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LIFE AND TIMES 


OP 

OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 


JOHN FORSTER, 

OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER AT LAW. 


SECOND EDITION. 


IN TWO VOLUMES. 


VOL. I. 



LONDON : 

BRADBURY AND RYANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 



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PREFACE. 


Whatever the work may be wbicb a man undertakes 
to do, it is desirable that be should do it as completely 
as be can; and tbis is my reason for having endeavoured, 
amid employments that seemed scarcely compatible with 
such additional labour, to render this book more worthy 
of the favour with which the First Edition was received. 

With this remark these volumes should have been 
dismissed, to find what acceptance and appreciation the 
new facts and illustrations they contain may justly win for 
them, but for the circumstance of an attack made upon the 
writer by the author of a former life of Goldsmith, on 
grounds as unjustifiable and in terms as insolent as may 
be found in even the history of literature.* 

Briefly, Mr. Prior’s charge against me was this. That 
I had taken all the facts relating to Goldsmith contained 
in the present biography from the book written by himself; 
that the whole of the original matter connected with the 
■poet supplied in mv work might have been comprised in 



other persons, or illustrations of the time, -were a wholesale 
abstraction from the Life by Mr. Prior. My answer (to 
describe it as briefly) was, that the charge so brought 
against me was in all its particulars unfounded and false ; 
that I had mentioned Mr. Prior’s name in connection with 
everything of which be could in any sense be regarded as 
the discoverer; that so far from my bo ole being slavishly 
copied from his, I had largely supplied bis deficiencies, and 
silently corrected his errors ; and that, in availing myself 
with scrupulous acknowledgment of the facts first put forth 
by him, as well as of tbe far more important facts related 
in other books without which he never could have written 
his, I had contributed to them many new anecdotes and 
some original letters, bad subjected them to an 
entirely new examination and arrangement, and had 
done my best to transform an indiscriminate and dead 
collection of details about a man, into a living picture of 
the man himself surrounded by the life of his time. 

The reader will observe that the accnsation which thus 
unexpectedly placed me on my defence, implied ncithci 
more nor less on the part of the person -who made it, thar 
a claim to absolute property in certain facts. It was no' 
pretended that my book contained a lime of Mr. Prior’s 
writing. Not even tbe monomania wlricli suggested s< 
extraordinary a charge could extend it into an imputatioi 
that a single word of original comment or criticism, literar 
or personal, had been appropriated by me ; or that I luu 


which he assumed to have discovered, and the repetition 
of which he would prohibit to all who came after him. 
The question broadly raised was, whether any man who 
may have published a biography, contributing to it certain 
facts as the result of his own research, can from that 
instant lay claim to the entire beneficial interest in those 
facts, nay, can appropriate to himself the subject of the 
biography, and warn off every other person as a trespasser 
from the ground so seized. 

Now, upon the reason or common sense of such a 
proposition, I should be ashamed to waste a word. 
Taking for granted the claim of discovery to the full 
extent asserted, the claim to any exclusive use of such 
discovery is sheer folly. No man can hold a patent in 
biography or in history except by a mastery of execution 
unapproached by competitors. lie only may hope to 
have possessed himself of a subject, who has exhausted 
it; or to have established his originality in dealing with 
facts, who has so happily disposed and applied them as 
to preclude the chances of more successful treatment by 
any subsequent writer. But between me and my accuser 
in this particular case a really practical question was 
raised under cover of the extravagant and impossible 
one. The substance of Mr. Prior’s pretensions as a 
discoverer in connection with Goldsmith came in issue; 
and the answer could only be, that these bad been 
oiinmimislv exno*o'er. ted. It became necessary to noint 


assert, tliat the most important particulars of Goldsmith's 
life, except as to bibliography, where the hooks them¬ 
selves furnished easy hints for the supply of every defect, 
had been published long before by Cooke, Glover, Percy, 
Davies, Hawkins, Boswell, and their contemporaries or 
commentators ; and that were each fact again expressly 
assigned to its original authority, what Mr. Prior might 
claim for his would be found ridiculously small compared 
with the bulk of his volumes. 

In support of that assertion I now place before the 
public the present book. Not only are very numerous 
corrections to every former publication on the subject here 
made, and a great many new facts brought forward, but 
each fact, whether new or old, is given from its first 
authority, and no quotation has been made at second 
hand. 

The gravest defect in my first edition is thus remedied. 
I no longer, from a strained sense of the courtesy due to 
a living writer, and an immediate predecessor on this 
ground, confine my acknowledgments chiefly to him. The 
reader is enabled to see exactly the extent of my obliga¬ 
tions to Mr. Prior, and also, for the first time, the extent 
of Ms obligations to books which he has largely copied, 
and never remembered or cared to name. Por, nothing 
is so noteworthy in this stickler for a property in facts 
originally derived, as the perpetual false assumption of an 
original air by quoting as from the communication of 



hook would expect to (iml already printed in a magazine 
o(‘ the last century not a, lew of its most characteristic 
“ original ” anecdotes. To the, highly curious and 
valuable series of ■puhlinhed recollections of Goldsmith, 
written by one of his intimate companions, William Cooke 
of the Temple, before even Percy’s edition of the J\ lineal- 
ImitvHN JJ'orfa', hi r. Prior never once refers. He preserves 
almost as close a silence in respect to the I*any Memoir 
itself, which, though remaining still by far the fullest and 
most authentic repository of “ original ” information about 
Goldsmith, he sedulously avoids to name, in connection 
wilh any of (he interesting matter ho abstracts unscru¬ 
pulously from i(. When, in the course of repelling his 
nllack, I had occasion to repent my obligations to what 
I regard as the most valuable details in his book, namely, 
Goldsmith’s accounts and agreements with his publisher 
Newbery, and the bills of bis landlady Mrs. Ideming, it 
never occurred to me to doubt that iliost; papers were 
Mr. Prior’s, and remained in his possession. The truth, 
however, is (Imt they wore placed at his disposal by Mr. 
Murray, of Albriunrle-xtreel, whose son and successor has 
most kindly placed them at mine ; and though ,1 have 
quoted them throughout my volumes as originally pub¬ 
lished by him, it will he found that 1 have corrected 
several mistakes in Ins transcription of them, and printed 
some purl, of their contents for the first time. Kvcn to 
f !\n imliit'lmiumr OulnV k bilk which in Mr. P a )r’s book 


discovery of yet earlier date, connecting with his very 
outset in life as a medical student his indulgence in those 
innocent foibles. 

The reader will do me the justice to remember that any 
apparent depreciation of the labours of a predecessor in the 
same field with myself has been forced upon me. I bad no 
thought towards this gentleman but of gratitude in con¬ 
nection with the pursuit which had occupied us in common, 
until he repelled the expression of that feeling. Of course 
I did not think his book a good one, or I would not have 
written mine; but I liked his liking for the subject, had 
profited not a little by his exertions in connection with it, 
valued the new facts he had contributed to its illustration, 
and was content, without the mention of any adverse 
opinion as to the mode in which he had used those 
materials, to let the reader silently infer the reason which 
had induced my own attempt. Tor why should I now 
conceal that the very extent of my sympathy with the 
purpose of his biography had unhappily convinced me of 
its utter failure in his hands; and that for this reason, 
with no dislike of him, but much love for Goldsmith, 
the present biography was undertaken? It seemed no 
unworthy task to rescue one of the most fascinating 
writers in the language from one of its dullest books, from 
a posthumous admiration more harassing than any spite 
that vexed poor Goldsmith while he lived, from a clumsy 
and incessant exaltation far worse than Hawkins’s absurd 



io supply many omissions, ana to restore point to many 
anecdotes mistold or misunderstood; but while all this 
was done silently, Mr. Prior’s name was introduced into 
the text of my narrative not less than fifteen times, and 
a brief advertisement at its close was devoted to the 
eulogistic statement (for which I can only now implore the 
pardon of my readers) that the “ diligent labour, enthusi- 
“ asm, and ability displayed in his edition and elaborate 
“ memoir twelve years ago, had placed every subsequent 
“ writer under weighty obligations to him.” 

If any one then had warned me of the impending wrath 
of Mr. Prior, it would have appeared to me simply ridi¬ 
culous. With some reason, perhaps, any new biographer 
may demand a brief interval for public judgment before 
a successor shall occupy his ground, but even this in courtesy 
only; and it never occurred to me to question Mr. Wash¬ 
ington Irving’s perfect right to avail himself to the utter¬ 
most of the present work, though he did so within as 
many weeks as I had waited years before encroaching on 
Mr. Prior’s. But if any one had gravely assured me that 
the author of a book published twelve years, and which, 
with no encouragement for a second edition, had for more 
than half that time been transferred to the shelves of the 
cheap bookstalls, would think himself entitled coarsely to 
assail me fox reopening his subject anew, I should have 
laughed at a suggestion so incredible; and if, in support of 
the statement, details of the proposed attack had been 


At page 13 of Mr. Prior’s iirst volume, iu giving several 
details of the cliildliood of the poet, ho expresses his thanks 
to “ the Rev. Dr. Stream of Athlone, to whom 1 feel obliged 
“ for the inquiries he has made ” So at page's 23, 23, 110, 
and in other places (in the second volume, 255, &e). Yet 
the obligation was really incurred, not to Dr. Stream but to 
an Msm/ only once very slightly and eursorily alluded to 
(102), containing (139—149) the whole of Dr. Strenn’s in¬ 
formation, and published in 1808 by Mr. Mangin, who not 
without reason complained, on the appearance of Mr. Prior’s 
book, that, though Dr. Strean had placed it in Mr. Prior's 
hands telling him it contained all he had to say about 
Goldsmith, he had “ employed much of what he found in 
“ the 7A,sw/ without having the courtesy to use murks of 
“ quotation/ 5 {Parlour Hindu tr Hook, .1-5.) 

. At pp. 28-29, 4547, 109, I IS, I2S, and in other 
parts of the description of Goldsmith’s boyhood, all the 
characteristic anecdotes are given generally as on the 
authority of his sisters or friends; but. any particular 
mention of the Perm/ Memoir , in which (5-0-7-9-13-14) 
they were first published, is studiously avoided. In like 
manner the account of his first adventures in Pdinburgh, 
told with an original air nt p. 131-135, the notice of 
Mr. Contarine at p. 50-51, and of Mr. Lawder nt p. 
1 30 fl.ro wUlmnf- t *1... ......... 


described as from the communication of a reverend gentle¬ 
man, who had already communicated it to all the world, at 
a public meeting fifteen years before {Gent. May. xc. 620). 

At p. 76, coupled with a previous intimation at p. <33, 
the reader is left to infer that Dr. Wilson’s account of the 
college riot in which Goldsmith took part is laid before 
him from unpublished letters, whereas all the facts, on the 
special authority of Dr. Wilson, are stated in the Mercy 
Memoir (16-17), to which no allusion is made; and in like 
manner the characteristic expression in that memoir, that 
“ one of his contemporaries describes him as perpetually 
%t lounyiny about the colleye yate ” (15), is appropriated as a 
piece of original information at p. 92, and assigned to 
Dr. Wolfen. 

At p. 98 much is made of the loss of the formal registry 
proving Goldsmith to have taken his bachelor’s degree (all 
which is in. the Percy Memoir , 17, though Mr. Prior does 
not tell his readers so), and a self-glorifying announcement 
is made of the satisfactory settlement of that interesting 
question, even in the absence of so important a piece of 
proof, by the fact that “ his name was first found by the pre- 
“ sent writer in the list of such as had right of access to 
“ the college library, to which by the rules graduates only 
“ are admissible.” Yet Mr. Prior had before him Mr. Shaw 
Mason’s Statistical Account or Survey , published nearly 
twenty years before, where, for satisfactory evidence that 


the same most authentic narrative. Let me add, that though 
Dr. Percy omits some valuable points in this letter, Mr. 
Prior is not entitled to say that all copies of it hitherto 
printed have been taken from “imperfect transcripts,” 
saving only that which “ has been submitted to the present 
<£ writer,” &c., &c. In the 25th volume of the European 
Magazine (332-3B3) there is a copy, postscript and all, 
word for word the same as Mr. Prior’s, except that the 
close is more characteristic than his, of the writer’s spirit 
in those boyish days. 

At p. 169-170 there is much parade about certain dis¬ 
coveries in connexion with Dr. Ellis, and we are told that 
“ from accounts given by this gentleman in conversation in 
fC various societies in Dublin, it appears that, &c; ” but 
what appears is literally no more than had been told far 
more characteristically at p. 33-34 of the Percy Memoir , to 
which no allusion is made, either here or a few pages on 
(174), when one of the prettiest of all the stories of 
Goldsmith’s improvidence is given on Dr. Ellis’s authority, 
without a hint of the book {Percy Memoir , 33-34) in which 
it first appeared. 

At p. 176, the same sort of parade is made about a lost 
letter of Goldsmith’s descriptive of his travels “ communi- 
“ cated to the writer by &c. &c. &c. to whose father &c. &c.” 
—the fact of the letter, as well as of the accident that 
destroyed it, having been published nearly half a century 
before by Dr. Campbell, in his Survey of the South of 


could have written no such letter; and Mr. Prior had, in 
truth, simply copied the fact from Northeote’s Life if 
Reynolds (i. 332-333). An original letter is given at pp. 
246-251, full of interest and character, without anything to 
inform the reader that he might have found it at pp. 40-45 
of the Percy Memoir ; nor would it be very clear to him, 
even though Bishop Percy is mentioned in a note, that the 
letter at pp. 259-262 had been copied from the same 
source (50-52); still less that the long and eluirnetemtie 
fragment of a letter at pp. 275-27H is also but a verbatim 
copy from pp. 46-49 of the same ill-treated authority, and 
that the master-piece of all Goldsmith's epistolary writing, 
for the varied interest of its contents, law been bodily 
transferred without acknowledgment from pp. 53-59 of the 
one hook to pp. 297-303 of the other. 

• A-t PP- 370-372, an anecdote is related as having been 
told by Goldsmith himself " with considerable humour ; ” 
but the story is ill-told, and with no mention of the printed 
authority from which it was derived (in the A 'urnpem 
Magazine, xxiv. 259-260). Precisely the same remark 
I have to repeat of the stories at pp. 422-424, mid of the 
statement at p. 495 for which an erroneous authority i* 
given. These will lie found in the Lhimpetin Mt/t/azi/ie, 
xxiv. 92, 93, and. 94. “ The remembrance of Bishop 

Percy is invoked for another whimsical anecdote at 
P- 377 > wll0n the exact page of the memoir ((12413) 


rltlSr AUK. 


hh ho had borrowed thorn himself, except that l never 
nought to put them forth ua my own discoveries, 1 vvaa not 
assailed and inaulted by him. I now proceed in the 
anmo way, with all possible brevity, through the second 
volume of his book: merely premising, as a help to those 
who would have some, clue to (his perpetual and strange 
desire to represent as from oral or written communication 
facts derived from printed sources, that Mr. Prior took 




tor July i t M i. in pp. ou-y^ a great ciutter is maae 
about the ballad of Edwin and Angelina, as to which all 
that was really essential is told in pp. 74-76 of the Memoir 
by Percy, whose personal connection with the dispute arising 
out of it gives peculiar authority to his statement. 

At p. 130 the assertion about Goldsmith’s having got a 
large sum for what might seem a small labour, put forth as 
an exaggeration reported by others which “he took no 
“ pains to contradict, 5 ’ but to which he would “ in sub- 
“ stance reply ” &c, is all taken without acknowledgment 
from Cooke’s narrative in the European Magazine (xxiv. 
94); in which the exaggeration, such as it is, is most 
emphatically assigned to Goldsmith himself. At p. 135 
the whimsical anecdote described to have been told to 
Dr. Percy, “with some humour by the Duchess of 
“ Northumberland,” might more correctly have been 
quoted from p. 68-69 of the Percy Memoir. 

At p. 139 there occurs, at last, formal mention of a person 
“ admitted to considerable intimacy with him, Mr. William 
“ Cooke, a barrister, known as the writer of a work on 
dramatic genius, and of a poem, &c ”; of whom it is 
added that “ he related many amusing anecdotes of the 
poet from personal knowledgebut where the anecdotes 
are to be found is carefully suppressed, nor indeed could 
any one imagine that they had ever found their way into 
print. At p. 139-140 a highly characteristic story of 
Goldsmith is given as from the relation of this Mr. Cooke, 

“ CornYhnmtprl +rk 


•n • *i 


years before Mr. Prior wrote. 

At p. 140-141, one of Cooke’s most amusing stories is 
ill-told without a mention of its printed source {Europ. 
Mag. xxiv. 200). At p. 107 an incident is given from 
Mrs. Piozzi’s relation, though with no mention of her 
book (. Anecdotes, 244-240 ); and connected with it is a 
formal confirmation of her mistake as to the chib’s night of 
meeting, which the very slight diligence of turning to 
p. 72 of the Percy Memoir would have enabled Mr. Prior 
to correct. And at pp. 175, 178 (where certain lines are 
quoted without allusion to an anecdote current at the time 
that had given them their only point), 181, 182, and 
197, circumstances and traits of character are set forth 
without the least acknowledgment from Cooke’s printed 
papers {European Magazine, xxiv, 170, 422, xxv. 184, 
xxiv. 172, 261, and 429), with only such occasional 
mystification of the reader as that “ a jest of the poet 
“ was repeated by Mr. Cooke ” (197), or that “ Bishop 
“ Percy in conversation frequently alluded to these 
“habits” (182). 

At pp. 194-196, a long passage is given from Co]man’s 
Random Records (i. 11.0-113) ; at p. 207 a business- 
agreement of Goldsmith’s as “drawn up by himself” is given 
from the Percy Memoir (78); and at pp. 220-223 a letter 
from Oliver to Maurice Goldsmith is copied from the same 
source (86-89),—without a clue in any of these cases to 
the book which contains the original. 



“ fiction, liis friend, and whom the writer has likewise . ic 
“ honour, &c. &c. &c.” And then the anecdote, prolosHiup 
to he transcribed by Miss Jane Porter from the manuscriptfe 
of Mr. Stockdale, turns out to be a literal transci'X|)tion imm 
that very Memoirs of the worthy gentleman (ii- 13(5-1 d7)j 
which had been published nearly thirty years Indore Mr. 
Prior’s book, and in which Mr. Prior had been able to find 
“ scarcely an allusion ” to Goldsmith. 

At pp. 254-269 there is a long rigmarole about the 
identity of Lissoy and Auburn, and about the alehouse &c 
rebuilt by Mr. Hogan,—all professing to be tlxc result cd 
written communication or personal inquiry,—not a syllabic 
of which may not be found in Mangin’s Essay (\1,40- I43) ; 
in Mr. Newell’s elaborate and highly ilhistratcd quarto 
edition of the Poetical Works (1811 : “ wi/fcli reniarkn 
“ attempting to ascertain chiefly from local observation the 
“ actual scene of the Deserted Village 61-BO), and in 
Mr. Hogan’s own account in the Gentleman*& A/ agrtzine 
(xc. 618-622),—not one of these authorities lacing once 
named by Mr. Prior. 

At p. 288-289 we have a charming fragment: of a letter 
to Reynolds transferred without acknowledgment from the 
Percy Memoir (90-91); at p. 800, an agreement with 
Davies is silently taken from an earlier page (79) ; at p. 375, 
a curious letter of Tom Paine’s to Goldsmith is so taken 
from a later page (96-98); and at pp. 328-33 0, a capital 
letter is in like manner copied, and not even, correctly 


At p. 309 an anecdote is given from an earlier volume 
of the magazine which, contained the printed papers by 
Cooke ( 'European Magazine, xxi. 88), but with careful 
avoidauco of any clue to the authority. At pp. 313-321 not 
a few of the traits of Hiffcman are borrowed from one of 
Cooke’s papers respecting him {European Magazine , xxv. 
110-184), still with no hint of any such source. At 
p. 349-350, a very characteristic story of Goldsmith is 
copied without allusion from the Percy Memoir (100). 
At p. 353 an incident is mentioned as ‘ f according to the 
“late Mr. John Taylor,” which is simply copied from 
Taylor’s liecords (i. 118). And so, at pp. 370 and 401, 
where the incidents given are silently transcribed from 
Nortlicote {Life of Pegnolds, i. 288 and 28G). 

At p. 381 a pleasant anecdote appears as though 
originally told, but which Cooke had long before related in 
print {European Magazine, xxiv. 201); at p. 380-387, two 
letters are appropriated without allusion to Column's 
Poet humous Letters (1820: 180), or to Garrick’s Carre* 
spondence (1830: i. 527), where they first appeared; at 
pp. 389, 405, and 481, anecdotes, full of character, which 
Cooke certainly deserved the credit of having told in print 
{European Magazine , xxiv. 173, 201, and 202), are giveu 
without an allusion to him ; at pp. 421 and 473, two 
anecdotes, the former being one of the most charming 
recorded of Goldsmith, which had been told in the same 
magazine, but in a later and an earlier number than those 



the libel at p. 408-409, the unnmsneu iragmem at p. a-iu, 
the address to the public at p. 418-414, the amusing verses 
at p. 419, and the Oglethorpe letter at p. 422-423, are all 
drawn, with the same extraordinary absence of all mention 
of their source, from that first authentic record of Goldsmith’s 
career (103-105, 105-106, 107-108,102-103, and 95-96). 

To close the ungracious task which has thus been forced 
upon me. Letters quoted by Mr. Prior are never referred 
to the place from which he draws them, except in the few 
instances where a really original letter happens to have fallen 
in his way. Whether it be at p. 390, where a letter of 
Goldsmith’s to Cradock (in Memoirs , i. 225) is misplaced, 
and referred to what it has no connection with; or at p. 
429, where a letter of Goldsmith’s to Garrick (in Memoirs 
of Doctor Burney, i. 272-273), is given as though personal 
communication had drawn it from Madame d’Arblay; or 
at p. 470, where a letter of Beattie’s (in Porbes’s Life, ii. 09) 
is made use of; or at pp. 369, 472, 482, 488, and 510, 
where quotations are printed, and in two instances mis¬ 
printed, from letters of Beauclerc’s (in Hardy’s Life of 
Lord Gharl&mont, 178, 163, 177, 178, and 179); or at 
p. 526, where we find a letter from Maurice Goldsmith 
to Mr. Hawes (in Hawes’s Account, 22),—still the .reader 
is left without a clue to the source of these letters, in any 
single instance, and may suppose, for anything to the 
contrary revealed to him by Mr. Prior, that all have pro¬ 
ceeded from that amazing fund of private and oxclusivo 

J *__ , -i • - . ... 


my own volumes may possess, on tlic complctcncs 
contrast to his, and on the conviction that no two 
utterly unlike each other were ever before writte 
same subject, Lor a help to the reader’s judgmc 
direction only, I subjoin a mention of those pa£ 
volumes which contain facts, anecdotes, or perso 
exclusively relating to Goldsmith himself, here 
for the first time in any Life of him; and I ha 
an asterisk before the new facts or characteristics 
ing him personally, added to the present edition, 
to attempt so to distinguish the new matter ii 
having relation to the time, and filling up the 
seek to present of Goldsmith’s associates and 1 
would involve a spocilieation of almost every page 

In the first volume, 14, *39, *53-54, *01, 
*82-83, *83-85, *85-87, 129,157-158, 109,*. 
280, 287, *289, *290, 307, *311, 313, *325, 1 
307, *379-380, *395, 397, *405, and *441-441 

In the second volume, 9, 18, 1.9-20, 22, 
42-43, 50, 59-00, 01, 05-08, 70, 71, 75, 70- 
101, 102, *104-105, *100-107, 108, 114-115, 
120, 121-122, 125, *120, 128, *130-131, .131, ; 
134, 139,141, 142-1-13, 144-145, 148, 1 57-158, 
*159, 100, 103-104, 108, 179, 180, 194, 
205, 213, 220, *22!, 227, *233, 237, *255-21 
274. 275. 278-280. 282. 287. *293. *294-295. * 


,17U, •444'4, 11)U, ,1U\ *40:2414. * 

*414411, 4Is, 4:2U44, 4‘JM4h 410441 

41S-440, *441-414, *4M. *4:*4, •IMS. *!>■ 

404,400, 407, mttl *i;u. 

In concluniou, with particular rrfrrmrr to n 
the title* of this biography, mfiiidni ittorr r 
express tin* extrmlcel istiti am! rimrnrtrr it no 
perhaps tin* rentier ma\ hr rrt|iirs|ril to trim 
while* "* tin* times/* an wrll io " tin* life/' ntv 
hr comprised, thr |utm)Ih tiifroi birrs i npjwiir isl 
itH possible iti thr rliiirartrr itittl proportions whir 
to thr Hcrirty of tlirir tin) 4 , thn ny llsr Ilf.-, ilfiil i 
it; that Ilnrkfj n not yrt thr imprurhrr *4 Hi 
Boswell thr biographer of Johnson . nml tin 
bringing within thr rirrlr i»( \uw not u huh- *•! 
uk wrll ns literary rharartrnsttr*, «4 thr nils, f| 
niii! tin* t»»litirs, of tin4 fragment of tlir eighteen 
h!ill thr nhjrrt Inis nt nelly hern to sh*n%' ui 
lights from I'/irh, the erutral figure of (hddmu 
not exaggerated, not tiittltih exulted. hut »t 
thrrr wits in hint tu itduutr nisil hne. ntul til 
n round him to suggest rxeuw or pity. 

§4, V» !** 

«frj m-iaSs I " U 4 , 


ADDITIONAL NOTES, AND COEEECTIONS. 


No one who observes the immense number of references made in this 
book, will be surprised that on glancing back through the completed sheets 
I should have still some errors to correct and omissions to supply ; nor can 
I hope that these will be altogether repaired by such additional notes as 
I now request the reader to insert in the places indicated below. In every 
case the edition of the authority used is specified at its first introduction, 
and always afterwards adhered to. 

VOLUME I. 

Page 16. Labour, in the title of Sliakspeare’s comedy, should be Labour''8. Pago 18, 
and in other places up to page 94, Goldsmith’s Enquiry is wrongly spelt with au I. 
Page 25, Lawder is printed incorrectly Lauder. 

P. 25. Ip support of my remark that the sore disadvantage under which Goldsmith 
sank at College, might have been mastered by a stronger judgment and more resoluto 
purpose, let me quote from the Anecdotes of the Life (i. 13) of Bishop Watson, who 
was himself a sizar at Cambridge exactly ten years after tins date. “ Perceiving that 
‘ ‘ the sizars were not so respectfully looked upon by the pensioners and scholars of the 
“ house, as they ought to have been, inasmuch as the most learned and leading men 
‘ ‘ in the University have ever arisen from that order, I offered myself for a scholor- 
“ ship a year before the usual time of the sizars sitting, and suoceeded, &c. & 0 .” 

P. 26. I ought to have recollected, in making the remark on Flood, that bo was 
four years younger than Goldsmith, and a fellow-commoner. 

P. 39. In regard to the otter-hunting I ought not here to have omitted tho mention ‘ 
of a passage in the Animated Natwre. After giving Buffon’s description of the otter 
coupling in winter and bringing forth in the beginning of spring, ho adds : “It is 
“ certainly different with ns, for its young are never found till tho latter end of 
“ summer ; and I have frequently, when ahoy, discovered their retreats, and pui'Buod 
“ them at that season.” iii. 240. A curious account follows of bis personal expe¬ 
rience as to their being trained for hunting fish. 242-3. 

P. 50. An incident of his residence at Edinburgh ought here to have beon included. 
It would seem from an entrv in the hooks of tho Medic 1 Society that he became a 



ADUlTiUJNAJLi J>UX£jO ajmx v, * «■“• 




Gay and Hanway (see Coryat’s Crudities, i. 134) ; and Drayton’s lines must be held 
simply to refer to a protection from sun and wind. What Wolfe writes from Paris to 
his mother in 1752 bears out exactly what I say of the custom in Hanway’s time. 
<« The people” he says “ here use umbrellas in hot weather to defend them from the 
“ sun, and something of the same kind to secure them from snow and rain. I wonder 
“ a practice so useful is not introduced in England, where there are such frequent 
“ showers ; and especially in the country, where they can be expauded without any 
“ inconveniency.” I may add that Southey quotes tliis letter in his Common Place 
Booh (i. 574), and accompanies it with the remark : “ My mother was bom in the 
“ year when this was written. And I hare heard her say she remembered the time 
“ when any person would have been hooted for carrying an umbrella in Bristol.” 

P. 124. In the letter quoted from Gray to Hurd, “ many topics of consolation” 
should be “ moving topics of consolation ; ” and the authority for it should bare been 
subjoined as Works, hi. 166, 169, 177-178. 

P. 128. This Temple Exchange Coffee-house was called “ George’s,” and some 
curious notices of it may be seen in Cunningham’s Hand-Book of London, 197. 

P. 150-153, I hare an impression that this letter was printed beforo, but the 
authority from which it is here taken is Prior, i. 268, 273. The passage in it about 
the starving of Butler and Otway, coupled with the remark, written at the same date 
for the first edition of the Polite Learning, as to its sufficing for one age to have 
neglected “ Sale, Savage, Amhurst and Moore ” (lie struck Savage and Amhurst out 
of the second edition, though he had meanwhile again introduced them in the 8th 
number of the Bee), seems to connect itself with Dryden’s affecting remark in his 
letter to Lord Rochester, “ Tis enough for one age to have neglected Mr. Cowley and 
“ starved Mr. Butler.” 

P. 171. In support of my statement about Mr. Griffiths, see Monthly Review, 
ii. 431, March 1750. For other evidences of the man’s taste in such matters, see the 
Monthly Review, v. 43, 70, June 1751; and, at the close of volume vii, the list of 
books “ published by R. Griffiths.” The book to which I allude is that which was 
written by the son of a Colonel Cleland, who is generally supposed to have been Popo’s 
Cleland, but is more likely to have been his brother or cousin. Pope’s friend is 
described always as Major Cleland. A letter from his infamous descendant or kins¬ 
man is printed in the Garrick Correspondence, i. 56-59. 

P. 185. In giving the reference for the review of Murphy’s Orphan of China as the 
Critical Review, vii. 434-440, May 1759, I might have addod that the remarks 
in it both as to Shakspeare and Voltaire are bettor than usual. On the next 
page I have omitted the reference for the notice of Forney’s Miscellanies (Critical 
Review, vii. 486, June 1759; in which, by the way, occurs an expression ropoatod 
both in his letters and his novel, where he laughs at professors in collego with “their 
“ whole lives passed away between the fireside and the easy chair”) ; and also the 
reference for the paper on VanEgmont’s Travels in the Critical Review, vii. 504-512, 
June 1759. On the page following, in second note, “ 98 ” ought to have been “ 89.” 


P. 215. Mrs. Thrale ( Anecdotes, 232-233) is the best authority for the knocking 
down of bookseller Osborne. “ And how was that affair, in earnest ? Now, do tell 
“me, Mr. Johnson?” “There is nothing to tell, dearest lady, but that he was 
“ insolent and I beat him, and that he was a blockhead and told of it, which I should 
“ never have done ; so the blows have been multiplying, and the wonder thickening 
“ for all these years, as Thomas was never a favourite with the public. I have beat 
“ many a fellow, but the rest had the wit to hold their tongues.” 

P. 224. The definition of philosophy as the moral of the essay in the second number 
of the Bee was not inserted till its reprint in 1765. 

P. 249. The passage quoted from Cumberland will be found in his Memoirs, 
L 80-81. 

P. 254. In a note to this page, misled by a note in a recent publication, I regret 
to say that I have prematurely killed a very worthy man, Mr. Glover, who, though 
he certainly suffered much from the neglect of the great people who deserted him on 
the decline of his political fortunes, instead of wreaking their spite upon himself by 
doing the silly thing here mentioned, more sensibly retrieved his position by a 
successful speculation in the copper trade, and lived not only sufficiently long (as 
indeed I admit in a later passage in this volume, 411) to punish Mr. Pitt by writing 
him down in a book, but to be mistaken, with his small cocked hat, Ms accurately 
dressed wig, and his bag, for “the tall gentleman,” the veritable author of Junius, 
who was seen throwing a letter into WoodfalPs office in Ivy-lane. 

P. 262. I might have added a good illustration of Goldsmith’s remark on Hawkins 
Browne’s imitations by quoting what is so sensibly said by Pope (Spence's Anecdotes, 
157-158) : “Browne is an excellent copyist; and those who take it ill of him are 
“ very much in the wrong. They are very strongly mannered, and perhaps could not 
*‘ write so well if they were not so ; but still ’tis a fault that deserves the being 
“ pointed out.” 

P. 273. In mentioning the Lettres Persanes as having preceded the CMnese 
Letters, I ought not to have forgotten a delightful paper in the Spectator (No. 50) 
which preceded the Lettres Persanes. I quote Swift’s Journal to Stella (Works, ii. 
248). “ The Spectator is written by Steele with Addison’s help : ’tis often very 

“ pretty. Yesterday it was made of a noble hint I gave him long ago for Iris Tatlers, 
“ about an Indian supposed to write Ms travels into England. I repent he ever had 
“it. I intended to have written a book on that subject. I believe he lias spent it 
“ all in one paper, and all the under hints there are mine too ; but I nevor seo Mm 
“ or Addison.” 

P. 276. The allusion to Russia should have been given as from Letter lxxxvii; and 
the word “would” at the close of the first line of the note at page 278, “if he 
“ desire,” should be transferred to the third line, “ and would introduce.” 

P. 290. I ought to have added, to my mention of the application from the Bow- 
street magistrates on the subject of the Beggar's Opera, that Colman’s answer was 
very spirited. He declined to be a party to Garrick’s consont, and ‘ ‘ for his own 
“ part cannot help differing in opinion with the magistrates, thinking that the 
“ theatre is one of the very few houses in the neighbourhood that does not contribute 



of Albemarle-street, the text of the receipts referred to. “ Received from Mr. 

“ three guineas for a pamphlet respecting the Cock-lane Ghost. Oliver Goldsw: ^ ^ 
“ March 5th 1762.” “Received from Mr. Newbery eleven guineas and an half f° x 
“ Abridgment of Plutarch’s Lives, March 5th 1762. Oliver Goldsmith.” ^ 

notes to Newbery quoted as to the latter compilation are on scraps of paper, wa/foi 
or sentopen, and evidently sent by hand. The receipt at the bottom of page 300-df _ 

dated 5th March, 1762, and written on the back of a torn receipt for the Cm*' 
Letters also in Goldsmith’s handwriting; and I might have added tliatthough foux'tc 
guineas would seem thus to have comprised the entire munificent payment for tha 
of Nash, he made some curious and important additions, dictated doubtless by a, i’ ( * 
love of the subject, in his second impression of the book. And for an interoB'ti.''g 
recollection of Goldsmith’s occasional visits to Bath, here mentioned, let me refer 10 

reader to Mr. Mangin’s letter to myself, atp. 442-443. _ „ 

P. 302. “ Hitherto careless” at line 17, should have been “ As yet restriototl. 
Atp. 307 and p. 308, I ought to have given a reference to Grainger’s Letters , } > 


26, &c. 


P. 308. I meant to have added to that admirable saying of Johnson’s at the end 
the last note, these lines from Swift’s Jowrnal to Stella. “ There is somethin#? ° 

“ farce in all these mournings, let them be ever so serious. People will pretom 1 '^ 1H 
“ grieve more t.ba.n they really do, and that takes off from their true grief.” Wuvks* 
iii. 196. 

P. 309-310. In further proof of the not unkindly feeling of Jolmson to Footer n 
characteristic letter to Mrs. Thrale on hearing of his death in 1776 was worth quoti"K« 
“ Did you see Foote at Brightelmstone ? Did you think he would so soon bo goiio 1 
“Life, says Falstaff, is a shuttle. He was a fine fellow in liis way ; and filio 
“world is really impoverished by his sinking glories. Murphy ought to writer l*m 
“ life, at least to give the world a Footeana. Now, will any of his contempora/ritiH 
“ bewail bim ? Will Genius change his sex to weep ? I would really have his lift) 
“ written with diligence.” Piozzi Letters, i. 396. 

P. 312. In connection with Goldsmith’s visit to the Cherokee kings, let mo 
mention Foote’s, the rather because the passage (written by Mrs. Thrale in 1781) 
shows what the impression was that remained among the set as to Goldsrwi til’s 
philosophy about rich and poor, luxury and simplicity, many years nftor ho hod paHMod 
away. “ It has been thought by many wise folks,” she writes to Johnson, “that wo 
“ fritter our pleasures all lS |way by refinement, and when one reads Goldsmith’s works, 
“ either verse or prose, one fancies that in corrupt life there is more enjoyment— yut 
“ we should find little solace from ale-house merriment or cottage carousals, wluvtovor 
“ the best wrestler on, the green, might do I suppose ; mere brandy and brown sugar 
“ liquewr, like that which Foote presented the Cherokee kings •with, and won tholr 
“ hearts from our fine ladies who treated them with sponge biscuits and frontinitvci.” 
Letters, ii. 215. For a further account of Peter Annet, see Hawkins’s LtjTtt tif 
Johnson, 566. 

P. 314. With the hope that some possible trace might he found of this application, 


rnfil WhiiVU 


Fleming accounts printed in those pages, and for somo errors of transcription corrected 
by comparison with the original MSS, soo pp. 104-J 07, of my second volume. 
Besides the general receipt, quoted at the bottom of page 324, I may add that the 
cautious Mr. Newbery seems to have required specific acknowledgments in addition. 
Thus on one sheet, among the papers in Mr. Murray’s possession, I find the following : 
“October 11, 1763. Raeaivd of Mr. John Nowbory cloven guineas in full For 
“ writing the introduction and preface to Dr. Brooke’s Natural I listory. Omvkh (hum- 
“smith.” —“Oct. 11, 1763. Rocoivd of Mr. John Nowbory three guineas for a 
“Pro face to the History of tli eWorld. Oinvua GoMihmjth.”- “Oct. 11, 1763. Rceeivd 
“of Mr. John Newbury twunty-ono pounds, which, with what I rceeivd before, is in 
“ full for the copy of the History of England, in a scries of loiters, two volumes in 12nm, 
“ Olivek 0-oU)SMiTn.”--“()ot. 11, 1763. lteeeivd of Mr. John Nowbory twcnty-imo 
“ pounds for translating the Life of Christ, and the Lives of the Fathom. Omvkh Uom>* 
“smith.” —At the top of another largo sheet is '(l old smith's promissory note “on 
“ demand” for the balance named at p. 323. 1 perceive, too, Unit Nowbory lmd a con¬ 
siderable sliaro in a newspaper at Heading (his native place), and that (hdilHinith’s 
compilation about “the lato war” (p. 324) hail boon printed in this Jaipur from week 
to week beforo its publication in a collected form. 

P. 332. The quotation from ltoynolds is at tho close of the Sixth Discourse, Worley 
i. 186. 

P. 334. In tho first lino of first note, in sort “of State” after “ Under Secretary 
and tho remark on the great people who sought election into tho (Hull (335-336), 
requires to bo modified by wlmt the reader will find on a subsequent jingo (ii. 167- 
169). There seems to ho no doubt whatever that the Monday meetings of the (Huh 
continued till Doeomhor 1772, when tho change to Friday took place. Hue Panj 
Memoir, 72. 

P. 338. Tho roferonco to Madanio d’Arhlay’s Utrmoh'H should have been li. 16-1, 
At p. 340 I might have ru for rod thu reader for additional facts as to Burke’s outset in 
life to my second volume, p. 300-3(12. At p. 342, thu authority iJ Mrs. Piostxi's 
Anecdotes, 209, should have boon added to tho Jirst note. At p. 348, the reference 
“282” in first note should ho “ 289.” 

P. 350. Tho romnrlc on Beauoloro is in all respects confirmed by a jwuwoge in 
Mrs. Piom’s Anecdotes (184). She is describing Johnson’s frequently expressed 
disliko of what ho called “olTort” in conversation j and adds that Uiu eneoiuiums she 
had so often hoard him pvonouncio on tho manner of Tojiham Beaueloro in society, eon 
stantly ondod in that peculiar phraHo, that “ it was without effort.” 

P. 851-352. In connection with pleasant Dick Kostoourt, let me quote tun 
passages from Swift's Jourtutl to Stella. “ 1 dined with Rowe : Prior could iml wine ; 

“ and aftor dinner wo went to a blind tavern, whom Congreve, Sir Richard Temple, 

“ liastnourt and Charley Main, wuro over a bowl of bad pnueli . . we ntaid (ill 12.” 

( Works, ii, 68.) “1 came back and called at Unngrevo's, and dined with him am! 

“ Rastcourt, and laughed till six . . . (lungrovo’s nasty white wine 1ms given me the 
heartburn.” (ii. 182.) Add, after tho reference to the Ptuxsi Lrttm at the Uittoni 
ofp. 360, See also ii. (1(1. 80. 171. 175-171. 311. A- A> 



, . , .r,_ or tne second noxe is lukuii umu 

reference. At p. 373, the passage at the open mg u . . 

Veraral StockdL’B Memoirs, ii. 152-154 ; Newton s letter, quoted m 0 a_»« 

P- 376, ttadd here been teferred to tbe Oarru* toreepo«*««, i. 7 ; andrn tbe 

same note I have understated the distance to Goodman s-iie s. , . 

P. 377. The branch of the Fox family to which Lady Susan el nged took the 
name of Stamgways, on her father’s marriage wxth an hen-ess so called. Of 0 Ihion 
it is said rSyloFs Records of his life (i. 177) “ He was I have heard, a fencing 
* ‘ master in Dublin, or the son of a fencing master, but with manners so easy and so 
“ sprightly, that he was admitted into the best company, and was a member of several 
“ of the most fashionable clubs at the west end. of the town. In the peerages you 
see him entered as Wm. O’Brien, of Stinsford, Oo. Dorset, Esq. At p. 378, m tho first 
line of the note referring to him, “afterwards” should be “also,” Cross Pvnyoses 
was not played till after bis return from America. 

P. 379. To the note at the bottom of the page, the fallowing extract from tbe 

JPioTd Letters (i. 185), might have been added— “ Mr. M-was robbed going homo 

‘ ‘ two nights ago, and had a comical conversation with the highwayman about behaving 
“ like a gentleman. He paid four guineas for it 1” Mrs. Thrale to Dr. Johnson, 
Oct. 1773. At the bottom ofp. 383, insert “ JBoswell , vii. 57. 

P. 398. In the passage respecting Charles Fox, “ one of tho first,” should he “ ono 
“ of the finest.” An earlier opinion as to the Traveller , written by Fox wliilo yet a 
boy, will be found at p. 39 of my second volume. 

P. 400. Newbery’s account, here quoted, is written at tlio hack of a more elaborate 
memorandum, headed “ Settle the following Accounts,” of which the sixtocntli itoiu 
runs thus : “MX Brookes’s, and charge for alterations made in tho Plates, and tho 
‘ e printed copy y 1 was obliged to be cancelled, 2 61, and to Dr. Goldsmith writing Prefaces 
“ and correcting the work, 30Z, in all 56Z.” I need not remind the reader that tho 
success of Ms “prefaces” to this dull book, led to his engagement to write tho Animated 
Nature. See Percy Memoir , 83. 

P. 402. An error is committed in saying that Goldsmith’s ballad received the title 
of tbe Hermit in the Vicar of Wakefield, it having been transferred to the novel with¬ 
out any title. At p. 403-405, I ought to have quoted the remark wliicli Percy makes 
(Memoir, 74-75) upon Goldsmith’s denial of having copied him in this ballad. “ lie 
t£ justly vindicated the priority of his own poem ; but in asserting that tho plan of tho 
‘ * other was taken from his (in nothing else have they tho most distant resemblance), 
tc and in reporting the conversation on tMs subject, his memory must have failed him ; 
<e for the story in them both was evidently taken from a very ancient ballad in that 
“ collection beginning thus, ‘Gentle heardsman, &c.’ as any ono will bo convinced 
lt who will but compare them.” 

P. 415. Add to first note. “For Burke’s opinion, of him, see Correspondence, iv. 
“ 526-531, and Addenda, 549-552.” 

P. 419. In speaking of Garrick’s finessing ‘and trick, reference should have boon 
made to Colman’s Posthumous Letters, 271-278, where Oolraan rocoivcs instructions 
to puff “ourlittle stage heroe” in his absence, from the little stage hero himself. 
‘ ‘ Davies,” at the bottom of the page, should he * ‘ Davies’s.” For the anecdote at tho 



Johnson’s amusing and contemptuous roitoration abont “the boil" who answered Konriok. 

P. 43!). I quoto from the Nowbcry MSS. in Mr. Murray’s possession. “ Roooivcd 
“ from Mr. Nowbcry eleven guineas which I promise to pay. Owvtjh (lormSMJTii, 
“ January 8th, 1766.” 

VOLUME IT. 

Pages 15, 1(5. To the note I would add that there is also a passage in Mrs. Ptnjixi'H 
Letters (i. 217), which shows how JoIiuhoii must have talked of this among the sol. 
“Well!” she writes to Johnson, 24th June 1775, “ (Whuh promised a iward, yon 
“remember, for him who should produce a new delight; hut the prize was never 
“ obtained, for nothing that was new proved delightful ; find Dr. Goldsmith, 3000 
“ years afterwards, found out, that whoever did a new thing did a had tiling, mid 
“ whoever said a now thing, said a false thing.” 

P. 10. Tlio passage quoted from Unolho will bo found in Mr. Oxenford’s transla¬ 
tion, i. 368 ; and at p. 18, the remark as to Kidding being contented with “ the husk” 
of life, while Richardson had picked “ the kernel,” is in Mrs. PioZsd’H Anecdotes, 198, 

T. 20. Eighth lino from the top, “which even Johnson thought,” Hltould U», 
“which Johnson himself thought.” In spunking of the foreign Lrunslatioim of the 
Vie.ar of Wakefield , which are singularly numerous, and in almost every spoken 
language, I might have added one or two examples of the more recent which I have 
mysolf soon. “ Lo Minifitro de Wakellold. I’rccfldoo d’uu Kssay sur In via ot leu writs 
“ d 1 Oliver Goldsmith, Par M. Ilemiaquin. Paris, Hrfidrip, 1825.” This is very 
careful and good. “Lo Vicaive do Wakefield. Trnduit par Oliarles Noilier. Paris, 
“ Gorsolin, 1841.” The notice by Nodior prefixed to tltiM is elmriuing. “ Dcr baud- 
“ predigor von Wakefield. Leijmio, 1835.” Hera a number of illustrations kic 
reproduced from Wes tall. Anolhor puhlislmd in the same city, six yearn later, lm« 
an abundant Hovios of delightful woudeuts by Louis Richter, very lummnaw and 
pleasant. 

P. 32. The roforonec iu the tliird note is to the 1774 edition of tins Animated 
Nature. The words in the text do not appear in tlm later odltiuus. 

P. 65. Per furtliqr notiooa of this theatrical dispute, and much curious matter in 
veforonco to the management, see Foot’s Life of Maryihy, 846, &t*. 

P. 97. There is nothing more impressive in Johnson than the way in which he 
always speaks of poverty. “Poverty, my dear friend, is w great an nil, ami 
“ pregnant with so much temptation and ho much misery, that I cannot hut owm-Rlly 
“ enjuiu you to avoid it." To Boswell. March 28, 1782. “ Poverty take* assy mi 

“ many moans of doing good, and produces so much inability to mart evil, l«»th 
“ natural and moral, that it is by all virtuous menus to lie avnidtHl.” To ikatwrll. 
June 3, 1782. “ Poverty is a groat enemy to human happiness ; it certainly tUmUmya 

“ fihorty ; and it makoa Home virtues impracticable, and others extremely diftienlt." 
To Boswell. Dec. 7, 1782. 

P. 102. The reference to Forbes's Life of Jiecdlie, should Iw ill. 40. I will add 
tlio whole passage. Tt is in a letter of Beattie to Forlxaq July 10, 1788. “Wlmt 


“ should be so much admired as he is. There might, however,. be gome weeping 
“ magnanimity in envying Shakspeare and Dr. Johnson ; as in Julius Gsesax H 
“ to think, that at an age at which he had done so little, Alexander sh.oul<l ** MVlll . ] w 
“ so much. But surely Goldsmith had no occasion to envy me ; which h^ # , JU)( | 

“ certainly did, for he owned it (though when we met, he was always very 
“ I received undoubted information that he seldom missed an opportunity of muite 

“ill of me behind my hack.” The copy of Forbes’s hook from which {•h'lir' 

belonged to Mrs. Piozzi, and is full of manuscript notes in her quaiulh 
beautiful hand ; and here, writing at least thirty-three years after Gfoldsmi l ^ 

(for the imprint to the edition is 1807), she breaks out into verse tho K} 
express her still vivid impression of what was quizzible in her old friend. 


Poor Goldsmith resembled those Anamorphoses 
Which for Lectures to Ladies th’ Optician proposes : 

All Deformity seeming in most Points of Yiew, 

In another quite regular, uniform—True : 

Till the Student no more sees the Figure that shock’d her 
But all in his Likeness our ocld little Doctor. 


P. 106. I am here strongly tempted to quote a delightful passage from. < Huu'Ioh 
N odier’s sketch of Goldsmith’s life, prefixed to the translation mentioned above- Ho 
imagines the Hawkins class of revilers of Goldsmith taking delight in rei>*' <M ^ ,(,lll tf 
every sort of slander of him, and crying out—“Voilil celui que nous avonH x'uluiUi, 
“ humilie, navrfi de nos mfipris, celui que nous avons reduit <\ la misfire et an d<5Ht*Hiiuir, 
“ le veritable Goldsmith ! Et si notre severite n’a pas 6t6 desarmee par la p;x*Ai*o do 
“son esprit, par le ebarme touchant de ses inventions, par la purete mfime do Himti- 
“ ments et de principes qui brille dans tons ses Merits, e’est que nous sommoH n,viuit 
“ tout des gens moraux et austdres, qui ne pensent pas que le genie puisse toid ** l ,,m 
“decompensation 4 lavertu.” Admirable in bis comment upon this, and lull of 
wisdom as well as beauty. “Detestable hypocrisie ! Moi aussi je suis pen d int il 
“ l’indulgence pour des fautes graves, qui prfitendeut se couvrir de 1’excuse du tulont ! 
“ Moi aussi, je repousse avec indignation cette compensation impie qui afifrn/noJii l» un 
“ grand homme du devoir d’etre un. honnete homme ! Je vais plus loin : jo sxxiH run- 
“ vaincu que cette alliance imaginahe de la perversite des moeurs et de 1’616 va.Lion dit 
“ genie a toujours etc une chose impossible. De 1’esprit, de 1’imagination, uiv Hiwoir 
“ immense, une facilite inepuisable, une finergie qui ne se rehute jamais, tout culm | unit, 
“ helas ! se trouver dans nu mechant. Ce qui est dfifundu par la natuvo un 
“ mfichant, e’est de seutir, e’est d’aimer, e’est de se faire aimer de ceux qui a-iimutl, 
“ e’est de contrefaire l’emotion d’une 4me pure, e’est d’imiter le cri clix t;< i<ui\ 
“ Reunissez en uu seul fieri vain tous les mfichants qui out eu de la gloire, il 1 i’ y cn a 
“ malheureusement que trop I je le mettrai au dfifi defaire le Vicaire de WuA}*i // t't 1 1, 
“ ou rien qui y ressemhle.- Presque tous les ecrits des mfichants sont de mauvtiiHUH 
“actions. Les mfichants ne peuveut pas mentir 3. leur naturel. Loin do moi 
“ cependant l’intention de prfisenter la vie de Goldsmith comme une vie sans i’ox>i’ot*lto. 

** C CSt 3»Y ill GT16 1 A.l ■fpi.Th 1 a. ■nmH*, rlo Pflhnnrlrvn rla lo rmunTiolon/i/x * m 


P. 113. Rcmovo the marginal dato Irom tlio opening ot tlio mm parograpn to uuu 
of tlio second, and substitute for the former “ 17<>7, ilit. 3D.” 

P. 120. At close of tho page, 157-158, should bo 107-108. 

P. 14(3. Walpole’s characterization of goldsmith as an “inspired idiot,” is repeated 
in Forbes’s Beattie., and elicits from Mrs. Piimi an omphalic “very true,” among Uio 
manuscript notes of her old ago already mentioned. 

P. 1G2. A good passage from one of Johnson’s letters to Mrs. Thralo might hero 
have been added to the last note. “Of the imitation of my stile, in a criticism on 
“ Gray’s 01iurcli-yanl, X forgot to make mention. Thu authour is, I boliovo, utterly 
“unknown, for Mr. Stoovons cannot limit him out ; I kuow little of it, fur though it 
“ was sont mo I never out thu luavos open. I had a letter with it representing it to 
“ mo as my own work j in such an account to the puhliok thoro may bo humour. Inti to 
“ myself it was neither serious nor comical. X suspect the writer to bo wrong-headed ; 
“ as to tlio noise which it makes, I have never hoard it, and am inclined to believe 
“ that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of 
“ those they provoke.” P'mzzlh Ldferx, ii. 2 HD. 

P. 180. Johnson thus writeH to Mrs. Thralo of “the tyranny of 11 ' b” “Poor 

“.11-i! do not quarrel with him ; to neglect him a little will bo suflieicnt. Ho 

“ means only to ho frank and manly, ami independent, and perhaps, as you say, a 
“ little wise. To ho frank ho thinks is to ho cynical, and to be independent is to 
“bo rndo. Forgive him, dearest lady, Uio rather because of his misbehaviours lam 
“ afraid lio learned part of mo.” 15th July, 1775. Pinsi i. 277. 

P. 1DH. .Lino three, “ A very interesting” should he “ Vet a very interesting,” 

P. 201. The title to this chapter, and the. head-line from p, 203 to p. 225, should 
have boon “ Dinners and Tat,k,” 

P. 205. The (ptiitation from .b’eriios’s llvatllv Hhould he tit. 50 ; nml I may add that 
Mrs. Pinzzi’s omphatie mamiseript comment, in the volume now upon liefore urn, on 
Ilonttio’H suggestion that perhaps Goldsmith “ altootoil ” siliiuetm, is “ uot he 
“ imlood 1" 

P. 211. ltochostor expressed exactly Uio reverse of this in speaking of Hluulwell, 
when ho said tliat if ho had burnt all ho wrote, and printed all he tqioku, tie would 
liavo had move wit and humour than auy otliur poet ; and rruwmriug GotdsmiUv by 
Shndwoll, wo surely may rest perfectly satisfied with the relative aQcomplUhuteiite aiul 
dofieioneios of each, 

P. 217. At tho oloso of Uio last note, I would add that it mpciiih to Imvo 1 h‘ch unite 
a trick for every!Kidy that had lived in his time to repeat old stories of Goldsmith as 
ooc.urnmeus within their own experience. Hir Herbert Croft, the author of I,mr nml 
Mudvrxx, who died in Paris in 181(3, represented himself te Gliaiies Nodier as 
Oliver’s greatest friend, though I do not find evidence of his having known him at all ; 
and in his charming little memoir Nudior says : “ Le chevalier (Ire ft, qui nvnlt lu 
“ mcilleur ami do Goldsmith, ot ipii mGritnil hion do lYtre, m‘a dil Mnuvtmt qur lu 
“ sysliimo do Goldsmith 6Ui.it d'ohligor juMiju'uu jHiint do so rueltro uxncteimuiL dans la 
“ positiim do rimligout (pi'll avail seen urn ; ot quaml on lui ropniolmit w* libfsmlltfo» 

“ imprudoutCH, ]iar h'Hquelles ii no suliHtitimit il la detrease d'uti tncomiu, it m 


P 237. In mentioning tlie 1836 Edinburgh edition of Goldsmith, I might have 
added that it is a very careful and good little book. The editor, I believe, was 
Mr. Hamilton Buchanan. 

