c^^ >*^' ■'-c- "-i-. S' •^^. %. ."^^ o '-J^r ^^^ -^' ■V ,^^' vl^ ,-.s^ ^^ ^^'% A .\ •=^^/ ^'^' '/>. .^ -^' ^% <>' ■ ^ ..'^" . >. o ^/ 0*=:-^ K^ % .0 o^ •^ \ Oo i 0' O 'cP \^ ,Y^ r j>3 <5( <" -f^ > .X' '%s'' \^ s'^'^^ I b s\' sii^'' •S? VoL 6, >fo. ■:.';. Scp^. "S, 1 S^■!. Annual Subscription, S^A^ OLIVER DSMITH. %ILLrAM -SLACK. Entcrpd at th^ Post Offlee, N. V., ax spcond-clasa mattrj, C'>i>yriKht, 1883, by Johv W. Lotell t.nous to note the care with which Goldsmith repeatedly re- vised his writings. The ballad originally ended with these 'two Stanzas : " Here amidst sylvan bowers we'll rove, From lawn to woodland stray; Blest as the songsters of the grove, And innocent as they. ^4 GOLDSMITH. " To all that want, and all that wail, Our pity shall be given, And when this life of love shall fail, We'll love again in heaven." But subsequently it must have occurred to the author that, the dramatic disclosure once made, and the lovers restored to each other, any lingering over the scene only weakened the force of the climax; hence these stanzas were judiciously excised. It may be doubted, however, whether the original version of the last couplet, " And the last sigh that rends the heart Shall break thy Edwin's too.'' was improved by being altered into '' The sigh that rends thy constant heart Shall break thy Edwin's too." Meanwhile Goldsmith had resorted to hack-work again ; noth- ing being expected from the Vicar of Wakefield^ now lying in New- bery's shop, for that had been paid for, and his expenses were in- creasing, as became his greater station. In the interval between the publication of the Ti'aveller and of the Vicar, he moved into better chambers in Garden Court ; he hired a man-servant, he blossomed out into very fine clothes. Indeed, so effective did his first suit seem to be — the purple silk small-clothes, the scarlet roquelaure, the wig, sword, and gold-headed cane — that, as Mr. Forster says, he " amazed his friends with no less than three similar suits, not less expensive, in the next six months." Part of this display was no doubt owing to a suggestion from Reynolds that Goldsmith, having a medical degree, might just as well add the practice of a physician to his literary work, to magnify his social position. Goldsmith, always willing to please his friends, acceded ; but his practice does not appear to have been either extensive or long-continued. It is said that he drew out a prescription for a cer- tain Mrs. Sidebotham which so appalled the apothecary, that he refused to make it up ; and that, as the lady sided with the apothe- cary, he threw up the case and his profession at the same time. If it was money Goldsmith wanted, he was not likely to get it in that way ; he had neither the appearance nor the manner fitted to humour the sick and transform healthy people into valetudinarians. If it was the esteem of his friends and popularity outside that circle, he was soon to acquire enough of both. On the 27th jyT-^—^-- "tA^^ fifteen months after the appearance of the Traveller^i.^^^ ^,... Wakefield was published. GOLDSMITH. 55 CHAPTER XI. THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. The Vica7' of Wakefield, considered structurally, follows the lines of the Book of Job. You take a good man, overwhelm him with successive misfortunes, show the pure flame of his soul burn- ing in the. midst of the darkness, and then, as the reward of his patience and fortitude and submission, restore him gradually to happiness, with even larger flocks and herds than before. The machinery by which all this is brought about is, in the Vicar' of Wakefield, the weak part of the story. The plot is full of wild improbabilities ; in fact, the expedients by which all the members of the family are brought together and made happy at the same time, are nothing short of desperate. It is quite clear, too, that the author does not know what to make of the episode of Olivia and her husband ; they are allowed to drop through ; we leave him playing the French horn at a relation's house ; while she, in her father's home, is supposed to be unnoticed, so much are they all taken up with the rejoicings over the double wedding. It is very probable that when Goldsmith began the story he had no very definite plot concocted ; and that it was only when the much-per- secuted Vicar had to be restored to happiness, that he found the entanglements surrounding him, and had to make frantic efforts to break through them. But, be that as it may, it is not for the plot that people now read the Vicar of Wakefield j it is not the intricacies of the story that have made it the delight of the world. Surely human nature must be very much the same when this simple description of a quiet English home went straight to the heart of nations in both hemispheres. And the wonder is that Goldsmith of all men should have pro- duced such a perfect picture of domestic life. What had his own life been but a moving about between garret and tavern, between bachelor's lodgings and clubs 1 Where had he seen — unless, in- deed, he looked back through the mist of years to the scenes of his childhood — all this gentle government, and wise blindness ; all this affection, and consideration, and respect .'' There is as much human nature in the character of the Vicar alone as would have furnished any fifty of the novels of that day, or of this. Who has not been charmed by his sly and quaint humour, by his moral dignity and simple vanities, even by the little secrets he reveals to us of his paternal rule. •' ' Ay,' returned I, not knowing well what 56 GOLDSMITH. to think of the matter, ' heaven grant they may be both the better for it this day three months ! ' This was one of those observations I usually made to impress my wife with an opinion of my sagacity; for if the girls succeeded, then it was a pious wish fulfilled ; but if any thing unfortunate ensued, then it might be looked on as a prophecy." We know how Miss Olivia was answered, when, at her mother's prompting, she set up for being well skilled in con- troversy : " ' Why, my dear, what controversy can she have read ? ' cried I. ' It does not occur to me that I ever put such books into her hands : you certainly overrate her merit.' — ' Indeed, papa,' replied Olivia, ' she does not ; I have read a great deal of controversy. I have read the disputes between Thwackum and Square ; the con- troversy between Robinson Crusoe and Friday, the savage ; and I am now employed in reading the controversy in Religious Court- ship.' — ' Very well,' cried I, ' that's a good girl ; I find you are perfectly qualified for making converts, and so go help your mother to make the gooseberry pie.' " It is with a great gentleness that the good man reminds his wife and daughters that, after their sudden loss of fortune, it does not become them to wear much finery. " The first Sunday, in partic- ular, their behaviour served to mortify me. I had desired my girls the preceding night to be dressed early the next day ; for I always loved to be at church a good while before the rest of the con- gregation. They punctually obeyed my directions ; but when we were to assemble in the morning at breakfast, down came my wife and daughters, dressed out in all their former splendour ; their hair plastered up with pomatum, their faces patched to taste, their trains bundled up in a heap behind, and rustling at every motion. I could not help smiling at their vanity, particularly that of my wife, from whom I expected more discretion. In this exigence, therefore, my only resource was to order my son, with an important air, to call our coach. The girls were amazed at the command ; but I repeated it with more solemnity than before. ' Surely, my dear, you jest,' cried my wife ; ' we can walk it perfectly well : we want no coach to carry us now.' — ' You mistake, child,' returned I, 'we do want a coach ; for if we walk to church in this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after us.' — • Indeed,' replied my wife, ' I always imagined that my Charles was fond of seeing his children neat and handsome about him.' — ' You may be as neat as you please,' interrupted I, ' and I shall love you the better for it ; but all this is not neatness, but frippery. These rufflings, and pinkings, and patchings will only make us hated by all the wives of our neighbours. No, my children,' continued I, more gravely, * those gowns may be altered into something of a plainer cut ; for 5nery is very unbecoming in us, who want the means of decency. I do not know whether such flouncing and shredding is becoming even in the rich, if we consider, upon a moderate calculation, that the nakedness of the indigent world might be clothed from the trimmings of the vain.' GOLDSMITH. 57 " This remonstrance had the proper effect : they went with great composure, that very instant, to change their dress ; and the next day I had the satisfaction of finding my daughters, at their own request, employed in cutting up their trains into Sunday waistcoats for Dick and Bill the two little ones ; and, what was still more satisfactory, the gowns seemed improved by this curtailing." And again, when he discovered the two girls making a wash for their faces : " My daughters seemed equally busy with the rest; and I observed them for a good while cooking something over the fire. I at first supposed they were assisting their mother, but little Dick informed me in a whisper that they were making a wash for the face. Washes of all kinds I had a natural antipathy to ; for I knew that, instead of mending the complexion, they spoil it. I therefore approached my chair by sly degrees to the fire, and grasping the poker, as if it wanted mending, seemingly by accident overturned the whole composition, and it was too late to begin another." All this is done with such a light, homely touch, that one gets familiarly to know these people without being aware of it. There is no insistance. There is no dragging you along by the collar ; confronting you with certain figures ; and compelling you to look at this and study that. The artist stands by you, and laughs in his quiet way ; and you are laughing too, when suddenly you find that human beings have silently come into the void before you ; and you know them for friends ; and even after the vision has faded awa}^, and the beautiful light and colour and glory of romance-land have vanished, you cannot forget them. They have become part of your life ; you will take them to the grave with you. The story, as every one perceives, has its obvious blemishes. " There are an hundred faults in this thing," says Goldsmith him- self, in the prefixed Advertisement. But more particularly, in the midst of all the impossibilities taking place in and around the jail, when that chameleon-like deus ex 7nachind^ Mr. Jenkinson, winds up the tale in hot haste, Goldsmith pauses to put in a sort of apol- ogy. " Nor can I go on without a reflection," he says gravely, " on those accidental meetings, which, though they happen every day, seldom excite our surprise but upon some extraordinary oc- casion. To what a fortuitous concurrence do we not owe every pleasure and convenience of our lives ! How many seeming accidents must unite before we can be clothed or fed ! The peas- ant must be disposed to labour, the shower must fall, the wind fill ^he merchant's sail, or numbers must want the usual supply." 