at a distance. “Thank’ee, thank’ee, Noll,” nodded the pig-butcher, scarce taking the pipe out of his mouth. “I don’t see the effect of your reproof,” whispered Glover. “I give it up,” replied Goldsmith, with a good-humored shrug, “I ought to have known before now there is no putting a pig in the right way.”

Johnson used to be severe upon Goldsmith for mingling in these motley circles, observing that, having been originally poor, he had contracted a love for low company. Goldsmith, however, was guided not by a taste for what was low, but for what was comic and characteristic. It was the feeling of the artist; the feeling which furnished out some of his best scenes in familiar life; the feeling with which “rare Ben Jonson” sought those very haunts and circles in days of yore, to study “Every Man in His Humor.”

It was not always, however, that the humor of these associates was to his taste: as they became boisterous in their merriment he was apt to become depressed. “The company of fools,” says he, in one of his essays, “may at first make us smile; but at last never fails of making us melancholy.” “Often he would become moody,” says Glover, “and would leave the party abruptly to go home and brood over his misfortune.”

It is possible, however, that he went home for quite a different purpose; to commit to paper some scene or passage suggested for his comedy of The Good-Natured Man. The elaboration of humor is often a most serious task; and we have never witnessed a more perfect picture of mental misery than was once presented to us by a popular dramatic writer–still, we hope, living–whom we found in the agonies of producing a farce which subsequently set the theaters in a roar.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE GREAT CHAM OF LITERATURE AND THE KING–SCENE AT SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS’–GOLDSMITH ACCUSED OF JEALOUSY–NEGOTIATIONS WITH GARRICK–THE AUTHOR AND THE ACTOR–THEIR CORRESPONDENCE

The comedy of The Good-Natured Man was completed by Goldsmith early in 1767, and submitted to the perusal of Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, and others of the literary club, by whom it was heartily approved. Johnson, who was seldom half way either in censure or applause, pronounced it the best comedy that had been written since The Provoked Husband, and promised to furnish the prologue. This immediately became an object of great solicitude with Goldsmith, knowing the weight an introduction from the Great Cham of literature would have with the public; but circumstances occurred which he feared might drive the comedy and the prologue from Johnson’s thoughts. The latter was in the habit of visiting the royal library at the Queen’s (Buckingham) House, a noble collection of books, in the formation of which he had assisted the librarian, Mr. Bernard, with his advice. One evening, as he was seated there by the fire reading, he was surprised by the entrance of the king (George III.), then a young man; who sought this occasion to have a conversation with him. The conversation was varied and discursive; the king shifting from subject to subject according to his wont; “during the whole interview,” says Boswell, “Johnson talked to his majesty with profound respect, but still in his open, manly manner, with a sonorous voice, and never in that subdued tone which is commonly used at the levee and in the drawing-room. ‘I found his majesty wished I should talk,’ said he, ‘and I made it my business to talk. I find it does a man good to be talked to by his sovereign. In the first place, a man cannot be in a passion–‘” It would have been well for Johnson’s colloquial disputants could he have often been under such decorous restraint. He retired from the interview highly gratified with the conversation of the king and with his gracious behavior. “Sir,” said he to the librarian, “they may talk of the king as they will, but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen.” “Sir,” said he subsequently to Bennet Langton, “his manners are those of as fine a gentleman as we may suppose Louis the Fourteenth or Charles the Second.”

While Johnson’s face was still radiant with the reflex of royalty, he was holding forth one day to a listening group at Sir Joshua Reynolds’, who were anxious to hear every particular of this memorable conversation. Among other questions, the king had asked him whether he was writing anything. His reply was that he thought he had already done his part as a writer. “I should have thought so too,” said the king, “if you had not written so well.” “No man,” said Johnson, commenting on this speech, “could have made a handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a king to pay. It was decisive.” “But did you make no reply to this high compliment?” asked one of the company. “No, sir,” replied the profoundly deferential Johnson, “when the king had said it, it was to be so. It was not for me to bandy civilities with my sovereign.”

During all the tune that Johnson was thus holding forth, Goldsmith, who was present, appeared to take no interest in the royal theme, but remained seated on a sofa at a distance, in a moody fit of abstraction; at length recollecting himself, he sprang up, and advancing, exclaimed, with what Boswell calls his usual “frankness and simplicity,” “Well, you acquitted yourself in this conversation better than I should have done, for I should have bowed and stammered through the whole of it.” He afterward explained his seeming inattention, by saying that his mind was completely occupied about his play, and by fears lest Johnson, in his present state of royal excitement, would fail to furnish the much-desired prologue.

How natural and truthful is this explanation. Yet Boswell presumes to pronounce Goldsmith’s inattention affected and attributes it to jealousy. “It was strongly suspected,” says he, “that he was fretting with chagrin and envy at the singular honor Dr. Johnson had lately enjoyed.” It needed the littleness of mind of Boswell to ascribe such pitiful motives to Goldsmith, and to entertain such exaggerated notions of the honor paid to Dr. Johnson.

The Good-Natured Man was now ready for performance, but the question was how to get it upon the stage. The affairs of Covent Garden, for which it had been intended, were thrown into confusion by the recent death of Rich, the manager. Drury Lane was under the management of Garrick, but a feud, it will be recollected, existed between him and the poet, from the animadversions of the latter on the mismanagement of theatrical affairs, and the refusal of the former to give the poet his vote for the secretaryship of the Society of Arts. Times, however, were changed. Goldsmith when that feud took place was an anonymous writer, almost unknown to fame, and of no circulation in society. Now he had become a literary lion; he was a member of the Literary Club; he was the associate of Johnson, Burke, Topham Beauclerc, and other magnates; in a word, he had risen to consequence in the public eye, and of course was of consequence in the eyes of David Garrick. Sir Joshua Reynolds saw the lurking scruples of pride existing between the author and actor, and thinking it a pity that two men of such congenial talents, and who might be so serviceable to each other, should be kept asunder by a worn-out pique, exerted his friendly offices to bring them together. The meeting took place in Reynolds’ house in Leicester Square. Garrick, however, could not entirely put off the mock majesty of the stage; he meant to be civil, but he was rather too gracious and condescending. Tom Davies, in his Life of Garrick, gives an amusing picture of the coming together of these punctilious parties. “The manager,” says he, “was fully conscious of his (Goldsmith’s) merit, and perhaps more ostentatious of his abilities to serve a dramatic author than became a man of his prudence; Goldsmith was, on his side, as fully persuaded of his own importance and independent greatness. Mr. Garrick, who had so long been treated with the complimentary language paid to a successful patentee and admired actor, expected that the writer would esteem the patronage of his play a favor; Goldsmith rejected all ideas of kindness in a bargain that was intended to be of mutual advantage to both parties, and in this he was certainly justifiable; Mr. Garrick could reasonably expect no thanks for the acting a new play, which he would have rejected if he had not been convinced it would have amply rewarded his pains and expense. I believe the manager was willing to accept the play, but he wished to be courted to it; and the doctor was not disposed to purchase his friendship by the resignation of his sincerity.” They separated, however, with an understanding on the part of Goldsmith that his play would be acted. The conduct of Garrick subsequently proved evasive, not through any lingerings of past hostility, but from habitual indecision in matters of the kind, and from real scruples of delicacy. He did not think the piece likely to succeed on the stage, and avowed that opinion to Reynolds and Johnson; but hesitated to say as much to Goldsmith, through fear of wounding his feelings. A further misunderstanding was the result of this want of decision and frankness; repeated interviews and some correspondence took place without bringing matters to a point, and in the meantime the theatrical season passed away.

