OLIYBR GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES.

1762. attraction promised : attacking, instead, a celebrated Dublin
jEU!4. printer, George Faulkner, who consoled himself (pending Ms
prosecution of the libeller) by pirating the libel and selling
it most extensively; while the satirist had the more doubt-
ful consolation of reflecting, three years later, that his
" taking off " of Faulkner's one leg* would have been much
more perfect, could he have waited till the surgeon had taken
off his own. It was the first dramatic piece, I may add, in
which actors were stationed among the audience, and spoke
from the public boxes.

It had been suggested by a debating society called the
Eobin Hood, somewhat famous in those days, which used to
meet near Temple-bar; with which the connection of Burke's
earliest eloquence may serve to keep it famous still, since
it had numbered among its members that eager Temple
student, whose public life was now at last beginning with
tinder-secretary Hamilton in Dublin; and to which Gold-
smith was introduced by Samuel Derrick, his acquaintance
and countryman.f Struck by the eloquence and imposing
aspect of the president, who sat in a large gilt chair, he
thought nature had meant him for a lord chancellor. " No,

"it is farce, which exhibits individuals." BOSWELL. "Did not lie think of
" exhibiting you, sir ?" JOHNSON. "Sir, fear restrained him; he knew I would
" have broken his bones. I •would have saved him the trouble of cutting off a leg;
" I would not have left him a leg to cut off." Boswett, iii. 95, 6. No man, at the
same time, was less sore than Johnson at mere ordinary personal abuse. On some
one reporting to him that Gilbert Cooper had invented for him the name, which
Foote applies to him above, of the Oaliban of literature, he merely smiled and
said, "Well, then, I must dub him the Punchinello." /&. iii. 143, 4.

* See Boswell, iii. 181, 2.

t Derrick had strange experiences to relate, by which doubtless Goldsmith
profited. "Sir," said Johnson to Boswell, "I honour Derrick for his presence of
" mind. One night, when Floyd, another poor author, was wandering about the
"streets in the night, he found Derrick fast asleep upon a bulk : upon being
" suddenly waked, Derrick started up, ( My dear Floyd, I am sorry to see you in
"'this destitute state: will you go home with me to my lodgings?'"—
Life, ii. 244.well a few years later.