LIBRARY OF CONGRESS QDDDDDHamD tj Class Book GopyagMT^?- COFXRIGHT DEPOSm D Oliver Goldsmith. f Oliver Goldsmith A MEMOIR BY AUSTIN DOBSON NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY Publishers lES RECEIVED, - . Congress,' ^ Z^IJJ Office of the T) A Register of Copyrights* '^ * Copyright, 1899, By Dodd, Mead and Company. .<4// rights reserved. FIRST COPY, ^^ < Sattiijersitg Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. CONTENTS CHAPTER I Page The Goldsmith family ; Rev. Charles Goldsmith, of Pallas ; Oliver Goldsmith born there, November lo, 1728; re- moval to Lissoy, 1730; Oliver's first teachers, Elizabeth Delap and Thomas Byrne ; childish characteristics ; has the small-pox ; anecdotes connected therewith ; further schooling at Elphin, Athlone, and Edgeworthstown ; adventure at Ardagh ; sizar at Trinity College, Dublin, June II, 1744; his tutor Theaker Wilder; dislike to mathematics and logic ; involved in a college riot. May, 1747; gets a small exhibition; disastrous results ; runs away from college ; returns ; writes songs for ballad- singers ; anecdote of his benevolence; takes his B.A. degree, February 27, 1749; relics of college life ... i CHAPTER II Waiting for orders; rejected by the Bishop of Elphin, 1 751; tutor to Mr. Flinn; sets out for America, and returns ; letter to his mother ; starts again fruitlessly as a law student ; goes to Edinburgh to study medicine ; becomes a member of the Medical Society there, Jan- uary 13, 1753; life in Scotland; starts for Paris; ad- ventures by the way ; arrives at Leyden ; life there ; leaves Leyden, February, 1755; travels on foot through vi Contents Pagb Flanders and France ; travelling tutor (?) ; anecdote of Voltaire; further travels; arrives in England, Feb- ruary I, 1756 20 CHAPTER III Prospect and retrospect ; first struggles on reaching Eng- land; comedian, apothecary's journeyman, poor physi- cian, press-corrector to Richardson; writes a tragedy; projects of Eastern exploration; assistant at PecJcham Academy; miseries of an usher; Peckham memories; bound to Grififiths the bookseller, April, 1757 ; literature of all work ; criticism of Gray ; quarrels with Griffiths ; " Memoirs of a Protestant " published, February, 1758 ; returns to Peckham ; new hopes ; meditating " Enquiry into Polite Learning; " letters to Mills, Bryanton, Mrs. Lawder (Jane Contarine) ; obtains and loses appoint- ment as medical officer at Coromandel ; rejected at Sur- geons' Hall as a hospital mate, December 21, 1758 . . 41 CHAPTER IV Pen-portrait of Goldsmith in 1759; No. 12, Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey; difficulties with Griffiths; writing "Memoirs of Voltaire;" letter to Henry Goldsmith, February, 1759; visit from Dr. Percy, March; "En- quiry into Polite Learning " published, April 2 ; account of that book ; its reception ; contributions to The Busy Body, and The Ladys Magazine ; The Bee, October to November; its reference to Johnson; minor verse . 64 CHAPTER V Amenities of authorship ; Newbery and Smollett ; work for The British Magazine; " History of Miss Stanton;" Contents vii Page other contributions ; The Public Ledger; Chinese letters begun, January 24, 1760 ; The Lady^s Magazine; moves into 6, Wine Office Court, Fleet Street; entertains Johnson there, May 31, 1761; " Memoirs of Voltaire " published; "History of Mecklenburgh " published, February 26, 1762 ; Cock Lane Ghost pamphlet; " Citi- zen of the World" published, May i ; account of that book; " The Man in Black " and " Beau Tibbs; " an- ecdotes ; Plutarch's lives begun, May i ; out of town ; "Life of Nash" published, October 14; sale of third share in "Vicar of Wakefield" to Benjamin Collins, printer, of Salisbury, October 28 84 CHAPTER VI Goldsmith at Salisbury (?); removes to Mrs. Fleming's at Islington; Mrs. Fleming's bills; hack-work for New- bery; " History of England in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son" published, June 26, 1764; Hogarth at Islington ; his portraits of Mrs. Fleming (?) and Goldsmith; " The Club," 1764; its origin and first members; Goldsmith "as he struck his contempo- raries " ; writing " The Traveller " at Islington ; publi- cation of that poem, December ig; its dedication to his brother Henry; Johnson's influence and opinion; char- acteristics and bibliography ; sum paid to author . . 103 CHAPTER VH "Essays: by Mr. Goldsmith" published, June 4, 1765; the poetical essays ; makes acquaintance with Nugent ; visits Northumberland House ; "Edwin and Angelina" privately printed; resumes practice as a physician ; epi- viii Contents Page sode of Mrs. Sidebotham; " The Vicar of Wakefield " published, March 27, 1766; Boswell's "authentic" ac- count of the sale of the manuscript ; variants of Mrs. Piozzi, Hawkins, Cumberland, and Cook ; attempt to harmonise the Johnson story and the Collins purchase ; date of composition of book ; its characteristics ; theories of Mr. Ford ; bibliography and sale . • 124 CHAPTER VIII " The Vicar " and " The Traveller " as investments ; trans- lation of Formey's " History of Philosophy and Philoso- phers " published, June, 1766; "Poems for Young Ladies" published, December 15; English Grammar written; " Beauties of English Poesy" published, April, 1767; letter to the St. jf antes'' s Chronicle, July; living at Canonbury House; at the Temple; visited by Parson Scott; " Roman History"; the Wednesday Club; pop- ularity of genteel comedy ; plans a play ; story of " The Good Natur'd Man ; " its production at Covent Garden, January 29, 1768; its reception; Goldsmith on the first night ; his gains ; Davies on the dramatis fersonce ; Johnson on Goldsmith 148 CHAPTER IX Moves to 2, Brick Court, Middle Temple ; relaxations and festivities; the Seguin recollections; death of Henry Goldsmith; begins " The Deserted Village;" methods of poetical composition; "Shoemaker's Holidays;" Goldsmith's companions ; " The Shoemaker's Para- dise" at Edgeware; Mr. Bott, the barrister; old com- pilations and new ; epilogue to Mrs. Lenox's " Sister " ; a dinner at Boswell's; appointed Professor of History Contents ix Pagb to the Royar Academy, December; letter to Maurice Goldsmith, January; portrait painted by Reynolds; "The Deserted Village" published, May '26, 1770; depopulation theory ; identity of Auburn and Lissoy ; enduring qualities of the poem; farewell to poetry; amount received by author 168 CHAPTER X The Horneck family; "Life of Thomas Parnell" pub- lished, July 13, 1770; visit to Paris,, and letters to Rey- nolds; "Abridgment of Roman History," September; "Life of Bolingbroke" published, December; Lord Clare and "The Haunch of Venison"; at the Royal Academy dinner; at Edgeware; " History of England" published, August 6, 1771 ; letter to Langton, September 17; prologue to Cradock's " Zobeide," December 11; " Threnodia Augustalis" published, February 20, 1772; letter in prose and verse to Mrs. Bunbury; story of "She Stoops to Conquer"; production of that play at Covent Garden, March 15, 1773 ; its success .... 191 CHAPTER XI A libellous attack and its sequel; dining out at Ogle- thorpe's and Paoli's; "The Grumbler"; more task work; "Grecian History"; "Dictionary of Arts and Sciences"; "Retaliation"; epitaphs on Garrick and Reynolds ; epitaph on Caleb Whitefoord ; last illness ; dies, April 4, 1774; buried on the 9th in the burying- ground of the Temple Church; Johnson's epitaph ; memo- rials and statue . 217 X Contents CHAPTER XII Page Portraits of Goldsmith ; testimonies as to character; money difficulties, and " folly of expense ; " alleged love of play ; of fine clothes and entertainments ; generosity and benevolence ; alleged envy and malice ; position in society ; conversation ; relations with Johnson ; conclusion 234 APPENDIX Letters to Daniel Hodson and Thomas Bond 256 INDEX 263 OLIVER GOLDSMITH A Memoir CHAPTER I The Goldsmith family; Rev. Charles Goldsmith, of Pallas; Oliver Goldsmith born there, November lo, 1728; removal to Lissoy, 1730; Oliver's first teachers, Elizabeth Delap and Thomas Byrne ; childish characteristics ; has the small-pox ; anecdotes connected therewith ; further schooling at Elphin, Athlone, and Edgeworthstown ; adventure at Ardagh ; sizar at Trinity College, Dublin, June 11, 1744; his tutor Theaker Wilder; dislike to mathematics and logic; involved in a college riot, May, 1747; gets a small exhibition; disastrous results ; runs away from college ; returns ; writes songs for ballad-singers; anecdote of his benevolence; takes his B.A. degree, February 27, 1749; relics of college life. TF the researches of the first biographers of -*■ Oliver Goldsmith are to be relied upon, the Goldsmith family was of English origin, the Irish branch having migrated from this country to Ireland somewhere about the sixteenth century. One of the earliest members traced by Prior was a certain John Goldsmyth, who, in i ^41 , held the office of searcher in the port of Galway, and was shortly afterwards promoted by Henry VIII. to be Clerk of the Council. A descendant of this 2 Oliver Goldsmith John, according to tradition, married one Juan Romeiro, a Spanish gentleman, who, having travelled in Ireland, finally took up his abode there. His children, retaining the name and the Protestant faith of their mother, settled in Roscommon, Longford, and Westmeath, where of old many traces of them existed which have now disappeared. Some became clergymen, and, during the rebellion of 1641, did not escape the animosity attaching to their cloth. Nor was this their solitary distinction. The maiden name of James Wolfe's mother was Goldsmith, and the Goldsmiths consequently claimed kinship with the conqueror of Quebec. Another and more shadowy connection was supposed to exist with Oliver Cromwell, from whom the poet was wont to declare that his own Christian name was derived. But as his maternal grand- father was called Oliver Jones, it is probable that no great importance need be attached to this assertion. It is more to the point to note that the whole of the Irish Goldsmiths seem to have been distinguished by common characteristics. Even as, in the later ** Vicar of Wakefield," the " Blenkinsops could never look straight before them, nor the Mugginses blow out a candle," so the actual ancestors of the author of that immortal book have a marked mental A Memoir 3 likeness. They may, indeed, be described in almost the exact words applied to the Primrose family. They were " all equally generous, credulous, simple — " and improvident. But the further history of the first Goldsmiths may be neglected in favour of that particular member of the race in whom, for the moment, this biography is chiefly interested — the Rev. Charles Goldsmith of Pallas, Oliver Goldsmith's father. Charles Goldsmith was the second son of Robert Goldsmith of Ballyoughter, by his wife Catherine, daughter of Thomas Crofton, D. D., sometime dean of Elphin. In 1707, he went to Trinity College, Dublin, as a pensioner, passing through it with credit. Among his university associates, it was said by his son, was Parnell the poet, and he is also believed to have been acquainted with Swift's friend — "the punster, quibbler, fiddler and wit," Thomas Sheridan, grandfather of the author of the " School for Scandal." In May, 1718, Charles Goldsmith married Ann, daughter of the Rev. Oliver Jones, master of the diocesan school at Elphin, where he himself had been educated. Having taken this step without means, and his father-in-law being also a poor man, his prospects were of the vaguest. But his wife's uncle, the Rev. Mr. Green of Kilkenny West, o^ered the young 4 Oliver Goldsmith couple an asylum at Pallas or Pallasmore In Longford, not very far from the town of Bally- mahon. It was a tumble-down, fairy-haunted farmhouse overlooking the pleasant river Inny, which runs through Ballymahon to Lough Ree ; and here, while he divided his time between farming a few fields and assisting Mr. Green in his clerical duties, five children were born to Charles Goldsmith — three girls, Margaret, Catherine, and Jane ; and two boys, Henry and Oliver. The last named, who saw the light on November lo, 1728, is the subject of these pages. When Oliver Goldsmith was born, his father's annual income as a curate and farmer, even when swelled by the contributions of friends, amounted to no more than forty pounds. But two years later Mr. Green died, and Charles Goldsmith succeeded to the vacant Rectory of Kilkenny West, transferring his residence to Lissoy, a little village on the right of the road from Ballymahon to Athlone. His house, which was connected with the highway by a long avenue of ash-trees, had an orchard and a pleasant garden at the back. The new living was worth nearly two hundred a year ; and here Charles Goldsmith continued to maintain that kindly hospitable household, which his son sketched later in the narrative of the *' Man in Black." " His education was above A Memoir S his fortune, and his generosity greater than his education. Poor as he was, he had his flatterers still poorer than himself; for every dinner he gave them, they returned him an equivalent in praise. ... He told the story of the ivy-tree, and that was laughed at ; he repeated the jest of the two scholars and one pair of breeches, and the company laughed at that ; but the story of Taffy in the sedan chair was sure to set the table in a roar." ^ Neither his practice nor his precepts were those which make rich men. Learnings, he held, was better than silver or gold, and benevo- lence than either. In this way he brought up his children to be ** mere machines of pity," and "perfectly instructed them in the art of giving away thousands before they were taught the more necessary qualifications of getting a farthing." In the meantime little Oliver was transferred to the care of Elizabeth Delap, a relative and dependant, who taught him his letters. Years afterwards, when she was an old woman of ninety, she described this as no easy task. Her pupil, she affirmed, was exceedingly dull and stupid, although she admitted that he was easily managed. From this unflattering instructress he passed to the far more congenial tuition of the village schoolmaster, Thomas Byrne. Byrne was ^ Citizen of the World, 1762, i, 104. 6 Oliver Goldsmith a character in his way, some of whose traits re- appear in the pedagogue of " The Deserted Vil- lage." He had been a soldier in Queen Anne's wars in Spain, and had led a wandering, adven- turous life, of which he was always willing to talk. He was besides something of a bookman, dab- bled in rhyme, and was even capable of extem- porising a respectable Irish version of VirgiFs eclogues. Furthermore, in addition to being an adept in all the fairy lore of Ireland, he was deeply read in the records of its pirates, robbers, and smugglers. One can imagine little Oliver hanging upon the lips of this entrancing teacher, when he discoursed, not only of "the exploits of Peterborough and Stanhope, the surprise of Monjuich, and the glorious disaster of Brihuega," but also of ghosts and banshees, and of '' the great Rapparee chiefs, Baldearg O'Donnell and galloping Hogan."'- No wonder the boy's friends traced to these distracting narratives his aimless, vagrant future. He, too, began to scrib- ble doggerel, to devour the chap-book histories of " Fair Rosamond" and the ^' Seven Cham- pions," or to study with avidity the less edifying chronicles of " Moll Flanders" and "Jack the Bachelor." There were, moreover, other influences at this 1 Macaulay's Miscellaneous Writings^ 1865, PP* 298, 299. A Memoir 7 time to stir his childish imagination, which could scarcely have found him the " impenetrably stupid " pupil of his first mistress. There were the songs of the blind harper, O'Carolan, to awaken in him a love of music which he never lost, and there was Peggy Golden^ his father's dairy-maid, to charm his ears with "Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night," or "The Cru- elty of Barbara Allen." But an untoward cir- cumstance served to interrupt, if not to end, these "violent delights." So severely was he attacked by confluent small-pox that he nearly lost his life, and ever afterwards bore the traces of that disorder deeply scored upon his features. Indeed, it may be said to have also left its mark upon his character. Always " subject to particular humours," alternating often between extreme reserve and boisterous animal spirits, his natural tendencies were not improved by his changed appearance. One of the earliest anec- dotes recorded of him turns upon this misfortune. " Why, Noll I " said an inconsiderate male rela- tive, not particularly distinguished for his wisdom or integrity, " you are become a fright I When do you mean to get handsome again ? " The boy moved uneasily to the window without replying, and the question was sneeringly re- peated. " I mean to get better, sir, when you 8 Oliver Goldsmith do," he answered at last. Upon another occa- sion, when there was a party at his uncle's house, little Oliver capered forth, in the pause between two country dances, and indulged the company with a hornpipe. His seamed face and his un- gainly figure — for he was short and thick of stature — excited considerable amusement, and the fiddler, a youth named Gumming, called out '' iEsop." But to the surprise of the guests, the dancer promptly retorted, — " Heralds ! proclaim aloud ! all saying. See yEsop dancing, and his Monkey playing " — a couplet which, even if it were based upon a recollection, as is most probable, at all events served its purpose by turning the laugh against the musician. When these events took place he had already, for some obscure reason, been transferred from Byrne's care to the school at Elphin, of which his grandfather had once been master ; and he was living with his father's brother, John Gold- smith of Ballyoughter. The aforementioned instances of his quickness, no doubt carefully preserved and repeated by admiring relatives, were held to be significant of latent parts ; and it was decided that, notwithstanding the ex- penses of his elder brother Henry's education. A Memoir 9 which were draining his father's scanty means, he should have all attainable advantages. From Elphin, relatives apparently aiding, he was sent to Athlone to a school kept by a Mr. Campbell. It does not appear that he presented himself to his schoolfellows in the same light as to those of his family who saw him at his best. Mr. Annes- ley Strean, who, in later days, became curate of Kilkenny West, and conversed with many of Goldsmith's contemporaries, found him to have been regarded by them ''as a stupid, heavy blockhead, little better than a fool, whom every one made fun of. But his corporal powers dif- fered widely from this apparent state of his mind, for he was remarkably active and athletic ; of which he gave proofs in all exercises among his playmates, and eminently in ball-playing, which he was very fond of, and practised whenever he could." 1 After he had been two years at Athlone, Mr. Campbell gave up the school from ill-health, and Oliver passed to the care of the Rev. Patrick Hughes of Edgeworthstown, a friend of his father. His happiest schooldays must have been with this master. Mr. Hughes understood him. He penetrated his superficial obtuseness, recog- nised his morbidly sensitive nature, and managed 1 Mangin's Essay on Light Reading, 1808, p. 49. lo Oliver Goldsmith at any rate to think better of him than his play- mates, many of whom only succeeded in grow- ing up to be blockheads. At Edgeworthstown there were traditions of his studies, of his love for Ovid and Horace, of his hatred for Cicero and his delight in Livy and Tacitus, of his prowess in boyish sports and the occasional robbing of orchards. But the best anecdote of this time is one which belongs to the close of his last holi- days, when he was between fourteen and fifteen years of age. Having set oif for school on a borrowed hack, and equipped with boundless riches in the shape of a guinea given him by a friend, he amused himself by viewing the neigh- bouring country seats on the road, intending ultimately to put up like a gentleman at an inn. Night fell, and he found himself at Ardagh, half way on his journey. Casting about for informa- tion as to " the best house," that is to say, the inn in the neighbourhood, he unluckily lit upon one Cornelius Kelly, who had been fencing- master to the Marquis of Granby, but, what is more to the purpose, was a confirmed wag and practical joker. Amused with Oliver's schoolboy swagger, he gravely directed him to the mansion of the local magnate, Squire Featherston. To Squire Featherston's the lad accordingly repaired, and called lustily for some A Memoir ii one to take his horse. Being ushered into the presence of the supposed landlord and his family, he ordered a good supper, invited the rest to share it, treated them to a bottle or two of wine, and finally retired to rest, leaving care- ful injunctions that a hot cake should be pre- pared for his breakfast on the morrow. His host, who was a humourist, and moreover knew something of his visitor's father, never unde- ceived him ; and it was not until he quitted the supposed inn next day that he learned, to his con- fusion, that he had been entertained at a private house. Thus early in Oliver Goldsmith's career was rehearsed the first sketch of the successful comedy of '' She Stoops to Conquer." But the time was approaching when he was to enter upon the college life to which all his education had been tending. He had hoped to go to Trinity College as a pensioner, like his brother Henry, who in 1743 had triumphantly obtained a scholarship. This, however, was not to be. Henry Goldsmith had been engaged as tutor to the son of a gentleman named Hodson, residing near Athlone, and out of this connec- tion had resulted a secret marriage between his pupil and his sister Catherine. From a worldly point of view the match was an excellent one, as the Hodsons were wealthy and well-to-do ; 12 Oliver Goldsmith but the reproaches of the young man's father stung Charles Goldsmith into taking a step which seriously crippled his resources. He entered into an engagement to pay a marriage portion of ;^ 400 with his daughter, and to this end taxed his farm and tithes until it should be defrayed. There was more of wounded pride than of strict justice in this procedure, which must have kept his family pinched until his death. The immediate result of it was a change in the prospects of his second son. It was no longer possible to send him to college as a pensioner ; he must go in a more economical way as a "sizar" or poor scholar. At that time, as now, the sizars of Trinity College were educated without charge ; they had free lodgings in the college garrets, and they were permitted to "batten on cold bits" from the commons, table. But in return for these privileges, they wore a distinctive costume, and were required to perform certain menial offices, now abolished. Young Oliver, endowed by nature with " an exquisite sensibility of contempt" — to use his later words — fought hard against this humiliat- ing entry into academic life. For a long time he resisted his fate ; but finally, owing to the influence of a friendly uncle, the Rev. Mr. Contarine, who had already assisted in educat- A Memoir 13 ing him, he yielded, and was admitted to Trinity College, Dublin, as a poor scholar, on the nth of June, 1744, being then fifteen. In the lives of Forster and Prior, the year of admission is given as 1745 ; but this has been shown by Dr. J. F. Waller to be an error. Another Edgeworthstown pupil of the name of Beatty came with him ; and the pair took up their abode in the garrets of what was then No. 35 in a range of buildings which has long since disappeared, but at that time formed the eastern side of Parliament Square. If the circumstances of Goldsmith's initiation into college life were scarcely favourable to his idiosyncrasy, he was still more unfortunate in the tutor with whom he was placed. The Rev. Theaker Wilder, to whose care he fell, although a man of considerable ability, was apparently the last person in the world by whom his pupil's peculiarities could be indulgently or even tem- perately regarded. Wilder was a man of vin- dictive character, morose and, at times, almost ferocious in his demeanour. Once — so the story goes — with a sudden bound upon a pass- ing hackney-coach, he felled to the ground its luckless driver, who had accidentally touched his face with his whip. Under such a master Goldsmith could but fare ill. His ungainly 14 Oliver Goldsmith appearance, his awkwardness, and a certain mental unreadiness, which he never afterwards lost, except when he had pen in hand, left him wholly at the mercy of his persecutor, who saw in him nothing but the evidence of a dense and stubborn disposition. To make matters worse. Wilder delighted in mathematics, and Goldsmith detested them as much as Gray did. "This," he said later, in a passage which had more of bitter recollection than absolute accuracy — " seems a science, to which the meanest in- tellects are equal. I forget who it is that says * All men might understand mathematics, if they would.'" The "dreary subtleties" of " Dutch Burgersdyck" and Polish Smeglesius, the luminaries who then presided over the study of logic, equally repelled him, as they had re- pelled his predecessor, Swift. Everything was thus against his advancement to honours, and the measure of his disqualification was filled up by a certain idle habit of " perpetually lounging about the college-gate," (of which, by the way, Johnson was also accused at Oxford,) and by a boyish love of pleasure and amusement. He sang with considerable taste : he played pass- ably upon the German flute. Both of these accomplishments made him popular with many of his fellows, but they were not those from A Memoir 15 whose ranks the distinguished members of an university are usually recruited. With these characteristics, that he should be associated with the scandals rather than with the successes of an academic career is perhaps to be anticipated. Accordingly, in May, 1747, we find him involved in a college riot. A report had been circulated that a scholar had been arrested in Fleet Street (Dublin). This was an indignity to which no gownsman could possibly submit. Led by a wild fellow called *' Gallows " Walsh, who, among the students, exercised the enviable and self-conferred office of " Controller-General of tumults inordinary," they carried the bailiff's den by storm, stripped the unfortunate wretch who was the chief offen- der, and ducked him soundly in the college cistern. Intoxicated by this triumph and rein- forced by the town mob, they then proceeded to attack the tumble-down old prison known as the " Black Dog/' with a view to a general gaol delivery. But the constable of that for- tress, being k resolute man, well provided with firearms, made a gallant defence, the result being that two of the townsmen were killed and others wounded. Four of the ringleaders in this disastrous affair were expelled. Oliver Goldsmith was not among these ; but having 1 6 Oliver Goldsmith *' aided and abetted," he was, with three others, publicly admonished, ^^ quod seditioni favisset et tumultuantibus op em tulisset.'' From the stigma of this censure, he recovered shortly afterwards by a small success. He tried for a scholarship and failed ; but he gained an exhibition amounting to some thirty shillings. Unhappily this only led to a fresh mishap. His elation prompted him to celebrate his good fortune by an entertainment at his rooms, which, to add to its enormity, included persons of both sexes. No sooner was the unwonted sound of a fiddle heard in the heights of No. 35, than the exasperated Wilder burst upon the assem- bly, dispersing the terrified guests, and, after a torrent of abuse, knocked down the hapless host. The disgrace was overwhelming. Hastily gathering his books together, the poor lad sold them for what they would fetch, and fairly ran away, vaguely bound for America. He loitered, however, in Dublin until his means were re- duced to a shilling, and then set out for Cork. After reaching perilously close to starvation — for he afterwards told Reynolds that a handful of grey peas, given to him at this time by a good-natured girl at a wake, was the most com- fortable repast he had ever made — he recovered his senses, and turned his steps homewards. A Memoir 17 His brother Henry (his father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, having died some three months ear- lier) came halfway to meet and receive him. Ultimately a kind of reconciliation was patched up with his tutor, and he was restored to the arms of his Alma Mater. Henceforth his university life was less event- ful. Wilder still, after his fashion, pursued his pupil with taunts and irony. But, beyond fre- quent *' turnings-down," the college records contain no further evidence of unusual irregu- larity. His pecuniary supplies, always doubt- ful, had become more uncertain since his father's death, and now consisted chiefly of intermittent contributions from kind-hearted Uncle Con- tarine, and other friends. Often he must have been wholly dependent upon petty loans from his schoolmate Beatty, from his cousin Robert Bryanton, from his relative Edward Mills of Roscommon, — all of whom were his contem- poraries at Trinity. Sometimes he was reduced to pawn his books — " mutare quadrata rotundis, like the silly fellow in Horace," — as Wilder classically put it. Another method of making money, to which he occasionally resorted, was ballad-writing of a humble kind. There was a shop at the sign of the Rein-deer in Mountrath Court, where, at five shillings a head, he found a 1 8 Oliver Goldsmith ready market for his productions, and it is related that he would steal out at nightfall to taste that supreme delight of the not-too-experienced poet, the hearing them sung by the wandering min- strels of the Dublin streets. Not seldom, it is to be feared, his warmth of heart prevented even these trivial gains from benefiting him, and like the " machine of pity " which his father had brought him up to be, he had parted with them to some importunate petitioner before he reached his home. Of his inconsiderate charity in this way a ludicrous anecdote is told. Once Edward Mills, coming to summon him to break- fast, was answered from within, that he must burst open the door, as his intended guest was unable to rise. He was, in fact, struggling to extricate himself from the ticking of his bed, into which, in the extreme cold, he had crawled, having surrendered his blankets to a poor wo- man who, on the preceding night, had van- quished him v/ith a pitiful story. On the 27th February, 1749, he was admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and his college days came to an end. One of the relics of this epoch, a/o/io Scapula, scrawled liberally with signatures and " promises to pay," was, in 1837, in the possession of his first biographer. Prior. He also left his autograph on one of the A Memoir 19 panes of No. 35. When, sixty years ago, that row of buildings was pulled down^ this treasure was transferred to the library room of Trinity College, where it remains. But perhaps the most significant memorial of his Dublin life is to be found in a passage from one of his later letters to his brother Henry. "The reasons you have given me for breeding up your son a scholar are judicious and convincing. ... If he be assiduous, and divested of strong passions, (for passions in youth always lead to pleasure,) he may do very well in your college ; for it must be owned, that the industrious poor have good encouragement there, perhaps better than in any other in Europe. But if he has ambition, strong passions, and an exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not send him there, unless you have no other trade for him except your own." ^ 1 Miscellaneous Works^ 1801, i, 55. CHAPTER II Waiting for orders; rejected by the Bishop of Elphin, 175 1; tutor to Mr. Fhnn ; sets out for America, and returns ; letter to his mother ; starts again fruitlessly as a law student ; goes to Edinburgh to study medicine ; becomes a member of the Medical Society there, January 13, 1753; life in Scotland; starts for Paris ; adventures by the way ; arrives at Leyden ; life there; leaves Leyden, February, 1755; travels on foot through Flanders and France ; travelling tutor (?) ; anecdote of Voltaire; further travels; arrives in England, February i, 1756. T^rHEN Oliver Goldsmith assembled his ^ ^ poor belongings, and took his last, and possibly regretful, look at that scrawled signa- ture on the window of No. 35 which was to become so precious a memento to posterity, his prospects were of the most indefinite kind. His father's death had broken up the old home at Lissoy ; and the house itself was now occupied by Mr. Hodson, to whom the land had fallen in consequence of the arrangements made by Charles Goldsmith for endowing his daughter Catherine. Henry Goldsmith was domiciled in the farm at Pallas, serving the curacy of Kil- kenny West, and teaching the village school. A Memoir 21 Mrs. Goldsmith, Oliver's mother, had retired to a little cottage at Ballymahon, and her circum- stances were not such as enabled her to support her son, especially as she had other children. Obviously he must do something, but what ? The church appeared to afford the only practi- cable opening ; and he was urged by his rela- tives and his Uncle Contarine to qualify for orders. To this proposal he had himself strong objections. *'To be obliged to wear a long wig, when he liked a short one, or a black coat, when he generally dressed in brown," — he said afterwards in "The Citizen of the World," — was "a restraint upon his liberty." Perhaps also — to quote a reason he gave in later life for not reading prayers — he "did not think himself good enough." Yet he yielded to the importunity of those about him ; and as he was too young to be ordained, agreed to make the needful preparations. "There is reason to believe," remarks Prior, gravely, " that at this time he followed no systematic plan of study." On the contrary, he seems to have occupied himself in a much more agreeable manner. From Ballymahon he wandered to Lissoy, from Lissoy to Pallas, from Pallas to Uncle Con- tarine's at Roscommon, leading, as Thackeray says, " the life of a buckeen," which is a minor 2 2 Oliver Goldsmith form of " squireen," which again is the diminu- tive of 'squire. In most of its characteristics, his mode of existence must have resembled that of the typical eighteenth-century younger brother, Will Wimble. It was made up largely of journeyings from one house to another, of friendly fetching and carrying, of fishing and otter hunting in the isleted River Inny, of throwing the hammer at neighbouring fairs, of flute playing with his cousin, Jane Contarine, and, lastly, of taking the chair at the convivial meetings held nightly at one George Conway's Inn at Ballymahon. Here he was a triton among the minnows, the delight of horse-doctors and bagmen, and the idol of his former college associate, Bob Bryanton, now of Ballymulvey. In days to come he would recur fondly to this disengaged, irresponsible time. It was of him- self, not Tony Lumpkin, that he was thinking, when he attributed to that unlettered humourist the composition of the excellent drinking song in *' She Stoops to Conquer." It was of him- self, too, that he wrote — though his biographers have ignored the fact — when he makes him de- clare that he " always lov'd Cousin Con's hazel eyes, and her pretty long fingers, that she twists this way and that, over the haspicholls, like a A Memoir 23 parcel of bobbins."^ For who should ^' Cousin Con " be but Jane Contarine ? There was, however, to be little romance of this kind in Oliver's chequered life. *' Cousin Con" in time became Mrs. Lawder, and the inevitable hour at length arrived when the part- ner of her concerts must present himself for ordination to the Right Rev. Dr. Synge, Bishop of Elphin, by whom, sad to say, he was rejected. Whether, as is most probable, he had neglected the preliminary studies, whether the bishop had heard an ill report of his college career, or whether, as Mr. Strean asserted, he com- mitted the solecism of appearing before his examiner in a pair of flaming scarlet breeches, ^ are still debatable questions. The fact remains that he was refused acceptance as a clergyman, and must find a fresh vocation. Uncle Con- tarine, good at need, fitted him with a place as tutor to a gentleman of Roscommon of the name of Flinn. But he speedily, in consequence of the confinement, according to one account, in consequence of a quarrel about cards, accord- ing to another, relinquished this employ ; and, with thirty pounds of savings in his pocket, a circumstance which, to some extent, negatives 1 She Stoops to Conquer, Act iv. 2 Mangin's Essay on Light Readings i8o8, p. 150. 24 Oliver Goldsmith the card story, quitted his mother's house on a good horse, and an uncertain errand. In about six weeks he re-appeared, without money, and having substituted for his roadster a miserable animal which he had christened contemptuously by the name of Fiddleback. His mode of de- parture had been somewhat inconsiderate ; his mode of returning was eminently unsatisfactory, and Mrs. Goldsmith was naturally greatly in- censed. Nor was she in any wise mollified by his simple wonderment that, after all his struggles to get home again, she was not more pleased to see him. His brothers and sisters, however, effected a reconciliation ; and he afterwards wrote to his mother from Pallas a detailed account of his adventures. The letter, of which Prior gives a copy, is believed to be authentic ; but it is more than suspected that romance has coloured the narrative. He had gone to Cork, it says, sold his horse, and taken a passage for America. But the ship sailed without him when he was junketing in the country, and he re- mained in Cork until he had but two guineas left. Thereupon he had invested in '^that generous beast, Fiddleback," and turned Bally- mahonwards with a residuum of five shillings in his pocket, half of which went promptly to a poor woman he met on the road. He then pro- A Memoir 25 ceeded to call upon a college friend, who had often given him one of those warm general in- vitations which are conventionally extended to unlikely visitors. His host turned out to be a miser and a valetudinarian, who shamelessly parodied Bishop Jewel by recommending him to sell his horse, and purchase a stout walking stick.^ While staying with this inhospitable entertainer, he made the acquaintance of a counsellor-at-law in the neighbourhood, " a man of engaging aspect and polite address," who asked him to dinner. " And now, my dear mother," the letter con- cludes, " I found sufficient to reconcile me to all my follies ; for here I spent three whole days. The counsellor had two sweet girls to his daughters, who played enchantingly on the harpischord ; and yet it was but a melancholy pleasure I felt the first time I heard them ; for that being the first time also that either of them had touched the instrument since their mother's death, I saw the tears in silence trickle down their father's cheeks. I every day endeavoured to go away, but every day was pressed and obliged to stay. On my going, the counsellor offered me his purse, with a horse and servant to convey me home ; but the latter I declined, and only took a guinea to bear my necessary ex- 1 Cf. Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, i, 20. 26 Oliver Goldsmith penses on the road." ^ And thus he had arrived at Ballymahon. The next step is thus briefly recounted by his sister, Mrs. Hodson. " His uncle Contarine, who was also reconciled to him, now resolved to send him to the Temple, that he might make the law his profession. But in his way to London, he met at Dublin with a sharper who tempted him to play, and emptied his pockets of fifty pounds, with which he had been furnished for his voyage and journey. He was obliged again to return to his poor mother, whose sorrow at his miscarriages need not be described, and his own distress and disgrace may readily be con- ceived."^ To this Prior adds that the sharper was a Roscommon acquaintance; and that Gold- smith continued some time in Dublin without daring to confess his loss. According to Mrs. Hodson, "he was again forgiven;" but his mother, it appears, declined to receive him, and he took up his abode with his brother Henry. This last arrangement was interrupted by a quarrel, and in all probability most of the remaining time he spent in Ireland was passed with his long-suffering Uncle Contarine. The old flute playing was resumed, and there are 1 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 125. 2 Miscellaneous Works ^ 1801, i, 14. A Memoir 27 traditions that he occupied his leisure in the con- fection of more or less amatory lyrics for his " Cousin Con's " edification. But the time was fast approaching when he was to quit his Irish home for ever. One of his relatives, a certain Dean Gold- smith of Cloyne, whose remarks were regarded in the family as oracular, occasionally visited Mr. Contarine, and this gentleman, struck by something that dropped from his young kinsman, was pleased to declare that he " would make an excellent medical man." This deliverance being considered decisive, another purse was contrib- uted by Oliver's uncle, brother, and sister, and in the autumn of 17^2 he set out once more to seek his elusive fortune. Upon this occasion he reached his destination, which was Edin- burgh. His arrival there was nevertheless distinguished by a characteristic adventure. Having engaged a lodging, he set out at once to view the city, but having omitted to make any inquiries as to the name and locality of his new home, he was unable to find it again, and, but for an accidental meeting with the porter who had carried his baggage, must have begun his stay in Scotland with a fresh misfortune. On January 13, 17^3, he became a member of the Medical Society of Edinburgh, a voluntary 28 Oliver Goldsmith association of the students, and he seems to have attended the lectures of Alexander Monro, the Professor of Anatomy, and of others. But the record of his social qualities, his tale-telling and his singing, is richer than the record of his studies. His first known piece of verse, exclu- sive of the iEsop couplet, is an epigram called "The Clown's Reply," dated "Edinburgh, 1753"; and one or two of his letters to his friends have survived. He was not a willing letter-writer. " An hereditary indolence (I have it from the mother's side) has hitherto prevented my writing to you," he says to Bob Bryanton, " and still prevents my writing at least twenty- five letters more, due to my friends in Ireland. No turnspit-dog gets up into his wheel with more reluctance than I sit down to write ; yet no dog ever loved the roast meat he turns better than I do him I now address."