OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK m.
1764. it out to be his lust appearance in any new play (the character
jaTIc. was a solemn old coxcomb, and one of his happiest perform-
ances),* he announced his determination to go abroad for two
years. The pretence was health; but the real cause (resent-
ment of what he thought the public indifference, and a resolve
that they should feel his absence) is surmised in a note of
Lord Bath's which lies before me, addressed to his nephew
Cohnau, the ad interim manager of the theatre.
Garrick left London in the autumn; and his first letter to
Colrnan from Paris describes the honours which were
showering upon him, the plays revived to please him, and
the veteran actors recalled to act before him. He had supped
with Marmontel and d'Alembert; " the Clairon " was at the
supper, and recited them a charming scene from AthaUe;
and he had himself given the dagger scene in Macbeth, the
curse in Lear, and the falling asleep of Sir John Brute, with
such extraordinary effect, that " the most wonderful wonder
" of wonders " was nothing to it. Yet on the very clay that
letter was written (the 8th of October, 1763), a more won-
derful wonder was enacting on the boards of his own theatre.
A young bankers' clerk named Powell, to whom, on hearing
supreme despot, of the age of literature just passed away. He was in, a crowded
auction-room on Ms first arrival in London, watching a sale of pictures for Ms master
Hudson, when, as he stood near the auctioneer at the upper end of the room, he
became aware of an extraordinary bustle among the crowd at the other extremity
near the door, wMch he could only accoxrnt for at the moment by supposing that
some one had fainted from the effect of the heat. But he soon heard the name
of Mr. Pope wMspered from every mouth, and became conscious that the poet
was just entering the door. Every person forming that crowd then drew back
and divided to make way for him up the centre of the room, and all present, on.
either side of the passage wMch was formed, held out their hands that he
might touch them as he passed. Reynolds occupied a modest position behind
the front rank, but he put out his hand under the arm of the person who stood
before Mm, and Pope took it as he did those of others in advancing. Reynolds,
when Ms own fame was at its height, never forgot the exquisite pride of that
moment. See Northcote, i. 19 ; and Beecliey, i. 44-5.
* Sir Anthony Branville in the Discovery.