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CHAP. xi.j GOLDSMITH IN PRACTICE AND BUEKE IN OFFICE.
is uneasy without swift renewal of the pleasurable excitement, 1705.
with no less than three similar suits, not less expensive, JsTiV Goldsmith amazed his friends in the next six months. The dignity he was obliged to put on with these fine clothes, indeed, left him this as their only enjoyment; for he had found it much harder to give up the actual reality of his old humble haunts, of his tea at the "White-conduit, of his ale- house club at Islington, of his nights at the Wrekin or St Giles's, than to blot their innocent but vulgar names from his now genteeler page. In truth, he would say (in truth was a favourite phrase of his, interposes Cooke, who relates the anecdote), one has to make vast sacrifices for good company's sake; " for here am I shut out of several places " where I used to play the fool very agreeably,"* Nor is it quite clear that the most moderate accession of good company, professionally speaking, rewarded this reluctant gravity. The only instance remembered of his practice, was in the case of a Mrs. Sidebotham, described as one of his recent acquaintance of the better sort; whose waiting-woman was often afterwards known to relate with what a ludicrous assumption of dignity he would show off his cloak and his cane, as he strutted with his queer little figure, stuck through as with a huge pin by his wandering sword, into the sick- room of her mistress. At last it one day happened, that, his opinion differing somewhat from the apothecary's in attend- ance, the lady thought her apothecary the safer counsellor and Goldsmith quitted the house in high indignation. He would leave off prescribing for his friends, he said. " Do so, " my dear Doctor," observed Beauclerc. " "Whenever you " undertake to kill, let it only be your enemies." "Upon the whole this seems to have been the close of Doctor Goldsmith's professional practice.
* Eun-p, Mag. xxiv.
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