P 243. The reader -will find an amusing account of Catcot’s attendance on Johnson 
and Boswell in their visit to Bristol, in Boswell, vi. 171-173. 

P 291. “H_rth” is supposed to have been a surgeon named Hogarth living in 

Leicester-square at the time ; but this is doubtful. It has been conjectured that by 
,i G_y 5! (Coley), George Colman was intended—a quite incredible supposition. 

P -">65 Of the Game of Chess, Lowndes gives a list of seven versions in English ; 
by James' Eowbotham, 1562 ; George Jeffreys, 1736 ; W. Erskine, 1736 ; Samuel 
Pullin (Dublin), 1750 ; Anon, Eton 1769 ; Anon, Oxford 1778 ; and Murphy, 1786. 
The latter is to be found in his Worhs, vii. 67. But though the date of Murphy’s 
translation is given by Lowndes as 1786 (when for the first time it was printed) it was 
in reality a production of his youth. I quote the preface to it. “ For translating so 
“ ingenious a piece, the present writer, after saying that it is the production of his 
“ earliest years, will make no apology.” See Foot’s Life, 323-324. Whether the fact 
of the existence of this translation by Murphy became known to Goldsmith, and led to 
the suppression of his own, can only now be matter of conjecture. 

P. 276. The sons of the Duke of Orleans were in England after his death, on the 
4th August 1797, and the occurrence called forth this singular remark from Southey, 
then in the “ hot youth ” of his republicanism. “ Should there ever again be a king 
“ in France (which God forbid !) it will be the elder of these young men. He will be 
happier and a better man as an American fanner.” Common Place Booh, 
iv. 516. 

P. 237. -Add to the last note. “Johnson,” says Mrs. Piozzi, “ used to say that 
“ the size of a man’s understanding might always be justly measured by Ids mirtli ; 
“ and his own was never contemptible. He would laugh at a stroke of genuine 
“ humour, or sudden sally of odd absurdity, as heartily and freely as I ever yet saw 
“ any Tna.-n ; and though the jest was often such as few felt besides himself, yet his 
“ laugh was irresistible, and was observed immediately to produce that of the 
“ company, not merely from the notion that it was proper to laugh when he did, but 
“ purely out of want of power to forbear it.” Anecdotes, 298-299. 

P. 329. Second note, line thirteen, insert after “ used to it” vii. 255. 

P. 335-336. Boswell’s belief in ghosts receives amusing illustration in one of 
Johnson’s letters from the Hebrides. “ The chapel is thirty-eight feet long, and 
“ eighteen broad. ‘Boswell, who is very pious, went into it at night to perform his 
“ devotions, but came back in haste for fear of spectres.” Piozzi Letters, i. 173. At 
line twenty of the note following, instead of “ I might have added others to show,” 
read “ I might here add other passages to show.” 

P. 341. The reference in the first line of the third note should be i. 225. 

P. 347. For Murphy’s parody on Hamlet vnth alterations, see Foot’s Life, 
256-274. 

P. 377. In ninth line of note, “ingenious” should be “ingenuous.” 


TABLE OE CONTENTS: 


ANALYTICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL. 


PA.G 

Dedication .v 

Preface .vii 

Additional Notes and Correotions to Both Volumes . . . . . xxvi 

Table of Contents .. xsod 

Tns Author to the Reader. 1 


Book I. 1728 to 1757. 

THE SIEAR, STUDENT, TRAVELLER, APOTHECARY’S JOURNEYMAN, USHER, 
AND POOR PHYSICIAN. Pages 7 to 98. 


CHAPTER I. 

1728-1745. 

SCHOOL DAYS AND HOLIDAYS. 

1-AGE 


1728. GOth Nov.) Olivor’s birth . . 7 

Oliver's fatlior, diaries Goldsmith 8 
The epitaph and the family Bible 7-9 
1730. Removal to Lissoy . . . . 8 

iEt. 2. Sisters and brothers ... 9 

The family ostato . . . . 9 

Elizabeth Dolap .... 9 

yi'lh 3 Th° Dame’s school of Lissoy . . 10 
1734. The Master’s village school . 10 

iEt. 0. Vagrant tastes.11 

Blind Cavolan’s wayside molodios 11 
Attack of small-pox . . .11 

1736. The Elphin school . . . . 12 

iEt. S. Scribbling verses . . .12 

T!nS m-,/1 10 


l-Al 

How Goldsmith regarded youth¬ 
ful excesses.1 

1739. The Athlono school . . . 1 

iEt. 11 Genius exhibited and trade aban¬ 
doned . . . ' . . . 1 

1741. The Edgewortbstowu sebool . 5 
iEt. 13. A kind schoolmastor . . .5 

1743. Classical studios . . . . i 

iEt. 15. Athletic sports . . . . i 

1744. Oliver’s last holidays . . . 5 

iEt. 10. Mistakes of a Night . . . i 

Disposition to swaggor . . . i 

CHAPTER II. 

1745-1749. 

OOLLEQE. 

1745. Darkening prospects . . . i 

iEt. 17. Sizarship suggested . . . 1 







.vir. meaner ttiiaers crummy . 

A riot and it? punishment . . 33 
A dim ciug party and its result . 34 
1743. Plight from college and return . 34 
Alt. 20. Day-dreams .... 35 
Centre of gravitv disturbed, and 
Oliver turned clown . . . 35 

1749. (27th Feb.) B. A.36 

JEt. 21. Signature in the College Library. 36 


CHAPTER III. 

1749-1752. 

THREE TEARS OP IDLENESS. 

1749. Oliver at his mother’s in Bally- 


Jit. 21. mahon.37 

Family changes . . . . 37 

Errands run by Master Xoll . 38 
The village inn . . . .38 

River walks and rustic games . 39 
Resources of Irish society . . 40 

1750. Weakness of temperament and 

JEt 22. strength of genius . . .41 

Making the most of idleness . . 42 
The habit of cheerfulness . . 42 

1751. Application to the Bishop . . 43 

iEt. 23. Rejected as a clergyman . . 43 

Becomes a tutor . . . . 44 

Card-playing reran Teaching . 44 

Vagabond without the pen, Gen¬ 
tleman with it . . . 45 

The adventure of Fiddleback . 46 

1752 Enters as a lawyer, and loses the 

JEt. 24. entrance fee.47 

Family quarrels and reconcilia¬ 
tions .47 

Flute and harpsichord . . . 47 


CHAPTER V. 
1755-175G. 


TRAVELS. 


1755. 
iEt. 27. 


Death and example of Baron do 
Holberg • • 

Scheme to travol on loot . 
Dining in convents, stooping in 
bams, and playing tho flute . 
The Storyteller in the European, 
Magazine - . 

The Medical Degroo . 

Louvain, Flanders, and Holland . 
Musical mendicancy . . . 

In Paris . • 

A thrifty young pupil . . . 

A letter not gouuinO 

Rouelle’s locturos and Cintron’s 


50 

00 

01 

01 

02 

02 

03 

04 

05 

05 


acting.05 

Sees into the futuro of Franco . 0(1 

Johnson docs not soo into it . 07 

Voltaire’s exilo from Paris . . 07 

Visit to Voltairo in Geneva . . 08 

The English attaclcod and de¬ 
fended . •.GO 

Lecture rooms of Gormnny . . 70 

In Switzerland . . . . 70 

Portions of tho Traveller written . 71 

Letters existing and undisoovui’ud 7l 
Character of tho Swiss . . 72 

Editions of the Traveller . . . 72 

Mental discipline in travol . . 73 

In Piedmont.73 

Italian cities.74 

1756. Disputing for a livoliliood . . 7*1 

iEt. 28. Returning to England . . .76 


CHAPTER IV. 

1752-1755. 

PREPARING FOR A MEDICAL DEGREE. 

1751 Dean Goldsmith advises Oliver . 48 
Jit. 24. Starts for Edinburgh, medical 


student.48 

Lodging-house experiences . . 49 

A challenge to the theatre . . 49 

Fellow-students . . . . 50 

The table in a roar . . .50 

Helps himself by teaching . . 51 

Letters to Bryanton and Uncle 
Contarine.51 

1753. A trip to the Highlands . . 52 

J5t. 25. Money wasted, Burke and Gold¬ 
smith . 52 

Ghosts of tailors’ bills . . .53 

* ‘ Silver loops and garment blue ” 53 

1754. Unpublished leaf of an Edinburgh 

iEt. 26. ledger. 54 

Grateful letters . . . .55 

The “Best of men ” to Oliver ... 55 
Land rats and water rats . . 55 

Jacobite adventure at Newcastle . 56 
Arrived at Leydeu . ... 56 


CHAPTER VI. 

1756-1757. 

PECKHAM SCHOOL AND GRUB-STREET. 


1756. (February) In England . . 70 

iEt. 28. Low comedy in a Darn . . . 70 

Employed at a country apothe¬ 
cary's .77 

In London as Usher . . . 77 

Penalties of a feigned narao . . 77 
Among the boggars in Axe Lano . 78 

• Apothecary’s journeyman . , 78 

1757. Visit from an old follow student. 70 

JEt. 29. Sets up as Poor Physician . . 70 

Becomes press-corroctor to Mr. 

Richardson.80 

Sees Young the poot . . .80 

Attempts a tragody . , . 81 

Proposes to decipher tho Writton 
Mountains . . . .81 

Assistant at tho Pocldmm Aca¬ 
demy .8^ 

Doctor Milner’s tenth daughter . 82 

Unpublished Anecdotes . . 88 

Miss Milner’s recollootions . . 88 
A good-natured practical joko . 84 
Cure for a hopeless passion . 86 

Tim TTalmv 


woman..o u 

Meets Griffiths the bookseller . 00 

Writes a specimen-review . . 91 

Leases himself to Griffiths . . 91 

An author’s prospocts . . 92 


mr. o amid season ana me nigner 

class.96 

The Reign of periodicals . . 97 

Goldsmith at the Dunciad . . 98 


Book II. 1757 to 1759. 


authorship bt COMPULSION . Pages 101 to 209. 


CHAPTER I. 

1757. 

REVIEWING FOR MR. AND MRS. GRIFFITHS. 

TAGS 


1757. Author hy Profession . . 101 

Mi. 29. In the Griffiths-livery . . . 102 

Mr. De Quincy's opinion of the 

hiring '.103 

Writiug for the Monthly Review . 101 
Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths superin¬ 
tending .105 

Northern Antiquities . . . 10(i 

The tragedy of Douglas . . . 10(5 

Why Garrick rejected it . .107 

The Poker Club . . . . 107 

Advantages of persecution . 10S 
A polito pooh ! pooh! . . . 109 

Wilkie’s Epignniuil . . . 110 

A poet used for a scarecrow . . 110 
Distinguished Mr. Puffs . . Ill 

Want of critical depth no proof 
of literary onvy . . . . 112 

Bonnell Thornton and George 

Colmnn.112 

Criticising and praising Burke . 113 
■ Compiling literary news from 

Padua.113 

Smollett, Hume, nndWarburton 114 
Jonas Hanway and his projects. 115 

Vails to servants put down . 115 
Umbrellas forced into use . . 116 
The Journey from. Portsmouth . 117 
Polignac's Anti-Lucretius and 
Gray’s Master Tommy . . 118 
Goldsmith and Horace Walpole. 119 
Voltaire as a dramatist, Gray 
and Bulwer-Lytton . . 119 

Odes hy Mr. Gray . . . . 120 

Walpole’s quax-rel with Gray . 120 
Habit of depreciation . . 121 

Lessons in poetry . . . . 122 

Gray praised by Goldsmith . 123 
Johnson’s influence yet uufclt . 124 


ms*? 


CHAPTER II. 
1757-17SS. 

MAKING SHIFT TO EXIST. 


PAGE 


Mr. De Quincy’s opinion of Mrs. 

Griffiths.126 

Interpolation of articles . . 126 

Mr. Griffiths’s opinion of Gold¬ 
smith .127 

In a garret near Salisbury-sq. . 128 
Doctor James Grainger . . 128 

Brother Charles visits the garret 129 
A sore disappointment . . . ISO 

Charles Goldsmith’s later for¬ 
tunes .130 

Letter to brother-in-law Hodson 131 
A picture for Irish friends . . 132 

Irish memories and Irish pro¬ 
mises .133 

Poor physician and pooror poet 134 
175S. In debt all over Europe . . 134 

Alt. 30. (February) Translating under 

a foignod name . . . 135 

Loses hope and courage . . 130 

Gives up literature . . . 137 

Goes hack to Peckham school . 138 
A medical appointment pro¬ 
mised .138 

One more literary offort . . 139 
Irish independence . . . 139 

Released from Pecldiam school. 140 


CHAPTER III. 

1758. 

ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE FROM LITERATURE. 


1758. A new Magazine . . . . 141 

JEt. 30. (August) Working for his outfit. 142 
Lettor to Edward Mills . . 142 

What an Irish relativo might do 143 
What tlio Irish relative did . . 144 
Letter to Robert Bryanton . 145 

The Future invokod against tho 

Present.146 

Ordinary fate of Authors . . 147 

Bread wanting, and milk-score 

unpaid.147 

Despair in the garret . . . 148 

Starving where Butlor and 
Otway starved . . . . 149 

Lamentations of a good old 
English gontleman. . . 149 




C AGK 


CHAPTER VE. 


Proposals for subscription to a I 
book . . . - • • 152 

Appointed medical officer at 
Coromandel .... 153 

CHAPTER IV. 

1758. i 

escape prevented. 

158. Describes the appointment to i 

t. 30. Hodson . . ... 154 

Fine "words for Irish bearing . 155 | 
Grand style of the Marquis of | 

Griffiths ..... 156 
A hopeful group of friends . . 157 ! 
Smollett and the “Old Gentle¬ 
woman ” of the Monthly Review 157 I 
Hamilton's Critical Review . . 158 | 
Reviews for Hamilton . 158 

Traducers of Ovid . . . . 159 

A thought of Dryden . . 160 j 

Speaking out for the Author’s ( 

profession..161 i 

Interlopers in literature . . 162 '• 

Green-Arbour Court . . . 162 j 

The flute still in tune . . 103 : 

(November) Coromandel ap¬ 
pointment lost . . . . 164 

Resolves to be a hospital mate . 165 
Griffiths and the tailor . . 1G5 

Four articles for the Monthly 

Review .166 

(December) Examined and re¬ 
jected at Surgeons’ Hall . . 166 

The virtue Of necessity . . 167 

Driven back to Literature . .107 


CHAPTER V. 

1758—1759. 

DISCIPLINE OF SORROW. 

.758. Pawns his new clothes for his i 

it. 30. landlady.168 | 

Griffiths demands payment for t 

them.169 

Letter in possession of the bio- 

grapher.169 

Griffiths calls names . . . 170 | 

Which is the sharper and villain? 171 I 
The gain in sorrow . . . 171 

Beams of morning . . . 172 j 

Writing a Life of Voltaire . . 173 | 
(February) Letter to Henry 
Goldsmith . . . 173 i 

. Self-painted portraiture . . 174 : 
A poor wandering uncle’s ex- ! 

ample.175 j 

Heroi-eomical verses . . . 176 

Poetry and prose . . . 177 | 

The ale-house hero . . . 178 j 


1759. 


woR ;I{ and hope. 


I’AGli 


1759. Voltaire andNed. Pur den - 
jEt 31. Introduced, to Mr-. Percy ‘ , 

Johnson’s opinion, of the ^oa 
leotor of "trie ReLiques - , 

Mr. Percy’s visit to the garrot 
Reviewing" toy Smollett 
A Newgate biography 
Laughing at elegies 
Forecasting tire future 

Brandellitis and. Mogusius 
Another scheme for travel 
A reverend and. irritable dra 


matist - . . * 

Unpublished. letter to Gari'lclc • 

Jemima ana. Louisa 

The fashionable family novol 
Adieu to both Reviews 
Close of Lis account with* Tiro 
owl and. tile ass . . - 


171) 

180 

180 

1S1 

1.32 

182 

183 

1.84 

185 

186 

187 

187 

188 
189 

189 

190 


chapter vil. 

1759. 


AN APPEAL FOB. ATJTEIOItS BY PBOVISHSIOS'. 


1759. (April) Publication, of tire JSn- 
iEt. 31. quiry into Polite. Learning 

Bad critics and sordid book¬ 
sellers - - - . - 

Truths of a Irar-d experience 
Reviews and Magazines ass ai loci 
A frightful inonosyllablo 
On style, with, a reference, to 
Johnson .... ■ 

Smollett’s answer, and GriffrtliH s 
insult .... 

Dirt flung at Goldsmith 
What Walpole and PErxnio 
thought of Grab-street quar¬ 
rels ..... 

Evil influences on literature 
Right encouragements to au¬ 
thors . - . - 

Suggestions of the EdinZt'icTgh 
Renew .... 

Grants of money not required . 
The days of patronage 
Lord Mahon on writers and 
minister's . . . 

Wit aud its disadvantages . 

Genius and. its rewards . 

Collins and. Goldsmith 
Compensations . . - 

Warnings .... 

What has been done for Litera¬ 
ture . . • . . . . 

What Literature may do 


1S.I1 

192 

193 
3 IK 
195 

195 

19(1 

197 


11)8 

199 

200 

201 

202 

203 

203 

21K 

205 

20(1 

207 

208 

209 

209 





Book III. 1759 to. 1767. 


authorship by choice. Pages 213 to 439. 

Volume.) 

CHAPTER I. i 

1759. 

WHITING THE “ BEE.” 

PACK | 


1759. Activity in Grub-street . . 213 j 

/lit. 31. Dullness and her progeny . . 214 
A doubtful recruit . . . 214 

Samuel Johnson . . . . 215 

A walk round Grosvenor-square 215 
Tho knell of patronage . . 216 

Eucouragement and example . 217 

Thirty pounds a year . . . 217 

A Great Cham in great distress 218 
Society gathering round John¬ 
son .219 

Poverty and independence . . 220 

(October) First number of the 

Bee .221 

Playhouse oriticism . . . 222 

The author of Gisippus . . . 222 

Actors and actresses. Gold¬ 

smith and Charles Lamb . 223 
Second number of the Bee . . 224 
Third number of the See . . 225 

Goldsmith, Voltairo, and Talley¬ 
rand .225 

Fourth number of tho See . . 226 

Booksellers’literature . . . 22G 

Writing for the Busy Body and 
tho Lady's Magazine . . 227 

Fifth number of the Bee . . 228 
Goldsmith’s first meution of 

Johnson.228 

An evening with a bookseller . 229 
Night wanderings . . . 229 

Sympathy with the wretched . 230 


CHAPTER II. 
1759. 

DAVID GARRICK. 


1759. (November 29th) Close of the Bee 231 
Ait. 31. Love of the theatre . . . 231 

Garrick and Ralph . . . 232 

Authors and managers . . . 233 

U npublished letterby Mr. Ralph 234 
A comic or a tragic Lilliput i .235 
Garriok’s management . , . 236 

Injustice to players and wrongs 
to dramatists .... 237 
Goldsmith attacks Garrick . . 238 
Garrick resonts the attack . 239 

Inconsiderate expressions . . 240 
Tho actor’s claims . . . 241 


[A retrospect of Garrick’s youth 
and first appearance on the 
stage, from, unprinied letter's, 
pp. 242 to 26S.J 


(And pages 3 to 110 of the Second. 


A Lichfield citizen’s account 
of it . . • ._ 250 

Garrick’s own account of it . 251 
The shock to brother Peter . 252 
Apologies for the stage . . 253 

Audiences at Goodman’s Fields 254 
A dozen Dukes of a night . 255 

Mr. Pitt and other M.P’s . 256 
Peter continues obdurate . . 257 
Increasing successes . . 25S 

Peter’s terrible question . . 259 

The question answered . . 260 

Pope and Murray complete the 

triumph.261 

The Future in the Present . 262 

Influence on Garrick’s cha¬ 
racter .... 263 


CHAPTER III. 

1759-1760. 

OVERTURES PROM SMOLLETT AND MR. 
NEWBERY. 


1759. (December) Important visitors 

2Et. 31. in Green Arbour Court . . 264 

Candour towards an unsuccess¬ 
ful author .... 265 

1760. (January 1) Smollett’s British 

Mb. 32. Magazine .266 

Essays eoutributed by Gold¬ 
smith .267 

Cheerful philosophy . . . 268 

A puff by Goldsmith . . . 209 

A country Wow-wow . . . 269 

(Jan. 12) Newbery’s newspaper. 270 
A Daily Paper then and now . 271 
The author of Tommy Trip and 
Giles Gingerbread . . . 271 

Goldsmith eugagedfor the Public 

Ledger .272 

A Guinea an Article . . . 272 


CHAPTER IV. 

1760. 

“ THE CITIZEN OP THE WORLD.’’ 

1760. (January 24 and 20) The first 
Alt. 32. and second Chinese Letters . 278 

Percy's novel and Walpolo’s 

squib.273 

Newspaper shadows and reali¬ 
ties .274 

Griffiths swallows the leek . . 275 

The Citizen of the World . .276 

Social reforms suggested in it . 277 
Quacks and pretenders . . 278 


PAGE 


The great Duchess and the white 
mice.286 


Tea party at the White Conduit 

Gardens.2S7 

Supper party at the Chapter 
Coffee-house . . . . 287 

Dinner at Blackwall . . . 288 

Roubiliac and Goldsmith . . 2SS 
Hawkins's exposure exposed . 289 
Humble recreations . . . 290 

Polly and the Pickpocket . . 290 

The State reminded of its duty 291 
Editing the Lady's Magazine . 292 
Writing prefaces . . . 293 

Better lodgings . . . . 293 


CHAPTER V. 
1701-1762. 

FELLOWSHIP WITH JOHNSON. 


1701. Wine-Office Court . . . 294 

2Et. 33 . A supper in honour of Johnson. 295 
Johnson in a new suit . . . 296 

Lost anecdotes .... 296 
Booksellers betterthanpatrous. 297 
1762. Pamphlet on the Cock-Lane 

iEt. 34. Ghost.29S 

Drudging for Newbery . . 299 

Small debts . . . , 300 

Visits Tunbridge and Bath . 300 

Li fe of Bean Nash . . , . 301 

Uncousclous self-revelations . 302 

A good-natured man . . . 303 

Jobnson pensioned . . . 304 

Shebbeare (of the pillory) pen¬ 
sioned .305 

A literary Prime Minister . . 305 


CHAPTER VI. 

1762. 

INTRODUCTIONS AT TOM DAVIES’S. 


1762. An actor turned bookseller . 306 
JEt. 34. The shop in Russell-street . . 807 
Garrick and Davies . . . 307 

A Patron.30g 

Men of feeling .... 308 
Johnson and Foote . . . 309 

Caliban and Punchinello . . 309 

Burke at the Robin Hood . . 310 
A Master of the Rolls . . 310 

Goldsmith and Johnson as de¬ 
baters . 3 H 

The Cherokee Kings . . .312 

Peter Annet . . . . 313 

Completing a history . . 313 

Memorializing Lord Bute . . 314 
At workonthe Vicar of WakejkU 315 
Johnson and Burton . . 315 

At dinner with Tom Davies . *. 31 6 

Gray and Johnson . . . 317 

, James Boswell . . . ." 317 

vines and doinnsin TsmAnn G-IO 


I’AO K 


1763. Compiling . 

.(Et. 35. Histories and Prefaces . • • 

Letters from a Nobleman to his son 
Combe’s pretended Lotters ol 
Lord Lyttelton . • 

Visitors at Islington . 

William Hogarth . • • • 

Sympathies with Goldsmith 
Admiration of Johnson 
Portrait of the Landlady 
Joshua Reynolds 
Not a petty quarrel - • • 

East and West in Lciccstcr-Hq. 


!123 

324 

326 

326 
320 

327 
82H 

328 
321) 
380 

331 

332 


CHAPTER VIII. 
1763. 


THE CLUB AND ITS FOIST MEMBEIIH. 


1703. A plub proposed. 

Bit. 35. Members and rules . • • 

Wliat it became . 

What it was at first 
Mr. Jolm Hawkins 
Loose characters . 

Au uuclubable man . 

Irish ad venturers . 

Burke’s outset iu lifo 
What kept him down . 

A wonderful talker 
Johnson and Burke talking 
Conversational contests 
Bennet Langton . 

Tepham Beauclerc 
A prudent mother and a frislrin 
philosopher 

A man of fashion among sclioln 
Beau’s secret charm 
Being superior to one’s subjoo 
Beauclcrc’s sallies . 

Goldsmith at tho club 
Dick Eustcourt’s example 
Doubtful self-assertion . 
Self-distrust 
“ It comes ! " . 

Boswell sees Johnson 
Shock the first 
The Mitre . 

The Turk’s Head . 

The sage taken by storm . 
Boswell criticizing Goldsmith 
A roar of applauso 
Easy familiarity . 

Johnson’s pensioners and clmr; 

ties. 

Miss Williams . . . 

Levees at Inner Tempi 0 Lano 
Tho countess and the scholar 
A singular appearanco 
Goldsmith becomos a Tomplar 


333 

334 

335 
381 ) 

337 
838 

338 
33D 

340 

341 
34-2 
843 


346 

34(1 


347 

348 
84!) 
360 
350 
861 
nra 
362 
863 
863 
364 
364 

366 
35(1 

367 

368 
368 
360 


860 

300 

3(11 

362 

803 

8(12 


CHAPTER IX. 



Reynolds at Islington . . iTJ. 

Borrowing at the Society of Arts 372 

Pope and Garrick . . . 373 

Homage to Pope . . . 373 

Garrick in Paris . . . . 374 
A rival at home ... . .375 

Garrick’s earliest critic . . . 376 

Powell’s success . . . 377 

O'Brien and Lady Susan . . 377 
Horace Walpole’s horror . . 378 

Hew York ninety years ago . 378 
Percy and Grainger . . .379 

Civil highwaymen . . . . 379 

Goldsmith and Percy . . . 380 

An epitaph by Goldsmith . 380 

A round of visitings . . 381 

The Tlirales .... 3S2 

Mr. Croker’s discoveries . . 382 

Goldsmith arrested . . . 383 

Johnson sent for . . . . 384 

Who arrested him ? . . . 385 

The story mis-rolatcd . . . 385 

Newhery’s friendship with the 

landlady.386 

Sale of the Vicar of Wakefield . 386 
Opinions of Manuscripts . . 3S0 

What Johnson thought tho Vicar 
worth.387 


CHAPTER X. 

1764—1705. 

“THE traveller” and what followed it. 


1764. (Dec. 19) The Traveller published 3S8 

At. 36. Dedication.389 

Charles Churchill . . . 390 

Legitimate satire . . . 390 

Goldsmith and Pope . . . 391 

Merits of The Traveller . .392 

Johnson’s help . . . 393 

Hot knowing what one means . 894 

Luke’s crown explained . . 395 
Beiug partial the wrong way . 396 
Patronising airs .... 396 

Renny dear.397 

Sacrifice of a beast . . . 397 

Charles Pox and The livelier . 398 
The Reviews .... 399 
1705. Essays by Mr. Goldsmith . . 400 
At. 37. What the Monthly Review said . 401 
Edwin and Angelina . . . 402 

Charge of plagiarism . . . 402 

Percy and Goldsmith . . . 403 

A hint to young writers . . 404 

At Hortliumberland House . . 405 

A bookseller’s “ Recommenda¬ 
tion ”.405 

An Idiot.406 

Borrowing fifteen and sixpence. 406 
The best patrons . . .407 

An agreement for ninety-nine 
years.408 


CHAPTER XI. 

1765. 


xne jKOCKingnam party . . aio 

The new premier . . . 416 

Conway and Walpole . . . 416 

Mr. O’Bourke .... 417 
A love affair of Horace Walpole’s 417 
Garrick, Powell, and Sterne . . 418 

Finessing and trick . . . 419 

The Actor and the Club . . 420 

Hawkins and Garrick . . 421 

The vicar of Egham . . . 421 

Doctor Goldsmith . . . 422 

Fine clothes and fine company . 423 
Boauclerc’s advice . . . . 423 


CHAPTER XII. 

1765—1766. 

NEWS FOR THE CLUB, OF VARIOUS KINDS AND 
FROM VARIOUS PLACES. 


1765. Society of Arts .... 424 

At. 37. Miss Williams’s Miscellanies . . 425 

Johnson’s Hhakspeare, and his 
Doctorate .... 425 

1766. Chambers in Garden-Court . . 426 

At. 3S. English in Paris . . 426 

Hume, Rousseau, Barry, and 

Boswell.427 

Walpole enphilosophe. . . 428 

A solemn coxcomb in London . 429 

The ox and tho frogs . . 429 

Johnsou’s treatment of books . 430 

Players and poets . . . . 431 

Old friends quarrelling . . 432 

ICenrick’s Falstaff . . . 432 

Goldsmith and Johnson . . 433 

Noble self-rebuke . . . 433 

Johnson “making a line” . 434 

Reappearance of Boswell . . 434 

The big man .... 435 

Boswell and Mr. Pitt . . . 435 

(14th January) Burke enters 
Parliament .... 436 
His first and Pitt’s last speeches 437 
Astonishment at the Club . 437 
Another marvel . . . . 438 

John and Francis Newbery . 439 

The Vicar of Wakefield . . . 439 


APPENDIX. 

A. Doctor Strean and the Rev. 

Edward Mangin ... 441 

A letter to tho author of this 

book.442 

Original recollections by Mr. 

Mangin.442 

B. Letter to Mrs. Anne Gold¬ 

smith .443 

• The adventure of Fiddleback . 444 

Economical benevolence . . 445 

C. One Letter to Bryanton and 

THREE TO CONTARINE . . 446 

The women of Scotland . . 447 

The professors in Edinburgh . 448 
Philosophy of medicine . . 449 




For an Intiex fo the entire work, see the close of the, ftee.ond Volume. 



THE AUTHOR TO THE READER OE THIS 
BIOGRAPHY. 




TJIK AUTHOR TO T11K RKADKIi OK THIS 
BIOGRAPHY. 


“ It seems rational to hope,” says Johnauu in the htfe of 
Scivat/e, “ that minds qualified for great attainments should first 
“ endeavour tlioir own benefit; and that they who are most able 
“to teach others the way to happiness, should willi most err- 
“ tainty follow it themselves: but this expectation, however 
“ plausible, 1ms been very frequently disappointed/* lYrhnps 
not so frequently as the earnest biographer imagined. Much 
depends on what we look to for our benefit, much on wlmt we 
follow as the way to happiness. It may not be for the one, and 
may have led us far out of the way of the other, that we had 
acted on the world's estimate of worldly success, and to that 
directed our endeavour, Bn might we ourselves have blurted 

1 l) til 1 oath, wlorfi it wan m r hmw* 1 n 1 nui> tminf Mil mif In ,itI utn • 


applied for orders; he practised as a physician,, and never made 
what would have paid for a degree; what he was not asked or 
expected to do, was to write, but he wrote and paid the penalty. 
His existence was a continued privation. The days were few, in 
which he had resources for the night, or dared to look forward to 
the morrow. There was not any miserable want, in the long and 
sordid catalogue, which in its turn and in all its bitterness he did 
not feel. He had shared the experience of those to whom, he 
makes affecting reference in his Animated Nature, “ people who 
“ die really of hunger, in common language of a broken heart /' 
and when he succeeded at the last, success was but a feeble sun¬ 
shine on a rapidly approaching decay, which was to lead him, by 
its flickering and uncertain light, to an early grave. 

Self-benefit seems out of the question here, and the way to 
happiness is indeed distant from this. But if we look a little 
closer, we shall see that he has passed through it all- with a child¬ 
like purity of heart unsullied. Much of the misery vanishes 
when that is known; and when it is remembered, too, that in 
spite of it the Vicar of Walcefield was written, nay, that without 
it, in all human probability, a book so delightful and wise could 
not have been written. Fifty-six years after its author's death, 
the greatest of Germans recounted to a friend how much he had 
been indebted to the celebrated Irishman. “It is not to be 
“ described,” wrote Goethe to Zelter, in 1830, “the effect that 
“ Goldsmith's Vicar had upon me, just at the critical moment of 
“ mental development. That lofty and benevolent irony, that 

ft -f-ViiT* /I m rl n 1 n»nn-f tti r\mr n-P t\ 


he added with sound philosophy, ( these tiro the tliouguia 
“ and feelings which have reclaimed us from all the errors of 
“ life." 

And why were they so enforced in that charming book, but 
because the writer had undergone them all; because they had 
reclaimed himself, not from the world’s errors only, but also 
from its suffering and care; and because his own life and adven¬ 
tures had been the same chequered and beautiful romance, of the 
triumph of good over evil. 

Though what is called worldly success, then, was not attained 
by Goldsmith, it may bo that the way to happiness was yet nut 
missed altogether. The sincere and sad biographer of Ravage 
might have profited by the example. Ilia own benefit he 
had not successfully “endeavoured,” when the gloom uf his early 
life embittered life to the last, and the trouble he had endured 
was made excuse for a sorrowful philosophy, and for maimers 
that were an outrage to the kindness of his heart. Wlml bad 
fallen to Johnson’s lot, fell not less heavily to Goldsmith'*; of 
the calamities to which the literary life i« subject, 

“Toil, envy, want, tins jiulmi, amt thu ga»4,*‘ 

none wore spared to him : but they found, and left him, gentle and 
unspoiled; and though the discipline that thus taught him charity 
entailed some social disadvantage, by unfeigned sincerity and 
simplicity of heart he diffused every social enjoyment, \Y ht ti 
his conduct least agreed with his writings, these characteristic!* 

did no; fail him. W1 inf. lift imtintol tt'iiu . u.1. .1 


repute lie had won. "Admirers in a room/' said Northcotc, 
repeating wliat liad been told him by Reynolds, “whom his 
“ entrance had struck with awe, might be seen riding out upon 
" liis back." It was hard, he said himself to Sir Joshua,, that 
fame and its dignities should intercept people's liking and fond¬ 
ness ; and for his love of the latter, no doubt lie forfeited not 
a little of the former. " He is an inspired idiot," cried Walpole;— 
" he does not know the difference of a turkey from a goose," 
said Cumberland;—"sir,” shouted Johnson, "he knows nothing, 
" ho has made up his mind about nothing." Tew cared to think 
or speak of him but as little Gold}* - , honest Goldy; and every 
one laughed at him for the oddity of his blunders, and the 
awkwardness of his manners. 

But I invite the reader to his life and adventures, and the 
times wherein they were cast. No uninstmotivc explanation of 
all this may possibly await us there, if together we review the 
scene, and move among its actors as they play their parts. 



HOOK THIS KIKST. 

T f II<] SIZAR, STUDJ4NT, TRAVlifjRMR, Al*oT(IKCAUVS jitfUNM M.v % 
UHHKR, AND I'mJt t'll YSlt’I,\\* 

1728 t.» I 




BOOK TIIE FIRST. 


CHAPTER L 

*+ - 

KOIIOOL DAYS AND HOLIDAYS. 

I72S—17'lfS. 

THE marble in Westminster Abbey in correct in the place, 
but not in the time, of the birth of Olivkh Goldsmith-. JIo 
was born at a small obi parsonage lumso (supposed after¬ 
wards to be haunted by the fairies, or good people of the 
district, who could not however save it from being levelled 
to the ground) in a lonely, remote, and almost inaccessible 
Irish village on the southern banks of the river limy, called 
Pallas,* or Pallasmore, the property of the Edgeworths of 
Edgeworthstown, in the county of Longford, on the 10th of 
November, 178R: a little more than three years earlier 
than the date upon his epitaph.f His father, the reverend 

* PftllftH is nffcou wrilUm I’nllire, nr 1'fillin, ami writiH U> liavr limi ho written by 
(■Joldninitli’H fntluH’, flici rev. Mr. Mnugiii Itrlirvrd tin* JnlU<r Ut be the jirnpor 
name, having noon in it OliarleH (bililmuitli'n handwriting, (Parlour Windwo, 4.) 
So did tlio rov. Mr. Umliam, who MiijijHwai indrrd Unit Dr, Johiwon, in “writing 
it Pallan, had Himjtly laid a trnji fur tin* lurk I rw» and Uhj rijwfiiratl liiogr&plior who 


in connexion with the established church,* was a protestant 
clergyman with an uncertain stipend, which, with the help of 
some fields he farmed, and occasional duties performed for the 
rector of the adjoining parish of Kilkenny West (the reverend 
Mr. Green) who was uncle to his wife, averaged forty pounds 
a year. In May, 1718, he had married Anne, the daughter of 
the reverend Oliver Jones, who was master of the school at 
Elphin, to which he had gone in boyhood; and before 1728 
four children had been the issue of the marriage. 
A new birth was but a new burthen; and little dreamt 
the humble village preacher, then or ever, that from the 
date of that tenth of N ovember on which his Oliver was 
bom, his own virtues and very foibles were to be a legacy of 
pleasure to many generations of men. For they who have 
loved, laughed, or wept, with the father of the man in black 
in the Citizen of the World, the preacher of the Deserted 
Village, or the hero of the Vicar of Wakefield, have 
given laughter, love, and tears, to the reverend Charles 
Goldsmith. 

The death of the rector of Kilkenny West improved his 
fortunes. He succeeded in 1730 to this living of his wife’s 
uncle ; t his income of forty pounds was raised to nearly two 
hundred; and Oliver had not completed his second year 
when the family moved from Pallasmore to a respectable 
house and farm on the verge of the pretty little village of 
Lissoy, “ in the county of Westmeath, barony of Kilkenny 

of Charles Goldsmith’s family Bible, still preserved by one of his descendants in 
Athlone, Life, i. 14. Tho leaf is unfortunatoly torn, and the exact year does not 


“ West,” some six miles from 1’allftsmoro, and about midway 
between the towns of Bnllymahon and Athlono.* The first¬ 
born, Margaret (22nd August, 171!)), appears to liavo died in 
childhood; and the family, at this time consisting of 
Catherine (Mi January, 1721), Henry (i)th February, 17—|), 
Jane (i)th February, 17-—), and Oliver, born at Vallasmoro, 
was in the next ton years increased by Maurice (7tli July, 

1736), Charles (Kith August, 17.H7), and John (211rd-, 

1740), horn at Lissoy. The youngest, as the eldest, died in 
youth; Charles wont in his twentieth year, a friendless 
adventurer, to Jamaica, and after long self-oxilo died, littlo 
less than half a century since, t in a poor lodging in 
Somers’ Town; Maurice was put to the trade of a cabinet¬ 
maker, kept a meagre shop in Charlestown^ in the county of 
Koscommon, and “ departed from a miserable life ” in 17!)2 ; 
Henry followed liis father’s calling, and died as ho had lived, 
a humble village preacher and schoolmaster, in 17(58; 
Catherine married a wealthy husband, Mr: Uodson, Jn.no a 
poor one, Mr. Jolmston, and both died in Athlonc, some years 
after the death of that celebrated brother to whose life*, and 
times these pages are devoted. 

A trusted dependant in Charles Goldsmith's house, a 
young woman related to the family, afterwards known as 
Elizabeth Delap and schoolmistress of Lissoy, first put a 

* Iloro Charles Goldsmith neoutw to have procured ft, Itwtj nf id«mt 70 ncron fit 
an eight HhillingH rant, ramwuHe fur over mi tin* payment nf liiilfa yenr'a rant fur 
ovory mnv lift), tlio fu'Ht livtw lining tlmac* id hinim’lf, hi« chlct mm Henry, and 
Ilia daughter (Jathormo ; a property which rcniumed in the fiunily till m>hl in 
1802 hy Ilonry (hihknitli’H Him, then a rattler in Aim rieii. Prior, i. 1(1. 17. 


1731. book into Oliver Goldsmith's hands. She taugOUL ^ 
- ast - 3 > letters; lived till it was matter of pride to remem. Xx' 1 * 
talked of it to Doctor Strean, Henry Goldsmith’s HU 
in the curacy of Kilkenny West; and at the ripe ago < d 
when the great writer had been thirteen years in 3 Gb 
boasted of it with her last breath. That her success Jot 
had not been much to boast of, she at other times <*tw 
“ Never was so dull a boy : he seemed impenetrably * s b 
said the good Elizabeth Delap, when she bored lior f 
or answered curious enquirers, about the celebrated 
Goldsmith. “ He was a plant that flowered late,” said -J< 
to Boswell; “ there appeared nothing remarkable «.bo 
“ when he was young.” f This, if true, would havo l>oc 
another confirmation of the saying that the richer a nai 
the harder and more slow its development is like "fco hi 
it may perhaps be doubted, in the meaning; it 
ordinarily bear, for all the charms of Goldsmith’s late 
are to be traced in even the letters of his youth, and hit 
expressly tells us that he not only began to scrildile 
when he could scarcely write, but otherwise showcul t 
ness for books and learning, and what she calls **Hi 
“genius.” I 

1734. At the age of six, Oliver was handed over to -tin; ■ 
school, kept by Mr. Thomas Byrne. Looking bade frot 
distance of time, and penetrating through greater- < »Lh 
than its own cabin-smoke into that Lissoy aeartoiny, 
to be discovered that this excellent Mr. Bymo, r 

auarter-m ster of fin Tv'issTl vn rri -ni mi + 



cauea one numamu.es. j-aiue unver came away irom mm 
much as he went, in point of learning ; but there were certain 
wandering unsettled tastes, which his friends thought to have 
been here implanted in him,* and which, as well as a taste 
for song, one of his later essays might seem to connect with 
the vagrant life of the blind harper Carolan, whose wayside 
melodies he had been taken to heard Unhappily something 
more and other than this also remained, in the effects of a 
terrible disease which assailed him at the school, and were 
not likely soon to pass away. 

An attack of confluent small-pox which nearly proved 
mortal, had left deep and indelible traces on his face, for 
ever settled his small pretension to good-looks, and exposed 
him to jest and sarcasm. Kind-natured Mr. Byrne might 
best have reconciled him to it, used to his temper as no 
doubt he had become; and it was doubly unfortunate to be 
sent at such a time away from home, to a school among 173 
strangers, at once to taste the bitterness of those school TEt. 
experiences which too early and sadly teach the shy, ill- 
favoured, backward boy what tyrannies, in the large as in that 
little world, the strong have to inflict, and what sufferings the 

* See his sister Mrs. Hodson’s narrative contributed to the Percy Memoir, 3, 4. 

She does not give the name of the schoolmaster, hut this was supplied by Dr. 

Strean. Mangin’s Essay , 142. 

f Essay xx. Thorlogh O’Carolan, who was born at Nobber in 1670, and 
brought up at Garrick O’Shannon, where Oliver’s uncle Contarine first settled, died 
in 1738 at Roscommon, to which Contarine had removed. To his patroness, in 
whose house lie died, the wife of the MacDermott of Aldersford, he owed the 
“horse, harp, and gossoon,” with which, renewed as his needs dictated, he had 
meanwhile wandered about for half a century from house to house, a guest always 
welcome, improvising music and songs. The harp had been his amusement up 
to the age of manhood, when, being struck with blindness, h thus made it his 



weak must be prepared to endure. But ^ lc lcVCH 1U * 
Griffin’s superior school of. Elphin, in Roscommon, it was 
resolved to send him; and at the house oi an mult 
John* at Ballyougkter in the neighbourhood of Klplun, ho 
was lodged and boarded, t The knowledge ot (h id and 
Horace, introduced to him here, was the pleasantest as well 
as the least important, though it might be by fai the most, 
difficult, of what he had novfto learn. It was the learning of 
bitter years, and not taught by the schoolmaster, but by the 
school-fellows, of this poor little, thick, palo-hiced, pock¬ 
marked boy. “He was considered by his contemporaries and 
“ school-fellows, with whom I have often conversed on the 
“ subject,” said Doctor Strean, I who succeeded, on the death 
of Charles Goldsmith’s curate and eldest son, to his pastoral 
duty and its munificent rewards, “ as a stupid, heavy blockhead, 
“little better than a fool, whom every one made fun of.” § 

It was early to trample fun out of ft child ; and he boro 
marks of it to his dying day. It had not been his least 
qualification as game for laughter, that all confessed his 
nature to be land and affectionate, and know liis temper to 
be cheerful and agreeable; but feeling as well an fan ho could 
hardly be expected to sujjply without intermission, and, pre¬ 
cisely as in after years it was said of him that ho hud the 
most unaccountable alternations of gaiety and gloom, and 

* His father’s brother, “ who, with his family,” Mrs. Hudson tolls m, 

“ sidered him as a prodigy for his age.” Percy Menudr, f>. 

+ “It the age of seven or eight,” says Mrs. Hudson, “liu <liHOuvon«i ft natural 
“ turn for rhyming, and often amused liis fathor mid his (Vii'iidH with curly |N*«linil 
“attempts. When he could scarcely write legibly, ho was iiIwrvh scriliblimr verm* 


was subject to the most particular humours, even so his 1737 
elder sister described his school-days to Doctor Percy, bishop 
of Dromore, when that divine and Ins friends were gathering 
materials for his biography. That he seemed to possess 
two natures, was the learned comment at once upon his 
childhood and his manhood.* And there was sense in it; 
in so far as it represented that continued struggle, happily 
always unavailing, carried on against feelings which God 
had given him, by fears and misgivings he had to thank 
the world for. 

“ Why Noll! ” eiclaimed a visitor at uncle John’s, “'you 
“ are become a fright! When do you mean to get hand- 
“ some again ? ” Oliver moved in silence to tire window. The 
speaker, a thoughtless and notorious scapegrace of the 
Goldsmith family, repeated the question with a worse sneer: 
and “I mean to get better, sir, when you do ! ” t was the boy’s 
retort, which has delighted his biographers for its quickness 
of repartee, though it was probably something more '’than 
smartness. Another example of precocious wit occurred 
also at uncle John’s, when Iris nephew was still a mere 
child. There was company one day, to a little dance; and 
the fiddler who happened to be engaged on the occasion, being 
a fiddler who reckoned himself a wit, received suddenly an 
Oliver for his Rowland that he had not come prepared for. 
During a pause between two country dances, the party 
had been greatly surprised by little Noll quickly jumping up 

* ‘ ‘ Oliver was from his earliest infancy, ” writes his sister to Dr. Percy, £ ‘ very 
“different from other children, subject to particular humours, for the most part 


upon, seizing the opportunity oi the lacl s uixg^J-i'iPy 
grotesque figure, the jocose fiddler promptly exclaimed 
Msop ! A burst of laughter rewarded him, wliicli liowpvtu 
was rapidly turned the other way by Noll stopping * u,lll “ 
pipe, looking round at his assailant, and gi'ving forth, m 
audible voice and without hesitation, the couplet which 
was thought worth preserving as the first formal effort of his 
genius, by Percy, Malone, Campbell, and the rest, wlio com. 
piled that biographical preface * to the Miscellaneous 1! orkn 
on which the subsequent biographies have been founded, 
hut who nevertheless appear to have missecL tlie correct 
version of the lines they thought so clever. 

Heralds ! proclaim aloud ! all saying, 

See JEsop dancing, and his Monkey playing.-l- 

Yet these things may stand for more than cpiiciloieHK of 

* The biographical preface, or Memoir, for which the materials Xiatl l>oon collected 
by Percy, Malone, and other friends, was drawn up in the first instance l>y Percy's* 
friend, Dr. Campbell; it then received ample correction from Percy, wltoHO remarks* 
and interlineations were engrafted into the text; but circumstances led to a very angry 
dispute on its being handed to the publishers of the Miscdlaneoi.cs Wovks, Other 
causes of disagreement afterwards sprang up with Mr. Rose (Covjior’s friend), 
employed as their editor, and Percy ultimately declined to sanction the publication. 
His correspondence with Steevens, Malone, and other friends, shows ample Imres of 
this quarrel, and of his dissatisfaction with Mr. Rose, whom he nooiiHCH of imperti¬ 
nently tampering with the Memoir. “I never,” writes Malono to I’ortsy, in cor¬ 
roboration of such complaints, “observed any of those grimaces or foolorioH that the 
“ interpolator talks of! ” “In going over Goldsmith’s life,” writes Hi*. Andomni to 
Percy, “I will thank yon to point out the particular passages wlxicU were thrust 
“into your narrative.” Nichols’s Illustrations, vii. 213. Substantially, however, 
the narrative no doubt remained in its leading details what it is Bfrtvtecl to ho in tins 
advertisement, “ composed from the information of persons who wero intimate with 
“ the poet at an early period, and who were honoured with a eemtirruatiee of his* 
“friendship till the time ” of his death. For proof of Percy’s unceasing reference Us 
the Memoir as the authentic account of Goldsmith, even after its interpolation hy 
Rose, see Nichols’s Illustrations, vii. 102, where he recommend it toDr. 


for egregious vanity m Goldsmith. It may have been so; hut it 
sprang from the opposite source to that in which the ordinary 
forms of vanity have birth. Fielding describes a class of men 
who feed upon their own hearts ; who are egotists, as he says, 
the wrong way ; and if Goldsmith was vain, it was the wrong 
way. It arose, not from overweening self-complacency in 
supposed advantages, but from what the world had forced 
him since his earliest youth to feel, intense uneasy con¬ 
sciousness of supposed defects. His resources of boyhood 
went as manhood came. There was no longer the cricket- 
match, the hornpipe, an active descent upon an orchard, or 
a game of fives or foot-ball, to purge unhealthy humours and 
“ clear out the mind.” There was no old dairy-maid, no 
Peggy Golden, to beguile childish sorrows, or, as he mourn¬ 
fully recalls in one of his delightful essays, to sing him into 
pleasant tears with Johnny Armstrong’s Last Good Night, 
or the Cruelty of Barbara Allen. It was his ardent wish, as 
he grew to manhood, to be on good terms with the society 
around him; and, finding it essential first of all to be on 
good terms with himself, he would have restored by fantastic 

notice. In a letter to Mr. Nichols ( Illustrations , vi. 584), Percy also expressly 
describes it as compiled under his direction. I refer to this compilation through- 
out my volume, therefore, as the Percy Memoir ; and in an Appendix to the seem id 
volume of this biography (“What was proposed and what was done eor the 
“ relatives oi? Goldsmith”), I havo entered more largolyiuto the delays and disputes 
connected with its composition. It should be added that many of the materials lor a 
life which Percy had obtained from Goldsmith himself, were lost by being intrusted to 
Johnson, when the latter proposed to be his friend’s biographer ; and some wero 
lost by Percy himself. But the failure of Johnson’s design arose less from his own 
dilatoriness than from a difficulty started by Francis Nowbery’s surviving partner 
(Oarnan, the elder Ncwbory’s sou-in-law), who held the copyright of She Stoops to 
Conqucrt', and who refused to join the other possessors of Goldsmith’s writings in the 



JEsop / A burst of laughter rewarded liim, which however 
was rapidly turned the other way by Noll stopping his horn¬ 
pipe, looking round at his assailant, and giving forth, in 
audible voice and without hesitation, the couplet which 
was thought worth preserving as the first formal effort of his 
genius, by Percy, Malone, Campbell, and the rest, who com. 
piled, that biographical preface * to the Miscellaneous Works 
on which the subsequent biographies have been founded, 
but who nevertheless appear to have missed the correct 
version of the lines they thought so clever. 

Heralds ! proclaim aloud! all saying, 

See JEsop dancing, and liis Monicct/ playing.f 

Yet these things may stand for more than quickness of 


* biographical preface, or Memoir, for which the materials load boon col lee ten l 
y ercy, Malone, and other friends, was drawn up in the first instance by Porey’ti 
nend, Dr. Campbell; it then received ample correction from Peroy, whose remarks 
an interlineations were engrafted into the text; hut circumstances lod to a very angry 
dispute on its being handed to the publishers of the Miscellaneous Works. Other 
causes of disagreement afterwards sprang up with Mr. Rose (Cowper’H friend), 
employed as then- editor, and Percy ultimately declined to sanction the publication. 
Uis correspondence with Steevens, Malone, and other friends, shows ample trace* of 
his quarrel, and of his dissatisfaction with Mr. Rose, whom he accuses of imperti¬ 
nently tampering with the Memoir. “ I never,” writes Malone to Percy, in oor- 
“Sr f t<0l3Served an ? of 'fc°Be grimaces or fooleries that the 

p !°T 3 1 S ° iDg ° T6r Goklsmitll ’ s life >” writes Dr. Anderson to 

l ercy, l will thank you to point out the particular passages which wore thnmt 

naTn f V i Nwh ° ls ’ s Mirations, vii. 213. Substantially, however, 
the narrative no doubt remamed in its leading details what it is stated to 1m in tlm 

‘S^^n C 7 P ° Sed f om f einformation of persons who wore intimate with 
^ the poet at an early period, and who were honoured with a continuance of hi* 

th?Memoir as ^ ^ pr °° f ° f PerGy ’ s reference to 

toe Memoir as the authentic account of Goldsmith, eveu after its internolaf ian 1 „ 

Rose, see Nichols’s Illustrations , vii. 102, where he recommends it to Dr. Andoraon^ 


+ I quote the couplet (of which the first line is tamel 


forms of vanity have birth. Fielding describes a class of men 
who feed upon their own hearts ; who are egotists, as he says, 
the wrong way; and if Goldsmith was vain, it was the wrong 
way. It arose, not from overweening self-complacency in 
supposed advantages, but from what the world had forced 
him since his earliest youth to feel, intense uneasy con¬ 
sciousness of supposed defects. His resources of boyhood 
went as manhood came. There was no longer the cricket- 
match, the hornpipe, an active descent upon an orchard, or 
a game of fives or foot-ball, to purge unhealthy humours and 
“ clear out the mind.” There was no old dairy-maid, no 
Peggy Golden, to beguile childish sorrows, or, as lie mourn¬ 
fully recalls in one of his delightful essays, to sing him into 
pleasant tears with Johnny Armstrong’s Last Good Night, 
or the Cruelty of Barbara Allen. It was his ardent wish, as 
he grew to manhood, to be on good terms with the society 
around Mm; and, finding it essential first of all to be on 
good terms with Mmself, he would have restored by fantastic 


notice. In a letter to Mr. Nichols (7Z lustrations, vi. 584), Percy also expressly 
describes it as compiled under his direction. I refer to this compilation through¬ 
out my volume, therefore, as the Percy Memoir ; and in an Appendix to the second 
volume of this biography (“Wiiat was proposed and wiiat was donk for thh 
tc relatives op Goldsmith”), I have entered more largelyinto the delays and disputes 
connected with its composition. It should he added that many of the materials for a 
life which Percy had obtained from Goldsmith himself, were lost by heiug intrusted to 
Johnson, when the latter proposed to he his friend’s biographer ; and some were 
lost by Percy himself. But the failure of Johnson’s design aroso less from his own 
dilatoriness than from a difficulty started by Francis Newbery’s surviving partner 
(Carnan, the elder Newbery’s son-in-law), who held the copyright of She Stoops to 
Conquer, and who refused to join the other possessors of Goldsmith’s writings in the 
“Edition and Memoir” which Johnson had undertaken. “I know he intended to 
write Goldsmith’s Life,” says Malone, “for I collected some materials for it by his 




10 . 