'This is Mr. Thackeray's ■' simple rogue " appearing again in adult life. Certainly, if our supply of food and clothing depended on such accidents as happened to make the Vicar's family happy all at once, there would be a good deal of shivering and starvation in the world. Moreover it may be admitted that on occasion Gold- smith's fine instinct deserts him ; and even in describing those domestic relations which are the charm of the novel, he blunders into the unnatural. When Mr. Burchell, for example, leaves the house in consequence of a quarrel with Mrs. Primrose, the Vicar 58 GOLDSMITH. questions his daughter as to whether she had received from that poor gentleman any testimony of his affection for her. She replies No ; but remembers to have heard him remark that he never knew a woman who could find merit in a man that was poor. " Such, my dear," continued the Vicar, " is the common cant of all the un- fortunate or idle. But I hope you have been taught to judge prop- erly of such men, and that it would be even madness to expect happiness from one who has been so very bad an economist of his own. Your mother and I have no better prospects for you. The next winter, which you will probably spend in town, will give you opportunities of making a more prudent choice." Now it is not at all likely that a father, however anxious to have his daughter well married and settled, would ask her so delicate a question in open domestic circle, and would then publicly inform her that she was expected to choose a husband on her forthcoming visit to town. Whatever may be said about any particular incident like this, the atmosphere of the book is true. Goethe, to whom a German translation of the Vicar was read by Herder some four years after the publication in England, not only declared it at the time to be one of the best novels ever written, but again and again throughout his life reverted to the charm and delight with which he had made the acquaintance of the English " prose idyll," and took it for granted that it was a real picture of English life. Despite all the machinery of Mr. Jenkinson's schemes, who could doubt it 1 Again and again there are recurrent strokes of such vividness and naturalness that we yield altogether to the necromancer. Look at this perfect picture — of human emotion and outside nature — put in in a few sen- ten'ces. The old clergyman, after being in search of his daughter, has found her, and is now — having left her in an inn — returning to his family and his home. " And now my heart caught new sen- sations of pleasure, the nearer I approached that peaceful mansion. As a bird that had been frighted from its nest my affections outwent my haste, and hovered round my little fireside with all the rapture of expectation, I called up the many fond things I had to say, and anticipated the welcome I was to receive. I already felt my wife's tender embrace, and smiled at the joy of my little ones. As I walked but slowly, the night waned apace. The labourers of the day were all retired to rest ; the lights were out in every cot- tage ; no sounds were heard but of the shrilling cock, and the deep- mouthed watch-dog at hollow distance. I approached my little abode of pleasure, and, before I was within a furlong of the place, our honest mastiff came running to welcome me." " The deep- motithed watch-dog at hollow distance'''' — what more perfect de- scription of the stillness of night was even given ? And then there are other qualities in this delightful Vicar of IVakeJield than merely idyllic tenderness, and pathos, and sly hu- mour. There is a firm presentation of the crimes and brutalities of the world. The pure light that shines within that domestic circle is all the brighter because of the black outer ring that is here and GOLDSMITH. 59 there indicated rather than described. How could we appreciate all the simplicities of the good man's household, but for the rogueries with which they are brought in contact ? And although we laugh at Moses and his gross of green spectacles, and the man- ner in which the Vicar's wife and daughter are imposed on by Miss Wilhelmina Skeggs and Lady Blarney, with their lords and ladies and their tributes to virtue, there is no laughter demanded of us when we find the simplicity and moral dignity of the Vicar meeting and beating the jeers and taunts of the abandoned wretches in the prison. This is really a remarkable episode. The author was under the obvious temptation to make much comic material out of the situation ; while another temptation, towards the goody- goody side, was not far off. But the Vicar undertakes the duty of reclaiming these castaways with a modest patience and earnest- ness in every way in keeping with his character ; while they, on the other hand, are not too easily moved to tears of repentance. His first efforts, it will be remembered, were not too successful. " Their insensibility excited my highest compassion, and blotted my own uneasiness from my mind. It even appeared a duty incumbent upon me to attempt to reclaim them. I resolved, therefore, once more to return, and, in spite of their contempt, to give them my advice, and conquer them by my perseverance. Going, therefore, among them again, I informed Mr. Jenkinson of my design, at which he laughed heartily, but communicated it to the rest. The proposal was received with the greatest good-humour, as it prom- ised to afford a new fund of entertainment to persons who had now no other resource for mirth but what could be derived from ridicule or debauchery. " I therefore read them a portion of the service with a loud, unaffected voice, and found my audience perfectly merry.upon the occasion. Lewd whispers, groans of contrition burlesqued, wink- ing and coughing, alternately excited laughter. However, I con- tinued with my natural solemnity to read on, sensible that what I did might mend some, but could itself receive no contamination from any. ^' After reading, I entered upon my exhortation, which was rather calculated at first to amuse them than to reprove. I pre- viously observed, that no other motive but their welfare could in- duce me to this ; that I was their fellow-prisoner, and now got nothing by preaching. I was sorry, I said, to hear them so very profane ; because they got nothing by it, but might lose a great deal : ' For be assured, my friends,' cried I — 'for you are my friends, however the world may disclaim your friendshiiD — though you swore twelve thousand oaths in a day, it would not put one penny in your purse. Then what signifies calling every moment upon the devil, and courting his friendship, since you find how scurvily he uses you ? He has given you nothing here, you find, but a mouthful of oaths and an empty belly ; and, by the best accounts I have of him, he will give you nothing that's good hereafter. " ' If used ill in our dealings with one man, we naturally go 6o GOLDSMITH. elsewhere. Were is not worth your while, then, just to try how you may like the usage of another master, who gives you fair promises at least to come to him ? Surely, my friends, of all stu- pidity in the world, his must be the greatest, who, after robbing a house, runs to the thief-takers for protection. And yet, how are you more wise ? You are all seeking comfort from one that has already betrayed you, applying to a more malicious being than any thief-taker of them all; for they only decoy and then hang you; but he decoys and hangs, and, what is worst of all, will not let you loose after the hangman has done.' "When I had concluded, I received the compliments of my audience, some of whom came and shook me by the hand, swear- ing that I was a very honest fellow, and that they desired my fur- ther acquaintance. I therefore promised to repeat my lecture next day, and actually conceived some hopes of making a reformation here ; for it had ever been my opinion, that no man was past the hour of amendment, every heart lying open to the shafts of reproof, if the archer could but take a proper aim." His wife and children, naturally dissuading him from an effort which seemed to them only to bring ridicule upon him, are met by a grave rebuke ; and on the next morning he descends to the com- mon prison, where, he says, he found the prisoners very merry, expecting his arrival, and each prepared to play some jail-trick on the Doctor. *' There was one whose trick gave more universal pleasure than all the rest ; for, observing the manner in which I had disposed my books on the table before me, he very dexterously displaced one of them, and put an obscene jest-book of his own in the place. How- ever, I took no notice of all that this mischievous group of little beings could do, but went on, perfectly sensible that what was ridiculous in my attempt would excite mirth only the first or second time, while what was serious would be permanent. My design succeeded, and in less than six days some were penitent, and all attentive. "It was now that I applauded my perseverance and address, at thus giving sensibility to wretches divested of every moral feel- ing, and now began to think of doing them temporal services also, by rendering their situation somewhat more comfortable. Their time had hitherto been divided between famine and excess, tumul- tuous riot and bitter repining. Their only employment was quar- relling among each other, playing at cribbage, and cutting tobacco- stoppers. From this last mode of idle industry I took the hint of setting such as choose to work at cutting pegs for tobacconists and shoemakers, the proper wood being bought by a general subscrip- tion, and, when manufactured, sold by my appointment; so that each earned something every day — a trifle indeed, but sufficient to maintain him. " I did not stop here, but instituted fines for the punishment of immorality, and rewards for peculiar industry. Thus, in less than a fortijight I ^ad formed them into something social and humane, COLDSMITH. 