Goldsmith’s pocket, never well supplied, suffered grievously by this delay, and he considered himself entitled to call upon the manager, who still talked of acting the play, to advance him forty pounds upon a note of the younger Newbery. Garrick readily complied, but subsequently suggested certain important alterations in the comedy as indispensable to its success; these were indignantly rejected by the author, but pertinaciously insisted on by the manager. Garrick proposed to leave the matter to the arbitration of Whitehead, the laureate, who officiated as his “reader” and elbow critic. Goldsmith was more indignant than ever, and a violent dispute ensued, which was only calmed by the interference of Burke and Reynolds.

Just at this time, order came out of confusion in the affairs of Covent Garden. A pique having risen between Colman and Garrick, in the course of their joint authorship of The Clandestine Marriage, the former had become manager and part proprietor of Covent Garden, and was preparing to open a powerful competition with his former colleague. On hearing of this, Goldsmith made overtures to Colman; who, without waiting to consult his fellow proprietors, who were absent, gave instantly a favorable reply. Goldsmith felt the contrast of this warm, encouraging conduct, to the chilling delays and objections of Garrick. He at once abandoned his piece to the discretion of Colman. “Dear sir,” says he in a letter dated Temple Garden Court, July 9th, “I am very much obliged to you for your kind partiality in my favor, and your tenderness in shortening the interval of my expectation. That the play is liable to many objections I well know, but I am happy that it is in hands the most capable in the world of removing them. If then, dear sir, you will complete your favor by putting the piece into such a state as it may be acted, or of directing me how to do it, I shall ever retain a sense of your goodness to me. And indeed, though most probably this be the last I shall ever write, yet I can’t help feeling a secret satisfaction that poets for the future are likely to have a protector who declines taking advantage of their dreadful situation; and scorns that importance which may be acquired by trifling with their anxieties.”

The next day Goldsmith wrote to Garrick, who was at Lichfield, informing him of his having transferred his piece to Covent Garden, for which it had been originally written, and by the patentee of which it was claimed, observing, “As I found you had very great difficulties about that piece, I complied with his desire…. I am extremely sorry that you should think me warm at our last meeting; your judgment certainly ought to be free, especially in a matter which must in some measure concern your own credit and interest. I assure you, sir, I have no disposition to differ with you on this or any other account, but am, with a high opinion of your abilities, and a very real esteem, Sir, your most obedient humble servant. Oliver Goldsmith.”

In his reply, Garrick observed, “I was, indeed, much hurt that your warmth at our last meeting mistook my sincere and friendly attention to your play for the remains of a former misunderstanding, which I had as much forgot as if it had never existed. What I said to you at my own house I now repeat, that I felt more pain in giving my sentiments than you possibly would in receiving them. It has been the business, and ever will be, of my life to live on the best terms with men of genius; and I know that Dr. Goldsmith will have no reason to change his previous friendly disposition toward me, as I shall be glad of every future opportunity to convince him how much I am his obedient servant and well-wisher. D. Garrick.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

MORE HACK AUTHORSHIP–TOM DAVIES AND THE ROMAN HISTORY–CANONBURY CASTLE–POLITICAL AUTHORSHIP–PECUNIARY TEMPTATION–DEATH OF NEWBERY THE ELDER

Though Goldsmith’s comedy was now in train to be performed, it could not be brought out before Christmas; in the meantime, he must live. Again, therefore, he had to resort to literary jobs for his daily support. These obtained for him petty occasional sums, the largest of which was ten pounds, from the elder Newbery, for a historical compilation; but this scanty rill of quasi patronage, so sterile in its products, was likely soon to cease; Newbery being too ill to attend to business, and having to transfer the whole management of it to his nephew.

At this time Tom Davies, the sometime Roscius, sometime bibliopole, stepped forward to Goldsmith’s relief, and proposed that he should undertake an easy popular history of Rome in two volumes. An arrangement was soon made. Goldsmith undertook to complete it in two years, if possible, for two hundred and fifty guineas, and forthwith set about his task with cheerful alacrity. As usual, he sought a rural retreat during the summer months, where he might alternate his literary labors with strolls about the green fields. “Merry Islington” was again his resort, but he now aspired to better quarters than formerly, and engaged the chambers occupied occasionally by Mr. Newbery in Canonbury House, or Castle, as it is popularly called. This had been a hunting lodge of Queen Elizabeth, in whose time it was surrounded by parks and forests. In Goldsmith’s day nothing remained of it but an old brick tower; it was still in the country, amid rural scenery, and was a favorite nestling-place of authors, publishers, and others of the literary order. [Footnote:

See on the distant slope, majestic shows Old Canonbury’s tower, an ancient pile
To various fates assigned; and where by turns Meanness and grandeur have alternate reign’d; Thither, in latter days, have genius fled From yonder city, to respire and die.
There the sweet bard of Auburn sat, and tuned The plaintive moanings of his village dirge. There learned Chambers treasured lore for _men_, And Newbery there his A B C’s for _babes_.]

A number of these he had for fellow occupants of the castle; and they formed a temporary club, which held its meetings at the Crown Tavern, on the Islington lower road; and here he presided in his own genial style, and was the life and delight of the company.