So unwitting a contrast t< 


had done tlieir ‘ 

piu'pose he made the attempt 
Gentleness, to simplicity, to an utter absence of disguise, in 
his real nature, could but make an absurdity tlie more. “ Why, 
“wliat wouldst thou hare, dear Doctor! ” said Johnson, 
laughing at a squib in the St. James’s Chronicle which had 
coupled himself and liis friend as the pedant and his flatterer 
in Love’s Labour Lost, and at which poor Goldsmith was 
fretting and foaming; “ who the plague is hurt with all this 
*t 110n sense ? and how is a man the worse, J wonder, in his 
“ health, purse, or character, for being called Holofernos ? ” 
u j. j ow you may relish being called Holofernos/’ replied 
Goldsmith, “I do not know; but I do not liko at least to 
« play Goodman Dull.” * Much against liis will it was the 
part he was set down for from the first. 

But were there not still the means, at tlie fireside of Ids 
good-liearted father, of turning these childish rebuffs to 
something of a wholesome discipline ? Alas ! little ; there, 
was little of worldly wisdom in the home circle of the kind 
Put simple preacher, to make a profit of* this worldly 


experience. My father’s education, says the man in 
Black, and no one ever doubted who sat for the portrait, 
•• was above his fortune, and his generosity greater than 
“ his education. . . He told the story of the ivy-tree, and 
“ that was laughed at; he repeated the jest of the two 
i * scholars and one pair of breeches, and the company 
» laughed at that; but the story of Taffy in the sedan-chair 


“ was sure to set the table in a roar: thus his pleasure! in- 
..in nronortion to th nleasim* 1 w> rfnt?n * 1. 


‘ J.] SCHOOLDAYS AND HOLIDAYS. 

Ms fortune was but small, he lived up to the very 
e detent of it: he had no intentions of leaving his children 
^Aoney, for that was dross; he was resolved they should 
lia/ve learning, for learning, he used to observe, was better 
'kdiJ.rii silver or gold. For this purpose, he undertook to 

4 C • 

AiAstruct us himself; and took as much pains to form our 
*xio:rals as to improve our understanding. We were told, 
'fcliat universal benevolence was what first cemented society; 
We were taught to consider all the wants of mankind as 
* c our own ; to regard the human face divine with affection 
" * cl esteem; he wound us up to be mere machines of pity, 
‘” e and rendered us incapable of withstanding the slightest 
4 e impulse made either by real or fictitious distress : in a 
word, we were perfectly instructed in the art of giving away 
4 ‘ 'fclxoixsands, before we were taught the more necessary 
exemplifications of getting a farthing.” * 

~A_equisitions highly primitive, and supporting what seems 
t.o have been the common fame of the Goldsmith race. 
* 4 hlf Ire Goldsmiths were always a. strange family,” confessed 
tlxree different branches of them, in as many different 
tiuarters of Ireland, when inquiries were made by 
a recent biographer of the poet. “They rarely acted 
‘ * like other people: their hearts were always in the right 
**■ ] >lace, but their heads seemed to be doing anything hut 
**■ wliat they ought.”! In opinions or confessions of this 
kind., however, the heart’s right place is perhaps not 


cc world.” * 

If cleverness in the common affairs of the world is wliat the 
head should be always versed in, to be meditating wliat it 
ought, poor Oliver was a grave defaulter. We are all of us, 
it is said, more or less related to chaos ; and with him, to 
the last, there was much that lay unredeemed from its void. 
Sturdy boys who work a gallant way through school, and 
are the picked men of their colleges, and grow up to thriving 
eminence in their several callings, and found respectable 
families, are seldom troubled with, this relationship till 
chaos reclaims them altogether, and they die and are 
forgotten. All men have their advantages, and that is 
theirs. But it shows too great a pride in what they have, to 
think the whole world should be under pains and penalties 
to possess it too ; and to set up so many doleful lamenta¬ 
tions over this poor, weak, confused, erratic, Goldsmith 
nature. Their tone will not be taken here, the writer 
having no pretension to its moral dignity. Consideration 
will be had for the harsh lessons this boy so early and 
bitterly encountered; it will not be forgotten that feeling, 
not always rightly guided or controlled, but sometimes 
in a large excess,! must almost of necessity be his who 

* Mangin’s Essay, 149. 

t “ A lad whose passions are not strong enough in youth to mislead him from 
“ that path of science which his tutors, and not his inclination, have chalked 
“ out, hy four or five years’ perseverance probably obtains every advantage and 
^ honour his college can bestow. I forget whether the simile has been used beforo, 
“ but I woxdd compare tbe man whose youth has been thus passed in the tranquillity 
“ °f ^passionate prudence, to liquors that never ferment, and consequently con- 
“ tinue always muddy. Passions may raise a commotion in tho youthful breast, 
“ but the dis urb rmlv t,n rpfinn i+. _ x_i , 


has it in charge to dispense largely, variously, and freely 173 1 
to others ; and in the endeavour to show that the heart iEt. ] 
of Oliver Goldsmith was indeed rightly placed, it may 
perhaps appear that his head also profited by so good an 
example. 

At the age of eleven he was removed from Mr. Griffin’s, 
and put to a school of repute at Athlone, about five miles 
from his father’s house, and kept by a reverend Mr. 
Campbell.* At about the same time his brother Henry 
went as a pensioner to Dublin University, and it was 
resolved that in due course Oliver should follow him: a deter¬ 
mination, his sister told Doctor Percy, which had replaced 
that of putting him to a common traded on those evidences 
of a certain liveliness of talent which had broken out at uncle 
John’s being discussed among his relatives and friends. 

He remained at Athlone two years; and, when Mr. Camp¬ 
bell’s ill-health obliged him to resign his charge, was 
removed to the school of Edgeworthstown, kept by the 
reverend Patrick Hughes. Here he stayed more than three 
years, and was long remembered by the school acquaintance 
he formed; among whom were Mr. Beatty, Mr. Nugent, 

Mr. Eoach, and Mr. Daly, to whom we are indebted for 


Polite Learning, chap. x. So, too, in his Life of Lolingbroke, he excuses the youthful 
excesses and irregularities of the statesman by the remark that this period of liis 
career “might have been compared to that of fermentation in liquors, 'which grow 
‘ ‘ muddy before they brighten ; but it must also be confessed that those liquors 
“ which never ferment are seldom clear.” Miscell. Works (Ed. 1837), iii. 883. 
The same observation (as usual with anything that is a favourite with him) again 
and again reappears in his various writings. * Percy Memoir, 6. 

f “ Oliver was his second son, and bom very unexpectedly after an interval of 


master, it appeared, hud been Charles Goldsmith s fnntd. 
They dwelt upon liis ugliness and awkward nmiiuers ; they 
professed to recount even the studies he liked m* dislikrd 
(Ovid and Horace were welcome to him, lie hated ( Vvm, 
Livy was his delight, and Tacit hh opened him new wtiirn-n 
of pleasure); t they described his temper us ultrioMrmbtUe, 
but added that though quick to take oil'enee, he \vn * m««tv 
feverishly ready to forgive. They also said, tlmt though at 
first diffident and backward in the. extreme, he nm*t»tvd 
sufficient boldness in time to take even n lemh i ’h phuv 
in the boyish sports, and particularly at llv* h or hall 
playing.! Whenever an exploit was proposed or n triek 
was going forward, “ Noll Goldmith" was certain i.» he in 
it; an actor or a victim. 

Of his holidays, Bullymalmn was the central atirm'lmti , 
and here too recollection was vivid and busy, as K<»"ii 
his name grew ianums. An old man who direeltd the 
sports of the jdace, and kept tin 1 balheourt in thn*e 


Wo aro told, in a note to Mrs. Hudson's narrative, tlmt fr..in Mr. ! Incite-* 
lirofited more than from cither of the other iiuiU.-dj, an lie eui,ven»«l «tih l»u. - » » 
footing very diflbront fnnn tlmt of mauler and wij.dnr. "Tlthudj.-H.iwUe,-,, la 
Goldsmith always mentioned with not).rot utul Krotilnde." /Vr. v tfrr H „ ir a 
t Mr. Daly’s remark, as quoted hy Mr. 1’ri-r (i. U M, in that •* nhm C 1,4 
^once mastered the difficulties of Tiwittu, ho f..uwd ,d««,m. in -I 

occasional translation of that writer.” It m \ vm twty Ut »| iaS , 44.4 
that it was in consequence of a reproof from hie elder brother he ,<r,t U*** , ’ 

attention to stylo m writing. Having sent Ilonry Homo short a,,4 f 1 1 ,„-! 

from school he received for reply, wo are told, a «urt ,„«■« of *4^, * M . fc l„- 

“ aC(,0Unt ’ thafc <<ifl,U 1,mt lMlt Htlh ' *" .. 

<‘e J xI5sZnrr!Tl! y T UV ° ?' all ‘ ll!ti,% ^ wW * h! ’ I"-* -It 

Kernses among Ins playmates, and onuurnlly in ladl-playi^, *b«.|, h. • «»«, 


“fond f. and o 


related to tin* depredation of tin* orchard of Tirlieken, hy 
the youth and his eumpimimm.*' FitZHtimnoUH also vouched 
to t)it‘ reverend »h»hn Uralutm for the entire truth of the 
udventure m> currently and eonlhletitly told hy his tritdi 
acquaintance, which offers tut HfXt'ecHhle relief to the exeras 
ol dillith nee heretofore noted in him, and on which, if trite, 
the lending incident of *S7ir Slonjut U* ('ownin' wish founded. 

At the close of 1uh hint holithiys, then u hid of nearly 
seventeen, lie left home for bklgewcutlmtown, mounted on h 
borrowed lutek which n friend was to mature to I#i««oy s »nd 
with hit ire of mmceuHtomcd wealth, it guinea, in bin puckrt. 
'I‘he drli eimiH taste of independence hcgtliled him to a 
loitej in.-, liuperinp, pleasant enjoyment of the journey ; mid 
iu'deml of ftiitliiif, himself under Mr. Unpin roof at nip hi 
tall, niqht tell upon him home two or three mile'* out of {In¬ 
direct road, in the middle of the htrcetH of A rdaph, I lilt 
nothiup could di iconeert the owner of (lie piiim-a, who, w ith n 
h'tty, confident air, inquired of n person pussiuq the way to 
the tow it h heat house of entertainment. The man addressed 
wan the wag of Ardagh, n humorous fencing master, Mr. 

< ‘orueliuH Kelly, and the nrlaadhoy *uv agger win* irresintilile 
juovoeatiou to a jest. Submissively he turned hark with 
horse utul rider till they came within u pace «>r two <*! the 
great Squire 1‘Vaf he| atou’a, to which he rehpeeltulh pointed 
a-, the *’ hi at house “ of Ardaqh, { Miu r rang at the pate, 
qiue hie. heant in eliarge with authoritative rip»mr, and wan 

" |,1 11 .S» 11*1 1 I “ .Ml I t,i j|<-a, " l; kr-•!i-|<|||»| (iutiulirly, 



parlour of tlie squire. Those were days when ."Irish : 
keepers and Irish squires more nearly approximated t 
now; and Mr. Featherston, unlike the excellent but 
plosive Mr. Hardcastle, is said to have seen tlio mistake• 
humoured it. Oliver had a supper which gave him so ui 
satisfaction, that lie ordered a bottle of wine to follow ; 
the attentive landlord was not only forced to drink 1 
him, but, with a like familiar condescension, the. with 
pretty daughter were invited to the supper-room, (loiuj 
bed, he stopped to give special instructions for a liot mk, 
breakfast; and it was not till he had dispatched this hit 
meal, and was looking at his guinea with pathetic aspcul 
farewell, that the truth was told him by the good-nut U 
squire* The late Sir Thomas Featherston, grandson to 
supposed inn-keeper, had faith in the adventure ; ami I 
Mr. Graham that as his grandfather and Charles Golds i* 
had been college acquaintance, it might the. bettor 
accounted ford 

It is certainly, if true, the earliest known instaneo of 
disposition to swagger with a grand air which afterwu 
displayed itself in other forms, and strutted about in clot 
rather noted for fineness than fitness. 

* Percy A1 1 iinn'c, 0, ", 

+ “Tie story,” said Mr. Uraliam, at a puhlie meoUng iu Hnllynmh..,, f 
monument to the Poet (reported in tlio (Sent. Mat/. ft,r IH20, li’ifit, 

“ confirmed to me by the lato Sir Thomas Kontliomlmi, Hai l, a whorl tim.< U 

his death.” 



CHAPTER II. 


COLLEGE. 

1745—1749. 

But the school-days of Oliver Goldsmith are now to close. 
Within the last year there had been some changes at Lissoy, 
which not a little affected the family fortunes. Catherine, 
the elder sister, had privately married a Mr. Daniel Hods on, 
“ the son of a gentleman of good property, residing at 
“ St. John’s, near Athlone.” The young man was at the 
time availing himself of Henry Goldsmith’s services as 
private tutor ; Henry having obtained a scholarship two years 
before, and assisting the family resources with such employ¬ 
ment of his college distinction. The good Charles Goldsmith 
was greatly indignant at the marriage, and on reproaches 
from the elder Hodson “ made a sacrifice detrimental to the 
“ interests of his family.” He entered into a legal engagement, 
still registered in the Dublin Four Courts, and bearing date 
the 7th of September, 1744, “ to pay to Daniel Hodson, Esq., 


745. The writer who discovered this marriage settlement attributes 
b -*7. it to “ the highest sense of honour; ”* but it must surely be 
doubted if an act which, to elevate the pretensions of one 
child, and adapt them to those of the man she had married, 
inflicted beggary on the rest, should be so referred to. 
Oliver was the first to taste its bitterness. It was announced 
to him that he could not go to college as Henry had gone, a 
pensioner; but must consent to enter it, a sizar. 

The first thing exacted of a sizar, in those days, was to give 
proof of classical attainments. Pie was to show himself, to a 
certain reasonable extent, a good scholar ; in return for which, 
being clad in a black gown of coarse stuff without sleeves, ho 
was marked with the servant’s badge of a red cap, and put to 
the servant’s offices of sweeping courts in the morning, carry¬ 
ing up dishes from the kitchen to the fellows’ dining-tablo in 
the afternoon, and waiting in the hall till the fellows had dined. 
This,—commons, teaching, and chambers, being on tlio 
other hand greatly reduced,—is called by one of Goldsmith’s 
biographers “ one of those judicious and considerate arrange - 
“ ments of the founders of such institutions, that gives to the; 
“less opulent the opportunity of cultivating learning at a 
“trifling expense; ”t hut it is called by Goldsmith himself, 
in liis Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Jjeanuny, J a. 
“ contradiction ” suggested by motives of pride, and a passion 
which he thinks absurd, “ that men should be at once learning 
“ the liberal arts, and at the same time treated as slaves ; at 
“ onco studying freedom and practising servitude.” 


\ in ins me s iiuru sciiotu. rie resisieii witn all ms 
strength; little less than a whole year, it is said, obstinately 
resisted the new contempts and loss of worldly consideration 
thus bitterly set before him. He would rather have gone to 
the trade chalked out for him as his rough alternative,—when 
uncle Contarine interfered. 

• This was an excellent man ; and with some means, though 
very far from considerable, to do justice to bis kindly 
impulses. In youth he had been the college companion of 
Bishop Berkeley,* and was worthy to have had so divine a 
Mend. He too was a clergyman; and held the living of 
Kilmore near Carrick-on-Shannon, which he afterwards 
changed to that of Oran near Roscommon; where he built 
the house of Emblem ore, changed to that of Teinpe by its 
subsequent possessor, Mr. Edward Mills, Goldsmith's relative 
and contemporary. Mr. Contarine had married Charles 
Goldsmith’s sister (who died at about this time, leaving one 
child), and was the only member of the Goldsmith family of 
whom we have solid evidence that he at any times took pains 
with Oliver, or felt anything like a real pride in him. He bore 
the greater part of his school expenses; f and was used to 
receive him with delight in holidays, as the playfellow of 
his daughter Jane, a year or two older than Oliver, and 
some seven years after this married to a Mr. Lauder. How 
little the most charitable of men will make allowance for 
differences of temper and disposition in the education of 
youth, is too well known : Mr. Contarine told Oliver that 

* See note to Ptrn/ Mtvwir, 17, 18. 

t “The rev. Mr. Greene,” the son of the rector of Kilkenny West, “also 
“ liberally assisted, as Dr. iruldsmith used to relate, in this beneficent 



lie describes it himself, a “knack at hoping;” mul at all l 
times, it must with equal certainty he affirmed, a knack at -3$ 
getting into scrapes. Like Samuel Johnson at Oxford, he 
avoided lectures when he could, and was a lounger at the 
college gate.* The popular picture of him in these Dublin 
University days, is little more than of a slow, hesitating, 
somewhat hollow voice, heard seldom and always to great 
disadvantage in the class-rooms ; and of a low-sized, thick, 
robust, ungainly figure, lounging about the college courts on 
the wait for misery and ill-luck. 



74/7 lie had himself been a sizar, and that it liad not availed 
t. 3 7. to withhold from him the friendship of the great and the 
good. 

His counsel prevailed. The youth went to Dublin, showed 
by passing the necessary examination that his time at school 
had not been altogether thrown away, and on the 11th of 
June 1745 was admitted, last in the list of eight who so 
presented themselves, a sizar of Trinity College; *—there most 
speedily to earn that experience, which, on his elder brother 
afterwards consulting him as to the education of his son, 
prompted him to answer thus : “ If he has ambition, strong 
“ passions, and an exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not 
“ send him to your college, unless you have no other trade 
' “ for him except your own.”! - 

Flood, who was then in the college, does not seem to 
have noticed Goldsmith : but a greater than Flood, though 
himself little notable at college, said lie perfectly recollected 
his old fellow-student, when they afterwards met at the 
house of Mr. Reynolds. Not that there was much for an 
Edmund Burke to recollect of him. Little went well with 
Goldsmith in his student course. He had a menial position, 
a savage brute for tutor, and few inclinations to the study 
exacted. He was not indeed, as perhaps never living 
creature in this world was, without his consolations; he 
could sing a song well, and, at a new insult or outrage, could 
blow off excitement through his flute with a kind of des¬ 
perate “ mechanical vehemence.” At the worst he had, as 



lie describes it himself, a “ knack at hopingand at all 
times, it must with equal certainty bo affirmed, a knack at 
getting into scrapes, bike Samuel Johnson at Oxford, he 
avoided lectures when Ire could, and was a lounger at the 
college gate.* The popular picture of him in these Dublin 
University days, is little more than of a slow, hesitating, 
somewhat hollow voice, heard seldom and always to great 
disadvantage in the class-rooms ; and of a low-sized, thick, 
robust, ungainly figure, lounging about the college courts on 
the wait for misery and ill-luck. 

His Edgeworthstown schoolfellow, Beatty, had entered 
among the sizars with him, and lor a time shared his rooms. 
They are described as tire top-rooms adjoining the library 
of the building numbered Mfi, whore the name of Oliver 
Goldsmith may still be seen, Heniteheri by himself upon a 
window-pane.i Another sizar, Marshall, is said to have 
been another of bis chums. Among his occasional asso¬ 
ciates, were certainly Edward Mills, his relative; Robert 
Bryanton, a Ballymahon youth, also his relative, of whom 
he was fond; Charles and Edward Ihirdon, whom lie lived 
to befriend; (Tames AVillingtou, wIioho mime he afterwards 
had permission to use in Loudon, for low literary work he 
was ashamed to put his own to ; t Wilson § and Kearney, 
subsequently doctors and fellows of the college; Wolfen, 
also well known; || and Lauehlan Macloanc, whose political 
pamphlets, unaccepted challenge to Wilkes, and general 



xo De expecxect tnat any woimernu leans 01 memory snouici 
be performed respecting him ; and it seems tolerably 
evident that, with the exception of perhaps Bryanton 
and Beatty, not one owner of the names recounted put 
himself in friendly relation with the sizar, to elevate, 
assist, or cheer him. Richard Malone, afterwards Lord 
Sunderlin; Barnard and Marlay, afterwards worthy bishops 
of Killaloe and Waterford; found nothing more pleasant than 
to talk of “ their old fellow-collegian Doctor Goldsmith,” in 
the painting-room of Reynolds: but nothing, I suspect, so 
difficult, thriving lads as they were in even these earlier days, 
than to vouchsafe recognition to the unthriving, depressed, 
insulted Oliver* 

A year and a half after he had entered college, at the 
commencement of 1747, his father suddenly died. The 
scanty sums required for his support had been often inter¬ 
cepted, but this stopped them altogether. It may have been 
the least and most trifling loss connected with that sorrow; 
but “ squalid poverty,” relieved by occasional gifts, accord¬ 
ing to his small means, from uncle Contarine, by petty loans 
from Bryanton or Beatty, or by desperate pawning of his 
books of study, was Goldsmith’s lot thenceforward. Yet 
even in the depths of that despair, arose the consciousness 
of faculties reserved for better fortune than continual 

* ‘ ‘ When he had got high in fame, ” said Johnson to Boswell, ‘ ‘ one of his friends 
“began to recollect something of his being distinguished at college. Goldsmith in 
“ the same manner recollected more of thatfriend’H early years, as he grew a greater 
“man,” Burnell vi. 310. This, wo must admit, is the general rule. Barnard, after¬ 
wards Dean of Derry, and ultimately Bishop of Killaloe, from which diocese he was 
transla 1 to that • L’mericc. w' 1 fre uent v aimoar in theso usures. TTc was 


contempt and laUure. ±ie would write street-Danaus tu 
save himself from actual starving; sell them at the 
Rein-Deer repository in Momitrath-court for five shillings 
a-piece ; and steal out of the college at night to hear them 
sung. * 

Happy night, to him worth all the dreary days! Hidden by 
some dusky wall, or creeping' within darkling shadows of the 
ill-lighted streets, this poor neglected sizar watched, waited, 
lingered, listened there, for the only effort of his life which 
had not wholly failed. Few and dull perhaps the beggar’s 
audience at first, but more thronging, eager, and delighted, 
as he shouted forth his newly-gotten ware. Cracked enough, 
I doubt not, were those ballad-singing tones; very harsh, 
extremely discordant, and passing from loud to low without 
meaning or melody; but not the less did the sweetest 
music which this earth affords fall with them on the ear of 
Goldsmith. Gentle faces pleased, old men stopping by 
the way, young lads venturing a purchase with their last 
remaining farthing ; why, here was a world in little, with 
its fame at the sizar’s feet! “ The greater world will be 

“ listening one day ” perhaps he muttered, as lie turned with 
a lighter heart to his dull home. 

It is said to have been a rare occurrence when the five 
shillings of the Rein-deer repository reached home along 
with him. It was the most likely, when he was at liis 
utmost need, to stop with some beggar on the road who 
might seem to him even more destitute than himself. Nor 
this onl}\ The money gone,—often, for the naked shivering 
wretch, had he slipped off a portion of the scanty clothes he 


the demonstrations of Euclid; and for this, all liis life a/ito¬ 
wards, eveii more than poet Gray,* did poor Goldsmith 
war with mathematics. Never had he stood up in his cl*'' 1 
that this learned savage did not outrage and insult 1* 11 
Having the misery to mistake malice for wit, the comic as 
as tragic faculty of Mr. Wilder found endless recreation*- * 
the awkward, ugly, “ ignorant,” most sensitive young 
There was no pause or limit to the strife between tlxo* 
The tutor’s brutality rose even to personal violence ; ^ 

pupil’s shame and suffering hardened into reckless idleiioH- 
and the college career of Oliver Goldsmith was proclaim*' 
a wretched failure. 

* Gray, while yet as young as Goldsmith, complained from Cambric l 15 
Wost in muoli tlio same language that Goldsmith might have employed in 
if at tliis early time of life ho hatl been blessed "with such a friend. ‘ ‘ I hare one 1 1 * 
“lectures daily and hourly since I came last, supported by the hopes of 1 U1 
“ shortly at full liberty to give myself up to my friends and classical coinpin,ivi<) 
“who, poor souls I though I see them fallen into great contempt with most 
“hero, yet I cannot help sticking to them, and oub of a spirit of obstinacy (I Ll»I’ 
“love them the Latter fur it; and indeed what can I do else ? Must I plunp;o 5 
“metaphysics? Alas! I cannot see in the dark; nature has not furninho* l 
“ with tho optics of a cat. Must I pore upon mathematics ? Alas ! I cannot him 
“ too much light; I am no eagle. It is very possible that two and two maleo tV 
“ but I would not givo four farthings to demonstrate this ever so clearly ; n-ti 
“ these ho tho profits of life, give me the amusements of it. The people I lioJ: 
“all arouml mo, it seems, know all this and more, and yet I do not know <os 
“thorn who inspires mo with any ambition of being like him.” Gray ’h f l "V>< 
lid. Mitfurd (18155), ii. 7-0. “ Gray regretted his want of mathematical kno wit •* 1| 
says Norton Nioholls, “yet ho would never allow that it was necessary , in t»l 
“ to form tho mind to a habit of reasoning or attention. Does not Locke rocjAiIr' 

“ much attention as Euolid ? ” Ac. &c. Works, v. 52. 

h Percy Memoir , 15. “Theaker Wilder, a mau of the most morose and intii-t»| 

“ temper, who thenceforth persecuted him with unremitting cruelty, especially n.ts 
“quarterly examinations, when he would insult him before his fellow stud<;f i tf 
“ sarcastic taunts and ironical applauses of the severest malignity.” “ Jits w 

G onmwrm. arm 5J uinra TVTv Rli cvixr TVffiftnn “ n P khp -farnilv nf fin nil a Wilrlrtr* «*« 



us ue uiaujcnu tnat 11 was no worse, auu i-utu. paru- 
cipation in a college riot was after all the highest of Ms 
college crimes. Twice indeed he was cautioned for neglect¬ 
ing even Ms Greek lecture; but he was also thrice com¬ 
mended for diligence in attending it; and Doctor Kearney 
said he once got a prize at a Christmas examination in 
classics. The latter seems doubtful; but at any rate the 
college riot was the worst to allege against him, and in this 
there was no very active sin. A scholar had been arrested, 
though the precincts of the university had always been 
held privileged from the intrusion of bailiffs, and the 
students resolved to take rough revenge. It was in the 
summer of 1747. They explored every bailiff’s den in 
Dublin, found the offender by whom the arrest was made, 
brought Mm naked to the college pump, washed his delin¬ 
quency thoroughly out of him; and were so elated with the 
triumph, and everything that bore affinity to law, restraint, 
or authority, looked so ludicrous in the person of this 
drenched bailiff’s-runner, them miserable representative, 
that it was on the spot proposed to crown and consummate 
success by breaking open Newgate, and making a general 
jail delivery. The Black Dog, as the prison was called, 
stood on the feeblest of legs, and with one small piece of 
artillery must have gone down for ever; but the camion 
was with the constable, the assailants were repulsed, and 
some townsmen attracted by the fray unhappily lost their 
lives. Five of the ringleaders were discovered, and expelled 
the college; and among five lesser offenders who were 
publicly admonished for being present, “aiding and abetting,”* 


OLIVER GOLDSMITH’S LIFE AND TIMES. 


[Book. I. 


1 ' More galled by formal University admonition than by 
19 - Wilder’s insults, and anxious to wipe out a disgrace that 
seemed not so undeserved, Goldsmith tried in the next 
month for a scholarship. He lost the scholarship, but got 
an exhibition :* a very small exhibition truly, worth some 
thirty shillings, of which there were nineteen in number, and 
his was seventeenth in the list. In the way of honour or 
glory this was trifling enough; but, little used to anything in 
the shape of even such a success, he let loose his unaccus¬ 
tomed joy in a small dancing party at his rooms, of humblest 
sort. 

Wilder heard of the affront to discipline, suddenly showed 
himself in the middle of the festivity, and knocked down the 
poor triumphant exhibitioner.! It seemed an irretrievable 
disgrace. Goldsmith sold his books next day, got together 
a small sum, ran away from college, hugered fearfully about 
Dublin till his money was spent, and then, with a shilling in 
his pocket, set out for Cork. He did not know where ho 
would have gone, he said, but he thought of America. For 
three days he lived upon the shilling; parted by degrees with 
nearly all his clothes to save himself from famine; and long 
afterwards told Reynolds, what his sister relates in her 
narrative, that of all the exquisite meals he had ever tasted, 
the most delicious was a handful of grey peas given him 
by a girl at a wake after twenty-four hours’ fasting.f The 
vision of America sank before this reality, and lie turned 



not to strike him to tlie ground again; for certainly no ^ 
other improvement is on record. The insults, the merciless 
jests, the “Oliver Goldsmith turned down,”—continue as 
before.* We still trace him less by his fame in the class-room 
than by his fines in the buttery-books. The only change is 
in that greater submission of the victim which marks unsuc¬ 
cessful rebellion. He offers no resistance; makes no effort 
of any kind; sits, for the most part, indulging day-dreams. 

A Greek Scapula has been identified t which he used at 
this time, scrawled over with his writing. “ Free. Oliver 
“ Goldsmith“ I promise to pay, &c. Oliver Goldsmith Gl¬ 
are among the autograph’s musing shapes. Perhaps one 
half the day he was with Steele or Addison in parlia¬ 
ment; perhaps the other half in prison with Collins or 
with Fielding. We should be thankful, as I have said, that 
a time so dreary and dark bore no worse fruit than that. 

The shadow cast over his spirit, the uneasy sense of disad¬ 
vantage which obscured his manners in later years, affected 
himself singly; but how many they are, whom such suffer¬ 
ing, and such idleness, would have wholly and for ever 
corrupted.! The spirit hardly less generous, cheerful, or 

* An anecdote, “often told in conversation to Bishop Percy,” obtained one of these 
turnings down for the rebellious sizar. Wilder called on Goldsmith, at a lecture, 
to explain the centre of gravity ; which, on getting no answer, he proceeded him¬ 
self to explain : calling out harshly to Oliver at the close, “Now, blockhead, 

“ where is your centre of gravity ?” The answer—which was delivered in a slow, 
hollow, stammering voice, and began ‘ ‘ Why, Doctor, by your definition, I think it 
“must be”—disturbed every one’s centre of gravity in the lecture room; and, 
turning the laugh against Wilder, turned down poor Oliver. Mr. Trior found the 
latter brief record duly entered under the date of May 9, 1748, on consulting the 
senior lecturer’s book in Dublin University, i. 90. i* Prior , i. 94. 


self-supported than Goldsmith’s, has been broken by tliem 
utterly. 

He took his degree of bachelor of arts on tine 27th 
February, 1749 ;* and as his name stood lowest in tbe list of 
sizars with whom he was originally admitted, so it; stands 
also lowest in a list still existing of the graduates who passed 
on the same day, and thus became entitled to use th.e college 
library.! But it would be needless to recount the .names that 
appear above his ; for the public merits of their owners ended 
with their college course, and oblivion has received them. Nor 
indeed does that position of his name necessarily indicate 
his place in the examination; it being then the xxsage to 
regulate the mere college standing of a student throngh the 
whole of his course, by his position obtained at starting. But 
be this as it might, Mr. "Wilder and his pupil now parted 
for ever: and when the friend of Burke, of Johnson, and 
of Reynolds, next heard the name of his college tyrant, 
a violent death had overtaken him in a dissolute "brawl. 

‘ ‘ to his having overrated my talents, and partly to my dislike of mn/fchematical 
“ reasonings at a timo when my imagination and memory, yet unsatisfied, were 
“more eager after new objects than desirous of reasoning upon those I knew. 

‘ ‘ This, however, did not please my tutor, who observed indeed, tlra/fc I was a 
“ little dull; but at the same time allowed, that I seemed to be very goodnaturod, 
“ and had no harm in me.” * Percy Memoir, 17. 

+ Shaw Mason’s Statistical Account , iii. S58. “ Feh. 27, 1749, he was admitted 

“ bachelor of arts, two years after the regular time. In the roll of those 
“ qualified for admission to the college library, it appears that Oliver* Goldsmith 
“ took the oaths necessary to those who desire that privilege. The triroe for this 
“ is immediately after obtaining tbe degree of bachelor of arts.” Ir. Prior sup¬ 
poses that he first had examined this library record, but Mr. Shaw Mason, had been 
there before him. 



CHAPTER III 


* 

THRU YRARH OF ID LBN BBS. 

17IF—17M. 

UciumMJ'rit returned to Ida mother'll lumae. There were 1 
great changes. She had removed, in her straitened rircum* ^ 
Hfiint’t H, to u eottnge at ihillynmhou, " situated on lias 
*’entrance to Ihillynmhou from the Kdgeworthstown road on 
" the h it hand Hid*'."* I tin brother 11 mirv hud gone hark to 
hia father** little parsonage house at I’alhm; and, with Ida 
father's old pittunee of forty pounds u year, wan Nerving us 
t'urato to the living of Kilkenny West, find wan mauter of the 
village arhottl, whirh uftor shifting about not it little had 
become ultimately fixed at I nanny, Ilia eldest sister, Mn. 
Hudson, for whom the namfiee was made that smpovermhed 
the family roHnumm, wit« mif-strew of the old and hotter 
l.isaoy parsonage house, in which Ida father Imd lived Ida 
latter life. All entreated Oliver to i{tmlify himself for 
order* ; and when they joined made t'on!arinr'*i rnjtteHl, 
hui own objeelion wan withdrawn. Hut he in only twenty- 
on**; he must wait two yearn; and they are {maned at 
Ihdlvnmhon, 


Ho lias escaped one scene of misery ; another is awaiting 
him; and what possibilities of happiness lie in the interval, 
it is liis nature to seize and make the most of. Tie assists his 
brother Henry in the school; runs household errands lor his 
mother, as if lie were still what the village gossips called 
him, “Master Noll;”* writes scraps of verse to please his 
uncle Contarinc ; and, to please himself, g<'tx cousin 
.Bryanton and Tony Lumpkins of the district, -with wander¬ 
ing bear-loaders of genteeler sort, to meet at a,i 1 old inn l>y 
his mother’s house, and he a club for story-telling, for an 
occasional game of wliist, and for tlie singing of songs. First 
in those accomplishments, great at Latin quotations, as 
admirer ofliappy human faces greatest of all, —• Oliver pre¬ 
sides. Cousin Lryanton had seen his disgrace in college, 
and thinks this a triumph indeed. So seems it to the hero 
of the triumph, on whose taste and manners, still only 
forming as yet in these sudden and odd extremes, many an 

* I subjoin (i curious passage from Mr. Shaw Mason’s volume already quoted, in 
wliioli. wliitfc appears to 1 kj a misstatement of dates is either tu) bo explained by 
supposing that the entries as to “Master Noll” refer to a period Before the family 
luul removed Irom Lissoy, or by the suggestion in tlie text that t.lio young baehelor 
of avis still ran tho errands of his boyhood, and retained, its familiar name. “The 
“ writer uf this account purchased some old books a few years ago, at an auction iu 
“ UuHym/tlnm ; and among them an account-book, kept by a Mrw. Jidwards, and a 
“ Miss Sarah Shore, who lived in the next house to Mrs. Q-oldsmith. Iu this 
“ village reeiml, woro several shop accounts from the year 1740 to 175(5. Homo 
“ of tho onlrioH in tho earliest uf these accounts ran thus ‘ Tea by Master Noll . 
“ Cash by dittof—-from which it appears, that the young poet was thou purhaps Ills 
“ inothor’s only messongcr. One of tho accounts, in 175(5, may bo considered a 
“ statistical curiosity, ascertaining the use and j)rice of giueii •fcun, in this part of 
“ tho country, sixty years ago.” (Mr. Mason wrote in 1818.) 

“ Mrs, Uoldamith, to Sarah Shore, Dr. 

“ B ’omr it ftrwnrl 







vjeorge uonway s inn. 

Thus the two years passed. In the day-time occupied, 
as I have said, in the village school; on the winter nights, 
at Conway’s; and, in the evenings of summer, taking 
solitary walks among the rocks and wooded islands of the 
Inn}'-, strolling up its banks to fish or play the flute, 
otter-hunting by the course of the Shannon, learning French 
from the Irish priests, or winning a prize for throwing the 
sledge-hammer at the fair of Ballymahon.* “ A lady who died 
“lately in this neighbourhood, and who was well acquainted 
“ with Mrs. Goldsmith, mentioned that it was one of Oliver’s 
“ habits to sit in a window of his mother’s lodgings, and amuse 
“ himself by playing the flute.”t 

Two sunny years, with sorrowful affection long remem¬ 
bered ;t storing up his mind with many a thought and fancy 
turned to profitable use in after-life, but hardly better than 
his college course to help him through the world. So much 
even occurred to himself when eight years were gone, and, 
in the outset of his London distresses, he turned back with 
wistful looks to Ireland. “ Unaccountable fondness for 
“ country, this Maladie du Pais, as the French call it!” 
he exclaimed, writing to his brother - in - law Hodson. 
“Unaccountable that he should still have an affection for a 
“ place who never received when in it above common civility; 
“ who never brought anything out of it except his brogue 

* “ A blacksmith, who boasted to the rev. Mr. Handcock of having taught him 
“the art, still survived about the year 1787.” Prior, i. 116. 

h Shaw Mason, iii. 358. 

£ ‘ ‘ Those who have walked in an evening by the sedgy sides of unfrequented 
‘‘ rivprH must rcmpmliw n, varietv of notes from different water-fowl; the loud 



“ and his blunders. Surely my affection is equally ridiculous 
“ with the Scotchman’s, who refused to be cured of the itch 
“ because it made him unco’ thoughtful of his wife and 
“ bonny Inverary. But to be serious, let me ask myself 
“ what gives me a wish to see Ireland again ? The country 
“ is a fine one perhaps ? No. There are good company in 
“ Ireland ? No. The conversation there is generally made 
“ up of a smutty toast or a bawdy song; the vivacity 
“ supported by some humble cousin, who has just folly 
“ enough to earn his dinner. Then perhaps there’s more wit 
“ and learning among the Irish ? Oh, lord! no ! There 
“ has been more money spent in the encouragement of the 
“ Padareen mare there one season, than given in rewards 
“ to learned men since the times of Usher. All their 
“ productions in learning amount to perhaps a translation, 
“or a few tracts in divinity; and all them productions in 
“ wit, to just nothing at all. Why the plague then so 
“fond of Ireland! Then all at once, because you, my dear 
“ friend, and a few more, who are exceptions to the general 
“ picture, have a residence there. This it is that gives me 
“ all the p>angs I feel in separation. I confess I carry this 
“ spirit sometimes to the souring the pleasures I at present 
“ possess.”* 

And perhaps still more of the secret escaped without 
his knowledge, when, in that same year, he was writing 
to a more intimate friend. “ I have disappointed your 
“ neglect,” he said to Bryanton, “ by frequently thinking 


“ of you. Every day do I remember tlie calm anecdotes 17. 
“ of your life, from the fireside to the easy chair: re cal Mt. 
“ the various adventures that first cemented our friend- 
“ ship: the school, the college, or the tavern: preside 
“in fancy over your cards : and am displeased at your bad 
“play when the rubber goes against you, though not with 
“ all that agony of soul as when I once was your partner.”* 

Let the truth then be confessed: and that it was the careless 
idleness of fire-side and easy chair, that it was the tavern 
excitement of the game at cards, to which Goldsmith so wist¬ 
fully looked back from those first hard London struggles. 

It is not an example I would wish to inculcate; nor is this 
narrative written with that purpose. To try any such process 
for tlie chance of another Goldsmith would be a somewhat 
dangerous attempt. The truth is important to be kept in 
view: that genius, representing as it does the perfect health 
and victory of the mind, is in no respect allied to these 
weaknesses, but, when unhappily connected with them, is in 
itself a means to avert their most evil consequence. Of 
the associates of Goldsmith in these happy, careless years, 
perhaps not one emerged to better fortune, and many sank 
to infinitely worse. “ Pray give my love to Bob Bryanton, 

“ and entreat him from me, not to drink,” is a passage from 
one of his later letters to his brother Henry.f The habit of 
drinking he never suffered to overmaster himself;—if the 
love of gaming to some trifling extent continued, it was at 
least the origin of many thoughts that may have saved others 


-JL * —' --- trujutij. UJ.AV J ---o j, 

for Ids errors "by infinite personal privation, turned all the 
rest to the comfort and instruction of the world. There is a 
providence that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how wo 
will; and to clianning issues did the providence of Gold¬ 
smith’s genius shape these rougli-hewn times. Wliat it 
received, in mortification or grief, it gave hack in cheerful 
humour or whimsical warning. It was not alone that it 
mftdo him wise enough to know what infirmities he had, but 
it gave him tlxe rarer wisdom of turning them to entertain¬ 
ment turd to profit. Through the pains and obstructions of 
his childhood, through the uneasy failures of his youth, 
through the desperate struggles of his manhood, it lighted 
him to those last uses of experience and suffering which 
have given him an immortal name. 

And let it he observed, that this Ballymahon idleness 
could lay claim to a certain activity in one respect. It was 
alwayn cheerful; and this is no unimportant part of educa¬ 
tion, if heart and head are to go together. It will he well, 
indeed, when habits of cheerfulness are as much a part of 
formal instruction as habits of study ; and when the foolish 
argument will bo heard no longer, that these things arc in 
nature’s charge, and may be left exclusively to her. Nature 
asks help and culture in all things; and will even yield to 
their solicitation, what would otherwise lie utterly unknown. 
It was an acute remark of Goldsmith’s, in respect to literary 
efforts, that the habit of writing will give a man justness of 
thinking ; and that he may get from it a mastery of manner, 
which holidnv wri ers. tliouf? 1 witi te tines his o-onins. will 


oi even general Denenciai example. 

The two years, then, are passed; and Oliver must apply 
for orders. “ For the clerical profession,” says Mrs. Hodson, 
“ he had no liking.” It is not very wonderful; after having 
seen, in his father and his brother, how much learning 
and labour were rewarded in the church by forty pounds a 
year. But he had yet another, and to him perhaps a stronger 
motive ; though I do not know if it has not been brought 
against him as an imputation of mere vanity or simplicity, 
that he once said, “he did not deem himself good enough 
“ for it.” His friends, however, though not so resolutely as 
at first, still advised him to this family profession. “ Our 
“ friends,” says the man in black, “ always advise, when they 
“ begin to despise us.” tie made application to the Bishop 
of Elphin, and was refused; sent back as he went; in short, 
plucked;—but the story is told in various ways, and it is 
hard to get at the truth. His sister says that Ms youth 
was the objection; while it was a tradition “in the diocese ” 
that either Mr. Theaker Wilder had given the bishop an 
exaggerated report of his college irregularities, or (which 
is more likely, and indeed is the only reasonable account of 
the affair) that he had neglected the prehminary professional 
studies. Doctor Strean on the other hand fully believed, 
from rumours he picked up, that “ Mr. Noll’s ” offence was 
the having presented himself before his right reverence in 
scarlet breeches; t and certainly if this last reason be the 

* “Rely upon it, sir, vivacity is much an art, and depends greatly on habit.” 
Johnson to Boswell, Life, vi. 95. 

Mangin’s Essay, 150. “To he obliged,” says the man in black, “to wear a 



true one, it is our first ominous experience of the misplaced 
personal finery which will find reiterated mention i * 1 
veritable history. In truth, however, the rejection is ^ ie 
only absolute certainty. The man in black, it will be 
remembered, undergoes something of the same kind, remark¬ 
ing, cc my friends were now perfectly satisfied I was undone ; 
“ and yet they thought it a pity, for one that had not the 
“ least harm in him, and was so very goodnatured.” 

Uncle Contarine, however, was far from thinking this. Ho 
found a gentleman of his county, a Mr. Minn, in want of a 
tutor, and recommended Oliver. The engagement continued 
for a year, and ended, as it might have been easy to anti¬ 
cipate, unsatisfactorily. His talent for card-playing, as well 
as for teaching, is said to have been put in requisition by Mr. 
Minn; and the separation took place on Goldsmith’s accusing 
one of the family of unfair play.* But when he left this 
excellent Irish family and returned to Ballymahon, lie had 
thirty pounds in his pocket, it is to be hoped the produce of 
fairer play; and was undisputed owner of a good plump horse. 
Within a few days, so furnished and mounted, he again left 
his mother’s house (where, truth to say, things do not by this 
time seem to have been made very comfortable to liim), and 
started for Cork, with another floating vision of America. 
He returned in six weeks, with nothing in his pocket, and on 
a lean beast to which he had given the name of Mddleback. 
The nature of his reception at Ballymahon appears from the 
simple remark he is said to have made to his mother. ee And 
“ now, my dear mother, after having struggled so bard to 



“ come home to you, I wonder you are not more rejoiced to 17 > 
“ see me.” * 

He afterwards addressed a clever though somewhat cavalier 
letter to her from his brother’s house; which is open to 
the objection that no copy exists in his hand-writing, 
but which has great internal evidence of his facility, grace, 
and humour. Nor is there anything more signally worth 
remark in connection with the vagabond vicissitudes which 
these pages will have to record, than that, out of all the 
accidents which befell the man, the poverty he had to 
undergo, the companions with whom he associated, the 
sordid necessities which unavoidably conduct so often into 
miry ways, no single speck or stain ever fell on that 
enchanting beauty of style. "Wherever he might be, or with 
whatever clowns for playfellows; in the tavern, in the garret, 
or among citizens in the Sunday gardens ; when he took the 
pen in hand, he was a gentleman. Everything coarse or 
vulgar dropped from it instinctively. It reflected nothing, 
even in its descriptions of things vulgar or coarse in them¬ 
selves, but the elegance and sweetness which, whatever 
might be the accident or meanness of his external lot, 
remained pure in the last recesses of his nature. 

In substance this letter to his mother confessed that his 
intention was to have sailed for America : that he had gone 
to Cork for that purpose; converted the horse which his 
mother prized so much higher than Eiddleback into cash; 
paid for his passage in an American ship; and, the wind 
threatening to detain them some days, had taken a little 



“ mother,” lie remarks, “ that no one can starve while lie has 
“ money in his pocket: ” and, being reduced by the practice of 
this apophthegm to his last two guineas, he bought the 
generous beast, Fiddleback, for one pound seventeen, and with 
five shillings in his pocket turned homewards. Then had 
come one of those sudden appeals to a sharp and painful 
susceptibility, when, as he afterwards described them to his 
brother, charitable to excess, he forgot the rules of justice, 
and placed himself in the situation of the wretch who was 
thanking him for his bounty. Penniless in consequence, 
he bethought him of a college acquaintance on the road, to 
whose house he went. With exquisite humour he describes 
this most miserly acquaintance, who, to allay his desperate 
hunger, dilated on the advantages of a diet of slops, and set 
him down to a porringer of sour milk and a heel of musty 
cheese; and, being asked for the loan of a guinea, earnestly 
recommended the sale of Fiddleback, producing what he 
called a much better nag to ride upon which would cost 
neither price nor jirovender, in the shape of a stout oaken 
cudgel. His adventures ended a little more agreeably at 
last however, in a more genial abode, where an acquaintance 
of the miser entertained him. He had “ two sweet girls to 
“ his daughters, who played encliantingly on the harpsichord ; 
“ and yet it was but a melancholy pleasure I felt the first 
“ time I heard them ; for, that being the first time also that 
“ either of them had touched the instrument since their 
“ mother’s death, I saw the tears in silence trickle down 
“ their father’s cheeks.”* 



Law was the next thing thought of, and the good 
Mr. Contarine came forward with fifty pounds. It seems 
a small sum wherewith to travel to Dublin and London, to 
defray expenses of entrance at inns of court, and to live 
upon till a necessary number of terms are eaten. But with 
fifty pounds young Oliver started; on a luckless journey. 
A Boscommon friend laid hold of him in Dublin, seduced 
him to play, and the fifty pounds he would have raised to 
a hundred, he reduced to fifty pence. In bitter shame, 
after great physical suffering, he wrote to his uncle, con¬ 
fessed, and was forgiven. 

On return to Ballymahon, it is probable that his mother 
objected to receive him ;* since after this date we find him 
living wholly with his brother. It was but for a short time, 
however; disagreement followed there too ; and we see him 
next by Mr. Contarine’s fireside, again talking literature to 
his good-natured uncle, writing new verses to please him 
(alleged copies of which are not sufficiently authentic 
to be quoted), and joining his flute to Miss Contarine’s 
harpsichord. 

Mrs. Hodson; and it is only for the reason mentioned in the text that I do not 
quote it in detail. I have thought it right, however, to include it in the Appendix 
(B) to the present volume. 

* Mrs. Hods on’s narrative, from which these facts are derived, after remarking 
that “his own distress and disgrace may readily he conceived,” adds, “to make 
“short of the story, he was again forgiven ; ” "but Mr. Prior states the tradition of 
the neighbourhood to he, that though forgiven by liis uncle he was less roadily 
forgiven by his mother, so that he ceased to live with her, and went to his "brother 
Henry, until a quarrel, arising from some trifling cause, for a time terminated all 
intercourse between the brothers, i. 129. 



CHAPTER I 

—• 

PEEPAEING FOE A MEDIC. 

1752—1755. 

1752. The years of idleness must never 
24. To do nothing, no matter how melo< 
flute and harpsichord, is not what i 
world to do ; and it required but a 
very genial visitor to close for ever G 


Chap. iv.j PREPARING- FOR A MEDICAL 


require other than a very cursory mention 
of his arrival he is reported to have set 
round the streets, after leaving his luggag 
where he had forgotten to inquire the n 
street or the landlady, and to which he 
back by the accident of meeting the port 
his trunk from the coach.* He is also sai 
in this temporary abode, a knowledge 
culinary expedients with which three med 
be supported for a whole week on a single 
a brandered chop served up one day, a i 
chops with onion sauce a third, and so 
parts should be quite consumed, when fim 
day, a dish of broth manufactured from the 1 
and the ingenious landlady rested from b 
moreover recorded, in proof of his careles 
to money, that being in company with sev( 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH’S LIFE 


1752. 
iEt. 24. 


But first let me remark that no ti 
character or extent of his studies. It 
that any learned celebrity he may hi 
paled an ineffectual fire before his 
as inimitable teller of a humorous s 
of Irish songs* But he was really 
was remembered favourably by the c 
well known fellow-students, as Y 
wkilome college acquaintance, Lauchl 
a regard for liim, which somewhat k 
had the opportunity of showing; ce 
Sleigli, afterwards known as the emi 
name, as painter Barry’s first patron, 
of the many victims of Foote’s with 
without contradiction.be affirmed;! i 
supposed that his eighteen months’ i 
was, on the whole, not unprofitable. I 


chap, iv.j PREPARING FOR A MEDICAL 


There is another confession in a late: 
which touches him in a nearer point, an 
more than it reveals. It would seem as 
his resources, he had, for some part oi 
employment in a great man’s house: 
“ I have spent,” he says, “ more than 
“ second day at the Duke of Hamilton’s 
“ like me more as a jester than as a 
“ disdained so servile an employmeni 
whom, on equal terms, he could he he 
panion, Bryanton was charged with ev* 
hrance. “ You cannot send me much new 
“hut such as it is, send it all; everythi' 
“ agreeable to me. Has George Conway 
“ or John Bincly left off drinking dran 
c< got a new wig ? ” To the remark 
whimsical satire of the Scotch he at tl 


Et. 24. a s the one great professor, and the rest of the doctoi 
teachers as only less afflicting to their students than tlu»y 
must he to their patients. He makes whimsical mention of 
a trip to the Highlands, for which he had hired a horse 
about the size of a ram, who “ walked away (trot he could 
“ not) as pensive as his master.” Other passages have a 
tendency to show within what really narrow limits ho had 
brought his wants; with how little he was prepared to be 
cheerfully content; and that, for whatever advances were 
sent him, though certainly it might have been desirable 
that he should have turned them to more practical use, he 
at least overflowed with gratitude. 

There has been occasionally a harsh judgment of Gold¬ 
smith for this money so wasted on abortive professional 
undertakings: but the sacrifices cannot fairly bo called very 
great. Burke had an allowance of 200Z. a-year for leisure 
to follow studies to which he never paid the least attention ; 
and when his father anxiously expected to hoar of his call 
to the bar, lie might have heard, instead, of a distress which 
forced him to sell his books :* yet no one thinks, and rightly, 
of exacting penalties from Burke on this ground. Pool* 
Goldsmith’s supplies were on the other hand small, irregular, 
uncertain, and, in some two years at the furthest, exhausted 
altogether. 

L753. Here, in this letter to Ms uncle, he says that he Inis 

Et. 25 . drawn for six pounds, and that his next draft, five months 
after this date, will be for but four pounds; pleading in 
extenuation of these light demands, that he lias been obliged 


he has “ good store of clothes ” to accompany him on his 17* 
travels. Yet there was decided moderation even in the direc- 
tion sartorial; nor does the wardrobe, to which allusion was 
made a few pages back, appear to have been by any means 
extensive in the proportion of the gaiety of its colours. 

Upon the latter point our evidence is not to be gainsayed. 
What will have to be remarked of Goldsmith in this respect 
at Mr. Boswell’s or Sir Joshua’s, is already to be said of him 
in the lodging-house and lecture-room at Edinburgh; and on 
the same proof of old tailors’ bills, the very ghosts of which 
continue to flutter about and plague his memory. 

The leaf of an Edinburgh ledger of 1753 has fallen into my 
hands, from which it would appear that one of his fellow 
students, Mr. Honner, had introduced him at the beginning of 
that year to a merchant tailor with whom he dealt for sundry 
items of hose, hats, silver lace, satin, allapeen, fustian, durant, 
shalloon, cloth, and velvet; which materials of adornment 
are charged to him, from the January to the December of 
the year, in the not very immoderate sum of 9/. 11s. 2 %d. 
the first entries of which, to the amount of 31. 15s. 9f cl. were 
in November duly paid in full, and what remained at the 
year’s end carried to a folio in the same ledger, unluckily 
destroyed before it was discovered to whom the page related. 