6 1 and had the pleasure of regarding m3^self as a legislator who had brought men from their native ferocity into friendship and obedi- ence." Of course, all this about jails and thieves was calculated to shock the nerves of those who liked their literature perfumed with rose-water. Madame Riccoboni, to whom Burke had sent the book, wrote to Garrick, " Le plaidoyer en faveur des voleurs, des petits larrons, des gens de mauvaises moeurs, est fort eloign^ de me plaire." Others, no doubt, considered the introduction of Miss Skeggs and Lady Blarney as " vastly low." But the curious thing is that the literary critics of the day seem to have been alto- gether silent about the book — perhaps they were " puzzled " by it, as Southey has suggested. Mr. Forster, who took the trouble to search the periodical literature of the time, says that, " apart from bald recitals of the plot, not a word was said in the way of criticism about the book, either in praise or blame." The Sf. James's CJwofi- icle did not condescend to notice its appearance, and the Monthly Review confessed frankly that nothing was to be made of it. The better sort of newspapers, as well as the more dignified reviews, contemptuously left it to the patronage of Lloyd'' s Evetiing Post, the London Chronicle^ and journals of that class ; which simply informed their readers that a new novel, called the Vicar of Wake- field, had been published, that "the editor is Doctor Goldsmith, who has affixed his name to an introductory Advertisement, and that such and such were the incidents of the story." Even his friends, with the exception of Burke, did not seem to consider tliat any remarkable new birth in literature had occurred ; and it is probable that this was a still greater disappointment to Goldsmith, who was so anxious to be thought well of at the Club. However, the public took to the story. A second edition was published in May ; a third in August. Goldsmith, it is true, received no pecu- niary gain from this success, for as we have seen, Johnson had sold the novel outright to Francis Newbery ; but his name was growing in importance with the booksellers. There was need that it should, for his increasing expenses — his fine clothes, his suppers, his whist at the Devil Tavern — were in- volving him in deeper and deeper difficulties. How was he to extricate himself ? — or rather the question that would naturally occur to Goldsmith was how was he to continue that hand-to-mouth existence that had its compensations along with its troubles ? Novels like the Vicar of Wakefield zxt not written at a moment's notice, even though any Newbery, judging by results, is willing to double that ^60 which Johnson considered to be a fair price for the story at the time. There was the usual resource of hack-writ- ing; and, no doubt. Goldsmith was compelled to fall back on that, if only to keep the elder Newbery, in whose debt he was, in a good humour. But the author of the Vicar of Wakefield may be excused if he looked round to see if there was not some more profitable work for him to turn his hand to. It was at this time that he began to think of writing a comedy. 62 gold:smith. CHAPTER XII. THE GOOD-NATURED MAN. Amid much miscellaneous work, mostly of the compilation order, the play of the Good-natured Man began to assume concrete form, insomuch that Johnson, always the friend of this erratic Irishman, had promised to write a Prologue for it. It is with regard to this prologue that Boswell tells a foolish and untrust- worthy story about Goldsmith. Dr. Johnson had recently been honoured by an interview with his Sovereign ; and the members of the Club were in the habit of flattering him by begging for a rep- etition of his ciccount of that famous event. On one occasion, during this recital, Boswell relates. Goldsmith " remained unmoved upon a sofa at some distance, affecting not to join in the least in the eager curiosity of the company. He assigned as a reason for his gloom and seeming inattention that he apprehended Johnson had relinquished his purpose of furnishing him with a prologue to his play, with the hopes of which he had beenflattered ; but it was strongly suspected that he was fretting with chagrin and envy at the singular honour Doctor Johnson had lately enjoyed. At length the frankness and simplicity of his natural character prevailed. He sprang from the sofa, advanced to Johnson, and, in a kind of flutter, from imagining himself in the situation which he had just been hearing described, exclaimed, ' 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.'" It is obvious enough that the only part of this anecdote which is quite worthy of credence is the actual phrase used by Goldsmith, which is full of his customary generosity and self-depreciation. All those " suspicions " of his envy of his friend may safely be discarded, for they are mere guesswork ; even though it might have been natural enough for a man like Goldsmith, conscious of his singular and original genius, to measure himself against Johnson, who was merely a man of keen perception and shrewd reasoning, and to compare the deference paid to Johnson with the scant courtesy shown to himself. As a matter of fact, the Prologue was written by Dr. Johnson; and the now complete comedy was, after some little arrangement of personal differences between Goldsmith and Garrick, very GOLDSMITH. (^^^ kindly undertaken by Reynolds, submitted for Garrick's approval. But nothing came of Reynolds's intervention. Perhaps Goldsmith resented Garrick's airs of patronage towards a poor devil of an author; perhaps Garrick was surprised by the manner in which well-intentioned criticisms were taken ; at all events, after a good deal of shilly-shallying, the play was taken out of Garrick's hands. Fortunately, a project was just at this moment on foot for starting the rival theatre in Covent Garden, under the management of George Colman ; and to Colman Goldsmith's play wa'^ forthwith consigned. The play was accepted ; but it was a long time before it was produced ; and in that interval it may fairly be presumed the res angusta dotui of Goldsmith did not become any more free and generous than before. It was in this interval that the elder New- bery died ; Goldsmith had one patron the less. Another patron who offered himself was civilly bowed to the door. This is an inci- dent in Goldsmith's career which, like his interview with the Earl of Northumberland, should ever be remembered in his honour. The Government of the day were desirous of enlisting on their behalf the services of writers of somewhat better position than the mere libellers whose pens were the slaves of anybody's purse ; and a Mr. Scott, a chaplain of Lord Sandwich, appears to have imagined that it would be worth while to buy Goldsmith. He ap- plied to Goldsmith in due course; and this is an account of the interview : " I found him in a miserable set of chambers in the Temple. I told him my authority ; I told him 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 I left him in his garret." Needy as he was, Goldsmith had too much self-respect to become a paid libeller and cutthroat of public reputations. On the evening of Friday, the 29th of January, 1768, when Goldsmith had now reached the age of forty, the comedy of The Good-iiaU(7^ed Man was produced at Covent Garden Theatre. The Prologue had, according to promise, been written by Johnson; and a very singular prologue it was. Even Boswell was struck by the odd contrast between this sonorous piece of melancholy and the fun that was to follow. "The first lines of this Prologue," he conscientiously remarks, "are strongly characteristical of the dismal gloom of his mind ; which, in his case, as in the case of all who are distressed with the same malady of imagination, transfers to others its own feelings. Who could suppose it was to introduce a comedy, when Mr. Bensley solemnly began — " * Pressed with the load of life, the weary mind Surveys the general toil of humankind ' ? But this dark ground might make Goldsmith's humour shine the more." When we come to the comedy itself, we find but little bright humour in the opening passages. The author is obviously 64 GOLDSMITH. timid, anxious, and constrained. There is nothing of the brisk, confident vivacity with which She Stoops to Conq?ier opens. The novice does not yet understand the art of making his characters explain themselves ; and accordingly the benevolent uncle and honest Jarvis indulge in a conversation which, laboriously descrip- tive of the character of young Honeywood, is spoken " at " the audience. With the entrance of young Honeywood himself, Gold- smith endeavours to become a little more sprightly; but there is still anxiety hanging over him, and the epigrams are little more than merely formal antitheses. '^Jarvis. This bill from your tailor ; this from your mercer; and this from the little broker in Crooked Lane. He says he has been at a great deal of trouble to get back the money you borrowed. " Hofu That I don't know ; but I'm sure we were at a great deal of trouble in getting him to lend it. " yar. He has lost all patience. ^^ Hon. Then he has lost a very good thing. " Jar. There's that ten guineas you were sending to the poor gentle- man and his children in the Fleet. I believe that would stop his mouth, for a while at least. " Ho7i. Ay, Jarvis, but what will fill their mouths in the meantime "i " This young Honeywood, the hero of the play, is, and remains throughout, a somewhat ghostly personage. He has attributes, but no flesh or blood. There is much more substance in the next character introduced — the inimitable Croaker, who revels in evil forebodings and drinks deep of the luxury of woe. These are the two chief characters ; but then a play must have a plot. And perhaps it would not be fair, so far as the plot is concerned, to judge of The Good-fiaticred Man merely as a literary production. Intricacies that seem tedious and puzzling on paper appear to be clear enough on the stage : it is much more easy to remember the history and circumstances of a person whom we see before us, than to attach these to a mere name — especially as the name is sure to be clipped down from Honeywood io Hon., and from Leontine to Leo7i. However, it is in the midst of all the cross-purposes of the lovers that we once more come upon our old friend Beau Tibbs — - though Mr. Tibbs is now in much better circumstances, and has been renamed by his creator Jack Lofty. Garrick had objected to the introduction of Jack, on the ground that he was only a dis; traction. But Goldsmith, whetli^^- in writing a novel or a play, was more anxious to represent human nature than to prune a plot, and paid but little respect to the unities, if only he could arouse our interest. And who is not delighted with this Jack Lofty and his "duchessy " talk — his airs of patronage, his mysterious hints, his gay familiarity with the great, his audacious lying .'' ♦' Lofty. Waller? Waller ? Is he of the house ? '* Mrs. Croaker. The modern poet of that name, sir. *' Lof. Oh, a modern ! We men of business desuise the moderns ; and GOLDSMITH. 