The writer of these pages visited old Canonbury Castle some years since, out of regard to the memory of Goldsmith. The apartment was still shown which the poet had inhabited, consisting of a sitting-room and small bedroom, with paneled wainscots and Gothic windows. The quaintness and quietude of the place were still attractive. It was one of the resorts of citizens on their Sunday walks, who would ascend to the top of the tower and amuse themselves with reconnoitering the city through a telescope. Not far from this tower were the gardens of the White Conduit House, a Cockney Elysium, where Goldsmith used to figure in the humbler days of his fortune. In the first edition of his Essays he speaks of a stroll in these gardens, where he at that time, no doubt, thought himself in perfectly genteel society. After his rise in the world, however, he became too knowing to speak of such plebeian haunts. In a new edition of his Essays, therefore, the White Conduit House and its garden disappears, and he speaks of “a stroll in the Park.”

While Goldsmith was literally living from hand to mouth by the forced drudgery of the pen, his independence of spirit was subjected to a sore pecuniary trial. It was the opening of Lord North’s administration, a time of great political excitement. The public mind was agitated by the question of American taxation, and other questions of like irritating tendency. Junius and Wilkes and other powerful writers were attacking the administration with all their force; Grub Street was stirred up to its lowest depths; inflammatory talent of all kinds was in full activity, and the kingdom was deluged with pamphlets, lampoons and libels of the grossest kinds. The ministry were looking anxiously round for literary support. It was thought that the pen of Goldsmith might be readily enlisted. His hospitable friend and countryman, Robert Nugent, politically known as Squire Gawky, had come out strenuously for colonial taxation; had been selected for a lordship of the board of trade, and raised to the rank of Baron Nugent and Viscount Clare. His example, it was thought, would be enough of itself to bring Goldsmith into the ministerial ranks; and then what writer of the day was proof against a full purse or a pension? Accordingly one Parson Scott, chaplain to Lord Sandwich, and author of Anti Se anus Panurge, and other political libels in support of the administration, was sent to negotiate with the poet, who at this time was returned to town. Dr. Scott, in after years, when his political subserviency had been rewarded by two fat crown livings, used to make what he considered a good story out of this embassy to the poet. “I found him,” said he, “in a miserable suit of chambers in the Temple. I told him my authority: I told how I was empowered to pay most liberally for his exertions; and, would you believe it! he was so absurd as to say, ‘I can earn as much as will supply my wants without writing for any party; the assistance you offer is therefore unnecessary to me’; and so I left him in his garret!” Who does not admire the sturdy independence of poor Goldsmith toiling in his garret for nine guineas the job, and smile with contempt at the indignant wonder of the political divine, albeit his subserviency _was_ repaid by two fat crown livings?

Not long after this occurrence, Goldsmith’s old friend, though frugal-handed employer, Newbery, of picture-book renown, closed his mortal career. The poet has celebrated him as the friend of all mankind; he certainly lost nothing by his friendship. He coined the brains of his authors in the times of their exigency, and made them pay dear for the plank put out to keep them from drowning. It is not likely his death caused much lamentation among the scribbling tribe; we may express decent respect for the memory of the just, but we shed tears only at the grave of the generous.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THEATRICAL MANEUVERING–THE COMEDY OF FALSE DELICACY–FIRST PERFORMANCE OF THE GOOD-NATURED MAN–CONDUCT OF JOHNSON–CONDUCT OF THE AUTHOR–INTERMEDDLING OF THE PRESS

The comedy of The Good-Natured Man was doomed to experience delays and difficulties to the very last. Garrick, notwithstanding his professions, had still a lurking grudge against the author, and tasked his managerial arts to thwart him in his theatrical enterprise. For this purpose he undertook to build up Hugh Kelly, Goldsmith’s boon companion of the Wednesday Club, as a kind of rival. Kelly had written a comedy called False Delicacy, in which were embodied all the meretricious qualities of the sentimental school. Garrick, though he had decried that school, and had brought out his comedy of The Clandestine Marriage in opposition to it, now lauded False Delicacy to the skies, and prepared to bring it out at Drury Lane with all possible stage effect. He even went so far as to write a prologue and epilogue for it, and to touch up some parts of the dialogue. He had become reconciled to his former colleague, Colman, and it is intimated that one condition in the treaty of peace between these potentates of the realms of pasteboard (equally prone to play into each other’s hands with the confederate potentates on the great theater of life) was that Goldsmith’s play should be kept back until Kelly’s had been brought forward.

In the meantime the poor author, little dreaming of the deleterious influence at work behind the scenes, saw the appointed time arrive and pass by without the performance of his play; while False Delicacy was brought out at Drury Lane (January 23, 1768) with all the trickery of managerial management. Houses were packed to applaud it to the echo; the newspapers vied with each other in their venal praises, and night after night seemed to give it a fresh triumph.

While False Delicacy was thus borne on the full tide of fictitious prosperity, The Good-Natured Man was creeping through the last rehearsals at Covent Garden. The success of the rival piece threw a damp upon author, manager, and actors. Goldsmith went about with a face full of anxiety; Colman’s hopes in the piece declined at each rehearsal; as to his fellow proprietors, they declared they had never entertained any. All the actors were discontented with their parts, excepting Ned Shuter, an excellent low comedian, and a pretty actress named Miss Walford; both of whom the poor author every afterward held in grateful recollection.

Johnson, Goldsmith’s growling monitor and unsparing castigator in times of heedless levity, stood by him at present with that protecting kindness with which he ever befriended him in time of need. He attended the rehearsals; he furnished the prologue according to promise; he pish’d and pshaw’d at any doubts and fears on the part of the author, but gave him sound counsel, and held him up with a steadfast and manly hand. Inspirited by his sympathy, Goldsmith plucked up new heart, and arrayed himself for the grand trial with unusual care. Ever since his elevation into the polite world, he had improved in his wardrobe and toilet. Johnson could no longer accuse him of being shabby in his appearance; he rather went to the other extreme. On the present occasion there is an entry in the books of his tailor, Mr. William Filby, of a suit of “Tyrian bloom, satin grain, and garter blue silk breeches, L8 2s. 7d.” Thus magnificently attired, he attended the theater and watched the reception of the play and the effect of each individual scene, with that vicissitude of feeling incident to his mercurial nature.

Johnson’s prologue was solemn in itself, and being delivered by Brinsley in lugubrious tones suited to the ghost in Hamlet, seemed to throw a portentous gloom on the audience. Some of the scenes met with great applause, and at such times Goldsmith was highly elated; others went off coldly, or there were slight tokens of disapprobation, and then his spirits would sink. The fourth act saved the piece; for Shuter, who had the main comic character of Croaker, was so varied and ludicrous in his execution of the scene in which he reads an incendiary letter that he drew down thunders of applause. On his coming behind the scenes, Goldsmith greeted him with an overflowing heart; declaring that he exceeded his own idea of the character, and made it almost as new to him as to any of the audience.