-^ But already he exhibits that delightful narrative ease which distinguishes '' The Citizen of the World," from which the following, with its glimpse of the fair and hapless Duchess of Hamilton, once Miss Elizabeth Gunning, might be an extract : — " We have no such character here as a coquet, but alas I how many envious prudes I ^ Prior's Z^ife, 1837, i, 139-140. A Memoir 29 Some days ago, I walked into my Lord Kil- coubry's [Kirkcudbright's] (don't be surprised, my lord is but a glover ^) when the Duchess of Hamilton (that fair who sacrificed her beauty to her ambition, and her inward peace to a title and gilt equipage) passed by in her chariot ; her battered husband, or more properly, the guardian of her charms, sat by her side. Straight envy began, in the shape of no less than three ladies who sat with me, to find faults in her faultless form. * For my part,' says the first, ' I think, what I always thought, that the Duchess has too much of the red in her complexion.' ' Madam, I am of your opinion,' says the second ; ' I think her face has a palish cast, too much on the delicate order.' * And let me tell you,' added the third lady, whose mouth was puckered up to the size of an issue, ' that the Duchess has fine lips, but she wants a mouth.' At this every lady drew up her mouth as ifgoing to pronounce the letter P."^ One wonders whether Dickens recalled this passage, when he drew that delightful mistress 1 " William Maclellan," says Prior, " who claimed the title, and whose son succeeded in establishing the claim in 1773." 2 Prior's Li/g, 1837, i, 143-4. 30 Oliver Goldsmith of the proprieties, who expatiated upon the inestimable advantages to the feminine lips of habitually pronouncing such words as " prunes " and "prism." In two more letters Goldsmith writes affectionately to his Uncle Contarine of his professors and occupations, of a month's tour in the Highlands on a horse " of about the size of a ram," and so forth. But he is already rest- lessly meditating another move, — he proposes to go to Leyden to attend the lectures of Albinus. From the latter of these two epistles, his uncle's consent has been obtained, and he is preparing to start, not for Leyden but for Paris, " where the great Mr. Farhein, Petit, and Du Hamel du Monceau instruct their pupils in all the branches of medicine." " They speak French " [i. e., in contradistinction to the Latin of other conti- nental professors], he goes on, '' and conse- quently I shall have much the advantage of most of my countrymen, as I am perfectly ac- quainted with that language, and few who leave Ireland are so." '^ From another passage in this letter, he would seem to have been for some time an inmate of, or rather visitor at, the Duke of Hamilton's house, but the allusion is obscure. With these letters, and what of instruction may be extracted from a set of tailor's bills re- 1 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 155. A Memoir 31 covered by Foster, which show that '' Mr. Oliver Goldsmith, Student," was helping to confirm the Elphin story of the red breeches by indulging in such "peacock's feathers" as "silver Hatt- Lace," "rich Sky-Blew sattin/' "Genoa vel- vett," and " best sfine high Clarett-colour'd Cloth " at 19s. a yard,^ the record of his stay in the Scottish capital, as far as it can be chronicled in these pages, comes to an end. But he was not to quit the country, nor indeed to leave Edinburgh^ without further adventures. His departure, according to the Percy Memoir, was all but prevented by his arrest for a debt contracted as surety for a friend. From this bondage, however, he was released by two college associates, Mr. Lauchlan Macleane and Dr. Sleigh. His subsequent experiences must be related in his own words to his Uncle Contarine, written from " Madame Diallion's, at Leyden," a few weeks later. "Sometime after the receipt of your last," he says, " I em- barked for Bourdeaux, on board a Scotch ship called the St. Andrews, Capt. John Wall, master. The ship made a tolerable appearance, and as another inducement, I was let to know that six agreeable passengers were to be in my company. Well, we were but two days at sea when a 1 Forster's Life, 1877, i, 52. 32 Oliver Goldsmith storm drove us into a city of England called Newcastle-upon-Tyne. We all went a-shore to refresh us after the fatigue of our voyage. Seven men and I were one day on shore, and on the following evening as we were all very merry, the room door bursts open : enters a Serjeant and twelve grenadiers with their bayo- nets screwed : and puts us all under the King's arrest. It seems my company were Scotchmen in the French service, and had been in Scotland to enlist soldiers for the French army. I en- deavoured all I could to prove my innocence ; however, I remained in prison with the rest a fortnight, and with difficulty got off even then. Dear Sir, keep all this a secret, or at least say it was for debt ; for if it were once known at the university, I should hardly get a degree. But hear how Providence interposed in my favour : the ship was gone on to Bourdeaux before I got from prison, and was wrecked at the mouth of the Garonne, and every one of the crew were drowned. It happened the last great storm. There was a ship at that time ready for Holland : I embarked, and in nine days, thank my God, I arrived safe at Rotterdam ; whence I travelled by land to Leyden ; and whence I now write." ^ As usual, a certain allowance must be made in 1 Miscellaneous Works, 1801, i, z^-S. A Memoir 33 this account for picturesque decoration. In the remainder of the letter he touches humourously on the contrast between the Dutch about him and the Scotch he has just left ; describes the phlegmatic pleasures of the country, the ice- boats, and the delights of canal travelling. " They sail in covered boats drawn by horses," he says; "and in these you are sure to meet people of all nations. Here the Dutch slumber, the French chatter, and the English play at cards. Any man who likes company may have them to his taste. For my part, I generally detached myself from all society, and was wholly taken up in observing the face of the country. Nothing can equal its beauty ; wherever I turn my eye, fine houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottos, vistas presented themselves ; but when you enter their towns you are charmed beyond descrip- tion. No misery is to be seen here; every one is usefully employed." ^ Already, it is plain, he was insensibly storing up material for the subse- quent '' Traveller." But the actual occurrences of his life are, for the moment, more urgent than his impressions of Holland. Little is known, in the way of fact, as to his residence at Leyden. Gaubius, the professor of chemistry, is indeed mentioned in ^ Miscellaneous Works^ l8oi, i, 31. 3 34 Oliver Goldsmith one of his works ; but it would be too much to conclude an intimacy from a chance reference. From the account of a fellow-countryman, Dr. Ellis, then a student like himself, he was, as always, frequently pressed for money, often supporting himself by teaching his native lan- guage, and now and then, in the hope of recruit- ing his finances, resorting to the gaming-table. On one occasion, according to this informant, he had a successful run ; but, disregarding the advice of his friend to hold his hand, he lost his gains almost immediately. By and by the old restless longing to see foreign countries, prob- ably dating from the days when he was a pupil under Thomas Byrne, came back with redoubled force. The recent death of the Danish savant and playwright, Baron de Holberg, who in his youth had made the tour of Europe on foot, probably suggested the way ; and equipped with a small loan from Dr. Ellis, he determined to leave Leyden. Unhappily, in passing a florist's, he saw some rare bulbs, which he straightway transmitted to his Uncle Contarine. His imme- diate resources being thus disposed of, he quitted Leyden in February, 17^5, '' with only one clean shirt, and no money in his pocket." ^ His exact itinerary, once given verbally to Dr. 1 Miscellaneous Works, 1801, i, 34. A Memoir 35 Percy, is now undiscoverable. No letters of this date are known to exist. That he travelled on foot is clear. " Hand inexpertus loquor,'' he said later, when praising this method of locomo- tion ; "and Cook, who wrote of him in The European Magazine for 1793, says he would often "with great pleasantry," speak "of his distresses on the Continent, such as living on the hospitalities of the friars in convents, sleep- ing in barns, and picking up a kind of mendicant livelihood by the German flute." " I had some knowledge of music " — says George Primrose in the " Vicar" — " with a tolerable voice, and now turned what was once my amusement into a present means of bare subsistence. I passed among the harmless peasants of Flanders, and among such of the French as are poor enough to be very merry ; for I ever found them sprightly in proportion to their wants. Whenever I ap- proached a peasant's house towards nightfall, I played one of my most merry tunes, and that procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next day. I once or twice attempted to play for people of fashion ; but they still thought my performance odious, and never rewarded me even with a trifle."^ For George Primrose we may read Oliver Goldsmith. ^ 1 Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, ii, 24-5. 36 Oliver Goldsmith Louvain seems to have been his first tarrying place ; and here, tradition affirms, he obtained that '^ authority to slay," the degree of M.B., later appended to his name. But the records of the University of Louvain were lost in the v^^ars of the Revolution, and the statement cannot be verified. There are indications of his having been at Antwerp, at Brussels, and at Maestricht. His musical performances in France have already been referred to. At Paris he attended the chemical lectures of Lavoisier's master, the famous Guillaume-Franpois Rouelle, for, in the " Polite Learning," he expressly speaks of the number of ladies in the audience.-^ His means of subsistence at this time are involved in ob- scurity. It has been asserted, although direct evidence is wanting, that he acted as tutor or governor to an exceedingly miserly young man of the middle classes ; and there are passages in George Primrose's after-experiences, which lend colour to such a view. '* I was to be the young gentleman's governor, with this injunction, that he should always be permitted to direct him- self. My pupil in fact understood the art of guiding in money concerns much better than me. He was heir to a fortune of about two hundred thousand pounds, left him by an uncle in the 1 An Enquiry, etc., 1759, p. 103. A Memoir 37 West Indies ; and his guardians, to qualify him for the management of it, had bound him ap- prentice to an attorney. Thus avarice was his prevailing passion : all his questions on the road were how much money could be saved. . . . Such curiosities on the way as could be seen for noth- ing, he was ready enough to look at ; but if the sight was to be paid for, he usually asserted that he had been told it was not worth seeing. He never paid a bill, that he would not observe, how amazingly expensive travelling was." ^ But whether this is autobiographical, or not, Gold- smith must, in some way or other, have procured money, since without it, he could not have gone to the play, and seen the famous Mdlle. Clairon, of whom he afterwards wrote so sympathetically in The Bee. From the French capital he passed to Germany; thence to Switzerland. It is at Geneva — at Voltaire's recently purchased resi- dence of ^' Les Ddices " — that Mr. Forster conjecturally places an incident which Gold- smith afterwards described in his memoirs of the philosopher of Ferney. ' ' The person who writes this Memoir," he says, '* who had the honour and pleasure of being his [Voltaire's] acquaintance, remembers to have seen him in a select company of wits of both sexes at Paris, when the subject 1 Vicar of Wakefieldy 1766, ii, 29, 30. 38 Oliver Goldsmith happened to turn upon English taste and learn- ing. Fontenelie, who was of the party, and who being unacquainted with the language or authors of the country he undertook to condemn, with a spirit truly vulgar began to revile both. Diderot, who liked the English, and knew some- thing of their literary pretensions, attempted to vindicate their poetry and learning, but with un- equal abilities. The company quickly perceived that Fontenelie was superior in the dispute, and were surprised at the silence which Voltaire had preserved all the former part of the night, par- ticularly as the conversation happened to turn upon one of his favourite topics. Fontenelie continued his triumph till about twelve o'clock, when Voltaire appeared at last roused from his reverie. His whole frame seemed animated. He began his defence with the utmost elegance mixed with spirit, and now and then let fall the finest strokes of raillery upon his antagonist ; and his harangue lasted till three in the morning. I must confess that, whether from national par- tiality, or from the elegant sensibility of his man- ner, I never was so much charmed, nor did I ever remember so absolute a victory as he gained in this dispute." ^ Goldsmith, it will be seen, places this occurrence at Paris, and, as one of his later 1 Gibbs's Goldsmith's Works, 1885, iv, 24, 25. A Memoir 39 editors, Mr. Gibbs, pertinently enough points out, the transference of the scene to " Les D61ices " involves the not very explicable pres- ence in Switzerland of Diderot and Fontenelle, to say nothing of the " select company of wits of both sexes." But these discrepancies, due to haste, to confusion, or perhaps to the habit, already referred to, of "loading" his narrative, do not make it necessary to conclude that Gold- smith had not seen and heard Voltaire. In Switzerland Goldsmith remained some time, chiefly at Geneva, visiting from thence Basle, Berne, and other places. He speaks, in the " Animated Nature," of woodcocks flushed on Mount Jura, of a frozen cataract seen at Schaff- hausen, of a "very savoury dinner " eaten on the Alps. Later, he passed into Piedmont, and makes reference to its floating bee-houses. Florence, Verona, Mantua, Milan, Venice, were next journeyed to, and Padua, for which city is also claimed the credit of his medical degree.-^ In Italy, where every peasant was a musician, his flute had lost its charm, and he seems to have subsisted, if we again accept him as the prototype of George Primrose, chiefly by disputation. " In all the foreign universities 1 It is now known that he did not obtain it there {Aihenceum, 21 July, 1894). 40 Oliver Goldsmith and convents, there are upon certain days philo- sophical theses maintained against every adven- titious disputant ; for which, if the champion opposes with any dexterity, he can claim a gratu- ity in money, a dinner, and a bed for one night." -^ Thus he fought his way from city to city until, at the end of 1755, he turned his steps home- wards. On the I St of February, 1756, he landed at Dover, *' his whole stock of cash," says Wil- liam Glover, "amounting to no more than a few half-pence."^ His wanderings had occupied exactly one year." 1 Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, ii, 31. 2 Life prefixed to Poems and Flays, ITJT, p. iv. This Life is based upon " Anecdotes of the late Dr. Goldsmith/* Annual Register, 1774, pp. 29-34, by " G." CHAPTER III Prospect and retrospect; first struggles on reaching England; comedian, apothecary's journeyman, poor physician, press- corrector to Richardson; writes a tragedy; projects of East- ern exploration; assistant at PecJcham Academy; miseries of an usher ; Peckham memories ; bound to Griffiths the book- seller, April, 1757; literature of all work; criticism of Gray; quarrels with Griffiths; "Memoirs of a Protestant" pub- lished, February, 1758; returns to Peckham; new hopes; meditating "Enquiry into Polite Learning;" letters to Mills, Bryanton, Mrs. Lawder (Jane Contarine) ; obtains and loses appointment as medical officer at Coromandel ; rejected at Surgeons' Hall as a hospital mate, December 21, 1758. A T the time of Goldsmith's second arrival in •^"^ England, for, as will be remembered, he had already paid an unpremeditated visit to Newcastle a year earlier, his previous career could certainly not be described as a success. If his schooldays had been but moderately prom- ising, his college life might almost be called discreditable. He had tried many things and failed. He had estranged his sole remaining parent ; he had sorely taxed the patience of the rest of his relations ; and he had, latterly, been living as a wanderer on the face of the earth. 42 Oliver Goldsmith This was his record in the past. And yet, read by the light of his subsequent story, he had un- consciously gone through a course of training, and accumulated a stock of experience, of which little or nothing was to be lost. He had looked at sorrow close, and learned to sympathise with poverty ; he had known men and cities ; he had studied character in its undress. If he had prof- ited but slenderly by the precepts of Gaubius and Albinus, his " education through the senses" had been progressing as silently and as surely as the fame of Marcellus. What he had seen of foreign countries was to stand him in good stead in his first long poem ; what he had collected concerning professors and academies he would weave into the " Enquiry into Polite Learning in Europe " ; what he had observed in the byway and the crowd would supply him with endless touches of shrewd and delicate discrimination in his *' Essays" and his *' Citizen of the World." And somehow, he had already, as his letters testify, acquired that easy and perspicuous style of writing, which comes to few men as a gift. Who shall say, then, that his life had been a fail- ure, when, in its assimilative period, so much had been achieved? Meanwhile, he had landed at Dover, and the world was all before him where to choose. A Memoir 43 The close connection between his works and his biography, added to the habit of regarding the adventures of his " Philosophic Vagabond " as an exact transcript of his own experiences, has occasionally led to the including, in that biography, of some incidents which may have no other basis than his fictions. Thus, either from his subsequent account, in The British Magazine, of the vicissitudes of a strolling player, or from the theatrical attempts of George Primrose in the " Vicar," it has been asserted that his first endeavour at what he somewhere calls "his sole ambition, a livelihood," was as a low comedian in a barn — an assertion which has been thought to receive some slender con- firmation from the fact that he is known to have expressed a desire in later life to play the part of " Scrub " in Farquhar's " Beaux' Stratagem." Another vaguely reported story represents him as engaged for some time as usher at a provin- cial school, under a feigned name : and that his difficulties, during this period, were extreme, may be gathered from the oft-quoted, but per- haps humourously-exaggerated, announcement, attributed to him in his more prosperous days, that he had once lived "among the beggars in Axe-Lane." In any case he must have been sorely pressed, and depressed. " I was without 44 Oliver Goldsmith friends, recommendations, money, or impu- dence," he says to his brother-in-law Hodson, writing of this time; ** and that in a country where being born an Irishman was sufficient to keep me unemployed. Many in such circum- stances would have had recourse to the friar's cord, or the suicide's halter. But, with all my follies, I had principle to resist the one, and resolution to combat the other." ^ His first definite employment seems to have been that of assistant to an apothecary named Jacob on Fish Street Hill, who had been attracted by his chemical knowledge, and pitied his forlorn con- dition. While he was acting in this capacity, he heard that his quondam college friend. Dr. Sleigh, already referred to in chapter ii., was in London, and he accordingly sought him out. *' Notwithstanding it was Sunday," said poor Goldsmith to Cook, " and it is to be supposed in my best clothes. Sleigh scarcely knew me — such is the tax the unfortunate pay to poverty — however, when he did recollect me, I found his heart as warm as ever, and he shared his purse and friendship with me during his continuance in London." By the kindness of Dr. Sleigh, and some others friends, he was freed from the pestle and 1 Miscellaneous Works, 1801, i, 41. A Memoir 45 mortar, and established himself as *'a physician in a humble way" in Bankside, Southwark, where, if anywhere, he must have made the acquaintance of that worshipful Madame Blaize, whom, three years later, he celebrated in The Bee. " Kent Street," he sings — " well may say That had she lived a twelvemonth more She had not died to-day ; " and Kent Street, then sacred to beggars and broom men, traverses Southwark.^ His old schoolmate, Beatty, who saw him about this time, described him as conventionally costumed in tarnished green and gold, but with a " shirt and neckcloth which appeared to have been worn at least a fortnight. He said he was prac- tising physic, and doing very well."^ Another story, told or repeated by Reynolds, also relates to the — in Goldsmith's life — always important item of attire. " In conformity to the prevail- ing garb of the day for physicians," says Prior, " Goldsmith, unable probably to obtain a new, had procured a second-hand, velvet coat ; but either from being deceived in the bargain or by subsequent accident, a considerable breach in the left breast was obliged to be repaired by 1 It is now called Tabard Street 2 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 215. 46 Oliver Goldsmith the introduction of a new piece. This had not been so neatly done, as not to be apparent to the close observation of his acquaintance, and such persons as he visited in the capacity of medical attendant : willing, therefore, to con- ceal what is considered too obvious a symp- tom of poverty, he was accustomed to place his hat over the patch, and retain it there carefully during the visit; but this constant posi- tion becoming noticed, and the cause being soon known, occasioned no little merriment at his expense." ^ His statement to Beatty, quoted above, that he was prospering, was, in all probability, what he himself would have described as " a bounce." His patients were of the poorest class, and the neighbourhood in which he '^practised physic" one of the least opulent in London. Hence he soon drifted into new employment. Rumour affirms that, through one of his humble patients, a working printer, he made the acquaintance of the author of " Clarissa," Samuel Richardson, whose shop was in Salisbary Court, and that he acted for him as corrector to the press. This quasi-literary occupation must have revived or stimulated his leaning to authorship ; for when, about this time, he called upon another Edin- 1 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 215-6. A Memoir 47 burgh acquaintance, he had exchanged his tar- nished gold and green for "a rusty full-trimmed black suit," the pockets of which were crammed with papers, suggesting " the poet in Garrick's farce of ' Lethe.' " To complete the resem- blance, he speedily produced a tragedy, which he insisted upon reading, hastily blotting out everything to which his listener offered the faintest objection. At last he let out that he had already submitted it to Richardson, upon which his friend, doubtful of his own critical abilities, and alarmed for the possible fate of a masterpiece, " peremptorily declined offering another criticism upon the performance," the very name and subject of which have perished, like those of the comedy Steele burned at Oxford in deference to the objections of Mr. Parker. As usual, Goldsmith was brimful of projects, one of which was to start there and then for the East in order to decipher the in- scriptions on the Wady Mekatteb and the Djebal Serbal. For this a salary of ;^300 per annum had been left by an enthusiast ; and nothing was needful but the knowledge of Arabic — a mere '^unconsidered trifle" that could easily be picked up on the road. The famous " Written Mountains," how- 1 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 212-3. 48 Oliver Goldsmith ever, were not to be his destination. Another of his old Edinburgh class-fellows — and it is noteworthy that there were so many who seem to have remembered and befriended him — was the son of Dr. Milner, a Presbysterian minister and schoolmaster at Peckham. Dr. Milner was in failing health, and his son suggested that Goldsmith should, for the time, act as his assistant. Whether the sarcastic comments upon the miseries of an usher's position, to which he gives vent in The Bee, the " Vicar," and elsewhere, are referable to this period, or to some less fortunate experiences, is still unchronicled. But there is certainly a touch of something more than a merely dramatic utterance in the phrases of George Primrose : '' I have been an usher at a boarding-school myself ; and may I die by an anodyne necklace, ^ but I had rather be an under turnkey in New- gate. I was up early and late : I was brow- beat by the master, hated for my ugly face by the mistress, worried by the boys within, and never permitted to stir out to meet civility abroad."^ "Every trick," he says again in 1 That is, by a halter, for which, by extension, the name of the old quack remedy for the pains of teething was employed. 2 p-'icar of Wakefield, 1766, ii, 3-4. A Memoir 49 No. vi. of Thz Bee, " is played upon the usher ; the oddity of his manners,, his dress, or his lan- guage, are [is] a fund of eternal ridicule ; the master himself now and then cannot avoid join- ing in the laugh, and the poor wretch, eternally resenting this ill-usage, seems to live in a state of war with all the family." At other times, says the " Percy Memoir," he would describe the malodorous privileges of sleeping in the same bed with the French teacher, who spends " every night an hour perhaps in papering and filleting his hair, and stinks worse than a carrion, with his rancid pomatums, when he lays his head beside him on his bolster." ^ But if these indig- nities lingered in his mind, (and the passages in The Bee must have been written very shortly after his Peckham experiences), he can have discovered little of his annoyance to those about him, who seem to have recollected him chiefly by his improvidence, — a characteristic so manifest that Mrs. Milner is said to have suggested that she should take care of his money like that of the young gentlemen, — his good-nature, his cheerfulness, his playing upon the flute to his pupils, and his practical jokes upon William the foot-boy. Such, at all events, is the impression left by the reminiscences of the last of the ten 1 Miscellaneous Works^ i8oi, i, 39. 4 50 Oliver Goldsmith Miss Milners who survived until the close of the century to enlighten curious inquirers con- cerning her father's famous assistant. The limits of this volume do not permit the reproduc- tion of Goldsmith's tricks upon the unsuspecting William, who must certainly have been a gull of the first order ; but two incidents of these days may be recorded, because they illustrate the permanent side of Goldsmith's nature. According to tradition, it occurred to Miss Hester Milner who, it must be remembered, was the daughter of a minister, to inquire what particular commentator on the Scriptures he would recommend, upon which he replied, after a pause, and with much earnestness, that in his belief the best commentator was common-sense. The other anecdote, which Prior derived from the son of one of the boys who was present, is allied to those earlier ones which exhibit his char- acter in its more vulnerable aspect. Playing the flute one day to his pupils, he paused for a mo- ment to expatiate upon the advantages of music as a gentlemanlike acquirement. " A pert boy, looking at his situation and personal disadvan- tages with something of contempt, rudely replied to the effect that he surely could not consider himself a gentleman ; an offence which, though followed by instant chastisement, disconcerted A Memoir 51 and pained him extremely." ^ It was probably owing to slights of this kind that, although he left so satisfactory an impression behind him, he always looked back to the days of this servitude with unusual bitterness. He would talk freely of his distresses and difficulties. Cook tells us, but he always carefully avoided the " little story of Peckham school." His stay there, however, can have been but brief. Miss Milner, indeed, talked of a three years' residence ; but, if Forster be right in fix- ing his entry upon his duties at " about the beginning of 17^7," it could scarcely have ex- ceeded three months, as it is possible to fix definitely the termination of the engagement. Dr. Milner was a dabbler in literature, and a contributor to The Monthly Review^ which, a few years earlier, had been established by Griffiths the bookseller. Griffiths was thus an occasional visitor at Peckham, and, struck by some remark on the part of the usher, he called him aside and inquired whether he could furnish '' a few specimens of criticism." These, when prepared, were so satisfactory, that an agree- ment was entered into in April by which Gold- smith was to be released from Peckham, to have a fixed salary, — qualified indifferently by 1 Prior's Life, 1S37, i, 21S-9. 52 Oliver Goldsmith Percy as " handsome," by Prior as " adequate," and by Forster as "small," — and to prepare copy-of-all-work for his master's periodical. Griffiths' shop was in Paternoster Row — *' at the Sign of the Dunciad." Most of the mere paste-and-scissors work of the magazine was done by the bookseller himself, the criti- cisms being supplied by a staif which included several contemporary writers of minor rank. Ruffhead, who wrote a life of Pope, Kippis, of the " Biographia Britannica," James Grainger, afterwards the poet of '' The Sugar Cane,*' and Langhorne, one of the translators of Plutarch's *' Lives," were amongst these, to whose number Goldsmith must now be added. In Griffiths' copy of the review for this period, which once belonged to Richard Heber, his new assistant's articles were marked, so that it is possible to form some idea of the very miscellaneous nature of his duties. He reviewed the ^* Mythology and Poetry of the Celtes," by Mallet of Copenhagen ; he reviewed Home's " Douglas " and Burke " On the Sublime and Beautiful ; " he reviewed the new " History of England" by Smollett and tea-hating old Jonas Hanway's " Eight Days' Journey from Portsmouth to Kingston-upon-Thames." '* Letters from an Armenian in Ireland, to his Friends at Trebi- A Memoir 53 sonde" — concerning which it is quite compe- tent for any one to assert that they suggested the subsequent " Citizen of the World/' were it not that such collections appear to have been in the air at the time — a translation of Cardinal Poli- gnac's "Anti-Lucretius," Wilkie's " Epigoniad," and the " Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon," are also among the heterogeneous list. One of the last of his efforts for the review was a notice of Gray's " Odes," which Dodsley had just published in a shilling quarto. It is interesting, because it shows how, in his long probation, his taste had gradually been formed. He admitted Gray's genius ; he admitted his exquisite verbal felicities ; but he regretted his remoteness, and his want of emotion, and he gave him the advice of Isocrates to his scholars, — to " study the people." Counsel from the back-parlour of the " Dunciad" to the cloistered precinct of Pembroke College was not likely to be much regarded, even if it reached that sanctuary of culture ; but the fact illustrates the difference between Gray and the writer of whom he was afterwards to say, " This man is a poet." Goldsmith's criticism of Gray appeared in Thz Monthly Review for September, 1757, and at this point his labours for Griffiths were inter- rupted. The reasons for this are obscure ; but 54 Oliver Goldsmith incompatibility of temper may probably stand for all of them. It is not unlikely that Goldsmith's ways were too desultory and uncertain to suit an employer with confirmed business habits, and a low standard of literary excellence ; while Goldsmith, on his side, complained that the bookseller and his wife (who assisted him) not only denied him the requisite comforts, but edited and manipulated his articles, — always a thing intolerable to the possessor of an in- dividual style. Style, however, was little to honest Griffiths, who doubtless thought, not without some reason, that he knew better what he wanted than the unknown Peckham usher whom he had introduced into the world of let- ters. So Griffiths and his assistant dissolved their compact, the latter to live for the next few months, no one quite knows how, by miscel- laneous practice of the pen.^ His brother Charles, attracted from Ireland by some romanc- ing phrases in one of his elder's letters about his illustrious friends, visited him unexpectedly at the end of 17^7. To his disappointment, 1 Mr. J. W. M. Gibbs (Goldsmith's "Works," Bell's edition, vol. v.) has discovered that some parts of " A His- tory of the Seven Years' War," hitherto supposed to have been written in 1761, were published in The Literary Magazine, 1757-8. A Memoir 55 he found him in a squalid garret near Salisbury Square, and promptly recognising the improba- bility of help in this direction, vanished as suddenly as he came. But if there is uncertainty as to Goldsmith's general occupations at this time, there is one work upon which, either during his bondage in Paternoster Row, or immediately after, he must have been engaged. This was a translation of the remarkable Memoirs of Jean Marteilhe of Bergerac, which Griffiths and Dilly published in February, 17^8, under the title of " Memoirs of a Protestant Condemned to the Galleys of France, for His Religion." The book, it is true, " from prudential motives " now no longer very intelligible, bears the name of James Willington, an old class-fellow of Goldsmith at Trinity College. But Griffiths, according to Prior, acknowledged that the translator was Goldsmith himself.^ Indeed, it is not impos- sible that Goldsmith may have seen Marteilhe, who died at Cuylenberg as late as 1777, and, who, the preface expressly says, was, at the time of writing, " known to numbers, not only in Holland but London." Of late years the ^ This is now established. See " Marteilhe's * Me- moirs,' " in the Miscellanies of the present author, 1898, pp. 306-25. 56 Oliver Goldsmith Religious Tract Society has issued a some- what exacter version of this moving record, surely one of the most forcible pictures of the miseries ensuing upon the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes that has ever been penned, and not wholly undeserving the praise accorded to it by Michelet of seeming to have been '^written as if between earth and heaven." Nor, despite certain apologetic passages in the translator's preface, can it be held to be seri- ously deficient in romantic interest. The epi- sode of Goujon, the young cadet of the regiment of Aubesson, and the disastrous development of his love-story, might furnish ample material for one of Dumas' most stirring chapters. By the time, however, that the '^Memoirs of a Protestant" had appeared, Goldsmith had deserted his garret near Salisbury Square, and gone back to help Dr. Milner at Peckham. Here, at least, he found a home, added to which, his old master had promised to en- deavour to procure for him a medical appoint- ment in India. With a view to the necessary outfit, he seems to have set about what was to be his first original work, and his letters to his friends in Ireland, of which several written at this time were printed by Prior and Percy, are plainly prompted by the desire to obtain A Memoir 57 subscribers. He is going to publish a book in London, he says to Edward Mills, ^' entitled An Essay on the Present State of Taste and Literature in Europe," and he goes on to beg him to circulate proposals for the same. To like effect he writes to Robert Bryanton, and to Jane Contarine, now Mrs. Lawder. These letters are excellent specimens of his epistolary gift. All written within a few days of each other, they are skilfully discriminate in their variation of style. To Mills, who, by the way, never answered his appeal, he is most formal ; he is addressing the rich relation, the well-to-do ** squireen," who had patronised him at college. *M have often," he says, "let my fancy loose when you were the subject, and have imagined you gracing the bench, or thundering at the bar; while I have taken no small pride to myself, and whispered all that I could come near, that this was my cousin. Instead of this, it seems you are contented to be merely an happy man ; to be esteemed only by your acquaintance — to cultivate your paternal acres — to take unmo- lested a nap under one of your own hawthorns, or in Mrs. Mills' bed-chamber, which, even a poet must confess, is rather the most [more] comfortable place of the two."^ Already, it 1 Miscellaneous Works, 1801, i, 50-i. 58 Oliver Goldsmith will be seen, he speaks of himself as a " poet." To Bryanton he writes with the freedom of an ancient boon companion at the Three Pigeons, runs over their old experiences, deplores their enforced separation, and draws a half-humourous, half-bitter picture of his own neglected merits. " There will come a day," he says, " no doubt it will — I beg you may live a couple of hundred years longer only to see the day — when the Scaligers and Daciers will vindicate my charac- ter, give learned editions of my labours, and bless the times with copious comments on the text. You shall see how they will fish up the heavy scoundrels who disregard me now, or will then offer to cavil at my productions. How will they bewail the time that suffered so much genius to be neglected. If ever my works find theirwayto Tartary or China, I know the conse- quence. Suppose one of your Chinese Owano- witzers instructing one of your Tartarian Chianobacchi — you see I use Chinese names to show my own erudition, as I shall soon make our Chinese talk like an Englishman to show his. This may be the subject of the lecture : — " ' Oliver Goldsmith flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He lived to be an hundred and three years old, [and in A Memoir 59 that] age may justly be styled the sun of [litera- ture] and the Confucius of Europe. [Many of his earlier writings to the regret of the] learned world were anonymous, and have probably been lost, because united with those of others. The first avowed piece the world has of his is en- titled an " Essay on the Present State of Taste and Literature in Europe," — a work well worth its weight in diamonds. In this he profoundly explains what learning is, and what learning is not. In this he proves that blockheads are not men of wit, and yet that men of wit are actually blockheads.'" And then — not " to tire his Chinese Philoso- pher," of whom, two or three years hence, we shall hear more in The Public Ledger — he " lights down, as the boys say, to see himself on horse-back," and where is he ? " Here in a garret writing for bread, and expecting to be dunned for a milk-score."^ The letter to Mrs Lawder — Cousin Con. of the harpsichords — is in a different strain from the two others. Half playful, half respectful, it is at the same time more personal and confiden- 1 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 266-7. The words between square brackets were supplied by Prior, the original manuscript being, in these places, worn by age. 6o Oliver Goldsmith tial. After explaining his long silence by his fears that his letters might be attributed to wrong motives — that is to say, to petitions for money — he goes on : — " Those who know me at all, know that I have always been actuated by different principles from the rest of Mankind, and while none regarded the interests of his friends more, no man on earth regarded his own less. I have often affected bluntness to avoid the imputation of flattery, have frequently seem'd to overlook those merits, too obvious to escape notice, and pretended disregard to those instances of good nature and good sense which I could not fail tacitly to applaud ; and all this lest I should be rank'd among the grinning tribe who say very true to all that is said, who fill a vacant chair at a tea table whose narrow souls never moved in a wider circle than the circumference of a guinea, and who had rather be reckoning the money in your pocket than the virtues of your breast ; all this, I say, I have done and a thousand other very silly tho' very disinterested things in my time, and for all which no soul cares a farthing about me. . . . Madam, is it to be wondered that he should once in his life forget you who has been all his life forgetting himself? A Memoir 6i ** However it is probable you may one of these days see me turn'd into a perfect Hunks and as dark and intricate as a mouse-hole. I have already given my Lanlady orders for an entire reform in the state of my finances ; I declaim against hot suppers, drink less sugar in my tea, and cheek my grate with brick-bats. Instead of hanging my room with pictures I in- tend to adorn it with maxims of frugality, these will make pretty furniture enough, and won't be a bit too expensive ; for I shall draw them all out with my own hands and my lanlady's daughter shall frame them with the parings of my black waistcoat ; Each maxim is to be in- scribed on a sheet of clean paper and wrote with my best pen, of which the following will serve as a specimen. * Look Sharp. Mind the mean chance. Money is money now. If you have a thousand pounds you can put your hands by your sides and say you are worth a thousand pounds every day of the year. Take a farthing from an hundred pound and it will be an hun- dred pound no longer.' Thus which way so ever I turn my eyes they are sure to meet one of those friendly Monitors, and as we are told of an Actor ^ who hung his room round with look- ^ /. ^., Thomas Sheridan, the father of the author of « The School for Scandal." 