A copy of the old leaf is given below ; * and radiant as it is, 
through all its age and dinginess, with a name bright and 
familiar since to many generations of boys and men in the 
good merchant-tailors’ city, is it not also still sparkling in 
every part with its rich sky-blue satin, its fine sky-blue 


cloth? for which the gravest reader will not unwillingly span' 
a smile before he returns with me to the letters that 
preceded student Oliver’s departure for the continent. 

In that first letter he had professed himself pleased with 
liis studies, and expressed a hope that when he shall have 
heard Munro for another year, he may go “ to hear Albums, 
“ the great professor at Leyden.” The whole of the letter 
gives evidence of a most grateful affection. In the second,* 
^ 20 . wr itten eight months later, where he describes his prepare- 


all who are in want of it has been equalled only by tlio valuo of his dmeovorioH in 
almost every department of literary research. The leaf of tlio lodgor in boro oxiuill,v 


copied. p. 888 . 

Mr. Oliver Goldsmith, Student, pr. Mu. IIonnkr. 

1753. £ s. d. 

Jaui. 24. To 2^ yds. rich Sky-Blew sattin, 12 si . , 1 1(1 0 

,, To 1$ yds. white Allapeen, 2s. ... 8 0 

j, To If yds. Do. Fustian, Is. id. . 2 4 

,, To 4 yds. Blow Durant, la. id. . . . 5 4 

,, To f yds. fine Sky-BIew Shalloon, Is. Qd. . 1 8 .[ 

Febn, 23. To 2,| yds. fine Priest’s Groy cloth, 10s. Od. 1 8 7.J 

,, To 2 yds. Black shalloon, Is. (id ... 30 

„ To a pair fine 3-tlul Black worsed lloso . .] <i 

„ To | yds. rich Ditto Genoa volvott, 22s. . . 2 0 


3 26 1)5! 

Novi 23. By Cash in full. £3 16 9 if 

,, To 1 oz. 6| drs. HilvcrIIatt-Ln.no, 8s. . . 11 

,, To 1 drs. silver chain, 6d., aud plate button, 2d. H 

,, To lacing your Hatt, (W., and a now lyning, Gd. 1 (I 

,, To a sfine small Hatt.14 0 

i! To 34 yds- test sfino high Clarott-celuur’d 

Cloth, 19s. 3 (! (i 

,, To 54 yds. sfine host Whito shall’ 1 ., 2s. . 11 (t 

,, To 4 yds. white Fustian, 1(W. . . . f, ,| 

Dcc r . ti. To a pr sfine Best BIk worsed hone . . 6 (1 




tions for travel, and, confirming his intentions as to Leyden j 
in the following winter, says that he shall pass the intervening 
months in Paris, the same feeling - is not less apparent: “Let 
“ me here acknowledge,” he says, “ the humility of the station 
“ in which you found me ; let me tell how I w T as despised by 
“most, and hateful to myself. Poverty, hopeless poverty, 

“ was my lot, and Melancholy was beginning to make me 
“ her own. When you . . . . ” This good man did not live 
to know the entire good he had done, or that his own name 
would probably live with the memory of it as long as the 
English language lasted. “ Thou best of men! ” exclaims 
his nephew in the third of these letters, to which I shall 
presently make larger reference, “ may Heaven guard and 
“ preserve you, and those you love ! ” It is the care of 
Heaven that actions worthy of itself should in the doing 
find reward, nor have to wait for it even on the thanks and 
prayers of such a heart as Goldsmith’s. Another twenty 
pounds are acknowledged on the eve of departure from 
Edinburgh, as the last he will ever draw for. It was the 
last, of which we have record. But Goldsmith had drawn 
his last breath before he forgot his uncle Contarine. 

The old vicissitudes attended him at this new move in his 
game of life. Land rats and water rats were at his heels 
as he quitted Scotland ; bailiffs hunted him for security 
given to a fellow-student,* and shipwreck he only escaped 
by a fortnight’s imprisonment on a false political charge. 
Bound for Leyden, and his purpose to interpose Paris for some 
reason or other laid aside, with characteristic carelessness 


Bourdeaux; "but, taken for a Jacobite in Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
and in Sunderland arrested by a tailor, the ship sailed on 
without him, and sank at the mouth of the Garonne . 514 These 
facts are stated on his own authority; but whether they are 
all exactly credible, or whether credit may not rather "be due 
to the suggestion that they were mere fanciful modes of 
carrying off the loss, in other ways, of money given to 
enable him to carry on studies in which it cannot now bo 
supposed that he took any great interest, I shall leave to 
the judgment of the reader. 

Certain it is that at last he got safe to the learned city ; 
and wrote off to his uncle, among other sketches of character 
obviously meant to give him pleasure, what he thought of 
the three specimens of womankind he had now seen, out of 
Ireland. “A Dutch woman and Scotch will well hear an 
“ opposition. The one is pale and fat, the other lean and 
“ ruddy: the one walks as if she were straddling after a 
“ go-cart, and the other takes too masculine a stride. I 
“ shall not endeavour to deprive either country of its share 
“ of beauty; but I must say, that of all objects on this 
“ earth, an English farmer’s daughter is most charming.” 
In the same delightful letter he observingly corrects the 
vulgar notion of the better kind of Dutchman, amusingly 
comparing him with the downright Hollander, while in 

* “I embarked from Bourdeaux onboard a Scotch ship, called th.e St. AndrowH, 
“ Captain John Wall, master. The ship made a tolerable appearance, and, aa 
‘ ‘ another inducement, I was let to know that six agreeable passengers were to bo 
“ my company. Well, we were but two days at sea, when a storm drove us into 
“ a city of England called Newcastle-upon-Tyne. We all went asbore to refresh 


equally happy vein ho contrasts Scotland mul J Tolland, i 


The playful tone of those passages, the amusing touch of 
satire, and the incomparably easy style, so compact and 
graceful, wore announcements, properly first vouchsafed to 
the delight of good Mr. Oontarine, of powers that wore one 
day to give, unfading delight to all the world.® 

Little is known of Iuh pursuits at Leyden ; hut by this 
lime ho would seem to have applied himself, with little 
affectation of disguise, to general knowledge more than to 
professional. The one was available in immediate wants; 
the otln-sr pointed to but a distant hope which those very 
wonts made, daily, more obscure j and the narrow necessities 
of self-help now crowded on him. His principal moans of 
support were as a teacher; hut the difficulties and disap¬ 
pointments of his own philosophic vagabond, whim ho went 
to Holland to teach the natives Knglish, himself knowing 
nothing of Dutch, appear to have made it a sorry calling. 
Then, it is said, ha borrowed, and again resorted to play, 
winning even largely, hut losing all ho won ; I and it is at 
least certain that he encountered every form of distress. 




remembered his fellow-student when years had made mm 
27 ■ famous, and said (much, it may be confessed, in the tone 
of ex-post-facto prophecy) that in all liis peculiarities it 
was remarked there was about him an elevation of mind, 
a philosophical tone and manner, and the language and 
information of a scholar.* Being much in want of the; 
philosophy, it is well that his friends should have given him 
credit for it; though his last known scene in Leyden 
showed greatly less of the philosophic mind than of the 
gentle, grateful heart. Bent upon leaving that city, whore 
he had now been nearly a year without an effort for ^degree, 
he called upon Ellis, and asked his assistance in some 
trifling sum. It was given; hut, as his evil, or (some might 
say) his good genius would have it, he passed a florist’s 
garden on his return, and seeing some rare and high-priced 
flowers which his uncle Contarine, an enthusiast in such 
tilings, had often spoken and been in search of, he ran in 
without other thought than of immediate pleasure to his 
kindest friend, bought a parcel of the roots, and sent them 
off to Ireland. ! He left Leyden next day, with a guinea in 
his pocket, one shirt to his hack, and a flute in liis hand. 


Prior, i. 170, 


+ Percy Memoir, 33, 34. 


CHAPTER Y. 


—♦— 

TRAVELS. 

1755—1756. 

To understand, what was probably passing in Goldsmith’s 
mind at the curious point of his fortunes when, without any 
settled prospect in life, and devoid even of all apparent 
means of self-support, he quitted Leyden, the Inquiry into 
the Present State of Polite Learning, the first literary piece 
which a few years afterwards he published on his own 
account, will in some degree serve as a guide. The Danish 
writer, Baron de Holberg, was much talked of at this time, 
as a celebrated person recently dead. His career impressed 
Goldsmith. It was that of a man of obscure origin, to 
whom literature, other sources having failed, had given great 
fame and high worldly station. On the death of his father, 
Holberg had found himself involved “in all that distress 
“ which is common among the poor, and of which the great 
“ have scarcely any idea.” But, persisting in a determina- 


xug *.icoju.c tuu vjx ca.ucjjls.lv y > - - - ***>•> wauucjl 

Ilandcock, had been always a kind of passion witlx 
“ Being of a philosophical turn,” fc> a yw his later ass^^ tl ^' 
and friend, Doctor Glover, “ and at that time possessing a 
“ body capable of sustaining every fatigue, and a heart not 
“ easily terrified at danger, this ingenious, unfortunate man 
“ became an enthusiast to the design he had formed of 
“ seeing the manners of different countries.” * A-iid au 
enthusiast to the same design, with precisely the same nicimH 
of indulging it, Holberg had also been. “ His ambition.” 1 
turn again to the Polite Learning, “ was not to be restrained, 
“ or his thirst of knowledge satisfied, until he had seen the 
“ world. Without money, recommendations, or frienclH, he 
“ undertook to set out upon his travels, and make tire tour 
“ of Europe on foot. A good voice, and a trifling slcill in 
“ music, were the only finances he lxad to support an xxxider- 
“ toldng so extensive ; so he travelled by day, and at night 
“ sung at the doors of peasants’ Houses to get himself ti 
“ lodging. In this manner, while yet very young, Ilolhorg 
“ passed through France, Germany, and Holland.” •{• "With 
exactly the same resources, still also very young, Goldsmith 
quitted Leyden, bent upon the travel which his jTrciveller 
has made immortal. 

It was in February, 1755. For the exact route lie took, 
the nature of his adventures, and tlio course of thought they 
suggested, it is necessary to resort for tlio most part to his 
published writings. His letters of the time have perished. 


Malono’fi edition of the Poems (1777), p. iii. And uuo tlio Annual 'Register\ xvti. 


It was common talk at the dinner table of Keynolds that the 
wanderings of the philosophic vagabond in the Vicar of 
Wakefield had been suggested by his own, and he often 
admitted at that time, to various friends, the accuracy of 
special details. “ He frequently used to talk,” says one * 
who became very familiar with him in later life, “ of his 
“ distresses on the continent, such as living on the hospi¬ 
talities of the friars in convents, sleeping in bams, and' 
“ picking up a kind of mendicant livelihood by the German 
“ flute, with great pleasantry.” t If he did not make more 
open confession than to private friends, it was to please the 
booksellers only; who could not bear that any one so popular 
with their customers as Doctor Goldsmith had become, 
should he under the horrible imputation of a poverty so 
deplorable. “Countries wear very different appearances,” 
he had written in the first edition of the Polite Learning , 
“ to travellers of different circumstances. A man who 
“ is whirled through Europe in a post-chaise, and the 
“ pilgrim who walks the grand tour on foot, will form very 
“ different conclusions. Haud inexpertus loquor.” In the 
second edition, the haud inexpertus loquor disappeared ; but 
the experience had been already set down in the Vicar of 
Wakefield. 

Louvain attracted him of course, as he passed through 
Flanders ; and here, according to his first biographer,! he took 
the degree of medical bachelor, which, as early as 1708, is 

* This was a young Irish law student named Cooke, who had chambers near 
him in the Temple, who will have frequent mention in the course of my narrative, 




in tin 1 revolutionary warn, and the means of proof or ili^j*> «*».! 
lost; Imt it is improbable that any false asHUinpti*'** •** a 
medical degree would have passed without quest h»*t mnong 
the distinguished friends of his later life, even if it oMns|*rd 
tin* exposure of his active enemies. Certain it i«, »* ttl8 , v 
rah*, that la* math* some stay at Louvain, became 
with its professors, and informed himself of its itn»dr» »>f 
study. " I always forgot tho imuinu'HH of my {'irouiiiftt«firr«t 
“ when I could converse upon Hindi subjects," tilth* 

time he also scrum to have passed at Brussels. ()f bin having 
examinrd at Maastricht an extrusive cavern, or nUmi* *pt»*rr> » 
at that time much visited hy travellers, then? in likewise 
trace. It must undoubtedly have been at Antwerp in 48 lorli 
“ fieutiun in Handers*'} lhat he saw the maimed, dt*f'«*rm« d. 
chained, yet- eheerlul slave, to whom he re fern tst tint 
charming essay wherein he argues that imppiliosn and 
pluiisure are in ourselves, and not in the objects* «>tT«*ie*i i-o 
our amusement.® Ami he afterwards remembered, mtd mist 
it the Hidijeet o{ a striking allusion, how, as lie apprernrhed tfim 
e.imst of 1 (ollaud, lie h >okcd down upon it from tin* deck, 
into a valley; ho that it seemed to him at once it «**»*»» ptr^t 
from this sea, and in a manner rescued from its bonom.? f| r 
did not travel to are that all was barren ; he did ti«»t tiirrrk 
outface the poverty, the hardship, and fatigue, hut mmt«> thnu 
his servants, and ministers to entertainment and wLuhme 
Before he passed through Flanders good urn? Itn*| |»rr« 
nmde of Isis llute ; and when he came to the poorer pr<Mvmrr:» 


Ciiaf. V.J 


TRAVELS. 


“ voice; I now turned what was once my amusement into ^ 
“ a present means of subsistence. I passed among the 
“ harmless peasants of Flanders, and among such of the 
“ French as were poor enough to be very merry ; for I ever 
“ found them sprightly in proportion to their wants. When- 
“ ever I approached a peasant’s house towards night-fall, I 
“ played one of my most merry tunes, and that procured me 
“ not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next day. I 
“ once or twice attempted to play for people of fashion ; but 
“ they always thought my performance odious, and never 
“ rewarded me even with a trifle.” In plain words, he 
begged, as Holberg had done; supported by his cheerful 
spirit, and the thought that Holberg’s better fate might one 
day yet be his. Not, we may be sure, the dull round of 
professional labour, but intellectual distinction, popular fame, 
were now within the sphere of Goldsmith’s vision; and what 
these will enable a man joyfully to endure, he afterwards 
bore witness to. “ The perspective of life brightens upon 
“ us when terminated by objects so charming. Every inter - 
“ mediate image of want, banishment, or sorrow, receives a 
“ lustre from their distant influence. With these in view, 

“ the patriot, philosopher, and poet, have looked with cahn- 
“ ness on disgrace and famine, and rested on their straw 
“ with cheerful serenity.” Straw, doubtless, was his own 
peasant-lodging often; but from it the wanderer arose, 
refreshed and honeful, and bade the melody and snort 



Where shading elms along the mai'gin grew. 

And, freshen’d from the wave, the zephyr flow ! 

And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still, 

But mock’d all tune, and marr’d the dancer’s skill— 

Yet would the village praise my wondrous power 1 , 

And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide hour. 

Alike all ages : dames of ancient days 

Have led their children through the mirthful maze ; 

And tlio gay grandsire, skill’d iu gestic loro, 

Has frisk’d beneath the burden of threescore. 

So hless’d a life these thoughtless realms display ; 

Thus idly busy rolls their world away. 

Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endeai’, 

Bor honour forms the social temper hero: 

Honour, that praise which real merit gains, 

Or e’en imaginary worth obtains, 

Here passes current—paid from hand to hand, 

It shifts, in splendid traffic, round the land ; 

From courts to camps, to cottages it strays, 

And all aro taught an avarice of praiso— 

They please, are pleas’d, they give to got esteem, 

Till, seeming hless’d, they grow to what they seem. 

Arrived in Paris, lie rested some brief space, and, for 
the time, a sensible improvement is to be observed in his 
resources. Tins is not easily explained ; for, as will appear 
a little later in our history, many applications to Ireland of 
this date remained altogether without answer, and a sad 
fate had fallen suddenly on his best friend. But in hu1>» 
sequent communication with his brother-in-law Hudson, lie 
remarked, with that strange indifference to what was implied 
in such obligations which is not the agreeable side of his 
character, that there was hardly a kingdom in Europe in 


least some small portion of these travels he acted as com¬ 
panion to a young man of large fortune (nephew to a 
pawnbroker, and articled-clerk to an attorney) ;* and there 
are passages in the philosophic vagabond’s adventures, 
which, if they did not themselves suggest the assertion 
(as they certainly supply the language) of those first 
biographers, would tend to bear it out. “ I was to be the 
“ young gentleman’s governor, with a proviso that he should 
“ always be permitted to govern himself. He was heir to a 
“ fortune of two hundred thousand pounds, left him by an 
“ uncle in the West Indies; and all his questions on the 
“road were, how much money could be saved. Such 
“ curiosities as could be seen for nothing, he was ready 
“ enough to look at ; but if the sight of them was to be 
“ paid for, he usually asserted that he had been told they 
“ were not worth seeing ; and he never paid a bill that he 
“ would not observe how amazingly expensive travelling 
“ was.” 

Poor Goldsmith could not have profited much by so 
thrifty a young gentleman, but he certainly seems to have 
been present, whether as a student or a mere visitor, at the 
fashionable chemical lectures of the day (“ I have seen as 
“ bright a circle of beauty at the chemical lectures of 
“Bouelle as gracing the court at Versailles ”) ;t to have 
seen and admired the celebrated actress Mademoiselle 


* Annual Register, xvii. 30. Percy Memoir, 35, 36. I may here remark that, 
some thirty years after Goldsmith’s death, tire Annual Register printed what 
purported to be “a letter of the late Doctor Goldsmith, when about twenty-five 
“years old, to a young gentleman, whom he had fora short time instructed in 


OliUlOll \Oi WXiOUI Il<3 ILL OOJL eootvyj ? tu lu. tu iiyiVc; JJ-ctu. 

leisure to look quietly around him, and form certain grave 
and settled conclusions on tlie political and social state of 
France. He says, in liis Animated Nature, that lie never 
walked about the environs of Paris that he did not look 
upon the immense quantity of game running almost tame 
on every side of him, as a badge of the slavery of the people. 
What they wished him to observe as an object of triumph, 
he added, he regarded with a secret dread and compassion. 
Nor was it the badge of slavery that had alone arrested his 
attention. If on every side he saw this, he saw liberty at 
but a little distance beyond ; and more than ten years before 
the Animated Nature was written, he had predicted, in words 
that are really very remarkable, the issue which was so 
terrible and yet so glorious : “ As the Swedes are making 
“ concealed approaches to despotism, the French, on the 
“ other hand, are imperceptibly vindicating themselves into 
“ freedom. When I consider that those parliaments (the 
“members of which are all created by the court, the 
“ presidents of which can only act by immediate direction) 
“ presume even to mention privileges and freedom, who, till 
“ of late, received directions from the throne with implicit 
“ humility; when this is considered, I cannot help fancying 
“ that the genius of freedom has entered that kingdom in 
“ disguise. If they have but three weak monarchs more 
“ successively on the throne, the mask will be laid aside, 
“ and the country will certainly once more be free.”! Some 


At the close of the second, number of the Bee. 


xsastiile resounded over JtLurope. 

Before Goldsmith quitted Paris, he is said by his bio¬ 
graphers to have been seen and become known to Voltaire * 
But at Paris this could not have been. The great wit was 
then self-exiled from the capital, which he had not seen 
from the luckless hour in which he accepted the invitation of 


varieties of men, not only placed him in advance of his contemporaries on several 
social questions, but occasionally gave Mm very much the advantage over greatly more 
learned, and, so to speak, educated men. Thus it was, in short, he became a Citizen 
of the World ; and the passage in the text may be taken for proof that he never could 
have used the shallow argument maintained by Johnson in his dispute with Sir 
Adam Ferguson : “Sir, I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of 
“government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an 
“individual. Sir, the danger of the abuse of power is nothing to a private man. 
“ What Frenchman is prevented from passing his life as lie pleases ? Sin Adam : 
‘ ‘ But, Sir, in the British constitution it is surely of importance to keep up a spirit 
“in the people, so as to preserve a balance against the crown. Johnson : Sir, I 
“perceive you are a vile whig. Why all tMs childish jealousy of the power of the 
“crown? The crown has not power enough.” Boswell, iii. 202-3. This was 
in 1772 ; and in 1789 the Bastille came down. 

* Prior, i. 181. Since my first edition was published, an octogenarian of Cork, 
the late Mr. Eoche, who had talked with Gibbon in Switzerland and narrowly 
missed having talked with Montesquieu ; who refers to Ms friend Yergniaud and 
details his impression of Mirabeau’s speech on national bankruptcy, who paid once 
for Ms dinner at a Paris chop-house 14000 francs (in assignats), and in company 
with Malesherbes had the honour to be put into prison by Eobespierre,—has made 
much, in a book of published anecdotes, of his supposed detection of this error ; 
Mr. Irving having repeated it in the interval, and Lord Brougham having also given 
currency to it in a Life of Voltawe. I learn tMs from a notice in the Globe news¬ 
paper of a few months back. “Take for instance,” says the writer, enlarging on the 
cleverness of his octogenarian friend, “Brougham, Washington living, Mr. Prior, 
‘ ‘ and Oliver Goldsmith, all of whom are convicted of a gross conspiracy to circulate 
“a fraud of which honest Noll was the original fabricator, the others having 
‘ ‘ only endorsed the forgery. Goldsmith could not by chance have conversed willi 
“Voltaire in Paris during the year 1754, as he impudently says he did, for the 
‘ £ simple reason that Voltaire quitted Paris in 17 50, and never set foot in the capital 
“till eighteen years afterwards, in 1778. The two lives by Irving and Prior still 
“hold this falsehood, but ”—and the writer goes on to say that I appear not only 
to have entertained some suspicion of it, but to have doubted the veracity of my 





wi VM.VfcWJU4JlUJU, © YV XJL aUUlXUXAUJ j UlUl LJUU im •*> 

written, does not appear in a work which boro the writer h 
name, and may either have been tampered with by others, 
or even mistakenly set down by himself in confusion of 
memory. Tlic error does not vitiate the statement in an 
integral point, since it can hardly be doubted, I think, that 
the meeting actually took place. The time when Goldsmith 
passed through the Genevese territory, is tilt* time when 
Voltaire had settled himself, in greater quiet than lit! had 
known for years, in his newly-purchased house, of Lvh Jhdicrtt, 
Ins first residence in Geneva, lie is, in a certain Hurt, 
admitted president of the European intellectual republic ; 
and, from his president’s chair, is laughing at his own 
follies, laughing heartily at the kings of his acquaintance, 
particularly and loudly laughing at Frederick and bin 
“ OHuvres des Poexhics.” It is the time of all others when, 
according to his own letters, he is resolved to have, on every 
occasion and in every shape, " the society of agreeable and 
“ clever people.”* Goldsmith, flute in hand, or Goldsmith, 
learned and poor companion to a rich young fool, - 
Goldsmith, in whatever character, yearning to literature, 
its fame, and its awe-inspiring professors,-—would not find 
himself near Les Dtticca without finding also easy passage to 
its illustrious owner. By whatever chance or design, there at 
any rate ho seems to have been. A large party was present, 
and conversation turned upon the English; of whom, an 
he afterwards observed in a letter to the Public Udtw\ 
Goldsmith recollected Voltaire to have remarked, that at 

th R hn.tt.le nf TV HfinnYm +1 imr av! nl .. .. f 4 ..... 


but lessened their well-bought conquest by lessening the 
merit of those they had conquered. 

In a Life of Voltaire afterwards begun, but not finished, 
in one of the magazines of the day, he recalled this conver¬ 
sation in greater detail, to illustrate the general manner of 
the famous Frenchman. " When he was warmed in 
“ discourse, and had got over a hesitating manner which 
“ sometimes he was subject to, it was rapture to hear him. 
£c His meagre visage seemed insensibly to gather beauty, 
“ every muscle in it had meaning, and his eye beamed with 
“ unusual brightness.” Among the persons alleged to be 
present, though this might be open to question if anything 
of great strictness were involved, the names are used of the 
vivid and noble talker, Diderot, and of Fontenelle, then on 
the verge of the grave that waited for him nigh a hundred 
years. The last, Goldsmith says, reviled the English in 
everything; the first, with unequal ability, defended them; 
and, to the surprise of all, Voltaire long continued silent. 
At last he was roused from his reverie; a new life 
pervaded his frame; he flung himself into an animated 
defence of England; strokes of the finest raillery fell thick 
and fast on his antagonist; and he spoke almost without 
intermission for three hours. “ I never was so much 
“ charmed,” he added; “ nor did I ever remember so 
“ absolute a victory as he gained in this dispute.”* 

Here Goldsmith was a worshipper at the footstool, and 
Voltaire was on the throne; yet it is possible that when 
the great Frenchman heard in later years the name of the 



'55- zeal, the pale, somewhat sad face, with, its two great wrinkles 
• 27. between the eyebrows, hut redeemed from ugliness or 
contempt by its kind expression of simplicity, as his own 
was by its wonderful intellect and look of unutterable 
mockery. For though, when they met, Voltaire waS upwards 
of sixty-one, and Goldsmith not twenty-seven, it happened 
that when (in 1778) the Frenchman’s popularity returned, 
and all the fashion and intellect of Paris were again at the 
feet of the philosopher of Ferney; the Johnsons, Burkes, 
Gibbons, Wartons, Sheridans, and Beynoldses of England 
were discussing the inscription for the marble tomb of the 
author of the Vicar of Wakefield. 

The lecture rooms of Germany are so often referred to 
in his prose writings, that, as he passed to Switzerland, ho 
must have taken them in his way. In the Polite Learning ,* 
one is painted admirably: its Nego, Probo, and Distingue, 
growing gradually loud till denial, approval, and distinction 
are altogether lost; till disputants grow warm, moderator is 
unheard, audience take part in the debate, and the whole 
hall buzzes with false philosophy, sophistry, and error. 
Passing into Switzerland, he saw Scliaffhausen frozen quite 
across, and the water standing in columns where the 
cataract had formerly fallen. His Animated Nature , in 
which this is noticed, contains also masterly descriptions, 
from his own experience, of the wonders that present 
themselves to the traveller over lofty mountains; and lie 
adds that “ nothing can be finer or more exact than 
“Mr. Pope’s description of a traveller straining up the 











pathos, which invests the lines with a eluinn so 
^t.27. imparted to more descriptive verse. 


My soul, turn from them, turn we to Hiirvoy 
'Where rougher climes a nobler race display— 

Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansions treat!, 
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread. 

No product here, the barren bills afford, 

■But man and steel, tlio soldier and his sword ; 

No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array, 

But winter lingering chills the lap of May ; 

No zephyr fondly sues the mountain’s breast, 

■But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest. 

Yet still, oven hero, content can spread a charm. 
Bedrests the clime, and all its rage disarm. 

Though poor the peasant’s hut, his feasts though small, 
lie sees his little lot the lot of all; 

Bees no contiguous palace roar its head 
To shame the meanness of his humble shod— 

No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal 
To make him loathe his vegetable meal— 

But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil, 

Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil. 

Cheerful at morn, ho wakes from short reposes, 

Breasts the lcoon air and carols as ho goes ; * 

With patient angle trolls the finny deep ; 

Or drives his venturous plough-share to the steep ; 

Or seeks tilts den where snow-tracks mark the way. 

And drags the struggling savage into day. 

At night returning, every labour sped, 

He sits him down the monarch of a shod ; 

Smiles by his choerful fire, and round surveys 
His children’s looks that brighten at the blaze— 


nuvly 


* ft Mivf.1i rtrfifvtAn t \f -flm !,„1.^..1 


While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard, 

Displays her cleanly platter on the board: 

And haply too some pilgrim, thither led, 

With many a tale repays the nightly bed. 

Thus every good his native wilds impart, 

Imprints the patriot passion on his heart; 

And e’en those hills, that round his mansion rise, 

Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies : 

Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, 

And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms ; 

And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, 

Clings close and closer to the mother’s breast— 

So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind’s roar, 

But bind him to his native mountains more. 

Such, was the education of thought and heart now taking 
the place of a more learned discipline in the truant wanderer; 
such the wider range of sympathies and enjoyment opening 
out upon his view; such the larger knowledge that awakened 
in him, as the subtle perceptions of genius arose. More than 
ever was he here, in the practical paths of life, a loiterer 
and laggard; yet as he passed from place to place, finding 
for his foot no solid resting-ground, no spot of all the world 
that he might hope to call his own, there was yet sinking deep 
into the heart of the homeless vagrant that power and 
possession to which all else on earth subserves and is 
obedient, and which out of the very abyss of poverty and 
want gave him a right and title over all. 

For me your tributary stores combine ; 

Creation’s heir, the world, the world is mine ! 

Descending into Piedmont he observed the floating bee- 



“ floating bee-house yields tlie proprietor a eonsmonuue 
“ income. Why a method similar to this 1 uih never l>een 
“ adopted in England, where wo have more gentle rivers, 
“ and more flowery banks, than any other part of tin* world, 
“ I know not.” After this, proofs of his having seen Florence, 
Verona, Mantua, and Milan, are apparent ; and in C'nrintiiia 
the incident occurred with which his famous couplet 
has too hastily reproached a people, when, sinking with 
fatigue, after a long day’s toilsome walk, he was turned from 
a peasant’s hut at which lie implored a lodging. At Padua 
he is supposed to have stayed some little time; and here, it 
has been asserted, though in this ease also tin? oflirml 
records aro lost, he received his degree. Here, or at 1 amvain, 
or at some other of these foreign universities where he always 
boasted himself hero in the disputations to which his philo¬ 
sophic vagabond refers, there can hardly bo a question that 
the degree, a very simple and accessible matter at any of 
thorn; was actually conferred. “Bir,” said Boswell to 
Johnson, “he disputed his passage through Europe.”® Of 
Ids having also taken a somewhat close survey of those count¬ 
less academic institutions of Italy, in tins midst of which 
Italian learning at this time withered, evidence is not 
wanting; and he always thoroughly discriminated the 
character of that country and its people. 

But small the bliss that sense alone bestow*, 

And sensual bliss is all the nation known ; 

1 n florid beauty groves and fields appear— 

Man seems the only growth that dwindles here ! 


Contrasted faults through all his manners reign : 

Though poor, luxurious ; though submissive, vain ; 

Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue— 

And even in penance planning sins anew. 

It is a hard struggle to return to England ; but his steps 
are now bent that way. “My skill in music,” says the 
philosophic vagabond, whose account there will be little 
danger in accepting as at least some certain reflection of the 
truth, “ could avail me nothing in Italy, where every peasant 
“ was a better musician than I: but by this time I had 
“ acquired another talent which answered my purpose as 
“ well, and this was a skill in disputation. In all the foreign 
“universities and convents there are, upon certain days, 
“ philosophical theses maintained against every adventitious 
“ disputant; for which, if the champion opposes with any 
“ dexterity, he can claim a gratuity in money, a dinner, and 
“ a bed for one night. In this manner, then, I fought my 
“ way towards England; walked along from city to city; 
“ examined mankind more nearly; and, if I may so express 
“ it, saw both sides of the picture.” 



CHAPTER VL 


PRUICIIAM SCHOOL AND GRUB HTllKKT. 

175(1—17/57. 

It was on the 1st of Jfcbruary, lTHO, that Oliver Goldsmith 
stopped upon the shore at Dover, and stood again among his 
countrymen. 

RCorn o’er each bosom reason holds lu*.r state, 

With daring aims irregularly groat. 

Prides in tlusiv port, defiance in their eye, 

I koo the lords of human kind pawn hy, 

Intent on high designs... 

The comfort of seeing it must have boon about all the 
comfort to him. At thin moment, there in little doubt, he 
bad not a single farthing in bis pocket; mid from the lords 
of human kind, intent on looking in any direction but bin, it 
was much more diHieult to got one than from the careless good- 
humoured peasants of Ifranec or JflanderH. In the struggle 
of ton clays or a fortnight which it took him to get to London, 
there is reason to suspect that ho attempted a“ low comedy" 
performance in a country barn: and, at one of the towns 



Chap. VI.J 


PECKHAM SCHOOL AND GRUB STREET. 


friend or acquaintance, without the knowledge or comfort 175 
of even one kind face, in the lonely, terrible, London 
streets. 

He thought he might find employment as an usher; and 
there is a dark uncertain kind of story, of his getting a 
bare subsistence in this way for some few months, under a 
feigned name : which had involved him in a worse distress 
but for the judicious silence'of the Dublin Doctor (Radcliff), 
fellow of the college and joint-tutor with Wilder, to whom he 
had been suddenly required to apply for a character, and 
whose good-humoured acquiescence in his private appeal 
saved him from suspicion of imposture. Goldsmith showed 
his gratitude by a long, and, it is said, a most delightful 
letter to Radcliff, descriptive of his travels; now unhappily 
destroyed.* He also •wrote again to his more familiar Irish 

the writer rejoined (St. James' Chronicle, April 12, 14, 1774), “We never said 
‘ ‘ that he set up in Ireland. The country town alluded to is an English town, the 
‘ ‘ name of which is forgotten. But the '"writer of this and the former paragraph 
“assures the public that he had the anecdote from the Doctor’s own mouth.” 

Mr. Prior has quoted this, i. 201. 

* Percy’s friend, Campbell (in his Survey of the South of Ireland, 286-9), gives 
an account of this incident from the recollections of RadclifPs widow, hut in ante¬ 
dating it before his foreign travel makes an evident mistake, which is silently 
corrected in the Percy Memoir, 37, where reference is made to Campbell’s book. 

I now quote the latter : “ Upon his first going to England, he was in sucludistress, 

‘ ‘ that he would gladly have become an usher to a country school; but so destitute 
“was he of friends to recommend him, that he could not without difficulty obtain 
“even this low department. The master of the school scrupled to employ him 
“without some testimonial of his past life. Goldsmith referred him to his tutor 
“ at college for a character ; but all this while he went under a feigned name. 


spread plaisters for them, pound in their mortars, run with 
their medicines: hut they, too, asked him for a character, 
and he had none to give.* At last a chemist of the name of 
Jacob took compassion upon him, and the late Conversation 
Sharp used to point out a shop at the corner of Monument 
Yard on Fish Street Hill, shown to him in his youth as this 
benevolent Mr. Jacob’s. Some dozen years later, Goldsmith 
startled a brilliant circle at Bennet Langton’s or Sir Joshua’s 
with an anecdote of “ When I lived among the beggars in 
“ Axe Lane,” t just as Napoleon, fifty years later, appalled 
the party of crowned heads at Dresden with his story of 
“When I was lieutenant in the regiment of La Fere.” The 
experience with the beggars will of course date before that 
social elevation of mixing and selling drugs on Fish Street 
Hill. For doubtless the latter brought him into the comfort 
and good society on which fie afterwards dwelt with such 
unction, in describing the elegant little lodging at three shil¬ 
lings a week, with its lukewarm dinner served up between 

1757. two jDewter plates from a cook’s-shop. 

Et. 29. Thus employed among the drugs, he heard one day that 


“ dilemma, and suffered to drag on a miserable life for a few probationary montts. ’ ! 
Campbell goes on to state that tbe promised letter of thanks to Radcliff ‘ ‘ contained a 
' ‘ comical narrative of bis adventures from leaving Ireland to that time. His musical 
“talents had procured him a welcome reception wherever he went. My authority 
“says, that her husband admired this letter more than any part of his works.” 

* “ His threadbare coat, his uncouth figure, and Hibernian dialect, caused him 
“ to meet with repeated refusals.” Percy Memoir, 38. 

t “ George Langton told me that he was present one day ” [it could not have 
been George, but no doubt was Bennet] “when Goldsmith (Dr. Oliver), in a 
“ circle of good company, began with, ‘When I lived among the beggars in Axe 
“ ‘Lane,’- Every one present was well acquainted with the varied habits of 


wait, oi course, lor ms omy u outlay; mu. uoiwnusiautung 
it wan Sunday,” hi 1 Haiti, nrti'rwai'dH relating the anecdote, 
“ and it in to be supposed I was iu my beat clothes, Sleigh 
" did not know mo, Such is tho tax the unfortunate pay to 
“ poverty." lit' did not fail to leave to the unfortunate the 
lessons (hoy Hhould bt' taught by it. Uoetov Sleigh (b'outo H 
Ihirlnr honourably named in an enrlit*r page of thin 

narrative) recollected at last bin friend of two years gone ; 
anti when he tlitl ho, added Goldmnith, “ l found Ida heart 
“an warm an over, and he shared Ida pur«e and friendship 
“ with mo during hi« oimtinuanoo in London/”® With 
the help of thin warm heart anti friendly purse, seconded 
hIho by the good apotheeary >1 aeoh (" tv ho,” say*, (’ooke, 
“ huw in Goldsmith talents above his condition"!. In- non 
“ rose from the apotheeary'» drudge to he u pity mian in a 
“ humble way,” in Lanks'ide, Southwark, t It wan m<t a 
thriving buHiiieMH : poor physician to the punt* : hut it seemed 
a ('luuige for tin* better, and hope wan strung in him. 

An oltl Irish aetpmiutimee and school-fellow (llcnttvi met 
him at thin time in the streets. He wan in a anil of green 
and gold, miserably old and tarnished; bin shirt and neckcloth 
appeared to have boon worn at least a fortnight; hut he said 
lie wan practising physic, and doing very well ! | It is hard n, 
confess failure to olie’M Hrliuol-fellow. 

(hir next glitupsi', though imt more aulmfurtoty, m more 
professional. The green ami gold have faded guile out, into 
a rusty lull-trimmed black suit : the pockets oi which, like 
those of the poets in innumerable farces, ouuilow w ith pnpcrit. 


The coat is second-hand velvet, cast-off legacy of a more 
29 • successful brother of the craft; the cane, the wig, have nerved 
more fortunate owners; and the. humble practitioner of 
Bankable is feeling the pulse of a patient humbler than him¬ 
self, whose courteous entreaties to he allowed to relievo him 
of the hat ho keeps pressed over his heart, ho more 
courteously but firmly declines. Beneath the hat is n large 
patch in the rusty velvet, which he thus conceals. 

But he camiot conceal the starvation which is again 
impending. Even tho pour printer’s workman he attends, 
can see how hardly in that respect it goes with him ; and 
finds courage one day to suggest that his master has been 
kind to clever men before now, has visited Mr. .fohuHtm in 
spunging-honses, and might be serviceable to a poor 
physician. For his master is no less than Mr, Samuel 
Bichardson, of Salisbury Court and Parson's Green, printer, 
and author of Glarinm. The hint is successful; and Gold¬ 
smith, appointed reader and corrector to tin? press * in 
Salisbury Court—admitted now and then even to the* parlour 
of Richardson himself, and there grimly smiled upon by its 
chief literary ornament, great poet of tin? day, the author of 
the Nii/ld Thi>ii!/htH,i~-HVVH hope in literature once more. 
He begins a tragedy. ‘With what modest expectation, with 
what cheerful, simple-hearti 1 d deference to critical objection, 
another of his Edinburgh fellow-students, Doctor Farr, will 
relate to us. 

liuHwoll b enumeration of tho onii'liiymontw of IiIh mivt'mty is strictly 
“ an far an it koos. As I 01 eo tilm im 1.. __ . 


“ From the time of Goldsmith’s leaving Edinburgh, in the year 1754 
“ I never saw him till 1756, when I was in London, attending the 
“ hospitals and lectures ; early in January” [1756 is an evident mistake 
for 1757] “ he called upon me one morning before I was up, and on my 
“ entering the room, I recognised my old acquaintance, dressed in a 
“ rusty full-trimmed black suit, with his pockets full of papers, which 
“ instantly reminded me of the poet in Garrick’s farce of Lethe. 
“ After we had finished our breakfast, he drew from his pocket a part 
“ of a tragedy; which he said he had brought for my correction ; 
“ in vain I pleaded inability, when he began to read, and every part 
“ on which I expressed a doubt as to the propriety, was immediately 
“ blotted out. I then more earnestly pressed him not to trust to my 
“judgment, but to the opinion of persons better qualified to decide on 
“ dramatic compositions, on which he told me he had submitted his 
“ production, so far as he had written, to Mr. Eichardson, the author of 
“ Clarissa, on which I peremptorily declined offering another criticism 
“ on the performance. The name and subject of the tragedy have 
“ unfortunately escaped my memory, neither do I recollect with exact- 
“ ness how much he had written, though I am inclined to believe that 
“ he had not completed the third act; I never heard whether he after- 
“ wards finished it. In this visit I remember his relating a strange 
“ Quixotic scheme he had in contemplation of going to decipher the 
“ inscriptions on the written mountains * though he was altogether 
“ ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which they might be supposed 
“ to be written. The salary of £300 per annum, which had been left 
“ for the purpose, was the temptation ! ”t 

Temptation indeed! The head may well be full of projects 
of any kind, when the pockets are only full of papers. But 
not, alas, to decipher inscriptions on the written mountains, 
only to preside over pot-hooks at Peckham, was doomed to 
be the lot of Goldsmith. One Doctor Milner, known still as 
the author of Latin and Greek grammars useful in their day, 





kept a school there; his son* was among tnese young J-aim- 
burgh fellow-students with Oliver, come up, like Farr, Sleigh, 
and others, to their London examinations; and thus it 
happened that the office of assistant at the Peckham 
academy befell. “All my ambition now is to live,” he may 
well be supposed to have said, in the words he afterwards 
placed in the mouth of young Primrose. He seems to have 
been installed at nearly the beginning of 1757. An attempt 
has been made to show that it was an earlier year, but on 
grounds too unsafe to oppose to known dates in his life. The 
good people of Peckham have also cherished traditions of 
Goldsmith House , as what was once the school is now fondly 
designated; which may not safely be admitted here. Broken 
window-panes have been religiously kept, for the supposed 
treasure of his hand-writing;! and old gentlemen, once 
Doctor Milner’s scholars, have claimed, against eveiy reason¬ 
able evidence, the honour of having been whipped by the 
author of the Vicar of Wakefield. But nothing is with 
certainty known, save what a daughter of the school-master 
has related. 

At the end of the century Miss Hester Milner, “ an 
“ intelligent lady, the youngest, and only remaining of 
“ Doctor Milner’s ten daughters,” was still alive, and very 
willing to tell what she recollected of their old usher. An 
answer he had given herself one day to a question which, as 
it interested her youth, had happily not ceased to occupy 
and interest her old age, seemed to have retained all the 
strong impression which it first made upon her. Her 

-fflt.TlPV hpinor O WPsWorian rlitri-n« oVm 



hear many arguments and differences in doctrine or 17 
dogma discussed; and, in connection with, these, it seems to 2Et. 
have occurred to her one day to ask Mr. Goldsmith what 
particular commentator on the Scriptures he would recom¬ 
mend ; when, after a pause, the usher replied, with much 
earnestness, that in his belief common-sense was the best 
interpreter of the sacred writings.* 

What other reminiscences she indulged took a lighter and 
indeed humourous tone. He was very good-natured, she 
said; played all lands of tricks on the servants and the 
boys, of which he had no lack of return in kind; told 
entertaining stories; “ was remarkably cheerful, both in the 
“family and with the young gentlemen of the school; ” and 
amused everybody with his flute. Two of his practical 
jokes on Doctor Milner’s servant, or footboy, were thought 
worth putting in a notebook by the worthy gentleman,! a 
neighbour of Miss Milner’s at Islington, to whom she related 
them. Thinking that they somewhat pleasantly illustrated 
the “ humour and cheerfulness of Goldsmith,” he was careful, 
after “receiving them from Miss Milner on drinking tea 
“ with her,” to write them down immediately on his return 
liome. And as even biography has its critics jealous for its 
due and proper dignity, the present writer had perhaps better 
anticipate a possible objection to these and other anecdotes 
which in this narrative will first be read, by pleading also 
the apology of Miss Milner’s friend, that “ however trivial 
“ they may be, there are some young persons to whom they 
“ may prove acceptable.” 


neighbourhood had inspired him. This youthful Phillis 
seems to have rather suddenly quitted service and g*<m* hark 
to her homo in Yorkshire, leaving behind her n sort of half' 
promiso that she would some day send William a letter ; 
which overjdsody hut William of course knew was only her 
good-natured way of getting rid of importunity : he, however, 
having a fixed persuasion that the letter would eome, every 
morning would watch the postman an he passed, and became 
at last so wrete.hed with disappointment that Goldsmith 
good-naturedly devised an attempt to cure these unfounded 
expectations. In a servant-girl’s hand elaborately imitate*!, 
and with such language, and spelling as would exactly hit off 
tho longed-for letter out of Yorkshire (“ the Indy w ho fold 
“ me the anecdote,” interposes tin* narrator, '* saw it hefuiv 
“ it was sent”), Goldsmith prepared an epistle from Phillis 
which was to convey to William, in effect, that she had for 
various reasons delayed writing, hut was now to inform him 
that a youug man, by trade a glass-grinder, was paying bin 
addresses to her, that she lmd not given him much 
encouragement hut her relations were strongly for the 
match, that she, however, often thought of William, amt 
must conclude by saying that something must now hr done 
one way or another, &c. &c. Properly settled ami directed, 
ono of tho young gentlemen had it in charge from Goldsmith 
to take in the letters on the postman's next visit, plnee this 
among them, and hand them all to the footboy ; u the voting 
gentlemen being in the habit of running towards the door 
“ whenever the nosti a mad * 1 



contents to anybody, the fact of something having happened 
as plainly revealed itself in William's increased air of 
importance, as formerly was shadowed forth, in the silent 
excitement which Mr. Bickerstaffe observed in his servant- 
maid, the fact afterwards discovered of her having put 
on a new pair of garters. Nevertheless, for the rest of the 
day, Goldsmith let the potion work which was to effect the 
cure ; and not till night did he disturb it by the startling 
question, addressed to the servant-man on his walking into 
the kitchen, “ So, William, you have had a letter from York- 
“ shire ? Well, what does she say to you ? Come, now, 
“ tell me all about it.” William recovered his surprise, con¬ 
fessed the letter, but would say nothing more. “Yes,” 
nodding his head ; “ but I shall not tell you, Mr. Goldsmith, 
“ anything about it; no, no, that will never do.” “ What, 
“nothing?” No. “Not if she says she’ll marry you?” 
No. “ Not if she has married anybody else ? ” No. “ Well 
“ then,” says Goldsmith, “ suppose, William, I tell you 
“ what the contents of the letter are. Come,” he added, 
looking at a newspaper he held in his hand, “ I will read you 
“ your letter just as I find it here; ” and he read it accord¬ 
ingly, word for word, to his amazed listener, who at last cried 
out very angrily, “ You use me very ill, Mr. Goldsmith ! you 
“ have opened my letter.” The sequel was a full explanation 
by the good-natured usher, and such kindly advice not in 
future to expect any letter more real than that which had 
been written to cure him of his folly, that, according to 
Miss Milner, “poor William was then induced to believe 


7tf7. obstinate notions of his own, which it whs not very cany to 
t. 20 . dissipate by ordinary motion of persuasion. < ho* ot these, 
Miss Milner told our informant, was a preposterous estimate 
of his capacity to do astonishing things, which nobody elm* 
could attempt, in the eating and drinking way, The whole 
kitchen laughed at him ; hut of course refused t<< accept his 
challenge for a trial at some poisonous draught, or lure unfit 
for a Christian. They enlisted Goldsmith at last, however, 
who, having promised to administer eonvetiou to this very 
eccentric, vanity, thus commenced preparations, lie procured 
a piece of uneoloured Cheshire eheese, rolled it up in the form 
of a candle about an inch in length, and, twisting a hit of 
white paper to the size, of a wick, and blacking its extremity, 
thrust it into one of the ends of the cheese, which he then 
put into a candlestick over the kitchen fireplace, taking cute 
that in another, by the side of it, there should he placed the 
end of a real candle, in size and appearance exactly the same. 
Everything thus ready, in came William, and was straight 
way challenged by the usher to display wind lie had so often 
boasted of, in a trial with himself. “ You eat yonder piece 
“ of candle,” said lie, taking down the cheese, “and 1 will 
“ eat this.” William assented rather drily. " l have no 
“ objection to begin,” continued Goldsmith, " hut both must 
“ finish at the same time." William nodded, took his 
portion of candle, and, still reluetaiit, looked ruefully on 
with the other servants while Goldsmith begun gnawing 
away at his supposed share, making terrible wry faces. 
With no heart or stomach for a like unsavoury meat. 


This had the seeming effect of a sudden triumph over the 
challenger, which made the kitchen ring with laughter; and 
William, less distressed with his real sufferings, now that all 
was over, than elated by his fancied victory, took upon him 
to express sympathy for the defeated usher, and really 
wondered why he had not, like himself, swallowed so nauseous 
a morsel all at once. “ Why truly,” replied the usher, with 
undisturbed gravity, “ my bit of candle, William, was no 
“ other than a bit of very nice Cheshire cheese, and therefore, 
“ William, I was unwilling to lose the relish of it.” 

Nor were these the only stories related of the obscure 
usher at Doctor Milner’s school. Others were told, though 
less distinctly remembered, having less mirth and more 
pathos in their tone; but the general picture conveyed by 
Miss Milner’s recollections was that of a teacher as boyish 
as the boys he taught. With his small salary, it would seem, 
he was always in advance. It went for the most part, Miss 
Milner said, on the day he received it, in relief to beggars, 
and in sweetmeats for the younger class. Her mother would 
observe to him at last: “ You had better, Mr. Goldsmith, 
“ let me keep your money for you, as I do for some of the 
“ young gentlemen : ” to which he would good-humouredly 
answer, “ In truth, madam, there is equal need.” * 

All this, at the same time, is very evidently putting the 
best face upon the matter, as it was natural Miss Milner 
should. But in sober fact, and notwithstanding the tricks 
on William, notwithstanding these well-remembered childish. 


“ at Perkhnm,” said an old friend very innocently one day, 
in a eoitnuou proverbial phrase; lmt UoldMuith reddened, 
and asked if he meant to Hilront him.* Korean we fail to 
recall the tone in which he afterwards alluded to this mode 
of life. When, two years later, he tried to peixtmde people 
that a schoolmaster was of more importance in the state than 
to be neglected and left to starve, he described wlmt he hud 
known too well, “ The usher,” he wrote, in the sixth number 
of the Ih‘i\ “ is generally the laughingstock of the school. 
“ Kvery trick is played upon him ; the oddity of his umuners, 
“ his dress, or his language, is a fund of eternal ridicule ; 
“ the master himself now and then cannot avoid joining in 
“ flit- laugh, and the poor wretch, eternally resenting this ill- 
“ usage, lives in a state of war with all the family. Thin in 
“ a very proper person, is it not, to give children a relish for 
“learning? They must esteem learning very much, when 

hun>i>. May,, xxiv. 0U, IIo would toll ittmiy of hi* i,mu 

Hayw Hooke, “but the hltlc etas*)/ of Per kit a m nrhiml Jm itiwaYa run fully " 

Lot mo nut unit tliorto rmilhrlinnH ui’ Mrn. Heater Milner milt* ■<<l Yt il,,( 

HiTiur. til mo utt illfcm'HtiuK luewngo from an nrlirto «nU« ?« !•> ,Mi m i|» 

(Initlniimt'n Maytulnr, mi tin* ueenaiun of her death at n m>.nt «.l\nu.<»| t ,t 
.liimmry ISI7. Tho opening remark, elieitcd |,y tf»« fh.-t <4 i nlteudu.*.: il... 
.lisuntuwH of tAVo dit-wonting ministers, “not alike in th ,r a Js^^.uo m }, U ( 
willi noillior of M-lo-m w!io (jminolir.i, m-niu (,< imply that «!*«« tut. I pu nt* J hr cl., 
early ml vim nt lor J’ntI u c'h old m-her in these niiitice, mol |>nt tt t-< j.s»>’?}.«-.■ 
She never li'oiihleil herwll lutli'li n illi speeiilntive jn-int >, mol unn m ..it .■ ., 14 
mumlnlily disposal to ieouivo iimlrnetioti li'otu go««l iur n i f , rj did'-nuunt i--n 
“ Mr «< I'oHMeoMnl mi nxeellt'iit umleretaiidiuK, impr-ml t.y a thvi 

“ ordinary degree of rulhrtion. In la-raon, m inmen*, ntol nisiuiumwd,-;, ah,, 

“ fdtogetlmr of tlni ulil primal. tier imimrnation wa% intcili^ nt wnl mslrimm.' 

1 Win tuiiehod an interenting tapirs, mid wan pltiiusetl with int'-imnt, m 
“ llKlltl > With Ibrneli (tml lUtliim »lm wan welt oniim'itiM." (,rnl, .!!«./ , 

"7H. Mr. KviitiH ndtla Hint alto had ulm i talonL f , . > t 


tlm Peeklmm disromlorts, when he talked ul me poor usher 
obliged to sleep in the Minin' bod with tho French teacher, 
“ who disturbs him for an hour every night in papering and 
“ filleting his hair ; and stinks worse than u earrion with 
“ his raueid pomatums, when lit' lays his head heside him 
" on the holster," \\ ho will not think, moreover, of (leorgc 
Primrose and his eousiu ? “ Ay," cried lit 1 , " this is indeed 

" a Very pretty enrei'r that has been chalked out for you. 1 
“ have been all usher at a boarding-school myself; and may 
“ 1 die by an anodyne necklace, but I had rather he 
“ under-turnkey in Newgate. I was up early and late : I 
“ was browbeat hv the muster, hated for my ugly faro by tlm 
“ mistress, worried by the boys." Finally, in the only 
anecdote that rests on other safe authority than Miss Milner's, 
there is quite suilieient reason in fact, for adoption of the 
same tone. 