On the whole, however, both the author and his friends were disappointed at the reception of the piece, and considered it a failure. Poor Goldsmith left the theater with his towering hopes completely cut down. He endeavored to hide his mortification, and even to assume an air of unconcern while among his associates; but, the moment he was alone with Dr. Johnson, in whose rough but magnanimous nature he reposed unlimited confidence, he threw off all restraint and gave way to an almost childlike burst of grief. Johnson, who had shown no want of sympathy at the proper time, saw nothing in the partial disappointment of overrated expectations to warrant such ungoverned emotions, and rebuked him sternly for what he termed a silly affectation, saying that “No man should be expected to sympathize with the sorrows of vanity.”

When Goldsmith had recovered from the blow, he, with his usual unreserve, made his past distress a subject of amusement to his friends. Dining one day, in company with Dr. Johnson, at the chaplain’s table at St. James’s Palace, he entertained the company with a particular and comic account of all his feelings on the night of representation, and his despair when the piece was hissed. How he went, he said, to the Literary Club; chatted gayly, as if nothing had gone amiss; and, to give a greater idea of his unconcern, sang his favorite song about an old woman tossed in a blanket seventeen times as high as the moon…. “All this while,” added he, “I was suffering horrid tortures, and, had I put a bit in my mouth, I verily believe it would have strangled me on the spot, I was so excessively ill: but I made more noise than usual to cover all that; so they never perceived my not eating, nor suspected the anguish of my heart; but, when all were gone except Johnson here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore that I would never write again.”

Dr. Johnson sat in amaze at the odd frankness and childlike self-accusation of poor Goldsmith. When the latter had come to a pause, “All this, doctor,” said he dryly, “I thought had been a secret between you and me, and I am sure I would not have said anything about it for the world.” But Goldsmith had no secrets: his follies, his weaknesses, his errors were all thrown to the surface; his heart was really too guileless and innocent to seek mystery and concealment. It is too often the false, designing man that is guarded in his conduct and never offends proprieties.

It is singular, however, that Goldsmith, who thus in conversation could keep nothing to himself, should be the author of a maxim which would inculcate the most thorough dissimulation. “Men of the world,” says he, in one of the papers of the “Bee,” “maintain that the true end of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.” How often is this quoted as one of the subtle remarks of the fine witted Talleyrand!

The Good-Natured Man was performed for ten nights in succession; the third, sixth, and ninth nights were for the author’s benefit; the fifth night it was commanded by their majesties; after this it was played occasionally, but rarely, having always pleased more in the closet than on the stage.

As to Kelly’s comedy, Johnson pronounced it entirely devoid of character, and it has long since passed into oblivion. Yet it is an instance how an inferior production, by dint of puffing and trumpeting, may be kept up for a time on the surface of popular opinion, or rather of popular talk. What had been done for False Delicacy on the stage was continued by the press. The booksellers vied with the manager in launching it upon the town. They announced that the first impression of three thousand copies was exhausted before two o’clock on the day of publication; four editions, amounting to ten thousand copies, were sold in the course of the season; a public breakfast was given to Kelly at the Chapter Coffee House, and a piece of plate presented to him by the publishers. The comparative merits of the two plays were continually subjects of discussion in green-rooms, coffeehouses, and other places where theatrical questions were discussed.

Goldsmith’s old enemy, Kenrick, that “viper of the press,” endeavored on this as on many other occasions to detract from his well-earned fame; the poet was excessively sensitive to these attacks, and had not the art and self-command to conceal his feelings.

Some scribblers on the other side insinuated that Kelly had seen the manuscript of Goldsmith’s play, while in the hands of Garrick or elsewhere, and had borrowed some of the situations and sentiments. Some of the wags of the day took a mischievous pleasure in stirring up a feud between the two authors. Goldsmith became nettled, though he could scarcely be deemed jealous of one so far his inferior. He spoke disparagingly, though no doubt sincerely, of Kelly’s play: the latter retorted. Still, when they met one day behind the scenes of Covent Garden, Goldsmith, with his customary urbanity, congratulated Kelly on his success. “If I thought you sincere, Mr. Goldsmith,” replied the other, abruptly, “I should thank you.” Goldsmith was not a man to harbor spleen or ill-will, and soon laughed at this unworthy rivalship: but the jealousy and envy awakened in Kelly’s mind long continued. He is even accused of having given vent to his hostility by anonymous attacks in the newspapers, the basest resource of dastardly and malignant spirits; but of this there is no positive proof.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

BURNING THE CANDLE AT BOTH ENDS–FINE APARTMENTS–FINE FURNITURE–FINE CLOTHES–FINE ACQUAINTANCES–SHOEMAKER’S HOLIDAY AND JOLLY PIGEON ASSOCIATES–PETER BARLOW, GLOVER, AND THE HAMPSTEAD HOAX–POOR FRIENDS AMONG GREAT ACQUAINTANCES

The profits resulting from The Good-Natured Man were beyond any that Goldsmith had yet derived from his works. He netted about four hundred pounds from the theater, and one hundred pounds from his publisher.

Five hundred pounds! and all at one miraculous draught! It appeared to him wealth inexhaustible. It at once opened his heart and hand, and led him into all kinds of extravagance. The first symptom was ten guineas sent to Shuter for a box ticket for his benefit, when The Good-Natured Man was to be performed. The next was an entire change in his domicile. The shabby lodgings with Jeffs the butler, in which he had been worried by Johnson’s scrutiny, were now exchanged for chambers more becoming a man of his ample fortune. The apartments consisted of three rooms on the second floor of No. 2 Brick Court, Middle Temple, on the right hand ascending the staircase, and overlooked the umbrageous walks of the Temple garden. The lease he purchased for four hundred pounds, and then went on to furnish his rooms with mahogany sofas, card-tables, and book-cases; with curtains, mirrors, and Wilton carpets. His awkward little person was also furnished out in a style befitting his apartment; for, in addition to his suit of “Tyrian bloom, satin grain,” we find another charged about this time, in the books of Mr. Filby, in no less gorgeous terms, being “lined with silk and furnished with gold buttons.” Thus lodged and thus arrayed, he invited the visits of his most aristocratic acquaintances, and no longer quailed beneath the courtly eye of Beauclerc. He gave dinners to Johnson, Reynolds, Percy, Bickerstaff, and other friends of note; and supper parties to young folks of both sexes. These last were preceded by round games of cards, at which there was more laughter than skill, and in which the sport was to cheat each other; or by romping games of forfeits and blind-man’s buff, at which he enacted the lord of misrule. Blackstone, whose chambers were immediately below, and who was studiously occupied on his Commentaries, used to complain of the racket made overhead by his reveling neighbor.