62 Oliver Goldsmith ing-glasses to correct the defects of his person, my appartment shall be furnishd in a peculiar manner to correct the errors of my mind. ''Faith, Madam, I heartily wish to be rich, if it were only for this reason, to say without a blush how much I esteem you, but alass I have many a fatigue to encounter before that happy time comes ; when your poor old simple friend may again give a loose to the luxuriance of his nature, sitting by Kilmore fireside recount the various adventures of an hard fought life, laugh over the follies of the day, join his flute to your harpsicord and forget that ever he starved in those streets where Butler and Otway starved before him." ^ ^ And so, with a pathetic reference to his kind Uncle Contarine, now lapsed into "second childishness and mere oblivion," he winds into the business of his letter — the solicitation of subscriptions for the forthcoming book. Three months after the date of this epistle the long-desired appointment has come, and he describes it to his brother-in-law Hodson. He is going in quality of physician and surgeon to a factory on the Coast of Coromandel. The ^ This extract is printed textually from zfacsi?nile of the original letter in Griffin's " Works of Oliver Gold- smith," 1858. A Memoir 6:^ Company have signed the warrant, which has already cost £io, and there will be other heavy expenses for passage and outfit. The salary of ;^ioo, it is true, is only trifling. Still the practice of the place (if he is rightly in- formed), " generally amounts to not less than ;^i,ooo per annum, for which the appointed physician has an exclusive privilege." An East India exile, however, was not to be his fate. Why the project, with its executed warrant, and boundless potentialities, came to nothing, his biographers have failed to discover, nor did he himself ever reveal the reason. But in the absence of information upon this point, there is definite evidence upon another. In December of the same year, 1758, he presented himself at Surgeons' Hall to be examined for the humble office of hospital mate. The curt official record in the College books, first made public by Prior, ^ runs as follows: — " James Bernard, mate to an hospital. Oliver Goldsmith, found not qualified for ditto." 1 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 282. CHAPTER IV Pen-portrait of Goldsmith in 1759 ; No. 12, Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey; difficulties with Griffiths; writing " Memoirs of Voltaire;" letter to Henry Goldsmith, February, 1759; visit from Dr. Percy, March; "Enquiry into Polite Learning" published, April 2 ; account of that book ; its reception ; con- tributions to The Busy Body, and The Lady''s Magazine ; The Bee, October to November; its reference to Johnson; mmor verse. T)Y this date Goldsmith had passed that crit- ^ ical time of life, after which, according to a depressing French axiom, whose falsity he was to demonstrate, no man that has hitherto failed can hope to succeed. His thirtieth birthday had gone by. In a letter written not many weeks after the disaster which closed the foregoing chapter, he gives a description of his appear- ance at the beginning of 17^9. "Though I never had a day's sickness since I saw you, yet I am not that strong active man you once knew me. You scarcely can conceive how much eight years of disappointment, anguish, and study have worn me down. . . . Imagine to yourself a pale melancholy visage, with two A Memoir 65 great wrinkles between the eye-brows, with an eye disgustingly severe, and a big wig; and you may have a perfect picture of my present appearance. ... I have passed my days among a parcel of cool designing beings, and have con- tracted all their suspicious manner in my own behaviour. I should actually be as unfit for the society of my friends at home, as I detest that which I am obliged to partake of here. ... I can neither laugh nor drink, have contracted an hesitating disagreeable manner of speaking, and a visage that looks ill-nature itself; in short, I have thought myself into a settled melancholy, and an utter disgust of all that life brings with it." ^ That this picture is strongly coloured by the depression of the moment is manifest. " Never," says Percy, commenting upon part of it, " was a character so unsuspicious and so unguarded as the writer's." ^ But the life he had led was not calculated to soften his manners or modify his physical disadvantages. About the end of 17^8, — and probably, as Mr. Forster conjectures, with part of the money he had received for some articles in The Critical Review of Griffiths' rival, Hamilton, — Gold- smith had moved from his Salisbury Square 1 Miscellaneous Works, i8oi, i, 54-5. 2 lb., p. 84, note. 5 66 Oliver Goldsmith garret into his now historic lodgings in Green Arbour Court. Green Arbour Court was a tiny square, which extended from the upper end of the Old Bailey into Sea-coal Lane, and was approached on that side by a steep flight of stone stairs (of which Ned Ward has chronicled the dangers) called Breakneck Steps. When Washington Irving visited it, before its demo- lition, he described it as a region of washer- women, consisting of "tall and miserable houses, the very intestines of which seemed turned in- side out, to judge from the old garments and frippery that fluttered from every window." ^ In The European Ma^a^m^ for January, 1803, the reader may see a contemporary print of the place, still to be identified on ancient maps of London. Goldsmith's room was on the first floor at No. 12; and here, solaced by the hu- mours of a friendly watchmaker, or recreating the ragged infantry of the neighbourhood with his flute, working busily in the daytime, and creeping out stealthily at nightfall, he made his home from 1758 until the end of 1760. The first months of his residence were signal- ised by one of those untoward incidents, which are always a difficulty to the hero-worshipping biographer. In order to make a decent appear- 1 Oliver Goldsmith ; a Biography, 1844, pp. 115-6. A Memoir 67 ance before the Court of Examiners at Surgeons* Hall, he had applied to Griffiths to become se- curity with a tailor for a suit of clothes, and, upon his promising to write four articles for The Monthly Review, Griffiths had consented. The reviews had been written, and the exam- ination had been undergone, with the result already recorded, when Goldsmith's landlord at Green Arbour Court was suddenly arrested for debt. To comfort his inconsolable wife, Gold- smith pledged the clothes. A few days later, under further pressure, the books he had re- viewed were transfered to a friend as security for a small loan ; and by ill luck, almost imme- diately afterwards, the irate Griffiths demanded restitution. Thereupon ensued a bitter and humiliating correspondence, the closing letter in which was printed by Mr. Forster from the original in his possession. 'It is a passionate outbreak on Goldsmith's part, in which he almost implores the bookseller to send him to prison. He has told him again and again, he can pay him nothing; but he will be punctual to any arrangement made. He is not a sharper (as Griffiths had evidently called him) ; had he been so, had he been possessed of less good nature and native generosity, he might surely now have been in better circumstances. " I am guilty, I 6S Oliver Goldsmith own/' he says, *' of meannesses which poverty unavoidably brings with it, my reflections are filled with repentance for my imprudence, but not with any remorse for being a villain." The" volumes reviewed, which are merely in the cus- tody of a friend, shall be returned in a month. " At least spare invective 'till my book with Mr. Dodsley shall be published, and then perhaps you may see the bright side of a mind when my professions shall not appear the dictates of necessity but of choice." Thus, without let or break, in a hand trembling with agitation and wounded pride, the words hurry on to the post- script, " I shall expect impatiently the result of your resolutions." ^ The result seems to have been that Griffiths refrained from further pro- ceedings ; and the matter ended with an en- gagement on Goldsmith's part to prepare, for twenty pounds, from which the price of the clothes was to be deducted, a ^' Life of Vol- taire," to accompany a new translation of ^' The Henriade " by one of the bookseller's hacks. To this work, already quoted,^ he refers in the letter to Henry Goldsmith of February, 1759, containing the personal portrait with which the present chapter opens. After mentioning his 1 Forster's Life, 1877, i, i6t. 2 See anie, chapter ii. A Memoir d^ mother, who by this time has become almost blind, sending affectionate injunctions to Bob Bryanton not to drink, and making brotherly inquiries after his younger sister Jenny, who has married ill, he goes on: — "There is a book of mine will be published in a few days, the life of a very extraordinary man — no less than the great Voltaire. You know already by the title, that it is no more than a catch-penny. However I spent but four weeks on the whole performance, for which I received twenty pounds. When published, I shall take some means of conveying it to you, unless you may think it dear of [at] the post- age, which may amount to four or five shillings. However, I fear you will not find an equiva- lence of amusement. Your last letter, I repeat it, was too short ; you should have given me your opinion of the heroicomical poem which I sent you : you remember I intended to introduce the hero of the poem, as lying in a paltry ale- house. You may take the following specimen of the manner, which I flatter myself is quite original. This room in which he lies, may be described somewhat this way: — " ' The window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray, That feebly shew'd the state in which he lay. 7© Oliver Goldsmith The sanded floor, that grits beneath the tread : The humid wall with paltry pictures spread; The game of goose was there exposed to view, And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew : The seasons fram'd with listing, found a place, And Prussia's monarch shew'd his lampblack face. The morn was cold ; he views with keen desire, A rusty grate unconscious of a fire. An unpaid reck'ning on the freeze was scor'd, And five crack'd tea-cups dress'd the chimney board/ ** And now imagine after his soliloquy, the landlord to make his appearance, in order to dun him for the reckoning : — " * Not with that face, so servile and so gay. That welcomes every stranger that can pay; With sulky eye he smoak'd the patient man, Then puU'd his breeches tight, and thus began, &c.' " All this is taken, you see, from nature. It is a good remark of Montaign[e]'s that the wisest men often have friends, with whom they do not care how much they play the fool. Take my present follies as instances of regard. Poetry is a much easier, and more agreeable species of composition than prose, and could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet."^ Honest Henry Goldsmith, in his faraway Irish 1 Miscellaneous Works, 1837,1, 57-9. A Memoir 71 curacy, might perhaps be excused from offering any critical opinions upon a fragment, the ulti- mate development of which it was so little possible to forecast. The author himself seems to have carried it no farther than this introduc- tory description, some details of which are certainly borrowed from his own Green Arbour Court environment. It was still a fragment when later he worked it into letter xxix. of "The Citizen of the World;" and when, in 1 770, part of it served for the decoration of ' ' The Deserted Village," it had found its definitive use. But it is interesting as being, with excep- tion of the trifling epigram written in Scotland in 1753, and already referred to in chapter ii., the first poetical utterance of Goldsmith con- cerning which there is express evidence. From this alone, as the production of a poet of thirty- one, it would be hard to predict *'The Traveller" or "Retaliation." Certainly, as Johnson said. Goldsmith " was a plant that flowered late." Not long after the date of the above letter to Henry Goldsmith, Breakneck Steps were scaled by an illustrious inquirer, whose experiences are, with becoming mystery, related in the '^ Percy Memoir." "A friend of his/' says that record, in some respects the most important 72 Oliver Goldsmith account that exists concerning Goldsmith, " paying him a visit at the beginning of March, 1759, found him in lodgings there so poor and uncomfortable, that he should not think it proper to mention the circumstance, if he did not con- sider it as the highest proof of the splendour of Dr. Goldsmith's genius and talents, that by the bare exertion of their powers, under every dis- advantage of person and fortune, he could gradually emerge from such obscurity to the enjoyment of all the comforts and even luxuries of life, and admission into the best societies in London. The Doctor was writing his Enquiry, &c., in a wretched dirty room, in which there was but one chair, and when he, from civility, offered it to his visitant, himself was obliged to sit in the window. While they were convers- ing, some one gently rapped at the door, and being desired to come in, a poor little ragged girl of very decent behaviour, entered, who, dropping a curtsie, said, ' My mamma sends her compliments, and begs the favour of you to lend her a chamber-pot full of coals.' "-^ The visitor here mentioned so reticently was Percy himself, not yet Bishop of Dromore, but only chaplain to Lord Sussex and Vicar of Easton Mauduit in Northamptonshire. He had 1 Miscellaneous Works, 1837, i, 61. A Memoir 73 been introduced to Goldsmith by Grainger of The Monlhly Review, at the Temple Exchange Coffee House ; and as he was already collect- ing the materials for his " Reliques of English Poetry," had no doubt been attracted by his new friend's knowledge of ballad literature. He was wrong, however, in thinking that Gold- smith was writing the " Enquiry," of which he must rather have been correcting the proofs, as it was published for the Dodsleys in the follow- ing April. It is a commonplace to say that the *' Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe " was somewhat over-titled. In the first edition it is but a small and not very closely printed duodecimo of two hundred pages ; and it is shorter still in the revised issue of 1774, from which a considerable portion, and notably much of the chapter relating to the stage, was withdrawn. Obviously so wide a survey could scarcely be confined in so narrow a space. Nor, with all his gifts, was Goldsmith sufficiently equipped for the task. It is true he had travelled upon the Continent (his sketch, he says, though general, "was for the most part taken upon the spot "), and he was right in claiming certain advantages for the pedestrian's point of view. " A man who is whirled through 74 Oliver Goldsmith Europe in a postchaise, and the pilgrim who walks the grand tour on foot, will form, very different conclusions," he affirms, adding, with a frankness confined to the first edition, " Hand inexpertus loquor.'' ^ But he forgot that there is also something to be said for the rival mode of locomotion, and that it may be urged that the one he adopted is open to the charge of being too exclusively that of an outsider. It is need- less, however, to cross-question closely the agreement of Goldsmith's performance with his promise. What attracted him most, as Mr. Forster has not failed to point out, was less the condition of letters in Europe than the condition of letters in the immediate neighbourhood of his retreat in the Old Bailey. The mercantile avidity and sordid standards of the bookseller, the venal rancour of the hungry critics in his pay, the poverty of the poets, the decay of patronage, the slow rewards of genius, all these were nearer to his heart (and vision) than the learning of Luitprandus, or the " philological performances " of Constantinus Afer. Some of his periods, indeed, have almost a note of personal disclosure. Who shall say, for ex- ample, that, in more than one sentence of the following, it was not Oliver Goldsmith whom he 1 FoliU Learning, 1759, p. 181. A Memoir 75 had in mind ? ** If the author be, therefore, still so necessary among us, let us treat him with proper consideration, as a child of the public, not a rent-charge on the community. And, in- deed, a child of the public he is in all respects ; for while so well able to direct others, how in- capable is he frequently found of guiding him- self. His simplicity exposes him to all the insidious approaches of cunning, his sensibility to the slightest invasions of contempt. Though possessed of fortitude to stand unmoved the expected bursts of an earthquake, yet of feelings so exquisitely poignant, as to agonise under the slightest disappointment.^ Broken rest, taste- less meals, and causeless anxiety, shorten his life, or render it unfit for active employment ; prolonged vigils, and intense application, still farther contract his span, and make his time glide insensibly away. ... It is enough that the age has already yielded instances of men pressing foremost in the lists of fame, and worthy of better times, schooled by continued adversity into an hatred of their kind, flying from thought to drunkenness, yielding to the united pressure of labour, penury, and sorrow, sinking unheeded, without one friend to drop a tear on their unattended obsequies, and indebted 1 Cf. Citizen of the World, 1762, ii, 81 (Let. IxxxL). 76 Oliver Goldsmith to charity for a grave among the dregs of mankind."^ The title-page of the '' Enquiry" was without an author's name ; but Goldsmith made no secret of his connection with the book. It was fairly received. The Gentleman's published a long letter respecting it, and the two Reviews (the Monthly and the Critical) gave reports of its contents, both coloured, more or less, by a sense of the references which they detected in it to'themselves. Smollett, in the Critical, was hurt that '* a work undertaken from public spirit," such as his own, should be confused with " one supported for the sordid purposes of a bookseller" such as Griffiths; and the book- seller on his side did not omit, in the true spirit of vulgar reprisal, to salt his notice with un- worthy innuendoes directed at his own not very satisfactory relations with Goldsmith. Such a course was to be expected in such a warfare ; and it is idle now to grow virtuously indignant, because, read by the light of Goldsmith's later fame, these old injuries seem all the blacker. What most concerns us at present is that the ** Enquiry" was Goldsmith's first original work, and that he revealed in it the dawning graces of a style, which, as yet occasionally ^ Polite Learning^i"] tf), pp. 142-4. A Memoir 77 elliptical and jerky, and disfigured here and there by Johnsonian constructions, nevertheless ran bright and clear. Acting upon his maxim that "to be dull and dronish, is an encroach- ment on the prerogative of a folio," he had, moreover, successfully avoided that ** didactic stiffness of w^isdom," v^^hich he declared to be the prevailing vice of the performances of his day. "The most diminutive son of fame, or of famine," he said, "has his we and his ms, his firstlfs and his secondlfs as methodical, as if bound in cow-hide, and closed w^ith clasps of brass." -^ His own work could not be accused justly of this defect. But on the whole, and looking to the main purpose of his pages, it must be conceded that he made better use of his continental experiences in the descriptive passages of " The Traveller " than in the critical apothegms of '^An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe." The " Enquiry," however, had one salutary effect : it attracted some of the more sagacious of the bookselling trade to the freshness and vivacity of the writer's manner. Towards the close of 17^9 he is contributing both prose and verse to three periodicals, The Bee, The Lady's Magazine, and The Busy Body. The first two ^ Polite Learjiing, 1759, pp. 153, 154. 78 Oliver Goldsmith were published by J. Wilkie, at the Bible in St. Paul's Churchyard ; the last, a paper in the old Spectator form — for which Goldsmith wrote, among other things, an excellent essay on the Clubs of London — by one Pottinger. But the fullest exhibition of his growing strength and variety is to be found in the eight, or rather the seven numbers, since the last is mainly bor- rowed, of The Bee, further described as " a select Collection of Essays on the most Interesting and Entertaining Subjects." The motto was — " Floriferis ut apes saltibus omnia libant Omnia nos itidem," — from Lucretius, and it was issued in threepenny parts, twelve forming •' a handsome pocket volume," to which was to be prefixed the ortho- dox " emblematical frontispiece." Some of the contents were merely translations from Voltaire, upon whose " Memoirs," we know^. Goldsmith had recently been working ; some, such as "The History of Hypatia," the heroine of Charles Kingsley's novel, were historical and biographical; others again, — for example, "The Story of Alcander and Septimius," and " Sabinus and Olinda," — were more or less original. But the distinctive feature of the book is the marked ability of its critical and social sketches. A Memoir 79 The theatrical papers, with their neat contrast between French and English actors, as regards what, in "The Deserted Village," the author calls ** gestic lore, their excellent portrait of Mademoiselle Clairon, their shrewd discerning of stage improprieties, and their just apprecia- tion of " High Life below Stairs," are still well worth reading. Not less excellent are the capital character sketches, after the manner of Addison and Steele, of Jack Spindle, with his " many friends," and " my Cousin Hannah" in all the glories of her white ndgligde, her wintry charms, and her youthful finery. In a paper "On the Pride and Luxury of the Middling Class of People," he anticipates certain of the later couplets of his didactic poems ; in an- other, " On the Sagacity of some Insects," he gives a foretaste of that delicate and minute habit of observation which dictated not a few of the happier pages of "The History of Ani- mated Nature," while in an account of the Academies of Italy, he reverts to the theme of the " Enquiry." Among the remaining papers two chiefly deserve notice. One, " A City Night-Piece," a title obviously suggested by Parnell, is tremulous with that unfeigned com- passion for the miseries of his kind with which he had walked the London streets ; the other, 8o Oliver Goldsmith a semi-allegoric sketch in No. v., a little in the Lucianic spirit of Fielding's "Journey from this World to the Next," is interesting for its references to some of his contemporaries. It is entitled " A Resverie," in which the luminaries of literature are figured as passengers by a stage- coach, christened '^ The Fame Machine." The coachman has just returned from his last trip to the Temple of Fame, having carried as passen- gers Addison, Swift, Pope, Steele, Congreve, and CoUey Gibber, and the journey has been ac- complished with no worse mishap than a black eye given by CoUey to Mr. Pope. (Had Field- ing been of the party, as he should have been, that black eye would certainly have been repaid I) Among the next batch of candidates are Hill, the quack author of "The Inspector," and the dramatist Arthur Murphy, both of whom are declined by Jehu. Hume, who is refused a seat for his theological essays, obtains one for his history ; and Smollett, who fails with his history, succeeds with his novels. Another intending passenger is Johnson, and the page describing his proceedings is worth quoting for its ingenious tissue of praise and blame : — "This was a very grave personage, whom at some distance I took for one of the most A Memoir 8i reserved, and even disagreeable figures I had seen ; but as he approached, his appearance improved, and when I could distinguish him thoroughly, I perceived, that, in spite of the severity of his brow, he had one of the most good-natured countenances that could be im- agined. Upon coming to open the stage door, he lifted a parcel of folios into the seat before him, but our inquisitorial coachman at once shoved them out again. ' What, not take in my dictionary I ' exclaimed the other in a rage. ' Be patient, sir,' (replyed the coachman) ' I have drove a coach, man and boy, these two thousand years ; but I do not remember to have carried above one dictionary during the whole time. That little book which I perceive peeping from one of your pockets, may I presume to ask what it contains ? ' 'A mere trifle,' ( replied the author) ' it is called the Rambler.' * The Rambler 1 ' (says the coachman) ' I beg, sir, you'll take your place ; I have heard our ladies in the court of Apollo frequently mention it with rapture ; and Clio, who happens to be a little grave, has been heard to prefer it to the Spectator ; though others have observed, that the reflections, by being refined, sometimes become minute.'"^ 1 The Bee, 1759, pp. 151-2 (No. v.). 6 82 Oliver Goldsmith At this date (November, 17^9) there seems to have been no personal acquaintance between Johnson, whose ^' Rasselas " had followed hard upon the " Enquiry," and the still obscure es- sayist of Green Arbour Court. But the friend- ship between the two was not now to be long deferred, and may indeed have been hastened by the foregoing tribute from the younger man. There is one feature of Goldsmith's labours for Messrs. Wilkie and Pottinger which de- serves a final word. Scattered through The Bee and The Busy Body are several pieces of verse, which, if we except a translation of part of a Latin' prologue from Macrobius included in the first edition of the " Enquiry," constitute the earliest of Goldsmith's published poetical works. Only one of these, some not very remarkable quatrains on the death of Wolfe, can be said to be original; the rest are imitations. "The Logicians Refuted " is indeed so close a copy of Swift as to have been included by Scott among that writer's works ; the others, with one exception, are variations from the French. They comprise two well-known examples of the author's lighter manner. In "The Gift: To Iris, in Bow-Street, Covent Garden," he man- ages to marry something of Gallic vivacity to the numbers of Prior; in the " Elegy on Mrs. A Memoir 2>i Mary Blaize," borrowing a trick from the old song of M. de la Palisse, and an epigrammatic finish from Voltaire, he contrives to laugh anew at the many imitators of Gray. If they do no more, these trifles at least serve to show that the lightness of touch, which is one of his char- acteristics, had not been studied exclusively on English soil. CHAPTER V Amenities of authorship ; Newbery and Smollett; work for The British Magazine; "History of Miss Stanton;" other con- tributions; The Public Ledger ; Chinese letters begun, Janu- ary 24, 1760; The Lady^s Magazine; moves into 6, Wine Office Court, Fleet Street; entertains Johnson there May 31, 1761; "Memoirs of Voltaire" published; "History of Mecklenburgh " published, February 26, 1762; Cock Lane Ghost pamphlet; " Citizen of the World " published, May i ; account of that book; "The Man in Black" and "Beau Tibbs; " anecdotes; Plutarch's lives begun, May i; out of town ; " Life of Nash " published, October 14 ; sale of third share in "Vicar of Wakefield" to Benjamin Collins, printer, of Salisbury, October 28. nPHE visitors to Green Arbour Court were -■' not always as illustrious as the Reverend Thomas Percy. One day, according to an in- formant from whom Prior collected some par- ticulars respecting Goldsmith's residence at the top of Breakneck Steps, a caller was shown up to him with that absence of ceremony which was the hospitable rule of his house, and the door of the room was shortly afterwards locked with decision. Sounds of controversy succeeded. But, as both voices were heard in turn (amant A Memoir 85 alterna Camoence !), and the tumult gradually subsided, the apprehensions of the listeners also passed away. Late in the evening the door was unfastened, the stranger dispatched a mes- senger to a neighbouring tavern to order supper, and '' the gentlemen who met so ungraciously at first, spent the remainder of the evening in great good humour,"^ The explanation of this incident, which, in all probability, belongs to the last months of 1759, is that Goldsmith had been behindhand when Mr. Pottinger, or Mr. Wilkie of St. Paul's Churchyard, was clamour- ing for '^copy" for the next number of The Bee or The Busy Body, and that the entertain- ment was the consideration offered for the unwonted course taken to obtain the required manuscript. It may also serve to throw some light on the short existences of those periodicals, by referring them to the uncertain inspiration or fastidious taste of the principal writer. '' I could not suppress my lurking passion for applause," says George Primrose ; " but usually consumed that time in efforts after excellence which takes up but little room, when it should have been more advantageously employed in the diffusive productions of fruitful mediocrity. . . . Phi- lautos, Philalethes, Philelutheros, and Philan- 1 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 328-9. S6 Oliver Goldsmith thropos, all wrote better, because they wrote faster, than I."^ But, in spite of these drawbacks, the literary quality manifested in the two periodicals above referred to, although they were powerless to catch the ear of the general reader, was still too unmistakeable to be neglected by those on the alert for fresh talent. Towards the end of 1759, two persons made their way to Green Arbour Court, both of whom were bent on securing Goldsmith's collaboration in new enterprises. One was Dr. Tobias Smollett, author of '^ Roderick Random " and " Peregrine Pickle," at this time fresh from imprisonment in the King's Bench, to which he had been subjected for his too frank criticism of Admiral Knowles ; the other was a pimple-faced and bustling little bookseller of St. Paul's Church- yard, John Newbery by name, whose ubiqui- tous energy his friend Dr. Johnson had play- fully satirised in The Idler under the character of "Jack Whirler." Smollett, not, it maybe imagined, less amiably disposed on account of the little compliment in the paper on the " Fame Machine" referred to in the last chap- ter, wished to obtain Goldsmith's services for a new magazine. The British, which appeared 1 Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, ii, 10. A Memoir 87 on the ist of January, 1760, with a flaming- dedication to Mr. Pitt, and the opening chap- ters of the editor's new novel of " Sir Launcelot Greaves." For this latest recruit to the already crowded ranks of the monthlies, Goldsmith wrote some of the best of the papers afterwards reprinted among his '* Essays." In the Febru- ary and two subsequent numbers came that admirable " Reverie at the Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap," which rubs so much of the gilt off the good old times. In May followed an allegory in the popular taste: in June a com- parison between two rival sirens at Vauxhall, Mrs. Vincent and Miss Brent, which is also a piece of close musical criticism. Three other contributions succeeded in July, one of which, ^'The History of Miss Stanton," it has been the custom to regard as a kind of early draught of the " Vicar of Wakefield." Goldsmith was so economical of his good things, and used them so often, that it is, of course, not impossible the " first rude germ" of his famous novel may lie in this " true though artless tale " of a seduc- tion. Yet the "Vicar" would be little if it contained no more than is outlined in the characterless and rather absurd contribution to Smollett's magazine. Indeed, the conclusion is so "artless" as to justify a doubt whether S8 Oliver Goldsmith the paper should really be attributed to Gold- smith's pen at all. At the end the seducer and the incensed parent exchange shots ; the latter falls '* forward to the ground " and his daughter falls " lifeless upon the body. . . . Though Mr. Dawson [the villain of the piece] was be- fore untouched with the infamy he had brought upon virtuous innocence," the story goes on to say, "yet he had not a heart of stone; and bursting into anguish, flew to the lovely mourner, and offered that moment to repair his foul offences by matrimony. The old man, who had only pretended to be dead, now rising up, claimed the performance of his promise ; and the other had too much honour to refuse. They were immediately conducted to church, where they were married, and now live exemplary in- stances of conjugal love and fidelity."^ Either Goldsmith is not guilty of this farrago of foolery and anticlimax (the italicised passages in which may be specially commended to notice) or it must once more be owned that truth is incon- ceivably stranger than fiction. But although, in the opinion of the present writer. Miss Stanton's equivocal "history" is to be classed among the doubtful contributions of Goldsmith to The British Magazine, there are 1 Goldsmith's Works, by Gibbs, 1885, iv, 495-6. A Memoir 89 some other pieces concerning which there is no necessity to speak hesitatingly. Two of these, indeed, like the " Reverie at the Boar's Head," were afterwards included among the acknowl- edged ^' Essays" of 1765. One is an excellent homily on the " Distresses of the Poor," as exemplified in the cheerful philosophy of an humble optimist, who, battered almost out of shape by war and privations, still contrives to bless God that he enjoys good health, and knows of no enemy in the world save the French and the Justice of the Peace. The other, in which a shabby fellow, found loung- ing in St. James's Park, relates the " Adven- tures of a Strolling Player," has already been referred to in chapter iii., as probably repro- ducing some of the writer's own histrionic ex- periences. By October, 1760, however, the month in which it was published, Goldsmith was already well advanced in a continuous series of papers which were to prove of far greater importance than his occasional efforts for Smol- lett. A few days after the publication of the first number of The British Magazine, appeared the first number of another of Newbery's projects, the daily paper entitled The Public Ledger. For this also he had secured the services of Goldsmith, who was to write twice a week 90 Oliver Goldsmith at the modest rate of a guinea per article. One of the earliest of his efforts was what would now be regarded as a heinous piece of partisan- ship, an adroit but unblushing puff of The British' Magazine, and Smollett's novel therein. But before this appeared he had already estab- lished a hold upon the Ledger s readers. With a short letter in the number for January 24th, he had introduced to England a Chinese visitor — one Lien Chi Altangi. Five days later came another epistle from this personage to a mer- chant in Amsterdam, giving his impressions of London, its streets and its signboards, its gloom and its gutters. * A third letter, addressed to a friend in China, laughed with assumed Orien- tal gravity at its men and women of fashion. Thus, without method, and almost by a nat- ural growth, began the famous work afterwards known as " The Citizen of the World." The " Chinese Letters," as they soon came to be called, progressed through 1760 with great regularity, and were completed, though rather more tardily, in the following year, under which date it will be most convenient to speak of them. For the moment, we may return to the chronicle of their writer's life. Beside his work for the Ledger and The British Maga:{ine, he resumed his old connection with The Lady s A Memoir 91 Magazine in the new capacity of editor, and raised its circulation considerably. He also contributed some serious biographies to The Christian Magazine of Dr. Dodd, who was afterwards executed for forgery. All this de- notes varied activity and continuous occupation. His means at this time must have been sufficient, and, as a consequence, he moved, at the close of 1760, into better lodgings at No. 6, Wine Office Court, nearly opposite that ancient hos- telry of the " Cheshire Cheese," still dear to the praisers of time past as a " murmurous haunt " of Johnson and his friends. Goldsmith occupied these lodgings for about two years ; and it was here, according to the *' Percy Memoir," that, on May 31, 1761, he received his first visit from Johnson, whom he had asked to supper. " One of the company then invited," — this is the decorous circumlocution used for Percy by those who compiled the Memoir of 1 80 1, — ''being intimate with our great Lexi- cographer, was desired to call upon him and take him with him. As they went together, the former was much struck by the studied neatness of Johnson's dress : he had on a new suit of cloaths, a new wig nicely powdered, and everything about him so perfectly dissimilar from his usual habits and appearance, that his 92 Oliver Goldsmith companion could not help inquiring the cause of this singular transformation. ' Why, sir,' said Johnson, ' I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency, by quoting my practice, and I am desirous this night to show him a better example.' "^ Boswell did not make Johnson's acquaintance until two years after this occurrence, and there is therefore no further account of this memo- rable entertainment. Beyond the publication in The Lady's Magazine of the " Memoirs of Voltaire," nothing notable seems to have happened to Goldsmith in the remaining months of 1 76 1. Probably he was at work for New- bery, for early in the following year, he issued a "■ History of Mecklenburgh," a concession to the anticipated interest in Queen Charlotte, and a pamphlet on the Cock Lane Ghost, which has been identified plausibly, but not conclusively, with one bearing the title of " The Mystery Revealed," put forth by Newbery's neighbour, Bristow. Cock Lane, it may be added, was close to Goldsmith's old residence in Green Arbour Court, so that in any case he would be in familiar neighbourhood. Then in May, 1762, in " two volumes of the usual Specta- ^ Miscellaneous Works, 1801, i, 62-3. A Memoir 93 for size," that is, in duodecimo, and ** Printed for the Author," who still preserved what was now the merest figment of anonymity, appeared the collected " Chinese Letters," under the title of ' ' The Citizen of the World ; or. Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, residing in London, to his Friends in the East." The phrase " Citi- zen of the World," was one Goldsmith had already used more than once, and it had the advantage of greater novelty than " Chinese Letters," a title, moreover, which had already been anticipated by the " Lettres Chinoises," published by the Marquis d'Argens. The com- pleted issue was heralded by one of the author's most characteristic prefaces ; and his prefaces, like his dedications, have always their distinctive touch. Speaking of the relation between his creation and himself, after recapitulating some of his efforts to preserve an Oriental local col- ouring (even to the item of occasional dulness), he says : " We are told in an old romance of a certain knight errant and his horse who con- tracted an intimate friendship. The horse most usually bore the knight, but, in cases of extra- ordinary dispatch, the knight returned the favour, and carried his horse. Thus in the intimacy between my author and me, he has usually given me a lift of his Eastern sublimity, and I have 94 Oliver Goldsmith sometimes given him a return of my colloquial ease." Then, after a dream, in which he repre- sents himself as wheeling his barrowful of "Chinese morality" on the cracking ice of ** Fashion Fair/' he continues, " I cannot help wishing that the pains taken in giving this correspondence an English dress, had been employed in contriving new political systems, or new plots for farces. I might then have taken my station in the world, either as a poet or a philosopher ; and made one in those little soci- eties where men club to raise each other's repu- tation. But at present I belong to no particular class. I resemble one of those solitary animals, that has been forced from its forest to gratify human curiosity. My earliest wish was to escape unheeded through life ; but I have been set up for half-pence, to fret and scamper at the end of my chain. Tho' none are injured by my rage, I am naturally too savage to court any friends by fawning. Too obstinate to be taught new tricks ; and too improvident to mind what may happen, I am appeased, though not con- tented. Too indolent for intrigue, and too timid to push for favour, I am — But what sig- nifies what am I."^ And thereupon he winds up with a Greek couplet very much to the same 1 Citizen of the Worlds 1762, i, iv-v, v-vi. A Memoir 95 effect as that with which Senor Gil Bias of Santillane concludes the first conclusion of his delectable history.