CHAPTER XL

GOLDSMITH IN PRACTICE AND BURKE IN OFFICE.

1765.

THE "nobleman " to whom Sir John Hawkins refers, at the 3705
close of his anecdote last related, as having vouchsafed to be mTs7
Oliver Goldsmith's solitary patron, was not yet ennobled;
nor could the relation he had opened with the poet on the
appearance of the Traveller be properly described as one of
" patronage," though it doubtless at times afforded him the
delights of a splendid table and a retreat for a few days from
the metropolis. Mr. Eobert Nugent, the younger son of an
old and wealthy Westmeath family, was a jovial Irishman
and man of wit, who proffered hearty and " unsolicited "
friendship to Goldsmith at this time as a fellow patriot and
poet,* and maintained ever after an easy intercourse with
him. In early life he had written an ode to Pulteney,f which
contains the masterly verse introduced by Gibbon in his
character of Brutus ;

(" What though the good, the brave, the wise,
With adverse force undaunted rise,

To break the eternal doom !
Though Cato lived, though Tully spoke,
Though Brutus dealt the god-like stroke,

Yet perished fated Borne!")

* Percy Memoir, 66.

f So good in Gray's opinion, that "Mr. Nugent sure did not write his own Ode,"
he says to Walpole. Works, iii. 90.e line, the past from that which was