Sometimes Goldsmith would make up a rural party, composed of four or five of his “jolly pigeon” friends, to enjoy what he humorously called a “shoemaker’s holiday.” These would assemble at his chambers in the morning, to partake of a plentiful and rather expensive breakfast; the remains of which, with his customary benevolence, he generally gave to some poor woman in attendance. The repast ended, the party would set out on foot, in high spirits, making extensive rambles by footpaths and green lanes to Blackheath, Wandsworth, Chelsea, Hampton Court, Highgate, or some other pleasant resort, within a few miles of London. A simple but gay and heartily relished dinner, at a country inn, crowned the excursion. In the evening they strolled back to town, all the better in health and spirits for a day spent in rural and social enjoyment. Occasionally, when extravagantly inclined, they adjourned from dinner to drink tea at the White Conduit House; and, now and then, concluded their festive day by supping at the Grecian or Temple Exchange Coffee Houses, or at the Globe Tavern, in Fleet Street. The whole expenses of the day never exceeded a crown, and were oftener from three and sixpence to four shillings; for the best part of their entertainment, sweet air and rural scenes, excellent exercise and joyous conversation, cost nothing.

One of Goldsmith’s humble companions, on these excursions, was his occasional amanuensis, Peter Barlow, whose quaint peculiarities afforded much amusement to the company. Peter was poor but punctilious, squaring his expenses according to his means. He always wore the same garb; fixed his regular expenditure for dinner at a trifling sum, which, if left to himself, he never exceeded, but which he always insisted on paying. His oddities always made him a welcome companion on the “shoemaker’s holidays.” The dinner on these occasions generally exceeded considerably his tariff; he put down, however, no more than his regular sum, and Goldsmith made up the difference.

Another of these hangers-on, for whom, on such occasions, he was content to “pay the shot,” was his countryman, Glover, of whom mention has already been made, as one of the wags and sponges of the Globe and Devil taverns, and a prime mimic at the Wednesday Club.

This vagabond genius has bequeathed us a whimsical story of one of his practical jokes upon Goldsmith, in the course of a rural excursion in the vicinity of London. They had dined at an inn on Hampstead Heights and were descending the hill, when, in passing a cottage, they saw through the open window a party at tea. Goldsmith, who was fatigued, cast a wistful glance at the cheerful tea-table. “How I should like to be of that party,” exclaimed he. “Nothing more easy,” replied Glover, “allow me to introduce you.” So saying, he entered the house with an air of the most perfect familiarity, though an utter stranger, and was followed by the unsuspecting Goldsmith, who supposed, of course, that he was a friend of the family. The owner of the house rose on the entrance of the strangers. The undaunted Glover shook hands with him in the most cordial manner possible, fixed his eye on one of the company who had a peculiarly good-natured physiognomy, muttered something like a recognition, and forthwith launched into an amusing story, invented at the moment, of something which he pretended had occurred upon the road. The host supposed the new-comers were friends at his guests; the guests that they were friends of the host. Glover did not give them time to find out the truth. He followed one droll story with another; brought his powers of mimicry into play, and kept the company in a roar. Tea was offered and accepted; an hour went off in the most sociable manner imaginable, at the end of which Glover bowed himself and his companion out of the house with many facetious last words, leaving the host and his company to compare notes, and to find out what an impudent intrusion they had experienced.

Nothing could exceed the dismay and vexation of Goldsmith when triumphantly told by Glover that it was all a hoax, and that he did not know a single soul in the house. His first impulse was to return instantly and vindicate himself from all participation in the jest; but a few words from his free and easy companion dissuaded him. “Doctor,” said he, coolly, “we are unknown; you quite as much as I; if you return and tell the story, it will be in the newspapers to-morrow; nay, upon recollection I remember in one of their offices the face of that squinting fellow who sat in the corner as if he was treasuring up my stories for future use, and we shall be sure of being exposed; let us therefore keep our own counsel.”

This story was frequently afterward told by Glover, with rich dramatic effect, repeating and exaggerating the conversation, and mimicking in ludicrous style, the embarrassment, surprise, and subsequent indignation of Goldsmith.

It is a trite saying that a wheel cannot run in two ruts; nor a man keep two opposite sets of intimates. Goldsmith sometimes found his old friends of the “jolly pigeon” order turning up rather awkwardly when he was in company with his new aristocratic acquaintances. He gave a whimiscal account of the sudden apparition of one of them at his gay apartments in the Temple, who may have been a welcome visitor at his squalid quarters in Green Arbor Court. “How do you think he served me?” said he to a friend. “Why, sir, after staying away two years, he came one evening into my chambers, half drunk, as I was taking a glass of wine with Topham Beauclerc and General Oglethorpe; and sitting himself down, with most intolerable assurance inquired after my health and literary pursuits, as if he were upon the most friendly footing. I was at first so much ashamed of ever having known such a fellow that I stifled my resentment and drew him into a conversation on such topics as I knew he could talk upon; in which, to do him justice, he acquitted himself very reputably; when all of a sudden, as if recollecting something, he pulled two papers out of his pocket, which he presented to me with great ceremony, saying, ‘Here, my dear friend, is a quarter of a pound of tea, and a half pound of sugar, I have brought you; for though it is not in my power at present to pay you the two guineas you so generously lent me, you, nor any man else, shall ever have it to say that I want gratitude.’ This,” added Goldsmith, “was too much. I could no longer keep in my feelings, but desired him to turn out of my chambers directly; which he very coolly did, taking up his tea and sugar; and I never saw him afterward.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

REDUCED AGAIN TO BOOK-BUILDING–RURAL RETREAT AT SHOEMAKER’S PARADISE–DEATH OF HENRY GOLDSMITH–TRIBUTES TO HIS MEMORY IN THE DESERTED VILLAGE

The heedless expenses of Goldsmith, as may easily be supposed, soon brought him to the end of his “prize money,” but when his purse gave out he drew upon futurity, obtaining advances from his booksellers and loans from his friends in the confident hope of soon turning up another trump. The debts which he thus thoughtlessly incurred in consequence of a transient gleam of prosperity embarrassed him for the rest of his life; so that the success of The Good-Natured Man may be said to have been ruinous to him. He was soon obliged to resume his old craft of book-building, and set about his History of Rome, undertaken for Davies.