^ In some of the advertisements of " The Citizen of the World " it was announced that the greater part of the work " was written by Dr. Goldsmith." This is a misconception, which arose from the fact that he had included among the epistles of Lien Chi Altangi a few of the anonymous contributions he had supplied to The, Bee and other periodicals. Thus, " The City Night Piece " reappears as letter cxvii., and ''The Distresses of a Common Soldier," from The British Magazine, as letter cxix. Haste and pressure may, in the first instance, have prompted these revivals ; but they were perfectly defensible, especially if we remember, as Gold- smith himself illustrates by a pleasant anecdote in the preface to a later volume, that the author who is preyed upon by others has certainly a prior right to prey upon himself. Omitting these, however, and omitting also those which are inspired by the scheme, and which deal chiefly with memories of Du Halde, Le Comte, and 1 In the later editions the following translation is added ; " Fortune and Hope, adieu ! — I see my port : Too long your dupe — be others now your sport." g6 Oliver Goldsmith the other authorities on China consulted by Goldsmith, there remains a far larger amount of material than could be analysed in these pages. The mind of the author, stored with the mis- cellaneous observations of thirty years, turns from one subject to another, with a freshness and variety which delight us almost as much as they must have delighted the readers of his own day. Now he is poking admirable fun at that fashionable type, already the butt of Hogarth and Reynolds, the fine-art connoisseur, whom he exhibits writing enthusiastically from abroad to his noble father to tell him that a notable torso, hitherto thought to be *'a Cleopatra bathing," has turned out to be "a Hercules spinning ; " now, in an account of a journey to Kentish Town after the manner of modern voy- agers, he ridicules the pompous trivialities of travellers. Another paper laughs at the folly of funeral elegies upon the great ; another at the absurdity of titles. More than one of the Chinese philosopher's effusions are devoted to contemporary quacks, the Rocks and Wards, and so forth, who engross the advertisement sheets of the day ; others treat of the love for monsters, of the trains of the ladies, of their passion for paint and gaming. There is an essay on the behaviour of the congregation at A Memoir 97 St. Paul's, to which it would be easy to find a counterpart in Steele ; there is another on the bad taste of making a show out of the tombs and monuments in Westminster Abbey, which recalls Addison. Literature, of course, is not neglected. Some of its humbler professors are hit off in the description of the Saturday Club at "The Broom near Islington"; other and graver utterances lament the decay of poetry, the taste for obscene novels (" Tristram Shandy," to wit), the folly of useless disquisitions among the learned, the impossibility of success without means or intrigue. The theatre also receives its full share of attention, as do the coronation, the courts of justice, and the racecourse at New- market. Mourning, mad dogs, the Marriage Act, have each and all their turn, nor does Lien Chi Altangi omit to touch upon such graver subjects as the horrors of the penal laws and the low standard of public morality. But what perhaps is a more interesting feature of the Chinese philosopher's pages than even his ethical disquisitions, is the evidence they afford of the coming creator of Tony Lumpkin and Dr. Primrose. In the admirable portrait of the " Man in Black," with his " reluctant good- ness " and his Goldsmith family traits, there is a foretaste of some of the most charming charac- 7 98 Oliver Goldsmith teristics of the vicar of Wakefield ; while in the picture of the pinched and tarnished little beau, with his mechanical chatter about the Countess of All-Night and the Duke of Piccadilly, set to the forlorn burden of "lend me half-a-crown," he adds a character-sketch, however lightly touched, to that immortal gallery which contains the finished full-lengths of Parson Adams and Squire Western, of Matthew Bramble and " my Uncle Toby." ^ From the fact that Goldsmith omitted the third of the •' Beau Tibbs" series from the later ^' Essays " of 1765, it would seem that he thought the other two the better. It may be that they are more finely wrought ; but the account of the party at Vauxhall, with the delightful sparring of the beau's lady and the pawnbroker's widow, and the utter breakdown in the decorum of the latter, when, constrained by good-manners to listen to the faded vocalisation of Mrs. Tibbs, she is baulked of her heart's desire, the diversion of the waterworks, is as fresh in its fidelity to human nature, and as eternally effec- tive in its artistic oppositions of character, as any of the best efforts of the great masters of fiction. 1 In his delightful Gossip in a Library y 1891, p. 210, Mr. Edmund Gosse detects certain resemblances between Beau Tibbs and the Count Tag of Coventry's Pompey the Little. A Memoir 99 One of the stories in " The Citizen of the World," that of " Prince Bonbennin and the White Mouse," has, rightly or wrongly, been connected with a ludicrous incident in Gold- smith's own career. Among his many hangers- on was a certain Pilkington, — the son, in fact, of Swift's Lsetitia of that name, — who, on one occasion, called upon him with a cock-and-bull story about some white mice, which he, the said Pilkington, had (he alleged) been com- missioned to obtain for a lady of quality, the Duchess of Manchester or Portland being mentioned. The mice had been secured ; the ship that bore them lay in the river ; and nothing — so ran Pilkington's romance — was wanting but a paltry two guineas to buy a cage, and enable the importer to make a decent appearance before his patroness. He accordingly applied to his old college-fellow. Goldsmith, who, not having the money, was, of course, easily cajoled into letting his necessitous friend pawn his watch. As might be expected, neither watch nor Pilkington was ever seen again, and Gold- smith was fain to console himself by composing a little apologue in his " Chinese Letters," in which white mice played a leading part. Another anecdote of this time is connected more with the study of manners which produced loo Oliver Goldsmith *'The Citizen of the World" than with any particular utterance of Lien Chi Altangi. Once, when strolling in the gardens of White Conduit House at Islington, he came upon three ladies of his acquaintance, to whom he straightway proffered the entertainment of a dish of tea. The invitation was accepted and the hospitality enjoyed, when, to Goldsmith's intense discom- fiture, he suddenly discovered that he could not pay the bill. Luckily some friends arrived, who, after maliciously enjoying his embarrassment, at length released him from his quandary. Upon the same day as "The Citizen of the World " was published, appeared the first in- stalment of another of those compilations for Newbery which Goldsmith, having tasted that dangerous delight of money advances for unexe- cuted work, was tempted to undertake. This was a " Compendium of Biography " for young people, the opening volumes of which were based upon Plutarch's '' Lives." It was in- tended to continue them indefinitely ; but seven volumes, the last of which was published in November, were all that appeared, *' The British Plutarch " of Dilly proving a fatal rival. Before the fifth volume was finished Goldsmith fell ill, and it was completed by a bookseller's hack of the name of Collier. Whether Collier A Memoir loi also did the sixth and seventh volumes does not appear. But Goldsmith's ill-health, caused mainly by the close application which had succeeded to the vagrant habits he had formed in early life, had now become confirmed, and he spent some part of this year at Tunbridge and Bath, then the approved resorts of invalids.^ Early in the year one of Newbery's receipts shows that he had agreed to write, or had already written, a " Life of Richard Nash," the fantastic old Master of the Ceremonies at Bath. The book, which was published in October, is a gossiping volume of some two hundred and thirty pages, pleasantly interspersed with those anecdotes which Johnson thought essential to biography, and containing some interesting de- tails upon the manners and customs of the old city, so dear to the pages of Anstey and Smollett. The price paid for it by Newbery, according to the receipt above mentioned, was fourteen guineas. With one exception, nothing else of import- ance occurred to Goldsmith in 1762. This ex- ception was the sale by him to a certain Benjamin Collins, printer, of Salisbury, for the 1 " And once in seven years I 'm seen At Bath or Tunbridge to careen." Green's Spleen. I02 Oliver Goldsmith sum of twenty guineas, of a third share of a new book, in " 2 vols., i2mo.," either already written or being written, and entitled " The Vicar of Wakefield." The sale took place on the 28th October, and the circumstance, first disclosed by Mr. Charles Welsh in the memoir of Newbery which he published in 1885, under the tide of " A Bookseller of the Last Century," throws a new, if somewhat troubled, light upon the early history of the " Vicar," as related by Goldsmith's biographers. This question, how- ever, will be more fitly discussed in a future chapter. CHAPTER VI Goldsmith at Salisbury (?); removes to Mrs. Fleming's at Isling- ton; Mrs. Fleming's bills; hack-work for Newbery; "His- tory of England in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son" published, June 26, 1764; Hogarth at Islington; his portraits of Mrs. Fleming (?) and Goldsmith; "The Club," 1764; its origin and first members ; Goldsmith "as he struck his contemporaries"; writing "The Traveller" at Islington ; publication of that poem, December 19; its dedi- cation to his brother Henry; Johnson's influence and opinion; characteristics and bibliography ; sum paid to author. TX 7HETHER the transaction referred to at ' * the end of the last chapter took place at Salisbury, or whether Benjamin Collins made his investment in London, are points upon which there is no information. But it is not at all improbable that Goldsmith may have visited Salisbury in the autumn of 1762, and that the sale of the " Vicar" may have been the result of a sudden " lack of pence." Collins had business relations with Newbery. He was part- proprietor of that famous Fever Powder of Dr. James, upon which, in the sequel, Goldsmith so disastrously relied ; and in Mr. Welsh's 104 Oliver Goldsmith *' Bookseller of the Last Century," he is also stated to have held shares in The Public Ledger, the idea of which he claimed to have originated. It is most likely therefore that, being known to Newbery, he was known to Goldsmith, and Goldsmith's appeal to Collins, when finding himself in the town in which Collins lived, would be a natural and intelligible step. To pass however from conjecture to certainty, there is no doubt that, towards the end of 1762, Goldsmith, for the time at all events, transferred his residence from Wine Office Court to Isling- ton, then a countrified suburb of London. It was a place with which, apparently, he was already familiar, since he locates the Club of Authors in '' The Citizen of the World " at the sign of The Broom in that neighbourhood, and, in all likelihood, he had visited Newbery in his apartments at Canonbury House, of which nothing now remains but the dilapidated tower. He may even have lived in the tower itself pre- vious to this date, for Francis Newbery, New- bery's son, affirmed that he lodged for some time in the upper story, " the situation so com- monly devoted to poets." ^ But that he came to Islington at the close of 1762 is clear from the Newbery papers, to which, when they wrote 1 Welsh's Bookseller of the Last Century, 1885, p. 46. A Memoir 105 their respective lives of Goldsmith, Mr. John Murray permitted both Mr. Forster and Mr. Prior to have access. He had a room in a house kept by a Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming, who, like his Fleet Street landlady, was a friend or relative of Newbery. The bookseller, indeed, was paymaster, deducting, with business-like regularity, the amount for Goldsmith's keep and incidental expenses, from the account current between the poet and himself. The " board and lodging" were at the rate of ^5° per an- num, and Goldsmith stayed at Mrs. Fleming's from Christmas, 1762, untilJune, 1764, or later, the only break being from December, 1763, to March in the following year, when he appears to have rented, but not occupied, his Islington hermitage. It is curious in these days to study the chroni- cle of Goldsmith's frugal disbursements and hospitalities. Not many luxuries come within the range of Mrs. Fleming's recording pen. Once there is a modest " pint of Mountain " at a shilling, and twice " a bottle of port" at two shillings. A continually recurrent entry is the humble diet drink called " sassafras," more familiar perhaps as the " saloop," which, even at the beginning of this century, was still sold at street corners, prompting a characteristic page io6 Oliver Goldsmith of Charles Lamb's " Praise of Chimney Sweep- ers," and surviving later in " Sketches by Boz." Pens and paper are naturally frequent items, and the " Nev^es man's" account, to wit, for Public Ledgers, London Chronicles, Advertisers, and the like, reaches the unprecedented sum of 1 6s. io|-d. On the other hand, "Mr. Bag- gott" and " Doctr. Reman" (Dr. Wm. Red- mond, says Prior), who seem to have been occasionally entertained with dinner or tea, have " O. O. O.," against their names. Ob- viously, Goldsmith must either have shared his own meal with his guests, or Mrs. Fleming must have been a person whose generosities, however stealthy, did not blush to find them- selves proclaimed in her bills. The only re- maining items worth noting are the price of " a Post Letter," which, as now, was a penny, and that of " The Stage Coach to London," which was sixpence. During most of the time over which these documents extend. Goldsmith must have been working for Newbery. The total amount paid by the bookseller from October, 1761, when Goldsmith purchased from him a set of Johnson's Idler, down to October 10, 1763, was;^iii is. 6d. At this date £6^ had been earned by Goldsmith for " Copy of different kinds," leav- A Memoir 107 ing a balance against him of ;^48 is. 6d., for which he gave a promissory note. The record of ascertained work for 1763 is very bare/ so that the "copy" must chiefly have been pref- aces, as for example, that to Brookes's " System of Natural History," or revisions of Newbery's numberless enterprises. Only one work, the two duodecimo volumes known as the *' History of England, in a Series of Letters from a Noble- man to his Son," can be identified as belonging to this time. " His friend Cook tells us," says Mr. Forster, " not only that he had really written it in his lodgings at Islington, but how and in what way he did so." Mr. Forster is here both right and wrong. As the " Letters of a Nobleman" were published in June, 1764, it is most likely that they were written at Islington ; but what Cook actually says is, that they were written in a country house on the Edgeware Road to which Goldsmith does not seem to have gone until much later. Cook's account of his composition of the letters may, however, be accepted as accurate. " His manner of com- piling this History was as follows : — he first read in a morning, from Hume, Rapin, and 1 The facsimile, which forms the frontispiece to this volume, shows what was one of Goldsmith's many un- executed schemes. io8 Oliver Goldsmith sometimes Kennet, as much as he designed for one letter, marking down the passages referred to on a sheet of paper, with remarks. He then rode or walked out with a friend or two, who he constantly had with him, returned to dinner, spent the day generally convivially, without much drinking (which he was never in the habit of), and when he went up to bed took up his books and paper with him, where he generally wrote the chapter, or the best part of it, before he went to rest. This latter exercise cost him very little trouble, he said ; for having all his materials ready for him, he wrote it with as much facility as a common letter." ^ The book was a great success, in which the bookseller^s artifice of attributing it to a patrician pen no doubt played its part. For many years its easy, elegant pages were fathered upon Chesterfield, Lyttelton, or Orrery, much to the amusement of the real author. But his friends knew well enough who the real author was, and both Percy and Johnson possessed presentation copies. Moreover when afterwards Goldsmith came to write his longer '' History of England," for Davies of Russell Street, he transferred many passages bodily from the earlier compilation to its successor. 1 European Magazine, August, 1793, p. 94- A Memoir 109 Among the friends who visited Goldsmith at Islington there is reason for believing that Hogarth is to be numbered. When he had made Gold- smith's acquaintance is not know^n ; but Gold- smith had referred to him in " The Enquiry," and may have been introduced to him by John- son. The love of humour and character was strong in both ; but at this date they must have had an additional bond in their common dis- like of Churchill. It is pleasant to think that the great pictorial satirist of his age may have sometimes been the strolling companion of his gentler brother with the pen. Years ago Mr. Graves, of Pall Mall, had in his possession a portrait, said to be by Hogarth, which passed under the name of '^ Goldsmith's Hostess," and " it involves," says Mr. Forster, " no great stretch of fancy to suppose it painted in the Islington lodgings, at some crisis of domestic pressure."-^ As will be shown hereafter, there is no very trustworthy evidence that Mrs. Fleming was connected with any " domestic pressure ; " and the portrait, in all probability, had no graver origin than an act of kindness. In another picture, dating from this time, also attributed to Hogarth, which, when Mr. Forster wrote, belonged to a gentleman of Liver- 1 Forster's Lifc^ 1877, i, 305. no Oliver Goldsmith pool/ Goldsmith is shown at work at a round table, perhaps engaged upon one of the identical epistles ascribed to Chesterfield. He is writing rapidly, or appears to be writing rapidly, in a claret-coloured coat, a night cap, and ruffles loose at the wrist ; but, despite Mr. Forster's description, he seems to be sitting for his like- ness rather than to have been sketched at work. The first entry in Mrs. Fleming's account for 1764 is an item of £1 17s. 6d. for the "Rent of the Room" for the March quarter in that year, an entry which proves conclusively that only by a figure of speech of the Dick Swiveller type could Goldsmith's retreat be described as " apartments." From the absence of other expenses, it is clear that he was not in residence, and he does not seem to have re- turned to Islington until the beginning of April. In the interim he lived in London. One of his occupations during this period must have been his weekly attendances at the new club just formed upon a suggestion of Reynolds, whom somebody, for that reason, christened its Romu- lus. Johnson, who had previously belonged to a kindred gathering in Ivy Lane, now lapsed 1 The late Mr. Studley Martin, by whom it was ex- hibited in 1867 at the second special exhibition of National Portraits at South Kensington. A Memoir iii or interrupted by the dispersal of its members, fell easily into a proposition which accorded so thoroughly with his gregarious habits, and other congenial spirits were speedily collected. Edmund Burke and his father-in-law. Dr. Nu- gent, Topham Beauclerk and Bennet Langton, both of whom were scholars and fine gentlemen, Chamier, afterwards an Under Secretary of State, John Hawkins, a former member of the Ivy Lane Club, and Goldsmith himself, — soon made up (with Reynolds and Johnson) the nine members to which the association was at first restricted. But a certain Samuel Dyer, another member of the Ivy Lane Club, re-appearing unexpectedly from abroad, was allowed to join the ranks, and the number was ultimately ex- tended to twelve. The place of meeting was the Turk's Head in Gerrard Street, Soho, ^' where," says Mr. Forster, " the chair being taken every Monday night at seven o'clock by a member in rotation, all were expected to attend and sup together." ^ As time went on some further modifications were made in the rules ; but at Gerrard Street the club continued to meet as long as Goldsmith lived, and it was not until nearly ten years after his death that, with the closing of the Turk's Head, it shifted its quar- 1 Forster's Lifet 1877, i, 310-11. 112 Oliver Goldsmith ters. Such was the origin of the famous gath- ering, familiar in the pages of Boswell, and afterwards known — but not till many years afterwards — as the "Literary Club." A few of its first members were so illustrious that one can understand something of the astonishment with which solemn wiseacres like Hawkins beheld themselves associated with the still com- paratively unknown recruit from Mrs. Fleming's at Islington. " As he wrote for the booksellers, we, at the club," says he (but it would be prob- ably more accurate to read " I"), "looked on him as a mere literary drudge, equal to the task of compiling and translating, but little capable of original, and still less of poetical composition." ^ Pompous Sir John Hawkins may perhaps be forgiven for ignoring the fact that *' the music of the moon Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale," — especially as Goldsmith had hitherto published no verse with his name. But a more authorita- tive judge than the Middlesex magistrate had already made deliverance upon the question. There was an eager young Scotchman of the name of James Boswell, who had decoyed Johnson into supping with him at The Mitre, 1 Hawkins's Life of Johnson, 1787, p. 420. A Memoir 113 and was already actively plying him with ques- tions. Among other things he sought his opin- ion with regard to Goldsmith^ whose apparently undeserved importance seems to have exercised him as much as it did Hawkins. On the literary side Johnson's answer was conclusive. " Dr. Goldsmith," he said, 'Ms one of the first men we now have as an author."^ These words were uttered in June, 1763, when Goldsmith's reputa- tion must have rested solely upon his labours as an essayist and compiler. For in that year he had not obtained distinction either as a poet, playwright, or novelist. From April to June, 1764, Mrs. Fleming's accounts, as already observed, show that Gold- smith was again at Islington. He was probably employed for Newbery, but in what way is un- certain. One anecdote, however, is definitely connected with the forthcoming poem of " The Traveller," upon which he must have occupied his leisure. Prior tells it as it was told by Reynolds to Miss Mary Horneck, from whom, when Mrs. Gwyn, Prior again received it. *' Either Reynolds," he says, " or a mutual friend who immediately communicated the story to him, calling at the lodgings of the Poet, opened the door without ceremony, and dis- 1 Hill's Boswell's yi?^;2j^;?, 1887, i> 4o8. 114 Oliver Goldsmith covered him, not in meditation, or in the throes of poetic birth, but in the boyish office of teaching a favourite dog to sit upright upon its haunches, or, as is commonly said, to beg. Occasionally he glanced his eye over his desk, and occasionally shook his finger at his unwill- ing pupil in order to make him retain his posi- tion, while on the page before him was written that couplet, with the ink of the second line still wet, from the description of Italy, * By sports like these are all their cares beguiled. The sports of children satisfy the child/ " Something of consonance between the verses and the writer's occupation, seems at once to have struck the visitor, and Goldsmith frankly admitted that the one had suggested the other. "The Traveller; or, a Prospect of Society, a Poem,'' was published on the 19th of Decem- ber, 1764,^ but the title-page, as is often the 1 There is no doubt that this is the practical editio princeps, as it corresponds exactly with the description in the first advertisements. But a well-known book- collector, Mr. Locker-Lampson, possesses a copy, dated 1764, which would seem to indicate that Goldsmith had not intended at first either to give prominence to his con- nection with the poem, or to write a lengthy prefatory letter. No author's name appears on the title-page of this unique copy, and the dedication is confined to two lines ; *' This A Memoir 115 case, bore the date of the following year. It also announced that the book, published by Newbery as a thin eighteen-penny quarto^ was dedicated to the " Rev. Mr. Henry Goldsmith," and that it was " by Oliver Goldsmith, M.B." The dedication, which occupies nearly four pages, is extremely interesting. The book, it says, is inscribed to Henry Goldsmith because some portions were formerly written to him from Switzerland. " It will also throw a light upon many parts of it," continues the writer, *' when the reader understands that it is ad- dressed to a man, who, despising Fame and Fortune, has retired early to Happiness and Obscurity with an income of forty pounds a year," — such being the value of the curacy of Kilkenny West. Some of the passages that succeed are evidently dictated by the half- hopeful doubt of success which others besides Goldsmith have experienced. One of these, — the following, — was quietly dropped out of the subsequent editions, its anticipations, in the face of the favour with which the poem was received, being no longer appropriate. " But of all kinds of ambition, as things are now cir- cumstanced, perhaps that which pursues poetical Poem is inscribed to the Rev. Henry Goldsmith, M.A. By his most affectionate Brother Oliver Goldsmith." ii6 Oliver Goldsmith fame is the wildest. What from the encreased refinement of the times, from the diversity of judgments 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. Though the poet were as sure of his aim as the imperial archer of an- tiquity, who boasted that he never missed the heart, yet would many of his shafts now fly at random, for the heart is too often in the wrong place." In the remainder of the dedication, the author renewed the assault which he had already made in the " Enquiry" upon the popu- larity of blank verse, and then proceeding to deplore the employment of poetry in the cause of faction, delivered himself of a thinly veiled attack upon the satires of Churchill — an attack which, seeing that Churchill had only been dead a few weeks, might well have been withheld. In his final words he defined the aim of his work : " I have endeavoured," he said, " to show, that there may be equal happiness in other states though differently governed from our own ; that each state has a peculiar principle of happiness, and that this principle in each state, and in our own in particular, may be carried to a mischiev- ous excess." In another form this thought is to A Memoir 117 be found in the couplets which, recalling one of his own precepts in " Rasselas," Johnson sup- plied at the end of " The Traveller " : — " How small, of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure. Still to ourselves in every place consign'd. Our own felicity we make or find." The fact that Johnson contributed these lines and a few others to the poem, seems to have favoured the suspicion that he had rendered considerable assistance to the writer, and his dogmatic interpretation of a word in the first line, while the real author was stammering and hesi- tating for his meaning, served to strengthen this idea, especially among persons of the Hawkins and Boswell type. But he distinctly told Bos- well that he could only remember to have written nine lines, four of which are quoted above ; and (as Prior points out) his inexperience of travel placed much of the rest beyond his ability. Yet there is little doubt that he considerably influenced the evolution of " The Traveller." In the first place, it is Johnson, not Pope or Dryden, who was Goldsmith's immediate model. The measure of the poem is the measure of "London" and *'The Vanity of Human Wishes," softened and chastened by a gentler ii8 Oliver Goldsmith touch and a finer musical sense. It was Jolin- son, too, Cook tells us,^ who persuaded Gold- smith to complete the fragment, some two hundred lines, or rather less than half the entire work, which he had so long kept by him. If conjecture is admissible in a matter of this kind, it would seem most probable that what Goldsmith had already written was the purely descriptive portions;^ that Johnson, so to speak, " moralised the song," and that, stimu- lated by his critical encouragement. Goldsmith fitted these portions into the didactic framework which finally became "The Traveller." But, however this may be, Johnson's admiration of the result was genuine. Not only did he show, by enthusiastic quotation long afterwards, that it lingered in his memory, but he welcomed the poem himself in The Critical Review^ and congratulated the public upon it " as on a pro- duction to which, since the death of Pope, it would not be easy to find anything equal." ^ European Magazine, August, 1793, P* 93- 2 In these, it has been suggested, he had Addison's " Letter from Italy," in mind, and a comparison of the two poems at once reveals certain similarities. More- over, that Goldsmith greatly admired the " Letter from Italy " is proved by the fact that he included it both in the " Poems for Young Ladies " and the '* Beauties of English Poesy." A Memoir 119 What shall be said now to that "philosophic Wanderer" — as Johnson wished to christen him — who, in Wale's vignette to the old quarto editions, surveys a conventional eighteenth- century landscape from an Alpine solitude com- posed of stage rocks and a fir tree, and, in Macaulay's words, " looks down on the bound- less prospect, reviews his long pilgrimage, recalls the varieties of scenery, of climate, of government, of religion, of national character, which he has observed, and comes to the con- clusion, just or unjust, that our happiness de- pends little upon political institutions, and much on the temper and regulation of our own minds ? " ^ We take breath, and reply that we cannot regard his conclusion as wholly just, or accept it without considerable reservation. We see difficulties in the proposition that one government is as good as another, and we doubt whether the happiness of the governed is really so independent of the actions of the governing power. But what, to-day, most interests us in "The Traveller," is its descriptive and per- sonal rather than its didactic side. If Gold- smith's precepts leave us languid, his charming topography and his graceful memories, his tender retrospect, and his genial sympathy with 1 Miscellaneous Writings, 1865, p. 302. I20 Oliver Goldsmith humanity still invite and detain us. Most of us know the old couplets, but what has Time taken from them of their ancient charm ? — " Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee ; Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain. And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend. And round his dwelling guardian saints attend : Bless'd be that spot, where cheerful guests retire To pause from toil, and trim their ev'ning fire ; Bless'd that abode, where want and pain repair, And every stranger finds a ready chair : Bless'd be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd. Where all the ruddy family around Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, • Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale, Or press the bashful stranger to his food, And learn the luxury of doing good. But me, not destin'd such delights to share, My prime of life in wand'ring spent and care ; Impell'd, with steps unceasing, to pursue Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view ; That, like the circle bounding earth and skies. Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies ; My fortune leads to traverse realms alone, And find no spot of all the world my own." Equally well-remembered are the lines in which he records the humble musical perfor- A Memoir 121 mances by which he won his way through France : — " To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, I turn ; and France displays her bright domain. Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease, Pleas'd with thyself, whom all the world can please, How often have I led thy sportive choir, With tmieless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire ? Where shading elms along the margin grew. And, freshen'd from the wave the Zephyr flew ; And haply, though my harsh touch faltering still, But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill ; Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour. Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, Has frisk'd beneath the burthen of threescore." The description of Holland, " where the broad ocean leans against the land," and the lines on England, containing the familiar : — " Pride in their port, defiance in their eye I see the lords of human kind pass by," which his "illustrious friend" declaimed to Boswell in the Hebrides " with such energy, that the tear started into his eye," -^ might also find a place in a less-limited memoir than the 1 Hill's Boswell's Johnson, 1887, v, 344. 122 Oliver Goldsmith present. Fortunately, however, there is no need to speak of a poem, which for three-quarters of a century has been an educational book, as if it were an undiscovered country. Nor can it add anything to a reputation so time-honoured to say that, when it first appeared, it obtained the suffrages of critics as various as Burke and Fox and Langton and Reynolds. The words of Johnson, spoken a century ago, are even truer now. Its merit is established ; and in- dividual praise or censure can neither augment nor diminish it. The first edition, as we have said, appeared in December, 1764. A second, a third, and a fourth followed rapidly. There was a fifth in 1768, a sixth in 1770, and a ninth in 1774, the year of the author's death. He continued to revise it carefully up to the sixth edition, after which there do not seem to have been any further corrections. In one or two of the alter- ations, as in the cancelled passage in the dedi- cation, is to be detected that reassurance as to recognition which prompts the removal of all traces of a less sanguine or prosperous past. In his first version he had spoken of his *' ragged pride." In the second, this went the way of that indiscreet Latin quotation, which in the first edition of the ''Enquiry" betrayed the A Memoir 123 pedestrian character of his continental experi- ences. But though the reception accorded to " The Traveller " was unmistakeable, even from the publisher's point of view, there is nothing to show with absolute certainty that its success brought any additional gain to its author. The original amount paid for "Copy of the Trav- eller, a Poem," as recorded in the Newbery MSS., is ;f2i. There is no note of anything further ; although, looking to the fact that the same sum occurs in some memoranda of a much later date than 1764, it is just possible (as Prior was inclined to believe) that the success of the book may have been followed by a supplemen- tary fee. CHAPTER VII "Essays: by Mr. Goldsmith" published, June 4, 1765; the poetical essays ; makes acquaintance with Nugent ; visits Northumberland House; "Edwin and Angelina" privately printed; resumes practice as a physician ; episode of Mrs. Sidebotham; "The Vicar of Wakefield" published, March 27, 1766; Boswell's "authentic" account of the sale of the manuscript ; variants of Mrs. Piozzi, Hawkins, Cumberland, and Cook ; attempt to harmonise the Johnson story and the Collins purchase ; date of composition of book ; its charac- teristics ; theories of Mr. Ford ; bibUography and sale. /^NE of the results of that sudden literary ^^ importance, which excited so much as- tonishment in the minds of the less discriminat- ing of Goldsmith's contemporaries, was the inevitable revival of his earlier productions ; and in June, 1765, Griffin of Fetter Lane put forth a three-shilling duodecimo of some two hundred and thirty pages under the title of "Essays: by Mr. Goldsmith." It bore the motto ^' Collecta revirescunt,'' and was embel- lished by a vignette from the hand of Bewick's friend and Stothard's rival, the engraver Isaac Taylor. In a characteristic preface Goldsmith A Memoir 125 gave his reasons for its publication. *' Most of these essays," he said, "have been regularly reprinted twice or thrice a year, and conveyed to the public through the kennel of some en- gaging compilation. If there be a pride in multiplied editions, I have seen some of my labours sixteen times reprinted, and claimed by different parents as their own." And then he goes on, in a humourous anecdote, to vindicate his prior claim to any profit arising from his performances, finally winding up by a burlesque draft upon Posterity, which, as it is omitted in the second edition of 1766, may be reprinted here : " Mr. Posterity. Sir, Nine hundred and ninety-nine years after sight hereof, pay the bearer, or order, a thousand pounds' worth of praise, free from all deductions whatsoever, it being a commodity that will then be very serviceable to him, and place it to the accompt of, &c." The majority of the papers contained in this volume have already been referred to in the preceding pages. Such are the " Reverie at the Boar's Head," the " Adventures of a Stroll- ing Player," the " Distresses of a Common Soldier," and the " Beau Tibbs " sequence, only two of which it reproduces. There are others from The Bee, The Busy Body, and The 126 Oliver Goldsmith Lady's Magazine. But the freshest contribu- tion consists of a couple of poems, which figure at the end as Essays xxvi. and xxvii. One is " The Double Transformation," an obvious imi- tation of that easy manner of tale-telling, which Prior had learned from La Fontaine. Prior's method, however, is more accurately copied than his manner, for nothing is more foreign to Goldsmith's simple style than the profusion of purely allusive wit with which the author of "Alma" decorated his Muse. The other is an avowed imitation of Swift, entitled " A New Simile " ; but it is hardly as good as " The Logi- cians Refuted," while indirectly it illustrates the inveteracy of that brogue which Goldsmith never lost, and, it is asserted, never cared to lose. No one but a confirmed Milesian would, we imagine, rhyme "stealing" and "failing." Elsewhere he scans " Sir Charles," " Sir Chorlus," after the manner of Captain Costigan ; and more than once he pairs sounds like '' sought " and " fault," a peculiarity only to be explained by a habit of mispronunciation.-^ One of the friends he had made by " The Traveller" was, like himself, an Irishman. This was Robert Nugent of Carlanstown, in Goldsmith's own county of Westmeath (not to 1 This, however, is also done by Pope and Prior. A Memoir 127 be confounded with Dr. Nugent, Burke's father-in-law), who, two years later, was to be created Viscount Clare. ^ Nugent was a poet in his way, — there are a number of his early verses in vol. ii. of Dodsley's " Collection ; " — and his ode to William Pulteney was good enough to be quoted by Gibbon. His Essex seat (Gosfield) became a frequent asylum to Goldsmith, who wrote for his friend a charming occasional poem, to which reference will be made hereafter. But for the present the most notable thing connected with Nugent is that he introduced Goldsmith to the notice of the Earl of Northumberland, then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, who, says Percy, being newly returned from that country in 1764, *' invited our poet to an interview."" It is supposed, though the "Percy Memoir" is here a little confusing, that this interview was the same as one of which Sir John Hawkins gives the following account : " Having one day," he says, " a call to wait on the late Duke, then Earl, of Northumber- land, 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 1 A Memoir of Robert^ Lord Nugent (his last title), was issued in 1898 by his descendant, Mr. Claud Nugent. 128 Oliver Goldsmith 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 I was, adding what I thought likely to recommend him. I retired, and staid in the outer room to take him home. Upon his com- ing out, I asked him the result of his conver- sation. ' His lordship,' says he, ' told me he had read my poem ' meaning ' The Traveller,' ' and was much delighted with it ; that he was going Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and that, hearing that I was a native of that country, he should be glad to do me any kindness.' ' And what did you answer,' asked 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 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 for- sake them for others.' " One can imagine what kind of effect this entirely unsophisticated pro- ceeding would have upon the time-serving nar- rator of the anecdote ; and indeed, his indignation blazes out in the comment with which he con- cludes his story. "Thus," he exclaims, '^did this idiot in the affairs of the world, trifle with his fortunes, and put back the hand that was A Memoir 129 held out to assist him 1 Other offers of a like kind he either rejected, or failed to improve, contenting himself with the patronage of one nobleman,^ whose mansion afforded him the delight of a splendid table, and a retreat for a few days from the metropolis." ^ Few people, probably, will take Hawkins's view of the matter, or, at all events, they will find it difficult to conceive that Goldsmith, being Goldsmith, could have acted in any different way. His acquaintanceship with the Earl and Countess does not however seem to have suf- fered on this account. Possibly it was fostered by Percy, who, as their kinsman, should, one would think, have been the first to introduce the poet to his illustrious relatives. But the '^ Percy Memoir," as stated above, distinctly assigns this office to Nugent. Percy's " Re- liques of Ancient Poetry," upon which he was then engaged, nevertheless, afforded opportunity for a further recognition of the poet by the Northumberlands. Out of many metrical dis- cussions with Percy had grown a ballad in old style, to which Goldsmith gave the name of *' Edwin and Angelina," although it was after- ^ Nugent, as yet, was only " Mr." But Hawkins wrote his " Life of Johnson " many years after this date. 2 Hawkins's Life of Johjtson, I'jdi'j, p. 419. 