Mr. Samuel Bishop, whose sous have had distinction in 
the church, was a Peekham scholar, mid the story is 
told as it was received from one of the sous,* " When 
“ amusing his younger eumptuiiouM during play-hours with 
“ the (lute, ami expatiating on the pleasures derived from 
“ music, in addition to its advantages in society as a gentle- 
" manlike acquirement, a pert hoy, looking at his situation 
"and personal disadvantages with something "f contempt, 
“ rudely ivplird to the effect that hr sllivly eollld Hot consider 
"himself a gentleman : an olfeitre which, though followed 
" liy ehustiseiueiit, disconcerted mid pained him extremely," 
That tin* pain of this period of his life, whieh even at its 




gathered from the same authority. When tin* d 
tiKlicr was a celebrated man, jmiiuk Bishop, wall* 
London with his newly-married wifi*, mot his old t 
Goldsmith recognised him instaid.lv, ns a lad ho lui 
fond of at Boi'klmm, and embraced him with ibdighl 
joy increased when Mr. Bishop made known his wil 
the introduction had not unsettled the child’s image 
kind man’s heart. It was still tin* hoy before bin 
Master Bishop; the lad In* used to cram with fn 
sweetmeats, to the judicious horror of the K 
“ Come, my boy,” lie said, as his eye fell upon a 1 
woman standing at the corner of the street, “ come 
“ I am delighted to see you. I must treat you to 
“ thing. Wind shall it be ? Will you have some u; 
“ Sam,” added Goldsmith, suddenly, “ have you sei 
“ picture by Kir Joshua Reynolds ? Have you si 
“Sam? Ifave you got an engraving ? ” Not to 
negligent of the rising fame of his old preceptor, si 
teller of the Rtory, “ my father replied that. In* hr 
“ yet procured it; he was just, furnishing his lams 
“ had fixed upon the spot the print was to orcti 
“ soon as he was ready to receive it.” “ Sam,” re 
Goldsmith with some (‘motion, “if your picture hut 
“ published, I should not have waited an hour v 
“ having it.” 

But let mo not anticipate these better days. He ■ 
the Beckham usher, and humble sitter at Doctor M 
board, wliore it chanced that Grill!ths the hookselle 


Chap. VI.] PECKHAM SCHOOL AND GRUB STREET. 


was opposition in the field; Archibald Hamilton the hook- 175 
seller, with the powerful aid of Smollett, had set afloat the 2Et. 
Critical Review ; the talk of the table turned upon this, and 
some remarks by the usher attracted the attention of Griffiths. 

He took liim aside: “ Could he furnish a few specimens of 
“ criticism ? ” The offer was accepted, and the specimens;* 
and before the close of April 1757, Goldsmith was bound by 
Griffiths in an agreement for one year. He was to leave 
Doctor Milner’s, to board and lodge with the bookseller, to 
have a small regular salary, and to devote himself to the 
Monthly Review .t 

One sees something like the transaction in the pleasant 
talk of George Primrose. “ £ Come, I see you are a lad 
££ ‘ of spirit and some learning, what do you think of 
“ ‘ commencing author, like me ? You have read in books 
“ ‘ no doubt, of men of genius starving at the trade; at 
“ ‘ present I’ll show you forty very dull fellows about town 
“ £ that live by it in opulence. All honest, jog-trot men, 

“ £ who go on smoothly and dully, and write history and 
££ £ politics, and are praised: men, sir, who, had they been 
“ £ bred cobblers, would all their lives have only mended 
“ £ shoes, but never made them.’ Finding that there was 
“ no great degree of gentility affixed to the character of an 
“ usher, I resolved to accept his proposal; and having the 
“ highest respect for literature, hailed the antiqua mater 



“ of Grub Street with reverence. I thought it my glory 
“ to pur,sue a trade which .Pryilon and (Hway trod before me.” 
The difference of fact and fic.tion here 1 will l>e, that glory had 
nothing to do with this matter. Griffiths and glory were, not 
to be thought of together. The sorrowful road seemed the 
last that was left to him: and he. entered it. 

On this track, then—taken by few successfully, taken 
happily by few, though not on that account the, less in 
every age the choice of men of genius—wo see Goldsmith, 
iu his twenty-ninth year, without the liberty of choice, in 
sheer and hare necessity, calling after calling having slipped 
from him, launched for the first time. The prospect of 
unusual gloom might have damped the ardour of a more 
cheerful adventurer. 

Fielding had died in shattered hope and fortune, at 
what should have been his prime of life, three years before ; 
within the next two years, poor and mad, Collins was 
fated to descend to his early grave; Smollett was toughly 
fighting for his every-day’s existence; and .Johnson, within 
some half-dozen months, had been tenant of a, spnnging- 
liouse. No man throve that was connected with hitters, 
unless he were also connected with their trade and 
merchandise, and, like Itielmrdson, could print as well as 
write books. 

“ Had some of those,” cried Smollett, in his bitterness, 
“ who were pleased to call themselves my friends, been at 
“ any pains to deserve the character, and told me ingenu- 


.1. .J. IT 1. .. .1 1 


..jV 


uaie 3 inert; is no muuu ^ VJ . 

“ on this side the water as you imagine. I don’t find that 
“ Genius, the 

‘ rathe primrose, which forsaken dies,’ 

“ is patronised hy any of the nobility . . . writers of the first 
" talents are left to the capricious patronage of the public. 
“ After all, a man will make more hy the figures of arithmetic 
“ than the figures of rhetoric, unless he can get into the 
“ trade wind, and then he may sail secure over Pactolean 
“ sands.” * 

It was, in truth, one of those times of transition which 
press hardly on all whose lot is cast in them. The patron 
was gone, and the public had not come ; the seller of books 
had as yet exclusive command over the destiny of those 
who wrote them, and he was difficult of access—without 
certain prospect of the trade wind, hard to move. “ The 
“ shepherd in Virgil” wrote Johnson to Lord Chesterfield,t 
“ grew acquainted with love, and found him a native 
“ of the rocks.” Nor had adverse circumstances been 
without then effect upon the literary character itself.! 
Covered with the blanket of Boyse, and sheltered by the 
night-cellar of Savage, it had forfeited less honour and 
self-respect than as the paid client of the ministries of 
Walpole and Henry Pelham. As long as its political 
services were acknowledged by offices in the state; as long 

* Letter to his school-fellow, Matthew Smith. Life, i. 38. 

+ Works (Ed. 1825), i. xli. 

t If any one would see a sketch, by the hand of a master, of what the career 
of the erenerallv was who lived hv literature in this •arrntnhor intorvol 1 . 


OLIVER aOLDHMITll’H LIKE AND TIMES. 


| Hook I. 


757. as tlie coarse wit of Prior could be paid by an embassy, or 
f-. 2D. the delicate humour of Addison win its way to a secretary¬ 
ship; while Steele and Congreve, Swift and Cay, sat at 
ministers’ tables, and were not without weight in cabinet 
councils ; its slavery might not have been less real than in 
later years, yet all externally went w r ell with it. Though 
even flat apostaey, as in Parnell's ease, might in those days 
lift literature in rank, while unpurchaseable independence, 
as in that of Do ’Foe, depressed it into contempt and ruin; 
—though, for the mere hope of gain to be got from it, such 
nobodics as Mr. .Hughes and Mr. Philips were worth pro¬ 
pitiating by dignified public employments ;• -still, it wax 
esteemed by tho crowd, because not wholly shut, out from 
the rank and considerate >n which worldly means could give-to 
it. “The middle ranks,” said (loldsmith truly, in speaking 
of that period* “ generally imitate the great, and applauded 
“ from fashion if not from feeling.” But when another state of 
things succeeded ; when politicians had too much shrewdness 
to despise the helps of the pen, and too little intellect to 
honour in any way its claims or influence ; when it was 
thought that to strike at its dignity, was to command its 
complete subservience ; when corruption in its grosser forms 
had become chid’ director of political intrigue, and it was 
less tilt! statesman's office to wheedle a. volt 1 than the 

_i_ j... * .. j. r .. •• 


jlu uunea a ciass 01 wrxteio miu l.cia^o vvuwo u.ogj.<xu.aiau.u. 

reacted upon him; who flung a stigma on his pursuits, and 
made the name of man-of-letters the synonyme for dishonest 
hireling. Of the fifty thousand pounds which the Secret 
Committee found to have been expended by Walpole’s 
ministry on daily scribblers for their daily bread, not a 
sixpence was received, either then or when the Pelhams 
afterwards followed the example, by a writer whose name is 
now enviably known. All went to the Guthries, the 
Amhersts, the Arnalls, the Ralphs, and the Oldmixons; 
and while a Mr. Cook was pensioned, a Harry Fielding 
solicited Walpole in vain. What the man of genius 
received, unless the man of rank had wisdom to adorn it by 
befriending him, was nothing but the shame of being 
confounded, as one who lived by using the pen, with those 
who lived by its prostitution and abuse. 

It was in vain he strove to escape this imputation; it 
increased, and it clove to him. To become author was to 
be treated as adventurer: a man had only to write, to be 
classed with what Johnson calls the lowest of all human 
beings, the scribbler for party. One of Fielding’s remarks, 
under cover of a grave sneer, conveys a bitter sense of 
this injustice. “ An author, in a country where there is no 
“ public provision for men of genius, is not obliged to be a 
“ more disinterested patriot than any other. Why is he, 
“ whose livelihood is in his pen, a greater monster in using 
“ it to serve himself, than he who uses his tongue for the 
“ same purpose ? ” 

Nor was the injustice the work of the vulgar or unthinking: 



15 7. one had told William Pitt, that a now man of merit, called 
7 ai». Goldsmith, was about to try the profession of literature, ho 
would have turned aside in scorn. It, had been Kiithcient to 
throw doubt upon the career of Kdmund Burke, that, in this 
very year, ho opened it with the writing of a book.* It was 
Horace Walpole’s vast surprise, lour years later, that so 
sensible a man as 11 young Mr. Burke” should not have 
“ worn off his authorism yet. He thinks there is nothin# so 
“ charming as writers, and to bo one. He will know better 
“ one of these days.”! 

Such was the worldly account of literatim*, when, as I 
have said, descried by the patron, and not, yet supported 
by the public-, it was committed to the mercies of the 
bookseller. They were low and rare. It was the mission 
of Johnson to extend them, and to replace the writer's craft, 
in even its worldliest view, on a dignified and honourable 
basis; but Johnson's work was just begun. lie was him¬ 
self, as yet, one of the meaner workers fur hire ; and though 
already author of the. Dictiouani, was too glad in this very year 
to have .Hubert Podsley’s guinea lor writing paragraphs in the. 
London- Chronicle. “ Had you, sir, been an author of the 
“ lower class, one of those who are paid by the sheet,” remon¬ 
strated worthy printer 'Bowyer with an author who could pay, 
who did not need to he paid, and who would not he trilled 
with by tlio man of types .1 Of the lower class, unlike that 
dignitary Mr. John Jackson, still was Samuel Johnson ; he 
was hut a Grub Street mail, paid by the sheet, when 
Gc Is nitli into *ed G u h Street, r eric di •»! writer mil 



Periodicals were the fashion of the day. They were the 1 
means of those rapid returns, of that perpetual interchange % 
of bargain and sale, so fondly cared for by the present 
arbiters of literature; and were now, universally, the 
favourite channel of literary speculation. Scarcely a week 
passed in which a new magazine or paper did not start into 
life, to perish or survive as might be. Even Fielding had 
turned from his Jonathan Wild the Great , to his Jacobite’s 
Journal and True Patriot; and, from his Tom Jones and 
Amelia, sought refuge in his Covent Garden Journal. We 
have the names of fifty-five papers of the date of a few years 
before this, regularly published every week.* A more im¬ 
portant literary venture, in the nature of a review, and with 
a title expressive of the fate of letters, the Grab Street 
Journal, had been brought to a close in 1737. Six years 
earlier than that, for a longer life, Cave issued the first 
number of the Gentleman's Magazine. Griffiths, aided by 
Ralph, Kippis, Langhorne, Grainger, and others, followed 
with the earliest regular Review which can be said to have 
succeeded, and in 1749 began, on whig principles, that 
publication of the Monthly which lasted till our own day. 
Seven years later, the tories opposed it with the Critical, 
which, with slight alteration of title, existed to a very recent 
date, more strongly tainted with liigh-church advocacy and 
quasi-popish principles than when the first number, sent 
forth under the editorship of Smollett in March 1756, was 
on those very grounds assailed. In the May of that year of 
Goldsmith’s life to which I have now arrived, another Review, 



sanguineneart ox uiivor u-oldsmith, when, muter l he wiiu’iiu 
eye of Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths, now providers of ins brtl m* 
board, lie sat down in the bookseller's parlour in I > nteru«'Ht«- 
Row somewhat sarcastically faced with the sign of Tl» 
Dunciad, to begin his engagement on the Mont hit/ /iVrie «\ 


BNJJ OP BOOK TUB FIRST. 




HOOK Tim SECJONI). 


CirAPTICR I. 

♦ 

RKVIKWINU FOR MU. AND MRS. URIFFITIIH. 

17fi7. 

Thh means of existence, lung sought, seemed thus lo bo 
found, wht'ii, in his twenty-ninth year, Oliver Goldsmith sat ^ 
down to tin* precarious task-work of Author by Profession, 
lie had exerted no control over the circumstances in which 
he took up the pen : nor had any friendly external aid, in 
an impulse of kindness, offered it to his hand. To bo 
swaddled, rocked, and dandled into authorship is the lot of 
more fortunate men: it was with Goldsmith the stern and 
last resource of his struggle with adversity. As in the 
country-barn ho would have played Scrub or Richard ; ns ho 
prescribed for the poorer than himself at Bnukside, until 
worse than their necessities drove him to herd with tins 
beggars in Axe Lane; ns in Salisbury Gnttrt he eurreefed 
the press among Mr. Richardson's workmen, on Tower Hill 
doled out physic over Mr. .Jacob's counter, and at Peeklmm 
dispensed the more nauseating dose to young gentlemen 
of I hit*tor Milner’s academy : lit* had here entered into 


caliJJLCpO CUJLU. \,uqujjj.vuj.vaij V4,c v w w—-- 

his privations, was at this hour, more than it liad ever been, 
dim, distant, cold. A practical scheme of literary life liad 
as yet struck no root in his mind; and the assertion of 
later years, that he was past thirty before he was really 
attached to literature and sensible that he had found his 
vocation in it, is no doubt true. What the conditions of his 
present employment were, he knew well: that if he had 
dared to indulge any hopes of finer texture, if he liad shown 
the fragments of his poem, if he had produced the acts of 
the tragedy read to Richardson, Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths 
must have taken immediate counsel on the expenses of his 
board. He was there, as he had been in other places of 
servitude, because the dogs of hunger were at his heels.* 

* la a paper fall of eloquence and tumour which Mr. De Quincey wrote upon the 
subject of this biography in the North British lieview, so different an opinion is 
formed from that which I offer of this Griffiths-agreement, as well as of ray con¬ 
trast between the position of the man-of-letters in Goldsmith’s day and. that of the 
men of Queen Anne, while the grounds of difference are so amusingly expressed, that 
the reader will prohahly thank me for quoting the passage. I should premise that 
Smart’s agreement, alluded to in the outset, will be found described, post, Book iii. 
Chap. x. ‘ ‘ The pauperised (or Grub Street) section of tbe literary body, at the date of 
“ Goldsmith’s taking service amongst it, was (in Mr. Forster’s estimate) at its very 
“lowest point of depression. And one comic presumption in favour of that notion 
“we ourselves remember; viz., that Smart, the prose translator of Horace, and a 
well-built scholar, actually let himself out to a monthly journal on a regular 
“lease of ninety-nine years. What could move the rapacious publisher to draw 
‘ ‘ the lease for this monstrous term of years, we cannot conjecture. Sui’ely the villain 
“ might have been content with three score years and ten. But think, reader, of 
‘poor Smart two years after, upon another publisher’s applying to him vainly for 
“contributions, and angrily demanding what possible objection could he made to 
offers so liberal, being reduced to answer — ‘no objection, sir, whatever, except 
“an unexpired term of ninety-seven years yet to run.’ The bookseller saw that 
be must not apply again in that century; and, in fact, Smart eould no longer let 
himself, but must be sublet (if let at all) by tbe original lessee. Query now— 
was Smart entitled to vote as a freeholder, and Smart’s children (if any wore 




it brought. When Hullormg cttme, m whatever lorm, lie met 
it with a quiet, manful endurance : no gnanhing of the teeth, 


“moan mi whieh lu* *m*nvt*yoil ’ bin jiomm ruul froo»ngeiiey to this hmi'h of the Halil 
“ Uriilitlm (nr his iwnigiiH 0 -iln nnt, a|>|ioar to have been mueli more dignified tlmn 
“Hmurt’n in tlu* quality uf tin* rmnAV/omt, though oiimtidnmhly ho in the duration 
“of thu (mn ; (InlilMiuith'n leaw* lining only fnr mm yuar, ami imt fnr ninoty*niue, 
“ mii that In* luul (iw Um reader jiuruoivun) a ulnar ninety-eight yearn at his own 
“ ili«|inisal, Wu KUM|uH*t that iiinit* Oliver, in lim guileless heart, nnvur omigratu lilted 
“ himself nu having mmU* a more folieituim bargain. Imluml, it wan imt no had, 
“ If everything la* eiHwldored : (hiUlmniUt’H nituatimi at that tiim* wan Iwl ; aiul 
“fur that very reason the hwn*(otherwinu niuimtmiiH) wan nut ha*l. llu wan to have 
“ lodging, hoard, amt * a small salary, ’ wry mnall, we miH|icn*t; and In roLitru fur 
“all these hlnmingei, he had mi thing tn do, but to alt still at a table, to work hard 
“fmm an early hour in the morning until 2 r. K,, (at whloh elegant hour we ]>re- 
“ mum* that the |iarenthe«i« of dinner oomirml,) hut also - whieh, not lieing an 
“artiele In tlu* lease, might have Ikvii net aside, eii a mutton before the King’a 
“Heiieli to endure without mutiny the I'urrertiuii and the reviwil nf all bin MSS, 
“by Mm. (Irilliths, wife to hr. U. the lessen, Tliin afllietiim nf Mrs. l>r. U. 
“Hurniuiintiiig lim nhiiulilei'ii, ami eniilioiling his |ieii, eeeniH h* um not at all lesm 
“dreadful than Unit uf Sindlmil, when indorsi'd with the old mini nf tlm sea; ami 
“we, in UuliImnitli'H ]ihw'i', olniitld emtainly lmve tried how far Hindhad’a metliod 
" uf abating the nuisaiteo had lout itw elliruey by time, v'u,, thu tenijiting u»tr 
“ n|i|iiv:*nor to get dnitik oiiee ur twiee a day, ami then mnlileidy throwing 
“Mrs, br. 0, off her jiereh. Hrnto that 'lmd etuinenee,’ whieh site had 
“aiidaeiumsly iwuri’isl, what harm emild there he in thus iliiiiuuiuiUug thin ‘ old 
“ irunnin of the sea ?' Ami m hi nu urrtetiutitd thumji m* so nu the head, wldeh 
“ Mrs, Dr, (1, might have eauglit In lumhilug, that wan hrr look mi l; ami might 
“ ixvtidex have liuiiruvi*il her style, Km* really imw, if thu eauditl reader will 
“lmlieve ii», we know a nano, odd eertaluly, hut very true, where a yming man, an 
“ aiitlmr by trade, who wrote pretty well, liaptHmiug to tiimlde out uf a first •flour 
“ In Ijondun, was afterwards ulwved to gmw very jmrjilexeil amt almost. uuiut«lH 
“gilde in his style*; ituUlsnim* years luU<r, having the koikI forlutmiliko Wullon ilritt 
“at Vienna) to tumble nut uf a twiojiair uf stairs wlmluw, he slightly friirturod his 
“ skull, hut mi the other hand, reeuvered the hrilliuni’y of his long fuiriuiid 
“ntyle, Home jn'iijile thi'ie lu'e "f our nonimlutanee who would tired hi tumhh* 
"ullt of the attie fltnry before they euuhl enriemdy imjil'ove tin ir ntyle. 

“ Certainly these ruielitioim the loud wot k, the lieing ehniiied by tin* leg tu 
" the writing table, mid, almve nil, the having one's jh*u ehiiim-d hi that of 
“Ml**. br, Uriilitlm, tin seem to eminleiianee Ml, K,’*i ides, that (inld<noith , n |«>ritsl 
“ wan tlm (iiiigiilo! y of nut hot's. And we freely e.iiifert, that e*n’e|ilbtg Hmart'a 
“ninety ttine yi in-i' lease, or the eiiiitniet-Ini ween the bovil and br, Fatmtua, we 



or wringing of tho hands. Among the lowest ot luuuttu 
beings lie eonld take bis place, as he afterwards proved his 
right to sit among the. highest, by the strength ot his 
affectionate sympathies with the nature common to nil. 
And so sustained through the scenes of wretchedness he 
passed, lie had done more, though with little consciousness 
of his own, to achieve his destiny, than if, transcending the 
worldly plans of wise Irish friends, ho had oven olaiuhered 
to the bishops’ bench, or out-practised the whole college 
of physicians. 

The time is at hand in his history, when all this becomes 
clear. Outside the garret-window of Mr. (IriOiths, by tho 
light which tho miserable labour of the Monthly lierlav 
will let in upon the heart-sick labourer, it may soon ho 
seen. Stores of observation, of feeling, ami experience, 
hidden from himself at present, are by that light to he 
revealed. It is a thought to carry us through this new 
scene of suffering, with new and unaccustomed hope. 

Goldsmith never publicly avowed what he had written in 
the Monthly lluvicw ; any more than the. Roman poet talked 
of the millstone lie turned in his days of hunger. Mem 
who have been at the galleys, though for no crime of their 
own committing, are wiser than to brag of the work they 
performed there. All he stated was, that all he wrote was 
tampered with by Griffiths or his wife. Smollett has depicted 
this lady as an antiquated female critic ; and when “ illiterate, 
“ bookselling ” Griffiths declared unequal war against that 
potent antagonist, protesting that the Muni lily Hnunc 


judgment, Smollett retorted m a tew broad unscrupulous 
lines on the whole party of the rival publication. “ The 
“ Critical Revieiu is not written,” he said, “ by a parcel of 
“ obscure hirelings, under the restraint of a bookseller and his 
“ wife, who presume to revise, alter, and amend the articles 
“ occasionally. The principal writers in the Critical Revieiu 
“ are unconnected with booksellers, unawed by old women, 
“ and independent of each other.” * Commanded by a 
bookseller, awed by an old woman, and miserably dependent, 
one of these obscure hirelings desired and resolved, as far 
as it was possible, to remain in his obscurity ; but a copy of 
the Monthly which belonged to Griffiths, and in which he 
had privately marked the authorship of most of the articles, 
withdraws the veil.f It is for no purpose that Goldsmith 
could have disapproved, or I should scorn to assist in 
calling to memory what he would himself have committed 
to neglect. The best writers can spare much ; it is only the 
worst who have nothing to spare. 

The first subject I may mention first, though it takes us 
back a little. It was the specimen-review which had procured 
Goldsmith his engagement ; and if the book was furnished 
from the bookseller’s stores, it was probably the least 
common-place of all they contained. This was the year 
(1757) in which, after six centimes of neglect, the great, 
dark, wonderful field of northern fiction began to be 
explored. Professor Mallet of Copenhagen had translated 
the Eclda, and directed attention to the “ remains ” of 


Critical Review, vii. 151; in a notice of Dr. Grainger’s Letter to Dr. Smollett 



ujjjLvrjJtti wwiiuoiviixn o JUiJfjCi ajlnjj Tuvins. 


[Hook. II. 


Scandinavian poetry and mythology: and Goldsmith’s first 
effort in the Monthly Review was to describe the fruits of 
these researches, to point out resemblances to the inspiration 
of the East, and to note the picturesqueness and sublimity 
of the fierce old Norse imagination. “ The learned on this 
“ side the Alps,” he began, “ have long laboured at the 
“ antiquities of Greece and Rome, but almost totally 
“ neglected their own; like conquerors, who, while they 
“ have made inroads into the territories of their neighbours, 
“ have left their own natural dominions to desolation.” * 
This was a lively interruption to the ordinary Monthly 
dulness, and perhaps the Percys, and intelligent subscribers 
of that sort, opened eyes a little wider at it. It was not 
long after, indeed, that Percy first began to dabble in Runic 
Verses from the Icelandic ; before eight years were passed 
he had published his famous Reliques ; and in five years 
more, during intimacy with the writer of this notice of 
Mallet, he produced his translation of Mallet’s Northern 
Antiquities. In all this there was probably no connection: 
yet it is wonderful what a word in season from a man of 
genius may do ; even when the genius is hireling and 
obscure, and labouring only for the bread it eats. 

More common-place was the respectable-looking thin 
duodecimo with which Mr. Griffiths’s workman began his 
next month’s labour, but a duodecimo which at the time was 
making noise enough for every octavo, quarto, and folio in 
the shop. This was Douglas, a Tragedy, as it is acted at 



the same hand (wherein his quick suspicions glance detected I7i 
no Lady Randolphs), would have nothing to do with the &t. 
character of Douglas. What would come with danger from 
the full strength of Mrs. Cibher, he knew might be safely 
left to the enfeebled powers of Mrs. Woffington; whose 
Lady Randolph would leave him no one to fear but Barry 
at the rival house. But despairing also of Covent Garden 
when refused by Drury Lane, and crying plague on 
both then houses, to the north had good parson Home 
returned, and not till eight months were gone, sent back 
his play endorsed by the Scottish capital. There it had 
been acted; and from the beginning of the world, from the 
beginning of Edinburgh, the like of that play had not been 
known. The Poker Club* made their ecstacies felt from 
Hunter Square to Grub Street and St. James’s, for no rise 
in the price of claret had yet imperilled the life of that 
excellent society. Without stint or measure to their warmth 
the cooling beverage flowed; and bottle after bottle (at 
eigliteenpence a piece f) disappeared in honour of the 
Scottish Shakspeare, whom the most illustrious of the 
Pokers at once pronounced better than the English, because 
free from “ unhappy barbarism; ”—yes, because refined from 
the unhappy barbarism of our southern Shakspeare, and 
purged of the licentiousness of our poor London-starved 
Otway. It was veritably David Hume’s opinion, and still 

* The Poker Club was not so named till 1762. But the men spoken of in the 
text were precisely that select section of Edinburgh society, already existing as a 
club, which, on Scotland being refused a militia, called itself the Poker, “ to 
“ stir up the fire of the nation.” See an account of it in Scott’s notice of Home 



bringing out at the time, that “Johnny Home " had all tlu> 
theatric genius of those two poets so refined and purged. 
But little was even a philosopher’s exaltation, to the persecu¬ 
tion of a presbytery. No man better than Hume knew that. 
The first volume of his Uixtorij had lain hopelessly on Millar’s 
shelves, after sale of forty-five copies in a twelvemonth, 
when, on inquisitorial proceedings of the General Assembly 
against Lord Karnes and himself, the public in turn became 
inquisitive and began to buy. And, surely as the I Tint an/ 
of Hume, must even puffery of Home have languished, 
but for that resolve, of the presbytery to eject from his 
pulpit a parson who had written a play. It earned Iloutjlax 
to London; secured a nine nights’ reasonable wonder; 
and the noise of the carriages on their way to ('event 
Garden to see the Norval of silver-tongued Barry, were 
now giving sudden headaches to David Garrick, and strange 
comparisons of silver tongues to the hooting of owls. 

But out of reach of every influenee to raise or to depress, 
unless it he a passing thought now and then to his own 
tragic fragments, Hits tin; critic, with the thin duodecimo 
before him. The popular stir affects even quiet (fray in 
his cloistered nook of Pembroke Hull ; hut the sharp, clear, 
graceful judgment now lodged and hoarded at The Dunemd, 
shows itself quite un-aUbeled. “ When the town,” it began, 
“ by a tedious succession of indifferent performances, has 
“ been long confined to censure, it will naturally wish for 
“ an opportunity of praise." * That is, ns f translate it, 
the town, sick of Doctor Brown’s A thchtnn and Biu'harmmt . 



tiling ui idle rtjabUJiauit; jpruixiittb ui it jL/uiiyuu*, w±m uigjjudiliuh 

to enjoy it if it can. But tlie more striking, Goldsmith felt, 
was the indiscreetness that could obtrude a work like Douglas 
as “ perfection : ” in proof of which critical folly he made 
brief but keen mention of its leading defects; while to those 
who would plead in arrest particular beauties of diction, he 
directed a remark which, half a century later, was worked 
out in detail by the Coleridge and Schlegel school of 
reviewers. “ In works of this nature, general observation 
“ often characterises more strongly than a particular criticism 
“could do; for it were an easy task to point out those 
“ passages in any indifferent author where he has excelled 
“ himself, and yet these comparative beauties, if we may be 
“ allowed the expression, may have no real merit at all. 
“ Poems, like buildings, have then point of view; and too 
“ near a situation gives but a partial conception of the 
“whole.”* Good-naturedly, at the same time, he closes 
with quotation of two of the best passages in the poem, 
emphatically marking with excellent taste five lines of 
allusion to the wars of Scotland and England. 

Gallant in strife, and noble in their ire, 

The Battle is their pastime. They go forth 
Gay in the morning, as to Summer sport : 

"When evening comes, the glory of the morn, 

The youthful warrior, is a clod of clay. 

If Boswell, on Johnson’s challenge to show any good hues 
out of Douglas, had mustered sense and discrimination to 
offer these, the Doctor could hardly have exploded his 
emphatic giooh ! Goldsmith differed little from Johnson in 



Mr. Griffiths submitting to his boarder, in a very thick 
duodecimo, The Egiigoniad, A Poem in Nine Rook*. Due tor 
Wilkie’s* laboured versification of his adventures of the 
descendants of the Theban warriors, got into Anderson's 
collection, the editor being a Scotchman: though candid 
enough to say of it, that “ too antique to please the unlettered 
“ reader, and too modern for the scholar, it was neglected 
“ by both, read by few, and soon forgotten by nil.” t Vet this 
not very profound editor might have been more candid, and 
told us that his sentence was stolen and adapted from the 
Monthly Review. After discussion of the claims justly due and 
always conceded to a writer of genuine learning, Goldsmith 
remarked : “ on the contrary, if he he detected of ignorance 
“ when he pretends to learning, his ease will deserve mu* 
“ pity: too antique to please one party, and too modern for 
“ the other, he is deserted by both, read by few, and soon 
“ forgotten by all, except his enemies." Perhaps if his 
friends had forgotten him, the Doctor might have profited. 
“ The Epigoniad” continued Goldsmith, “ seems to he one 
“ of those now old performances; a work that would no 
“ moro have pleased a peripatetic of Die academic grove, 
“ than it will captivate the unlettered subscriber to one of 

For a vory curious account of Wilkie, wlio was thu son of n former inmr K4i>» 
burgh, and is said to have conceived tho tmliject of his jutoni whitn hi’ 
as a scarecrow against tho pigeons in out) of hi* father’* iWhla «.f wheat, «<o a 
letter of Hume in his Life hy Burton, ii. “Wilkie," mhh !hi:m< at tho 

oloso of his letter (dated 3rd July, 17117), “ Ik now tt Mslthnl minister at Hathu, 

“ within four miles of the town, lie poKKwwm nlmut 41 So or 400 »hi«>h 

“ ho eafccems exorbitant riolios. Formerly, when he hrnl only 4*20 m hel|«.r, he 


“ passes fur Ilia cleverest fellow in England ”) Haiti aye to 
all their praises ; find when, Homo numtlm afterwards, Htimo 
fame up to 1 jondun to living out the Tudor volumes of his 
I Unto I')/, he published pulls of Wilkie under assumed 
signatures, both in the Critical Jlcvicw and in various 
magazines, and reported progress to the Edinburgh circle. 
It was somewhat “ uphill work,” he told Adam Smith; t 
and with much mortification hinted to Itobortson that the 
verdict of the Monthly Review (vulgarly interpolated, 1 
should mention, hy Urifilths himself §) would have upon lhe 
whole to stand. “ However,” ho adds, in his letter to 
Robertson, “ if you want a little flattery to the author 
“ (which l own is very refreshing to an author), you may tell 
“ him that Lord tfiiestorlield said to me he was a great poet. 
“ I imagine that Wilkie will be very much elevated by praise 
“ from an English earl, and a knight of the garter, and an 
“ ambassador, and a secretary of state, and a man of so 
" great reputation. For 1 observe that the greatest rustics 
“ are commonly most affected with such circumstances." || 
It is to bo hoped he was, and proportionately forgetful of 
low abuse from obscure hirelings in booksellers’ garrets. 

** An Irish gentleman," Hume in another letter told 
Adam Smith, " wrote lately a very pretty treatise on the 
** Sublime." II This Irish gentleman had indeed written ho 
pretty a treatise on the Sublime, that the task-work of our 
critic became work of praise. “ When l was beginning the 

* Mn iit/ity rinr, wii. ‘.'.’JH, Ft'|4eml«'r \7t>7. 



infirmity when one is nothing und nobody, and whets 
Goldsmith became something mid somebody his friends still 
charged it upon him. They may have had some reason, 
for ho was never very subtle or reliable in literary judg¬ 
ments ; but as yet, at any rate, the particular weakness 
docs not appear. A critic of the prohmudet* sort, he never 
was; criticism of that order was little known, and seldom 
practised in his day: hut us it is less the want of depth, 
than the presence of envy, which it lias been the fashion 
to urge against him, it will become uh in fairnesH to 
observe that here, in the garret of drill'd ha, he is 
tolerably free from it. Whether it is to seize him in 
the drawing-room of lteynohls, will he matter of Infer 
inquiry. He has no pretension yet to enter himself brother 
or craftsman of the guild of literature, and we find him 
in his censures just and temperate, and liberal m well 
as candid in his praise : glad to give added fame to esta¬ 
blished wits, as even the youths Uoinudl Thornton und 
George Column were beginning already to lie esteemed ; 
and eager, in such a case as Burke’s, to help that the wit 
should ho established. In the same number of tin? Heview* 
he noticed the collection into four small volumes of the 
Connoisseur, and the appearance in its tlnve-shilliug 
pamphlet of A Philosophic,al Enquiry into the Or'njin <•/ *>ur 
Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. The ('onuoimfur he 
honoured with the title ot friend of society, wherein 
reference was possibly intended to the defective side of that 
leetuicship of society, to which the sera oh nod t-i-n,>1 1 f<< 





dictates, as other writers m this class have done, with 
“ the affected superiority of an Author. He is the first 
“ writer since Bicker staffe who has been perfectly satyrical 
“ yet perfectly goodnatured; and who never, for the sake 
“ of declamation, represents simple folly as absolutely 
“ criminal. He has solidity to please the grave, and 
“ humour and wit to allure the gay.” * Our author by 
compulsion seemed here to anticipate his authorship by 
choice, and with indistinct yet hopeful glance beyond his 
dunciad and its deities, perhaps turned with better faith to 
Burke’s essay on the beautiful. His criticism f was 
elaborate and excellent; lie objected to many parts of the 
theory, and especially to the materialism on which it 
founded the connection of objects of pleasure with a 
necessary relaxation of the nerves; but these objections, 
discreet and well considered, gave strength and relish to its 
praise, and Burke spoke to many of his friends of the 
pleasure it had given him. 

And now appeared, in three large quarto volumes, followed 
■within six months by a fourth, the Complete History of 
England, deduced from the Descent of Julius Ccesar to the 
Treaty of Aix la Chapelle in 1748. Containing the 
Transactions of One Thousand Eight Hundred and Three 
Years. By T. Smollett, M.D. The wonder of this 
performance had been its incredibly rapid production: the 
author of Random and Pickle having in the space of fourteen 

* Monthly Review, xvi. 444, May 1757. 

+ Ibid, 473. I may add, that besides these and other detailed and important 
articles in this May number, he contributed also twenty-three notices of minor 


7fi7. months scoured through those eighteen centuries. It was 
i,. 29. a scheme of the London booksellers to thwart the success of 
Hume, which promised just then to ho too considerable for 
an undertaking in which the craft had no concern. His 
Common weal tli volume, profiting by religious outcry against 
its author, was selling vigorously; people were intpuring 
for the preceding Stuart volume; and Paternoster How, 
alarmed for its rights and properties in standard history 
hooks, resolved to take the field before the promised Tudor 
volumes could ho brought to marked. They huclo d their 
host man, and succeeded. Tin; (Umiplcte .Hinton/, we are 
told, “had a very disagreeable effect on Mr. Huihc’h 
“ performance.” It had also, it would appear, a very 
disagreeable effect on Mr. Humes's temper. " A hrenehman 
“ came to me,” he writes to Itohertson, “ and spoke of 
“ translating my now volume of history: but as he also 
“ mentioned liis intention of translating Smollett, I gave 
“ him no encouragement to proceed.” * It hud besides, it 
may bo added, a very disagreeable efleet on the tempers of 
other people. Warburton heard of its swift sale while his 
own Divine Legation lay heavy and quiet at his publisher’s ; 
and “ the vagabond Hoot who writes nonsense,” was the 
character vouchsafed to Smollett by the vehement proud 
priest. But it is again incumbent on me to say that 
Goldsmith keeps his temper : that, in this as in former 
instances, there is no disposition to carp at a great Kuecess 
or quarrel with a celebrated name. His notice lias evident 
marks of the interpolation of Griffiths, thomffi that wo -tl v's 



of personal juhI political opposition to the subject of it, it ; 
is manly and kind. Tim weak places were pointed out A 
with gentleness, while (ioldsmilh strongly seized on what 
Ins felt to hi* tlm strength of Smollett, “ The stylo of thin 
“ Historian,” lm said, “in in general clear, nervous, and 
“ (lowing; and we think it impossible for a Header of taste 
” not to bo pleased with the perspicuity and elegance of 
“ his manner,” * 

For the critic's handling in lighter matters, I will mention 
what he said of a book by .Hums 11 an way. This was the 
Jonas of whom Doctor Johnson affirmed that lm acquired 
some reputation by travelling abroad, but lost it all by 
travelling at home; not a witticism, but a sober truth. His 
book about Persia wuh excellent, mid bis book about Ports¬ 
mouth indilfcrent. Hut though an eccentric, lit' was a very 
benevolent and earnest man ; and though be made the com¬ 
mon mistake of thinking himself even more wise than be 
was good, be lmd too much reason to complain, which be 
was always doing, of a general want of earnestness and 
seriottHuesK in his age. His larger schemes of benevolence 

1i,i \n\ low no mo wit.li t.11f' Mm’ilin Kiwuol V mid the 


Magdalen, both of which he originated, as well as with the 
Foundling, which ho was active in improving; and to his 
courage and perseverance in smaller Helds of usefulness (Ids 
determined contention with extravagant vails to .servants I 

* Mtmllthi Hr r inf, \vi. fill'i, Jnm* 1 V.’n . 

+ " Wln'ii I wit. tn Ki'^nrUi," wiiiI Mr, ('•'!<’, " tin* <'unti<iii nf firing vails 
" tu m'lMtiiln wnn tint (tiwiiiitimtiil, On tliking li’inn nf lit*’ i>ni)iU'r at tlm 





not the least), the men of Goldsmith's day won* indebted for 
liberty to use an umbrella. Gay’s pleasant poem of TrlrUt , 
and Swift's description of a city shower, commemorate its 
earlier use by poor women; by “iuek’d-up sempstresses ” 
and “ walking maids; ” * but with even this class it was ft 
winter privilege, and woe to the woman of a bolter sort, or 
to the man, whether rich or poor, who dart'd at any time so 
to invade the rights of coaelimen and chairmen. I hit Jonas 
steadily underwent the staring, laughing, jeering, hooting, 
and bullying; and having punished some insolent knaves 
who struck him with their whips as well as tongues, he 
finally established a privilege which, when the* Journal den 
JMiais gravely assured its readers that the king of tlm 
barricades (that king whoso throne has since been burnt at 
the top of fresh barricades on the site of the Bastille) was to 
be seen walking the streets of Baris with an umbrella under 
his arm, had reached its culminating point and played a part 
in state affairs. Excellent Mr. Ilamvay, having settled the 

“ ofleral him £‘1.00 n-yoar for the dour!" I <h>ul>t whether this latter Htato- 
ment ro.nliH on good authority; for it in tlm defoct of an otherwise jilennaitt hunk 
to do only want and grudging junliro to UeynohlH, and ton readily to lwlirvu 
everything aaid ugniiwt him. The biographer took mteh earnest. part with 
Ilogarth, that lie became iimamHoiuuH how unfairly he vow treating Keyuoldtt. 

* “ Britain in winter only known it.s aid 

“ To guard from chilly nhoworN Llio walking imiiil.’* Uny'a Trivia, 

“ The tuelc'd-np HompHtroHH walkn with lowly Hlriden, 

“ While atroams run down her oil’d umhrolla’H nidea," Hwift’a ( V/// Miourr, 

NovortholoHH, Mr, Bolton Oornoy, hImhs thin biography first nppearrd, him pro¬ 
duced some linoH a century earlier in date, whirl) might m-eiu to prove that ilm 
“umbrella” had heori in uho in Micimol DruytouV lime, even by the highdioru 


±ms is one oi tne prominent snejects m tne Journey 
from Portsmouth : the book which Griffiths had now placed 
in his workman’s hands. Doctor Johnson’s review of it for 
the Literary Magazine is widely known, and Goldsmith’s 
deserved notoriety as well. It is more kindly, and as 
effectively, written. He saw what allowance could he made 
for a writer, however mistaken, who “ shows great goodness 
“ of heart, and an earnest concern for the welfare of his 
“ country.” Where the hook was at its worst, the man might 
he at his best, he very agreeably undertakes to prove. “ The 
“ appearance of an inn on the road, suggests to our 
“ Philosopher an eulogium on temperance; the confusion 
“ of a disappointed Landlady gives rise to a Letter on 
“ Resentment; and the view of a company of soldiers 
“ furnishes out materials for an Essay on War.” As to the 
anti-souchong mania. Goldsmith laughs at it ; and this was 
doubtless the wisest way. “ He,” exclaimed Jonas in 
horror, “ who should he able to drive three Frenchmen 
“ before him, or she who might be a breeder of such a race 
“ of men, are to be seen sipping their Tea! . . . What a 
“ wild infatuation is this! . . . The suppression of this 
“ dangerous custom depends entirely on the example of 
“ Ladies of rank in this country . . . Some indeed have 
“ resolution enough in their own houses, to confine the use 
“ of Tea to their own table, but their number is so extremely 
“ small, amidst a numerous acquaintance I know only of 
“ Mrs. T. . . . whose name ought to be written out in letters 
“ of gold.” “ Thus we see,” is Goldsmith’s comment upon 
this. “ bow fortunate some folks fire. Mrs. T. . . . i U ai d 



months scoured through, those eighteen centuries- It was 
a scheme of the London "booksellers to tluwart the success of 
Hume, which promised just then to "be too considerable for 
an undertaking in which the craft liaxl no concern. His 
Commonwealth volume, profiting by religious outcry against 
its author, was selling vigorously; people -were inquiring 
for the preceding Stuart volume; and Paternoster Row, 
alarmed for its rights and properties rn standard history 
hooks, resolved to take the field before the promised Tudor 
volumes could he brought to market. They hacked tlioir 
best man, and succeeded. The ECistorij, we are 

told, “ had a very disagreeable effect on Mr. Hume’s 
<£ performance.” It had also, it wonld appear, a very 
disagreeable effect on Mr. Iiume’s temper. <c A Frenchman 
“ came to me,” he writes to Robertson, ce and spoke of 
“ translating my new volume of history : but as he also 
“ mentioned his intention of translating Smollett, I gavo 
cc him no encouragement to proceed.” * It Had besides, it 
may he added, a very disagreeable effect on tlie tempers of 
other people. Warburton heard of its swift sale while his 
own Divine Legation lay heavy and quiet at liis publisher’s ; 
and cc the vagabond Scot who writes nonsense,” was the 
character vouchsafed to Smollett by tlie voliement proud 
priest. But it is again incumbent on me to say that 
Goldsmith keeps his temper : that, in this as in former 
instances, there is no disposition to carp at a. great success 
or quarrel with a celebrated name. ITis notice lias evident 
marks of the interpolation of Griffiths, tlioug’H that worthy's 


of personal and political opposition to tho subject of it, it 
is manly and kind. Tlio weak places were pointed out 
with gentleness, while Goldsmith strongly seized on what 
he felt to he the strength of Smollett. “ The. stylo of thin 
“Historian,” he said, “is in general clear, nervous, and 
“flowing; and we think it impossible for a Header of taste? 
“ not to be pleased with the perspicuity and elegance of 
“ his maimer.” * 

For the critic’s handling in lighter matters, 1 will mention 
what lie said of a hook hy Jonas Han way. This was tlio 
Jonas of whom Doctor Johnson ailirmed that ho acquired 
some reputation hy travelling abroad, but lost it all by 
travelling at homo: not a witticism, hut a sober truth. His 
book about Persia was excellent, and his hook about Hurts- 
mouth .indifferent. But though an eccentric, ho was a very 
benevolent and earnest man ; and though he made the com¬ 
mon mistake of thinking himself even more wise than he 
was good, ho had too much reason to complain, which he 
was always doing, of a general want of earnest ness and 
seriousness in his ago. His larger schemes id' benevolence 
have connected his name with tlio Marine Society ami the 
Magdalen, both of which ho originated, as well as with the 
Foundling, which ho was active in improving; and to bin 
courage and perseverance in smaller fields of usefulness ilnn 
determined contention with extravagant vails to ^ennuis * 

* Mmii/ili/ limVir, xvi. fiH‘2, Junr !T'u. 

i- “ Wlion T wit to Ilngnrtli,” mid Mr. Cole, "tlio .•iiwt-m >■( **,}* 

“to HorvanlH wrh not diHiioiiliiuti'il. On takiii# I'vivo ><{ tin- j>iiua4«-r »i (lie* 


V. not the least), the men of Goldsmith’s day were indebted for 
29 . liberty to use an umbrella. Gay’s pleasant poem of Trivia, 
and Swift’s description of a city shower, commemorate its 
earlier use by poor women; by “ tuok’d-up sempstresses” 
and “ walking maids; ” * but with even this class it was a 
winter privilege, and woo to the woman of a bettor sort, or 
to the man, whether rich or poor, who dared at any time so 
to invade the rights of coachmen and chairmen. Put Jonas 
steadily underwent the staring, laughing, jeering, hooting, 
and bullying; and having punished some insolent knaves 
who struck him with their whips as well us tongues, lie 
finally established a privilege which, when the Journal lira 
])rhntx gravely assured its readers that the king of the 
barricades (that king whose throne has since boon burnt at 
the top of fresh barricades on the site of the Pastille) was to 
be seen walking the streets of Paris with an umbrella under 
his arm, had reached its culminating point and played a part 
in state affairs, Kxeellent Mr. Hallway, having settled the 

“ uflVn'il liim X‘l(H) a-yetir fur the ihmrj" I duulil whether tlu« latter Main- 
meat renin ioi j'uml uulliurily ; fur it in the defect nf mi ntherwim> pleiuiunt hunk 
t,u tin uiily mint ami k nidging jimtiee tn Hcyunlda, ami tun readily tu l*«>li«>vo 
everything Knit! n#niiiHt him. Tilt' liinj'mpher tmik anrli tannv t, part with, 
Jln^arlli, that lm limitin' unruimcinim huw unfairly 1m uaa livuliuK Ut'yunhlM. 

* ** Hritaiu in winter only humus iia niil 

“ Tn guard fi'nin chilly ahnweia the walking maid," Uny'n Trivitt. 

u Tim tuck'd ii)i w'iu]>*lj'rnst t* nlka vi'itli hnnty utridrM, 

u Wliilo Htmmw run dnwu lmr nil'd nmlirella'a mdea," Kvt ift’a ('Ihj frhmrw 

Ni'Vcrtlu'U’HH, Mr. Bnltnii (Wuey, ulnec this Imigntphy Iir«t appeared, Iihm pm. 
dinvd wnun llut'ii a century earlier in dale, which might m cm t*i pi eve that llm 
“ uinht'clla’* hml been In u«c in Michm l hmpmi’s time, even Uy tlu< high Omni 
ii'« .' "hm uf llui wan wlrrwi ami the imiii. '* Of ilnvca," nnv« tlmL **l»l 


Chap. I.] REVIEWING FOR MR. AND MRS. GRIFFITHS. 


use of the umbrella, made a less successful move wlien lie 17 
would have written down the use of tea. m. 

This is one of the prominent subjects in the Journey 
from Portsmouth: the book which Griffiths had now placed 
in his workman’s hands. Doctor Johnson’s review of it for 
the Literary Magazine is widely known, and Goldsmith’s 
deserved notoriety as well. It is more kindly, and as 
effectively, written. He saw what allowance could be made 
for a writer, however mistaken, who “ shows great goodness 
“ of heart, and an earnest concern for the welfare of his 
“ country.” Where the book was at its worst, the man might 
be at his best, he very agreeably undertakes to prove. “ The 
“ appearance of an inn on the road, suggests to our 
“ Philosopher an eulogitim on temperance ; the confusion 
“ of a disappointed Landlady gives rise to a Letter on 
“ Presentment ; and the view of a company of soldiers 
“ furnishes out materials for an Essay on War.” As to the 
anti-souchong mania, Goldsmith laughs at it; and this was 
doubtless the wisest way. “ He,” exclaimed Jonas in 
horror, “who should be able to drive three Frenchmen 
“ before him, or she who might be a breeder of such a race 
“ of men, are to be seen sipping their Tea ! . . . What a 
“ wild infatuation is this! . . . The suppression of this 
“ dangerous custom depends entirely on the example of 


“ saves something in domestic expenses into the barg 
In subsequent serious expostulation with Mr. Hanw 
some medical assumptions in his book, the reviewer 
aside his humble patched velvet of Bankable, and spoor 
though with nothing less invested than the prosit 
gold-headed cane: after which he closes with this pie 
quiet good-sense. “ Yet after all, why so violent an o 
“ against this devoted article of modern luxury ? I 
“ nation that is rich bath hud, and will have, its favc 
u luxuries. Abridge the people in one, they gonorall; 
“ into another ; and the .Bender may judge which \yi 
“ most conducive to either menial or bodily health : 
“ watery beverage of a modern lint; Lady, or the strong 
“ and stronger waters, of her great-grandmother ? ” * 
This paper bad appeared in July, and in the same nu 
there was also a clever notice from the sumo band of Ilob 
translation of the first book of Cardinal do Poliguac’s 3 
poem of An(i’/jitrn'(ii(n : 1 the poem whose ill ku 
stopped dray in whut lie playfully culled his MuMer To 
LuartiuH l (“Be l Vmeipiis CogiinmU"), The. e.ardi 
work I may mention as a huge monument of mistip; 
learning and not a little vanity ; the talk of the worl 
those days, now forgotten. It was the work of a life ; <j 
boast of having been corrected by Boilenu and altcrca 
Louis the Fourteenth ; and was kept in manuscript so 1 
and so often, with inordinate self-complacency, pub 
recited from by thu author in a kind earnest of whai 
world wuh one day to expect, that some listeners with j 


and an instalment of thirteen thousand lines appeared ;* of 17 
which certainly one line (JErvpvAtque Jovi. fulmen, Phceboque 2Et 
sagittas, which the worthy cardinal had himself stolen from 
Marcus Manilius), having since suggested Franklin’s epitaph 
(Eripuit ccelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis), t has a good 
chance to live. To the August number of the Review , among 
other matters, Goldsmith contributed a lively paper I on 
those new volumes of Voltaire’s Universal History which so 
delighted Walpole and Gray; but in the September number* 
where he remarks on Odes by Mr. Gray,' I find opinions 
which place in lively contrast the obscure Oliver and the 
brilliant Horace. 

Walpole called himself a whig, in compliment to his 
father ; but except in very rare humours he hated, while he 
envied, all things popular. “I am more humbled,” was his 
cry, when thirsting for every kind of notoriety, “ I am more 

* See Grimm’s Anecdotes, i. 455. I may add, that, ten years after the present 
date, “George Canning, of the Middle Temple, Esq, 5 ’ father of the statesman, 
published a poor translation of the Cardinal’s first three books. 

f Turgot’s biographer, Condorcet, quotes this line as the only Latin verse com¬ 
posed by the great French economist; but Turgot had only “ adapted ” it, and from 
Polignac no doubt, to place under a portrait of Franklin. The line of Manilius, 
the bar from -which both wires are drawn, is that in which he speaks of Epicurus, 
“Eripuitque Jovi fulmen, viresque Tonanti.” Astron. lib. v. line 104. 

J In the form of a letter to the authors of the MontMy Review (xvii. 154, 

August 1757). Gray disliked Voltaire's opinions generally, “but this,” says 
Mr. Nichols, “ did not prevent his paying the full tribute of admiration due to 
“his genius. He was delighted with his pleasantry; approved his historical 
“compositions, particularly his JEssai sur VHistoire Universelle j and placed his 
“ tragedies next in rank to those of Skalcspeare.” Works, v. 32, 33. In a letter 
to Wharton (July 10, 17G4) he talks of his having been roading “ half-a-dozen 
“ new works of that inexhaustible, eternal, entortaining scribblor Yoltairo, who at 
‘ ‘ last (I fear) will go to Heaven, for to Mm entirely it is owing that tiro king of 
“ France and his council have received and set aside the decision of the parliament 


u humbled by any applause in the present age, than by hosts 
u of such critics as Bean Milles.” * He was very steady in 
bis fondness for Gray (though Gray appears never to have 
quite thrown aside the recollection of their early disagree¬ 
ment t), because there was that real indifference to popular 
influences in the poet, which the wit and fine gentleman was 
anxious to have credit for. This liking he proclaimed on 
all occasions; had written the short advertisement which 
prefaced the first edition of the IMcgy ; had himself taken 
the risk of publishing, four years before, “ a fine edition of 
“ six poems of Mr. Gray, with prints from designs of Mr. R. 
“ Bentley; ” X and when he heard, in the July of this year, 
that Gray had left his Cambridge retreat for a visit to 
1 )odalny the bookseller, ho managed, as he says himself, to 
“ snatch " away the new Odes to confer grace on the newly 
started types at Strawberry-hill. § Those were the Bard 

* Call tM. v. 823. 

+ For Walpole's account of their dlfforom*« when travelling on tho continent 
together In their youth, whi V‘4i, Lrtl. v. 3*40, 3-11 ; but Mr. Mitford, in liia 
edition of (l my, I ms explained the matter differently, «m the authority of Mr, Isaac 
Ui ihI, Prom this it would swim Unit the nuanrel arose out of a suspicion on 
WaljudoV jtart tlmt Urny ltiul ojKiktut ill of him to some friends in Uuglaml, which 
uu|x<lh<d him l»i n|«<n clandestinely, ami reseat, ono of Umy'u letters. Tills was 
discovered and resented, ll'or/:*, ii. ITS, It is right to add, however, tliat 

this noiHmut in not h<*rn«'out hy wlmt tlray said to Nichols, on tlm latter ijiuiHLiuniug 
h»»u nlsiui tin* ijnam l. “ WaijMile," replied limy, “ was son of the llrst juinister, 
•' and you may easily euuoeivo that on this account lie might assume on air of 
" an {priority, or tin or say something which jwrhups 1 did not Imar as well as I 
"ought." IKowb, v. 48. This, sutwhuitWIy, would hear out Walpole, who 
takes ail that kind of tdatue frankly to himself. 

X Om his owu Short Notes of his life, tMters to Mann (1848, 1844, concluding 
mules), tv, 348, Se« also his brief Memoir of Urey, and tint letters to llrowu and 
Mm, in Milford’s (.Wwi/hom frare «»/ limytmd Mt»m 11863) xxxiii, 83, and 32. 