It was his custom, as we have shown, during the summer time, when pressed by a multiplicity of literary jobs, or urged to the accomplishment of some particular task, to take country lodgings a few miles from town, generally on the Harrow or Edgeware roads, and bury himself there for weeks and months together. Sometimes he would remain closely occupied in his room, at other times he would stroll out along the lanes and hedge-rows, and taking out paper and pencil, note down thoughts to be expanded and connected at home. His summer retreat for the present year, 1768, was a little cottage with a garden, pleasantly situated about eight miles from town on the Edgeware road. He took it in conjunction with a Mr. Edmund Botts, a barrister and man of letters, his neighbor in the Temple, having rooms Immediately opposite him on the same floor. They had become cordial intimates, and Botts was one of those with whom Goldsmith now and then took the friendly but pernicious liberty of borrowing.

The cottage which they had hired belonged to a rich shoemaker of Piccadilly, who had embellished his little domain of half an acre with statues and jets, and all the decorations of landscape gardening; in consequence of which Goldsmith gave it the name of The Shoemaker’s Paradise. As his fellow-occupant, Mr. Botts, drove a gig, he sometimes, in an interval of literary labor, accompanied him to town, partook of a social dinner there, and returned with him in the evening. On one occasion, when they had probably lingered too long at the table, they came near breaking their necks on their way homeward by driving against a post on the sidewalk, while Botts was proving by the force of legal eloquence that they were in the very middle of the broad Edgeware road.

In the course of this summer Goldsmith’s career of gayety was suddenly brought to a pause by intelligence of the death of his brother Henry, then but forty-five years of age. He had led a quiet and blameless life amid the scenes of his youth, fulfilling the duties of village pastor with unaffected piety; conducting the school at Lissoy with a degree of industry and ability that gave it celebrity, and acquitting himself in all the duties of life with undeviating rectitude and the mildest benevolence. How truly Goldsmith loved and venerated him is evident in all his letters and throughout his works; in which his brother continually forms his model for an exemplification of all the most endearing of the Christian virtues; yet his affection at his death was imbittered by the fear that he died with some doubt upon his mind of the warmth of his affection. Goldsmith had been urged by his friends in Ireland, since his elevation in the world, to use his influence with the great, which they supposed to be all powerful, in favor of Henry, to obtain for him church preferment. He did exert himself as far as his diffident nature would permit, but without success; we have seen that, in the case of the Earl of Northumberland, when, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, that nobleman proffered him his patronage, he asked nothing for himself, but only spoke on behalf of his brother. Still some of his friends, ignorant of what he had done and of how little he was able to do, accused him of negligence. It is not likely, however, that his amiable and estimable brother joined in the accusation.

To the tender and melancholy recollections of his early days awakened by the death of this loved companion of his childhood, we may attribute some of the most heartfelt passages in his Deserted Village. Much of that poem, we are told, was composed this summer, in the course of solitary strolls about the green lanes and beautifully rural scenes of the neighborhood; and thus much of the softness and sweetness of English landscape became blended with the ruder features of Lissoy. It was in these lonely and subdued moments, when tender regret was half mingled with self-upbraiding, that he poured forth that homage of the heart, rendered, as it were, at the grave of his brother. The picture of the village pastor in this poem, which, we have already hinted, was taken in part from the character of his father, embodied likewise the recollections of his brother Henry; for the natures of the father and son seem to have been identical. In the following lines, however, Goldsmith evidently contrasted the quiet, settled life of his brother, passed at home in the benevolent exercise of the Christian duties, with his own restless, vagrant career:

“Remote from towns he ran his goodly race, Nor e’er had changed, nor wished to change his place.”

To us the whole character seems traced, as it were, in an expiatory spirit; as if, conscious of his own wandering restlessness, he sought to humble himself at the shrine of excellence which he had not been able to practice:

“At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorn’d the venerable place;
Truth from his lips prevail’d with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff, remain’d to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; Even children follow’d, with endearing wile, And pluck’d his gown, to share the good man’s smile; His ready smile a parent’s warmth express’d, Their welfare pleas’d him, and their cares distress’d; To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven.

* * * * *

“And as a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reprov’d each dull delay, Allur’d to brighter worlds, _and led the way_.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

DINNER AT BICKERSTAFF’S–HIFFERNAN AND HIS IMPECUNIOSITY–KENRICK’S EPIGRAM–JOHNSON’S CONSOLATION–GOLDSMITH’S TOILET–THE BLOOM-COLORED COAT–NEW ACQUAINTANCES–THE HORNECKS–A TOUCH OF POETRY AND PASSION–THE JESSAMY BRIDE

In October Goldsmith returned to town and resumed his usual haunts. We hear of him at a dinner given by his countryman, Isaac Bickerstaff, author of Love in a Village, Lionel and Clarissa, and other successful dramatic pieces. The dinner was to be followed by the reading by Bickerstaff of a new play. Among the guests was one Paul Hiffernan, likewise an Irishman; somewhat idle and intemperate; who lived nobody knew how nor where, sponging wherever he had a chance, and often of course upon Goldsmith, who was ever the vagabond’s friend, or rather victim. Hiffernan was something of a physician, and elevated the emptiness of his purse into the dignity of a disease, which he termed _impecuniosity_, and against which he claimed a right to call for relief from the healthier purses of his friends. He was a scribbler for the newspapers, and latterly a dramatic critic, which had probably gained him an invitation to the dinner and reading. The wine and wassail, however, befogged his senses. Scarce had the author got into the second act of his play, when Hiffernan began to nod, and at length snored outright. Bickerstaff was embarrassed, but continued to read in a more elevated tone. The louder he read, the louder Hiffernan snored; until the author came to a pause. “Never mind the brute, Bick, but go on,” cried Goldsmith. “He would have served Homer just so if he were here and reading his own works.”

Kenrick, Goldsmith’s old enemy, travestied this anecdote in the following lines, pretending that the poet had compared his countryman Bickerstaff to Homer.

“What are your Bretons, Romans, Grecians, Compared with thoroughbred Milesians!
Step into Griffin’s shop, he’ll tell ye Of Goldsmith, Bickerstaff, and Kelly … And, take one Irish evidence for t’other, Ev’n Homer’s self is but their foster brother.”

Johnson was a rough consoler to a man when wincing under an attack of this kind. “Never mind, sir,” said he to Goldsmith, when he saw that he felt the sting. “A man whose business it is to be talked of is much helped by being attacked. Fame, sir, is a shuttlecock; if it be struck only at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground; to keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.”