9 130 Oliver Goldsmith wards known as " The Hermit." The Coun- tess of Northumberland admired it so much, that a few copies, now of the rarest, were struck off for her benefit, and it was afterwards included in " The Vicar of Wakefield." Gold- smith took immense pains with this poem. The privately printed version differs considerably from that in the "■ Vicar " ; the text in the " Vicar" varies in the successive editions ; and there are other variations in the volume of selections in which he afterwards included it. With its author, "Edwin and Angelina" was always a favourite. " As to my ^Hermit,' that poem/' he told Cradock, "cannot be amended."^ And Hawkins only echoed contemporary opin- ion when he called it " one of the finest poems of the lyric kind that our language has to boast of." 2 We, who have heard so many clear- voiced singers since Goldsmith's time, can scarcely endorse that judgment, nor can we feel for it the enthusiasm which it excited when Percy's " Reliques " were opening new realms of freedom to those who had hitherto been prisoned in the trim parterres of Pope. At most we can allow it accomplishment and ease. But its sweetness has grown a little insipid, and 1 Cradock's Literary Memoirs, 1828, iv, 286. 2 Hawkins's Life of Johnson, 1787, p. 420, A Memoir 131 its simplicity, to eyes unanointed with eigh- teenth-century sympathy, borders perilously upon the ludicrous. In the same year in which ^' Edwin and Angelina" was printed, Goldsmith again at- tempted to earn a livelihood as a physician. This step, prompted by the uncertainty of his finances, is said to have been recommended by Reynolds, by Mrs. Montagu (to whom he had recently become known), and other friends. Evidence of his resumed profession speedily appeared in his tailor's account book, which, under the date of June, 1765, records the pur- chase of purple silk small clothes, and the ortho- dox " scarlet roquelaure buttoned to the chin " at four guineas and a half. These excesses must have been productive of others, for, in the short space of six months, three more suits are charged for, and this expenditure involves the complementary items of wig, cane, sword, and so forth. After these followed a man-servant. But all this lavish equipment seems to have failed in securing a practice. We hear, indeed, of one patient, whose moving story is told by Prior as he had received it from a lady^ to whom Reynolds had related it : " He [Gold- smith] had been called in to a Mrs. Sidebotham, ^ Mrs. Gwyn, vide post, p. 193. 132 Oliver Goldsmith an acquaintance, labouring under illness, and having examined and considered the case, wrote his prescription. The quality or quantity of the medicine ordered, exciting the notice of the apothecary in attendance, he demurred to ad- minister it to the patient ; an argument ensued which had no effect in convincing either party of error, and some heat being produced by the contention, an appeal was at length made to the patient to know by whose opinion and practice she chose to abide. She, deeming the apothecary the better judge of the two from being longer in attendance, decided for him ; and Goldsmith quitted the house highly indig- nant, declaring to Sir Joshua he would leave off prescribing for friends. ' Do so, my dear Doctor/ replied Topham Beauclerk when he heard the story and afterwards jested with him on the subject ; ' whenever you undertake to kill, let it be only your enemies.'"'^ The next noteworthy occurrence in Gold- smith's life is the publication, on the 27th of March, 1766, in " two Volumes in Twelves," of the novel of " The Vicar of Wakefield." The imprint was " Salisbury : Printed by B. Collins ; For F. Newbery, in Pater-Noster-Row," by which latter it was advertised for sale, " Price 1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 105. A Memoir 133 6s. bound, or ^s. sewed." There was no author's name on the title-page, but the " Advertisement" was signed " Oliver Goldsmith." The motto *' Sperate miseri, cavete felices,'" is to be found in Burton's "Anatomy," from which store- house of quotation Goldsmith had probably borrowed it. Collins, the printer, it will be remembered, is the same person who, as related at the close of chapter v., had purchased a third share in the book for twenty guineas in October, 1762, more than three years before. That it was sold in this way is further confirmed by the fact that some years later, according to old accounts consulted by Mr. Welsh, it still belonged to Collins and two other sharehold- ers, those shareholders being John Newbery's successors and Johnson's friend Strahan. This story of the sale is perfectly in accordance with eighteenth-century practice ; and, except that it is difficult to understand why the book remained so long unpublished, calls for no especial remark. And even the delay in publication can be ex- plained by neglect on the author's part (not at all a fanciful supposition !) to put the finishing touches to work which had been already paid for. But the attraction of Mr. Welsh's dis- covery lies in its apparently destructive conflict with the time-honoured and picturesque narra- 134 Oliver Goldsmith tive given (through Boswell) by Johnson, and by others for the most part deriving their data from him, of the original sale of the manuscript. It is as follows: — " I [Johnson] received one morning 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 drest, 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 got a bottle of Madeira and a glass be- fore him. I put the cork into the bottle, de- sired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that 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 book- seller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Gold- smith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill." ^ Such is BoswelFs report, taken, as he says, ''authentically" from Johnson's "own exact 1 Boswell's Life of Johnson, 1791, i, 225. A Memoir 135 narration." Elsewhere, recording a conversa- tion at Sir Joshua Reynolds's in April, ^ll^i he supplies some further particulars. " His ' Vicar of Wakefield,'" said Johnson, " I myself did not think would have had much success. It was written and sold to a bookseller before his * Traveller ' ; but published after ; so little ex- pectation had the bookseller from it. Had it been sold after ' The Traveller,' he might have had twice as much money for it, though sixty guineas was no mean price." Here, it will be observed, Johnson says "guineas" instead of '^ pounds." But '^ pounds " and " guineas," as Croker points out in one of his notes, were then convertible terms. The same story, or rather a story having for its central features Goldsmith's need, Johnson's aid, and the consequent sale of a manuscript, is told with variations by other writers. Mrs. Piozzi, for example, in her ** Anecdotes of Johnson," 1786, pp. 119-20, makes him leave her house to go to Goldsmith's assistance ; but upon the question of the price, she only says that he brought back " some immediate relief." It is now known, however, that she did not make Johnson's acquaintance until January, 1765, and, looking to the express statement by Johnson that the "Vicar" was sold before the publication of " The Traveller " 136 Oliver Goldsmith in December, 1764, is obviously at fault in one material point of her story. Hawkins, again, in his " Life of Johnson," 1787, pp. 420, 421, gives a jumbled version, which places the occurrence at Canonbury House, makes the bookseller Newbery, and the amount forty pounds. Lastly Cumberland, writing his garru- lous Memoirs, gives the incident as (he alleges) he had heard Dr. Johnson relate it "with in- finite humour." In this account the publisher is Dodsley ; the price "ten pounds only"; and piquancy is added by an unexpected detail. Goldsmith " was at his wit's-end how to wipe oif the score and keep a roof over his head, exr cept by closing with a very staggering proposal on her [his landlady's] part, and taking his creditor to wife, whose charms were very far from alluring, whilst her demands were extremely urgent." ^ The foregoing accounts, that of Hawkins excepted, profess to be based upon Johnson's narrative of the facts. From the only other actor in the drama. Goldsmith — if we except a wholly incredible statement to Boswell that he had received four hundred pounds for a novel, supposed to be "The Vicar of Wakefield" — there is nothing except the following passage in 1 Memoirs y 1807, i, 372-3. A Memoir 137 Cook's reminiscences, which, probably because it was hopelessly at variance with the generally accepted story, seems to have been entirely neglected by Goldsmith's biographers. Cook, doubtless, made some mistakes ; but he is certainly entitled to be heard by the side of Hawkins, Cumberland, and Mrs. Piozzi. '' The Doctor," he tells us, " soon after his acquaintance with Newbery, for whom he held ' the pen of a ready writer,' removed to lodgings in Wine Office Court, Fleet-Street, where he finished his * Vicar of Wakefield,' and on which his friend Newbery advanced him twenty guineas : ' A sum,' says the Doctor, ' I was so little used to receive in a lump, that I felt my- self under the embarrassment of Captain Brazen in the play,^ '* whether I should build a priva- teer or a play-house with the money ! " ' " 2 \i will be noted that, in more than one particular, this account is confirmatory of the latest develop- ment of the story. It gives the value of a third share accurately ; it describes it as an advance ; it makes the advancer Newbery, and, by impli- cation, it places the occurrence in Wine Office Court, where Goldsmith lived to the end of 1 7. e., in the " Recruiting Officer," Act v., Sc. 3. Gold- smith greatly admired Farquhar. 2 European Magazijze, August, 1793, p. 92. 138 Oliver Goldsmith 1762, in October of which year, either at Salis- bury or London, Collins effected his purchase. Unless some further discoveries are made, it is not likely that the above discrepancies can be finally adjusted. But as the latest editor of Boswell has thrown no light upon the subject, and the latest biographer of Johnson has handed it over to the biographers of Goldsmith, it is scarcely possible to quit the question without suggestion of some kind. The fact of CoUins's purchase of a third share, resting as it does upon the evidence of his own account-books, which have been inspected by the present writer, is incontestable. The account of Johnson's sale of the manuscript, as Johnson, habitually "attentive to truth in the most minute particu- lars," originally gave it, is no doubt also essentially true, and its variations under other hands may be attributed in part to confused recollections of a confusing story. The mention of twenty guineas and forty pounds in two of the versions appears to indicate a confirmation of the sale by shares ; while the phrase " imme- diate relief" used by Mrs. Piozzi, and the "money for his relief" of Hawkins, suggest that Johnson may not have meant that he actu- ally obtained the whole of the sixty pounds or guineas, but only that he had agreed upon that A Memoir 139 as the entire price, which he would have to do in order to establish the value of a share. If he only brought back part of the money, the case admits of plausible solution. Unless Boswell bungled terribly in his "exact narration," it is most improbable that the Collins sale preceded the Johnson sale. If it did, it involves, what is practically inadmissible, dishonesty on the part of Goldsmith or Johnson, in selling as a whole a book of which a part had already been disposed of. But if, on the other hand, the Johnson sale came before the Collins sale, the not unreasonable explanation would be that Johnson, called in, as he says, to Goldsmith's aid, went to Newbery or Strahan, settled upon the price of the manu- script, and procured for Goldsmith "immediate relief" in the shape of an advance for one or for two shares. The other share or shares would remain to be disposed of by the author, and so, either at Salisbury or London, the transfer to Collins would come about. The only objection to this supposition is, that it puts back the sale to 1762, instead of the usually accepted date of 1764. But 1764 has only been chosen because it is the year of the publication of "The Traveller." And it is noticeable that Boswell, who made Johnson's acquaintance in May, 1763, does not speak of the incident as if it had I40 Oliver Goldsmith happened within his personal experience. On the other hand, in 1762, Goldsmith was at Wine Office Court, where, Cook says, he finished the book. At Wine Office Court, we believe, the occurrence took place. It is more likely that Johnson, close at hand in Inner Temple Lane, would come to Wine Office Court than to Islington ; and it is not likely that Mrs. Flem- ing, the only evidence concerning whom, viz., her accounts, goes to show that she was not a particularly grasping personage, would arrest Goldsmith for bills which were usually paid by her friend Mr. Newbery. In cases of this kind, it is necessary, as a first duty, to clear away structures that have been raised upon false data, and one of these is the traditional reputa- tion, as an arbitrary person, of poor Mrs. Fleming of Islington. For, if the sale by Johnson took place in London, and not at Islington, Mrs. Fleming is not concerned in it. But when Cook says that the "Vicar" was finished at Wine Office Court, it is probable that he is not strictly accurate. What is most likely is, that when Goldsmith's pressure came, it was sufficiently finished to be sold. That it was written, or being written, in 1762, appears from the reference in chap. xix. to The Auditor, which began its career in June of that year, and A Memoir 141 from the mention in chap. ix. of the musical glasses then in vogue. But that it could not have been " ready for the press" is plain from the fact that the ballad of *' Edwin and Ange- lina," privately printed in 1765 for the Countess of Northumberland, and first published in the novel, does not seem to have been in existence until about 1764. Percy says that it was com- posed before his own " Friar of Orders Gray," which came out in the " Reliques of English Poetry" in 1765, and Hawkins speaks of it in terms which imply that its composition belongs to some period subsequent to the establishment of "the Club" at the beginning of 1764. *' He had, nevertheless^ unknown to us, written and addressed to the Countess, afterwards Duchess, of Northumberland, one of the finest poems of the lyric kind that our language has to boast of."^ Although it is impossible to fix an exact date for the writing of " Edwin and Angelina," the obvi- ous inference is that it must have been written after October 28, 1762, and consequently did not form part of the book as sold to Collins. Similarly, the " Elegy on a Mad Dog," the scene of which lies at Islington, may have been written there, and added to fill up. In short, the most reasonable supposition is that Gold- 1 Hawkins's Life of Johnson^ 1787, p- 430. 142 Oliver Goldsmith smith had practically written his novel when he sold it to Collins and Co., but that it required expansion to make up the " two volumes, 1 2mo," which he had promised. Probably — as men do with work that has been paid for — he put off making the necessary additions, and ulti- mately stopped a gap with " Edwin and Ange- lina," which he had written in the interim. This, by the way, would supply a new reason for the private printing of the ballad, namely, that Goldsmith wanted to use it, or had already used it, in the forthcoming '' Vicar of Wake- field." In any case, even when the novel was published, it does not seem to have been quite completed. Criticism has pointed out that it contains references showing that additions were intended which were never made. This is ex- actly what happens when a work is sold before it is fully finished. Moreover, it has been noticed by a writer in the Athenceum, on inspection of the first issue, that, even with the assumed addi- tions, the printers had evidently hard work to make up the required two volumes. This, and the difficulty of getting the author to supply the requisite " copy," may indeed be the true solu- tion of that long delay to publish, which has sur- prised so many of Goldsmith's biographers. Of the " Vicar " itself it is happily not neces- A Memoir 143 sary to give any detailed account, still less to illustrate its beauties by what Mr. Lowell has somewhere called the Boeotian method of ex- tract. Dr. Primrose and his wife, Olivia and Sophia, Moses with his white stockings and black ribbon, Mr. Burchell and his immortal *' Fudge," My Lady Blarney and Miss Caro- lina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs — have all be- come household words. The family picture that could not be got into the house when it was painted ; the colt that was sold for a gross of green spectacles ; the patter about Sanchonia- thon, Manetho, Berosus, and Ocellus Lucanus, with the other humours of Mr. Ephraim Jenkin- son — these are part of our stock speech and current illustration. Whether the book is still much read it would be hard to say, for when a work has, so to speak, entered into the blood of a literature, it is often more recollected and transmitted by oral tradition than actually studied. But in spite of the inconsistencies of the plot, and the incoherencies of the story, it remains, and will continue to be, one of the first of our English classics. Its sweet humanity, its simplicity, its wisdom and its common-sense, its happy mingling of character and Christianity, will keep it sweet long after more ambitious, and in many respects abler, works have found 144 Oliver Goldsmith their level with the great democracy of the forgotten. It is the property of a masterpiece to gather about it a literature of illustration and interpreta- tion, especially when, as in the present case, its origin is unusually obscure. With the bulk of this it would be impossible to deal here. But a recent speculation respecting the reasons for the choice of Wakefield as the locality of the tale (at all events at the outset), deserves a few sentences. Joseph Cradock, one of Goldsmith's later friends, had a story that the '* Vicar" was written to defray the expenses of a visit to Wake- field. How irreconcilable this is with the other accounts is self-evident. But it is not impossi- ble that an actual tour in Yorkshire may have suggested some of the names and incidents. This idea was worked out with great ingenuity by the late Mr. Edward Ford, of Enfield.^ Starting from Wakefield, he identified the ^' small cure " seventy miles off, to which Dr. Primrose moves in chap, iii., vol. i., with Kirkby Moor- side in the North Riding. This point estab- lished, Welbridge Fair, where Moses sells the colt (chap. xii. and chap, vi., vol. ii.), easily becomes Welburn ; Thornhill Castle, a few miles further, stands for Helmsley ; " the wells" 1 National Review, May, 1883. A Memoir 145 (chap, xviii.) for Harrogate, and *'the races" (ibid.) for Doncaster. The '^ rapid stream " in chap, iii., where Sophia was nearly drowned, he conjectures to have been near the confluence of the Swale and Ouse at Boroughbridge, " within thirty miles " (p. 21) of Kirkby Moor- side ; and the county gaol in chap, v., vol. ii., he places '* eleven miles off" (p. 86) at Picker- ing. But for the further details of this attrac- tive if inconclusive inquiry, as well as the conjectural identification of Sir William Thorn- hill, with the equally eccentric Sir George Savile, and of the travelling limner of chap, xvi., vol. i., with Romney the artist, the reader is referred to the article itself. The first edition of the '' Vicar," it will be remembered, was published on March 27, 1766. A second edition, containing some minor modi- fications, one of the most important of which was the reiteration, with great effect, of Mr. Burchell's famous comment, followed in May, and a third in August. In the same year there were also two unauthorised reprints of the first edition, one of which was published at Dublin, the other in London. After this there seems to have been a lull in the demand, for the fourth edition is dated 1770 ; and, accord- ing to Collins's books, started with a loss. The 10 146 Oliver Goldsmith profits of this seem to have been so doubtful that, before the fifth edition appeared, Collins sold his third share to one of his colleagues for five guineas. The fifth edition, which did not actually appear until April, 1774, is dated 1773. This would indicate that the previous issue was not exhausted until early in the following year. The sixth edition is dated 1779. Thus, assum- ing the fifth to have been, like the fourth edition, limited to one thousand copies, it took nearly nine years to sell two thousand copies. No rival of any importance was in the field, until, in 1778^ Miss Burney published her "Evelina;" and the languor of the sale must be attributed to some temporary suspension of public interest in the " Vicar." Meanwhile, translations into French and German, to be followed in due time by translations into almost every European lan- guage,^ were laying the foundation of its cos- mopolitan reputation, and its modern admirers still take pleasure in recollecting that among the most famous of their predecessors was Goethe. " It is not to be described," he wrote to Zelter in 1830, *' the effect which Goldsmith's ' Vicar' 1 " A Bibliographical List of Editions of * The Vicar of Wakefield' published in England and abroad/' is prefixed to Elliot Stock' s facsimile reprint of 1885, pp. xxii-xxxix. A Memoir 147 had upon me just at the critical moment of mental development. That lofty and benevolent irony, that fair and indulgent view of all infirmi- ties and faults, that meekness under all calami- ties, that equanimity under all changes and chances, and the whole train of kindred virtues, whatever names they bear, proved my best education ; and in the end, these are the thoughts and feelings which have reclaimed us from all the errors of life."^ ^ See also Miscellanies, by the present Author, 1898, pp. 165-182, for a paper on " The ' Vicar of Wakefield' and its Illustrators." CHAPTER VIII "The Vicar" and "The Traveller" as investments; transla- tion of Formey's " History of Philosophy and Philosophers " published, June, 1766; "Poems for Young Ladies" pub- lished, December 15 ; English Grammar written; " Beauties of English Poesy" published, April, 1767; letter to the 6"/. James's Chronicle^ July; living at Canonbury House; at the Temple; visited by Parson Scott; "Roman History"; the Wednesday Club ; popularity of genteel comedy ; plans a play ; story of *' The Good Natur'd Man ; " its production at Covent Garden, January 29, 1768; its reception ; Goldsmith on the first night ; his gains ; Davies on the dramatis per- sonce; Johnson on Goldsmith. r^ OLDSMITH'S biographers have laid stress ^^ upon the fact that there is no record of any payment to him for the *' Vicar of Wakefield," subsequent to that original sixty pounds, or guineas, whereof mention was made in the foregoing chapter ; and they have not failed to remark, with a certain air of righteous indignation, that, on May 24, 1766, close upon the publication of the second edition, a bill drawn by him upon John Newbery for fifteen guineas was returned dishonoured. Some in- A Memoir 149 dignation would be intelligible, and perhaps justifiable, had the book been a pecuniary suc- cess, which, of course, was their assumption, — an assumption based upon the rapid appearance of three editions. But, if Collins's accounts are to be accepted, and the chief objection to them is their contradiction of time-honoured traditions, the " Vicar," in spite of those three issues (of how many copies we are ignorant), was not paying its proprietors, — in other words, they had not yet recovered the jTfio they had laid out upon the manuscript. No other interpretation can be placed upon the statement of Mr. Welsh, who says, " The fourth edition [of 1770] started with a balance against it.^ This being so, no ground existed for any gener- osity from the proprietors to the author. On the other hand, " The Traveller " was a success. It had reached a fourth edition in August, 1765, and in a memorandum by Goldsmith printed by Prior, and dated June 7, 1766, there is an item of ;^2i for ^' The Traveller." It is scarcely possible that this can refer to the first payment made as far back as 1764, and it may therefore be assumed, not unreasonably, that it was an additional payment arising out of the success of the poem. If this be the case, the circum- 1 A Bookseller of the Last Century, 1885, p. 61. 150 Oliver Goldsmith stances as regards the two books become perfectly logical, and neither surprise nor indig- nation is called for. The fourth edition of " The Vicar " started with a loss, and there were no profits for anybody ; the fourth edition of " The Traveller" had paid its expenses with a fair surplus, and there was a bonus of twenty guineas for the author. But a dubious twenty-guinea bonus upon the sale of a popular poem is scarcely opulence, and Goldsmith was still obliged to depend upon the old ''book-building." Between the appearance of the second and third editions of the " Vicar," there was issued by the "Vicar's" publisher, Francis Newbery, a translation of a " History of Philosophy and Philosophers," by M. For- mey of Berlin, whose " Philosophical Miscel- lanies " Goldsmith had reviewed for Smollett in The Critical Review. For this, in pursuance of some occult arrangement between the New- berys, John Newbery paid — the sum being ;^20. Later in the year Goldsmith prepared for Payne of Paternoster Row, but without his name as editor, a selection of " Poems for Young Ladies," the ''Moral" department of which led off with his own " Edwin and Ange- lina," a circumstance which lends a certain piquancy to the artless statement in the preface A Memoir 151 that '' every poem in the following collection would singly have procured an author great reputation." Following hard upon the publica- tion of this in December, comes the record of a *' short English Grammar" for Newbery ; and then was prepared for Griffin " The Beauties of English Poesy," in two volumes, for which selec- tion, with the addition of his name on the title- page, he was paid £^0^ or only £\o less than the sum he obtained for the " Vicar," an original work. His " original work" in this was con- fined to a preface, and brief introductory notes. But the success of this otherwise excellent anthology was prejudiced considerably by the presence in it of two of Prior's most hazardous pieces, the " Ladle" and '* Hans Carvel," an intrusion all the more unwarrantable, because Prior's somewhat meagre individuality was already sufficiently represented by his poem of "Alma." Not many months after the publication of the ** Beauties," and prompted, it may be, by the reappearance of '• Edwin and Angelina," in the " Poems for Young Ladies," Kenrick, Gold- smith's successor on The Monthly Review, and his persistent assailant, took occasion to bring against him a charge of gross plagiarism. A letter signed "Detector" appeared in the St, 152 Oliver Goldsmith James's Chronicle in which he was accused of taking" The Hermit" {"• Edwin and Angelina") direct from Percy's " Friar of Orders Gray,'' with this difference only, that he had substituted "languid smoothness" and "tedious para- phrase " for the "natural simplicity and tender- ness of the original." Several of the stanzas in the " Friar" are the beautiful snatches sung by Ophelia in her insanity, and Goldsmith might well have been absolved from improving upon them. But to the general charge of theft he replied conclusively in a letter to the Chronicle^ of which the following is the material portion : "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 is 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 Humour, 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 scarce worth printing, and were it not for the A Memoir 153 busy Disposition of some of your Correspon- dents, the Publick should never have known that, he ov^^es me the Hint of his Ballad, or that I am obliged to his Friendship and Learning for Communications of a much more important Nature." ^ The reply is perfect in tone, and shows once more how unfailing was Goldsmith's skill when he took pen in hand. Percy, it may be added, confirmed this story^ with but little variation, in a note which he appended to the '' Friar of Orders Gray " in the 177^ edition of the " Reliques," and also in the '' Memoir "of Goldsmith, prefixed to the " Miscellaneous Works" of 1 801. About the middle of 1767 Goldsmith seems to have again taken up his residence at Islington, and this time it is definitely asserted that he lived in Canonbury House. The old tower of Queen Elizabeth's hunting lodge was a favourite summer resort of literary men, publishers, and printers, and, as already stated, John Newbery himself, who died in December of this year, was one of its most frequent inmates. Indeed, some last business instructions drawn up by him in November are dated " Canbury House," and the notice of his death in The Public Advertiser affirms that it actually occurred there. But 1 Si. James's C/iromWe, July 23-5, 1767. 154 Oliver Goldsmith whether Goldsmith now occupied that '* upper story so commonly devoted to poets," or tenanted, either on his own account, or as Newbery's substitute, the old oak-panelled room on the first floor, long shown to visitors as his, history sayeth not with any certainty. That he attended, and occasionally presided at a club, largely recruited from the lettered and quasi- lettered occupants of Canonbury Tower, which was held at the Crown Tavern in the Islington Lower Road, may be more safely assumed. When in London, he occupied new quarters in the Temple, to which he had moved from his old home in Fleet Street. These were in Gar- den Court, an address that figures at the head of one of his letters to Colman, dated July the 19th, and hence, in all probability, he penned his letter to the Chronicle. According to Prior his apartments were on the library staircase, and he shared them with one Jeffs, butler to the Society. Consequently there is no record of his residence in the books. Nor is there any record of the somewhat superior lodging in King's Bench Walks to which he removed a little later, where he was again, apparently, the tenant of a private owner. Neither of these retreats was of imposing character, and Gold- smith's ready susceptibility took alarm when he A Memoir 155 saw Johnson blinking about, in his short-sighted way, at his friend's environment. '* I shall soon be in better chambers than these,'* he said, apologetically. But his sturdy old mentor was down upon him at once with a " Nay, Sir, never mind that: Nil ie qucesiveris extra,'' '^ To another of his Temple visitors Goldsmith behaved with greater dignity. Towards the close of this same year of 1767 an attempt was made to enlist his pen in the service of that *' party," to which, in the " dedication " of " The Traveller/' he had referred as one of the enemies of his art. The North Administration, harassed by Wilkes, and goadedby the far more terrible "Junius," was casting about helplessly for literary cham- pions, and overtures were accordingly made to Goldsmith by Sandwich's chaplain. Parson Scott, known to the contemporary caricaturist as " Twitcher's Advocate," a title he had earned by his support of his patron under the mm de guerre of Anti-Sejanus. Scott had already reaped the benefit of his "venal pen" by pre- sentation to the living of Simonburn, in North- umberland, and appomtment as Chaplain of Greenwich Hospital. The sequel of his visit to Goldsmith may be told in his own words : " I found him," said Dr. Scott to Basil Montagu, 1 Hill's Boswell's Johnson, 1887, iv> 27. 156 Oliver Goldsmith ** in a miserable set of chambers in the Temple. I told him my authority ; I told him that I was empowered to pay most liberally for his exer- tions ; 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," added Dr. Scott, "in his garret."-^ The contempt of the pros- perous timeserver was to be anticipated, though Goldsmith's admirers will doubtless take a dif- ferent view of the matter. But when Goldsmith told Lord North's emis- sary that he was earning enough for his wants, it is to be feared that the statement, like his earlier announcement to Beatty of his prosperity as a physician in Southwark, was a palpable exaggeration. Of lucrative work during 1767 there is scant indication. What he did for his old employer, Newbery, amounted to little ; and Newbery, it has been shown, was ill or dy- ing in the latter months of this year. Yet a turn for the better was coming in Goldsmith's life, and during part of 1766 and 1767 he had been engaged in a new enterprise, of which an ac- count will presently be given. In addition, about this time, a somewhat more prosperous 1 Forster's Life, 1877, ii, 71. A Memoir 157 way of compilation was opened by a proposal of the bookseller, Thomas Davies, whose ** very pretty wife " is celebrated in the verse of Churchill. Davies had been shrewd enough to observe that the '^ Letters from a Nobleman to his Son " of two years before, still freely given to literary lords like Chesterfield and Orrery, had lost none of their real popularity or their fictitious prestige, and he hit upon the happy idea of proposing to Goldsmith to write a Roman History upon the same pattern. The honorarium was to be two hundred and fifty guineas. There were to be two volumes, to be finished in two years or less. As the book was published in May, 1769, it must be as- sumed that it had, or should have, begun to employ Goldsmith actively in the later months of 1767. There is little record of his other occupations. Doubtless, when in London, he was assiduous in his attendance at the Turk's Head, in Gerrard Street, on the Mondays when the club held its sittings. But he was probably more at home in resorts like the Crown, in the Islington Lower Road, where the company was less pre- tentious. One of these "free and easys," de- scribed by Mr. Forster from the manuscript notes of a certain William Ballantyne, lent to 158 Oliver Goldsmith him by Mr. Bolton Corney, went by the name of the " Wednesday Club," and was held at the Globe Tavern, in Fleet Street. Among its frequenters were several of Goldsmith's country- men—Glover, a doctor and actor; Thompson, who edited Andrew Marvel ; and Hugh Kelly, a staymaker turned rhymester, who was imitat- ing ChurchilFs " Rosciad " in a poem called " Thespis," and was shortly to become the pillar of sentimental comedy. Of the other members chronicled in Ballantyne's notes, the most memorable was a Mr. Gordon, a huge man, whom, to use Falstaff's words, ''sighing and grief had blown up like a bladder," and who used to delight Goldsmith by singing a thor- oughly appropriate song, called " Nottingham Ale." But it was noted, even at this time, that the old fits of silence and depression, which his relatives had remarked in his childhood, still haunted him. *' He has often," says Glover, '* left a party of convivial friends abruptly in the evening, in order to go home and brood over his misfortunes."^ Washington Irving's more charitable explanation is, that he went home to note down some good thing for his forthcoming comedy. But the hopes and fears connected with that enterprise were of themselves sufficient 1 Life prefixed to Poems and Flays ^ i777> PP* ix-x. A Memoir 159 to cause depression, and to the story of those hopes and fears we now come. Goldsmith had always been a fervent lover of the stage. As already stated, there are tradi- tions that he had composed a tragedy, which he had submitted in manuscript to Richardson ; and in the " Enquiry," The Bee, " The Citizen of the World," and even in the " Vicar," he had frequently expressed his opinions upon matters theatrical, certainly with the knowledge, if not of a dramatist, at least of a shrewd and common- sense critic. At this date what, in addition to pantomime and spectacle, found most favour in England, was *' genteel" or "sentimental comedy." This was the English equivalent for the comedie serieuse or larmo/ante, which, initi- ated in France by La Chaussee, had recently been most happily exemplified in that country by Sedaine's Philosophe sans le sapoir. Accord- ing to Diderot, this school had for its object not so much the satire of vice as the glorifica- tion of virtue — by virtue being meant more particularly the virtues of private and domestic life. Steele, at the beginning of the century, had attempted something of the kind in "The Funeral" and "The Lying Lover"; but the new French school, whose influence was now being felt on this side the Channel, had arisen i6o Oliver Goldsmith long after he had ceased his labours as a drama- tist. Goldsmith's views, it need scarcely be said, were entirely opposed to the prevailing fashion of comedy. He was, he tells us, strongly prepossessed in favour of the authors of the last age. Nature and humour, he con- tended, in whatever walks of life they were most conspicuous, should be the chief ends of the playwright, and the delineation of character his principal duty. By reason of the ultra- refinement and insipid unreality of the new manner, these things, in his opinion, were in a fair way to disappear from the stage altogether ; and when, at the beginning of 1766, the success of " The Clandestine Marriage," which Colman and Garrick had adapted from Hogarth's most famous picture-drama, seemed to promise some chance of a reaction in the public taste, he straightway set to work upon a comedy on the elder English model. He appears to have wrought at it during 1766, in the intervals of his other literary work, and he had completed it early in 1767, when it was submitted to some of his friends, who approved it. Johnson under- took to write a prologue, and thereupon began the indispensable and traditionally wearisome negotiations for getting it placed upon the boards. A Memoir i6i At this time Garrick was manager of Drury Lane. To Garrick, however, Goldsmith had not intended to apply. He knew that he had offended the all-powerful actor by certain pas- sages still on record in the ''Enquiry," and Garrick had shown his sense of this by refusing his vote when Goldsmith was a candidate for the secretaryship of the Royal Society. Un- happily, owing to the death of its manager Rich, the affairs of the rival theatre of Covent Gar- den were in temporary confusion. Goldsmith had therefore no choice but to address himself to Garrick, and Reynolds arranged a meeting between them at his house. As may be antici- pated, it was not entirely satisfactory. Gold- smith was sensitive and consequential ; Garrick courteous, but cautious. Nevertheless, there was an indefinite understanding that the play should be acted. The manac^er seems subse- quently to have blown hot and cold according to his wont. In reality, he did not like the piece, and he privately told Reynolds and John- son that he thought it would not succeed. To the author he was not equally frank, and thus misunderstandings multiplied. Meanwhile the theatrical season slipped away, and Goldsmith, who had counted upon the pecuniary profits of his work, grew impatient. Finally he asked II 1 62 Oliver Goldsmith for an advance upon a note of the younger Newbery. This was readily granted ; but the boon was followed up by suggestions for altera- tions and omissions in the play — alterations and omissions which, it is unnecessary to say, were anything but palatable to the author. Arbitration was next spoken of, and, in this connection, William Whitehead, a man of very inferior calibre, whom Garrick occasionally employed as his reader, was named. There- upon, says Mr. Forster, " a dispute of so much vehemence and anger ensued, that the services of Burke as well as Reynolds were needed to moderate the disputants." But a sudden change in the state of affairs at the rival house, fortunately opened the way to a solution of these protracted differences. Colman, by a sequence of circumstances which do not belong to these pages, became one of the patentees of Covent Garden ; and Gold- smith seized the opportunity for offering him his comedy. He promptly received an encouraging reply. Forthwith he wrote to Garrick stating what he had done ; and in return was gratified with one of those formally cordial responses in which the actor was an adept. But he had not yet reached the end of his troubles. It was in July, 1767, that he wrote to Colman, and his A Memoir 163 comedy could not be produced until Christmas. In the interval further complications arose. Garrick, already in hot competition with Co- vent Garden, was, naturally, not very favourably disposed to its newest dramatic writer ; and he accordingly, in opposition to Goldsmith's comedy, of which we may now speak by its name of *'The Good Natur'd Man," brought forward Hugh Kelly with a characterless sentimental drama called " False Delicacy." Before the end of the year the " whirligig of time " had reconciled him to Colman, and one result of this was, that the latter, whose interest in Goldsmith's piece had meanwhile somewhat cooled, consented tacitly to keep back " The Good Natur'd Man" until ''False Delicacy" had made its appearance. So it befell that, in January, 1768, when "The Good Natur'd Man " was going slowly through its last re- hearsals, '* False Delicacy" came out at Drury Lane with all the advantages of Garrick's con- summate generalship. A few days later " The Good Natur'd Man " was played for the first time at Covent Garden. Johnson's prologue turned out to be rather dispiriting ; and Powell, Garrick's handsome young rival, was, as the hero, cold and