5^ as for the ancients, we have no time to read them. Poetry is a pretty thing enough for our wives and daughters ; but not for us. Why now, here I stand that know nothing of books. I say, madam, I know nothing of books ; and yet, I believe, upon a land-carriage fishery, a stamp act, or a jaghire, I cnn talk my two hours without feeling the want of them. " Mrs. Cro. The world is no stranger to INIr. Lofty's eminence in every capacity. " Lof. I vow to gad, madam, you make me blush. I'm nothing, noth- ing, nothing in the world ; a mere obscure gentleman. To be sure, in- deed, one or two of the present ministers are pleased to represent me as a formidable man. I know they are pleased to bespatter me at all their little dirty levees. Yet, upon my soul, I wonder what they see in me to treat me so ! Measures, not men, have always been my mark ; and I vow, by all that's honourable, my resentment has never done the men, as mere men, any manner of harm — that is, as mere men. '^ Mrs. Cro. What importance, and yet what modesty ! **Lof Oh, if you talk of modesty, madam, there, I own, I'm accessi- ble to praise : modesty is my foible : it was so the Duke of Brentford used to say of me. ' I love Jack Lofty,' he used to say: 'no man has a finer knowledge of things ; quite a man of information ; and when he speaks upon his legs, by the Lord he's prodigious, he scouts them ; and yet all men have their faults; too much modesty is his,' says his grace. " Mj's. Cro. And yet, I dare say, you don't want assurance when you come to solicit for your friends. '^Lof. Oh, there indeed I'm in bronze. Apropos! I have just been mentioning Miss Richland's case to a certain personage ; we must name no names. When I ask, I am not to be put off, madam. No, no, I take my friend by the button. A fine girl, sir ; great justice in her case. A friend of mine — borough interest — business must be done, Mr. Secretary. — I say, Mr. Secretary, her business must be done, sir. That's my way, madam. " Mrs. Cro. Bless me ! you said all this to the Secretary of State, did you ? "Z^. I did not say the Secretary, did I .? Well, curse it, since you have found me out, I will not deny it. It was to the Secretary." Strangely enough, what may now seem to some of us the very best scene in the Good-natured Ma?i — the scene, that is, in which young Honeywood, suddenly finding Miss Richland without, is compelled to dress up the two bailiffs in possession of his house and introduce them to her as gentlemen friends — was very nearly damning the play on the first night of its production. The pit was of opinion that it was "low;" and subsequently the critics took up the cry, and professed themselves to be so deeply shocked by the vulgar humours of the bailiffs that Goldsmith had to cut them out. But on the opening night the anxious author, who had been rendered nearly distracted by the cries and hisses produced by this scene, was somewhat reassured when the audience began to laugh again over the tribulations of Mr. Croaker. To the actor who played the part he expressed his warm gratitude when the piece was over; assuring him that he had exceeded Ws own con- ception of the character, and that " the fine comic richness of his colouring made it almost appear as hew to him as to any other per- son in the house." 66 GOLDSMITH. The new play had been on the whole favourably received ; and, when Goldsmith went along afterwards to the Club, his compan- ions were doubtless not at all surprised to find him in good spirits. He was even merrier than usual, and consented to sing his favourite ballad about the old Woman tossed in a Blanket. But those hisses and cries were still rankling in his memory; and he himself subse- quently confessed that he was " suffering horrid tortures." Nay, when the other members of the Club had gone, leaving him and Johnson together, he '- burst out a-crying, and even swore by that he would never write again." When Goldsmith told this story in after-days, Johnson was naturally astonished ; perhaps — himself not suffering much from an excessive sensitiveness — he may have attributed that little burst of hysterical emotion to the excitement of the evening increased by a glass or two of punch, and determined therefore never to mention it. "All which. Doc- tor," he said, " 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." Indeed there was little to cry over, either in the first re- ception of the piece or in its subsequent fate. With the offending bailiffs cut out, the comedy would seem to have been very fairly successful. The proceeds of three of the evenings were Gold- smith's payment ; and in this manner he received ^400. Then Griffin published the play; and from this source Goldsmith re- ceived an additional ;^ 1 00; so that altogether he was very well paid for his work. Moreover he had appealed against the judg- ment of the pit and the dramatic critics, by printing in the published edition the bailiff scene which had been removed from the stage ; and the Monthly Review was so extremely kind as to say that " the baihff and his blackguard follower appeared intolerable on the stage, yet we are not disgusted with them in the perusal." Perhaps we have grown less scrupulous since then; but at all events it would be difficult for anybody nowadays to find any thing but good-natured fun in that famous scene. There is an occasional "damn," it is true; but then English officers have always been permitted that little playfulness, and these two gentlemen were supposed to "serve in the Fleet;" while if they had been particu- larly refined in their speech and manner, how could the author have aroused Miss Richland's suspicions? It is possible that the two actors who played the bailiff and his follower may have intro- duced some vulgar " gag " into their parts ; but there is no war- ranty for any thing of the kind in the play as we now read it. GOLDSMITH, (>1 CHAPTER XIII. GOLDSMITH IN SOCIETY. The appearance of the Good-natured Ma7i ushered in a halcyon period in Goldsmith's life. The Traveller and the Vicar had gained for him only reputation : this new comedy put ^500 in his pocket. Of course that was too big a sum for Goldsmith to have about him long. Four-fifths of it he immediately expended on the purchase and decoration of a set of chambers in Brick Court, Mid- dle Temple ; with the remainder he appears to have begun a series of entertainments in this new abode, which were perhaps more remarkable for their mirth than their decorum. There was no sort of frolic in which Goldsmith would not indulge for the amusement of his guests ; he would sing them songs ; he would throw his wig to the ceiling ; he would dance a minuet. And then they had cards, forfeits, blind-man's-buff, until Mr. Blackstone, then engaged on his Coviine7itaries in the rooms below, was driven nearly mad by the uproar. These parties would seem to have been of a most non- descript character — chance gatherings of any obscure authors or actors whom he happened to meet; but from time to time there were more formal entertainments, at which Johnson, Percy, and similar distinguished persons were present. Moreover, Dr. Gold- smith himself was much asked out to dinner too ; and so, not con- tent with the " Tyrian bloom, satin grain and garter, blue-silk breeches," which Mr. Filby had provided for the evening of the production of the comedy, he now had another suit "lined with silk, and gold buttons," that he might appear in proper guise. Then he had his airs of consequence too. This was his answer to an invitation from Kelly, who was his rival of the hour : " I would with pleasure accept your kind invitation, but to tell you the truth, my dear boy, my Traveller has found me a home in so many places, that I am engaged, I believe, three days. Let me see. To-day I dine with Edmund Burke, to-morrow with Dr. Nugent, and the next day with Topham Beauclerc ; but I'll tell you what I'll do for you, I'll dine with you on Saturday." Kelly told this story as against Goldsmith; but surely there is not so much ostentation in the reply. Directly after Tristra7n Shandy was published, Sterne found himself fourteen deep in dinner engagements : why should not the author of the Traveller ^.nd the Vicar and the Gnnd-tinftArpA 68 GOLDSMITH. Man have his engagements also ? And perhaps it was but right that Mr, Kelly, who was after all only a critic and scribbler, though he had written a play which was for the moment enjoying an unde- served popularity, should be given to understand that Dr. Gold- smith was not to be asked to a hole-and-corner shop at a moment's notice. To-day he dines with Mr. Burke ; to-morrow with Dr. Nugent ; the day after with Mr. Beauclerc. If you wish to have the honour of his company, you may choose a day after that ; and then, with his new wig, with his coat of Tyrian bloom and blue-silk breeches, with a smart sword at his side, his gold-headed cane in his hand, and his hat under his elbow, he will present himself in due course. Dr. Goldsmith is announced, and makes his grave bow : this is the man of genius about whom all the town is talking ; the friend of Burke, of Reynolds, of Johnson, of Hogarth ; this is not the ragged Irishman who was some time ago earning a crust by running errands for an apothecary. Goldsmith's grand airs, however, were assumed but seldom ; and they never imposed on anybody. His acquaintances treated him with a familiarity which testified rather to his good-nature than to their good taste. Now and again, indeed, he was prompted to resent this familiarity ; but the effort was not successful. In the " high jinks " to which he good-humouredly resorted for the entertainment of his guests he permitted a freedom which it was afterwards not very easy to discard ; and as he was always ready to make a butt of himself for the amusement of his friends and acquaintances, it came to be recognized that anybody was allowed to play off a joke on " Goldy." The jokes, such of them as have been put on record, are of the poorest sort. The horse-collar is never far off. One gladly turns from these dismal humours of the tavern and the club to the picture of Goldsmith's enjoying what he called a " Shoe- maker's Holiday " in the company of one or two chosen intimates. Goldsmith, baited and bothered by the wits of a public house, became a different being when he had assumed the guidance of a small party of chosen friends bent on having a day's frugal pleasure. We are indebted to one Cooke, a neighbour of Goldsmith's in the Temple, not only for a most interesting description of one of those shoemaker's holidays, but also for the knowledge that Goldsmith had even now begun writing the Deserted Village, which was not published till 1770, two years later. Goldsmith, though he could turn out plenty of manufactured stuff for the booksellers, worked slowly at the special story or poem with which he meant to " strike for honest fame." This Mr. Cooke, calling on him one morning, discovered that Goldsmith had that day written these tev» lirie.«= or the Deserted Village \ " Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, Seats of my youth, when every sport could please, How often have I loitered o'er thy green, Where humble happiness endeared each scene I How often have I paused on every charm, GOLDSMITH. 6^ The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm, The never-failing brook, the busy mill, ^ The decent church, that topt the neighbouring hill, The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age and whispering lovers made ! " " Come," said he, '• let me tell you this is no bad morning's work ; and now, my dear boy, if you are not better engaged, 1 should be glad to enjoy a shoemaker's holiday with you." " A shoemaker's holiday," continues the writer of these reminiscences, "was a day of great festivity to poor Goldsmith, and was spent in the following innocent manner: Three or four of his intimate friends rendezvoused at his chambers to breakfast about ten o'clock in the morning ; at eleven they proceeded by the City Road and through the fields to Highbury Barn to dinner ; about six o'clock in the evening they adjourned to White Conduit House to drink tea; and concluded by supping at the Grecian or Temple Ex- change coffee-house or at the Globe in Fleet Street. There was a very good ordinary of two dishes and pastry kept at Highbury Barn about this time at tenpence per head, including a penny to the waiter ; and the company generally consisted of literary char- acters, a few Templars, and some citizens who had left off trade. The whole expenses of the day's fete never exceeded a crown, and oftener were from three-and-sixpence to four shillings ; for which the party obtained good air and exercise, good living, the example of simple manners, and good conversation." It would have been well indeed for Goldsmith had he been pos- sessed of sufficient strength of character to remain satisfied with these simple pleasures, and to have lived the quiet and modest life of a