Bickerstaff, at the time of which we are speaking, was in high vogue, the associate of the first wits of the day; a few years afterward he was obliged to fly the country to escape the punishment of an infamous crime. Johnson expressed great astonishment at hearing the offense for which he had fled. “Why, sir,” said Thrale; “he had long been a suspected man.” Perhaps there was a knowing look on the part of the eminent brewer, which provoked a somewhat contemptuous reply. “By those who look close to the ground,” said Johnson, “dirt will sometimes be seen; I hope I see things from a greater distance.”

We have already noticed the improvement, or rather the increased expense, of Goldsmith’s wardrobe since his elevation into polite society. “He was fond,” says one of his contemporaries, “of exhibiting his muscular little person in the gayest apparel of the day, to which was added a bag-wig and sword.” Thus arrayed, he used to figure about in the sunshine in the Temple Gardens, much to his own satisfaction, but to the amusement of his acquaintances.

Boswell, in his memoirs, has rendered one of his suits forever famous. That worthy, on the 16th of October in this same year, gave a dinner to Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick, Murphy, Bickerstaff, and Davies. Goldsmith was generally apt to bustle in at the last moment, when the guests were taking their seats at table, but on this occasion he was unusually early. While waiting for some lingerers to arrive, “he strutted about,” says Boswell, “bragging of his dress, and I believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was undoubtedly prone to such impressions. ‘Come, come,’ said Garrick, ‘talk no more of that. You are perhaps the worst–eh, eh?’ Goldsmith was eagerly attempting to interrupt him, when Garrick went on, laughing ironically, ‘Nay, you will always _look_ like a gentleman; but I am talking of your being well or _ill dressed_.’ ‘Well, let me tell you,’ said Goldsmith, ‘when the tailor brought home my bloom-colored coat, he said, ‘Sir, I have a favor to beg of you; when anybody asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention John Filby, at the Harrow, in Water Lane.’ ‘Why, sir,’ cried Johnson, ‘that was because he knew the strange color would attract crowds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of him, and see how well he could make a coat of so absurd a color.'”

But though Goldsmith might permit this raillery on the part of his friends, he was quick to resent any personalities of the kind from strangers. As he was one day walking the Strand in grand array with bag-wig and sword, he excited the merriment of two coxcombs, one of whom called to the other to “look at that fly with a long pin stuck through it.” Stung to the quick, Goldsmith’s first retort was to caution the passers-by to be on their guard against “that brace of disguised pickpockets”–his next was to step into the middle of the street, where there was room for action, half draw his sword, and beckon the joker, who was armed in like manner, to follow him. This was literally a war of wit which the other had not anticipated. He had no inclination to push the joke to such an extreme, but abandoning the ground, sneaked off with his brother wag amid the hootings of the spectators.

This proneness to finery in dress, however, which Boswell and others of Goldsmith’s contemporaries, who did not understand the secret plies of his character, attributed to vanity, arose, we are convinced, from a widely different motive. It was from a painful idea of his own personal defects, which had been cruelly stamped upon his mind in his boyhood by the sneers and jeers of his playmates, and had been ground deeper into it by rude speeches made to him in every step of his struggling career, until it had become a constant cause of awkwardness and embarrassment. This he had experienced the more sensibly since his reputation had elevated him into polite society; and he was constantly endeavoring by the aid of dress to acquire that personal _acceptability_, if we may use the phrase, which nature had denied him. If ever he betrayed a little self-complacency on first turning out in a new suit, it may perhaps have been because he felt as if he had achieved a triumph over his ugliness.

There were circumstances too about the time of which we are treating which may have rendered Goldsmith more than usually attentive to his personal appearance. He had recently made the acquaintance of a most agreeable family from Devonshire, which he met at the house of his friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds. It consisted of Mrs. Horneck, widow of Captain Kane Horneck; two daughters, seventeen and nineteen years of age, and an only son, Charles, “the Captain in Lace,” as his sisters playfully and somewhat proudly called him, he having lately entered the Guards. The daughters are described as uncommonly beautiful, intelligent, sprightly, and agreeable. Catharine, the eldest, went among her friends by the name of “Little Comedy,” indicative, very probably, of her disposition. She was engaged to William Henry Bunbury, second son of a Suffolk baronet. The hand and heart of her sister Mary were yet unengaged, although she bore the by-name among her friends of the “Jessamy Bride.” This family was prepared, by their intimacy with Reynolds and his sister, to appreciate the merits of Goldsmith. The poet had always been a chosen friend of the eminent painter, and Miss Reynolds, as we have shown, ever since she had heard his poem of The Traveler read aloud, had ceased to consider him ugly. The Hornecks were equally capable of forgetting his person in admiring his works. On becoming acquainted with him, too, they were delighted with his guileless simplicity; his buoyant good-nature and his innate benevolence, and an enduring intimacy soon sprang up between them. For once poor Goldsmith had met with polite society with which he was perfectly at home, and by which he was fully appreciated; for once he had met with lovely women, to whom his ugly features were not repulsive. A proof of the easy and playful terms in which he was with them remains in a whimsical epistle in verse, of which the following was the occasion. A dinner was to be given to their family by a Dr. Baker, a friend of their mother’s, at which Reynolds and Angelica Kauffman were to be present. The young ladies were eager to have Goldsmith of the party, and their intimacy with Dr. Baker allowing them to take the liberty, they wrote a joint invitation to the poet at the last moment. It came too late, and drew from him the following reply; on the top of which was scrawled, “This is a poem! This _is_ a copy of verses!”

“Your mandate I got,
You may all go to pot;
Had your senses been right,
You’d have sent before night–
So tell Horneck and Nesbitt,
And Baker and his bit,
And Kauffman beside,
And the _Jessamy Bride_,
With the rest of the crew.
The Reynoldses too,
_Little Comedy’s_ face,
And the _Captain in Lace_–
Tell each other to rue
Your Devonshire crew,
For sending so late
To one of my state.
But ’tis Reynolds’s way
From wisdom to stray,
And Angelica’s whim
To befrolic like him;
But alas! your good worships, how could they be wiser, When both have been spoil’d in to-day’s ‘Advertiser’?”

[Footnote: The following lines had appeared in that day’s “Advertiser,” on the portrait of Sir Joshua by Angelica Kauffman:

“While fair Angelica, with matchless grace, Paints Conway’s burly form and Stanhope’s face; Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay, We praise, admire, and gaze our souls away.

But when the likeness she hath done for thee, O Reynolds! with astonishment we see,
Forced to submit, with all our pride we own, Such strength, such harmony excelled by none. And thou art rivaled by thyself alone.”]