unsympathetic. On the other hand, Shuter, an excellent actor, proved inim- 1 64 Oliver Goldsmith itable in the part of Croaker, a character planned upon the " Suspirius " of The Rambler, while Woodward was almost equally good as the charlatan, Lofty. The success of the piece, however, was only qualified, and one scene of " low " humour, in which some bailiffs were in- troduced, gave so much offence, that it was withdrawn after the first representation. Goldsmith, who, as his tailor's bills testify, had attended the first night in a magnificent suit of " Tyrian bloom satin grain, and garter blue silk breeches," ^ and whose hopes and fears had risen and fallen many times during the performance, was bitterly disappointed. Nevertheless, after hurriedly thanking Shuter, he vv^ent away to the club in Gerrard Street, laughed loudly, made believe to sup, and ulti- mately sang his own particular song. Years afterwards, however, the truth leaked out. Coming back one day from dining at the chap- lain's table at St. James's, Dr. Johnson told Mrs. Thrale that Goldsmith had been giving " a very comical and unnecessarily exact recital there of his own feelings when his play was hissed." He had told " the company how he went indeed to the Literary Club at night, and chatted gaily among his friends, as if nothing 1 Forster's Life, 1877, ii, 112. A Memoir 165 had happened amiss ; that to impress them still more forcibly with an idea of his magnanimity, he even sung his favourite song about an old woman tossed in a blanket seventeen times as high as the moon, but all this while I was suf- fering horrid tortures (said he), and verily believe that if I had put a bit in my mouth it would have strangled me on the spot, I was so excessively ill ; but I made more noise than usual to cover all that, and so they never per- ceived my not eating, nor, I believe, imaged to themselves the anguish of my heart ; but when all were gone except Johnson here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore by that I would never write again. ' All which. Doc- tor (says Mr. Johnson, amazed at his odd frank- ness), 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.' " " No man," added Johnson, commenting upon his own story, '' should be expected to sympathise with the sorrows of vanity." ^ And then he went on to make some further remarks upon the subject which show once more how much easier are precepts than practice. ''The Good Natur'd Man" was played for ten consecutive nights, being commanded on 1 Hill's Johnsoniaii Miscellanies, 1897, i, 311-12. i66 Oliver Goldsmith the fifth by their Majesties. The third, the sixth, and the ninth nights were appropriated to the author. By these he made about ;^40o, to which the sale of the play in book form with the suppressed bailiff scene restored added another jQioo. It seems clear, notwithstanding, that the play was not such a success as it deserved to be ; and that much was done to protract its brief life by the author's friends. The taste for sentimental comedy, in fact, was still too strong to be overcome. Yet, as Davies points out, and Davies as a former actor is an authority, ''The Good Natur'd Man" contains "two characters absolutely unknown before to the English stage; a man [Lofty] who boasts an intimacy with persons of high rank whom he never saw, and another, who is almost always lamenting misfortunes he never knew. Croaker [he asserts] is as strongly designed, and as highly finished a portrait of a discontented man, of one who disturbs every happiness he pos- sesses, from apprehension of distant evil, as any character of Congreve, or any other of our English dramatists." ^ It has already been said that the character of Croaker was built upon a sketch by Johnson in The Rambler. Once when Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney were read- 1 Life of David Qarrick, 1780, ii, 148-9. A Memoir 167 ing this particular paper at Streatham, Johnson came upon them. " Ah, madam/' said he, " Goldsmith was not scrupulous ; but he would have been a great man had he known the real value of his own internal resources." ^ 1 Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, 1892, i, 38. CHAPTER IX Moves to 2, Brick Court, Middle Temple ; relaxations and fes- tivities; the Seguin recollections; death of Henry Goldsmith; begins " The Deserted Village ; " methods of poetical com- position; "Shoemaker's Holidays;" Goldsmith's compan- ions; " The Shoemaker's Paradise" at Edgeware; Mr. Bott, the barrister ; old compilations and new ; epilogue to Mrs. Lennox's "Sister"; a dinner at Boswell's; appointed Pro- fessor of History to the Royal Academy, December; letter to Maurice Goldsmith, January; portrait painted by Reynolds; "The Deserted Village" published, May 26, 1770; depopu- lation theory ; identity of Auburn and Lissoy ; enduring quali- ties of the poem; farewell to poetry; amount received by author. " npHE Good Natur'd Man," we have seen, ■*■ left Goldsmith the richer by ;^5oo. With this sum, it may be thought, he should have rested upon his oars, or, at all events, have raised some provisional barrier against the in- roads of necessity. As it was, not being by any means an exceptional member of society, he at once invested the greater part of it in purchas- ing the lease of fresh chambers. His old quar- ters, looked at by the light of his good fortune, had grown too narrow for his importance ; and A Memoir 169 he consequently moved to a second floor at No. 2, Brick. Court, Middle Temple, where he had a couple of '* reasonably-sized old-fashioned rooms, with a third smaller room or sleeping- closet." ^ Here he lived for the rest of his life. According to Cook, the sum he paid for the lease was ;^40o, and from the catalogue of the sale of his effects after his death, he must have laid out a good deal more in furnishing his new residence sumptuously. Wilton carpets, "blue morine festoon window-curtains compleat," Pembroke tables, " a very large dressing-glass," and his friend Sir Joshua's "Tragic Muse, in a gold frame," — to say nothing of complete tea and card equipages — can have left but little unexpended of the balance that remained. The step thus taken was clearly not a wise one ; and Goldsmith would have done better to respect the Nil te qucesiveris extra of Johnson. For he had not only to live in his new chambers ; but he had also to live up to them ; and here began, or was further perplexed, that tangled mesh of money difficulties from which he was hardly ever afterwards to shake himself free. In the meantime he seems to have " hung his crane " at Brick Court with all the honours. There are traditions of suppers and dinners and 1 Forster's Life, 1877, ii, 105. 170 Oliver Goldsmith card parties, at which, to use the formula of Dr. Primrose, whatever the quality of the wit, there was assuredly plenty of laughter. Blackstone, who occupied the rooms immediately below, is said to have been disturbed in the preparation of his " Commentaries " by the sounds of hilarity overhead ; and his successor, a Mr. Children, also testified to similar manifestations of the festive spirit of his neighbour above-stairs. The chief witness to these entertainments is an Irish gentleman named Seguin, who, about this date, made Goldsmith's acquaintance. The poet was godfather to Seguin's children, and his recollections, preserved by some of these, were long afterwards communicated to Prior by a member of the family, then living in Dublin. On one especially memorable occasion the Seguins dined with Goldsmith, in company with " Mr. and Mrs. Pollard, of Castle Pollard/' in order to meet Dr. Johnson. The guests had been duly warned by their host to talk only upon such subjects as they thoroughly understood, and on no account to interrupt the great man when he had once begun to discourse. With these precautions, added to the favouring circum- stance that *' Ursa Major" chanced to be in an unusually good temper, the evening passed off pleasantly. Another memory represents Gold- A Memoir 171 smith as dancing a minuet with Mrs. Seguin, a performance which appears to have excited almost as much amusement as the historical hornpipe of his childhood. Now and then, it is related, he would sing Irish songs, and delight the company with his (and Peggy Golden's) old favourite, " The Cruelty of Barbara Allen." Here his success was never doubtful, for, with- out being an accomplished vocalist, he sang with much natural taste and feeling. At other times, blind man's buff, forfeits, tricks with cards, and children's games (when there were children present), were the order of the day. *' He unbent without reserve," says Prior, " to the level of whoever were his companions," ^ and the anecdotes of this time are wholly con- firmatory of his amiability, his love of fun, and his naturally cheerful disposition. His hospital- ity, as may be guessed, was in advance of his means. But it was noted that, however liberally he feasted his guests, his own habitual evening meal was boiled milk. In May, 1768, his elder brother ended an un- obtrusive life in his remote Irish home. Henry Goldsmith seems to have been the only member of the family to keep up a correspondence with his junior, whose kith and kin, by his account, 1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 193. 172 Oliver Goldsmith must have neglected him grievously. '* I be- lieve I have written an hundred letters to differ- ent friends in your country," he later tells his brother Maurice, ''and never received an an- swer to any of them." But for Henry he had attempted to obtain preferment from the Earl of Northumberland ; to Henry he had inscribed "The Traveller"; and to Henry he was to refer, with affectionate simplicity, in the " Dedi- cation" of his next poem. Indeed, it is prob- able that the death of Henry Goldsmith, by turning his thoughts once more to the friends and home of his boyhood, stimulated the pro- duction of "The Deserted Village," in which there are undoubted traces of both. And it is admitted that at this time he began to work upon the poem. William Cook, the young law student who wrote recollections of him in The European Magazine, expressly testifies to this, and gives some interesting particulars as to his methods of composition. "Goldsmith," he says, "though quick enough at prose, was rather slow in his poetry — not from the tardiness of fancy, but the time he took in pointing the sentiment, and polishing the versification.^ . . 1 This is confirmed by others. His method, it is said, was to write his first thoughts in lines so far apart as to leave " ample room and verge enough" for copious inter- A Memoir 173 His manner of writing poetry was this : he first sketched a part of his design in prose, in which he threw out his ideas as they occurred to him ; he then sat carefully down to versify them, correct them, and add such other ideas as he thought better fitted to the subject. He some- times would exceed his prose design, by writing several verses impromptu, but these he would take uncommon pains afterwards to revise, lest they should be found unconnected with his main design. The Writer of these Memoirs called upon the Doctor the second morning after he had begun 'The Deserted Village,' and to him he communicated the plan of his poem. . . . He then read what he had done of it that morning, beginning ' Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, ' " and so on for ten lines. *' ' Come/ says he, ' let me tell you, this is no bad morning's work ; and now, my dear boy, if you are not better engaged, I should be glad to enjoy a Shoe-maker's holiday with you.' " ^ Assuming that Cook is to be taken literally, the first morning's work at "The Deserted Village " must have consisted of exactly four lineation. According to Percy, he so industriously filled these spaces with corrections that scarce a line of the original draught remained. ^ European Magazine^ September, 1793, p. 172. 174 Oliver Goldsmith lines, since that of the second morning begins at line five of the poem as it stands at present. But the processes of poetry are not to be so exactly meted, and it is probable that Cook is more to be depended upon in his account of what Goldsmith calls a " shoemaker's holiday," the fashion of which was as follows : *' Three or four of his [Goldsmith's] intimate friends ren- dezvoused at his chambers to breakfast about ten o'clock in the morning ; at eleven they pro- ceeded 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 the evening by supping at the Grecian or Temple Exchange Coffee-houses, 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 (five-and-twenty years ago ^) at lod. 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 this day's file never exceeded a crown, and oftener from three and sixpence to four shillings, for which the party obtained good air and exercise, good living, the example of simple manners, and ^ Cook wrote in 1793. A Memoir 175 good conversation." Prior adds a few particu- lars to this account, which, it may be observed, wholly neglects to include in its estimate of expenditure, the *' remarkably plentiful and rather expensive breakfast," with which the pro- ceedings began. *' When finished," he says, *' he [Goldsmith] had usually some poor women in attendance to whom the fragments were con- signed. On one occasion, a wealthy city acquaintance not remarkable for elegance of mind or manners, who observed this liberality, said with some degree of freedom, * Why, Doctor, you must be a rich man ; / cannot afford to do this.' ' It Is not wealth, my dear Sir,' was the reply of the Doctor, willing to re- buke without offending his guest,' but inclina- tion. I have only to suppose that a few more friends than usual have been of our party, and then it amounts to the same thing.' " ^ Cook, of course, frequently took part in these expeditions, and Prior enumerates some of the others who assisted. One was an original named Peter Barlow, a humble copyist in Gold- smith's employ. He always appeared in the same dress, and insisted on never paying more than fifteen pence for his dinner, the balance being made up by Goldsmith, who compensated 1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 182-3. 176 Oliver Goldsmith himself with the diversion that Barlow's eccen- tricities afforded to the rest of the company. Another not infrequent holiday-keeper was Glover, already mentioned in connection with the "Wednesday Club." *' Coley, and Wil- liams, and Howard, and Hiif " (Hiffernan), as the line of "The Haunch of Venison " has it, were doubtless often of the number, as well as others whose names have been forgotten — carent quia vate sacro. " Our Doctor," said Glover, at p. vi of the life prefixed to the *' Poems and Plays " of 1777, " had a constant levee of his distrest countrymen, whose wants, as far as he was able, he alwa^^s relieved ; and he has been often known to leave himself with- out a guinea, in order to supply the necessities of others." Sometimes it may be added, he even went further than this, and borrowed from some one else the guinea required. In Taylor's " Records of my Life" there is a story told of Cook to this effect. Cook had engaged to meet a party at Marylebone Gardens, and applied to Goldsmith for a loan. Goldsmith had not the wherewithal ; but at once undertook to obtain it. Having waited for some time, Cook finally went away without the money. Returning at five in the morning, he found it difficult to open his door; and, upon investigation, discovered A Memoir 177 that the obstruction arose from a guinea wrapped in paper, which Goldsmith, disregarding the established medium of the letter-box, had en- deavoured to thrust under it. Cook thanked him in the course of the day; but commented upon this unbusinesslike mode of transferring funds, adding, very justly, that any one might have found and appropriated the little packet. " In truth, my dear fellow," replied Goldsmith, '' I did not think of that." '^The fact is," adds the charitable narrator of the anecdote, ' ' he prob- ably thought of nothing but serving a friend." ^ From the "shoemaker's holiday" it is a natural transition to the "Shoemaker's Para- dise." This was a summer retreat at Edgeware at the back of Canons (Pope's " Timon's Villa "), to which Goldsmith moved about the middle of 1768. It consisted of a tiny cottage which had been actually built for a Piccadilly shoemaker ; and (by Cook's account) was decorated in all the taste of the " Cit's Country Box" sung by Robert Lloyd, or that other and earlier civic Elysium described in No. xxxiii. of The Connoisseur — in other words, it included, in the "scanty plot" of half an acre, all those jets d'eau, flying Mercuries, gazeboes, and ditches — 1 Records of my Life, 1832, i, 107-8. II 1 78 Oliver Goldsmith " four foot wide, With angles, curves, and zig-zag lines. From Halfpenny's exact designs," ^ in which the common-council mind of the last century delighted when it surrendered itself to flights of fancy. Goldsmith's co-lessee of this desirable residence, was a Mr. Edmund Bott, a barrister, and author of a work on the Poor Laws, which Goldsmith is reported to have revised. Mr. Bott occupied rooms in Brick Court on the same floor as Goldsmith, and a strong friendship sprang up between them. Bott was the richer man, and Goldsmith was frequently indebted to him for loans of money ; indeed, at Goldsmith's death, Bott was his chief creditor, and thus became possessor of his papers. In spite, however, of these dubious relations, they were boon companions. Edge- ware, even in 1768, was not so far off as to exile them from the pleasures of the metropolis, especially in days when the orthodox dinner hour was four o'clock. Moreover, Mr. Bott kept a gig, which he drove himself — a perform- ance not without its excitements when the charioteer was slightly in his cups. There is (or was) a letter extant in which Goldsmith recalls how, upon one memorable occasion, his 1 Lloyd's Poetical Works, 1774, i, 45. A Memoir 179 companion, having bumped a post with great dexterity, still continued to maintain doggedly that the vehicle was in the middle of the road. It v\^as not, hov^^ever, entirely for pleasure, quickened by the ** violent delight " of an occa- sional overturn, that Goldsmith sought the seclusion of the little cottage at the back of Lord Chandos's Edgeware mansion. During all the summer of 1768 he v\^as, doubtless, busily employed upon the " History of Rome" he had undertaken for Davies, which was published in May of the following year. Its success was instantaneous. The charm and simplicity of the style at once caught the public, and though the writer disclaimed research, and professed only to have aimed at a school book, he obtained all the favour attaching to work that conveys instruction without making unreasonable de- mands on the reader's attention. Its popularity and Goldsmith's need seem speedily to have led to new enterprises of a like nature. Already, in February, 1769, he had entered into a cove- nant with Griffin, the publisher of the " Essays" of 1765, to write, in eight volumes, at one hundred guineas a volume, a " New Natural History of Animals," which afterwards became the well-known '' Animated Nature " ; and the i8o Oliver Goldsmith *' Roman History" was no sooner issued, than Davies made proposals for a new *' English History " in four volumes octavo, at £^oo. Among Goldsmith's friends there was no doubt as to his ability to make these productions readable, even if they were not equally sure of his equipment as a naturalist or an historian. *' Sir," said the ever-steadfast Johnson, *'he has the art of compiling," and he predicted that his friend would make his natural history as interesting as a Persian tale. Nowadays we may possibly require a different standard of entertainment ; but Johnson's meaning is un- mistakable. Nevertheless, it is to be regretted that necessity should have left open no other career than '' book-building" to the author of an unique novel, an excellent comedy, and a successful didactic poem. Goldsmith's only contribution to the lighter muses for the year 1769 consists of an epilogue to the comedy of " The Sister," by Mrs. Char- lotte Lenox (nde Ramsay), an authoress who seems to have been a considerable favourite with the literati of her day. Fielding speaks of her in his last book^ as " the inimitable author 1 "Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon'^ 1755. PP- 35~6. For some further account of Mrs. Lenox, see '* Eighteenth Century Vignettes^'' First Series, pp. 55-67. A Memoir i8i of the * Female Quixote,' " and Johnson was half suspected of having revised her ''Shakes- peare Illustrated.'" It was probably owing to this popularity that Goldsmith wrote her the epilogue in question, as her comedy belonged to that genteel, if not absolutely sentimental class of play, of which he was the avowed opponent. It is a pleasant example of his facil- ity and good nature. The only other incident of this year requiring record is a famous din- ner at Boswell's, which has always played an important part in all literary portraits of Gold- smith. The impression produced by the ex- traordinary art of Johnson's biographer is so vivid, that, although one feels the malice of some of the touches, any attempt to soften them detracts from the value of the picture. It must therefore be given in Boswell's own words : — *' He [Johnson] honoured me with his com- pany at dinner on the i6th October [1769], at my lodgings in Old Bond-street, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Murphy, Mr. BickerstafT, and Mr. Thomas Davies. Garrick played round him with a fond vivacity, taking hold of the breasts of his coat, and looking up in his face with a lively arch- ness, complimented him on the good health 1 82 Oliver Goldsmith which he seemed then to enjoy ; while the sage, shaking his head, beheld him with a gentle complacency. One of the company not being come at the appointed hour, I proposed, as usual upon such occasions, to order dinner to be served ; adding, ' Ought six people to be kept waiting for one ? ' ' Why, yes (answered Johnson, with a delicate humanity), if the one will suffer more by your sitting down, than the six will do by waiting.' Goldsmith, to divert the tedious minutes, strutted about, bragging of his dress, and I believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was wonderfully prone to such impressions. ' Come, come, (said Garrick,) talk no more of that. You are, perhaps, the worst — eh, eh I ' Goldsmith was eagerly at- tempting to interrupt him, when Garrick went on, laughing ironically, ' Nay, you will always look like a gentleman ; but I am talking of being well or ill drest/ ' Well, let me tell you, (said Goldsmith,) when my tailor brought home my bloom-coloured coat, he said, " Sir^ I have a favour to beg of you. When anybody asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention John Filby, at the Harrow, in Water Lane.' Johnson. ' Why, Sir, that was because he knew the strange colour would attract crowds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of him, and see A Memoir 183 how well he could make a coat even of so absurd a colour.' " ^ The conversation which followed occupies some pages of Boswell's record. But Gold- smith's part in it, or, at all events, that part which Boswell thought worthy of preservation, seems to have been confined to a curt comment on Lord Kames's " Elements of Criticism," and the not very original remark that Pope's " Atticus " showed a deep knowledge of the human heart. Johnson, on the other hand, distinguished himself more than usual, espe- cially by his well-known and paradoxical pref- erence of a passage in Congreve's " Mourning Bride " to anything he could recollect in Shakes- peare. Not long after this memorable enter- tainment, simultaneous honours fell upon the two friends. The, Public Advertiser announced that Johnson had been appointed Professor of Ancient Literature, and Goldsmith Professor of Ancient History, to the Royal Academy. 1 Hill's Boswell's Johnson, 1887, ii, 83. Boswell's memory errs here. The tailor's Christian name was William. Dr. Birkbeck Hill is somewhat exercised to find that Filby's accounts for this date only chronicle " bloom-coloured breeches." But Goldsmith was plainly referring to the historical suit of " Tyrian bloom satin grain," which had been sent home just before the pro- duction of " The^Good Natur'd Man." See ante., p. 164. 1 84 Oliver Goldsmith This was in December ; but the formal election only took place on the succeeding 9th of January. Reynolds, who had been made presi- dent some time before, was the motive power in these distinctions, which, unhappily, were purely honorary. *' The King," wrote Gold- smith in January to his brother Maurice, " has lately been pleased to make me professor of Ancient History in a Royal Academy of Paint- ing, which he has just established, but there is no salary annexed ; and I took it rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit to myself. Honours to one in my situation are something like ruffles to one that wants a shirt." ^ This last illustration he subsequently, after his fashion, worked into the " Haunch of Venison." In the same letter he speaks of sending to Ire- land mezzotinto prints of himself, Burke, John- son, and other of his friends. His own portrait to which he refers, was the well-known one by Reynolds, now at Knole, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1770 with those of Johnson and Colman. The engraving of it by Marchi was not, however, issued until the fol- lowing December, by which time Goldsmith was in possession of fresh laurels as the author of "The Deserted Village." 1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 221. A Memoir 185 The poem of " The Deserted Village'* had been but slowly produced. When it was at last published, on the 26th of May, 1770, nearly two years had elapsed since Cook first found the author at work upon the opening couplets. But its reception amply atoned for any labour of the file to which it had been subjected. Be- fore a month had passed, second, third, and fourth editions were called for, and in August came a fifth. The poem was dedicated to Rey- nolds, with a touching reference to Henry Goldsmith. '* The only dedication I ever made was to my brother, because I loved him better than most other men. He is since dead. Per- mit me to inscribe this Poem to you."^ In some passages that follow, Goldsmith anticipates the objections to which he evidently felt his theory of depopulation was liable. '' I sincerely believe what I have written," he said ; "I have taken all possible pains, in my country excur- sions, for these four or five years past, to be certain of what I allege ; " and •' all my views and enquiries have led me to believe those miseries real, which I here attempt to display." 1 Reynolds repaid this compliment in 1772, by inscrib- ing to Goldsmith the print of " Resignation " as follows : •' This attempt to express a character in * The Deserted Village,' is dedicated to Doctor Goldsmith, by his sincere friend and admirer, Joshua Reynolds." 1 86 Oliver Goldsmith To Cook (unless Cook was only paraphrasing this dedication) he spoke in similar terms, ''Some of my friends," he told him, "differ with me on this plan, and think this depopula- tion of villages does not exist — but I am my- self satisfied of the fact. I remember it in my own country, and have seen it in this."^ In such anxiety to show cause, there is an accent of doubt. He had, it is true, seen something of the kind in his own country, when a certain General Naper or Napier, returning enriched from Vigo, in extending his estate, displaced a number of cottiers in the neighbourhood of Lissoy. But none of his biographers have brought forward any of that evidence which he affirmed he had collected, of similar enormities in England. There is another aspect of the poem which has proved a fertile source of speculation. What was the locality of Goldsmith's ' ' Auburn," and how far, since other claimants may be neglected, is it to be identified with Lissoy ? It has been sought to prove that Lissoy was the original Auburn, and that the likeness cor- responds in the most minute particulars. This is manifestly a mistake, which very little ac- quaintance with poetic methods should have 1 European Magazine^ September, 1793, P- ^T^' A Memoir 187 sufficed to prevent. There is no evidence (al- though there is a vague tradition) that Gold- smith ever visited Ireland after he left it in 1752, more than fifteen years before he began to write *' The Deserted Village." The poem was con- ceived in England ; and from his desire to prove depopulation in England, was evidently in- tended to have its scene in England. But its leading idea was no doubt suggested by the old Napier story familiar to his boyhood, and sen- sibly or insensibly, for many of the accessories he drew upon his memories of his Irish home. There is no reason for supposing that, in " the decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill," we may not recognise that of Kilkenny West as seen from Lissoy Parsonage, or that the hawthorn tree was not that immemorial one in front of the village alehouse, which finally fell before the penknives of the curious. In the same way, the details of the alehouse itself were probably those of some kindred hostelry he had known well at Ballymahon or elsewhere. And it is certain that with the traits of the village preacher are mingled those of his father, his brother, and perhaps his Uncle Contarine, while, for the pedagogue, he obviously bor- rowed some of the characteristics of his old master, Thomas Byrne. 1 88 Oliver Goldsmith Happily, however, the popularity of "The Deserted Village" depends neither upon the fidelity of its resemblance to a little hamlet in Westmeath, nor upon the accuracy of its theo- ries as to luxury and depopulation. In this age, when it is not necessary, as in Goldsmith's days it was, to make declaration of some moral pur- pose, however doubtful, we are free to disregard its ethical and political teaching in favour of its sweet and tender cadences, and its firm hold upon the ever-fresh commonplaces of human nature. Johnson thought it inferior to "The Traveller," probably because it was less didac- tic ; we, on the contrary, prefer it, because, with less obtrusion of moral, it presents in larger measure those qualities of chastened sympathy and descriptive grace which are Gold- smith at his best. It is idle to quote passages from a work so familiar. The beautiful lines, beginning, " In all my wanderings round this world of care," and the portrait of the clergy- man and schoolmaster, are too well known to need recalling. But we may fitly reproduce the final farewell to Poetry, which, judging from the numerous appeals and deprecatory com- ments it elicited, must have excited far more apprehension among the writer's contempora- ries than such valedictory addresses usually A Memoir 189 deserve. The adieus of poets, it is to be feared, are like the last appearances of actors. "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 th' 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 possessed. Though very poor, may still be very bless'd ; That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay. As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away ; While self-dependent power can time defy, As rocks resist the billows and the sky." ^ What Goldsmith was paid for " The De- serted Village " is uncertain. Glover says it was a hundred guineas, and adds that Gold- 1 The last four lines are Johnson's. 190 Oliver Goldsmith smith gave the money back to his publisher, because some one thought it was too much.-^ Whether such a story is wholly credible, may be left to the judicious reader to decide. 1 Life prefixed to Poems and Plays, 1777, vi-vii. CHAPTER X The Horneck family; "Life of Thomas Parnell " published, July 13, 1770 ; visit to Paris, and letters to Reynolds; "Abridg- ment of Roman History," September ; " Life of Boling- broke" published, December; Lord Clare and " The Haunch of Venison"; at the Royal Academy dinner; at Edgeware; " History of England" published, August 6, 1771; letter to Langton, September 17; prologue to Cradock's " Zobeide," December 11; " Threnodia Augustalis" published, February 20, 1772; letter in prose and verse to Mrs. Bunbury; story of " She Stoops to Conquer " ; production of that play at Covent Garden, March 15, 1773 ; its success. A MONG the friends whom Goldsmith had ■^^ made at Reynolds's house was a pleasant family from Devonshire, consisting of a mother, a son, and two daughters. The mother, Mrs. Hannah Horneck, the widow of a certain Cap- tain Kane Horneck, of the Royal Engineers, had been known in her youth as the " Plymouth Beauty," and her daughters, Catherine and Mary, at this date girls of nineteen and seven- teen respectively, inherited and even excelled her charms. Charles Horneck, the son, who had recently entered the Foot Guards, was a ** pretty fellow" of sufficient eminence to be 192 Oliver Goldsmith caricatured as a Macaroni ; but he was also an amiable and a genial companion. With these new acquaintances Goldsmith appears to have become very intimate, visiting them frequently at their house at Westminster, or meeting them at Sir Joshua's. There is a rhymed letter among his poems declining an invitation to join them at the house of Reynolds's physician. Dr. Baker, in which he refers to the young ladies by the pet names of " Little Comedy " and the "Jessamy Bride," while he speaks of their brother as the ^' Captain in Lace/' titles modelled, no doubt, on the popular shop-win- dow prints of Matthew Darly and the rest, and, whether conferred by Goldsmith or not, plainly, by their use, implying a considerable amount of familiarity. Indeed, the personal attractions of the Miss Hornecks seem to have exercised no small fascination over the susceptible poet, a fascination to which, in the case of the younger — for Catherine was already engaged to Bun- bury the caricaturist — some of his biographers have thought it justifiable to attach a gentler name. After Catherine's marriage in August, 1 77 1, Goldsmith was a frequent visitor at Bun- bury's house at Great Barton in Suffolk, where, to this day, some relics of him, including the rhymed letter above referred to, are piously pre- A Memoir 193 served. Whether he, a mature man of forty- two, did really cherish a more than cordial friendship for the beautiful " Jessamy Bride," into whose company he was so often thrown, must be left to speculation ; but that a genuine regard existed on both sides can scarcely be contested, and many of the most interesting anecdotes of Goldsmith's latter days are derived from the recollections communicated to Prior by the lady, who, as Mrs. Gwyn, survived until 1840. In July, 1770, shortly after the publication of a brief and not very elaborate " Life of Thomas Parnell," which he had prepared for Davies, to accompany a new edition of ParnelFs works, Goldsmith set off to Paris on a holiday jaunt with Mrs. Horneck and her daughters. " The Professor of History," writes that fair Academi- cian, Miss Mary Moser, to Fuseli at Rome, " is comforted by the success of his ' Deserted Village,' which is a very pretty poem, and has lately put himself under the conduct of Mrs. Horneck and her fair daughters, and is gone to France ; and Dr. Johnson sips his tea, and cares not for the vanity of the world." ^ From Calais Goldsmith sent a letter to Reynolds, in which he gossips brightly about the passage, not, 1 Prior's Life, 1S37, ii, 288. 194 Oliver Goldsmith it appears, an entire success, owing to the imperfect state of Iiis '' machine to prevent sea- sickness." Then, after describing the extor- tionate civilities of the French porters, he v^inds up with what is presumably a playful memory of those trivialities of travellers which he had satirised as Lien Chi Altangi : *M cannot help mentioning another circumstance ; I bought a new ribbon for my wig at Canterbury, and the barber at Calais broke it in order to gain six- pence by buying me a new one."^ At Lille, where the party stopped en route, occurred an incident, which, since it has been told to Gold- smith's disadvantage, shall be given here from the narrative of the " Jessamy Bride," as sum- marised by Prior. " Having visited part of Flanders, they were proceeding to Paris by the way of Lisle, when in the vicinity of the hotel at which they put up, a part of the garrison going through some military manoeuvres, drew them to the windows, when the gallantry of the officers broke forth into a variety of compliments intended for the ears of the English ladies. Goldsmith seemed amused ; but at length assum- ing something of severity of countenance, which was a pecularity of his humour often displayed when most disposed to be jocular, turned off, 1 Miscellaneous Works, i8oi, i, 90, 91. A Memoir 195 uttering something to the effect of what is com- monly stated, that elsewhere he would also have his admirers. ' This,' added my informant, * was said in mere playfulness, and I was shocked many years afterwards to see it adduced in print as a proof of his envious disposition.' "^ The above disposes of the versions of North- cote and Boswell attributing genuine jealousy to Goldsmith upon this occasion, an accusation which, as Prior says, is an absurdity, and the reference to his assumed '^ severity of coun- tenance " goes far to explain some other stories of the kind. But Prior's very next sentence unconsciously confirms the charges made against him of undue preoccupation with his own im- portance. *' Of Paris, the same lady states he soon became tired, the celebrity of his name and the recent success of his poem, not ensur- ing that attention from its literary circles which the applause received at home induced him to expect."^ Hence, or for some other reasons, among which may be reckoned his ill-health and pecuniary difficulties, there is little rose- colour in his next letter to Reynolds. His companions are not interested, and he himself is weary. The petty troubles of travel are 1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 291. 2 Ibid. 196 Oliver Goldsmith harder to bear than they were when, a younger and a stronger man, he led the " sportive choir, "With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire ; " the diet disagrees with his dyspepsia, and he is hungering for tidings of Johnson, and Burke, and Colman, and the rest of the Gerrard Street company. He has besides, he says, *' so out- run the constable that he must mortify a little to bring it up again ; " and he has bought a silk coat which makes him look like a fool. ^ So the letter ambles on to the close. He can- not say more because he intends showing it to the ladies, and he concludes with a phrase be- ginning with a pair of words almost as common on his lips as his favourite " In truth " — " What signifies teasing you longer with moral obser- vations when the business of my writing is over?"^ He has only one thing more to say, and of that he thinks every hour, that he is his correspondent's " most sincere and most affec- tionate friend.'' It has been hinted that to his other continental discomforts was added an uncongenial companion, Mr. Hickey of *' Re- taliation," who joined the party, and being 1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 294. 2 /^/^^ ji^ 295. A Memoir 197 familiar with Paris, absorbed too much atten- tion. Hickey was, as Goldsmith called him afterwards, "a most blunt, pleasant creature," but at this time the former qualification seems to have been in the ascendant. The two men, in short, did not agree, and to this circum- stance, perhaps, are to be traced one or tvv^o of the less creditable anecdotes of the poet dating from this time. While at Versailles, it is said, Goldsmith, remembering his old prowess as a boy, attemped to leap from the bank on to one of the little islets, and fell lamentably short. Doubtless this (as Prior says), " was to the great amusement of the company " ^ (and proba- bly to the detriment of the silk coat) ; but it is manifestly an episode that may be told in many ways, according to the taste and fancy of the teller. In Mr. Mickey's unsympathetic narra- tive, for instance, it would probably acquire all the advantages of picturesque treatment. In his letter to Reynolds, touching that little sentence about ''outrunning the constable," Goldsmith had spoken of laying by at Dover, or rather of taking a country lodging in the vicinity, " in order to do some business." When his six weeks' excursion was over, how- ever, he does not appear to have acted upon his 1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 296-7. 198 Oliver Goldsmith intention, perhaps because of the death of his mother, of which he had received intelligence while abroad. There is a silly story, repeated by Northcote, that he only put on half-mourning for this bereavement. But it has been refuted by both Prior and Forster, with the aid of Mr. Filby's bills, which duly record the purchase of a suit of mourning sent home on the 8th of September, and the terms are identical with those which chronicle similar purchases made upon the deaths of his brother Henry and the Princess Dowager of Wales. Probably the expense thus incurred served to increase the activity with which he returned to the old task, work. Only a few days after Mr. Filby sent home the new clothes, Goldsmith had agreed with Davies to abridge the " Roman History " of the previous year for fifty guineas, and, even before entering upon this labour, he was en- gaged upon another task for the same book-sel- ler, a life of Bolingbroke, intended to introduce a reprint of that writer's " Dissertation upon Parties." The book must have been hastily prepared, for it was published in December, without any author's name ; and, from one of Davies' letters to Granger of the '* Biographical History," apparently took as much time to print as to write. " Doctor Goldsmith/' he A Memoir 199 complains, " is gone with Lord Clare into the country, and I am plagued to get the proofs from him of his * Life of Lord Bolingbroke.' '* The evidences of hurry were more manifest in this work than usual, and his old enemies of The Monthly Review did not fail to make merry over its errors of the pen, and its sporadic John- sonese. But his facts are said to have been fully abreast of contemporary knowledge ; and he had, at least, one quality of success — that of genuine admiration for the parts and politics of the brilliant genius who formed his subject. As already stated, the book was issued in December, and from Davies' words it is clear that Goldsmith had already gone to visit Lord Clare before this date. He stayed with him some time, and during the opening months of 1 77 1 was still in his company. ''Goldsmith is at Bath, with Lord Clare," writes Johnson to Langton, in March. At Bath occurred that char- acteristic second visit to the Duke of Northum- berland,^ which, since it is related by Percy on the authority of the Duchess herself, can scarcely be rejected by the courteous biog- rapher, even if it were not, as it is, an inci- 1 See Chapter vii. The Earl of Northumberland had been created a Duke in 1766. 