OLIVEE GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES.

1764. " iron the rack; but I believe the newspapers informed us
" that he was confined in a high tower, and actually obliged
"to He upon an iron bed."* So little was Davies, any
more than Chamier, Johnson, or any one else, disposed
to take the poet's meaning on the authority of his own
explanation of it.

" Nay, sir," said Johnson very candidly, when it was
suggested, some years afterwards, that the partiality of its
author's friends might have weighed too much in their
judgment of this poem, " the partiality of his friends was
" always against him. It was with difficulty we could give
" him a hearing." Explanation of much that receives too
sharp a judgment in ordinary estimates of his character,
seems to be found, as I have said, in this. When partiality
takes the shape of pity, we must not wonder if it is met by
the vanities, the conceits, the half shame and half bravado,
of that kind of self-assertion which is but self-distrust
disguised. Very difficult did Goldsmith find it to force
his way, with even the Traveller in his hand, against these
patronising airs and charitable allowances. " But he imitates
" you, sir," said Mr. Boswell, when, on return from his Dutch
studies, he found this poem''had really gone far to make
its writer for the time more interesting than even Johnson
himself. " Why no, sir," Johnson answered. " Jack Hawkes-
" worth is one of my imitators ; but not Goldsmith. Goldy,
" sir, has great merit." " But, sir," persisted the staunch
disciple, " he is much indebted to you for his getting so
" high in the public estimation." " Why, sir," complacently
responded the sage, " he has perhaps got sooner to it by his
" intimacy with me." t
Without the reserves, the merit might sometimes be

* Granger's Letters, 52-3. Jan. 26, 1771. t Boswell, in. 253.called Szeklers or Zecklers, which descriptive addition follows their