It has been intimated that the intimacy of poor Goldsmith with the Misses Horneck, which began in so sprightly a vein, gradually assumed something of a more tender nature, and that he was not insensible to the fascinations of the younger sister. This may account for some of the phenomena which about this time appeared in his wardrobe and toilet. During the first year of his acquaintance with these lovely girls, the tell-tale book of his tailor, Mr. William Filby, displays entries of four or five full suits, besides separate articles of dress. Among the items we find a green half-trimmed frock and breeches, lined with silk; a queen’s blue dress suit; a half dress suit of ratteen, lined with satin; a pair of silk stocking breeches, and another pair of bloom color. Alas! poor Goldsmith! how much of this silken finery was dictated, not by vanity, but humble consciousness of thy defects; how much of it was to atone for the uncouthness of thy person, and to win favor in the eyes of the Jessamy Bride!

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

GOLDSMITH IN THE TEMPLE–JUDGE DAY AND GRATTAN–LABOR AND DISSIPATION–PUBLICATION OF THE ROMAN HISTORY–OPINIONS OF IT–HISTORY OF ANIMATED NATURE–TEMPLE ROOKERY–ANECDOTES OF A SPIDER

In the winter of 1768-69 Goldsmith occupied himself at his quarters in the Temple, slowly “building up” his Roman History. We have pleasant views of him in this learned and half-cloistered retreat of wit and lawyers and legal students, in the reminiscences of Judge Day of the Irish Bench, who in his advanced age delighted to recall the days of his youth, when he was a templar, and to speak of the kindness with which he and his fellow-student, Grattan, were treated by the poet. “I was just arrived from college,” said he, “full freighted with academic gleanings, and our author did not disdain to receive from me some opinions and hints toward his Greek and Roman histories. Being then a young man, I felt much flattered by the notice of so celebrated a person. He took great delight in the conversation of Grattan, whose brilliancy in the morning of life furnished full earnest of the unrivaled splendor which awaited his meridian; and finding us dwelling together in Essex Court, near himself, where he frequently visited my immortal friend, his warm heart became naturally prepossessed toward the associate of one whom he so much admired.”

The judge goes on, in his reminiscences, to give a picture of Goldsmith’s social habits, similar in style to those already furnished. He frequented much the Grecian Coffee-House, then the favorite resort of the Irish and Lancashire Templars. He delighted in collecting his friends around him at evening parties at his chambers, where he entertained them with a cordial and unostentatious hospitality. “Occasionally,” adds the judge, “he amused them with his flute, or with whist, neither of which he played well, particularly the latter, but, on losing his money, he never lost his temper. In a run of bad luck and worse play, he would fling his cards upon the floor and exclaim, ‘_Byefore_ George, I ought forever to renounce thee, fickle, faithless Fortune.'”

The judge was aware at the time that all the learned labor of poor Goldsmith upon his Roman History was mere hack work to recruit his exhausted finances. “His purse replenished,” adds he, “by labors of this kind, the season of relaxation and pleasure took its turn, in attending the theaters, Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and other scenes of gayety and amusement. Whenever his funds were dissipated–and they fled more rapidly from being the dupe of many artful persons, male and female, who practiced upon his benevolence–he returned to his literary labors, and shut himself up from society to provide fresh matter for his bookseller, and fresh supplies for himself.”

How completely had the young student discerned the characteristics of poor, genial, generous, drudging, holiday-loving Goldsmith; toiling that he might play; earning his bread by the sweat of his brains, and then throwing it out of the window.

The Roman History was published in the middle of May, in two volumes of five hundred pages each. It was brought out without parade or pretension, and was announced as for the use of schools and colleges; but, though a work written for bread, not fame, such is its ease, perspicuity, good sense, and the delightful simplicity of its style, that it was well received by the critics, commanded a prompt and extensive sale, and has ever since remained in the hands of young and old.

Johnson, who, as we have before remarked, rarely praised or dispraised things by halves, broke forth in a warm eulogy of the author and the work, in a conversation with Boswell, to the great astonishment of the latter. “Whether we take Goldsmith,” said he, “as a poet, as a comic writer, or as a historian, he stands in the first class.” Boswell.–“A historian! My dear sir, you surely will not rank his compilation of the Roman History with the works of other historians of this age.” Johnson.–“Why, who are before him?” Boswell.–“Hume–Robertson–Lord Lyttelton.” Johnson (his antipathy against the Scotch beginning to rise).–“I have not read Hume; but doubtless Goldsmith’s History is better than the verbiage of Robertson, or the foppery of Dalrymple.” Boswell.–“Will you not admit the superiority of Robertson, in whose history we find such penetration, such painting?” Johnson.–“Sir, you must consider how that penetration and that painting are employed. It is not history, it is imagination. He who describes what he never saw, draws from fancy. Robertson paints minds as Sir Joshua paints faces, in a history-piece; he imagines a heroic countenance. You must look upon Robertson’s work as romance, and try it by that standard. History it is not. Besides, sir, it is the great excellence of a writer to put into his book as much as his book will hold. Goldsmith has done this in his history. Now Robertson might have put twice as much in his book. Robertson is like a man who has packed gold in wool; the wool takes up more room than the gold. No, sir, I always thought Robertson would be crushed with his own weight–would be buried under his own ornaments. Goldsmith tells you shortly all you want to know; Robertson detains you a great deal too long. No man will read Robertson’s cumbrous detail a second time; but Goldsmith’s plain narrative will please again and again. I would say to Robertson what an old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils, ‘Read over your compositions, and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out!’–Goldsmith’s abridgment is better than that of Lucius Floras 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. He is now writing a Natural History, and will make it as entertaining as a Persian tale.”

The Natural History to which Johnson alluded was the History of Animated Nature, which Goldsmith commenced in 1769, under an engagement with Griffin, the bookseller, to complete it as soon as possible in eight volumes, each containing upward of four hundred pages, in pica; a hundred guineas to be paid to the author on the delivery of each volume in manuscript.

He was induced to engage in this work by the urgent solicitations of the booksellers, who had been struck by the sterling merits and captivating style of an introduction which he wrote to Brookes’ Natural History. It was Goldsmith’s intention originally to make a translation of Pliny, with a popular commentary; but the appearance of Buffon’s work induced him to change his plan and make use of that author for a guide and model.

Cumberland, speaking of this work, observes: “Distress drove Goldsmith upon undertakings neither congenial with his studies nor worthy of his talents. I remember him when, in his chambers in the Temple, he showed me the beginning of his Animated Nature; it was with a sigh, such as genius draws when hard necessity diverts it from its bent to drudge for bread, and talk of birds, and beasts, and creeping things, which Pidock’s showman would have done as well. Poor fellow, he hardly knows an ass from a mule, nor a