man of letters on such income as he could derive from the best work he could produce. But it is this same Mr. Cooke who gives decisive testimony as to Goldsmith's increasing desire to "shine" by imitating the expenditure of the great; the natural consequence of which was that he only plunged himself into a morass of debt, advances, contracts for hack-work, and misery. "His debts rendered him at times so melancholy and dejected, tliat I am sure he felt himself a very unhappy man." Perhaps it was with some sudden resolve to flee from temptation, and grapple with the difficulties that beset him, that he, fn conjunction with another Temple neighbour. Mr. Bott, rented a cottage some eight miles down the Edgware Road ; and here he set to work on the History of Ro7ne, which he was writing for Davies. Apart from this hack-work, now rendered necessary by his debt, it is probable that one strong inducement leading him to this occasional seclusion was the progress he might be able to make with the Deserted Villai^e. Amid all his town gayeties and country excursions, amid his dinners and suppers and dances, his borrowings, and contracts, and the hurried literary produce of the moment, he never forgot what was due to his reputation as an English poet. The journal- istic bullies of the day might vent their spleen and env3' on him ; yo GOLDSMITH. his best friends might smile at his conversational failures ; the vvils of the tavern might put up the horse-collar as before ; but at least he had the consolation of his art. No one better knew than him- self the value of those finished and musical lines he was gradually adding to the beautiful poem, the grace, and sweetness, and tender, pathetic charm of which make it one of the literary treasures of the English people. The sorrows of debt were not Goldsmith's only trouble at this time. For some reason or other he seems to have become the especial object of spiteful attack on the part of the literary cut- throats of the day. And Goldsmith, though he might hsten with respect to the wise advice of Johnson on such matters, was never able to cultivate Johnson's habit of absolute indifference to any thing that might be said or sung of him. "The Kenricks, Camp- bells, MacNicols, and Hendersons," says Lord Macaula}-— speak- ing of Johnson, "did their best to annoy him, in the hope that he would give them importance by answering them. But the reader will in vain search his works for any allusion to Kenrick or Camp- bell, to MacNicol or Henderson. One Scotchman, bent on vin- dicating the fame of Scotch learning, defied him to the combat in a detestable Latin hexameter — 'Maxime, si tu vis, cupio contendere tecum.' But Johnson took no notice of the challenge. He had learned, both from his own observation and from literary history, in which he was deeply read, that the place of books in the public estimation is fixed, not by what is written about them, but by what is written in them ; and that an author whose works are likely to live is very unwise if he stoops to wrangle with detractors whose works are certain to die. He always maintained tiiat fame was a shuttlecock which could be kept up only by being beaten back, as well as beaten forward, and which would' soon fall if there were only one battledore. No saying was oftener in his mouth than that fine apophthegm of Bentley. that no man was ever written down but by himself." It was not given to Goldsmith to feel "like the Monument" on ' any occasion whatsoever. He was anxious to have the esteem of , his friends ; he was sensitive to a degree ; denunciation or malice, begotten of envy that Johnson would have passed unheeded, wounded him to the quick. " The insults to which he had to submit," Thackeray wrote with a quick and warm sympathy, "are shocking to read of — slander, contumely, vulgar satire, brutal malignity perverting his commonest motives and actions : he had his share of these, and one's anger is roused at reading of them, as it is at seeing a woman insulted or a child assaulted, at the notion that a creature so very gentle, and weak, and full of Jove should have had to suffer so." Goldsmith's revenge, his defence of himself, his appeal to the public, were the Traveller, the Vicar of Wakefield, the Deserted Village; but these came at long inter- GOLDSMITH. yi vals ; and in the meantime he had to bear with the anonymous malignity that pursued him as best he might. No doubt, when Burke was entertaining him at dinner, and when Johnson was openly deferring to him in conversation at the Club, and when Reynolds was painting his portrait, he could afford to forget Mr. Kenrick and the rest of the libelling clan. The occasions on which Johnson deferred to Goldsmith in con- versation were no doubt few ; but at all events the bludgeon of the great Cham would appear to have come down less frequently on '' honest Goldy " than on the other members of that famous coterie. It could come down heavily enough. " Sir," said an incautious person, " drinking drives away care, and makes us forget whatever is disagreeable. Would not you allow a man to drink for that reason 1 " " Yes, sir," was the reply, " if he sat next youy Johnson, however, was considerate towards Goldsmith, partly because of his affection for him, and partly because he saw under what disadvantages Goldsmith entered the lists. For one thing, the conversation of those evenings would seem to have drifted con- tinually into the mere definition of phrases. Now Johnson had spent years of his life, during the compilation of his Dictionary, in doing nothing else but defining; and, whenever the dispute took a phraseological turn, he had it all his own way. Goldsmith, on the other hand, was apt to become confused in his eager self-conscious- ness. "Goldsmith," said Johnson to Boswell, "should not be forever attempting to shine in conversation ; he has not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails. . . 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." Boswell, nevertheless, admits that Goldsmith was "often very fortunate in his witty contests, even when he entered the lists with Johnson himself," and goes on to tell how Goldsmith, relating the fable of the little fishes who petitioned Jupiter, and perceiving that Johnso-n was laughing at him, immediately said, "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." Who but Goldsmith would have dared' to play jokes on the sage ? At supper they have rumps and kidneys. The sage expresses his ap- proval of "the pretty little things;" but profoundly observes that one must eat a good many of them before being satisfied. "Ay, but how many of them," asks Goldsmith, " would reach to the moon .f*" The sage professes his ignorance ; and, indeed, remarks that that would exceed even Goldsmith's calculations ; when the pratical joker observes, " Why, oiie^ sir, if it were long enough." Johnson was completely beaten on this occasion. " Well, sir, I have deserved it. I should not have provoked so foolish an answer by so foolish a question." It was Johnson himself, moreover, who told the story of Gold- smith and himself being in Poets' Corner; of his saying to Gold- smith, " Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis,'* 72 GOLDSMITH. and of Goldsmith subsequently repeating the quotation when, having walked towards Fleet Street, they were confronted by the heads on Temple Bar. Even when Goldsmith was opinionated and wrong, Johnson's contradiction was in a manner gentle. " If you put a tub full of blood into a stable, the horses are like to go mad," observed Goldsmith. " I doubt that," was Johnson's reply. "Nay, sir, it is a fact well authenticated." Here Thrale interposed to suggest that Goldsmith should have the experiment tried in the stable ; but Johnson merely said that, if Goldsmith began making these experiments, he would never get his book written at all. Occasionally, of course. Goldsmith was tossed and gored just like another. "But, sir," he had ventured to sa}', in opposition to Johnson, '• when people live together who have something as to which they disagree, and which they want to shun, they will be in the situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard, ' You may look into all the chambers but one.' But we should have the greatest inclination to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject." Here, according to Boswell, Johnson answered in a loud voice, " Sir, I am not saying that you could live in friendship with a man from whom you differ as to one point ; I am only saying that 1 could do it." But then again he could easily obtain pardon from the gentle Goldsmith for any occasional rudeness. One evening they had a sharp passage of arms at dinner; and thereafter the company adjourned to the Club, where Goldsmith sat silent and depressed. "Johnson perceived this," says Boswell, "and said aside to some of us, ' I'll make Goldsmith forgive me ; ' and then called to him in a loud voice, ' Dr. Goldsmith, something passed to-day where you and I dined : I ask your pardon.' Goldsmith answered placidly, ' It must be much from you, sir, that I take ill.' And so at once the difference was over, and they were on as easy terms as ever, and Goldsmith rattled away as usual." For the rest, Johnson was the constant and doughty champion of Goldsmith as a man of letters. He would suffer no one to doubt the power and versatility of that genius which he had been amongst the first to recognize and encourage. "Whether, indeed, we take him as a poet, as a comic writer, or as an historian," he announced to an assemblage of distinguished persons met together at dinner at Mr. Beauclerc's, " he stands in the first classy And there was no one living who dared dispute the verdict — at least in Johnson's hearing. GOLDSMITH, 73 CHAPTER XIV. THE DESERTED VILLAGE. But it is time to return to the literary performances that gained for this uncouth Irishman so great an amount of consideration from the first men of his time. The engagement with Griffin about tht History of Animated Nature was made at the beginning of 1769. The work was to occupy eight volumes; and Dr. Gold- smith was to receive eight hundred guineas for the complete copy- right. Whether the undertaking was originally a suggestion of Griffin's, or of Goldsmith's own, does not appear. If it was the author's, it was probably only the first means that occurred to him of getting another advance ; and that advance — ^500 on account — he did actually get. But if it was the suggestion of the publisher, Griffin must have been a bold man. A writer whose acquaintance with animated nature was such as to allow him to make the "insid- ious tiger " a denizen of the backwoods of Canada,* was not a very safe authority. But perhaps Griffin had consulted Johnson before making this bargain; and we know that Johnson, though continually remarking on Goldsmith's extraordinary ignorance of facts, was of opinion that the History of A7ii7?iated Nature would be " as entertaining as a Persian tale." However, Goldsmith — no doubt after he had spent the five hundred guineas — tackled the work in earnest. When Boswell subsequently went out to call on him at another rural retreat he had taken on the Edgware Road, Boswell and Mickle, the translator of the Lusiad, found Goldsmith from home ; " but, having a curiosity to see his apartment, we went in and found curious scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled upon the wall with a black-lead pencil." Meanwhile, this Animated Nature being in hand, the Roman History was published, and was very well received by the critics and by the public. " Goldsmith's abridgment," Johnson declared, " is better than that of Lucius Florus or Eutropius; and I will venture to say that if you com- pare him with Vertot, in the same places of the Roman History^ you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the art of compil- ing, and of saying everything he has to say in a pleasing manner." So thought the booksellers too ; and the success of the Roman * See Citizen of the Worlds L,etter XVII, 74 GOLDSMITH. History only involved him in fresh projects of compilation. By an offer of ^500 Davies induced him to lay aside for the moment the Atiimated Nature 2iXi6. begin " An History of England, from the Birth of the British Empire to the death of George the Second, in four volumes octavo." He also about this time undertook to write a Life of Thomas Parnell. Here, indeed, was plenty of v»'ork, and work promising good pay; but the depressing thing is that Gold- smith should have been the man who had to do it. He may have done it better than any one else could have done — indeed, looking over the results of all that drudgery, we recognize now the happy turns of expression which were never long absent from Goldsmith's prose-writing — but the world could well afford to sacrifice all the task-work thus got through for another poem like the Dese7'ted Villao^e or the T?'aveller. Perhaps Goldsmith considered he was making a fair compromise when, for the sake of his reputation, he devoted a certain portion of his time to his poetical work, and then, to have money for fine clothes and high jinks, gave the rest to the booksellers. One critic, on the appearance oixho. Ro?na?i History^ referred to the Traveller, and remarked that it was a pity that the " author of one of the best poems that has appeared since those of Ml. Pope, should not apply v/holly to works of imagination." We may echo that regret now ; but Goldsmith would at the time have no doubt replied that, if he had trusted to his poems, he would never have been able to pay ^^400 for chambers in the Temple. In fact he said as much to Lord Lisburn at one of the Academy dinners : •' I cannot afford to court the draggle-tail muses, my Lord; they would let me starve; but by my other labours I can make shift to eat, and drink, and have good clothes." And there is little use in our regretting now that Goldsmith was not cast in a more heroic mould ; we have to take him as he is ; and be grateful for what he has left us. It is a grateful relief to turn from these booksellers' contracts and forced labours to the sweet clear note of singfins^ that one finds in the Deserted Village. This poem, after having been repeatedly announced and as often withdrawn for further revision, was at last published on the 26th of May, 1770, when Goldsmith was in his forty-second year. The leading idea of it he had already thrown out in certain lines in the Traveller : " Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore, Her useful sons exchanged for useless ore .-' Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste, Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste ? Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain, Lead stern depopulation in her train, And over fields where scattered hamlets ros In barren solitary pomp repose ? Have we not seen at pleasure's lordly call The smiling long-frequented village fall ? Beheld the duteous son, the sire decayed, The modest matron, and the blushing maid, GOLDSMITH. 75 Forced from their homes, a melancholy train, To traverse climes beyond the western main; Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around. And Niagara stuns with thundering sound ? " — and elsewhere, in recorded conversations of his, we find that he had somehow got it into his head that the accumulation of wealth in a country was the parent of all evils, including depopulation. We need not stay here to discuss Goldsmith's position as apolitical economist ; even although Johnson seems to sanction his theory in the four lines he contributed to the end of the poem. Nor is it worth while returning to that objection of Lord Macaulay's which has already been mentioned in these pages, further than to repeat that the poor Irish village in which Goldsmith was brought up, no doubt looked to him as charming as any Auburn, when he regarded it through the softening and beautifying mist of years. It is enough that the abandonment by a number of poor people of the homes in which they and theirs have lived their lives, is one of the most pathetic facts in our civilisation ; and that out of the various circumstances surrounding this forced migration Goldsmith has made one of the most graceful and touching poems in the English language. It is clear bird-singing; but there is a pathetic note in it. That imaginary ramble through the Lissoy that is far away has recalled more than his boyish sports ; it has made him look back over his own life — the life of an exile. *'I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down; To husband out life's taper at the close, And keep the flamG from wasting by repose : • I still had hopes, for pride attends us still, Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill, Around my fire an evening group to draw, And tell of all I felt, and all I saw; And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue Pants to the place from whence at first he flew, I still had hopes, my long vexations past, Here to return — and die at home at last." Who can doubt that it was of Lissoy he was thinking ? Sir Walter Scott, writing a generation ago, said that "the church which tops the neighbouring hill," the mill and the brook were still to be seen in the Irish village ; and that even " The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade- For talking age and whispering lovers made," had been identified by the indefatigable tourist, and was oi course being cut to pieces to make souvenirs. But indeed it is of little consequence whether we say that Auburn is an English village, or insist that it is only Lissoy idealised, as long as the thing is true in itself. And we know that this is true : it is not that one sees the 76 VOLDSMITIL place as a picture, but that one seems to be breathing its very atmosphere, and listening to the various cries that thrill the " hol- low silence." " Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close Up yonder hill the village murmur rose. There, as I past with careless steps and slow, The mingling notes came softened from below ; The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung, The sober herd that lowed to meet their young, The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school, The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spake the vacant mind." Nor is it any romantic and impossible peasantry that is grad- ually brought before us. There are no Norvals in Lissoy. There is the old woman — Catherine Geraghty, they say, was her name — who gathered cresses in the ditches near her cabin. There is the village preacher whom Mrs. Hodson, Goldsmith's sister, took to be a portrait of their father; but whom others have identified as Henry Goldsmith, and even as the uncle Contarine : they may all have contributed. And then comes Paddy Byrne. Amid all the pensive tenderness of the poem this description of the school- master, with its strokes of demure humour, is introduced with delightful effect : " Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school. A man severe he was, and stern to view ; I knew him well, and every truant knew : "Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace The day's disasters in his morning face ; Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee At all his jokes, for many a joke had he ; Full well the busy whisper circling round Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault : The village all declared how much he knew: 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too: Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, And e'en the story ran that he could gauge : In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill ; For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still ; While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew." All this is so simple and natural that we cannot fail to believe in GOLDSMITH. 11 the reality of Auburn, or Lissoy, or whatever the village may be supposed to be. We visit the clergyman's cheerful fireside ; and look in on the noisy school; and sit in the evening in the ale-house to listen to the profound politics talked there. But the crisis comes. Auburn delenda est. Here, no doubt, occurs the least probable part of the poem. Poverty of soil is a common cause of emigration : land that produces oats (when it can produce oats at all) three-fourtlis mixed with weeds, and hay chiefly consisting of rushes, naturally discharges its surplus population as families in- crease ; and tliough the wrench of parting is painful enough, the usual result is a change from starvation to competence. It more rarely happens that a district of peace and plenty, such as Auburn was supposed to see around it, is depopulated to add to a great man's estate. "The man of wealth and pride Takes up a space that many poor supplied ; Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds : ******* His seat, where solitary sports are seen, Indignant spurns the cottage from the green ; " and so forth. This seldom happens ; but it does happen ; and it has happened, in our own day, in England. It is within the last twenty-years that an English landlord, having faith in his riches, bade a Village be removed and cast elsewhere, so that it should no longer be visible from his windows : and it was forthwith removed. But any solitary instance like this is not sufficient to support the theory that wealth and luxury are inimical to the existence of a bardy peasantiy : and so we must admit, after all, that it is poetical 'exigency rather than political economy that has decreed the destruction of the loveliest village of the plain. Where, asks the poet, are the driven poor to find refuge, when even the fenceless commons are seized upon and divided by the rich } In the great cities ? — " To see profusion that we must not share ; To see ten thousand baneful arts combined To pamper luxury and thin mankind." It is in this description of a life in cities that there occurs an often- quoted passage, which has in it one of the most perfect lines in English poetry : " Ah ! turn thine eyes Where the poor houseless shivering female lies. She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest, Has wept at tales of innocence distrest ; ■ Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn ; yg . GOLDSMITH. Now lost to all ; her friends, her virtue fled, Near her betrayer's door she lays her head. And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the shower, With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour, When idly first, ambitious of the town. She left her wheel and robes of country brown " Goldsmith wrote in a pre-Wordsworthian age, when, even in the realms of poetry, a primrose was not much more than a prim- rose ; but it is doubtful whether, c" ' r before, during, or since Wordsworth's time, the sentiment X^.