200 Oliver Goldsmith dent thoroughly in keeping with what we know of Goldsmith from other sources. *' On one of the parades at Bath," says Percy, '* the Duke and Lord Nugent had hired two adjacent houses. Dr. Goldsmith, who was then resident on a visit to the latter, one morning walked up into the Duke's dining-room, as he and the Duchess were preparing to sit down to breakfast. In a manner the most free and easy he threw himself on a sofa ; and as he was then perfectly known to them both, they inquired of him the Bath news of the day ; and, imagining there was some mistake, endeavoured by easy and cheer- ful conversation to prevent his being too much embarrassed, till breakfast being served up, they invited him to stay and partake of it. Then he awoke from his reverie, declared he thought he had been in the house of his friend Lord Nugent, and with a confusion which may be imagined, hastily withdrew ; but not till they had kindly made him promise to dine with them." ^ That Goldsmith referred to his friend as Lord Nugent is scarcely possible, for Lord Clare did not obtain this title until after Goldsmith had been dead two years. This, however, is a trifle which detracts little from the veracity of the story. How much longer he continued to 1 Miscellaneous Works, 1801, i, 68-9. A Memoir 201 be Lord Clare's guest is unrecorded ; but shortly after his return to London he is supposed to have addressed to him, in return for a present of venison, the delightful " poetical epistle " which is to be found in his works. That it was written subsequent to the middle of 1770 may be inferred from its quotation of a famous lapse ^ in one of the love-letters of his illiterate Royal Highness, Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumber- land, to the Countess Grosvenor — a corre- spondence which, in the summer of the above year, afforded huge delight to the scandal-mon- gers — and it is most probable that the poem was written in the spring of 1771. But what- ever its exact date, Mr. Forster is right (not- withstanding a slight obscurity in the closing lines) in claiming the highest praise for this piece of ^' private pleasantry." So happy is it, that were it not for its obvious recollections of Boileau's third satire, one might be disposed to regard it as autobiographical. To select a passage from a piece so uniformly wrought is difficult, but the excellence of the description of the dinner, as a sample of what his most super- ^ " Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf, * And nobody with me at sea but myself.' " The second line is almost a textual reproduction of a phrase in one of the Duke's letters. 202 Oliver Goldsmith 11 fine contemporaries called the poet's '* low humour, must serve as an excuse for quoting it at length. The reader will only need to re- member that while Goldsmith, having distributed part of his just-received present, is debating what to do with the rest, it is unblushingly carried off by a chance visitor, who invites its owner to join in eating it in the form of a pasty : — " When come to the place where we all were to dine, (A chair-lumber'd closet just twelve feet by nine :) My friend bade me welcome, but struck me quite dumb, "With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come ; * For I knew it,' he cried, ' both eternally fail. The one with his speeches, and t' other with Thrale ; But no matter, I '11 warrant we '11 make up the party With two full as clever, and ten times as hearty. The one is a Scotchman, the other a Jew, They ['re] both of them merry and authors like you ; The one writes the Snarler, the other the Scourge ; Some think he writes Cinna — he owns to Panurge* While thus he describ'd them by trade and by name, They enter'd, and dinner was serv'd as they came. " At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen, At the bottom was tripe in a swinging tureen ; At the sides there was spinage and pudding made hot ; In the middle a place where the pasty — was not. Now, my Lord, as for tripe, it 's my utter aversion, And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Persian ; So there I sat stuck, like a horse in a pound. While the bacon and liver went merrily round. A Memoir 203 But what vex'd me most was that d 'd Scottish rogue, With his long-winded speeches, his smiles, and his brogue ; And, * Madam,' quoth he, * may this bit be my poison, A prettier dinner I never set eyes on ; Pray a slice of your liver, though may I be curs'd, But I Ve eat of your tripe till I 'm ready to burst/ * The tripe,* quoth the Jew, with his chocolate cheek, * I could dine on this tripe seven days in the week : I like these here dinners so pretty and small ; But your friend there, the Doctor, eats nothing at all.' * O ~ Oh ! ' quoth my friend, * he '11 come on in a trice. He 's keeping a corner for something that 's nice : There 's a pasty ' — 'A pasty ! ' repeated the Jew, * I don't care if I keep a corner for 't too.' * What the de'il, mon, a pasty ! ' re-echoed the Scot, ' Though splitting, I '11 still keep a corner for thot.* * We '11 all keep a corner,' the lady cried out ; * We '11 all keep a corner,' was echoed about. While thus we resolv'd, and the pasty delay'd, With looks that quite petrified, entered the maid ; A visage so sad, and so pale with affright, Wak'd Priam in drawing his curtains by night. But we quickly found out, for who could mistake her 1 That she came with some terrible news from the baker : And so it fell out, for that negligent sloven Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven." As a piece of graphic, easy humour Gold- smith has not often bettered this. The refer- ences to Johnson and Burke, the side-strokes (perfectly perceptible to Lord Clare) at Parson 204 Oliver Goldsmith Scott in " Cinna" and *' Panurge," the vulgar effusiveness of the hungry North Briton, and the neat fidelity of the Jew's " I like these here dinners so pretty and small " — are all perfect in their way. Nor should the skill with which Goldsmith manages to suggest that he is "among" but not " of" the company, be over- looked. Indeed, it would, in some respects, be more difficult to match a passage of this kind than anything in "The Traveller" or "The Deserted Village."^ On the 24th of August, 1770 (when Gold- smith was at Paris with the Hornecks), Thomas Chatterton had committed suicide in his Hol- born garret, and one of the topics of conversa- tion at the first dinner of the Royal Academy on the 23rd of April, 1771 (St. George's Day), was his genius and his untimely fate. From a memorandum afterwards drawn up by Horace Walpole, it seems that Goldsmith was one of the believers in the Rowley poems. " I thought no more," says Walpole, referring to his inter- 1 At this point Mr. Forster interposes an account of an undated translation by Goldsmith of Marco Vida's " Game of Chess," first published by Cunningham in 1854 from the original MS. in the possession of Mr. Bolton Corney. It is written in heroic measure ; but makes no particular addition to Goldsmith's poetical reputation. A Memoir 205 course with the Bristol genius, ** of him or them [his poems], till about a year and a half after, when dining at the Royal Academy, Dr. Goldsmith drew the attention of the company with the account of a marvellous treasure of ancient poems lately discovered at Bristol, and expressed enthusiastic belief in them, for which he was laughed at by Dr. Johnson, who was present. I soon found this to be the trouvaille of my friend Chatterton,and I told Dr. Gold- smith that this novelty was none to me, who might, if I had pleased, have had the honour of ushering the great discovery to the learned world. You may imagine, sir, we did not at all agree in the measure of our faith ; but though his credulity diverted me, my mirth was soon dashed, for on asking about Chatterton, he told me he had been in London, and had destroyed himself." ^ Goldsmith, upon another occasion, took up the cudgels for the poems against Percy so hotly, that Percy, who had much of the Northumberland temper, retorted with equal warmth, and a breach ensued, which was not at once repaired. The only other anecdote with respect to this matter relates that Goldsmith was at one time anxious to become the purchaser of 1 A Letter to the Editor of the Miscellanies of Thomas Chattert&n [by Horace Walpole], 1779, pp. 37-8, 2o6 Oliver Goldsmith the Rowley MSS. But as the only considera- tion proposed was a promissory note, Mr. George Catcott, their possessor, replied drily that a poet's note of hand would scarcely pass current on the Bristol Exchange. Shortly after his return from Lord Clare's, Goldsmith, under pressure of literary labour, again resorted to the solitude of the country. He took a room in a farmhouse near the six- mile stone on the Edgeware Road, carrying down his books in two returned post-chaises. This room, says Prior, he continued to use as a summer residence until his death, and here great part of his " Animated Nature," his *' History of Greece " and other later compila- tions was written. It was an airy chamber up one pair of stairs, looking cheerfully over a wooded landscape towards Hendon, and when visited by Boswell and Mickle of the "Lusiads " in the following year, was found to be scrawled all over with *' curious scraps of descriptions of animals." ^ Such memories of Goldsmith at this date as survive, represent him wandering in the fields, or musing under hedges, or now and then taking his station abstractedly in front of Farmer Selby's kitchen fire. Often he would depart suddenly for Brick Court, where he 1 Hill's Boswell's yohnson, 1887, ii, 182. A Memoir 207 would remain for a week or more. On other occasions a dance would be improvised, or he would treat the younger members of the family to the diversion of the strolling players. At in- tervals he was visited by some of his London friends. Reynolds, Chambers, and even John- son are believed to have been thus entertained, upon which occasions of state he migrated to his landlord's parlour. By the farmer's family he was known as ''The Gentleman," and was regarded as slightly eccentric. But here, as everywhere, the recollection of his kindliness and generosity lingered in men's minds. No tramp or beggar ever applied to him in vain. In August, 1771, the " History of England" was published, and to this and another work upon which he had been engaged he refers in a letter addressed from the Temple to Bennet Langton, ''at Langton, near Spilsby, in Lincoln- shire," and dated the 17th of the following Sep- tember. " I have published, or Davies has published for me,'' he says, " an Abridgment of the History of England, for which I have been a good deal abused in the newspapers for betray- ing the liberties of the people. God knows I had no thought for or against liberty in my head ; my whole aim being to make up a book of a decent size, that, as ' Squire Richard says. 2o8 Oliver Goldsmith would do no harm to nobody. However they set me down as an arrant Tory, and conse- quently an honest man. When you come to look at any part of it, you'll say that I am a sour Whig."^ On other of his occupations also the letter throws light. The " Natural History," he says, is about half-finished ; and he will shortly finish the rest, he adds, with a sigh over " this kind of finishing," and his " scurvy cir- cumstances." But he has been doing something — he has for the last three months been trying " to make people laugh." He has been strol- ling about the hedges, " studying jests with the most tragical countenance." This, with an- other passage at the beginning of the letter, in which he says he has " been almost wholly in the country at a farmer's house, quite alone, try- ing to write a comedy,"^ is the first indication of his having again turned his attention to the stage. The new play was now finished, but when or how it would be acted, or whether it would be acted at all, were questions he could not resolve. The occurrences which intervened between its completion and production may be rapidly abridged. One of the occasional pieces of this 1 Miscellaneous Works, 1801, i, 93. 2 Ibid., i, 92. A Memoir 209 date was a prologue to " Zobeide," a transla- tion or adaptation of an unfinished tragedy by Voltaire called " Les Scythes." Its author was a gentleman of Leicestershire named Joseph Cradock, who, about this time, had been intro- duced to Goldsmith by Yates, the actor, and maintained a fast friendship for him during the remainder of his life — a friendship concerning which Cradock, in his old age, published some rather mythical recollections. In February, 1772, the death of the Princess Dowager of Wales prompted Goldsmith, for some unex- plained reason, to prepare a laraent-to-order, which he entitled ^' Threnodia Augustalis." It was sung and recited at the famous Mrs. Cornelys' in Soho Square, but has little more than the merit of opportunism, and was very hastily composed. Between these two comes, in all probability, the lively letter in prose and verse to Catherine Horneck, now Mrs. Bun- bury of Barton, first published by Prior in 1837, from the Bunbury papers. Under cover of a reply to an invitation to spend Christmas in the country, the letter goes off into a charming piece of rhyming banter, in which Mrs. Bun- bury and her sister are arraigned at the Old Bailey for giving disingenuous counsel to the poet at Loo : — 14 2IO Oliver Goldsmith " Both are placed at the bar, with all proper decorum, With bunches of fennel and nosegays before 'em ; ^ Both cover their faces with mobs and all that, But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat. When uncovered, a buzz of inquiry runs round — ' Pray what are their crimes ? ' — ' They 've been pilfer- ing found.' * But, pray, who[m] have they pilfer'd ? ' — * A doctor, I hear.* * What, yon solemn-faced, odd-looking man that stands near ! ' * The same.' — * What a pity ! how does it surprise one, Two handsomer culprits I never set eyes on!' Then their friends all come round me with cringing and leering, To melt me to pity, and soften my swearing. First Sir Charles advances with phrases well strung, * Consider, dear Doctor, the girls are but young ; ' The younger the worse,' I return him again, * It shows that their habits are all dyed in grain.' * But then they 're so handsome, one's bosom it grieves. * What signifies handsome, when people are thieves.'* * But where is your justice ? their cases are hard.' * What sXgni^es Justice ? I want the reward.' " And then the letter, with its ingenuity of com- pliment, heightened by the touch as to that " solemn-faced, odd-looking man," the writer, drops into parish-beadle recitative and ends : — 1 A practice dating from the gaol-fever of 1750. Compare the Old Bailey scene in Cruikshank's " Drunk- ard's Children," 1848, plate v. A Memoir 211 " ' But consider their case, — it may yet be your own ! And see how they kneel ! Is your heart made of stone ? * This moves : — so at last I agree to relent, For ten pounds in hand, and ten pounds to be spent. I challenge you all to answer this : I tell you, you cannot. It cuts deep; — but now for the rest of the letter: and next — but I want room — so I believe I shall battle the rest out at Barton some day next week. " I don't value you all ! « O. G." By this time, retouched and revised, the comedy of which Goldsmith had written to Langton, was in Colman's hands. Unhappily, in Colman's hands it remained. At the end of 1772 he had not made up his mind whether he would say "yes" or *' no" to Goldsmith's repeated applications for his decision — appli- cations which the poet's necessities made upon each occasion more importunate. In January, 1773, referring to these, he pressed urgently for a final reply. He petitioned for at least the same measure which had been given to " as bad plays as his," and he even humbled himself so far as to offer to make alterations. Thereupon Colman took him at his word, and suggested numerous frivolous amendments, under the momentary irritation of which the smarting poet offered the manuscript to Garrick, withdrawing 212 Oliver Goldsmith it again as speedily. Then stout old Johnson took the matter up, using the strongest per- suasions (even '' a kind of force") to Colman, the result being that a definite promise to produce the play was at length wrung from that potentate, although against his judgment. " Dr. Goldsmith," wrote Johnson shortly after- wards, " has a new comedy in rehearsal at Covent Garden, to which the manager predicts ill-success. I hope he will be mistaken. I think it deserves a very kind reception."^ The production at the Haymarket in Febru- ary of Footers famous Primitive Puppet Show of the " Handsome Housemaid ; or. Piety in Pattens," which certainly counts as an impor- tant factor in the story of the crusade against sentimental comedy, opportunely aided in pre- paring the popular taste. But the fates were, even now, too much against Goldsmith to make his success an easy one. The prejudice of Colman communicated itself to the company, and one after another of the leading actors threw up their parts. That of the first gentleman fell to Lee Lewes, the theatrical harlequin, while the best character in the piece was assigned to Quick, who, in "The Good Natur'd Man," had filled no more important office than that 1 Hill's BoswelFs Johnson, 1887, ii, 208. A Memoir 213 of a post-boy. Fresh troubles arose respect- ing the epilogue, of which no less than four different versions were written, in consequence of objections raised by the manager and the actresses. Finally, until a few days before the play appeared, it was still without a name. Reynolds advocated " The Belle's Stratagem," a title afterwards used by Mrs. Cowley ; some one else '^The Old House a New Inn," which certainly summarised the main idea, borrowed from Goldsmith's Ardagh experiences as nar- rated in chapter i. ; while for some time "The Mistakes of a Night" found a measure of favour. Then Goldsmith, perhaps remember- ing, as Mr. Forster suggests, a line from Dry- den, fixed upon " She Stoops to Conquer," to which " The Mistakes of a Night " was added as a sub-title. On the 1 5th of March, 1773, the play was acted at Covent Garden, and a few days afterwards published in book form, with a dedication to its firm friend, Johnson. " I do not mean," wrote the grateful author, " so much to compliment you as myself. It may do me some honour to inform the public, that I have lived many years in intimacy with you. It may serve the interests of mankind also to inform them, that the greatest wit may be found in a character, without impairing the most unaffected piety." 214 Oliver Goldsmith To the very last Colman maintained his un- hopeful attitude, in spite of the steady en- thusiasm of the author's friends, who, after dining together at a tavern, had, under John- son's generalship, proceeded in a body to the theatre, determined to make a stubborn fight for the piece. But, according to the best accounts, there was no necessity for any ad- vocacy, hostile or otherwise, for, " quite the reverse to everybody's expectation," the play was received " with the utmost applause/' Even Horace Walpole, who sneered aristocrat- ically at its " lowness," and wrote flippantly about the author's draggled Muse, could not deny that it " succeeded prodigiously." " All eyes," says Cumberland, " were upon Johnson, who sat in a front row of a side box, and when he laughed everybody . thought himself war- ranted to roar."^ In the mean time, the poor author, who had not dared to accompany his party to Covent Garden, was wandering dis- consolately in the Mall. Here he was discov- ered by a friend, who pointed out to him that, in the event of *any sudden alterations being required, his absence from the theatre might have serious results, and prevailed upon him to go there. *' He entered the stage door," Cools 1 Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, 1807, i, 368. A Memoir 215 tells us, ** just in the middle of the ^th Act, when there was a hiss at the improbability of Mrs. Hardcastle supposing herself forty miles off, though on her own grounds, and near the house. * What 's that ? ' says the Doctor, terri- fied at the sound. * Psha ! Doctor,' says Col- man, who was standing by the side of the scene, ' don't be fearful of squibs, when we have been sitting almost these two hours upon a barrel of gunpowder.' " ^ Goldsmith, adds Cook, never forgave Colman this gratuitous piece of malice. The success of " She Stoops to Conquer" was thoroughly deserved. It was an immense improvement upon its predecessor. Compared with Croaker and Lofty, Tony Lumpkin and Mr. Hardcastle are as characters to characteris- tics, while Mrs. Hardcastle, Hastings, Young Marlowe, Miss Hardcastle, and Miss Neville, are far beyond the Honeywoods and Richlands of "The Good Natur'd Man." Whatever there may be of farcical in the plot, vanished before the hearty laughter that the piece raised on its first appearance, and has raised ever since. " I know of no comedy for many years (said John- son) that has answered so much the great end of comedy — making an audience merry." ^ 1 European Magazine, September, 1793, p. 173. 2 Hill's '^o's>^€i^s Johnson, 1887, ii, 233. 2i6 Oliver Goldsmith That such an inexhaustible bequest of mirth should have come to us from a man tortured with nervous apprehensions, and struggling with money difficulties, is a triumphant testi- mony to the superiority of genius over circum- stance. It is consolatory to think that, in spite of every obstacle, *' She Stoops to Conquer" was acted for many nights, and, besides being twice commanded by royalty itself, brought its author, at his benefits, the more substantial gratification of some four or five hundred pounds, to which must be added a further amount from the publication of the play in book form. CHAPTER XI A libellous attack and its sequel; dining out at Oglethorpe's and Paoli's; "The Grumbler"; more task work; "Grecian His- tory " ; " Dictionary of Arts and Sciences " ; " Retaliation " ; epitaphs on Garrick and Reynolds ; epitaph on Caleb White- foord ; last illness; dies, April 4, 1774 ; buried on the 9th in the burying-ground of the Temple Church; Johnson's epitaph; memorials and statue. 'VT^HILE the "news-paper witlings" and " pert scribbling folks " ^ vied with each other in exulting over the glorious defeat, by **She Stoops to Conquer," of the allied forces of sentimental comedy, and amused themselves by planting arrowy little epigrams in the sides of Mr. Manager Colman and Mr. Staymaker Kelly, insomuch that the former implored the author " to take him off the rack of the news- papers," there were not wanting those who, on the other hand, essayed to disparage Gold- smith himself. In The London Packet of the 24th of March appeared a letter signed "Tom Tickle," headed by the motto " Vous vous noye\ par vanite,"" and attacking him venom- 1 Postscript to Retaliation. 2i8 Oliver Goldsmith ously at all points. He was charged with puffing his own productions: his "Traveller" was said to be " a flimsy poem, built upon false principles ; " his " Good Natur'd Man," a *' poor, water-gruel, dramatic dose ; " his " De- serted Village," " easy numbers, without fancy, dignity, genius, or fire;" and "She Stoops to Conquer," a " speaking pantomime " and " an incoherent piece of stuff." Lastly, he was en- joined to " reduce his vanity," and to endeavour to believe that, as a man, he ^' was of the plain- est sort ; and as an author, but a mortal piece of mediocrity." ^ There is little doubt that the dealer of this stab in the dark was Goldsmith's old enemy, Kenrick, and the mere abuse which it contained was of little moment. But towards the begin- ning of the letter, where Goldsmith is accused of being a very Narcissus for pleased contem- plation of his personal advantages, it goes on : *' Was but the lovely H k as much enam- oured, you would not sigh, my gentle swain, in vain." ^ This, it must be admitted, was unpar- donable, and Goldsmith was justly indignant. According to Cradock, to make matters worse, he dined with the Hornecks in Westminster al- 1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 408, 409. 2 Ibid., ii, 408. A Memoir 219 most immediately after they had read the article, and found them all greatly disturbed. Dinner being over, he went straight to the shop of the publisher, a Welshman named Evans, in Pater- noster Row, accompanied, says one account, by the lady's brother, Captain Horneck, or, says another, by that Captain Higgins who, in the " Haunch of Venison," is celebrated " for mak- ing a blunder, or picking a bone." Mr. Forster thinks that Higgins is most likely to have been the poet's companion ; but if Cradock's state- ment as to his dining with the family is true, it is surely not improbable that he should have gone with Captain Horneck. However, what happened at the shop was communicated to Prior by an eye-witness, Evans's assistant, Mr. Harris. Being asked by the two gentlemen whether Evans was at home, he says : " I called the latter from an adjoining room and heard Goldsmith say to him — ' I have called in con- sequence of a scurrilous attack in your paper upon me (my name is Goldsmith), and an unwarrant- able liberty taken with the name of a young lady. As for myself, I care little, but her name must not be sported with.' Evans, declaring his ignorance of the matter, said he would speak to the editor, and stooping down for the file of the paper to look for the oifensive article, the poet 220 Oliver Goldsmith struck him smartly with his cane across the back. Evans, who was sturdy, returned the blow with interest, when, in the scuffle, a lamp suspended overhead was broken, and the oil fell upon the combatants ; one of the shopmen was sent for a constable, but in the meantime Dr. Kenrick, who had been all the time in the ad- joining room, and who, it was pretty certain, was really author of the newspaper article, came forward, separated the parties, and sent Gold- smith home in a coach. Captain Horneck ex- pressed his surprise at the assault, declaring he had no previous intimation of such a design on the part of the Poet, who had merely requested that he should accompany him to Paternoster Row. Evans took steps to indict him for an assault ; but subsequently a compromise took place by his assailant agreeing to pay fifty pounds to a Welsh charity."^ This, however, was not effected until after Goldsmith had written a dignified letter to The Daily Adver- tiser on the "licentiousness" of the press, which, as may be supposed, made itself very merry over his misadventure. Silence would, no doubt, have been wiser ; though even John- son was obliged to admit that the letter was " a foolish thing well done." 1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 411-12. A Memoir 221 But from Goldsmith scuffling with a book- seller under a cataract of lamp-oil — certainly a most ill-advised mode of " stooping to con- quer," as the wits did not fail to remind him — it is pleasant to turn to Goldsmith chatting and chirruping in the company of his friends. A week or two later Boswell gives an account of a dinner at General Oglethorpe's with " Dr. Major'' and "Dr. Minor,'" when Goldsmith held forth on his favourite theme of luxury and the consequent degeneration of the race — a position which Johnson contested. After dinner they drank tea with the ladies, to whom Gold- smith sang Tony Lumpkin's capital song of the "Three Jolly Pigeons," and the pretty quatrains ("Ah me, when shall I marry me?") to the tune of the " Humours of Balamagairy," which Boswell published some years later in The London Maga:{ine. Moore also used the air in the " Irish Melodies ; " but scarcely as happily as Goldsmith, and it is to be regretted that the song had to be omitted from " She Stoops to Conquer " because Mrs. Bulkley (who played Miss Hardcastle) could not sing. Goldsmith himself, says Boswell, sang it very agreeably. Two days later the trio met again at General Paoli's. Boswell chronicles a long conversa- tion, the only portion of which can have a place 222 Oliver Goldsmith here is a compliment by the General to Gold- smith. Paoli referred to a passage in " She Stoops to Conquer " which was supposed, rightly or wrongly, to make oblique allusion to the recent marriage of the Duke of Gloucester and Lady Waldegrave.-^ That " literary leech,'' Boswell, ever on the watch for ana, forthwith attempted to entice Goldsmith into an admission of this intention. He smiled and hesitated in his usual way ; and the General came to his aid. *' Monsieur Goldsmith est comme la mer, qui jette des pedes et beaucoup d^autres belles choses, sans s'en apercevoir.'' Goldsmith was highly de- lighted. " Trds bien dit et trhs dUgamment,^' was his flattered comment. There was another dinner at Thrale's still later ; but it can have no record in these pages. In August his gratitude to Shuter for his presentment of Tony Lumpkin prompted him to adapt for that actor's benefit a dull play by Brueys and Palaprat, " Le Grondeur," which he shortened into a farce under the title of '' The Grumbler." It was produced at Covent Garden on the 8th of May ; but never received 1 See Act ii., where Hastings says : " If my dearest girl will trust in her faithful Hastings, we shall soon be landed in France, where even among slaves the laws of marriage are respected." A Memoir 223 the honours of repetition. Prior included a scene from it in the " Miscellaneous Works" of 1837, and it is generally reprinted with the author's other plays. But, although from a note written in this year to Garrick, he appears to have been still dreaming of a future comedy, " in a season or two at farthest," ^ which he fancied he should make a fine thing, he was hopelessly in bondage to the hack work by which he lived. In the intervals of the " Ani- mated Nature " he had been engaged with a *' Grecian History," for which, in June, 1773, upon the completion of the first volume, he received ^2 50 from Griffin, probably a nominal payment only, as he was in debt to the pub- lisher for arrears already due. He also medi- tated a popular " Dictionary of Arts and Sciences," of which he was to be editor, with Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, Burney, Garrick, and all his friends as contributors. For this he drew up an elaborate prospectus, said by Cradock and others to be excellently conceived, but no longer known to exist. The booksellers, however, shrank from so large an enterprise, and the matter made no progress. Perhaps, too, as Davies and others suggest, they dis- trusted the organising capacity of a worker 1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 439- 224 Oliver Goldsmith so needy, so overburdened, and so irregular in his habits. Queer errors sometimes made their appearance in his rapidly written books. There had been such in his histories, and an anecdote is told by Dawson Turner which shows that he must often have been hasty as to his authori- ties. Once, when engaged on the '' History of Greece," he asked Gibbon the name of the Indian king who gave Alexander so much trouble, and when Gibbon jestingly answered, " Montezuma," he had to correct himself im- mediately lest Goldsmith should commit the statement to type. In the collapse of the Dictionary scheme his thoughts reverted to "The Good Natur'd Man," and he wrote to Garrick offering to recast that comedy, at the same time asking for a loan. Garrick lent the money ; but did not accept the proposal, which he labelled " Goldsmith's parlaver " and put away. After this there is not much to relate in Goldsmith's life, which, notwithstanding the growing burden of breaking health and increased embarrassment, seems still to have had its delights. There are glimpses of him at Drury Lane on the first night of Kelly's comedy of the " School for Wives ; " at Beauclerk's with Garrick, making an entire company shriek with laughter over some panto- A Memoir 225 mimic buffoonery ; at Vauxhall with Sir Joshua. '' Sir Joshua and Goldsmith," writes Beau- clerk, as late as February, 1774, "have got into such a round of pleasures that they have no time."^ And in these last days an accident brought about the composition of one of his cleverest pieces, which, although never com- pleted, will probably be remembered as long as *' The Deserted Village." According to the now accepted story, a party at the St. James's Coffee-house, prompted thereto by some gas- conade of Goldsmith, fell into the whim of writing competitive epitaphs upon him, Garrick led off with the well-known impromptu : ** Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll ; " and others followed. Goldsmith, rather discon- certed by the ready applause which followed Garrick's neat antithesis, deferred the revenge which he was invited to take, and continued to work desultorily at his reply until a few days before his death, shortly after which it was published by Kearsly under the name of " Re- taliation : Including Epitaphs on the Most Distinguished Wits of the Metropolis." By a recollection of the famous picnic dinners of 1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 510. 15 2 26 Oliver Goldsmith Scarron (whose ^* Roman Comique," among other hack-work, he had just been translating), he began with likening his friends to dishes, but speedily wound into that incomparable series of epigrammatic portraits which is to-day one of the most graphic picture-galleries of his immedi- ate contemporaries. Johnson is conspicuously absent, perhaps because, though one of the company, he had not joined in the initial attack, — perhaps, also, because the poem is un- finished ; but Burke, Reynolds, Cumberland, and Garrick are admirably portrayed. Between these, in point of literary art, there is little to choose, unless the mingling of satire, compli- ment, and faithful characterisation is held to reach its acme in the admirable lines on Garrick : — " Here lies David Garrick, describe me, who. can. An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man ; As an actor, confess'd without rival to shine : As a wit, if not first, in the very first line : Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart, The man had his failings, a dupe to his art. Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread, And beplaster'd with rouge his own natural red. On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting ; 'T was only that when he was off he was acting. With no reason on earth to go out of his way, He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day. A Memoir 227 Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick If they were not his own by finessing and trick : He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle thetn back. Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame ; Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease, Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please. But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. Ye Kendricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave, What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave ! How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you rais'd. While he was be-Roscius'd, and you were be-prais'd I But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies, To act as an angel, and mix with the skies ; Those poets, who owe their best fame to his skill, Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will. Old Shakespeare, receive him, with praise and with love, And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above ! " *' The sum of all that can be said for and against Mr. Garrick, some people think, may be found in these lines of Goldsmith," wrote Thomas Davies.^ When Garrick's own biogra- pher is obliged to admit so much, there can be little doubt of the accuracy of the portrait. Next in importance to this, composed in an inimitable spirit of irony, comes the sketch of Cumberland, which, in his old age, that writer seems to have grown to regard as entirely com- 1 Life of Garrick, 1780, ii, 159. 228 Oliver Goldsmith plimentary. Burke's character, too, contains some famous couplets, seldom forgotten when his name is recalled. But the most delightful, because the most wholly genial and kindly, of the epitaphs, is that upon Reynolds : — " Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind, He has not left a better or wiser behind : His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; Still born to improve us in every part, His pencil our faces, his manners our heart : To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering. When they judg'd without skill he was still hard of hearing : When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff. He shifted his trumpet, and only took snufif." Malone says that half a line more had been written when Goldsmith dropped the pen ; and Prior, who gives the words as " By flattery un- spoiled," affirms that, among several erasures in the manuscript, they "remained unaltered."^ To the fifth edition was appended a " Post- script," containing a supplementary epitaph on Caleb Whitefoord, who had also been one of the party at the St. James's Coffee-house, and was the inventor of the famous " Cross-Read- 1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 499. A Memoir 229 ings," which proved so popular circa 1766-70. It presents some of Goldsmith's peculiarities and negligences ; but is not entirely free from the suspicion that Whitefoord wrote it himself.^ The appearance of " Retaliation " brought about a number of ex post facto epitaphs, most of which, in all probability, their writers would have been pleased to pass off as the original productions to which Goldsmith had been in- vited to reply. Garrick, who wrote the best of these {"■ Here, Hermes 1 says Jove, who with nectar was mellow "), at one time meditated their publication ; but his intention was never carried out, and, as already stated, Goldsmith's death took place before "Retaliation" was given to the world. Still working at that poem, and still planning fresh compilations which were to enable him to cope with his difficulties, he had gone again to his Edgeware home, when a sharp attack of a local disorder, induced by his sedentary habits, obliged him to seek medi- cal advice in town. To London he accordingly returned in the middle of March. He saw a doctor, and obtained relief. But low fever supervened, and on the 25th (one of the club Fridays) he took to his bed. At eleven at 1 The recently published Whitefoord Papers^ 1898, throw no light on this point. 230 Oliver Goldsmith night he sent for a surgeon-apothecary in the Strand named Hawes, ^ who found him ex- tremely ill, but bent upon curing himself by Dr. James's Fever Powders, a patent medicine upon which he had been accustomed to rely. Hawes did not think it suited to his condition, which was more nervous than febrile, and endeavoured to induce him to try other remedies. Failing in this, he persuaded him to send for a physician, Dr. Fordyce, who confirmed his view of the case. Goldsmith, however, still clung obstin- ately to James's nostrum, and rejected the medicine prescribed by Dr. Fordyce. After taking the powder he became worse, and was obliged to resign himself to the advice of those about him. Becoming exceedingly weak and sleepless, he lingered for a week longer in a state that caused the gravest anticipations, although he was conscious, and sometimes (it is 1 William Hawes, who afterwards wrote " An Account of the late Dr. Goldsmith's Illness, etc.," was the grand- father of Sir Benjamin Hawes, once Under-Secretary at War. William Hawes undertook the active management of Goldsmith's affairs pending the arrival of his relatives from Ireland, and arranged the sale of the books, &c. Goldsmith's worn old wooden writing-desk, which- be- longed to Hawes, is now in the South Kensington Museum. There is a monument to Hawes in Islington New Church which has been engraved by Basire. A Memoir 231 said) even cheerful. Dr. Turton, a second physician who had been called in, remarking the disorder of his pulse, asked if his mind was at ease. " No, it is not," was the reply. These were the last words he spoke. On the morning of Monday, the 4th of April, 1774, after a long- hoped-for sleep, he died in strong convulsions, having lived forty-five years and five months. The announcement of his death came like a shock upon his friends. Burke burst into tears ; Sir Joshua laid aside his pencil for the day ; and a deeper gloom settled upon Johnson. At Brick Court other, and humbler mourners, to whom he had been kind, filled the little stair- case with their sorrow ; and, as he lay in his coffin, a lock of his hair was cut from his head for the " Jessamy Bride " and her sister.^ On Saturday the 9th, after some discussion as to a public funeral, which was abandoned on account of the state of his affairs, he was buried quietly in the burying-ground of the Temple Church, none weeping more profusely over his grave than his old rival, Hugh Kelly. Two years later, a monument, with a medallion portrait by NoUekens, and an epitaph by Johnson, the 1 It is still in the possession of Mrs. Gwyn's repre- sentatives. The " Jessamy Bride " was painted by Hoppner. 