Chap. I.] REVIEWING FOR MR. AND MRS. GRIFFITHS. 


and tlie Progress of Poesy; two noble productions, it must 
surely be admitted, whatever of cavil can be urged against 
them for the want of clearness or ease : though not to be 
admired after the manner of Walpole, who never praises 
-without showing his dislike of others, much more than his 
love of Gray. “You are very particular, ! can tell you,” 
he says to Montague, “in liking Gray’s Odes: but you 
“ must remember that the age likes Akenside, and did like 
•“ Thomson! can the same people like both ? Milton was 
“ forced to wait till the world had done admiring Quarles.”* 
It was a habit of depreciation too much the manner of the 
time. Even the enchanting genius of Collins struck no 
responsive chord in Gray himself; nor had the Elegies of 
Shenstone, the Imagination of Akenside, or even the Castle 
of Indolence itself, given always grateful addition to the 
learned idleness of the poet of Pembroke-hall.t 

But Goldsmith, for the present, was not to this manner 
born; and though he might perhaps more freely have 
acknowledged the splendour of Gray’s imagination and the 
deep humanity of his feeling, his exquisite pathos, the 
melancholy grandeur of his tone, his touching thoughts and 
most delicately chosen words,—yet was he * at least not 

“liked tkem.” Correspondence of Gray cmd Mason , 465. Nevertheless it 
■would seem, from passages in. the same correspondence (89, 101) that Dodsley had 
had the courage to print 200Q copies ; and he told Gray, in little more than a 
month after the publication, that “ about 12 or 1300 were gone.” The formal 


man ms own reeling oi um oujuclh ana aims oi poetry. 
And this he stated with a strength and plainness which 
marks with personal interest what was said of Gray. Por¬ 
tions of a poem he had himself already written, fragments of 
exquisite simplicity ; and in what the tone of this criticism 
exhibits, we see what will one day give unity and aim to 
those poetical attempts, and raise them into enduring struc- 
turos. Wo observe the gradual development of settled 


nings of literature are breeding m lmn; the rich upturning 


'1'he toils and suffuringK of the past are now not only yielding 
fruit to him, but teaching him how it may bo gathered. 


and the reverse of Horace Walpole s. It is to study the 
people, whom Walpole would disregard ; to address those 
popular sympathies, which he affected to despise; to speak 
the language of the heart, of which he knew not much ; and 
before all things study, what so little came within the range 
of his experience, the joys and the sorrows of the poor. 


two hundred and fifty years Indore.-—to think ns a wise man 







“ himself, of whom our modern Lyrist is an imitator, 
“ appears entirely guided by it. He adapted bis works 
“ exactly to tbe dispositions of bis countrymen. Irregular, 
“ enthusiastic, and quick in transition,—be wrote for a 
“ people inconstant, of warm imaginations, and exquisite 
“ sensibility. He chose tbe most popular subjects, and all 
“ bis allusions are to customs well-known, in bis days, to 
“ tbe meanest person.” 

Admirable rebuke to those who seize tbe form, but not 
tbe spirit, of an elder time ; and mistake tbe phrase which 
passes in a century, for tbe heart which is young for ever. 
The poetical genius of which Goldsmith is already conscious, 
was in its essential character of a lower grade than that 
of Gray: but the exquisite uses to which he will direct it, 
and the wise and earnest purpose which will shape and control 
it, are to be read, as it seems to me, in this excellent piece 
of criticism. 

Mr. Gray, continued Goldsmith, wants tbe Greek writer’s 
advantages. “ He speaks to a people not easily impressed 
“with new ideas; extremely tenacious of the old; with 
“ difficulty warmed; and as slowly cooling again. How 
“ unsuited, then, to our national character is that species 
“ of poetry which rises upon us with unexpected flights; 
“ where we must hastily catch the thought, or it flies from 
“ us; and the reader must largely partake of the poet’s 
“ enthusiasm, in order to taste his beauties ! . . . Mr. Gray’s 
“ Odes, it must be confessed, breathe much of the spirit of 
“ Pindar ; but then they have caught the seeming obscurity. 


; 7 . “ a representation ox want x'inaar now appears to be, 

29. “ though perhaps not what he appeared to tho States of 
“ Greece, when they rivalled each other in his applause, 
“ and when Pan himself was seen dancing to his melody.” * 
Nothing could he happier than this last allusion. 

Of the capabilities of limy’s genius, misdirected as he 
thus believed it to he, it is satisfactory to murk Goldsmith’s 
strong appreciation. lie. speaks of him, in the emphatic 
line of the Country KU'iUh ns one whom the muse hud 
marked for her own. He grieves that “ Hindi a genius” 
should not do justice to itself, by trusting more implicitly 
to its own powers ; and quotes passages from the Jlard to 
support his belief that they are as great ** as anything of 
“ that species of composition which has hitherto appeared 
“ in our language, the (him of Dryden himself not excepted.” 
Certainly to the two exceptions which, while Goldsmith 
wrote, Gray was describing to Hurd (“my friends tell me 
“ Unit the Odt'H do not succeed, and write me many topics of 
“ consolation on that head ; 1 have heard of nobody hut an 
“ actor and a doctor of divinity that profess their esteem fur 
them”), might with some reason have been added the pour 
monthly critic of The Ihmeiud. I wish I could say, that, in 
later and mure successful days, he resisted with equal good 
taste and good sense the iniluenee of Johnson's habitual 
and strange dislike to one of the most amiable men and 
delightful writers to ho met with in our Kiiglish literature. 


Mt'itlM# ticriric, svii, mil, y id, Hi'iiU'iuli't* I7fu. 


CHAPTER II. 


MAKING- SHIFT TO EXIST. 

1757—1758. 

With the number of the Monthly Review which completed 
the fifth month of Goldsmith’s engagement with Mr. and 
Mrs. Griffiths, his labours suddenly closed. The circum¬ 
stances were never clearly explained; but that a serious 
quarrel had arisen with his employer, there is no reason 
to doubt. Griffiths accused him of idleness; said he affected 
an independence which did not become his condition, and 
left his desk before the day was done;—nor would the 
reproach appear to be groundless, if the amount of his 
labour for Griffiths were to be measured by those portions 
only which have been traced; but this would be simply 
absurd, for the mass of it undoubtedly has perished. For 
himself Goldsmith retorted, that from the bookseller he had 
suffered impertinence, and from his wife privation; that 
Mr. Griffiths withheld common respect, and Mrs. Griffiths 
the most ordinary comforts ;* that they both tampered with 

* In his extreme dosiro to work out and complete Iris favourable view of 
tlio Griffiths loanu or agreement, Mr. Do Quincoy tints philosophises the probable 
effect for good exalted over Goldsmith oven by the “antiquated female critic” her¬ 
self. Tho passage is supplementary to that which I have quoted ante, 102-4. 
“Wo see little to have altered in the loasc—that was fair enough; only aa regarded 
“tho execution of tho lease, we really must have protested, under any ciroum- 























Will biiuvv Lins , tmu wia,b jjiunmuxj' auinc auauix tuivtuiue wtio 

his method of effecting it. It enabled him to keep up the 
appearance of civility when Goldsmith left his door ; and 
to keep back the purpose of injury and insult till it could 
fall with heavier effect. The opportunity was not lost 
when it came, nor did the bookseller’s malice end with the 
writer’s death. “ Superintend the Monthly Review 1 ” cried 
Griffiths, noticing, in the number for August 1774, a brief 
memoir of Goldsmith professing to have been “ written 
“ from personal knowledge,” in which his connection with 
the work was so described. “We are authorised to say 
“ that the author is very much mistaken in his assertion. 
“ The Doctor had his merit, as a man of letters ; but alas ! 
“ those who knew him must smile at the idea of such a super- 
“ intendent of a concern which most obviously required 
“ some degree of prudence, as well as a competent acquaint- 
“ ance with the world. It is, however, true that he had, 
“for a while, a seat at our board; and that, so far as his 
“knowledge of books extended, he was not an unuseful 
“ assistant.” * 

And so, without this belauded prudence, without this 
treasure of a competent acquaintance with the world; into 
that wide, friendless, desolate world, the poor writer, the 
not unuseful assistant, was launched again. How or 

compilation of the Memoir, “I will confess to you that the circumstance of him 
“ and his wife (I moan their altering and interpolating Goldsmith’s criticisms on 
‘ ‘ hooks for the Review ) puzzles me. It is one of the most valuable anecdotes 
“ before me, and my conscience bids me report it, bnt my fears whisper to me that 
“ all the Reviews will abuse me for so doing. But who’s afraid ?” The worthy 
Dr. Campbell himself was afraid it would seem; for certainly no such anecdote 



r, 7 . where he lived lor tuo next low mom,ns, xh mutter of 
” 20 . groat uncertainty. But his letters wore addressed to the 
Temple Exchange coHee-house, near Templo-hav, where 
tho “ George ” ho celebrates in one of hia essays took 
charge of them ; tlio garret whore he wrote and slept is 
Hiippoaed to have been in one of the courts near tho 
neighbouring Salisbury>Rtpmrc ,* Doctor Kippis, one of the 
Monthly .Reviewers, “ was impressed by Home faint recol¬ 
lection of his having made translations from the Frond), 
“ among others of ft tale from Voltaireand the. recol¬ 
lection is made stronger hy one of his autographs formerly 
in I Ichor's collection, which purports to be a receipt from 
Mr. Ralph Griffiths fur ten guineas, probably signed a day 
or two before ho left the Monthly, for translation of a book 
entitled Memoirs of my Lady 11* Another writer in tho 
Jieekip, Doctor James Grainger, to whom bis residence at 
the sign of the Duneiad had made him known, and of 
whom the translation of Tibullus, the (hie to Solitude, the. 
ballad of Bryan and Pereene , and the poem of the Sugar- 
Cane, have kept a memory very pleasant though very limited, 
made tho same, coffee-house his place of call, and often 
. saw Goldsmith there.! The month in which ho separated 
from Griffiths was that in which Ncwbcry’s Literary 
Magazine, lost Johnson's services; lmt this seems the 

* Prior, l * 27 t». 

*j* “My jHKir worthy frlotni, t>r. (JrainKor, who rwidrd fur many yontu at KL 
“ (!liriftUi|ilu'r'H, tpwtiml tm*," kr. ka. Animatni Suture, v. Ififi, “Ait ngmi- 
“ alilo matt," mod JuUiiwui ; “ a titan who *«»td«I Am any good that wiut in It in 
“ jHiwi*r. M “Otto of UtP mimt gonorottH, fritutdly, and U'linvulcut tium t t*vor 


an instant places him in that garret near Salisbury-square. 
Its inmate sits alone in wretched drudgery, when the door 
opens, and a raw-looking country youth of twenty stands 
doubtfully on the doleful threshold. Goldsmith sees at 
once his youngest brother Charles; but Charles cannot 
bring himself to see, in the occupier of this miserable 
dwelling, the brother on whose supposed success he had 
already built his own! Without education, profession, 
friends, or resource of any kind, it had suddenly occurred 
to this enterprising Irish lad, as he lounged in weary 
idleness round Ballymahon, that as brother Oliver had 
not been asking for assistance lately, but was now a settled 
author in London, perhaps he had gotten great men for 
his friends, and a kind word to one of them might be 
the making of his fortune. Full of this he scrambled to 
London as he could, won the secret of the house from the 
Temple Exchange waiter to whom he confided Iris rela¬ 
tionship, and found the looked-for architect of wealth and 
honour, here/* “All in good time, my dear boy,” cried 

* “Having heardof his "brother Noll mixing in tlie first society in London, lie 
“ took it for granted that his fortune was made, and that he could soon make 
“ a brother’s also : he therefore left home without notice ; hut soon found, 
“on his arrival in London, that the picture he had formed of his brother’s 
“situation was too highly coloured, that Noll would not introduce Mm to his 
“great friends, and in fact, that, although out of a jail, he was also often out of 
“a lodging.” Northcote’s Life of Reynolds, i. 332-3. I may add, on the 
authority of a letter of Malone’s, that some thirty or forty years after this incident 
Charles was thought greatly to resemble his celebrated brother in person, speech, 
and manner; and it will he observed from the succeeding note, that he had at 
that time many habits and tastes like his, such as the love of flute-playing, and a 
frequent resort to it from painful thoughts. 


OLIVER GOLDSMITH’ 


1757. <£ as I was without friends, 

Mt. 29 . “ impudence; and that in i 

“ an Irishman was sufficient tc 
e£ in such circumstances would 
“ cord, or the suicide’s halter. 
“ principle to resist the one, 
“ other. I suppose you desire 
££ As there is nothing in it at i 
“ mankind could censure, I s< 
“ secret; in short, by a very 
“ and a very little reputation i 
“ Nothing is more apt to intr 
46 Muses than poverty ; but ii 
“ at the door. The mischief 
44 give us their company at i 
u instead of being gentlemar 
<£ the ceremonies. Thus, uf 


Chap. II.] 


MAKING SHIFT TO E 


connection with this letter. 514 What 1 : 
ever tasted in London, he says, Irish 
Signora Columbahad never poured ou 
of melody at the opera, that he did not 
fireside, and Peggy Golden’s song c 
Last Good Night. “ If I climb H 
“ where Nature never exhibited a mor 
“ I confess it fine ; but then I had n 
“ little mount before Lislioy gate, 

££ me, the most pleasing horizon in m 
“ came hither, my thoughts sometim 
“ severer studies among my friends 
“ strange revolutions at home ,* bu 
“ rapidity of my own motion, that g 
“ to objects really at rest. No all 
“ friends, he tells me, are still lean, 
“ very fat, but still very poor. Nay 


♦ LIVER GOLDSMITH'S ' 


fct of you, would fairly make a 
though, upon second thoughts, 
4 * a few inconveniences ; thereto] 
come to Mahomet, why Malioni 
He explains, that if they cann 
visit, he believes he must go n 
subscribes himself his dear Dan* 
Poet and Physician,—the rag 
under one high-sounding name, a: 
beneath the other! He was tl: 
which the common people tin 
every print-shop; he was again 
physician of the patched velvet 
and yet it was but pleasant cc 
brother-in-law Hodson, when 1 
made a shift to live. With ever 


it iSrimn. i ransiaiea in 

I at tlie Hague, by Jai 

:i was in reality Oliver G 
•*» 

book belonged to Griffiths 
tieh as the other; and the 
rs in the subsequent ass 
lo small profit to Griffith 
:seller to bookseller Dilly 
twenty guineas.* But th< 
ght pass for TTillington, 
ddsinith ; though with bii 
>scirre prefacer/' the preface 
tie. as in brighter days. r . 


n 







passage which shows with wli 

Into the popular feeling uf 
“ indignation against those i 

“ his country ? And should 
“ this generous indignation r 
“ it should not deserve appla 
“ aiiee teach an individual to i 







OUTER GOLDSMI' 


13b 


44 4 restoration I presume ? 1 
iS 4 they are only petitioning 

w 4 place.’ In the same mam: 
44 instead of having Apollo 
“ fit of the spleen; instea 
M apostrophising at my unti: 
44 Street might laugh at nr 
“ might never be able to shi 
than ridicule had he spared 
better thoughts: but they 
melancholy journey to Pec 
Milner's door. 

The schoolmaster was n< 
and would in any circumsta 

av 

given Goldsmith the shelte 
that he had special need of ] 
from the proper school-attei 



literary fruit lie 
commanded by a 
be might frarikl; 
truths of the deca 
this spirit he com 
Polite Learning i; 
to feeL in his o^ 











a .rrotestant naa seized, vote a an canasters, solicitors, 
cc attorneys and proctors, who should be concerned for him,” 
public enemies ! But, that serviceable use might be made 
of the early transmission to Ireland of a set of English 
copies of the Enquiry , by one who had zealous private 
friends there, was Goldsmith’s not unreasonable feeling; 
and he would try this, when the time came. Meanwhile he 
began the work; and it was probably to some extent 
advanced, when, with little savings from the school, and 
renewed assurances of the foreign appointment. Doctor 
Milner released him from duties which the necessity (during 
the Doctor’s illness) of flogging the boys as well as teaching 
them, appears to have made more intolerable to the child- 
loving usher. The reverend Mr. Mitford knew a lady whose 
husband had been at this time under Goldsmith’s cane; but 
with no very serious consequence. 

Escape from the school might not have been so easy, but 
for the lessening chances of Doctor Milner’s recovery having 
made more permanent arrangements advisable. Some 
doubt has been expressed indeed, whether the worthy 
schoolmaster’s illness had not already ended fatally; and 
if the kindness I have recorded should not rather be 
attributed to his son and successor in the school, Mr. 
George Milner. But other circumstances clearly invalidate 
this, and show that it must have been the elder Milner’s. In 
August 1758, however, Goldsmith again had bidden biin 
adieu ; and once more had seemed a respectable town 
address for his letters, and, among the Graingers and 
Kippises and other tavern acquaintance, obtained the old 


CHAPTER III. 


ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE FROM LITERATURE. 

1758. 

Grainger, Ms Mend Percy,* and others of the Griffiths 
connection, were at tMs time busy upon a new magazine: 
begun with the present year, and dedicated to the “ great 
“ Mr. Pitt,” whose successful coercion of the king made him 
just now more than ever the darling of the people. Griffiths 
was one of the publisMng partners in The Grand Magazine 
of Universal Intelligence and Monthly Chronicle of our own 
Times: and perhaps on tMs account, as well as for the 
known contributions of some of his acquaintance, f traces of 
Goldsmith’s hand have been sought in the work; in my 
opinion without success. In truth the first number was 
hardly out when he went hack to the Peckham school; and 
on Ms return to London, though he probably eked out Ms 
poor savings by casual writings here and there, it is certain 
that on the foreign appointment Ms hopes continued steadily 
fixed, and that the work which was to aid Mm in Ms escape 


nearly all his thoughts. He was again in London, and a 
working with the pen ; but he was no longer the booksel 
slave, nor was literary toil his impassable and hop< 
doom. Therefore, in the confidence of swift libera 
and the hope of the new career that brightened in 
sanguine heart, he addressed himself cheerily enough to 
design in hand, and began solicitation of his Irish friend 
Edward Mills he thought of first, as a person of s 
influence. He was liis relative, had been his fel 
collegian, and was a prosperous, wealthy man. “ Dear i 
he begins, in a letter dated from the Temple 8 Exchf 
coffee-house, on the 7th of August, and published by Bis 
Percy: * 

e You have quitted, I find, that plan of life which you once inte 
K to pursue ; and given up ambition for domestic tranquillity. 1 
u I to consult your satisfaction alone in this change, I have the ut 
“ reason to congratulate your choice; hut when I consider my 
“ I cannot avoid feeling some regret, that one of my few friends 
“ declined a pursuit, in which he had every reason to expect sue 
“ The truth is, like the rest of the world, I am self-interested in 
“ concern ; and do not so much consider the happiness you 
“ acquired, as the honour I have probably lost in the change. I 
“ often let my fancy loose when you were the subject, and 1 
u imagined yon gracing the bench, or thundering at the bar; v 
u I have taken no small pride to myself, and whispered all that I c 
u come near, that this was my cousin. Instead of this, it seems yot 
u contented to he merely an happy man ; to he esteemed only by • 
“ acquaintance—to cultivate your paternal acres—to take unmolc 
a a wader one of your own hawthorns, or in Mrs. Mills’s 
u chamber, which even a poet must confess, is rather the l 
“ comfortable place of the two. 

“ But however your resolutions ma he altered with reornrd t.n • 


c£ possession of that heart (once so susceptible of friendship), as not to 
“ hare left a comer there for a friend or two ; hut I flatter myself that 
“ even I have my place among the number. This I have a claim to 
“ from the similitude of our dispositions ; or, setting that aside, I can 
“ demand it as my right by the most equitable law in nature, I mean that 
“ of retaliation : for indeed you have more than your share in mine. I 
“ am a man of few professions, and yet this very instant I cannot avoid 
“ the painful apprehension that my present professions (which speak not 
“ half my feelings) should he considered only a pretest to cover a request, 
“ as I have a request to make. No, my dear Ned, I know you are too 
“ generous to think so ; and you know me too proud to stoop to 
“ mercenary insincerity. I have a request it is true to make ; but, as 
“ I know to whom I am a petitioner, I make it without diffidence or 
“ confusion. It is in short this, I am going to publish a book in 
“ London, entitled An Essay on the present State of Taste and 
“ Literature in Europe. Every work published here the printers in 
“ Ireland republish there, without giving the author the least con- 
“ sideration for his copy. I would in this respect disappoint their 
“ avarice, and have all the additional advantages that may result from 
£ ‘ the sale of my performance there to myself. The book is now 
“ printing in London, and I have requested I)r. Radcliff, Mr. Lawder, 
“ Mr. Bryanton, my brother Mr. Henry Goldsmith, and brother-in-law 
“ Air. Hodson, to circulate my proposals among their acquaintance. 
<£ The same request I now make to you ; and have accordingly given 
“ directions to Mr. Bradley bookseller in Dame-street Dublin, to send 
“ you a hundred proposals. Whatever subscriptions pursuant to those 
“ proposals, you may receive, when collected, may be transmitted to 
“ Mr. Bradley, who will give a receipt for the money, and be aecount- 
“ able for the books. I shall not, by a paltry apology, excuse myself 
“ for putting you to this trouble. Were I not convinced that you 
££ found more pleasure in doing good-natured things, than uneasiness 
££ at being employed in them, I should not have singled you out on 
<£ this occasion. It is probable you would comply with such a request, 
“ if it tended to the encouragement of any man of learning whatsoever; 
££ what then may not he expect who has claims of family and friend- 
£c ship to enforce his ? 


175 ?. What indeed may he not freely expect, who is to re( 
it. nothing! Nevertheless, there is a worse fool’s parr 
than that of expectation. To teach onr tears the ea 
way to flow, should be no unvalued part of this wo 
wisdom ; hope is a good friend, even when the only ( 
and Goldsmith was not the worse for expecting, th< 
he received nothing. Mr. Mills left his poor reqt 
unheeded, and his letter unacknowledged. Sharking b 
sellers and starving authors might devour each other b< 
he would interpose ; being a man, as his old sizar-rel: 
delicately hinted, with paternal acres as well as be 
friendships to cultivate, and fewer thorns of the worl 
struggle with, than hawthorns of his own to sleep ur 
He lived to repent it certainly, and to profess £ 
veneration for the distinguished writer to whom he bos 
relationship; but Goldsmith had no more pleasant h 
or friendly correspondences to fling away upon Mr. 1 
of Roscommon. Not that even this letter, as it seen 
me, had been one of very confident expectation. Uni 
effort is manifest in it;—a reluctance to bring unse< 
fancies between the wind and Mr. Mills’s gentility 
conventional style of balance between the “ pleasure ” 
the “ uneasiness ” it talks about;—in short, a forced 
pression of everything in his own state that may affront 
acres and the hawthorns. 

Seven days afterwards he wrote to Bryanton, wit 
curious contrast of tone and manner. Even Bryanton 
not inquired for him since the scenes of happier y< 


ju.au. uu-c; vvuxu.» yyxxxuxx uxi.ccx.llj xuoc auuvciii uccu jjcxxrajjo xcob 

sincere. But see, and make profit of it,—how, depressed 
by unavailing labours, and patiently awaiting the disastrous 
issue of defeat and flight, he shows to the last a bright 
and cordial happiness of soul, unconquered and un¬ 
conquerable. 

“ Bear Sir, I have heard it remark’d,” he begins (in a 
letter also dated from the Temple coffee-house,* which 
Mr. Prior obtained from Bryant on’s son-in-law, the reverend 
Doctor Handeock of Dublin, and in which, where the paper 
is tom or has been worn away by time, there are several 
erasures that the reader will easily supply), 

“ I believe by yourself, that they who are drunk, or out of their 
“ wits, fancy every body else in the same condition : mine is a friend- 
“ ship that neither distance nor time can efface, which is probably the 
“ reason that, for the soul of me, I can’t avoid thinking yours of the 
“ same complexion ; and yet I have many reasons for being of a con- 
“ trary opinion, else why in so long an absence was I never made a 
“ partner in your concerns ? To hear of your successes would have 
“ given me the utmost pleasure ; and a communication of your very 
“ disappointments would divide the uneasiness I too frequently feel 
“ for my own. Indeed, my dear Boh, you don’t conceive how unkindly 
“ you have treated one whose circumstances afford him few prospects 
“ of pleasure, except those reflected from the happiness of his friends. 
“ However, since you have not let me hear from you, I have in some 
“ measure disappointed your neglect by frequently thinking of you. 
“ Every day do I remember the calm anecdotes of your life, from the 
“ fireside to the easy-ehair; recall the various adventures that first 
“ cemented our friendship,—the school, the college, or the tavern; 
“ preside in fancy over your cards ; and am displeased at your had 
“ play when the rubber goes against you, though not with all that 
“ agony of soul as when I once was your partner. 

“ Is it not strange that two of such like affections should he so much 


OLIVER GOLDSMITH 8 LIFE AND TIMES. 


[Book. It. 


175*. 

It. 14 


u at the centre of fortune’s wheel, and let it revolve never bo fast, seem 
u m*ei»il*le of the motion. I seem to have been tied to the eircum- 
u ferenee, and .... disagreeably round like an whore in a whirligig 
u .... down with an intention to chide, and yet methinks .... my 

** resentment already. The truth ia, I am a-regard to you; I 

u may attempt to blaster,.Anacreon, my heart is respondent 

“ only to softer affections. And yet, now I think on’t again, I will 
K be angry. God’s corse, sir ! who am I ? Eh ! what am 11 Do 
u you know whom yon have offended 1 A man whose character may 
“ one of these days he mentioned with profound respect in a German 
u comment or Dutch dictionary ; whose name you will probably hear 
“ ushered in by a Doetissimus Doctissimorum, or heel-pieced with a 
a long Latin termination. Think how Goldsmithius, or Gubblegurchius, 
“ or some such sound, as rough as a nutmeg-grater, will become me ? 
“ Think of that'—God’s curse, sir ! who am I ? I must own my ill- 
“ natured contemporaries have not hitherto paid me those honours I 
“ have had such just reason to expect I have not yet seen my face 
u reflected in all the lively display of red and white paints on any sign- 
8 poets in the suburbs. Your handkerchief weavers seem as yet 
K unaequamfed with my merits or my physiognomy, and the very snuff- 
u boa: makers appear to have forgot their respect Tell them all from 
** me, they are a set of Gothic, barbarous, ignorant scoundrels. There 
8 will come a day, no doubt it will—I beg you may live a couple of 
u hundred years longer only to see the day—when the Scaligers and 
“ Daeiers will vindicate my character, give learned editions of my 
“ labours, and bless the times with copious comments on the text. You 
££ shall see how they will fish up the heavy scoundrels who disregard 
“ me now, or will then offer to cavil at my productions. How will 
“ they bewail the times that suffered so much genius to he neglected.* 

* If ever my works find their way to Tartary or China, I know the 
u consequence. Suppose one of your Chinese Owanowitzers instructing 
“one of your Tartarian Chianobacehhi—you see I use Chinese names 

* to show my own erudition, as I shall soon make our Chinese talk 
u hke an Englishman to show his. This may be the subject of the 
x lecture: 



tits is entitled an 1 Lssay on the present state of 1 aste and Literature Mt. 
“ ‘ in Europe,' — a work well worth its tv eight in diamonds. In this 
“ he profoundly explains what learning is, and what learning is not. 

(c In this he proves that Uociheads are not men of wit, and yet that men of 
“ wit are actually blockheads. 

u But as I choose neither to tire my Chinese Philosopher, nor you, 

“ nor myself, I must discontinue the oration, in order to give you a 
“ good pause for admiration ; and I find myself most violently disposed 
“ to admire too. Let me, then, stop my fancy to take a view of my 
“ future self; and, as the boys say, light down to see myself on horse- 
“ back. Well, now I am down, where the devil is 1? Oh Gods ! 

“ Gods ! here in a garret, writing for bread, and expecting to he dunned 
“ for a milk-score! However, dear Bob, whether in penury or 
“ affluence, serious or gay, I am ever wholly thine, 

“ Oliver Goldsmith. 

“ Give my—no, not compliments neither, but something . . . most 
“ warm and sincere wish that you can conceive, to your mother, 

“ Mrs. Bryanton, to Miss Bryanton, to yourself; and if there be a 
“ favourite dog in the family, let me be remembered to it.” 

“ In a garret, writing for bread, and expecting to be 
“ dunned for a milk-score.” Such was the ordinary fate 
of letters in that age. There bad been a Christian religion 
extant for now seventeen hundred and fifty-seven years; for 
so long a time had the world been acquainted with its 
spiritual responsibilities and necessities; yet here, in the 
middle of the eighteenth century, was the eminence 
ordinarily conceded to the spiritual teacher, to the man who 
comes upon the earth to lift his fellow men above its miry 
ways. He is up in a garret, writing for bread he cannot 
get, and dunned for a milk-score he cannot pay. And age 
after age,* the prosperous man comfortably contemplates it, 

* ‘‘ There came into my company an old fellow not particularly smart, so that 


Poet of the inimitable Mr. Hogarth, and invited laughter 
from easy guests at the garret and the milk-score. Yet 
could they, those worthy men, have known the danger to 
even their worldliest comforts then impending, perhaps 
they had not laughed so heartily. Tor, were not these very 
citizens to be indebted to Goldsmith in after years, for 
cheerful hours, and happy thoughts, and fancies that would 
smooth life’s path to their children’s children ? And now, 
without a friend, with hardly bread to eat, and uncheered 
by a hearty word or a smile to help him on, he sits in his 
melancholy garret, and those fancies die within him. It is 
but an accident now, that the good Vicar shall be born, 
that the Man in Black shall dispense his charities, that 
Croaker shall grieve, Tony Lumpkin laugh, or the sweet 
soft echo of the Deserted Village come for ever back upon 
the heart, in charity, and kindness, and sympathy with 
the poor. Tor, despair is in the garret; and the poet, over¬ 
mastered by distress, seeks only the means of flight and 
exile. With a day-dream to his old Irish playfellow, a sigh 
for the “ heavy scoundrels ” who disregard him, and a wail 
for the age to which genius is a mark of mockery; he turns 
to that first avowed piece, which, being also his last, is to 
prove that “ blockheads are not men of wit, and yet that 
“ men of wit are actually blockheads.” 

A proposition which men of wit have laboured at from 
early times; have proved in theory, and worked out in 
practice. "How many base men,” shrieked one of them 
in Elizabeth s day, who felt that his wit had but made him 
the greater lockhead. “ tlfVOT mnmr Iiood m +Uo+ 


“ those parts I have, do enjoy content at -will, and have 17 , 
“ wealth, at command! I call to mind a cobbler, that is 
“ worth fire hundred pounds; an hostler, that has built a 
“ goodly inn; a carman in a leather pilche, that has whipt 
“ a thousand pounds out of his horse’s tail: and I ask if I 
“ have more than these. Am I not better born ? am I not 
“ better brought up ? yea, and better favoured l And yet 
“ am I for ever to sit up late, and rise early, and contend 
“ with the cold, and converse with scarcity, and be a 
<c beggar ? How am I crossed, or whence is this curse, 
te that a scrivener should be better paid than a scholar! ”* 

Poor Nash! he had not even Goldsmith’s fortitude, and 
his doleful outcry for money was a lamentable exhibition, 
out of which no good could come. But the feeling in the 
miserable man’s heart, struck at the root of a secret discon¬ 
tent which not the strongest men can resist altogether ; and 
which Goldsmith did not affect to repress, when he found 
himself, as he says, “ starving in those streets where Butler 
“ and Otway starved before him.” 

The words are in a letter, written the day after that to 
Bryanton,! bearing the same date of Temple Exchange 
coffee-house, and sent to Mrs. Lawder ; the Jane C on tar in e 
of his happy old Kilmore time. Mr. Mills afterwards begged 
this letter of the Lawders, and from the friend to whom he 
gave it, Lord Carleton’s nephew, it was copied for Bishop 
Percy by Edmund Malone. As in those already given, the 

* Thomas Nash, in his Pierce Pennilesse. Let me quote, too, that good old 
English gentleman, whose lamentations had already found earlier record in one of 

r.1? \KI Alnnw’n "Pinliovd Pono ^ -p/vtlioTl 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH S LIFE AND TIMES. 


[Book II. 


1758 , style, with its simple air of authorship, is eminently good 
Bl w. and happy. The assumption of a kind of sturdy indepen¬ 
dence, the playful admission of well-known faults, and the 
incidental slight confession of sorrows, have graceful 
relation to the person addressed, and the terms on which 
they stood of old. His uncle was now in a hopeless state 
of living death, from which, in a few months, the grave 
released him ; and to this the letter affectingly refers. 

“TO MRS. JANE LAWDER. 

“ If you should ask, why in an interval of so many years, you never 
“ heard from me, permit me, madam, to ask the same question. I have 
“the best excuse in recrimination. I wrote to Elmore from Leyden 
“in Holland, from Louvain in Flanders, and Eouen in France, but 
“received no answer. To what could I attribute this silence but to dis¬ 
pleasure or forgetfulness 1 Whether I was right in my conjecture I 
“do not pretend to determine ; hut this I must ingenuously own, that I 
“have a thousand times in my turn endeavoured to forget them, whom 
“ I could not but look upon as forgetting me. I have attempted to blot 
“their names from my memory, and, I confess it, spent whole days in 
“ efforts to tear their image from my heart. Could I have succeeded, 
“ you had not now been troubled with this renewal of a discontinued 
“ correspondence; hut, as every effort the restless make to procure 
“sleep serves but to keep them waking, all my attempts contributed to 
“ impress what I would forget deeper on my imagination. But this 
“subject I would willingly turn from, and yet, ‘for the soul of me,’ I 
“ can’t till I have said all. 

a I was, madam, when I discontinued writing to Elmore, in such 
“ circumstances, that all my endeavours to continue your regards might 
“ be attributed to wrong motives. My letters might he looked upon 
“ as the petitions of a beggar, and not the offerings of a friend ; while 
“all my professions, instead of being considered as the result of dis- 


“ an indirect request for future ones, and where it might he thought 
“ I gave my heart from a motive of gratitude alone, when I was 
“ conscious of having bestowed it on much more disinterested principles. 

“It is true, this conduct might have been simple enough, but yourself 
“ must confess it was in character. Those who know me at all know 
“that I have always been actuated by different principles from the 
“ rest of mankind, and while none regarded the interest of his friend 
“ more, no man on earth regarded his own less. I have often affected 
“ bluntness to avoid the imputation of flattery, have frequently seemed 
“ to overlook those merits too obvious to escape notice, and pretended 
“ disregard to those instances of good nature and good sense, which I 
“ could not fail tacitly to applaud ; and all this lest I should be ranked 
“ amongst the grinning tribe, wbo say ‘ very true ’ to all that is said, 
“ who fill a vacant chair at a tea-table, whose narrow souls never moved 
“in a wider circle than the circumference of a guinea, and who had 
“ rather be reckoning tbe money in your pocket than the virtue of 
“ your breast. All this, I say, I have done, and a thousand other very 
“ silly though very disinterested things in my time, and for all which 
“ no soul cares a farthing about me. God’s curse, madam ! is it to be 
“ wondered, that he should once in his life forget you, who has been all 
“ his life forgetting himself 1 

“ However it is probable yon may one of those days see me turned 
“into a perfect hunks, and as dark and intricate as a mouse-hole. 
“I have already given my landlady orders for an entire reform in 
“ the state of my finances. I declaim against hot suppers, drink less 
“sugar in my tea, and check my grate with brickbats. Instead 
“ of banging my room with pictures, I intend to adorn it with 
“maxims of frugality. Those will make pretty furniture enough, 
“ and won’t be a hit too expensive; for I shall draw them all out 
“ with my own hands, and my landlady’s daughter shall frame 
“ them with the parings of my black waistcoat. Each maxim is 
“ to be inscribed on a sheet of clean paper, and wrote with my best 
“ pen ; of wbicb tbe following will serve as a specimen. Look 
'■'■sharp: Mind the main chance; Money is money now; If you have a 
“ thousandpounds you can put your hands by your sides, and say you 
“are worth a thousand pounds every day of the year; Take a farthing 

ff -ftrrwn. n. hunrlrtrl if. tnil. hr rt him.rJ.rprJ. •nn Irtormlr T’-hns wHirVh wav 


comes, Wlieu your ptHJl' U1U- JaUIipiC lUCUU xllclj a^aiu give Oj luuac fcU tuts 

“luxuriance of his nature, sitting by Kilmore fire-side, recount the 
“various adventures of a hard-fought life, laugh over the follies of 
“the day, join his flute to your harpsichord, and forget that ever 
“ he starved in those streets where Butler and Otway starved before 
“ him. 

“ And now I mention those great names—My uncle !—he is no more 
“ that soul of fire as when once I knew him. Newton and Swift grew 
“ dim with age as well as he. But what shall I say ?—his mind was 
“ too active an inhabitant not to disorder the feeble mansion of its 
“ abode; for the richest jewels soonest wear their settings. Yet who 
“ but the fool would lament his condition ! He now forgets the 
“calamities of life. Perhaps indulgent heaven has given him a fore- 
“ taste of that tranquillity here, which he so well deserves hereafter. 

“ But I must come to business ; for business, as one of my maxims 
“ tells me, must be minded or lost. I am going to publish in London, a 
“ book entitled The Present State of Taste and Literature in Europe. The 
“booksellers in Ireland republish every performance there without 
“ making the author any consideration. I would, in this respect, dis- 
“ appoint their avarice, and have all the profits of my labour to myself. 
“ I must therefore request Mr. Lawder to circulate among his friends 
“and acquaintances a hundred of my proposals, which I have given the 
“ bookseller, Mr. Bradley in Dame Street, directions to send to him. If 
“ in pursuance of such circulation, he should receive any subscriptions, 
“I entreat when collected..they may be sent to Mr. Bradley as afore- 
“ said, who will give a receipt, and be accountable for the work, or a 
“ return of the subscription. If this request (which, if it be complied 
“with, will in some measure-be an encouragement to a man of learning) 
“ should be disagreeable or troublesome, I would not press it; for I 
“ would be the last man, on earth to have my labours go a-begging ; 
‘‘but if I know Mr. Lawder (and sure I ought to know him), he will 
“accept the employment with pleasure. All I can say—if he writes 
“ a book, I will get him two hundred subscribers, and those of the 
“ best wits in Europe, 

“Whether this request is complied with or not, I shall not be uneasy : 
“but there is one petition I must make to him and to you, which I 


iNow see now l blot ana blunaer, wnen i am asking a lavour. 


In none of tliese letters, it will be observed, is allusion 
made to tbe expected appointment. To make jesting boast 
of a visionary influence with two hundred of the best wits in 
Europe, was pleasanter than to make grave confession of 
himself as a wit taking sudden flight from the scene of 
defeat and failure. It was the old besetting weakness. But 
shortly after the date of the last letter, the appointment was 
received. It was that of medical officer to one of the 
factories on the coast of Coromandel; was forwarded by 
Doctor Milner’s friend Mr. Jones, the East India director ; 
and the worthy schoolmaster did not outlive more than a 
few weeks this honest redemption of his promise. The 
desired escape was at last effected, and the booksellers 
might look around them for another drudge more patient 
and obedient than Oliver Goldsmith. 


CHAPTER IV. 


ESCAPE PREVENTED. 

175S. 

It was now absolutely necessary that the proposed change 
in Goldsmith’s life should be broken to his Irish friends; and 
he wrote to his brother Henry. The letter (which contained 
also the design of a heroi-comical poem at which he had 
"been occasionally working), is lost; hut some passages of 
one of nearly the same date to Mr. Hodson, have had a 
better fortune. 

“Dear Sir,” it began, in obvious allusion to some staid and 
rather gratuitous reproach from the prosperous brother-in- 
law, “ You cannot expect regularity in one who is regular .in 
“ nothing. Nay, were I forced to love you by rule, I dare 
“ venture to say that I could never do it sincerely. Take 
“ me, then, with all my faults. Let me write when I please, 
“ for you see I say what I please, and am only thinking 
“ aloud when writing to you. I suppose you have heard of 
“my intention of going to the East Indies. The place of 
“ my destination is one of the factories on the coast of 
“ Coromandel, and I go in quality of physician and singe on ; 
“ for which the company has signed my warrant, which has 
“ already cost me ten pounds. I must also pay 5OZ. for my 
“ passage, and ten pounds for my sea stores : and the other 


“ annum; but tlie other advantages, if a person be prudent, 
“ are considerable. The practice of the place, if I am rightly 
“ informed, generally amounts to not less than one thousand 
“ pounds per annum, for which the appointed physician has 
“ an exclusive privilege. This, with the advantages resulting 
“ from trade, and the high interest which money bears, 
“ viz. 207. per cent, are the inducements which persuade me 
“ to undergo the fatigues of sea, the dangers of war, and the 
“ still greater dangers of the climate; which induce me 
“ to leave a place where I am every day gaining friends 
“ and esteem ; and where I might enjoy all the conveniences 
“ of life.” * 

The same weakness which indulged itself with fine 
clothes when the opportunity offered, is that which prompts 
these fine words in even such an hour of dire extremity. Of 
the “ friends and esteem ” he was gaining, of the “ con¬ 
veniences of life” that were awaiting him to enjoy, these 
pages have told, and have more to tell. But why, in the 
confident hope of brighter days, dwell on the darkness of the 
past? or show the squalor that still surrounded him ? Of 
already sufficiently low esteem were wit and intellect in 
Ireland, to give purse-fed ignorance another triumph over 
them, or again needlessly invite to himself the contempts 
and sneers of old. Yet, though the sadness lie almost 
wholly suppressed while the appointment was but in expec¬ 
tation, there was at this moment less reason to indulge,—■ 
to seem other than he was, even thus, was an effort 
far from successful; and it marked with a somewhat painful 
distraction of feeling and phrase this letter to Mr. Hodson. 


“precarious terms 1 Scarron used jestingly to call himself the marquis 
“ of Quenault, which was the name of the bookseller that employed 
“ him; and why may not I assert my privilege and quality on the 
“ same pretensions 1 Yet, upon deliberation, whatever airs I give 
“ myself on this side of the water, my dignity, I fancy, would be evapo- 
“ rated before I reached the other. I know yon have in Ireland a 
“ very indifferent idea of a man who writes for bread; though Swift 
“ and Steele did so in the earliest part of their lives. You imagine, I 
“ suppose, that every author, by profession, lives in a garret, wears 
“shabby cloaths, and converses with the meanest company. Yet I do 
“not believe there is one single writer, who has abilities to translate a 
“french.novel, that does not keep better company, wear finer cloaths, 
“ and live more genteelly, than many who pride themselves for nothing 
“ else in Ireland. I confess it again, my dear Dan, that nothing but 
“ the wildest ambition could prevail on me to leave the enjoyment of 
“ the refined conversation which I am sometimes admitted to partake 
“ in, for uncertain fortune, and paltry shew. You cannot conceive how 
“ I am sometimes divided: to leave all that is dear to me gives me 
“ pain; but when I consider, I may possibly acquire a genteel indepen- 
“ dance for life : when I think of that dignity which philosophy claims, 
“ to raise itself above contempt and ridicule; when I think thus, I 
“ eagerly long to embrace every opportunity of separating myself from 
“the vulgar, as much in my circumstances, as I am already in my 
“ sentiments. I am going to publish a book, for an account of which 
“ I refer you to a letter which I wrote to my brother Goldsmith. 
“ Circulate for me among your acquaintances a hundred proposals, 
“ which I have given orders may be sent to you : and if, in pursuance 
“ of such circulation, you should receive any subscriptions, let them, 
“when collected, be transmitted to Mr. Bradley, who will give a 
“ receipt for the same/’ [Omitting here, says the Percy Memoir, what 
relates to private family affairs, he then adds :] “ I know not how my 
“ desire of seeing Ireland, which had so long slept, has again revived 
“ with so much ardour. So weak is my temper, and so unsteady, that 
“ I am frequently tempted, particularly when low-spirited, to return 
“ home and leave my fortune, though just beginning to look kinder. 


since I am conscious of them.” * 


With such professions weakness continues to indulge itself, 
and faults are perpetuated. But some allowances are due. 
Of the Irish society he knew so well, and so often sarcastically 
painted, these Irish friends were clearly very notable speci¬ 
mens, with whom small indeed was his chance of decent con¬ 
sideration, if a garret, shabby clothes, and conversation with 
the meanest company, were set hopelessly forth as his inex¬ 
tricable doom. The error lay in giving faith of any kind to 
such external aid, and so weakening the help that rested in 
himself. When the claim of ten pounds for his appointment- 
warrant came upon him, it found him less prepared because 
of vague expectations raised on these letters to Mills and the 
Lawders. But any delay might be fatal; and in that con¬ 
dition of extremity, whose “ wants,” alas, are anything but 
capricious,” he bethought him of the Critical Revieiu, and 
went to its proprietor, Mr. Archibald Hamilton. 

Soon after he left Griffiths he had written an article for 
his rival, which appeared in November 1757; and as his 
contributions then stopped where they began, I am disposed 
to connect both his joining at that time so suddenly, and as 
suddenly quitting, the Critical Review, with a letter which 
Smollett published in that same November number “ To 
“ the Old Gentlewoman who directs the Monthly .” For 
though Goldsmith might not object to avenge some part of 
his own quarrel under cover of that of Smollett, he would 
hardly have relished the too broad allusion in which 
“ goody ” and “ gammer ” Griffiths were reminded that 



2Et. 30. “ 0 f Doctors and authors you employ as journeymen m 
“ your manufacture. Did you in your dotage mistake the 
“ apphcation, hy throwing those epithets at us which so pro- 
“ perly belong to your own understrappers ? ”* But, whatever 
may have caused his secession then, now he certainly applied 
again to Hamilton, a shrewd man, who had just made a large 
fortune out of Smollett’s History , and, though not very liberal 
in his payments,! already not unconscious of the value of 
Griffiths’s discarded writer. The result of the interview was 
the publication, in the new-year number, of two more papers 
hy Goldsmith, apparently in continuation of the first. All 
three had relation to a special subject; and, as connected 
with such a man’s obscurest fortunes, have an interest 
hardly less than that of writings connected with his fame. 
An author is seen in the effulgence of established repute, or 
discovered by his cries of struggling distress. By both 
“ you shall know him.” 

Ovid was the leading topic in all three. His Fasti , 
translated by a silly master of a Wandsworth boarding- 
school, named Massey; his Epistles, translated by a pedantic 
pedagogue named Barrett (a friend of Johnson and Cave); 
and an antidote to his Art of Love, in an Art of Pleasing 
by Mr. Marriott; were the matters taken in hand. The Art of 
Pleasing was treated with playful contempt,! and Mr. Massey’s 
Fasti fared still worse. Here Goldsmith closed a series of 
most unsparing comparisons of the original with his trans¬ 
lator, by asking leave “ to remind Mr. Massey of the old Italian 
“proverb” (II traclattores traclatore) “and to hope he will 



o 




- J 


was the last of these unhappy gentlemen rebuked. "With 
very lively power Goldsmith dissected the absurdities of Mr. 
Barrett’s version of poor ill-treated Ovid’s Epistles; a classic 
to all appearance doomed, he humorously interposed, “to 
“ successive Metamorphoses: being sometimes transposed by 
“ schoolmasters unacquainted with English, and sometimes 
“ transversed by ladies who knew no Latin: thus he has 
“ alternately worn the dress of a pedant or a rake; either 
“ crawling in humble prose or having his hints explained 
“ into unbashful meaning.” He showed that Mr. Barrett 
was a bad critic, and no poet; and he passed from lofty 
to low in his illustrations with amusing effect. Giving 
two or three instances of the translator’s skill in “paren- 
“ tlietically clapping one sentence within another,” this, 
pursued Goldsmith, “contributes not a little to obscurity; 
“ and obscurhy, we all know, is nearly allied to admiration. 
“ Thus, when the reader begins a sentence which he finds 
“ pregnant with another, which still teems with a third, and 
“ so on, he feels the same surprise which a countryman does 
“ at Bartholomew fair. Hocus shows a bag, in appearance 
“ empty; slap, and out come a do?en new laid eggs ; slap 
“ again, and the number is doubled; but what is his amaze- 
“ ment, when it swells with the hen that laid them ! ” The 
poetry and criticism disposed of, the scholarship shared their 
fate. Mr. Barrett being master of the thriving grammar- 

* Goldsmith’s remark may remind us of the French lady, who, being compli¬ 
mented on her English, and asked in what manner she had contrived to speak it 
so well, replied, “I began by traducing 

-h Critical Review, iv. 409, November 1757. 


Goldsmith, “ to permit an ostentation of learning pass for 
“ merit, nor to give a pedant quarter on the score of his 
“ industry alone, even though he took refuge behind Arabic, 
“ or powdered his head with Hieroglyphics.”! 

In the garret of Griffiths, he would hardly have conceded 
so much; and since then, the world had not been teaching 
him literary charity. These Ovid translations had not 
unnaturally turned his thoughts upon the master of the art; 
on him who was the father of authorship by profession ; and 
the melancholy image which arose to a mind so strongly 
disposed to entertain it then, of great “Dryden ever poor,” + 
and obliged by his miseries to suffer fleeting performances 
to be “ quartered on the lasting merit of his name,” did 
not the more entitle to any mercy which truth could not 
challenge for them, these gentlemen of a more thriving 
profession who had thrust themselves uninvited and 
unqualified on the barren land of authorship. “ But let 
“ not the reader imagine,” he said, “ we can find pleasure 
“ in thus exposing absurdities which are too ludicrous for 
“ serious reproof. While we censure as critics, we feel as 


* The second title of his translation runs thus : ‘ ‘ Being part of a poetical or 
“ oratorical lecture, read in the grammar-school of Ashford, in the county of 
“ Kent; and calculated to initiate youth in the first rudiments of taste.” 
f Critical Review, vii. 38, January 1759. 

t I am glad to record that, amid many heresies that forbid me to claim the merit 
of a sound or deep critical faculty for Goldsmith, he had a well-grounded and 
steady admiration for Dryden, which he often justified in language worthy of it. 
“ The English tongue,” he said, in the eighth number of the Bee, “is greatly his 
“ debtor. It was his pen that formed the Congreves, the Priors, and the 
“ Addisons, who succeeded him ; and had it not been for Dryden, we never 
“ should have known a Pope, at least in the meridian lustre he now displays. 
“ But Dryden’s excellencies, as a writer, were not confined to poetry alone. There 


society, without being jioets. llie regions oi taste can 
“ be travelled only by a few, and even those often find 
“ indifferent accommodation by the way. Let such as have 
“ not got a passport from nature be content with happiness, 
“ and leave the poet the unrivalled possession of his misery, 
“ his garret, and his fame. 

“We have of late seen the republic of letters crowded 
“ with some, who have no other pretensions to applause but 
“ industry, who have no other merit but that of reading 
“ many books and making long quotations; these we have 
“ heard extolled by sympathetic dunces, and have seen 
rt them carry off the rewards of genius; while others, who 
“ should have been born in better days, felt all the wants of 
“ poverty, and the agonies of contempt * Who, then, that 


* Critical Review , vii. 37-8, January 1759. Let me add an admirable pas¬ 
sage from a later essay ( Citizen of the World, letter xeiii) in which Goldsmith 
speaks out for the profession of the writer: “For my own part, were I to 
“ buy a hat, I would not have it from a stocking-maker, but a hatter; were 
“ I to buy shoes, I should not go to the tailor’s for that purpose. It is just 
c ‘ so with regard to wit: did I, for my life, desire to be well served, I would 
“ apply only to those who made it their trade, and lived by it. You smile 
“ at the oddity of my opinion ; but be assured, my friend, that wit is in 
“ some measure mechanical, and that a man long habituated to catch at even 
“ its resemblance, will at last be happy enough to possess the substance. By 
“ a long habit of writing he acquires a justness of thinking, and a mastery 
“ of manner, which holiday writers, even with ten times his genius, may vainly 
“ attempt to equal. How then are they deceived, who expect from title, 
“ dignity, and exterior circumstances, an excellence, which is in some measure 
“ acquired by habit, and sharpened by necessity! You have seen, like me, 
“ many literary reputations promoted by the influence of fashion, which have 
“ scarcely survived the possessor; you have seen the poor hardly earn the 
‘ ‘ little reputation they acquired, and their merit only acknowledged when 
“ they were incapable of enjoying the pleasures of popularity : such, liow- 
‘ 1 ever, is the reputation worth possessing; that which is hardly earned is 


M 


“ posterity, that would not choose to see such humbled as 
“ are possessed only of talents that might have made good 
“ cobblers, had fortune turned them to trade ? ” So will truth 
force its way, when out of Irish hearing. The friends, the 
esteem, and the conveniences, of the poet’s life, are briefly 
summed up here. His misery, his garret, and his fame. 

"With part of the money received from Hamilton he 
moved into new lodgings : took “ unrivalled possession ” of 
a fresh garret, on a first floor. The house was number 
twelve, Green Arbour Court, Fleet-street, between the 
Old Bailey and the site of Fleet-market: and stood in the 
right hand corner of the court, as the wayfarer approached 
it from Farringdon-street by an appropriate access of 
“ Break-neck Steps.” Green Arbour Court is now gone 
for ever; and of its miserable wretchedness, for a little time 
replaced by the more decent comforts of a stable, not a 
vestige remains. The houses, crumbling and tumbling in 
Goldsmith’s day, were fairly rotted down some nineteen 
years since ; and it became necessaiy, for safety sake, to 
remove what time had spared. But Mr. "Washington Irving 
saw them first, and with reverence had described them, 
for Goldsmith’s sake. Through alleys, courts, and blind 
passages; traversing Fleet-market, and thence turning 
along a narrow street to the bottom of a long steep flight 
of stone steps; he made good his toilsome way up into 

“ hardly lost.” Most true. He lived long enough himself to have some foretaste 
of this in his own case ; we all of us now know it more completely. Let me not 
quit this subject without saying that Johnson held much the same opinion as 
Goldsmith about interlopers in literature. Boswell one day was full of regrets that 


seemed turned inside out, to judge from tlie old garments 
and frippery that fluttered from every window. “ It 
“ appeared,” lie says, in Iris Tales of a Traveller, “ to be a 
“ region of washerwomen, and lines were stretched about 
“ the little square, on which clothes were dangling to dry.” 
The disputed right to a wash-tub was going on when he 
entered; heads in mob-caps were protruded from every 
window; and the loud clatter of vulgar tongues was assisted 
by the shrill pipes of swarming children, nestled and 
cradled in every procreant chamber of the hive. The whole 
scene, in short, was one of whose unchanged resemblance 
to the scenes of former days I have since found curious 
corroboration, in a magazine engraving of the place nigh 
half a century old. * Here were the tall faded houses, with 
heads out of window at every story; the dirty neglected 
children; the bawling s bp shod women; in one corner, 
clothes hanging to dry, and in another the cure of smoky 
chimneys announced. Without question, the same squalid, 
squalling colony, which it then was, it had been in 
Goldsmith’s time. He would compromise with the children 
for occasional cessation of their noise, by occasional cakes or 
sweetmeats, or by a tune upon his flute, for which all the 
court assembled ; he would talk pleasantly with the poorest 
of his neighbours, and was long recollected to have greatly 
enjoyed the -talk of a working ^watchmaker in the court; 
every night, he would risk his neck at those steep stone 
stairs ; f every day, for his clothes had become too ragged to 


See tlie frontispiece to vol. xliii of the European Magazine. 


window bench. And that was Goldsmith’s home. 