~.i tha imagination can infuse into the common and familiar things around us ever received more happy expression than in the well-known line, " Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorii^ No one has as yet succeeded in defining accurately and concisely what poetry is ; but at all events this line is surcharged with a certain quality which is conspicuously absent in such a produc- tion as the Essay on Man. Another similar line is to be found further on in the description of the distant scenes to which the proscribed people are driven : " Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, Where wild Alta^na nmrmiirs to their woe.'''' Indeed, the pathetic side of emigration has never been so power- fully presented to us as in this poem : " When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, Hung round the bovvers, and fondly looked their last, And took a long farewell, and wished in vain For seats like these beyond the western main, And shuddering still to face the distant deep. Returned and wept, and still returned to weep. * * * . * * * Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, I see the rural virtues leave the land. Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail, That idly waiting flaps with every gale, Downward they move a melancholy band. Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand. Contented toil, and hospitable care. And kind connubial tenderness are there ; And piety with wishes placed above. And steady loyalty, and faithful love." And worst of all. in this imaginative departure, we find that Poetry herself is leaving our shores. She is now to try her voice " On Torno's cliffs or Pambamarca's side ; " and the poet, in the closing lines of the poem, bids her a passionate and tender farewell : GOLDSMITH. yn " And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid, Still first to fly where sensual joys invade ; Unfit in these degenerate times of shame To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame ; Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried, My shame in crowds, my solitary pride ; Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe, That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so ; Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel, Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well ! Farewell, and oh ! where'er thy voice be tried. On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side. Whether where equinoctial fervours glow. Or winter wraps the polar world in snow, Still let thy voice, prevailing over time, Redress the rigours of the inclement clime : Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain ; Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain : Teach him, that states of native strength possest. Though very poor, may still be very blest ; That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away ; While self-dependent power can time defy. As rocks resist the billows and the sky." So ends this graceful, melodious, tender poem, the position of which in English literature, and in the estimation of all who love English literature, has not been disturbed by any fluctuations of literary fashion. We may give more attention at the moment to the new experiments of the poetic method ; but we return only with renewed gratitude to the old familiar strain, not the least merit of which is that it has nothing about it of foreign tricks or graces. In English literature there is nothing more thoroughly English than th^se writings produced by an Irishman. And whether or not it was Paddy Byrne, and Catherine Geraghty, and the Lissoy ale-house that Goldsmith had in his mind when he was writing the poem, is not of much consequence : the manner and language and feeling are all essentially English ; so that we never think of calling Gold- smith anything but an English poet. The poem met with great and immediate success. Of course every thing that Dr. Goldsmith now wrote was read by the public ; he had not to wait for the recommendation of the reviews ; but, in this case, even the reviews had scarcely any thing but praise in the welcome of his new book. It was dedicated, in graceful and inge- nious terms, to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who returned the compliment by painting a picture and placing on the engraving of it this in- scription : " This attempt to express a character in the Deserted Village is dedicated to Dr. Goldsmith by his sincere friend and admirer. Sir Joshua Reynolds." What Goldsmith got from Grif- fin for the poem is not accurately known ; and this is a misfortune, for the knowledge would have enabled us to judge whether at that tinie it was possible for a poet to court the draggle-tail muses with- 8o GOLDSMITH. out risk of starvation. But if fame were his chief object in the composition of the poem, he was sufficiently rewarded ; and it is to be surmised that by this time the people in Ireland — no longer im- plored to get subscribers — had heard of the proud position won by the vagrant youth who had " taken the world for his pillow " some eighteen years before. That his own thoughts had sometimes wandered back to the scenes and friends of his youth during this labour of love, we know from his letters. In January o£ this year, while as yet the Deserted Village was not quite through the press, he wrote to his brother Maurice ; and expressed himself as most anxious to hear all about the relatives from whom he had been so long parted. He has something to say about himself too ; wishes it to be known that the King "has lately been pleased to make him Professor of Ancient History " in a Royal Academy of Painting which he has just established ; " but gives no very flourishing account of his circum- stances. " Honours to one in my situation are something like ruffles to a man that wants a shirt." However, there is some small legacy of fourteen or fifteen pounds left him by his uncle Contarine, which he understands to be in the keeping of his cousin Lawder ; and to this wealth he is desirous of foregoing all claim : his rela- tions must settle how it may be best expended. But there is not a reference to his literary achievements, or the position won by them ; not the slightest yielding to even a pardonable vanity ; it is a modest, affectionate letter. The only hint that Maurice Gold- smith receives of the esteem in which his brother is held in Lon- don, is contained in a brief mention of Johnson, Burke, and others as his friends. " I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture of myself, as I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer. I have ordered it to be left for her at George Faulkenor's, folded in a letter. The face, you well know, is ugly enough ; but it is finely painted. I will shortly also send my friends over the Shannon some mezzotinto prints of myself, and some more of my friends here, such as Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Colman. I believe I have written an hundred letters to different friends in your country, and never received an answer from any of them. I do not know how to account for this, or why they are unwilling to keep up for me those regards which I must ever retain for them." The letter winds up with an appeal for news, news, news. GOLDSMITH^ 3s CHAPTER XV. OCCASIONAL WRITINGS. Some two months after the publication of the Deserted Villagg, when its success had been well assured, Goldsmith proposed to himself the relaxation of a little Continental tour; and he was ac- companied by three ladies, Mrs. Horneck and her two pretty- daughters, who doubtless took more charge of him than he did of them. This Mrs. Horneck, the widow of a certain Captain Hor- neck, was connected with Reynolds, while Burke was the guardian of the two girls ; so that it was natural that they should make the acquaintance of Dr. Goldsmith. A foolish attempt has been made to weave out of the relations supposed to exist between the younger of the girls and Goldsmith an imaginary romance ; but there is not the slightest actual foundation for anything of the kind. Indeed the best guide we can have to the friendly and familiar terms on which he stood with regard to the Hornecks and their circle, is the following careless and jocular reply to a chance invitation sent him by the two sisters : " Your mandate I got, You may all go to pot ; Had your senses been right, You'd have sent before night; As I hope to be saved, I put off being shaved; For I could not make bold, While the matter was cold, To meddle in suds. Or to put on my duds ; 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 two, Little Comedy's face And the Captain in lace. *p *!* * ^ Yet how can I when vext Thus stray from my text ? 82 GOLDSMITH. 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 be frolic like him. But, alas ! your good worships, how could they be wiser. When both have been spoiled in to-day's Advertiser V^ " The Jessamy Bride " was the pet nickname he had bestowed on the younger Miss Horneck — the heroine of the speculative romance just mentioned; "Little Comedy" was her sister; "the Captain in lace " their brother, who was in the Guards. No doubt Mrs. Horneck and her daughters were very pleased to have with them on this Continental trip so distinguished a person as Dr. Goldsmith ; and he must have been very ungrateful if he was not glad to be provided with such charming companions. The story of the sudden envy he displayed of the admiration excited by the two handsome young Englishwomen as they stood at a hotel-win- dow in Lille, is so incredibly foolish that it needs scarcely be re- peated here; unless to lepeat the warning that, if ever anybody was so dense as not to see the humour of that piece of acting, one had better look with grave suspicion on every one of the stories told about Goldsmith's vanities and absurdities. Even with such pleasant companions, the trip to Paris was not every thing he had hoped. " I find," he wrote to Reynolds from Paris, " that travelling at twenty and at forty are very different things. I set out with all my confirmed habits about me, and can find nothing on the Continent so good as when 1 formerly left it. One of our chief amusements here is scolding at every thing we meet with, and praising everything and every person we left at home. You may judge therefore whether your name is not fre- quently bandied at table among us. To tell you the truth, I never thought I could regret your absence so much, as our various mor- tifications on the road have often taught me to do. I could tell you of disasters and adventures without number, of our lying in barns, and my being half poisoned with a dish of green peas, of our quarrelling with postilions and being cheated by our landladies, but I reserve all this for a happy hour which I expect to share with you upon my return." The fact is that although Goldsmith had seen a good deal of foreign travel, the manner of his making the grand tour in his youth was not such as to fit him for acting as courier to a party of ladies. However, if they increased his troubles, they also shared them; and in this same letter he bears explicit testimony to the value of their companionship. " I will soon be among you, better pleased with my situation at home than I ever was before. And yet I must say, that if any thing could make France pleasant, the very good women with whom I am at GOLDSMITH. 