232 Oliver Goldsmith story of which must be read in Boswell, was erected to him in Westminster Abbey at the ex- pense of the Literary Club. Johnson's Latin — for he refused to "disgrace" that time- honoured fane by English, ran as follows : — Olivarii Goldsmith Poetae, Physici, Historici, qui nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit, nullum quod tetigit non ornavit: sive risus essent movendi, sive lacrymae, affectuum potens, at lenis dominator; ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis ; oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus : hoc monumento memoriam coluit Sodalium amor, Amicorum fides, Lectorum veneratio. Natus Hibernia, Forneias Lonfordiensis in loco cui nomen Pallas Nov. XXix. MDCCXXXI. Eblanae literis institutus, Objit Londini Ap. iv. MDCCLXXIV.l 1 Croker translates this as follows : — "Of Pliver Goldsmith — a Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, and touched nothing that he did not adorn; of all the passions, whether smiles were to be moved or tears, a powerful yet gentle master ^ in genius, sublime, vivid, versatile ; A Memoir 233 The date of birth, it will be seen, is inaccu- rately given. Many years after this monument had been erected in Westminster, a tablet, now removed to the triforium, was put up in the Temple Church by the Benchers. But the exact spot where Oliver Goldsmith lies is not known, although a flat stone marks it conjecturally, and is perhaps more piously visited by pilgrims than either of the other memorials. In Jan- uary, 1864, a full-length statue by Foley, the Academician, was placed in front of Dublin University.^ in style, elevated, clear, elegant — the love of Compan- ions, the fidelity of Friends, and the veneration of Readers, have by this monument honoured the memory. He was born in Ireland, at a place called Pallas [in the parish] of Forney, [and county] of Longford, on the 29th November, 1731. Educated at [the University of] Dub- lin, and died in London, 4th April, I774-" ^ " Retaliation " (see p. 225) was published on the 19th April, a fortnight after its author's death. In June followed "Animated Nature," and in 1776 ** The Haunch of Venison," to which were added two songs from "The Captivity," an oratorio written in 1764, but not published as a whole until 1820. CHAPTER XII Portraits of Goldsmith ; testimonies as to character; money diffi- culties and " folly of expense ; " alleged love of play; of fine clothes and entertainments; generosity and benevolence ; alleged envy and malice; position in society; conversation; relations with Johnson ; conclusion. OOMETHING of Goldsmith's personal ap- ^^ pearance will already have been gathered from the foregoing pages, and more particularly from the letter to his brother quoted at the beginning of chapter iv. He was short and stoutly built. His complexion was pale or sallow, and he was deeply scarred by the small- pox. His scant hair was brown, his eyes gray or hazel, and his forehead, which was rather low, projected in a way that is easily exaggerated in some of the copies of his por- traits. Yet "his features" — if we may trust one who knew him — though "plain," were " not repulsive, — certainly not so whenlighted up by conversation." Another witness, Mrs. Gwyn, says that his countenance bore every trace of his unquestionable benevolence. His A Memoir 235 true likeness must probably be sought between the slightly grotesque sketch by his friend Bun- bury, prefixed to the early editions of " The Haunch of Venison," and the portrait by Rey- nolds at Knole Park, of which there is a copy in the National Portrait Gallery. Mr. Forster is severe upon Bunbury's " caricature ; " but it should be remembered that " The Jessamy Bride " (who, even if prejudiced in favour of her brother-in-law's art, can scarcely be suspected of any desire to depreciate Goldsmith) declares that it "gives the head with admirable fidelity as he actually lived among us." " Nothing (she adds) can exceed its truth." On the other hand, she says of Reynolds's picture, that " it was painted as a fine poetical head for the admiration of posterity," but " was not the man as seen in daily life." This is obviously just. In the noble portrait by Sir Joshua per- sonal regard has idealised the resemblance, and the artist, to use his familiar phrase, has put into his sitter's head something from his own. His finely perceptive genius has fixed for ever the most appealing characteristics of his friend's inner nature, his " exquisite sensibility of contempt," his wistful hunger for recognition, his craving to be well with all men. The only other portrait which needs mention is that pre- 236 Oliver Goldsmith fixed to Evans's edition of the " Poetical and Dramatic Works." It stands (with less in- dividuality) between the other two, and may be a copy of the miniature to which Goldsmith refers in his letter to his brother Maurice, of January, 1770. ^' I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture of myself, as I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer. . . . The face you know is ugly enough, but it is finely painted." The words last quoted might be adduced as evidence that Goldsmith was not always as vain as some of his contemporaries would have us believe. He was, in reality, of so open and un- guarded a disposition, and so wholly incapable of any conventional concealment of his thoughts and emotions, that in collecting anecdotes to illustrate his character, it is of the first impor- tance to ascertain whether the narrator is a friend or an enemy. Side by side with many rare and noble qualities. Goldsmith had many weaknesses, which were sometimes, especially to unsympathetic observers, far more manifest than his merits. '^The doctor," says one con- temporary, '* was a perfect Heteroclite, an inexplicable existence in creation ; such a com- pound of absurdity, envy, and malice, contrasted M^ith the opposite virtues of kindness, generos- ity, and benevolence, that he might be said to A Memoir 237 consist of two distinct souls, and influenced by the agency of a good and bad spirit." ^ This was the opinion of Davies the bookseller, who had known him intimately, and could hardly be described as either friend or foe, unless his position as Garrick's biographer puts him ex officio in the latter category. But the passage serves to show that Goldsmith was, above all, a man of whom, to echo a Greek idiom, we should " truth it in love," and, in this connection, the testimony of witnesses such as Johnson and Reynolds, or even as Glover and Cook, is of far greater import than that of Walpole, or Bos- well, or Hawkins, who scarcely ever speak of him without an accent of disdain or patronage. That Goldsmith's last years were one pro- longed struggle with embarrassment has been sufficiently asserted. It seems equally clear that his difficulties arose less from lack of means, or inadequate remuneration, than from his con- stitutional heedlessness. Nor can it be doubted that they played their part in shortening his life. " Of poor dear Dr. Goldsmith" — wrote Johnson to Boswell — "there is little to be told, more than the papers have made pub- lick. He died of a fever, made, I am afraid, more violent by uneasiness of mind. His debts 1 Life of Garrick, 1780, ii, 142. 23,8 Oliver Goldsmith began to be heavy, and all his resources were exhausted. Sir Joshua is of opinion that he owed not less than two thousand pounds. Was ever poet so trusted before ? " ^ To Langton, in a letter bearing the next day's date, the story is the same. " He [Goldsmith] died of a fever, exasperated, as I believe, by the fear of distress. He had raised money and squandered it, by every artifice of acquisition, and folly of ex- pense. But let not his frailties be remem- bered ; he was a very great man."^ These utterances are, in part, confirmed by the record, incomplete as it must necessarily be, of the amounts he had received since the success of "The Good Natur'd Man" in 1768. A rough calculation of his ascertained gains from that date gives over ;^3 ,000 — a sum, in all probability, much below his actual receipts. If, as Rey- nolds thought, his debts came to " not less than ;^2,ooo," he must, for the last six years of his life, have been living at the rate of at least ;^8oo a year, a sum which, to Johnson, with the modest pension of ;^300, out of which he managed to maintain so many other pensioners of his own, must have had all " the glitter of affluence." On the other hand, it should be 1 Hiirs Boswell's Johnson, 1887, ii, 280, 2 Ibid., ii, 280-1. A Memoir 239 remembered that Goldsmith's income was not paid with the regularity of a State stipend. Yet it was an income which, with moderate care, might have sufficed for a bachelor. Even if the ;^2,ooo debt be deducted, there still remains an income of ;^^oo, or ;^2oo more than Johnson's pension, and more than double the allowance Lord Auchinleck made to Boswell. To acquit Goldsmith of "folly of expense" is therefore impossible. It is clear that his money must have " burnt his pocket" as freely in his later years, as in those earlier days, when he first set out to study law in London. Johnson might have saved much speculation if he had thrown some light on the specific prod- igalities to which he indirectly refers. Was gambling one of them ? If we are to believe Cradock, it was. " The greatest real fault of Dr. Goldsmith," he says, '^ was, that if he had thirty pounds in his pocket, he would go into certain companies in the country, and in hopes of doubling the sum, would generally return to town without any part of it." ^ Cook and Davies speak much to the same effect ; and the fact that Garrick, in one of his epitaphs, calls him " gamester," may at least be taken to sig- nify that the accusation of play was currently 1 Cradock's Literary Memoirs, 1826, i, 232. 240 Oliver Goldsmith made against him. Moreoever, it had been alleged to be one of his especial temptations, even in his younger days, and when he was a student at Leyden. Both Mr. Forster and Mr. Prior, doubtless with praiseworthy inten- tions, endeavour to palliate this weakness, by proving that Goldsmith could not have " played high ; " but to a man with an uncertain income, a trifling loss would be far more disastrous than those easy thousands which Fox and Lord March flung away at the hazard table. Added to this he had apparently but few qualifications for success in this direction. He may have been unlucky at cards, but he was, admittedly, " exceedingly inexpert in their use," as well as impatient of temper. Another source of extravagance was un- doubtedly the succession of splendid garments, in which, with the assistance of Mr. William Filby, at the sign "of the Harrow, in Water Lane," he was wont, in Judge Day's expression, to " exhibit his muscular little person." This had been a frailty from his boyhood — witness the story of the Elphin red breeches, and the Edin- burgh student bills. Something of vanity was doubtless mingled with it, but the desire to ex- tenuate his personal shortcomings, and the mis- taken idea of the importance of fine clothes to A Memoir 241 the gentleman, had also considerable influence. Certainly, in his better moments, he was fully conscious of the futility of squandering money in this way. Once Reynolds found him in a reverie, kicking a bundle mechanically round the room. Upon examination, this proved to be an expensive masquerade dress, which he had been tempted to purchase, and out of which, its temporary ends having been served, he was endeavouring, as he jestingly said^ to ex- tract the value in exercise. At his death he owed Filby ;^79, although only the previous year he had paid him sums amounting in all to ;^iio. It is but fair to add that £}^ of this ^79 was incurred for a ne'er-do-well nephew from Ire- land, who, when he afterwards became a pros- perous " squireen," never thought it due to his uncle's memory to discharge the balance. And nowhere more fitly than in this place can it be recorded that the tailor always spoke well of his distinguished debtor. '* He had been a good customer," said honest Mr. Filby of the Har- row ; " and had he lived would have paid every farthing." Nor was Mr. Filby the only person who was charitably disposed to that kindly spendthrift at Brick Court. There were two poor Miss Gunns, milliners at the corner of Temple Lane, who told Cradock that they 16 24^ Oliver Goldsmith would work for his friend for nothing, rather than that he should go elsewhere. " We are sure that he will pay us if he can."^ Such testimonies outbalance long files of overdue accounts. His paying the bills of his nephew Hodson explains another of his methods of spending money, which perhaps only the most rigid moralists will regard as a ^' folly of expense." There can be no doubt of his hospitality and generosity. His entertainments, when he was in a position to entertain, and, frequently when he was not, were of the most lavish character. Once, when one of his dinners had opened with more than usual profusion, Johnson and Rey- nolds, who suspected his pecuniary embarrass- ments, silently rebuked him by sending away the second course untouched — a mode of ad- monition surely more humiliating than salutary. As to his benevolence, it may fairly be said to have been boundless, though unhappily it was often ill-bestowed. If his benefactions had been confined to the poor women who carried away the remains of his breakfast on " shoe- maker's holidays," or to his landlady in Green Arbour Court, who, until his death, found in him a faithful friend, he might have been, if not a 1 Cradock's Literary Memoirs, 1828, iv, 287, A Memoir 243 rich^ at least a solvent man. But his literary prominence drew about him a host of parasites and petitioners, mostly from his native island, who practised upon his kind heart, and his com- passionate impulses. He had learned from his father to be a '' mere machine of pity," and the Purdons and Pilkingtons who preyed upon him, took care that the machine should not rust for lack of use. Upon the whole it may be con- cluded that more of his money went in this way than in any other. " His humanity and generos- ity," says Hawes, "greatly exceeded the nar- row limits of his fortune."^ And Hawes, as his temporary executor, had special facilities for knowing. The "envy and malice" with which he is credited by Davies were probably more appar- ent than real. Nevertheless his recorded atti- tude to Sterne, Gray, Beattie, Churchill, and others of his contemporaries, shows that he cannot be entirely absolved from hearing " in every breeze The laurels of Miltiades ; " and there are passages in Boswell, which, al- though they do not support the charge of malice, can scarcely be disregarded, even when every ^ Account of the late Dr. Goldsmith's Illness, 1774, p. 20. 244 Oliver Goldsmith allowance has been made for bias in the teller. " Talking of Goldsmith," writes Boswell, "Johnson said, he was very envious. I de- fended him, by observing that he owned it frankly upon all occasions. ' Sir ' [said John- son] * you are enforcing the charge. He had so much envy, that he could not conceal it. He was so full of it that he overflowed. He talked of it to be sure often enough. Now, Sir, what a man avows, he is not ashamed to think ; though many a man thinks, what he is ashamed to avow.' " ^ To this may be ap- pended a qualifying passage from Davies : *' Goldsmith was so sincere a man, that he could not conceal what was uppermost in his mind. ... His envy was so childish, and so absurd, that it may be very easily pardoned, for everybody laughed at it ; and no man was ever very mischievous whose errors excited mirth ; he never formed any scheme, or joined in any combination, to hurt any man living." ^ Closely 1 Hill's Boswell's Johnson, 1887, iii, 271. 2 Life of Garrick, 1780, ii, 162. Percy writes much to the same effect : " Whatever appeared of this kind was a mere momentary sensation, which he knew not how like other men to conceal. It was never the result of principle, or the suggestion of reflection; it never im- bittered his heart, nor influenced his conduct." {Miscel' laneous Works ^ 1801, i^ n?-) A Memoir 245 allied to this uncontrollable candour of charac- ter was a simplicity which was part of his Irish nature, and which often made him the butt of his contemporaries. The anecdote of Gibbon's palming off Montezuma upon him for Porus has already been related. Another story told by Croker, exhibits him as the innocent dupe of Burke : " Colonel O'Moore, of Cloghan Castle in Ireland, told me an amusing instance of the mingled vanity and simplicity of Goldsmith, which (though, perhaps, coloured a little as anecdotes too often are) is characteristic at least of the opinion which his best friends entertained of Goldsmith. One afternoon, as Colonel O'Moore and Mr. Burke were walking to dine with Sir Joshua Reynolds, they observed Gold- smith (also on his way to Sir Joshua's) standing near a crowd of people, who were staring and shouting at some foreign women in the windows of one of the hotels of Leicester Square. ' Ob- serve Goldsmith/ said Mr. Burke to O'Moore, * and mark what passes between him and me by and by at Sir Joshua's.' They passed on, and arrived before Goldsmith, who came soon after, and Mr. Burke affected to receive him very coolly. This seemed to vex poor Goldsmith, who begged Mr. Burke to tell him how he had had the misfortune to offend him. Burke 246 Oliver Goldsmith appeared very reluctant to speak ; but, after a good deal of pressing, said that he was really ashamed to keep up an intimacy with one who could be guilty of such monstrous indiscretions as Goldsmith had just exhibited in the square. Goldsmith, with great earnestness, protested he was unconscious of what was meant. ' Why,' said Burke, ' did you not exclaim, as you were looking up at those women, what stupid beasts the crowd must be for staring with such admira- tion at those '' painted Jezebels 1 " while a man of your talents passed by unnoticed?' Gold- smith was horror-struck, and said, ' Surely, surely, my dear friend, I did not say so I ' ' Nay,' replied Burke, * if you had not said so, how should I have known it?' ' That's true,' answered Goldsmith, with great humility ; ' I am very sorry — it was very foolish ; I do recol- lect that something of the kind passed through my mind, but I did not think I had uttered it.' " ^ It is the simplicity rather than the vanity of Goldsmith which is here illustrated, and the blame of the story, if any, certainly lies with Burke. In attempting to estimate Goldsmith as he struck his contemporaries — to use Browning's phrase — it is important to bear in mind his ^ Croker's Boswell's Johnson, i860, p. 141. A Memoir 247 history and antecedents. Born a gentleman, he had, nevertheless, started in life with few tem- poral or personal advantages, and with a morbid susceptibility that accentuated his defects. His younger days had been aimless and unprofitable. Until he became a middle-aged man, his career had been one of which, even now, we do not know all the degradations, and they had left their mark upon his manners. Although he knew Percy as early as 1759, and Johnson in 1 76 1, it was not until the establishment of '^The Club," or perhaps even until the publication of "The Traveller," that he became really intro- duced to society, and he entered it with his past associations still clinging about him. If he was — not unnaturally — elated at his success, he seems also to have displayed a good deal of that nervous self-consciousness, which charac- terises those who experience sudden alterna- tions of fortune. To men like Johnson, who had been intimate with him long, and recog- nised his genius, his attitude presented no diffi- culty, but to the ordinary spectator he seemed awkward and ill at ease, prompting once more the comment, that genius and knowledge of the world are seldom fellow-lodgers. On his own part, too, he must have been often uncertain of his position and capricious in his demands. 248 Oliver Goldsmith Sometimes he was tenacious in the wrong place, and if he thought himself neglected, had not the tact to conceal his annoyance. Once, says Boswell, he complained to a mixed company that, at Lord Clare's, Lord Camden had taken no more notice of him than if he "had been an ordinary man" — an utterance which re- quired all Johnson's championship to defend. At other times he would lament to Reynolds that he seemed to strike a kind of awe upon those into whose company he went, an awe which he endeavoured to dispel by excess of hilarity and sociability. "Sir Joshua," says Northcote (or Laird, who collected North- cote's " Recollections"), "was convinced, that he was intentionally more absurd, in order to lessen himself in social intercourse, trusting that his character would be sufficiently sup- ported by his works." This anecdote may pair off with the story of that affected solemnity by which he sometimes imposed upon those about him ; but in either case the part is a dangerous one to play. As a conversationalist he seems to have had but few qualifications for success. Like Burke he never lost, nor, to the end of his life, cared to lose, his strong Irish accent. He seems besides, as he himself tells us, to have suffered A Memoir 249 from that most fatal of all drawbacks to a racon- teur, a slow and hesitating manner ; and he was easily disconcerted by retort or discomfited in argument. He reasoned best, he said, with his pen in his hand. These things were all against him, and they were intensified by the competi- tion into which he was thrown. Among ordi- nary men he might have shone, but his chief associates in later life were some of the most brilliant talkers of his own, or any age. Few could hope to contend on equal terms with the trained dialectics and inexhaustible memory of Johnson, or to rival the mental affluence and brilliant rhetoric of Burke. And besides these, there were the refined scholarship of Langton, the easy savoir-vivre of Beauclerk, the wit and mercurial alertness of Garrick. Speaking to Boswell, Johnson seems to have put Goldsmith's position in his usual straightforward manner : "The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation is this : he goes on without knowing how he is to get off. His genius is great, but his know- ledge is small. As they say of a generous man, it is a pity he is not rich, we may say of Gold- smith, it is a pity he is not knowing. He would not keep his knowledge to himself." -^ Again: *' Goldsmith should not be for ever attempting 1 Hill's "BosweWs Johnson, 1887, ii, 196. 250 Oliver Goldsmith 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's 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 hun- dred chances for him : he can but get 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." -^ It is quite possible that these utterances lost nothing under Bos- well's recording pen. As a slight corrective to them may be cited a passage from '^The Par- lour Window " of the Reverend Edward Man- gin, who, as far as we are aware, has not hitherto been brought forward as a witness. "I knew an old literary man, a very keen observer too, who assured me that he had often been in company with Goldsmith, Johnson, Garrick, &c., and that Goldsmith used to have a crowd of listeners about his seat, and was a shrewd 1 Hill's Boswell's Johnson, 1887, ii, 231. A Memoir 251 and eloquent converser." ^ It is also incontest- able that, whatever Goldsmith's success may have been in the " wit-combats " at the Turk's Head, he frequently said very pertinent things. Such was his affirmation of Burke, that *' he wound into a subject like a serpent ; " such his rebuke to Boswell, babbling of Johnson's supremacy, that he was " for making a monarchy of what should be a republic." Nor was this the only one of his random flashes that went home to the great lexicographer himself. It was Goldsmith who said of Johnson that he had nothing of the bear but the skin ; that he would make the little fishes talk like whales ; that if his pistol [of argument] missed fire, he knocked you down with the butt end thereof — all of which bid fair to attain the most advanced age accorded to fortunate epigrams. Some of the pleasantest anecdotes of Gold- smith's career are connected with Johnson. No one seems to have dared to make that great man '' rear" in precisely the same way as *' Doctor Minor.'' Once, relates Johnson — in a well-remembered instance — they were in Westminster Abbey together, and pausing in Poets' Corner, Johnson said, sonorously (as we may assume) : — 1 The Parlour Window ^ 1 841, p. 29. 252 Oliver Goldsmith " Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis." As they returned citywards, Goldsmith pointed slyly to the blanching heads on Temple Bar. " Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur tstis,^' — he whispered.^ On another occasion they were supping on rumps and kidneys at a tavern. " Sir," said Johnson, " these rumps are pretty little things ; but then a man must eat a great many of them before he fills his belly." *' Aye," interjected Goldsmith, " but how many of these would reach to the moon?" "To the moon I " echoed Johnson ; ^* that, Sir, I fear, exceeds your calculations." *' Not at all, said Goldsmith, firmly ; 'M think I could tell." " Pray then let us hear." "Why," said Gold- smith again, speaking deliberately, " one, if it were long enough." Well might Johnson gasp — " Sir, I have deserved it ; I should not have provoked so foolish an answer by so foolish a question." But the prettiest incident of all is perhaps the story of the little quarrel at Dilly's in the Poultry. Johnson had had a long innings of talk, and Goldsmith, burning " to get in and shine " (according to Boswell), was afraid, from some uncouth sound the great man emitted, that he was preparing to start afresh. " ' Sir (said 1 Hill's Boswell's Johyison, 1887, ii, 238. A Memoir 253 he to Johnson), the gentleman has heard you patiently for an hour ; pray allow us now to hear him.' * Sir (retorted Johnson, sternly), I was not interrupting the gentleman. I was only giving him a signal of my attention. Sir, you are impertinent I' Goldsmith made no reply, but continued in the company some time."^ A little later Boswell takes up the sequel. "■ He [Johnson] and Mr. Langton and I went together to the Club, where we found Mr. Burke, Mr. Garrick, and some other members, and amongst them our friend Gold- smith, who sat silently brooding over Johnson's reprimand to him after dinner. Johnson per- ceived this, and said aside to some of us, * I'll make Goldsmith forgive me,' and then called to him in a loud voice — ' Dr. Goldsmith, — some- thing 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 Gold- smith rattled away as usual." ^ Such differences, indeed, were but momentary. Each man had a sincere admiration for the other, — an admira- tion to which the survivor often testified with a 1 Hill's Boswell's y 244, 248, 249 ; quoted, 134, 181-183. Bott, Mr. Edmund, 178. Breakneck Steps, 66, 71. Brick Court, Middle Temple (No. 2), 169, 206, 231. British Magazine) T/ie, 43, 86, 88, 89, 90. Brooke's '' System of Natural History," Preface to, 107. Bryanton, Robert, of Bally- mulvey, 17, 22, 57, 58, 69 j letters to, 28-29, 58. Bunbury, Henry William, the Caricaturist, 192, 235. Bunbury, Mrs., see " Horneck, Catherine." Burke, Edmund, iii, 162, 196, 226, 228, 231, 245, 246. Busy Body, The, jy, 82. Byrne, Thomas, 5, 34, 187. Campbell, Mr., 9. Canonbury House, 104, 153. ** Captivity, Oratorio of the," 233 n. Chamier, Mr., iii. Chatterton, Thomas, 205. "Chinese Letters," 90, 93. Christian Magazine, The, 91. Churchill, Charles, 109, 116. "Citizen of the World, The," 42, 71, 90, 93 ; preface quoted, 93-84 ; characteris- tics of, 95-96 ; the '* Man in Black" and "Beau Tibbs," 97-98. "City Night Piece, A," 79, "Cla landestine Marriage, The," 160. Clare, Lord, see " Nugent, Robert." " Clown's Reply, The," 28. "Club, The," no, in, 158, Cock Lane Ghost, Pamphlet on, 92, Collins, Benjamin, printer, of Salisbury, 103, 132, 139, 141, 145- Colman, George, Manager of Covent Garden Theatre, 264 Index 160, 162, 163, 196, 211, 212, 214, 217. Comedy, '* Genteel," or " Sen- timental," 159. ** Compendium of Biography," 100. Contarine, Jane, afterwards Mrs., Lawder, 22, 23, 57 ; letter to, 59-62. Contarine, Rev. Mr., 12, 17, 21, 23, 26, 30,34, 62 ; letters to, 30-34. Cook, William {European Magazine), 118, 140, 169, 175, 176, 177, 185, 239 ; quoted, 35, 6i, 107, 137, 172, 173, 186,214. Cradock, Joseph, 130, 144, 209, 218, 223 ; quoted, 239. Critical Review, TAe, 6^. Croker, John Wilson, quoted, 245. Crown Tavern at Islington, 154. 157. Cumberland, Richard, 136, 226, 227 ; quoted, 136. Davies, Thomas, the book- seller, 157, 198, 199, 223, 227, 243> 244 ; quoted, 237. Delap, Elizabeth, 5. " Deserted Village, The," 71, 79, 172 ; published, 185 ; dedicated to Reynolds, 185 ; depopulation theor}^, 185 ; identity of Auburn and Lis- soy, 186-187 ; qualities of the poem, 188 ; farewell to poetry, 188, 189 ; sum paid to author, 189. " Description of an Author's Bedchamber," 69, 70. *' Dictionary of Arts and Sciences," 223, 224. ** Distresses of a Common Soldier," 95, 125. " Distresses of the Poor," 82. Dodsley, the bookseller, 136. " Double Transformation, The," 126. Dyer, Samuel, iii. " Edwin and Angelina " (The Hermit), 129, 130, 131, 141, 142, 150, 151-152. " Elegy on a Mad Dog," 141. " Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize," 45, 82, 83. Ellis, Dr., Goldsmith's fellow- student at Leyden, 34. "English Grammar," 151. " Enquiry into Polite Learning in Europe," 42, 57, 59, 73-78, 82, 1C9, 116. " Essays, by Mr. Goldsmith," 98, 124; preface and con- tents, 124-125 ; European Magazine y They 35, 66. "False Delicacy," Kelly's, 163. Fielding, Henry, So. Filby, William, Goldsmith's Tailor, 182, 183 n., 240; quoted, 241. Fleming, Mrs., of Islington, 105, ic6, 109, 140 ; her ac- counts, 105-106, no, 113. Foley, Statue of Goldsmith by, 233- Ford, Mr. Edward, 144. Forster, Mr. John, 157, 204 n., 219, 23^, 240; his "Life of Goldsmith " quoted, 51, 107, 109, III, 162, 201. "Friar of Orders Gray," 152, 153- " GAMEof Chess," Goldsmith's translation of Vida's, 204 n. Garden Court, Temple, Gold- smith in, 154. Index 265 Garrick, David, 160, 161, 162, 164, 181, 182, 223, 224, 225, 229 ; epitaph on, 226. Gaubius, Professor of Chem- istry at Leyden, 33. Gibbon, Edward, 224. Gibbs, Mr. J. W. M., 39, 54 n. Glover, William, 158, 176; quoted, 40, 176. Goethe, quoted, 146-147. Golden, Peggy, 7, 171. Goldsmith, Ann (Goldsmith's mother), 3, 21, 24, 198. Goldsmith, Catherine (after- wards Mrs. Hodson), 11, 20, 24. Goldsmith, Rev. Charles (Gold- smith's father), 3, 4, 12, 17, 20. Goldsmith, Charles (Gold- smith's brother), 54. Goldsmith, Dean, ofCloyne, 27. Goldsmith, Rev. Henry (Gold- smith's eldest brother), 4, 8, II, 17, 20, 26, 115, 172, 185; letter to, 19, 64^65, 68-71. Goldsmith, John, of Bally- oughter (Goldsmith's uncle), 8. Goldsmith, Oliver, his family, i ; father, 3 ; birth, 4 ; removal to Lissoy, 4; first teachers, Elizabeth Delap and Thomas Byrne, 5-6; has the small-pox, 7; anecdotes of childhood, 7-8 ; at school at Elphin and Athlone, 8-9 ; at Edgeworths- town,9 ; adventures at Ardagh, 10, II ; marriage of sister Catherine, 11 ; sizar at Trin- ity College, Dublin, 13; his tutor, Theaker Wilder, 13; involved in a college riot, 15, 16; gets a small exhibition, 16 ; runs away and returns, 16, 17 ; writes songs for bal- lad singers, 17; anecdote of his benevolence, 18 ; takes B. A. degree, 18 ; relics of college life, 18 ; rejected for holy orders, 23 ; tutor to Mr. Flinn, 23 ; sets out for Amer- ica and returns, 24-25 ; letter to his mother, 25-26 ; starts (fruitlessly) to study law, 26; goes to Edinburgh to study medicine, 27 ; admitted a medical student, 27 ; visits the Highlands, 30 ; starts for Paris, 30 ; adventures by the way, 30-32 ; leaves Leyden, 34 ; travels on the Continent, 34-40 ; lands at Dover, 40 ; first struggles on reaching England, 43-44 ; physician in Bankside, 44-45 ; proof reader to Richardson, 46 ; his tragedy, 47; projects for the East, 47; at Peckam Academy, 48-51; bound to Griffiths, the bookseller, 51 ; ** Memoirs of a Protestant," 55-56; goes back to Peckham, 56 ; obtains and loses appoint- ment in East Indies, 62 ; fails at Surgeons' Hall as a hospi- tal mate, 63; No. 12, Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey, 66; difficulties with Griffiths, 67, 68; visit from Percy, 71, 72; " Present State of Polite Learning," 73-78 ; writes for The Busy Body and The Lady^s Magazine^ "jy ; The Bee^ 77-83; visited by New- bery and Smollett, 86 ; con- tributions to The British Magazine 86, 2>7 ; " History of Miss Stanton," 87, 88; contributions to The Public Ledger, 89 ; edits The Ladfs Magazine, 90; moves into 266 Index No. 6, Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, 91 ; visited there by Johnson, 91; " Me- moirs of Voltaire," 92 ; "His- tory of Mecklenburgh," 92 ; " Mystery Revealed," 92 ; "Citizen of the World," 93-99; "Compendium of Biography," 100; "Life of Nash,"ioi; sale of third share of "Vicar of Wakefield," loi, 102 ; removes to Mrs. Fleming's at Islington, 103- 104; Mrs. Fleming's ac- counts, 105, 106; hack-work for Newbery, 106, 107 ; " Let- ters of a Nobleman," 107; Hogarth at Islins;ton, 109- iio; "The Club" formed, no, in; working on "The Traveller," 113; publication of that poem, 115; described, 115-123; "Essays, by Mr. Goldsmith," 124-125 ; friend- ship with Nugent (Lord Clare), 127; visits North- umberland House, 127-128; " Edwin and Angelina, " 129; resumes medical practice, 131, 132; "Vicar of Wakefield," 132; story of sale, 133-141; date of production, 141 ; char- acteristics, 142-144; theories of Mr. Ford, 144; bibliogra- phy, &c., 144-147; Formey's "History of Philosophy," &c., translated, 150; "Poems for Young Ladies," 150; "English Grammar," 151; * ' Beauties of English Poesy,' ' 151; letter to St. James'' s Chronicle, 1 5 1 ; at Canonbury House, 153; at the Temple, 154; visited by Parson Scott, 155; " Roman History," 157; the "Wednesday Club," 158 ; " Good Natur'd Man " produced, 163 ; its story, 159-167; at 2, Brick Court, Middle Temple, 169; relaxa- tions and festivities, 1 69-1 71 ; death of Henry Goldsmith, 171; begins "The Deserted Village," 172; "Shoemaker's holidays " and " Shoemaker's Paradise," 173-174; Mr. Fdmund Bott, 178-179; old compilations and new, 179, 180 ; epilogue to Mrs. Len- ox's "Sister," 180; a dinner at Boswell's, 181-183; ap- pointed Professor of History to the Royal Academy, 184 ; letter to Maurice Goldsmith, 184; portrait painted by Reynolds, 184; "The De- serted Village," 185-190; the Horneck family, 191-192; " Life of Parnell," 193 ; visits Paris, 193-197 ; " Abridgment of Roman History," 198; " Life of Bolingbroke," 199 ; Lord Clare and "The Haunch of Venison," 200-204; ^t the Royal Academy dinner, 204; at Edgeware, 206-207 ; "His- tory of England," 207; pro- logue to Cradock's " Zo- beide," 209; "Threnodia Augustalis," 209; letter to Mrs. Bunbury, 209-211; "She Stoops to Conquer" produced, 213 ; its story, 211- 216; \\he\\&6.hy The Land 071 Packet, 217-220; dining at Oglethorpe's, 221 ; at Paoli's, 221 ; " The Grumbler," 222; "Grecian History," 223; " Dictionary of Arts and Sciences," 223; "Retalia- tion," 225-228 ; illness, 229- 230; death and burial, 231, Index 267 232 ; Johnson's epitaph, 232 ; other memorials, 233; por- traits, 234-236; testimonials as to character, 236, 237; money difficulties, 237-240; love of play, 239, 240; of fine clothes, 240-242 ; generosity and benevolence, 242-243 ; alleged envy and malice, 243- 244 ; simplicity, 245-246 ; position in society, 247-248 ; conversation, 248-249 ; rela- tions with Johnson, 251-252; conclusion, 254-255; letters to Daniel Hodson and Thomas Bond, 256-262. Goldsmith's hostess, 109. Goldsmyth, John, i. *' Good Natur'd Man, The," 163 ; produced, 163 ; Gold- smith on the first night, 164, his gains, 166 ; Da vies on the play, 166, 168, 183 n., 212, 224. Gordon, Mr., 158. Gray's " Odes," 53. Grecian History, 206, 223. Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey, 66, 71. Green, Rev. Mr., of Kilkenny West, 3. Griffiths, the bookseller, 51, 52, 53, 67, 68. "Grumbler, The," 222. Gunning, Elizabeth, Duchess of Hamilton, 28. Gunns, Miss, the two, 241. Gwyn, Mrs., see " Horneck, Mary." " Haunch of Venison, The," 184, 201 ; quoted, 201-203, 233 n,, 235. Hawes, William, 230 ; his " Ac- count of Dr. Goldsmith's ill- ness," 230 n.; quoted, 243. Hawkins, Mr., afterwards Sir John, III, 112, 130, 136; quoted, 127-12S, 137, 138, 141. "Hermit, The," see "Edwin and Angehna." Hickey, Mr., 196. Higgins, Captain, 219. "History of England," 108, 207. " History of Miss Stanton," Zj. 88. '* History of Philosophy and Philosophers," 150. " History of Rome," 179. " History of the Seven Years War," 54. Hodson, Daniel, 20, 62, 257, 258. Hodson, William, his son, 242, 257-260. Hogarth, William, 109. Holberg, Baron de, 34. Horneck, Catherine (" Little Comedy "), afterwards Mrs. Bunbury, 191, 192, 209 ; letter to, in rhyme, 210. Horneck, Charles (The " Cap- tain in Lace "), 191, 219, 220. Horneck, Mary, (The "Jessamy Bride"), afterwards Mrs. Gwyn, 113, 131, 191, 192, i93> 219, 231, 234, 235. Horneck, Mrs. Hannah (The " Plymouth Beauty " ), 191. Hughes, Rev. Patrick, of Edge- worthstown, 9. « Iris, To," 82. Irving, Washington, quoted, 66, 158. Ivy Lane Club, The, in. Johnson, Samuel, 80, 82, 86, 109, no, 117, 138, 139, 160, 161, 164, 170, 180, 184, 188, 268 Index 205, 214, 226, 231, 232, 242 ; quoted, 113, ii8, 122, 134, I35>i55, i64> 165, 167, 180, 182, 212, 215, 237, 238, 244, 249, 251, 252, 253. Jones, Rev. Oliver (Gold- smith's grandfather), 2. Kelly, Hugh, 158, 163, 217, 224, 231. Kenrick, Dr., 151, 218, 220. King's Bench Walks, Gold- smith in, 154. Lady^s Magazine^ The, yj, 90. Langton, Bennet, m, 207, 211, Lawder, Mrs., see " Contarine, Jane." Lenox, Mrs., Charlotte, 180. "Letters from a Nobleman to his Son," 107, 157. Letters of Goldsmith, 58-63, 64-65, 67-68, 69-72, 184, 194, 195, 207, 209-211, 220, 256-262. Literary Club, The, 112. Literary Magazine, T/te, ^4^n. Lissoy, 4, 186-187. " Logicians Refuted, The," 82, 126. Lumpkin, Tony, 22, 215. Macaulay on " The Trav- eller," I 19-120. Macleane, Mr. Lauchlan, 31. Mangin, Rev. Edward, quoted, 250. " Man in Black," The, 4, 97- 98. "Memoirs of a Protestant," 55-56. Mills, Edward, 17, 18, 57, 58. Milner, Dr., of Peckham Acad- emy, 48, 51, 56. Milner, Miss Hester, 50, 51. Milner, Mrs., 49. Monro, Alexander, Professor of Anatomy at Edinburgh, 28. Montagu, Mrs., 131. Monthly Review^ The, 51, 53, 67; Goldsmith's work for, 53 ; reviews Gray's " Odes " in, 53-54- " Mystery Revealed, The," 92. " Nash, Life of Richard," loi. Newbery, Francis (John New- bery's nephew), 132, 150. Newbery, Francis (John New- bery' s son), 104. Newbery, John, 86, 103, 106, "3, I33> 136, 137, 139, 140, 148, 150, 151, 154, 156. "New Simile, A," 126. Northcote, 195, 248. Northumberland, Earl of, after- wards Duke, 127, 199. Nugent, Dr., iii, 127. Nugent, Robert, afterwards Lord Clare, 126, 127 n., 199, 200, 201, 203, 248. 0'CAROLAN,the blind harper, 7. Paoli, General, 221. Pamell, Thomas, 3 ; " Life of," 193- Percy, Dr. Thomas, afterwards Bishop of Dromore, 35, 72, 129, 152, 205. "Percy Memoir" quoted, 31, 49, 50. 65, 71, 72, 91, 127, 129, 141. "Piety in Pattens," Foote's, 212. Pilkington, Matthew, 99. Piozzi, Mrs., see " Thrale, Mrs." "Poems for Young Ladies," 150. Portraits of Goldsmith, 184, 235-236. Index 269 Primrose, George, 35, 36, 39, 43,48,85. *' Prince Bonbennin and the White Mouse," 99. Prior, Mr., afterwards Sir James, 59 n., 105, 117, 191, 223, 240 ; his " Life of Gold- smith" quoted, 51, 63, 113, 131-132, 194-196, 206, 228. Prior, Matthew, 151. Public Ledger, The, 59, 89, 104. " Rasselas," Johnson's, 82. " Reliques, of Ancient Poetry," Percy's, 73, 130, 153. " Resverie, A," 80. " Reverie at the Boar's Head," 87, 88. *' Retaliation," its origin, 225 ; epitaph on Garrick, 226 ; on Reynolds, 228; on Caleb Whitefoord, 228; published, 233 n. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, no, 113, 131, 161, 162, 181, 184, 192, i93> i95» 197, 207, 223, 225, 226; epitaph on, 228, 231, 235» 241, 242, 245, 248. Richardson, Samuel, 46. " Roman History," 157, 180. " Roman History, Abridgment of, " 198. Romeiro, Juan, 2. Saloop, see "sassafras." Sassafras, 105. Scott, Parson, 155, 204. Seguin, Mr., 170. Seguin, Mrs., 171. Sheridan, Thomas, 3. Sheridan, Thomas, the Actor, 61 n. Sidebotham, Mrs., 131. " She Stoops to Conquer," 11, 21 ; produced at Covent Gar- den, 213 ; dedicated to John- son, 213 ; the first night, 214 ; characteristics and suc- cess, 215, 217, 222. •' Shoemaker's holidays," 173. " Shoemaker's Paradise " at Edge ware, 177. Sleigh, Dr., 31. Smollett, Dr. Tobias, 77, 86. Steele's comedies, 159. Strahan, 133, 139. Strean, Annesley, 9, 23, 262. Taylor, Isaac, 124. Taylor's " Records of my Life" quoted, 176. Thrale, Mrs., afterwards Mrs. Piozzi, 137, 164, 166 ; quoted; i35» 138. " Threnodia Augustahs," 209. "Traveller, The," 33, 113, 1 14-123 ; dedication to Henry Goldsmith, 115-117 ; unique copy, 114 n. ; Johnson's part in, 11 7-1 18; charac- teristics of, 1 19-122 ; bibliog- raphy, 122 ; sum paid to author, 123, 128, 135, 139, 149. "Twitcher's Advocate" (Par- son Scott), 155. "Vicar of Wakefield, The," quoted, 35, 2>7, 48, 86 ; pub- lished, 132 ; sale of, 102, 133; Boswell's " authentic "ac- count," 134 ; variants of Mrs. Piozzi, Hawkins, Cum- berland, 135-136; Cook's version, 137-138 ; attempts to harmonise discrepancies, 138-140 ; date of composi- tion, 140-141 ; characteristics, 142-143 ; theories of Mr. Ford, 144 ; bibliography, 145, 148, 149. _ "Voltaire, Memoirs of," 69, 92 ; quoted, 38-39. 270 Index Waller, Dr. J. F., 13. Walpole, Horace, quoted, 204, 214. Welsh, Mr. Charles, 102, 103, 133* Whitehead, William, 162. Wilder, Rev. Theaker, 13, 14, 16, 17. ^ Willington, James, 55. Wine Office Court (No. 6), 91 ; Johnson's visit to, 91. Wolfe, James, kinsman of the Goldsmiths, 2. "Written Mountains," The, 47, 48. 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