On a certain night in the beginning of November 1758, 
his ascent of Break-neck Steps must have had unwonted 
gloom. He had learnt the failure of his new hope: the 
Coromandel appointment was his no longer. In what way 
this mischance so unexpectedly occurred, it would now be 
hopeless to enquire. No explanation could be had from 
the dying Doctor Milner; none was given by himself; he 
always afterwards withheld allusion to it, with even studious 
care. It is quite possible, though no authority exists for 
the assertion, that doubts may have arisen of his competence 
to discharge the duties of the appointment; what followed 
a few months later, indeed, will be seen to give warrant for 
such a surmise; but even supposing this to have been the 
real motive, there is no ground for suspecting that such a 
motive was alleged. The most likely supposition would 
probably be, that failure in getting together means for his 
outfit with sufficient promptitude, was made convenient 
excuse for transferring the favour to another. That it was 
any failure of his own courage at the prospect of so long an 
exile, or that he never proposed more by his original scheme 
than a foreign flight for two or three years, has no other 
or better foundation than the Hodson letter: on which 
authority it would also follow, that he remained contented 
with what he already possessed, subdued his capricious 
wants, and turned to the friends, the esteem, the refined 
conversation, and all the conveniences of life, which awaited 
him in Green Arbour Court, with a new and virtuous resolve 



him, no office could be mean, no possible endurance hard. 
His determination was taken at once: probably grounded 
on the knowledge of some jiassages in the life of Smollett, 
and of his recent acquaintance Grainger. He would 
in-esent himself at Surgeons’ Hall for examination as 
a hospital mate: an appointment sufficiently undesirable, 
to be found always of tolerably easy attainment by the duly 
qualified. 

But he must have decent clothes to present himself in: 
the solitary suit in which he crept between the court and 
the coffee-house, being only fit for service after nightfall. 
He had no resource but to apply to Griffiths, with whom 
he had still some small existing connection, and from whom 
his recent acceptance at the Critical, increasing his value 
with a vulgar mind, might help hi exacting aid. The 
bookseller, to whom the precise tenqiorary purpose for 
which the clothes were wanted does not seem to have been 
told, consented to furnish them on certain conditions. 
Goldsmith was to write at once four articles (he had given 
three to the Critical) for the Monthly Revmv. Griffiths 
would then become security with a tailor for a new suit of 
clothes; which were either to be returned, or the debt for 
them discharged, within a given time. This pauper proposal 
acceded to, Goldsmith doubtless returned to Green Arbour 
Court with the four books under his arm. 

They were : Some Enquiries Concerning the First Inha¬ 
bitants of Europe* by a member of the Society of Antiquaries, 
known afterwards as Francis "Wise, and Thomas Warton’s 


extorted made due appearance, as the first four articles of 
tlie Monthly Review for December 1758 ; the tailor was 
then called in, and the compact completed. 

Equipped in bis new suit, and one can well imagine with 
wbat an anxious, hopeful, quaking heart, Goldsmith offered 
himself for examination at Surgeons’ Hall (the new building 
erected six years before in the Old Bailey), on the 21st 
December. “ The beadle called my name,” says Roderick 
Random, when he found himself in similar condition at 
that place of torture, “ with a voice that made me tremble 
“ as much as if it had been the sound of the last trumpet: 
“ however there was no remedy: I was conducted into a 
“ large hall, where I saw about a dozen of grim faces sitting 
“ at a long table, one of whom hade me come forward in 
“ such an imperious tone, that I was actually for a minute 

or two bereft of my senses.” Whether the same process, 
conducted through a like memorable scene, bereft poor 
Goldsmith altogether of his, cannot now be ascertained. 
All that is known, is told in a dry extract from the books of 
the College of Surgeons. “At a Court of Examiners held 
“at the Theatre 21st December, 1758. Present ” . . the 
names are not given, hut there is a long list of the candidates 
who passed, in the midst of which these occur: “ James 
“ Bernard, mate to an hospital. Oliver Goldsmith, found 
“ not qualified for ditto.” A rumour of this rejection long 
existed, and on a hint from Maton the king’s physician, 
the above entry was found.! 

A harder sentence, a more cruel doom, than this at the 



rejecting the short, thick, chill, ungainly, over-anxious, over¬ 
dressed, simple looking Irishman who presented himself that 
memorable day, can hardly, I think, be doubted; but uncon¬ 
sciously they also did a great deal more. They found him not 
qualified to be a surgeon’s mate, and left him qualified to 
heal the wounds and abridge the sufferings of all the world. 
They found him querulous with adversity, given up to 
irresolute fears, too much blinded with failures and sorrows 
to see the divine uses to which they tended still; and from 
all this, them sternly just and awful decision drove liim 
resolutely back. "While the door of the surgeons’ hall was 
shut upon him that day, the gate of the beautiful mountain 
was slowly opening. Much of the valley of the shadow he 
had still indeed to pass ; but every outlet save the one was 
closed upon him, it was idle any longer to strike or struggle 
against the visions which sprang up in his desolate path, 
and as he so passed steadily if not cheerily on, he saw them 
fade and become impalpable before him. Steadily, then, if 
not cheerily, for some months more ! “ Sir,” said Johnson, 

“ the man who has vigour may walk to the East just as 
“ well as to the West, if he happens to turn his head that 
“ way.”* So, honour to the court of examiners, I say, 
for that, whether he would or would not, they turned back 
his head to the East! The hopes and promise of the world 
have a perpetual springtime there; and Goldsmith was 
hereafter to enjoy them, briefly for himself, but for the world 
eternally. 


Boswell’s Life, iv. 24. 



CHAPTER V. 


DISCIPLINE OF SORROW. 

1758—1759. 

175S It was four days after the rejection at Surgeons’ Hall, the 
mTso. Christmas day of 1758, when, to the ordinary filth and noise 
of number twelve in Green Arbour Court, there was added 
an unusual lamentation and sorrow. An incident had 
occurred, of which, painful as were the consequences 
involved in it, the precise details can but be surmised and 
guessed at, and must be received with that allowance, though 
doubtless in the main correct. It would appear that the 
keeper of this wretched lodging had been suddenly dragged 
by bailiffs from his home on the previous night, and his 
•wife, with loud wailings, now sought the room of her poorer 
lodger. He was in debt to the unfortunate couple, who, for 
the amusement of their children by his flute, had been kind 
to him according to their miserable means : and it was the 
woman’s sobbing petition that he should try to help them. 
There was but one way; and in the hope, through Hamilton 
or Griffiths, to be able still to meet the tailor’s debt, the gay 
suit in which he went to Surgeons’ Hall, and in which lie 
was dressed for his doleful holiday, appears to have been 
put off and carried to the pawnbroker’s. Nor had a week 



eartlily aid, for death had taken in Doctor Milner his 
apparently last friend, he carried the four hooks he had 
recently reviewed for Griffiths to a neighbouring house, and 
left them in pledge with an acquaintance for a trifling loan.* 
It was hardly done when a letter from Griffiths was put into 
his hand, peremptorily demanding the return of the hooks 
and the suit of clothes, or instant payment for both. 

Goldsmith’s answer, and the bookseller’s violent retort, 
are to be presumed from the poor debtor’s second letter: 
the only one preserved of this unseemly correspondence. He 
appears first to have written in a tone of mixed astonishment, 
anger, and solicitation; to have prayed for some delay; and 
to have been met by coarse insult, threats, and the shameless 
imputation of crime. These forced from him the rejoinder 
found in the bookseller’s papers, endorsed by Griffiths 
with the writer’s name, and as “Roc 1 ' in Jan?' 1759 ;” 
which passed afterwards into the manuscript collections of 
Mr. Heber, and is now in my possession.'!- All concealment 
is ended here, and stern plain truth is told. 


“ Sir,” wrote Goldsmith, “ I know of no misery but a gaol to which 
“ my own imprudencies and your letter seem to point. I have seen it 
“ inevitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens ! request it as 
“ a favour, as a favour that may prevent somewhat more fatal. I 


* Prior , i. 326-8. 

f Tlie appearance of this remarkable letter harmonises with its contents. There 
is nothing of the freedom or boldness of hand in it which one may perceive in his 
ordinary manuscript. To the kindness of my friend the Rev. Chauncy Hare 
Townshend, I owe the possession of this most interesting of all the Goldsmith 
papers that have been preserved to our time, and I have been careful of the 


“ to any appointment you or the taylor shall make ; thus far at least 
“I do not act the sharper, since unable to pay my debts one ■way 
“I would willingly give some security another. No Sir, had I been a 
“ sharper, had I been possessed of less goodnature and native generosity 
“ I might surely now have been in better circumstances. I am guilty 
“ I own of meannesses which poverty unavoidably brings with it, my 
“reflections are filled with repentance for my imprudence but not with 
“anyremorse for being a villain, that may be a character you unjustly 
“ charge me with. Your books I can assure you are neither pawn’d 
“nor sold, but in the custody of a friend from whom my necessities 
“ oblig’d me to borrow some money, whatever becomes of my person, 
“ you shall have them in a month. It is very possible both the reports 
“you have heard and your own suggestions may have brought you 
“ false information with respect to my character, it is very possible 
“ that the man whom you now regard with detestation may inwardly 
“burn with grateful resentment, it is very possible that upon a 
“ second perusal of the letter I sent you, you may see the workings of 
“ a mind strongly agitated with gratitude and jealousy, if such circum- 
“ stances should appear at least spare invective ’till my book with 
“ Mr. Dodsley shall be publish’d, and then perhaps you may see the 
“bright side of a mind when my professions shall not appear the 
“ dictates of necessity but of choice. You seem to think Dr. Milner 
“ knew me not. Perhaps so ; but he was a man I shall ever honour ; 
“ but I have friendship only with the dead! I ask pardon for taking 
“ up so much time. Nor shall I add to it by any other professions than 
“ that I am Sir your Humble Serv\ 

Oliver Goldsmith. 

“ P.S. I shall expect impatiently the result of your resolutions.” 

Now, this Ralph Griffiths the bookseller, whom the 
diploma of some American university as obscure as himself 
made subsequently Doctor Griffiths, was one of the most 
thriving men of the day. In little more than three years 


and at last kept his two carriages, and “ lived in stjde.'’ But lie 
lived, too, to see tlie changes of thirty years after the grave had 
received the author of the Vicar of Wakefield; and though he 
had some recollections of the errors of his youth to disturb 
his decorous and religious peace of mind,—such as having 
become the proprietor of an infamous novel, and dictated 
the praise of it in his Review,—such as having exposed him¬ 
self to a remark reiterated in Grainger's letters to Bishop 
Percy, that he was not to be trusted in any verbal agreement 
upon matters of his trade,*—it may not have been the least 
bitter of his remembrances, if it ever happened to occur 
to him, that to Oliver Goldsmith, in the depths of a helpless 
distress, he had applied the epithets of sharper and villain. 

From Goldsmith himself they fell harmless. His letter 
is most affecting: but the truth is manfully outspoken in 
it, and for that reason it is less painful to me than those 
in which the truth is concealed. When such a mind is 
brought to look its sorrow in the face, and understand 
clearly the condition in which it is,—without further doubling, 
shrinkin g, or weak compromise with false hopes,—it is master 
of a great gain. In the accession of strength it receives, it 
may see the sorrow anyway increase, and calm its worst 
apprehension. The most touching passage of that letter is 
the reference to his project, and the bright side of his mind 
it may reveal. I will date from it the true beginning of 

* u You must have little dependence upon Griffiths. . . Do not go on with him 
“ without a positive bargain, &c. &c.” Grainger to Percy, Nichols’s lUmtrations, 
vii. 259. 



not till then was tlie discipline of his endurance complete, 
his wandering impulses settled firmly to the right object of 
their aptitude, or his real destiny revealed to him. He 
might have still to perish in unconquered difficulties, and 
with the word that was in him unspoken; but it would be at 
his post, and in a manly effort to speak the word. Whatever 
the personal weaknesses that yet remain,—nor are they few 
or trifling,—his confidence and self-reliance in literary 
piusuits date from this memorable time. They rise above 
the cares and cankers of his life, above the lowness of his 
worldly esteem, far above the squalor of his homes. They 
take the undying forms which accident or wrong cannot alter 
or deface ; they are the tenants of a world where distress and 
failure are unknown; and perpetual cheerfulness sings 
around them. “ The night can never endure so long, but 
“ at length the morning cometh ;and with these sudden 
and sharp disappointments of his second London Christmas, 
there came into Green Arbour Court the first struggling 
beams of morning. Till all its brightness follows, let him 
moan and sorrow as he may;—the more familiar to himself 
he makes those images of want and danger, the better he will 
meet them in the lists where they still await him; the more 
he cultivates those solitary friendships with the dead, the 
more elevating and strengthening the influence that will 
reward him from their graves. The living, busy, prosperous 
world about him, might indeed have saved him much, by 
stretching forth its helping hand: but it had not taught him 
little in its lesson of unrequited expectation, and there was 


of tlie clotlies to be deducted from that sum. His brother 
Henry wrote to him of the Polite Learning scheme, while 
engaged on this trade task; and the answer he made at 
its close, written early in February 1759, is in some sort 
the indication of his altered mind and purpose. There is still 
evidence of his personal weakness in the idle distrusts and 
suspicion it charges on himself, and in its false pretences to 
conceal his rejection and sustain his poor Irish credit: yet 
the general tone of it marks not the less, a new, a sincerer, 
and a more active epoch in his life. Whilst the quarrel 
with Griffiths was still proceeding, he had again written of 
the Polite Learning essay, and sent some scheme of a new 
poem to Henry (first fruit of the better uses of his adversity); 
but absolute silence as to the Coromandel appointment 
appears to have suggested a doubt in his brother’s answer, 
to which very cursory and slight allusion is made in this 
reply. The personal portrait, in which the “ big wig ” of 
his Bankside days plays its part, will hardly support his 
character for personal vanity ! “Dear Sir,” the letter ran,'*— 

“ Your punctuality in. answering a man, whose trade is writing, is 
“ more than I had reason to expect; and yet you see me generally fill 
“ a whole sheet, which is all the recompense I can make for being so 
“ frequently troublesome. The behaviour of Mr. Mills and Mr. Lawder 
“ is a little extraordinary. However, their answering neither you nor 
{{ me is a sufficient indication of their disliking the employment which 
“ I assigned them. As their conduct is different from what I had 
!£ expected, so I have made an alteration in mine. I shall the beginning 


* Percy Memoir, 53-9. It is addressed to “The Rev. Henry Goldsmith, at 
“ Lowfield, near Ballymore, in Westmeath, Ireland.” 



£ ‘ India voyage ; nor are my resolutions altered; though, at the same 
“ time, I must confess it gives me some pain to think I am almost 
“ beginning the world at the age of thirty-one. Though I never had a 
{£ day’s sickness since I saw you, yet I am not that strong and active 
“ man you once knew me. You scarcely can conceive how much eight 
i: years of disappointment, anguish, and study, have worn me down. If 

I remember right, you are seven or eight years older than me, yet I 
i: dare venture to say, that if a stranger saw us both, he would pay me 
“ the honours of seniority. Imagine to yourself a pale melancholy 
“ visage, with two great wrinkles between the eye-brows, with an eye 
“ disgustingly severe, and a big wig; and you may have a perfect 
“ picture of my present appearance. On the other hand, I conceive you 
“ as perfectly sleek and healthy, passing many a happy day among 
“ your own children, or those who knew you a child. Since I knew 
“ what it was to be a man, this is a pleasure I have not known. I 
“ have passed my days among a parcel of cool designing beings, and 
“ have contracted all their suspicious manner in my own behaviour.* 
“ I should actually be as unfit for the society of my friends at home, as I 
“ detest that which I am obliged to partake of here. I can now neither 
“ partake of the pleasure of a revel, nor contribute to raise its jollity. 
“ I can neither laugh nor drink, have contracted a hesitating disagree- 
“ able maimer of speaking, and a visage that looks ill-nature itself; in 
“ short, I have thought myself into a settled melancholy, and an utter 
“ disgust of all that life brings with it—Whence this romantic turn, 
“ that all our family are possessed with ? Whence this love for every 
“ place and every country but that in which we reside ? for every 
“ occupation but our own? this desire of fortune, and yet this eagerness 
“ to dissipate ? I perceive, my dear sir, that I am at intervals for 
“ indulging this splenetic manner, and following my own taste, regard- 
“ less of yours. 

“ The reasons you have given me for breeding up your son as a 

* “This,” observes the Percy Memoir writer, in a note, “is all gratis dictum, 
“for there never was a character so unsuspicious and so unguarded as the 
“ writer’s.” 54. 



“ perhaps better than m any other in Europe. But if he has ambition, 
“ strong passions, and an exquisite sensibility of contempt, do not send 
“ him there, unless you have no other trade for him except your own. 
“ It is impossible to conceive how much may be done by a proper 
“ education at home. A boy, for instance, who understands perfectly 
“ -well Latin, French, Arithmetic, and the principles of the civil law, 
“ and can write a fine hand, has an education that may qualify him for 
“ any undertaking. And these parts of learning should be carefully 
“ inculcated, let him be designed for whatever calling he will. Above 
“ all things let him never touch a romance or novel ; those paint 
“ beauty in colours more charming than nature ; and describe happiness 
“ that man never tastes. How delusive, how destructive are those 
“ pictures of consummate bliss. They teach the youthful mind to sigh 
“ after beauty and happiness which never existed ; to despise the little 
“ good which fortune has mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she 
“ ever gave ; and in general, take the word of a man who has seen the 
“ world, and has studied human nature more by experience than 
“ precept; take my word for it, I say, that books teach us very little of 
“ the world. The greatest merit in a state of poverty would only serve 
“ to make the possessor ridiculous ; may distress, but cannot relieve 
{{ him. Frugality, and even avarice, in the lower orders of mankind, 
“ are true ambition. These afford the only ladder for the poor to rise 
“ to preferment. Teach then, my dear sir, to your son thrift and 
“ economy. Let his poor wandering uncle’s example be placed before 
his eyes. I had learned from books to be disinterested and generous, 
“ before I was taught from experience the necessity of being prudent. 
“ I had contracted the habits and notions of a philosopher ; while I was 
“ exposing myself to the insidious approaches of cunning; and often 
“ by being, even with my narrow finances, charitable to excess, I 
“ forgot the rules of justice, and placed myself in the very situation 
“ of the wretch who thanked me for my bounty. When I am in the 
“ remotest part of the world, tell him this, and perhaps he may 
“ improve from my example. But I find myself again falling into 
“ my gloomy habits of thinking. 

“ My mother, I am informed, is almost blind; even though I had the 
“ utmost inclination to return home, under such circumstances I could 



“ in my former. Just sit down as I do, and write forward until you 
11 liave filled all your paper ; it requires no thought, at least from the 
u ease with which my own sentiments rise when they are addressed to 
“ you. For, believe me, my head has no share in all I write ; my heart 
“ dictates the whole. Pray, give my love to Bob Bryanton, and 
“ intreat him, from me, not to drink. My dear sir, give me some 
“ account about poor Jenny.* Yet her husband loves her ; if so, she 
“ cannot be unhappy. 

“ I know not whether I should tell you—yet why should I conceal 
“ those trifles, or indeed anything from you ?—There is a book of 
“ mine will be published in a few days, the life of a very extraordinary 
“man—no less than the great Yoltaire. You know already by the 
“ title, that it is no more than a catch-penny. However I spent 
“ but four weeks on the whole performance, for which I received 
“ twenty pounds. When published, I shall take some method of 
“ conveying it to you, unless you may think it dear of the postage, 
“ which may amount to four or five shillings. However, I fear 
“ you will not find an equivalence of amusement. Your last letter, 
“ I repeat it, was too short: you should have given me your opinion of 
“ the design of the keroicomical poem which I sent you: you re- 
“ member I intended to introduce the hero of the poem, as lying in 
“ a paltry alehouse. You may take the following specimen of the 
“ manner, which I flatter myself is quite original. The room in which 
“ he lies, may be described somewhat this way :— 

The window, patch’d with paper, lent a ray, 

That feebly shew’d the state in which he lay. 

The sandy floor, that grits beneath the tread : 

The humid wall with paltry pictures spread ; 

The game of goose was there expos’d to view, 

And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew ; 

The seasons fram’d with listing, found a place, 

And Prussia’s monarch shew’d his lamp-hlack face. 

The mom was cold; he views with keen desire, 

A rusty grate unconscious of a fire. 

An unpaid reck’ning on the freeze was scor’d, 

And five crack’d teacups dress’d the chimney hoard. 



Not with that face, so servile and so gay, 

That welcomes every stranger that can pay, 

With sulky eye he smoak’d the patient man, 

Then pull’d his breeches tight, and thus began, &c. 

AH this is taken, you see, from nature. It is a good remark of 
jntaign’s, that the wisest men often have friends, with whom they 
not care how much they play the fool. Take my present follies 
instances of regal’d. Poetry is a much easier, and more agree- 
le species of composition than prose, and could a man live by it, 
svere not unpleasant employment to be a poet. I am resolved to 
,ve no space, though I should fill it up only by telling you, what 
11 very well know already, I mean that I am 

“ Your most affectionate 

“ Friend and brother, 

“ Oliver Goldsmith.” 

'here is a practical condition of mind in this letter, not- 
tstanding its self-reproachful pictures, and protestations 
orrowful disgust.. It is very clear, were it only by the 
ouse hero’s example, that not all the miseries which 
ound h i m will again daunt his perseverance, or tempt 
to begin life anew. If the bowl is now to be broken, it 
be broken at the fountain. Could a man live by it, it 
; not unpleasant employment to be a poet: but as he has 
e up his mind to live, and on the world’s beggarly terms, 
dll take what practicable work he can get, and be content 
. its fare till pleasant employment comes. When the 
. in black describes the change of good humour with 
k he went to his precarious meals ; how he forbore rants 
)leen at his situation, ceased to call down heaven and the 
5 to behold him dining on a half-pennyworth of radishes, 
ht his very companions to believe that he liked salad 


the resolution to stick to nature is a good and hopeful one, 
and will admit of wise application, and many original results. 

The poem seems to have gone no further: but its cheerful 
hero reappeared, after some months, in a “ club of authors; ” 
protested that the alehouse had been his own bed-chamber 
often; reintroduced the description with six new lines; 

Where the Ked Lion flaring o’er the way, 

Invites each passing stranger that can pay; 

Where Calvert’s butt, and Parson’s black champagne, 

Eegales the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane ; 

There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, 

The muse found Scroggen stretch’d beneath a rug . . 

flattered himself that his work should not be of the order 
of your common epic poems, which come from the press 
like paper kites in the summer ; swore that people were sick 
of your Turnuses and Didos, and - wanted an heroical 
description of nature; offered, for proof of sound, and 
sense, and truth, and nature, in the trifling compass of 
ten syllables, the last of two added lines; 

A night-cap deck’d his brows instead of bay, 

A cap by night , a stocking ail the day ! 

and having quoted them, was so much elated and self- 
delighted, that he was quite unable to proceed. 

Thus could Goldsmith already turn aside the sharpest 
edge of poverty; thus wisely consent to be Scroggen till 
he could be Goldsmith; in the paltry, slovenly pothouse 
of Drury-lane, give promise of the neat village alehouse 
of Auburn; and betake himself meanwhile to less agreeable 



CHAPTER VL 


WORK AND HOPE, 

1759 . 

Speedily will be published,” said the Public Advertiser of 1759 , 
7 th of February, 1759, “ Memoirs of the Life of Monsieur ^ Et-31 
Voltaire , with critical observations on the writings of 
at celebrated poet, and a new Translation of the 
enriade. Printed for E. Griffiths, in Paternoster Eow.” 
ertheless, the publication did not take place. The 
islation was by an old fellow-student of Dublin, Edward 
Ion; the poor uncertain hack, whose notoriety rests on 
1 smith's epigram, as his hunger was, even at this early 
, supposed to be mainly appeased by a morsel of Gold- 
ill’s crust;—and his share of the work was probably not 
pleted in time. Some months later, it appeared in a 
azine, and the Life was given to the public through 
same bookselling channel; but it is clear that Gold- 
ill, when he wrote to Ms brother, had really performed 
portion of the contract. It was but a catchpenny 
tier, as he called it ; yet including passages of in- 
ting narrative as well as just remark, and gracefully 


written, passages might he given in exact paraphrase of the 
argument of his Polite Learning; such sayings from the last- 
quoted letter to his brother, as “ frugality in the lower orders 
“ of mankind may be considered as a substitute for ambition;” 
and such apophthegms from his recent sharp experience, as 
“ the school of misery is the school of wisdom.” 

The Polite Learning was now completed, and passing 
through the press: the Dodsleys of Pall Mall, who gave 
Johnson ten guineas for the poem of London, having taken it 
under their charge. This too was the time when, being acci¬ 
dentally in company with Grainger at the Temple Exchange- 
coffee-house, he was introduced to Thomas Percy, already 
busily engaged in collecting the famous Reliques;* now chap¬ 
lain to Lord Sussex, and who became afterwards Bishop of 
Dromore.f Percy, who had a great love of letters and of literary 
men, was attracted to this new acquaintance; for before he 
returned to his vicarage of Easton Mauduitin Northampton¬ 
shire, he discovered Goldsmith’s address in Green Arbour 
Court, and resolved to call upon him. “ A friend of his paying 


* See a letter of the poet Shenstone (to whose suggestion we owe the Reliques) in 
Nichols’s Illustratums, vii. 220-3. 

+ Percy will frequently appear in these pages ; and though, for some unexplained 
reason, Johnson said harsher things to him, as well as of him, than was ordinarily 
his hahit towards men of that calling and station, he has also in a few lines so 
happily expressed his literary claims and character, that they will best introduce 
him here : “ He is a man very willing to learn, and very able to teach ; a man out 
“ of whose company I never go without having learned sometliing. It is sure that 
“ he vexes me sometimes, hut I am afraid it is by making me feel my own 
“ ignorance. So much extension of mind, and so much minute accuracy of 
“ inquiry, if you survey your whole circle of acquaintance, you will find so scarce, 
“ if you find it at all, that you will value Percy by comparison. . . Percy’s 
“ attention to poetry has given grace and splendour to his studies of antiquity. 


“ proper to mention tbe circumstance, if lie did not consider 
“ it as tlie highest proof of the splendour of Doctor Gold- 
“ smith’s genius and talents, that by the bare exertion of their 
£C powers, under every disadvantage of person and fortune, he 
“ could gradually emerge from such obscurity to the enjoy- 
“ ment of all the comforts and even luxuries of life, and 
“ admission into the best societies of London. The Doctor 
“ was writing bis Enquiry &c. in a wretched dirty room, in 
“ which there was but one chan, and when he, from civility, 
cc offered it to his visitant, himself was obliged to sit in the 
“ window. While they were conversing, some one gently 
“ rapped at the door, and being desired to come in, a poor 
“ragged little girl of very decent behaviour, entered, who, 
“ dropping a curtsie, said, £ My mama sends her compli- 
“ £ ments, and begs the favour of you to lend her a chamber- 
“ £ pot full of coals.’ ” * 

If the February number of the Critical Review lay by the 
reverend, startled, and long-descended visitor, perhaps good- 

* Percy Memoir, 60-1. “I have Am now in London," writes Campbell to 
the bishop in. 1790 (Nichols’s Illustrations, vii. 779), when describing his progress 
in throwing Percy’s biographical anecdotes into the form of a memoir, “and am 
‘ ‘ endeavouring to recollect your first visit to him, when the loan, or repayment, of 
“ the chamber-pot of coals was asked.” To this the bishop answered promptly, 
by sending the anecdote, which Campbell (Ibid, 7 SO) thus acknowledges : “My 
“ account of your visit to him there was almost verbatim, from my recollection of 
“ your words, what you have set down in your last. But could there be any 
‘ ‘ harm in letting the world know who the visitant was ? without the circumstance of 
“ the dignity of the guest, the contrast will be in a great measure lost.” In truth 
however the contrast, though amusing enough, was not so very great as Dr. Campbell, 
prematurely transforming the vicar of a small living into a bishop full-blown, 
appears to have presented it to his imagination. 



UJjI YXilt UUJjiJoMlXU O J 


L-DUUtt. LL. 


1759 . natured Goldsmith, as lie scraped together his answer to 
Jit. 31 . that humble petition, pointed with a smile to a description of 
the fate of poets which he had just published there. “ There 
“is a strong similitude,” he had said, reviewing a new 
edition of the Fairy Queen, “ between the lives of almost 
“ all our English poets. The Ordinary of Newgate, we 
“ are told, has but one story, which serves for the life of 
“every hero that happens to come within the circle of 
“ his pastoral care; however unworthy the resemblance 
“appears, it may be asserted, that the history of one 
“ poet might serve with as little variation for that of any 
“ other.—Born of creditable parents, who gave him a pious 
“ education; however, in spite of all their endeavours, in 
“ spite of all the exhortations of the minister of the parish 
“ on Sundays, he turned his mind from following good things, 

“ and fell to-writing verses!—Spenser, in short, lived 

“ poor, was reviled by the critics of his time, and died at 
“ last in the utmost distress.” * 

He was again working for Hamilton. Smollett himself had 
not seen his new reviewer, but, the success of the Ovid papers 
having proclaimed the value of such assistance,! he appears 
to have sent the publisher with renewed offers to Green 
Arbour Court. Goldsmith had resumed with this notice of 
Spenser; a discriminating proof of his appreciation of all 
true mastery in the divine art. Popular and practical 
himself, he wonders not the less at the “great magician:” 
suddenly taken “ from the ways of the present world,” and 



from tliis Elysium, and comes back to tlie ways of tlie world, 
bis conclusions are, tliat “ no poet enlarges tlie imagination 
“ more than Spenser; ” that “ Cowley was formed into poetry 
“ by reading bim ; ” that “ Gray and Akenside have profited 
“ by tbeir study of bim; ” and that “ his verses may one day 
“ come to be considered the standard of English poetry.” 
His next article, which appeared in the following number, 
was a notice of young Langhorne’s translation of Bion’s 
Elegy of Adonis; wherein he happily contrasted the false 
and florid tastes of the day with the pure simplicity of the 
Greek. “ If an hero or a poet happens to die with us, the 
“ whole band of elegiac.poets raise the dismal chorus, adorn 
“ his herse with all the paltry escutcheons of flattery, rise 
“ into bombast, paint him at the head of his thundering 
“ legions, or reining Pegasus in his most rapid career ; they 
“ are sure to strew cypress enough upon the bier, dress up 
“ all the muses in mourning, and look themselves every 
“ whit as dismal and as sorrowful as an undertaker’s shop. 
“ Neither pomp nor flattery agrees with real affliction : it is 
“not thus that Marcellus, even that Marcellus who was 
“ adopted by the emperor of the world, is bewailed by 
“ Propertius: his beauty, his strength, his milder virtues, 
“ seem to have caught the poet’s affections, and inspired his 
“ affliction. "Were a person to die in these days, tho’ he was 
“ never at a battle in his life, our elegiac writers would be 
“ sure to make one for the occasion.” * Subsequently, and 
with as happy and clear a spirit, he discussed a book on 
Oratory by a Gresham professor of rhetoric: instancing the 


And here I will sum up briefly as I may, what rema: 
be noticed of these humble and unacknowledged laboui 
the Critical Revieio. The tone is more confident than ir 
days when he wrote under the sign of the Dunciad; bu 
fair appreciation is the same. Obscure and depressed as 
writer was, his free running hand very frankly betrayi 
work, amid the cramped laborious penmanship with w 
Smollett’s big-wigged friends surrounded it. No 
wishing to hide under cover of a mean fortune, was eve 
easily detected. Favourite expressions, which to the en 
his life continued so, are here; thoughts he had turne 
happy use in his Irish letters, reappear again and ag 
and disguise himself for Scroggen or James ’Willingto 
he may, he cannot write from other inspiration, or ■ 
a less natural instinctive grace, than his own. The wo 
now refer to connects itself, for this reason, with the 1 
brilliant to follow. The foibles and social vanities w 
his Chinese friend is soon with indulgent humour to cor: 
are here already clear to him;t the false poetic taste w. 
he will shortly supplant with his natural manly verse 
does his best thus early to weaken and expose; and 
do-me-good family romances, with which the moralmon 
of the day would make stand against the Roderick Rome 
and Tom Joneses , axe thrust back from before the Vi 
way. 

* Critical Revieio, vii. 369, April 1759. 
t* The reader will hardly fail to have observed that he seems already tc 
had in his mind a forecast of his Chinese Letters when he was writing to Brys 
ante, p. 146. 


recent reverend visitor (Mr. Percy), at that time preparing a 
Chinese translation* for the press. Butler’s Remains 
furnished him another subject; in -which, bewailing the 
“ indigence in which the poet lived and died,” he protested 
with generous “horror at the want of discernment, at the 
“ more than barbarous ingratitude, of his contemporaries.”! 
A third was Marriott’s Answer to the Critical Review; con¬ 
taining whimsical and humorous apology for his own satirical 
comparisons of three months before. And he found a fourth 
in Dunkins’s Epistle to Lord Chesterfield; which he closed 
with a story of a traveller passing through the city of Burgos 
in Spain, who, desirous of knowing their most learned men, 
applied to one of the inhabitants for information. “ "What,” 
replied the Spaniard, who happened to be a scholar, “have 
“ you never heard of the admirable Brandellius, or the 
“ ingenious Mogusius ? one the eye, and the other the heart 
“ of our university, known all over the world.” “ Never,” 
cries the traveller; “ but pray inform me what Brandellius 
“ is particularly remarkable for.” “ You must be very 
“ little acquainted in the Republic of Letters,” says the 
other, “to ask such a question. Brandellius has wrote a 
“most sublime panegyric on Mogusius.” “And prithee, 
“ what has Mogusius done to deserve so great a favour ? ” 
“ He has written an excellent poem in praise of Brandellius.” 

* Goldsmith put this note to his article : “A specimen of this kind ” [Chinese 
fiction] “will probably appear next season at Mr. Dodsley’s, as we are informed.” 
For the amusing and unsuccessful attempts of Grainger on his friend Percy’s behalf, 
in 1758, to effect a bargain for the publication with Griffiths, see Nichols’s Illus¬ 
trations, vii. 249, 250, 259, 261, &c. 

t Critical Review, viii. 1, July 1759. The same subject was resumed in the 



UlUCiUJLCaUO CUC L/XXUXUOj OJJLU. UOX 

“ spiders are a set of reptiles that all the world despises 

Noticeable also, hi recapitulation of this drudgery, 
papers on President Gouget’s Origin of Laws, Arts, 
Sciences ,f and on Formey’s Philosophical Miscellanies, wr: 
with lively understanding of the characters of French 
German intellect;—on Van Egmont’s Travels in j 
wherein a scheme of later life was shadowed forth; “ a 
“ shall go a hundred miles to admire a mountain, 

“ because it was spoken of in Scripture, yet what informs 
“ can be received from hearing that iEgidius Van Egi 
“ went up such a hill, only in order to come down agi 
“ Could we see a man set out upon this journey, not wit 
“ intent to discover rocks and rivers, hut the manners 
“ mechanic inventions, and the imperfect learning of 
“ inhabitants; resolved to penetrate into countries as 
“ little known, and eager to pry into all then’ secrets, 
“ a heart not terrified at trifling dangers ; if there coulc 
“ found a man who could thus unite true courage 
“ sound learning, from such a character we might ex 
“ much information—on Guicciardini’s History of 1 
showing considerable knowledge of Italian literature; t- 
Montesquieu’s Miscellaneous Pieces , justifying, by n 
expressions, such rapid indication as I now give of his 
earlier and less known performances: (“ Cicero observes 
remarks in it, “ that we behold with transport and enthus: 
“ the little barren spot, or ruins of a house, in which a pe 

* Critical Review, ix. 235, March 1760. t Ibid, vii. 270, March 

X Ibid, viii. 89, August 1759. 


“ any of their posthumous works, however inferior to what 
“ he had before seen! ” *);—and finally, for my summary must 
he brief, on parson Hawkins’s Works, f and on the same 
irritable parson’s Impartial Reader's Answer to the said review 
of his works ; + where Goldsmith thus drily, in the second 
of these articles, put the difference between himself and the 
reverend writer.§ “ He is for putting his own works upon 


* Critical Review, vii. 535, June 1759.' 
f Ibid, viii. 98, August 1759. J Ibid, is. 214, March 1760. 

§ Parson Hawkins was an Oxford professor of poetry, and the author, not only of 
the Thimble, hut of a wretched tragedy called the Siege of Aleppo, which Garrick 
declined to act; and as to which the reader may find it worth while to compare 
the capital letters in which the judicious manager met the angry professor’s outraged 
vanity, and the confused account he afterwards gave of those letters in conversation, 
when fluttered and agitated hy Johnson’s laughter and sarcasm. See Garrick 
Correspondence, ii. 6, and Boswell, vii. 94-5. I happen myself to be able to quote a 
couple of passages from the letter, hitherto unprinted, that accompanied this very 
tragedy when it first went to Ganick (in the autumn of 1771); which will not 
only amuse the reader, but show him the preposterous vanities that, under cover of 
the utmost humility and the most friendly professions of service, were the plague 
of the poor Drury Lane manager’s life. In the remark about Hawkins and Shak- 
speare on the same shelf, quoted above, Goldsmith had hit the leading weakness 
of the reverend poet. This letter shows us that he had written his tragedy in 
express imitation of Shakspeare, that he sent it to Garrick solely because of his 
admiration for Shakspeare, and that he was willing Garrick should have it for a 
mere nothing strictly because of the obligations he had conferred on Shakspeare. £ ‘ I 
“ flatter myself this letter when favored with your perusal will cany its apology 
££ with it. As a passionate admirer .of Shakspeare it is hut natural for me to 
£ ‘ wish to he connected with Mr. Gan-ick, and I hope I shall he understood to 
££ mean more than a base compliment when I add that I really desire this from 
“ motives rather of an honoring than lucrative nature. In short (to give yourself 
‘ ‘ and me as little trouble as may he) the case is this—I have a Play hy me, 

‘ ‘ written in imitation of Shakspeare in point of style, hut on a plan &c. wholly 
“ new, which I have an ambition to recommend to your acceptance.” Recommend 
it to his acceptance he accordingly proceeds to do, hy declaring that the Wartons, 
Tom and J oe, might be asked to give their opinion of it, by which he, Hawkins, 



“ the same reader tliat commends Addison’s delicacy to 
“ talk with, raptures of the purity of Hawkins; and he who 
“ praises the Rape of the Lock to speak with equal feelings 
“ of that richest of all poems, Mr. Hawkins’s Thimble. 
“ But we, alas ! cannot speak of Mr. H. with the same 
“ unrestrained share of panegyric that he does of himself. 
“ Perhaps our motive to malevolence might have been, that 
“ Mr. Hawkins stood between us and a good living : we can 
“ solemnly assure him we are quite contented with our 
“ present situation in the church, are quite happy in a wife 
“ and forty pounds a year, nor have the least ambition for 
“ plmalities.” * 

I close this rapid account of his labours in the Critical 
Review^ with a curious satire of the fashionable family 
novel of that day: the work with which the stately mother, 
and the boarding-school miss, were instructed to fortify 
themselves against the immoralities of Smollett and of 
Fielding. As with Jonathan Wild in the matter of Cacus, 
Goldsmith “ knew a better way : ” and in his witty exposure 
of Jemima and Louisa , he seems preparing to make it 
known. The tale professed to be written by a lady, in a 
series of letters ; and thus he described it. 


■would willingly be judged. And theu be concludes. “ If you please I will send the 
“ performance in a few weeks to yourselfj relying cheerfully on your candour and 
“ impartiality. Having only to say farther, that in case it be honoured with your 
“ acceptance, the copy shall be at your service upon your own terms of purchase. 
“ These I shall leave with the most implicit confidence to your honor, as I choose 
“ for many reasons, to be concerned in this business rather as an Author, than 
“ Proprietor ; and as (to say the truth honestly) I have herein principally in view 
“ the cultivation of a correspondence, and give me leave to say and hope a friend- 
“ ship, with a gentleman to whom the Immortal Shakspeare is confessedly under 



sue naa one brother ana one sister, with several other secrets of 
“ this kind, all delivered in the confidence of friendship. In the 
“ progress of this correspondence we find she has been taken from 
“ home for carrying ou an intrigue with Horatio, a gentleman of the 
“ neighbourhood, and by means of her sister’s insinuations, for she 
“ happens to be her enemy, confined to her chamber, her father at the 
“ same time making an express prohibition against her writing love- 
" letters for the future. This command Miss Mima breaks, and of con- 
“ sequence is turned out of doors; so up she gets behind a servant 
“ without a pillion, and is set down at Mrs. Weller’s house, the mother 
“ of her friend Miss Fanny. Here, then, we shall leave, or rather 
“ forget her, only observing that she is happily married, as we are told 
u in a few words towards the conclusion. We are next served up with. 
“ the history of Miss Louisa Blyden, a story no way connected with the 
“ former. Louisa is going to be married to Mr. Evanion; the 
“ nuptials, however, are interrupted by the death of Louisa’s father, 
“ and at last broke off by means of a sharper, who pretends to be 
“ miss’s uncle, and takes her concerns under his direction. What 
“ need we tell as how the young lovier runs mad, Miss is spirited away 
“ into France; at last returns ; the sharper and his accomplices 
“ hang or drown themselves, her lover dies, and she, oh tragical! 
“ keeps her chamber ? However,- to console us for this calamity, there 
“ are two or three other very good matches struck up ; a great deal 
“ of money, a great deal of beauty, a world of love, and days and 
c: nights as happy as heart could desire ; the old butt-end of a modern 
“ romance.” * 

And so Goldsmith.’s adieu to both Reviews was said, and 
lie left them to fight out their quarrels with each other. 

* Critical Review, viii. 165-6, August 1759. Let me here add that our knowledge 
of Goldsmith’s labours in the Critical Review is mainly derived from the fact 
mentioned in a letter by George Steevens (Sept. 3, 1797) giving information about 
“ our little poet’s works ” to Bishop Percy, then engaged in preparing the edition 
delayed by so many mischances. After remarking that “ several pieces of the 
“ Doctor’s are still in MS. in the hands of various people” (this could hardly be 
news to the bishop, who had himself more than one tuvpublished piece, which he 


this interchange of abuse will in future cease to have a 
bitterness personal to his own fortunes. We are gradually 
now to follow him, and them, to “ a more removed ground.” 
Yet not until the scene of life shall entirely close will it be 
permitted him to forget that he once toiled in humiliating’ 
bondage at the sign of the Dunciad in Paternoster Row, and 
was paid retainer and servant to “ those significant emblems, 
“ the owl and the long-ear’d animal, which Mr. Griffiths so 
“ sagely displays for the mirth and information of man- 
“ kind."* 


lost), he continues : “the late Mr. "Wright, the printer, ■who had been either 
“ apprentice to or in the service of Mr. Hamilton, at a time when Goldsmith 
“ composed numerous essays for Magazines, articles for Reviews, &c. &c. preserved 
“ a list of these fugitive pieces, which are now reprinting, and will make their 
“ appearance in the course of next winter. Goldsmith likewise began a periodical 
“ paper, which being unsuccessful, was laid aside, after a few numbers of it had 
“ been issued out.” Nichols’s Illustrations , vii. 25. I cannot help doubting, 
however, if the true source has been at all times pointed out by Mr. Wright to the 
editor of these reprinted articles (Mr. Isaac Reed). 

* Critical Review, iv. 471. November 1757. See also vili, 82-3, July 1759. 
In the hitter, the Monthly Review is characterised as “ that repository of dullness 
“ and malevolence, replenished by the indefatigable care of the industrious nightman 
“ R—h G—s, and his spouse.” Smollett, or his writer, is speaking of a translation 
of Ariosto attacked by the Monthly reviewers, which he had himself praised ; and 
characterises this review as “an instance of presumption in an illiterate bookseller 
“ and his wife, which can scarcely he paralleled in the annals of dulness and 
“ effrontery . . . Ha ! ha ! ha ! who is this venerable Aristarchus, who mounts the 
“ chair of criticism ? No Aristarchus, hut an antiquated Sappho, a Sibyl, or rather 
“ a Pope Joan in taste and literature, pregnant with abuse begot by rancour under 
“ the canopy of ignorance. Purge your choler, goody ; have recourse to your 
“ apothecary in this adust weather, who will keep you cool and temperate. Mean- 
“ while, you and your obsequious spouse may confer together on your vain irnport- 
“ ance, like the two owls in the fable, 

“ Husband, you reason well, replies 

The solemn mate with half-shut eyes : 

My parlour is the seat of learning ; 


CHAPTER VII. 


AN APPEAL FOR AUTHORS BY PROFESSION. 

1759. 

Meanwhile the Dodsleys had issued their advertise¬ 
ments, and the London Chronicle of the 3rd of April, 1759, 
announced the appearance, the day before, of An Enquiry 
into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe. It was 
a very respectable, well-printed duodecimo; was without 
the author’s name on the title-page, though Goldsmith was 
anxious to have the authorship widely known ; and had two 
learned mottoes. The Greek signified that the writer 
esteemed philosophers, hut was no friend to sophists; and 
the Latin, that those only should destroy buildings who 
could themselves build. 

The first idea of the work has been seen; as it grew con¬ 
solingly, like the plant in the Picciola, from between the 
hard and stony environments of a desperate fortune. Some 
modifications it received, as the prospects of the writer 
were subjected to change; and in its scope became too 
large for the limited materials, both of reading and expe¬ 
rience, brought to its composition. But it was in advance of 



Mt. 31 . heresy still. 

"With any detailed account of this well-known Enquiry I 
do not propose to detain the reader; but for illustration of 
the course I have taken in this memoir, some striking pas¬ 
sages should not he overlooked; others will throw light 
forward on new scenes which await us; and the contents 
of the treatise, as found in the current collections, are 
wanting in much that gives interest to the duodecimo now 
lying before me, the first of the Dodsley editions. 

Manifest throughout the hook is one over-ruling feeling, 
under various forms; the conviction that, in had critics and 
sordid booksellers, learning has to contend with her most 
pernicious enemies. When he has described at the outset 
the wise reverence for letters which prevailed in the old 
Greek time, when “learning was encouraged, protected, 
“ honoured, and in its turn adorned, strengthened, and har- 
“ monised the community,” he turns to the sophists and 
critics for the day of its decline. By them the ancient polite 
learning was in his view “ separated from common sense, 

“ and made the proper employment of speculative idlers. . . 

“ The wiser part of mankind would not he imposed upon by 
“ unin telligible jargon, nor, like the knight in Pantagruel, 

“ swallow a chimera for a breakfast, though even cooked by 
“ Aristotle.”* Thus he distinguished three periods in the 
history of ancient learning: its commencement, or the age 
of poets; its maturity, or the age of philosophers; and its 
decline, or the age of critics. Corruptissima respublica, 
plurima leges. In like manner, when he turned to the con- 

J JL • lb* J ^ J *I~JLL J/L - „ __ 


IN evertneless, it was witli manly sell-assertion ol attamments 
which raised him above the herd, that he afterwards scorn¬ 
fully disclaimed that viler brotherhood. “ I fire with 
“ indignation when I see persons wholly destitute of educa- 
“ tion and genius indent to the press, and thus turn book- 
“ makers, adding to the sin of criticism the sin of ignorance 
“ also ; whose trade is a had one, and who are bad workmen 
“ in the trade.” So much was not to be said of his work¬ 
manship, by even the deity of the Dunciad—the contriver 
of books to be made, the master-employer in the miserable 
craft, Griffiths himself. 

And thus comes upon the scene that other arch-foe, 
to whom, in modern days, the literary craftsman is but 
minister and servant. The critic or sophist might have 
been contriver of all harms, while the field of mischief was 
bis own, and limited to a lecture-room of Athens or 
Alexandria; but he bowed to a more potent spirit of evil 
when the man of Paternoster Eow or the Poultry came up 
in later days, took literature into charitable charge, and 
assumed exclusive direction of laws of taste and men of 
learning. Drawing on a bard experience, Goldsmith 
depicted the “ precarious subsistence ” and daily fate of 
the bookseller’s workman: “ coming down at stated intervals 
“ to rummage the bookseller’s counter for materials to work 
“ upon : ”f a fate which other neglects now made inevitable. 
“ The author,” Goldsmith had previously said, “ when 
“ unpatronised by the great, has naturally recourse to the 


Chap. xi. 


f Chap. xi. 



“ bination more prejudicial to taste than this. It is the 
“ interest of the one to allow as little for writing, and of the 
“ other to write as much, as possible; accordingly tedious 
“ compilations and periodical magazines are the result of 
“ their joint endeavours. In these circumstances the 
“ author bids adieu to fame, writes for bread, and for that 
“ only imagination is seldom called in; he sits down to 
“ address the venal muse with the most phlegmatic apathy; 
“ and, as we are told of the Russian, courts his mistress by 
££ falling asleep in her lap. His reputation never spreads 
“in a wider circle than that of the trade, who generally 
££ value him, not for the fineness of his compositions, but 
££ the quantity he works off in a given time. A long habit 
£c of writing for bread thus turns the ambition of every 
££ author at last into avarice. He finds that he has written 
“ many years, that the public are scarcely acquainted even 
££ with his name; he despairs of applause, and turns to 
££ profit which invites him. He finds that money procures 
££ all those advantages, that respect, and that ease which he 
“ vainly expected from fame. Thus the man who under 
££ the protection of the great might have done honour to 
££ humanity, when only patronised by the bookseller, becomes 
££ a thing little superior to the fellow who works at the 
££ press.”* In connection with this unpromising picture, in 
his following chapter, he placed ££ the two literary reviews 
££ in London, with critical newspapers and magazines without 
££ number;” remarking in another place that, ££ were these 
££ Monthly Reviews and Magazines frothy, pert, or absurd. 


over humour amongst us, from which no one in later years 
was to suffer as much as himself. * “ Does the poet paint 

“ the absurdities of the vulgar, then he is low : does he 
“ exaggerate the features of follv to render it more 
“ thoroughly ridiculous, he is then very low." t And he 
laughingly suggested (but this joke he confined to his first 
edition) that check might possibly be given to it by some 
such law “ enacted in the republic of letters as we find 
“ takes effect in the House of Commons. As no man there 
“ can show his wisdom, unless qualified by three hundred 
“ pounds a-year, so none here should possess gravity, unless 
“ his work amounted to three hundred pages.” In other 
parts of the treatise he guards himself from being supposed 
to wish that a mere money-service, a system of flattery and 
beggary, should replace that of the booksellers. He would 
object, he says, to indigence and effrontery subjecting 

* How admirable are bis remarks on style, in tbe same chapter ! ££ It were to 
‘ £ be wished that we no longer found pleasure with the inflated stile that has 
£ £ for some years been looked upon as fine writing, and which every young writer 
££ is now obliged to adopt, if he chooses to be read . . it is not those who make 
££ the greatest noise with their wares in the streets that have most to sell. Let us, 

£ ‘ instead of writing finely, try to write naturally; not hunt after lofty expressions 
££ to deliver mean ideas, nor be for ever gaping, when we only mean to deliver a 
“ whisper.” Not against Johnson was this levelled, however, but at the swarm 
of empty imitators begotten of Johnson’s success. The author of the Rambler 
would think all the more highly of Goldsmith for such remarks. No one better 
knew his own defects, or made more candid avowal of them. “Sir,” he said to 
Boswell, “ if Robertson’s style be faulty, he owes it to me ; that is, having too 
“ many words, and those too big ones.” Life, vi. 316. So when Langton one day 
read one of his Ramblers to him, and asked him how he liked it, he shook his 
head, and said, “Too wordy.” Ib. vii. 353. Langton also tells us that at 
another time, when a friend was reading his tragedy of Irene to a company at a 
house in the country, he left the room ; and somebody having asked him the reason 
of this, he replied, “Sir, I thought it had been better.” Ibid. In these 
ne sonal matte - s. as in all others, o far s his v’ vs iudement carried him. 


take a purse, man present a pistol tor the same purpose. 