83 present would certainly do it. I could say more about that, but I intend showing them this letter before I send it away." Mrs. Horneck, Little Comedy, the Jessamy Bride, and the Professor of Ancient History at the Royal Academy, all returned to London ; the last to resume his round of convivialities at taverns, excursions into regions of more fashionable amusement along with Reynolds, und task-work aimed at the pockets of the booksellers. It was a happy-go-lucky sort of life. We find him now showing off his fine clothes and his sword and wig at Ranelagh Gardens, and again shut up in his chambers compiling memoirs and histories in hot haste; now the guest of Lord Clare, and figuring at Bath, and again delighting some small domestic circle by his quips and cranks; playing jokes for the amusement of children, and writing comic letters in verse to their elders ; everywhere and at all times merry, thoughtless, good-natured. And, of course, we find also his humorous pleasantries being mistaken for blundering stu- pidity. In perfect good faith Boswell describes how a number of people burst out laughing when Goldsmith publicly complained that he had met Lord Camden at Lord Clare's house in the coun- try, "and he took no more notice of me than if I had been an ordinary man." Goldsmith's claiming to be a very extraordinary person was precisely a stroke of that humorous self-depreciation in which he was continually indulging; and the Jessamy Bride has left it on record that "on many occasions, from the peculiar man- ner of his humour, and assumed frown of countenance, what was often uttered in jest was mistaken by those who did not know him for earnest." This would appear to have been one of those occasions. The company burst out laughing at Goldsmith's having made a fool of himself ; and Johnson was compelled to come to his rescue. " Nay, gentlemen. Dr. Goldsmith is in the right. A nobleman ought to have made up to such a man as Goldsmith ; and I think it is much against Lord Camden that he neglected him." Mention of Lord Clare naturally recalls the Haujtch of Venison. Goldsmith was particularly happy in writing bright and airy verses ; the grace and lightness of his touch has rarely been approached. It must be confessed, however, that in this direction he was some- what of an Autolycus ; unconsidered trifles he freely appropriated ; but he committed these thefts with scarcely any concealment, and with the most charming air in the world. In fact some of the snatches of verse which he contributed to the Bee scarcely profess to be anything else than translations, though the originals are not given. But who is likely to complain when we get as the result such a delightful piece of nonsense as the famous Elegy on that Glory of her Sex, Mrs. Mary Blaize, which has been the parent of a vast progeny since Goldsmith's time ? "Good people all, with one accord Lament for Madam Blaize, Who never wanted a good word From those who spoke her praise. 84 GOLDSMITH. " The needy seldom passed her door, And always found her kind ; She freely lent to all the poor — Who left a pledge behind. " She strove the neighbourhood to please. With manners wondrous winning ; And never followed wicked ways — Unless when she was sinning. " At church, in silks and satins new, With hoop of monstrous size. She never slumbered in her pew — But when she shut her eyes. " Her love was sought, I do aver, By twenty beaux and more ; The king himself has followed her When she has walked before. " But now her wealth and finery fled, Her hangers-on cut short all ; The Doctors found, when she was dead — Her last disorder mortal. " Let us lament, in sorrow sore, For Kent Street well may say, That had she lived a twelvemonth more — She had not died to-day." The Haunch of Venison, on the other hand, is a poetical letter of thanks to Lord Clare— an easy, jocular epistle, in which the writer has a cut or two at certain of his literary brethren. Then, as he is looking at the venison, and determining not to send it to any such people as Hiffernan or Higgins, who should step in but our old friend Beau Tibbs, or some one remarkably like him in manner and speech ? — " While thus I debated, in reverie centred, An acquaintance, a friend as he called himself, entered An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he, And he smiled as he looked at the venison and me. * What have we got here ? — Why this is good eating ! Your own, I suppose — or is it in waiting ? ' * Why, whose should it be ? ' cried I with a flounce; * I get these things often ' — but that was a bounce : * Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation, Are pleased to be kind — but I hate ostentation.' * If that be the case then,' cried he, very gay, * I'm glad to have taken this house in my way. To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me ; No words — I insist on't — precisely at three : We'll have Johnson, and Burke ; all the wits will be there My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my Lord Clare. GOLDSMITH. 85 And now that I think on't, as I am a sinner ! We wanted this venison to make out the dinner. What say you — a pasty ? It shall, and it must, And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust. Here, porter ! this venison with me to Mile End ; Nor stirring — I beg — my dear friend — my dear friend ! Thus, snatching his hat, he brushed off like the wind, And the porter and eatables followed behind." We need not follow the vanished venison — which did not make its appearance at the banquet any more than did Johnson or Burke — further than to say that if Lord Clare did not make it good to the poet he did not deserve to have his name associated with such a clever and careless y»' >«i m ^.^ ^H .^ n ■ ^ .tisv n«k ^^ A ^a The finest organ in the KEYSTOWE ORG A Ma Market. Price reduced from $175 to $125. Acclimatized case. Anti-Shoddy and Anti-Monopoly. Not all case, stops, top and advertisement. "Warranted for 6 years. Has the Excelsior 18-Stop Combination, embracing Diapason, Flnte, Jilelodia-Forte, Yiolina, Aeolina, Viola, riute-Forte, Celeste, Dulcet, Echo, Melodia, Celestina, Octave Coupler, Tremelo, Sub-Bass, Cello, Grand-Organ Air Brake, Grand-Organ Swell. Two Knee- Stops. This is a Walnut case, with Music Balcony, Sliding Desk, Side Handles, &c. Dimensions : Height, 75 inches; Length, 48 inches; Depth, 24 inches. This S-Octavo Organ, with Stool, Book and Music, we will box and deliver at dock in New York, for $125. Send by express, prepaid, check, or registered letter to DICKINSOIT & CO., Pianos and Organs, 19 West nth Street, New York. LO'^ELL'S LIBRARY-CATALOGUE. 113. More Words About the Bible, by Rev. Jas. S. Bush 20 114. MonsieurLecoq, GaboriauPt.I..20 Monsieur Lecoq, Pt. II 20 115. An Outline of Irish History, by Justin H. McCarthy 10 1 ] 6. The Lerouge Case, by Gaboriau. . 20 117. Paul Clifford, by Lord Lytton. . .20 1 18. A New Lease of Life, by About . . 20 119. Bourbon Lilies 20 120. Other People'* Money, Gaboriau 20 121. The Lady of Lyons, Lytton. ..10 122. Ameline de Bourg 15 123. A Sea Queen, by W. Russell ... .20 124. The Ladie» Lindores, by Mrt. Oliphant .- 20 125. Haunted Hearts, by Simpson. ...10 126. Loys, I ord Beresford, by The . Duchess 20 127. Under Two Flags, Oaida, Pt. I. . 15 TJuder Two Flags, Pt. II 15 128. Money, by Lord Lytton 10 129. In Peril of Hi3Life,byGaboriau.20 l:iQ. India, by Max Miiller 20 131. Jets and Flashes 20 132. Mooushine an(J Mfiir^erites, by The Duchess". ' 10 133. Mr. Scarborough's Family, by Anthony Trollope, Part 1 15 Mr. Scarborough'sFamily, PtII 15 134. Arden, by A. Mary F. Robinson. 15 135. The Tower of Percemont 20 130. Yolande, by Wm. Black 20 137. Cruel London, by Joseph Hatton.20 138. The Gilded Cl'qne, by Gaboriau.20 139. Pike County Folks, E. H. Mott. .20 140. Cricket on the Hearth 10 141. Henry Esmond, by Thackeray. .20 142. Strange Adventures of a Phae- ton, by Wm, Black 20 143. Denis Duval, by Thackeray 10 144. Old Curiosity Shop,Dicken8,PtI. 15 Old Curiosity Shop, Part II. .. .15 145. Ivanhoe, by Scott, Part 1 15 Ivanhoe, by Scott, Part II 15 146. White Wings, by Wm. Black.. 20 147. The Sketch Book, by Irving 20 148. Catherine, by W. M. Thackeray. 10 149. Janet's Repentance, by Eliot 10 150. Barnaby Rudge. Dickens, Pt I. . 15 Barnaby Rudge, Part II 15 151. Felix Holt, b/ George Eliot. ...20 1.52. Richelieu, by Lord Lytton 10 153. Sunrise, by Wm. Black, Part I. .15 Sunrise, by Wm. Black. Part 11.15 1.54. Tour of the World in 80 Days.. 20 155. Mystery of Orcival, Gaboriau. , . .20 15t5. Lovel, the Widower, by W. M. Thackeray 10 157. Romantic Adventures of a Milk- maid, by Thomas Hardv 10 158. David Copperfield, Dickens.Pt 1.20 David Copperfield, Part II 80 160. Rienzi, by Lord Lytton, Part I . . 15 Rienzi, by Lord Lytton. Part II . 15 161. Promise of Marriage, Gaboriau.. 10 162. Faith and Un faith, by The Duchess SO 163, 164 165, 166, 167, 168, 169. 170, I 171. I 172. 17.3. 174. 175. 176. 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. 199. 200. 201. 202. 1'03. 204. 205. 206. 207. 208. 209. The Happy Man, by Lover... 10 Barry Lyndon, by Thackeray.... 20 Eyre's Acquittal 10 Twenty Thoupand Leagues Un- der the Sea, by Jules Verne 30 Anti-Slavery Days, by James Freeman Clarke 30 Beauty's Daughters, by The Duchess 30 Beyond the Sunrise 20 Hard Times, by Charles Dickens. 20 Tom Cringle s Log, by M. Scott. .20 Vanity Fair, by W M,Thacker»y.20 Underground Russia, Stepniak..20 Middlemarch. by Elliot, Pt I.... 20 W iddlemarch. Part II 20 Sir Tom, by Mrs. Oliphant 20 Pelham, by Lord Lytton 20 The Story of Ida 10 Madcap Violet, by Wm. Black.. 20 The Little Pilgrim 10 Kilmeny, by Wm. Black 20 Whist, or Bumblepuppy? 10 The Beautiful Wretch, Black.... 20 Her Mother's Sin, by B. M. Clay.20 Green Pastures and Piccadilly, by Wm, Black 20 The Mysterious Island, by Jules Verne, Part I.... 15 The Mysterious Island, Part II. . 15 The Mysterious Island, Part III. 15 Tom Brawn at Oxford, Part I ... 15 Tom Brown at Oxford, Part II. . 15 Thicker than Water, by J. Payn.20 In Silk Attire, by Wm. Black. . .20 Scottish Chiefs.Jane Porter,Pt.I.20 Scottish Chiefs, Part II 20 Willy Reilly.by Will Carleton..20 The Nauta Family, by Shelley.20 Great Expectations, by Dickens. 20 Pendennis.by Thackeray, Part 1.20 Pendennis by Thackeray ,Part 11.20 Widow Bedott Papers 20 Daniel Deronda.Geo. Eliot,Pt, 1.20 Daniel Deronda, Part II 20 AltioraPeto, by Oliphant 20 By the Gate of the Sea, by David Christie Murray 15 Tales of a Traveller, by Irving. . .20 Life and Voyages of Columbus, by Washington Irving, Part I. .20 Life and Voyages of Columbus, by Washington Irving, Part 11.20 The Pilgrim's Progress 20 Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens, Part 1 20 Martin Chuzzlewit, Part II 20 Theophrastus Such, Geo. Eliot. . . 20 Disarmed, M. Betham-Edwards..l5 Eugene Aram, by Lord Lytton. 20 The >*panish Gypsy and Other Poems, by George Eliot 20 Cast Up by the Sea. Baker 20 Mill on the Floss, Eliot, Pt. I. 15 Mill on the Floss, Part II 15 Brother Jacob, and Mr. Gilfll's Love Story, by George Eliot. . .10 Wrecks iu the Sea of Life 20 •AMlMdHMaaaWBMMMUiaMHlaiia I BEAiEr Aim irmvE food. 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