OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK m.

1760, him with a similar' party at Blackwall, where so violent a
ms2. dispute arose about Tristram Sliandy at the dinner-table,
that personalities led to blows, and the feast ended in a fight.
" "Why, sir," said Johnson laughing, when Boswell told him
some years later of a different kind of fracas in which their
friend had been engaged, " I believe it is the first time he
" has beat; he may have been beaten before. This, sir, is a
" new plume to him." If the somewhat doubtful surmise
of the beating be correct, the scene of it was Blackwall,'
and if (a surmise still more doubtful) the story Hawkins
tells about the trick played off by Roubiliac, which like all
such tricks tells against both the parties to it, be also true,
this was the time when it happened. The " little " sculptor,
as he is called in the Chinese Letters, being a familiar
acquaintance, and fond of music, Goldsmith would play the
flute for him; and to such assumed delight on the part of
his listener did he do this one day, that Roubiliac, protesting
he must copy the air upon the spo^ took up a sheet of paper,
scored a few lines and spaces (the form of the notes being all
he knew of the matter), and with random blotches pretended
to take down the time as repeated by the good-natured
musician; while gravely, and with great attention, Goldsmith,
surveying these musical hieroglyphics, " said they were
" very correct, and that if he had not seen him do it, he

" Ms voice was heard rather loud in the adjoining passage, in conversation with
" the master of the house. Goldsmith immediately flew to his new friend, to
" inquire what was the matter; when he found Lloyd in vain attempting to come
" to an understanding with the landlord, who, protesting that already he owed
" more than 14Z, swore that nothing should induce him to take either his word
" or Ms note for the reckoning. ' Pho ! pho !' says Goldsmith, ' my dear boy,
" 'let's have no more words about the matter, 'tis not the first time a gentleman
" *• wanted cash; will you accept my word for the reckoning?' The landlord
"assented. 'Why then,' says Lloyd, wMspering to him and forgetting all
" animosities, ' send in another cast of wine, and add it to the bill/ The bill
" ultimately had to be paid by Goldsmith." European Magazine, xxiv. 93-4.dsmith,