These passages in the Enquiry -were startling, and nc 
be protected from notice by even the obscurity of 
writer. They struck at the seat of a monstrous 
“ We must observe,” said Smollett, noticing the bool 
the Critical Review , “ that, against his own conviction, 
“ author has indiscriminately censured the two Revie 
“ confounding a work undertaken from public spirit, ■ 
“ one supported for the sordid purposes of a boolcselle 
“ It might not become us to say more on this subjec 
The sordid bookseller was not so delicate, and did say m 
more; calling in for the purpose the pen of Ivenricl 
notorious and convicted libeller. “ It requires a good 
“ of art and temper,” said the Monthly Review, £ 
objections to the whole treatise, some just enough, on 
score of ’its want of learning and too hasty decision 
national literatures, others, connected with the subjec 
patronage, shallow as they were severe, “ for a man to w 
“ consistently against the dictates of his own heart. T1 
“ notwithstanding our Author talks so familiarly of us, 
“ great, and affects to be thought to stand in the rani 
“ Patrons, we cannot help thinking that in more places t 
“ one he has betrayed, in himself, the man he so seve: 
“ condemns for chawing his quill to take a purse. We 
“ even so firmly convinced of this, that we dare put 
“ question home to his conscience, whether he nc 
experienced the unhappy situation he so feelingly descri 
“ in that of a Literary Understrapper ? His remark 
him as coming down from his garret, to r mmao'e 


“ knowledge lie displays of liis minutest labours, give great 
“ reason to suspect ” (generous and forbearing Griffiths !) 
“ he may himself have had concerns in the bad trade of 
“ bookmaking. Fronti nulla fides. We have heard of many 
“ a Writer, who, ‘ patronised only by his bookseller,’ has 
££ nevertheless affected the Gentleman in print, and talked 
££ full as cavalierly as our Author himself. We have even 
££ known one hardy enough* publicly to stigmatise men of 
££ the first rank in literature, for their immoralities, while 
££ conscious himself of labouring under the infamy of having, 
££ by the vilest and meanest actions, forfeited all pretensions 
££ to honour and honesty. If such men as these, boasting 
“ a liberal education, and pretending to genius, practise at 
££ the same time those arts which bring the Sharper to the 
££ cart’s-tail or the pillory, need our Author wonder that 
££ c learning partakes the contempt of its professors.’ If 
££ characters of this stamp are to be foimd among the 
“ learned, need any one be surprised that the great prefer 
££ the society of Fiddlers, Gamesters, and Buffoons ? ” t 

* Kenrick has the mock decency here to subjoin in a note exactly that kind of 
affected disclaimer of any personal allusion to Goldsmith in this particular passage, 
which fixes the offence charged more expressly upon him. “ Even our author,” 
he says, “seems to have wandered into calumny when he speaks of the Marquis 
“ d’Argens as attempting to add the character of a philosopher to the vices of a 
“ debauchee.” That he was himself intended would require no clearer evidence to 
Goldsmith’s mind than the identity of the expression— sharper —with the 
“sharper and villain” of Griffiths’s letter, ante, p. 170. 

t Monthly Review, xxi. 3S9, November 1759. Can any one doubt that these 
painful passages in Goldsmith’s history were vividly present with him two years 
later, when his man in black, talking of genius and its rewards among the tombs 
of Westminster Abbey, surprised the Chinese citizen by describing a class of men 
who ‘ ‘ have no other employment but to cry out Dunce, and Scribbler; to 
‘ ‘ praise the dead and revile the living ; to grant a man of confessed abilities 

ee cjnm p Kinnll sbnre (if mpr'f, • t.o ■ nnlm il t.wpntv hlnnUlipnrlQ in nv/lpr n mi in flip 


JEt.l 


vulgar falsehoods ; and meanwhile they are not deserving 
of remark. Indeed the quarrel, or interchange of foul 
reproach, as between author and bookseller, may claim at 
all times the least possible paid of attention. It is a third 
more serious influence to which appeal is made, and on 
whose right interference the righteous arrangement must at 
last depend. But at the close of the second epoch, so brief 
yet so sorrowful, in the life of this great and genuine 
man-of-letters, it becomes us at least to understand the 
appeal he would have entered against the existing controul 
and government of the destinies of literature. It was 
manifestly premature, and some passages of his after-life 
will plainly avow as much : hut it had too sharp an 
experience in it not to have also much truth, and it would 
better have become certain bystanders in that age to have 
gone in and parted the combatants, than, as they did, make a 
ring around them for enjoyment of the sport, or in philosophic 
weariness abandon the scene altogether. 

“ You know,” said Walpole to one of his correspondents, 
“ how I shun authors, and would never have been one 
“ myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company. 
“ They are always in earnest, and think their profession 
“ serious, and dwell upon trifles, and reverence learning. 
“ I laugh at all these things, and divert myself.” “ It is 
££ probable,” said David Hume, ££ that Paris will be long my 
“ home . . I have even thoughts of settling in Paris for the 
“ rest of my life . . I have a reluctance to think of living 
££ among the factious barbarians of London. Letters are 

<S +Tl0Y*0 liolrl in n/-v Ilminnn Tli/1 -Pm li + Ann + mm -I 


“ they are among the factions barbarians.” * 

Matter of diversion for one, of disgust and avoidance for 
others, the factious barbarian struggle was left to a man 
more single-hearted, who thought the business of life a 
thing to be serious about, and who, unlike the Humes and 
"Walpoles, was solely dependent for his bread on the very 
booksellers, of the danger of whose absolute power he 
desired to give timely warning. This he might do, as it 
seems to me, without personal injustice, and without pettish 
spite to the honest craft of bookselling, or to any other 
respectable trade. He might believe that those trade- 
indentures would turn out ill for literature ; that in 
enlarging its channels by vulgar means, might be mischief 
rather than good; that facilities for appeal to a wide circle 
of uninformed readers, were but facilities for employment to 
a circle of miters nearly as wide and quite as uninformed; 
that, in raising up a brood of writers whom any other 
earthly employment would have better fitted, lay the danger 
of bringing down the man of genius to their level; and, in 
short, that literature, properly understood and rightly 
cherished, had altogether a higher duty and significance 
than the profit or the loss of a tradesman’s counter. In 
this I hold him to have taken fair ground. The reputations 
we have lived to see raised on these false foundations, the 
good clerks and accountants whom magazines have turned 
into bad literary men, the readers whose tastes have been 
pandered to and yet further lowered, the writers whose 
better talents have been disregarded and wasted, the venal 


But when Goldsmith wrote, there was still a certain re¬ 
cognised work for the bookseller to do. With the aftercourse 
of this narrative it will more fully appear, even in that entire 
assent and adhesion of Goldsmith himself which he certainly 
did not contemplate when the Enquiry was planned, yet 
which, at the close of the experience of his life, he would 
almost seem to have silently withdrawn, by leaving the book 
revised for a posthumous edition with its protest against 
booksellers unabated and unmodified. To complete that 
protest now (a most essential part of this chapter in his 
fortunes), I will add proof, from other parts of the Enquiry 
of the manly tendency, and freedom from personal spleen, 
apparent in the structure of the appeal which was built upon 
it. There will be found no inconsistency between the opening 
and closing lines of the sentences first given, by those who 
have studied the disclosures made recently by men who take 
the deejiest interest in the welfare of our universities; and 
who contrast them, as they now are, with the original pur¬ 
pose for which the grand foundations of princely prelates 
and nobles in advance of their age first arose in Cambridge 
and Oxford. 

“ No nation gives greater encouragements to learning than we do; 
“yet none are so injudicious in the application. We seem to confer 
“ them with the same view that statesmen have been known to grant 
“ employments at Court, rather as bribes to silence than incentives to 
“ emulation. All our magnificent endowments of colleges are erro- 
££ neous f and at best, more frequently enrich the prudent than reward 
“ the ingenious. Among the universities abroad I have ever observed 

* A kind of endowment partaking of both pension list and college lectureship, 

_ L £. _J.T_• . -J? T.-J-I 1 1 . . ... _ 



ci negative uisujll upon genius, inis appears m uuuiung mure eviuem. 
“ than the undistinguished success of those who solicit subscrip- 
“ tions. "When first brought into fashion, subscriptions were con- 
“ ferred upon the ingenious alone, or those who were reputed 
“ such. But at present, we see them made a resource of indi¬ 
gence, and requested not as rewards of merit, but as a relief of 
“ distress. If tradesmen happen to want skill in conducting their own 
“ business, yet they are able to write a book ; if mechanics want money, 
“ or ladies shame, they write books and solicit subscriptions. Scarcely 
a morning passes, that proposals of this nature are not thrust 
“ into the half-opening doors of the rich, with perhaps a paltry peti¬ 
tion, showing the author’s wants, but not his merits. . . What then 
“ are the proper encouragements of genius 1 I answer, subsistence and 
“respect, for these are rewards congenial to its nature.”* 

“ does it meet the questions at issue. Even in a pecuniary point of view, a sum 
‘ ‘ might often he necessary for a limited period in the production of a particular 
“ work, which it would not be necessary to continue for life, and which need not 
“ he applied to the mere relief of positive distress, or the support of infirmity 
‘ ‘ and age. Schiller was in the prime of his life, and quite capable of being a 
“ bookseller’s drudge, perhaps of writing Grecian histories, and works on 
‘ ‘ Animated Nature, wheu two noblemeD, thinking that his genius was meant for 
‘ ‘ other things, subscribed to endow him with a pension for three years, to enable 
1 ‘ him to do that which he was calculated best to do. It came to Schiller at the 
“ right time of his existence. It served, we believe, not only to aid his genius, 
“but to soften his heart. Some help of a similar nature, a national fund in 
‘ ‘ connection with the pension list might not unprofitably bestow. Perhaps, in 
‘ ‘ any comprehensive system of national education which the conflicting opinions 
“ and prejudices of party may permit the legislature ultimately to accomplish, 
“ means may he taken to render the Mechanics’ Institutes (many of which are 
‘ ‘ fast decaying, and cannot, we believe, long exist upon resources wholly voluntary) 
“ permanent and valuable auxiliaries to popular instruction; and endowed 
“ lectureships or professorships, at the more important of these in our larger 
“ towns, might be devoted to men distinguished in letters and science, connect 
' 1 them more with the practical world, occupy but little of tlieir tune, and yield 
“them emoluments, if modest, still sufficient to relieve them from actual 
“ dependence on the ordinary public and trading booksellers. Perhaps, too, in 
£ ‘ the point of social consideration, it may be well to reflect whether it is wise or 
“just that England should he the only country in which men of letters are 
“ deprived of the ordinary social honours, which tend to raise literature to its 
“ proper place in the estimation of the crowd.” I may refer also, with the pride 
and interest of one associated in the scheme, to the recent project for a Guild 



17.19. Tliis is not tlie language of one who would have had 
Et. 31. literature again subsist, as of old, on servile adulation and 
vulgar charity. Goldsmith, indeed, seems rather to have 
thought with an earnest man of genius in our own day, that 
grants of money and subscriptions are by no means the chief 
things wanted for proper organisation of the literary class. 
“ To give our men of letters,” says Mr. Carlyle, “ stipends, 
‘‘endowments, and all furtherance of cash, will do little. 
“ toward the business. On the whole, one is weary of 
“ hearing about the omnipotence of money. I will say rather, 
“ that, for a genuine man, it is no evil to be poor . . Money, 
“ in truth, can do much, but fit cannot do all. We must 
“know the province of it, and confine it there; and even 
“ spurn it back, when it wishes to get farther.”* One of the 
lively illustrations of the Enquiry is not very unlik e this. 
“ The beneficed divine,” says Goldsmith, “ whose wants are 
“ only imaginary, expostulates as bitterly as the poorest 
“ author that ever snuffed his candle with finger and thumb. 
“ Should interest or good fortune advance the divine to a 
“bishopric, or the poor son of Parnassus into that place 
“ which the other has resigned; both are authors no longer, 
“ the one goes to prayers once a day, kneels upon cushions 
“ of velvet, and thanks gracious Heaven for having made the 
“ circumstances of all mankind so extremely happy ; the 
“ other battens on all the delicacies of life, enjoys his wife 
“ and his easy chair, and sometimes, for the sake of conversa- 
“ tion, deplores the luxury of these degenerate days. All 
“ encouragements to merit are therefore misapplied, which 


dwells upon the contrast of existing times, in language 
which will hereafter connect itself with the deliberate dislike 
of Walpole, and the uneasy jealousy of Garrick.* 

“ ‘When the link between patronage and learning was entire, then 
c: all who deseiwed fame were in a capacity of attaining it. When the 
“ great Somers was at the helm, patronage was fashionable among our 
“ nobility. The middle ranks of mankind, who generally imitate the 
“ Great, then followed their example, and applauded from fashion if not 
“ from feeling. I have heard an old poet ” [he alludes to Young] “ of that 
“ glorious age say, that a dinner with his lordship' has procured him 
“ invitations for the whole week following; that an airing in his 
“ patron’s chariot has supplied him with a citizen’s coach on every future 
“ occasion. For who would not be proud to entertain a man who kept 
“ so much good company ? But this link now seems entirely broken. 
£< Since the days of a certain prime-minister of inglorious memory, the 

* I cannot help quoting also in this place, from the last edition (1S53, ii. 223-4) 
of Lord Mahon’s History , a passage very pertinent to the matter under discussion, 
and very honourable to the writer. “ Literary profits do not in all respects supply 
‘ ‘ the place of literary patronage. First, there are several studies—such as many 
“ branches of science or antiquities—which are highly deserving of encouragement, 
“ but not generally popular, and therefore not productive of emolument. In these 
‘ ‘ cases the liberality of the Government might sometimes usefully atone for the 
“ indifference of the public. But even with the most popular authors, the 
“ necessity of looking to their literary labours for their daily bread, has not 
“ unfrequently an unfavourable effect upon the former. It may compel, or at 
“ least induce, them to over-write themselves ; to pour forth hasty and immature 
“ productions ; to keep at all hazards their names before the public. How seldom 
‘ ‘ can they admit intervals of leisure, or allow their minds to lie fallow for a 
“ season, in order to bear hereafter a larger and a better harvest ! In like 
‘ £ manner, they must minister to the taste of the public, whatever that taste may 
‘ 1 be, and sometimes have to sacrifice their own ideas of beauty, and aspirations 
‘ ‘ of fame. These are undoubted evils, not merely to them, but to us ; and as 
“ undoubtedly are they guarded against whenever a fixed and competent provision 
‘ ‘ cau be granted to genius. I am therefore clearly of opinion, that any Minister 
1 ‘ who might have the noble ambition to become the patron of literary men, would 
‘ ‘ still find a large field open to his munificence ; that his intercourse with them 
“ on the footing of equal friendship would be a deserved distinction to them, and a 
‘ £ liberal recreation to himself: that his favours mieht be emnloved with creat 


iancy une man 01 wiu as mailing a vviy agiecauic me. j.ucj ouin-muc, 
“perhaps, that he is attended to with silent admiration, and dictates 
“ to the rest of mankind with all the eloquence of conscious superiority. 
“ Very different is his present situation. He is called an author, and 
“ all know that an author is a thing only to be laughed at. His person, 
“ not his jest, becomes the mirth of the company. At his approach the 
“ most fat unthinking face brightens into malicious meaning. Even 
“ aldermen laugh, and avenge on him the ridicule which was lavished 
“ on their forefathers : 

Etiam victis redit in praacordia virtus, 

Victoresque cadunt. 

. . . “The poet’s poverty is a standing topic of contempt. His writing 
“ for bread is an unpardonable offence. Perhaps of all mankind an 
“author in these times is used most hardly. We keep him poor and 
“ yet revile his poverty. Like angry parents, who correct their children 
“ till they cry, and then correct them for crying, we reproach him for 
“living by his wit, and yet allow him no other means to live. His 
“ taking refuge in garrets and cellars has of late been violently objected 
“ to him, and that by men who I dare hope are more apt to pity than 
“insult his distress. Is poverty the writer’s fault 1 No doubt he knows 
“ how to prefer a bottle of champaign to the nectar of the neighbouring 
“ alehouse, or a venison pasty to a plate of potatoes. Want of delicacy 
“ is not in him but in us, who deny him the opportunity of making an 
“ elegant choice. Wit certainly is the property of those who have it, 
“ nor should we be displeased if it is the only property a man some- 
“ times has. We must not underrate him who uses it for subsistence, 
“ and flies from the ingratitude of the age even to a bookseller for redress. 
“ If the profession of an author is to be laughed at by the stupid, it is 
“ certainly better to be contemptibly rich than contemptibly poor. Eor 
“ all the wit that ever adorned the human mind will at present no 
“ more shield the author’s poverty from ridicule, than his high-topped 
“ gloves f conceal the unavoidable omissions of his laundress. To be 

* This allusion to the “ inglorious memory” of Sir Robert Walpole is more than 
enough to explain- the never ceasing indifference, dislike, or contempt avowed by 
Horace Walpole for its author. 

+ “I asked Mr. Gray,” says Nich oils, “what sort of a man Dr. Hurd was. lie 


preventing mem; nowever virtuous me present age, mere may be 
“ still growing employment for ridicule or reproof, for persuasion or 
“ satire. If tlie author be therefore still so necessary among us, let us 
“ treat him with proper consideration as a child of the public, not a 
“ rent-charge on the community. And indeed a child of the public he 
“ is in all respects ; for while so well able to direct others, how incapable 
“is he frequently found of guiding himselfl His simplicity exposes 
“ him to all the insidious approaches of cunning; his sensibility, to the 
“slightest invasions of contempt. Though possessed of fortitude to 
“ stand unmoved the expected bursts of an earthquake, yet of feelings 
“ so exquisitely poignant as to agonise under the slightest disappoint- 
“ ment.* Broken rest, tasteless meals, and causeless anxiety, shorten 
“ his life, or render it unfit for active employment; prolonged vigils 
“and intense application still farther contract his span, and make his 
“ time glide insensibly away. Let us not then aggravate those natural 
“ inconveniences by neglect; we have had sufficient instances of this 
“ kind already. Sale and Moore will suffice for one age at least. But 
“they are dead, and their sorrows are over. ( The neglected author of 
“ the Persian Eclogues [Collins] which, however inaccurate, excel any 
“ in our language, is still alive. Happy, if insensible of our neglect, not 
“ raging at oui- ingratitude. It is enough that the age has already 
“ produced instances of men pressing foremost in the lists of fame, and 
“ worthy of better times, schooled by continued adversity into an hatred 
“ of their kind, flying from thought to drunkenness, yielding to the 
“united pressure of labour, penury and sorrow, sinking unheeded, 
“ without one friend to drop a tear on their unattended obsequies, and 
“ indebted to charity for a grave.” + 

These words had been written but a very few years, when 
the hand that traced them was itself cold; and, yielding to 
that united pressure of labour, penury, and sorrow, with a 


* He improved upon this description in the S4th Letter of the Citizen of the 
World. .“ I fancy the character of a poet is in every country the same : fond of 
“ enjoying the present, careless of the future ; his conversation that of a man of 
“ sense, his actions those of a fool; of fortitude able to stand unmoved at the 
“ bursting of an earthquake, yet of sensibility to he affected by the breaking of a 


jJtJaUCJlUJ. UUJLJUU. IKIO AAA 

Sale, driven mad with, those fruitless schemes of a society 
for encouragement of learning, which he carried, it may be 
hoped, to a kinder world than this; it is not from the grave 
of Edward Moore, with melancholy playfulness anticipating, 
in his last unsuccessful project, the very day on which his 
death would fall; it is not even at the shrieks of poor 
distracted Collins, heard through the melancholy cathedral- 
cloister where he had played in childhood : but it is hi this 
life, adventures, and death of Oliver Goldsmith, that the 
mournful and instructive moral speaks its warning to us now. 

I know of none more deeply impressive, or of wider import 
and significance. "When Collins saw the hopes of his youth 
in the cold light of the world’s indifference, with a mixed 
impulse of despair and revenge he collected the unsold 
edition of his hapless Odes and Eclogues , and with a savage 
delight beheld them slowly consume, as, in his own room, he 
made a bonfire of them. When Goldsmith was visited with 
a like weakness, something of a like result foreboded; but 
the better part was forced upon him in his own despite, and 
in the present most affecting picture of his patience the 
hectic agony of Collins is but an idle frenzy. Steadily 
gazing on the evil destinies of men-of-letters, he no longer 
desires to avoid his own; conscious of the power of the 
booksellers, he condemns and denoimces it; without direct 
hope, save of some small public favour, he protests against 
cruelties for which the public are responsible. The protest 
will accompany us through the remainder of his life : and be 
remembered as well in its lightest passages, as in those 


Such., at tlie worst, is the resource of a healthy genius. It 
works evil into good, and has within it a principle of sustain¬ 
ment and of self-consolation. The more particularly does it 
become the world to take note of this, as a party far more 
deeply concerned than bookseller or than author. That cry 
of Goldsmith is little for himself. Who wins his passage to 
the goal, may care little at the close for a larger suffering or 
a less: the cry is raised for others, meanwhile perishing by 
the way. When Irene failed, and Johnson was asked how he 
felt, he answered “like the Monument; ”* hut when he had 
arrived at comfort and independence, and carelessly taking 
up one day his own fine satire, opened it at the lines which 
paint the scholar’s fate, and the obstructions, almost insur¬ 
mountable, in his way to fortune and fame, he burst into a 
passion of tears.f Not for what he had himself endured, 
whose labour was at last victoriously closed ; but for all the 
disastrous chances that still awaited others. It is the world’s 
concern. There is a subtle spirit of compensation at work, 
when men regal’d it least, which to the spiritual sense accom¬ 
modates the vilest need, and lightens the weariest burden. 
Milton talked of the lasting fame and perpetuity of praise, 
which God and good men have consented should be the 
reward of those whose published labours have advanced the 


* Boswell’s Life, i. 230. 

*j* Mrs. Piozzi’s Anecdotes , 50. “The family and Mr. Scott only were present, 
“ who in a jocose way clapped him on the hack, and said, ‘What’s all this, my 
‘ ‘ ‘ dear sir ? Why you, and I, and Hercules, you know, were all troubled with 
“ ‘ melancholy.’...He was a very large man, and made out the triumvirate with 
“Johnson and Hercules comically enough. The Doctor was so delighted at his 
“odd sally, that he suddenly embraced him, and the subject was immediately 



are long passed away into tlie rubbish, they sprang from, and 
all of us will be apt enough now to thank heaven that we 
were not Griffiths. Jacob Tonson’s hundred thousand 
pounds are now of less account, than the bad shillings 
he insinuated into Dryden’s payments; and the fame of 
Secretary Nottingham is very much overtopped by the 
pillory of De Foe. The Italian princes who beggared Dante 
are still without pity writhing in his deathless poem, while 
Europe looks to the beggar as to a star in heaven; nor has 
Italy’s greater day, or the magnificence which crowded the 
court of Augustus, left behind them a name of any earthly 
interest to compare with his who restored land to Virgil, 
and who succoured the fugitive Horace. These are results 
which have obtained in all countries, and been confessed by 
every age; and it will be well when they win for literature 
other living regards, and higher present consideration, than 
it has yet been able to obtain. Men of genius can more 
easily starve, than the world, with safety to itself, can con¬ 
tinue to neglect and starve them. "What new arrangement, 
what kind of consideration may be required, will not be very 
distant from the simple acknowledgment that greater honour 
and respect are due. 

This is what literature has wanted in England, and 1 not 
the laced coat and powdered wig, the fashionable acceptance 
and great men’s feasts, which have on rare occasions been 
substituted for it. The most liberal patronage vouchsafed 
in this country to living men-of-letters, lias never been 
unaccompanied by degrading incidents; nor their claims 


passed with, a sort of kindly consideration on their behalf, 
by favour of which the poet and the teacher of writing, 
the historian and the teacher of dancing, the philosopher 
and the royal coachman, Sir Christopher Wren’s great 
grand-daughter and the descendant of Charles the Second’s 
French riding-master, are permitted to appear in the same 
annual charitable list. But though statesmen have yet to 
learn what the state loses by such unwise scorn of what 
enlightens and refines it, they cannot much longer remain 
ignorant to what extent they are themselves enslaved 
by the power they thus affect to despise, or of the special 
functions of government and statesmanship which it is 
gradually assuming to itself. Its progress has been unin¬ 
terrupted since Johnson’s and Goldsmith’s time, and cannot 
for as many more years continue unacknowledged. Pitt 
sneered when the case of Burns was stated to him, and 
talked of literature taking care of itself;—which indeed it 
can do, and in a different and larger sense from what the 
minister intended: but whether society can take care of 
itself, is also a material question. 

Towards its solution, one sentence of Goldsmith’s protest 
is an offering from his sorrow in these times of authorship 
by compulsion, not less worthy than his more cheerful 
offerings in those days of authorship by choice, to which 
the reader is now invited. “ An author may be considered 
“ as a merciful substitute to the legislature. He acts not by 
“ punishing crimes, but by preventing them.” 



BOOK THE THIRD. 


AUTHORSHIP BY CHOICE. 


1759 to 1767. 




BOOK THE THIRD. 


CHAPTER I. 

WRITING THE BEE. 

1759. 

he Booksellers were never more active than at tlie close 1759. 
.759. If literature had anything to hope from such 2Et. 31. 
tions, its halcyon days were come. If it could live on 
azines and reviews; if strength, subsistence, and respect, 
n employment of the multitudinous force of Grub-street; 
emand and supply were law sufficient for its higher 
ests ; literature was prosperous at last, and might laugh 
,11 Pope’s prophecies. Every week had its spawn of 
)dical publications; feeble, but of desperate fecundity. 
biers, and Schemers ; Friends, and Advisers ; Auditors, 
ptrollers, and Grumblers; Spendthrifts, and Bachelors ; 
•Enquirers, Scrutators, and Investigators; Englishmen, 
holders, and Moderators; Sylphs, and Triflers; Rangers, 
Cottagers; Templars, Gentlemen, and Skeptics; —in 
taut succession rose and fell* “ Sons of a day, just 
oyant on the flood,” next day might see them “num¬ 
bed with the puppies in the mud: ” but the parents of 

* See the list in Nichols’s Literary Anecdotes, iv. 38—97. 


a very lew weeks, between the close oi 175 9 and the 
beginning of 1760, added to a multitude already wearing 
out their brief existence. They were : the Royal Magazine, 
or Gentleman’s Monthly Companion; the Impartial Review, 
or Literary Journal; the Weekly Magazine, or Gentlemen 
and Ladies’ Polite Companion; the Ladies’ Magazine; the 
Public Magazine; the Imperial Magazine; the Royal Female 
Magazine; the Universal Revieiv; the Lady’s Museum ; 
the Musical Magazine; and the British Magazine, or 
Monthly Repository for Gentlemen and Ladies. 

See all her progeny, illustrious siglit! 

Behold, and count them, as they rise to light. 

As Berecynthia, while her offspring vie 
In homage to the Mother of the sky, 

Surveys around her, in the blest abode, 

A hundred sons, and ev’ry son a God : 

Not less with glory mighty Dullness crown’d. 

Shall take thro’ Grub-street her triumphant round ; 

And her Parnassus glancing o’er at once. 

Behold a hundred sons, and each a Dunce. 

Whether with equal triumph she beheld the new recruit 
advance to take his place, may admit of question. But her 
favourite Purdons, Hills, Willingtons, Kenricks, Shiels, 
Bakers, Guthries, Wotys, Ryders, Collyers, Joneses, Pilk- 
ingtons, Huddlestone Wynnes, and Hiffernans, were always 
at hand to comfort her: and there was an ill-fashioned, 
out-of-the-way comer, in even her domain, for temporary 
reception of the Smolletts and the Johnsons ; men who 
owed her no allegiance, but had not yet deserted Grub-street 
altogether. “ It is a street in Lo c o wa J n n’s 



y, a man might enter even Grub-street, then, with bold 
cheerful heart, seeing the author of the English Die• 
ary there. For there, as occasion called, he was still to 
seen: poor, iiersevering, proud; 

“ Unplaced, unpension’d, no man’s heir or slave 

ing the world to take heed that indeed he was there, 
gging at the oar.” 

/ith that great, independent soul of his, Samuel Johnson 
no reproach for Fortune : she might come to him now, 
fcay away for ever. What other kind of man he might 
3 been, if something more than fourpence halfpenny a 
had welcomed him in the outset; or if houseless and 
Leless street-wanderings with Savage, and resolutions to 
.d by his country,* had been forestalled by house and 
Le, and resolution of his country to stand by him; is not 
lis case a matter of much importance. He dealt with 
as he found it; toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail, 
jrappled with as they came ; and the profession of litera- 
he had now quietly, and finally, accepted upon its own 
s. Repulsed from the west-end mansion, he turned to 
ounters of the east; insulted by bookseller Osborne, he 
eked him down with one of his own folios; decently paid 


Cohnson told Murphy that he and Savage, on one occasion, walked round 
r enor Square till four in the morning; in the course of their conversation not 
falling foul of Walpole for laying restraints upon the stage, neglecting the 
and letting science go unrewarded, but themselves reforming the world gene- 
dethroning princes, establishing new forms of government, giving laws to differ- 
-ates, and, when at last fatigued with their legislative office, and sorely in need 
’ eshment and rest, finding themselves both together unable to make up more 
he sum of fourpence-halfpenny. Monthly Review, Ixxvi. 281-282. And see 


heartily embracing poverty as a trusted and honourable com¬ 
panion, was content in Grub-street, or any other street, to 
work out his case as he could. “ Seven years, my lord, have 
“ now past,” he wrote to Lord Chesterfield, on appearance of 
the Dictionary four years before, <c since I waited in your 
“ outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during 
“ which time I have been pushing on my work through 
“ difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have 
“ brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one 
“ act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile 
“ of favour. ... Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks 
“ with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, 
“ and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with 
“ help ? The notice which you have been pleased to take of 
“ my labours, had it been early, had been kind: but it has 
“been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; 
“ till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, 
“ and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity 
“not to confess obligations where no benefit has been 
“received; or to be unwilling that the public should con- 
“ sider me as owing that to a patron, which Providence has 
“ enabled me to do for myself.” What! said he in more 
familiar mood to Garrick, have I sailed a long and difficult 
voyage round the world of the English language, and does he 
now send out his cock-boat to tow me into harbour ? * 

* His letter to Thomas Warton announcing the near completion of liis Dictionary 
is less known ; yet I do not know that his manly courage and self-reliance have 
anywhere found more masterly expression. “ I now begin to see land, after 
‘ ‘ having wandered, according to Mr. Wafburton’s phrase, in this vast sea of words. 


id Irorn tins man, even now, there was nothing to separate 1759. 

umblest of literary workmen. Here were liis words, -®t. 31. 
l trumpet, to call them to the field; and there he was 
self, in person, to animate the struggle. To what, then, 
dd he first look, who, hitherto a compelled and reluctant 
ler on the threshold of literature, was now of his own 
Lute choice advancing within to try his fortune, if not 
his great, unyielding figure of Samuel Johnson, for 
age and sustainment ? There, beyond a doubt, were 
thoughts of Oliver Goldsmith now;—with poverty, not 
)ly endured, but made a badge of honour; with inde- 
lence, though indeed but a bookseller’s servant; without 
mstrance or uneasy resistance, should even the worst 
ldants of the garret continue to be his lot for ever. “ He 
sured me,” says the author of the Rambler of his friend 
lus, “ that thirty pounds a year was enough to enable a 
m to live in London without being contemptible. He 
owed ten pounds for clothes and linen. He said a man 
ght live in a garret at eighteenpence a week; few people 
>uld inquire where he lodged; and if they did, it was 
sy to say, Sir, I am to be found at such a place. By 
nding threepence in a coffee-house, he might be for 
me horns every day in very good company; he might 
re for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, 
d do without supper. On clean-shirt day, he could go 
road and pay visits.” * Nor were these the holiday theories 


Jells, and acclamations of tlie people, which Ariosto talks of in his last Canto, 
a general murmur of dislike, I know not: whether I shall find upon the 
st a Calypso that will court, or a Polypheme that will resist. But if 


OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. 


[Boor III. 


of one to whom the practice of poverty was not still familiar. 
Here lay the singular worth of Johnson’s example : that the 
world of enemies as well as friends were beginning, in a poor 
man, to recognise an intellectual chief and potentate of litera¬ 
ture, a man who had the right to rule them. “ He and I were 
“ never cater-cousins,” wrote Smollett to Wilkes a month or 
two before the date to which I have brought this narrative, and 
in the same letter Smollett calls him the “ Great Cham of 
“literature.” Yet the great cham’s poverty was obliged in 
this very year to surrender Gough-square for a humbler 
lodging in Gray’s Inn: that same Gough-square in Fleet- 
street, where Doctor Burney had found him amid a chaos of 
Greek folios, and with the moderate accommodation of one 
deal writing-desk and a chair and a half; the entire seat 
offered to his visiter, and himself tottering on its three- 
legged and one-armed fellow. Nay, some few brief years 
before, he had been placed under arrest for five pounds 
eighteen shillings; though already he had written London , 
the Vanity of Human Wishes, and the Rambler, and was 
author of The English Dictionary. 

Now, week by week, in a paper of Mr. John Newbery’s, he 
sent forth the Idler.* What he was, and what with a serious 
earnestness, be it wrong or right, he had come into the world 
to say and do, were at last becoming evident to all. Colleges 
were glad to have him visit them, and a small enthusiastic 
circle was gradually forming around him. The Reynoldses, 


m their allegiance; and Arthur Murphy was full of wonder 175 
at his submitting to contradiction, when they dined together '<■ 
this last Christmas day with young Mr. Burke of Wimp ole - 
street. But not more known or conspicuous was the con¬ 
sideration thus exacted, than the poverty which still waited 
on it, and claimed its share. So might literature avenge 
herself, in this penniless champion, for the disgrace of the 
money-hags of Walpole and Pelham. “I have several times 
“ called on Johnson,” wrote Grainger to Percy, some months 
before the present date, “ to pay him part of your subscrip- 
“ tion” (for his edition of Shakspeare). “ I say part, because 
“ he never thinks of working if he has a couple of guineas in 
“ his pocket.” * And again, a month later: c< As to his 
“ Shakspeare, movet , sed non promovet. I shall feed him 
“ occasionally with guineas.” t It v r as thus the good Mr. 
Newbery found it best to feed him too; and in that worthy 
publisher’s papers many memoranda of the present year were 


Idler into two small volumes, when the arrangement seems to have been that 
Johnson should receive two-thirds of the profits. It shows the growing popularity 
of Johnson, and is also worth comparing with similar charges in our own time. 

“ The Idler. 

“ Cr. £ s. d. 

1500 Sets at 162. per 100 .240 0 0 


Dr. Johnson two-thirds . 84 2 4 
Mr. Newbery one-third . 42 1 2 

12G 3 6 
Prior, i. 357. 

* Nichols’s Illustrations, vii. 259. 

t Ibid, 261. Letter of 20th July, 1758. Mr. John Nichols communicated to 
Boswell the subjoined anecdote. “ In the year 1763 a young bookseller, who was 

tc ATI flYvmwn+iAA +n TVf-r WViio+rm TrolfAfl rm Tnm until o cjnbccrmfmn in Big 


“Ur. & $. a. 

Paid for Advertising . 20 0 6 

Printing two vols, 1500 41 13 0 

Paper . . . . 52 3 0 

113 16 6 

Profit on the Edition .126 3 6 


240 0 0 


poverty, and to her only would lie owe Ills independence. 
When his mother was dying, he did not ask his friend Mr. 
Reynolds, the fashionable painter in receipt of thousands, for 
the six guineas he sent to comfort her death-bed : it was the 
advance of a printer * Wlien, in the present year, she died, 
he paid the expenses of her funeral with the manuscript of 
Rasselas. 

So schooled to regard the struggle of life and literature 
as one, and in midst of all apparent disadvantage to venerate 
its worth and sacredness, the author of the Enquiry into the 
State of Polite Learning stepped cheerfully forward into the 
market of hooks, and offered his wares for sale. Bookseller 
Wilkie, of the Bible in St. PauTs-churchyard, a spirited 
man in his way, and one of the foremost of magazine 
speculators, proposed a weekly publication of original essays, 
something in the Rambler form, hut once instead of twice a 
week, and with greater variety of matter. Goldsmith 
assented; and on Saturday the 6th of October, 1759, there 
appeared, price threepence, to be continued every Saturday, 
The Bee. 

Floriferis ut apes saltibus omnia libant 

Omnia nos itidem 

was its motto; learned, yet of pleasant promise; taken from 
Lucretius. It was printed “ neatly,” as the advertisement 
in the London Chronicle of the 29th September had pro¬ 
mised that it should be; “in erown octavo, and on good 

“ complacently, ‘Sir, I have two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of 
“ ‘ subscribers : one, that I have lost all the names ; the other, that I have spent 
“ ‘ all the money !’ ” Boswell, viii. 88. 

* “I find in his diarv a note o the ■na.vment, t,n Mr Allen flie rvrintiair rvf sir 


paper, containing two sneers or tiiniy-two pages, stitcneci 
“ in blue covers.” In other respects also it kept the book¬ 
seller’s advertised promise; “ consisting of a variety of 
“ essays on the amusements, follies, and vices in fashion, 
“ particularly the most recent topics of conversation, remarks 
“ on theatrical exhibitions, memoirs of modern literature, 
“ &c. &c.” And on the back of the blue cover, Mr. Wilkie 
begged leave to inform the public “that every twelve numbers 
“ would make a handsome pocket volume, at the end of which 
“ should be given an emblematical frontispiece, title, and 
“ table of contents.” So there was reasonable hope at start¬ 
ing ; and no doubt a long line of handsome pocket volumes 
already jostled each other, in Goldsmith’s lively brain. 

The first number, it must be said, was of good promise. 
One finds a lack of its wisdom and its lightness in books 
“ stitched in blue covers ” now. The introduction dis¬ 
claimed relationship to the magazine trade and family; 
refused to tempt its readers with “ three beautiful prints, 
“ curiously coloured from nature,” or to take any kind of 
merit from “its bulk or its frontispiece;” and invoked for 
itself, with mixed mirth and earnestness, a class of readers 
that should know the distinction between a bon-mot for 
White’s, and a jest for the Cat and Bagpipes in St. Giles’s. 
There was a letter on the Poles; a notice of the death of 
Voltaire’s victim, Maupertuis; and, under the title of 
Alcander and Septimius, a popular version of that beautiful 
tale of Boccaccio, which afterwards suggested to a writer who 
belonged to Goldsmith’s country, took early inspiration from 
his genius, and bore up uncrushed against as desperate 


liau UUW V w*.o» Wfc^*** V** ~--w —-J — ’ --- — 

>m.3L and Bettertons of a past age, liad any such just or lively 
writing on the theatres been given to the world, as the 
playhouse criticism of the Bee. 

The first of his papers on this subject pointed out the 
superiority of French comic acting over English, and its 

the reader will find a brief mention of it not at all inappropriate to my present 
subject. He was a Limerick man, and at the age of twenty, eager to make 
a great dash, upon the stage, he came up to London without a friend, but 
with one tragedy finished in his pocket, and another rapidly forming in his brain. 
The desperate craving of his youth was to force his way into the London theatres, 
and he seems to have determined very resolutely to use the faculty of which he felt 
himself possessed to that end, failure or neglect to the contrary notwithstanding. 
Aguire, his first tragedy, making no wmy towards a hearing, he wrote a second. 
This was Gisippus ; and, written as it was in his twentieth year, I do not hesitate 
to call it one of the marvels of youthful production in literature. The solid grasp of 
character, the manly depth of thought, the beauties as well as defects of the com¬ 
position (more than I can here enumerate), wanted only right direction to have 
given to our English drama another splendid and enduring name. In little London 
coffee-houses, on little slips of paper, this tragedy was written. But he could get 
no hearing for it. Still undaunted, he wrote a comedy, he wrote farces,—he tried 
the stage at every avenue, and it would have none of him. Meanwhile, he had 
been starving for two miserable years; writing all day within doors, and never 
venturing out till darkness threw its friendly veil over his threadbare coat; to 
use the common phrase, denying himself (because he could not get them) the 
common necessaries of life; passing “three days together without tasting food,” 
in a small room in an obscure court near St. Paul’s ; living for the most part, in 
short, on such munificent booksellers’ rewards as two guineas for the translation of 
a volume and a half of a French novel. Something better presented itself at last, 
however; and, emerging from his misery, he became a critic, a reporter, and, 
stimulated by Banim’s success, a writer of Irish tales ;—his dramatic dream was 
dreamt, and he never turned to the stage again. But not 'without ill effects to 
himself could he hope to keep thus dormant and unused the faculty which, as it 
seems to me, he had received in greatest abundance. More oven than the zeal of 
God’s House in his later years, this eat him up. What he wrote thereafter 
achieved a reasonable success ; but, in the character of its pretension or achieve¬ 
ment, bore so little proportion to the performances that shed lustre on his boyhood, 
that a growing sense of the worthlessness of literary pursuit at last led to a desire 
for the priesthood, and in his thirty-fifth year he entered a convent. He passed the 
various grades of his noviciate, and after two years of rigorous monastic seclusion, 
in which the monkish passion became more and more intense, ell int as n 


eir eyes round upon tlie audience, instead of keeping 
em fixed upon tlie actors ”); on skilful management of 
’e (in which. he excepts Garrick and Mrs. Clive from 
censure, placing them on a level with the French); and 
explanation of the ill-success of the English operatic 
;e, where he touches the springs that operate to this 

Phis essay touches the vital distinction between comic acting as an art, a 
■, and comic acting as a mere effusion of personal humonr or enjoyment. I 
eard my honoured friend Charles Lamb say, shortly before he died, that the 
mce of the existing race of comedians from those he remembered in early 
ras that less study is now found necessary than was formerly judged to be 
site. That I believe to be the truth. We do not want capable actors, at 
comedy; but their end is answered with less pains. The modem way, as 
too truly objected, is to get a familiarity 'with the audience, to strike up 
d of personal friendship, a reciprocity of greeting and good null, to be hail- 
r well-met with them ; and it is amazing, he would say, how much careless- 
f acting slips in by this intercourse. It is indeed easy to imagine such 
tting between the performer and the public, where ladies are in question, 
d to an alarming excess. Instead of playing their pretty airs upon their lover 
3 stage, as Mrs. Abingdon or Mrs. Cibber were content to do, or Mrs. Oldfield 
j them, their whole artillery of charms is now directed to ensnare the whole 
ce— “a thousand gentlemen perhaps !” For this many-headed beast they 
nd unfurl their fans, and teach their lips to curl in smiles, and their 
s to exhibit the prettiest instructive heavings. Those personal applications, 
irt, which used to be a sort of sauce piquant for the pert epilogue, now give 
anding relish to the whole play. “Oh !” exclaimed Charles Lamb, at the 
sion of some such description as this, “when shall we see a female part 
ed in the quiet unappealing manner of Miss Pope’s Mrs. Candour’ ? When 
11 we get rid of the Dalilahs of the stage 1 ” It is something of the same tone 
l Goldsmith adopts in his criticism. “ I would particularly recommend our 
ag actresses never to take notice of the audience, on any occasion whatever; let 
spectators applaud never so loudly, their praises should pass, except at the 
l of the epilogue, with seeming inattention.” 

Need I quote from his later Essays to show what a thorough notion he had of 
ry acting, and, for the matter of that, town acting too ? £< There is one rule 

which a strolling player may be ever secure of success; that is, in our 
atrical way of expressing it, to make a great deal of the character. To 
;ak and act as in common life, is not playing, nor is it what people come to 
: natural speaking, like sweet wine, runs glibly over the palate, and scarcely 



11UU1 5 QtL.ll XU.LUXXUX UUJJ.1UJJ.UUA«!U^ —-- ••- 

this department of criticism. 

But, like Hume’s Epigoniad effort, all tiffs was uphill 
work: his first Bee had an idle time of it, and greater favour 
was asked for the second in a paid-for newspaper paragraph 
of particular earnestness. “ The public,” said this advertise¬ 
ment, which had a pathetic turn in it, “ is requested to compare 
“ this with other periodical performances which more pomp- 
“ ously solicit their attention. If upon perusal it be found 
“ deficient either in humour, elegance, or variety, the author 
“ will readily acquiesce in their censure. It is possible the 
“ reader may sometimes draw a prize, and even should it 
“ turn up a blank it costs him but threepence.” In number 
the second, for that small sum, was a most agreeable little 
lesson on Dress, against fault-finders and dealers in ridicule, 
proving by example of cousin Hannah that such folks are 
themselves the most ridiculous; and a much sounder notion 
of a patriot king than Bolingbroke’s, in homely sketches of 
Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, in remark on the difficulties 
of so educating princes that “ the superior dignity of man 
“ to that of royalty ” should be their leading lesson, and in 
warning against the folly of entrusting a charge so sacred 
to men “ who themselves have acted in a sphere too high to 
“ know mankind.” A delightful essay in the same number, 
with Cardinal de Betz and Dick Wildgoose side by side, to 
prove that pleasure is in ourselves, not in the objects offered 
for our amusement, and that philosophy should force the 
trade of happiness when nature has denied the means, also 
well deserves mention. 


idle of tliis exquisite sketch, some perhaps relieved 
; and many have undergone the truth of his life’s pkilo- 
ly, that to have much, or to seem to have it, is the only 
to have more, since it is the man who has no occasion 
orrow, that alone finds numbers willing to lend. “ You 
en, O ye beggars of my acquaintance,” exclaimed Gold- 
th, “ whether in rags or lace, whether in Kent-street or 
.e Mall, whether at Smyrna or St. Giles’s, might I advise 
>u as a friend, never seem in want of the favour you 
licit. Apply to every passion but pity for redress. You 
ay find relief from vanity, from self-interest, or from 
mice, but seldom from compassion.” Following this 
3 three well-written characters;—of Father Feyjoo,- 
se popular essays against degrading superstitions have 
;e procured him the title of the Spanish Addison; of 
sandrian Hypatia, afterwards immortalised by Gibbon ; 
of Lysippus, an imaginary representative of some pecu- 
Lties in the essayist himself, and timely assertor of the 
nary virtues as opposed to what are commonly mistaken 
the great ones. 

till the churlish public would not buy the Bee ; and the 
:th number’s opening article was a good-humoured com- 
lt on that fact. Not a newspaper or magazine, he said, 
; had not left him far behind ; they had got to Islington 

L leam from the valuable and well-conducted Notes and Qvevies (i. 83) the 
us fact, that four years after this remark had thus been made by Goldsmith, 
s repeated by Voltaire (from whom, no doubt, Talleyrand afterwards stole it) 
3 satiric little dialogue of Le Ckapon et. la Povlarde ((Euvres Completes, xxix. 
14. Ed. 1822), where the capon, complaining of the treachery of men, says, 


at least, while the sound of Bow hell still stayed in his ears : 
nevertheless, “ if it were only to spite all Grub-street,” he 
was resolved to write on; and he made light-hearted an¬ 
nouncement to the world of what he had written to Bryanton * 
“ If the present generation will not hear my voice, hearken, 
“ 0 Posterity! to you I call, and from you I expect redress ! 
“ What rapture will it not give, to have the Scaligers, 
" Daciers, and Warburtons of future times commenting with 
“ admiration upon every line I now write, and working away 
“ those ignorant creatures who offer to arraign my merit, 
“ with all the virulence of learned reproach. Ay, my 
“ friends, let them feel it; call names ; never spare them; 
“ they deserve it all, and ten times more.” In a like playful 
tone are his closing threats, that, if not better supported he 
must throw off all connection with taste, and fairly address 
his countrymen in the engaging style and manner of other 
periodical pamphlets. He will change his title into the 
Pioyal Bee, he says, the Anti-gallican Bee, or the Bee's 
Magazine. He will lay in a proper stock of popular topics; 
such as encomiums on the King of Prussia, invectives 
against the Queen of Hungary and the French, the necessity 
of a militia, our undoubted sovereignty of the seas, reflections 
upon the present state of affairs, a dissertation upon liberty, 
some seasonable thoughts upon the intended bridge of 
Blackfriars, and an address to Britons;—the history of an old 
woman whose tooth grew three inches long shall not be 
omitted, nor an ode upon “ our victories,” nor a rebus, 
nor an acrostic upon Miss Peggy P—, nor a journal of the 


ivation. 

Virile lie satiiised it thus good-naturedly, Goldsmith took 
; also to append graver remarks on the more serious matter 
ivolved, and which with his own experience lay so near 
heart; but in no querulous spirit. He is now content 
rave found out the reason why mediocrity should have 
rewards at once, and excellence be paid in reversion, 
sre is in these earliest essays something more pleasing 
1 even their undoubted elegance and humour, in that 
dition of mind. If neglects and injuries are still to be 
portion, you do not now despair that he will turn them 
iommoclities. It is not by his cries and complainings 
shall hereafter trace him to his neglected, ill-furnislied, 
tched home. As he watches its naked cobwebbed walls, 
bids matter for amusement to the readers of the Bee, in 
filing the spiders that have refuge there; and in his 
•th number puts forth an instructive paper on the habits 
predatory life of that most wary, ingenious, hungry, and 
levering insect. 

[e was not to be daunted, now. Looking closely into 
life, one finds that other works beside this of the Bee 
3 eking out its scanty supplies. He was writing for the 
y Body, published thrice a week for twopence by worthy 
Pottinger, and brought out but three days after the 
. He was writing for the Lady’s Magazine, started not 
iy days later by persevering Mr. Wilkie, in the hope of 
)ping up the Bee. He had taken his place, and would 
o his journey’s end. Since the “ pleasure stage coach ” 


overtaken again by liis old “ vanity whim j and with such 
help, even hopeful to come up with the “ landau of riches, 
and find lodgment at last in the “ fame machine.” We note 
this pleasant current of his thoughts in the Bee’s fifth 
number. There, in that last conveyance he places Addison, 
Steele, Swift, Pope, and Congreve; and, vainly stretching 
out a number of his own little blue-backed book to entice 
the goodly company, resolves to be useful since he may not 
be ambitious, and to earn by assiduity what merit does not 
open to him. But not the less cheerfully does he concede 
to others, what for himself he may not yet command. He 
shuts fame’s door, indeed, on Arthur Murphy, but opens it 
to Hume and to Johnson; he closes it against Smollett’s 
History, but opens it to his Peregrine Pickle and his 
Roderick Random. And with this paper, I doubt not, 
began liis first fellowship of letters in a higher than the 
Grub-street region. Shortly after this, I trace Smollett to 
his door; and, for what he had said of the author of the 
Rambler , Johnson soon grasped his hand. “ This was a 
“ very grave personage, whom at some distance I took for 
“ one of the most reserved and even disagreeable figures I 
“ had seen; but as he approached, liis appearance improved ; 
“ and when I could distinguish him thoroughly, I perceived 
“ that in spite of the severity of his brow, he had one 
“ of the most goodnatured countenances that could be 
“ imagined.” In that sentence lay the germ of one of the 
pleasantest of literary friendships. 

The poor essayist’s habits, however, know little change 


lady of Green Arbour Court remembered one festivity m 
there, which seems to have been highly characteristic. A iEt.; 
“ gentleman ” called on a certain evening, and asking to 
see her lodger, went unannounced up stairs. She then 
heard Goldsmith’s room door pushed open, closed again 
sharply from within, and the key turned in the lock; after 
this, the sound of a somewhat noisy altercation reached her; 
but it soon subsided; and to her surprise, not unmingled 
with alarm, the perfect silence that followed continued for 
more than three hours. It was a great relief to her, she 
said, when the door was again opened, and the “ gentleman,” 
descending more cheerfully than he had entered, sent her 
out to a neighbouring tavern for some supper* Mr. Wilkie 
or Mr. Pottinger had obtained lijs arrears, and could afford 
a little comforting reward to the starving author. 

Perhaps he carried off with him that mirthful paper on 
the clubs of London, to which a pleasant imagination most 
loved to pay festive visits on solitary and supperless days. 
Perhaps that paper on public rejoicings for a victory which 
described the writer’s lonely wanderings a few nights before, 
from Ludgate-hill to Charing-cross, through crowded and 
illuminated streets, past punch-houses and coffee-houses, 
and where excited shoe-makers, thinking wood to be nothing 
like leather, were asking with frightful oaths what ever would 
become of religion if the wooden-soled French papishes 
came over! Perhaps that more affecting lonely journey 
through the London streets, which the Bee soon after 
published with the title of the City Night Piece,! in which 
there was so much of the nast struggle and the lesson it had 


1759. secret of the genius, of tolerant, gemie-ueaiueu uumaum.ii. 

St. 31. What lie was to the end of his London life, when miserable 
outcasts had cause with the great and learned to lament 
him, this paper shows him to have been at its beginning. 
The kind-hearted man would wander through the streets at 
night, to console and reassure the misery he could not 
otherwise give help to. While he thought of the rich and 
happy who were at rest; while he looked up even to the 
wretched roof that gave shelter to himself; he could not 
bear to think of those to whom the streets were the 
only home. “ Strangers, wanderers, and orphans,” too 
humble in them circumstances to expect rechess, too com¬ 
pletely and utterly wretched for pity;—“ poor shivering 
girls ” who had seen happier days, and been flattered into 
beauty and into sin, now lying peradventure at the very 
doors of then* betrayers ;—poor houseless creatures” to 
whom the world, responsible for them guilt, gives reproaches 
but will not give relief. These were teachers in life’s 
truths, who spoke with a sterner and wiser voice than that 
of mere personal suffering. “ The slightest misfortunes of 
“ the great, the most imaginary uneasiness of the rich, are 
“ aggravated with all the power of eloquence, and held up 
“ to engage our attention and sympathetic sorrow. The 
£ ‘ poor weep unheeded, persecuted by every subordinate 
“ species of tyranny; and every law which gives others 
“ security, becomes an enemy to them. Why was this heart 
“ of mine formed with so much sensibility, or why was not 
“ my fortune adapted to its impulse ? ” In thoughts like 
these, and in confirmed res ution to make the no nr bis 



CHAPTER II. 


DAVID GARRICK. 

1759. 

■ tlie 29th of November, the Bee's brief life closed, with 
ghtli number; and in the following month its editor, 
) liver Goldsmith, was sought out both by that dis- 
ished author Doctor Smollett, and by Mr. John Newbery 
(ookseller, of St. Paul’s-churchyard. But as he had 
while made earnest application to Mr. David Garrick 
is interest in an election at the Society of Arts, it will 
ist to describe at once the circumstances involved in 
application, and its result on the poor author’s sub- 
mt intercourse with the rich manager and proprietor of 
leatre royal in Drury Lane. 

ildsmith was passionately fond of the theatre. In 
•erous days, it will ring with his humour and cheerful- 
; in these struggling times, it was the help and refuge 
s loneliness. We have seen him steal out of his garret 
ar Columba sing: and if she fell short of the good old 
3 he had learnt to love at Lissoy, the other admiration 
as taught there, of happy human faces, at the theatre 
Jways in his reach. If there is truth in what was said 
.r Richard Steele, that being happy, and seeing others 


1759. 

m.si. 


slighted by so short-lived creature as roan, it is certain 
that he who despises the theatre adds short-sightedness to 
shortlife.* If he is a rich man, he will he richer for hearing 
there of what account the poor may he ; if he is a poor man, 
he will not he poorer for the knowledge that those above him 
have their human sympathies. Sir Thomas Overbury held 
a somewhat strong opinion as to this; thinking the play¬ 
house more necessary in a well-governed commonwealth than 
the school, because men were better taught by example than 
by precept: and it seems at any rate, however light the dis¬ 
regard it has fallen into now, of at least equal importance 
with many of the questions which in these days form and 
dissolve governments, whether a high and healthy entertain¬ 
ment, the nature of which, conservative of all kindly relations 
between man and man, is to encourage, refine, and diffuse 
humanity, might not claim, in some degree, the care and 
countenance of the State. 

This grave remark occurs to me here, because grave dis¬ 
appointments in connection with it will occur hereafter ; and 
already even Garrick’s fame and strength had been shaken 
by his difficult relations with men of letters. “ I am as much 
“ an admirer of Mr. Garrick,” said Mr. Ralph, in his 
Cusc of Authors by Profession, published in 1758, “ and his 
“ excellences, as I ought to be: and I envy him no part of 
“ his good fortune. But then, though I am free to acknow- 
“ ledge he was made for the stage, I cannot be brought to 
“ think the stage was made only for him ; or that the fate of 
“ every dramatic miter ought either to be at his mercy, or 
u that of any other manager whatever; and the single 



ration that there is no alternative but to fly from 
case of any neglect or contempt, to Mr. Rich, is 
to deter any man in his senses from embarking a 
time on such a hopeless voyage.” Manifestly, 
this was neither the fault of Rich nor of 
but of the system which left both to shift as they 
.d made self-protection the primary law. “ The 
r,” he continues, admitting the whole question at 
is complaints, “ whether player or harlequin, must 
sole pivot on which the whole machi n e is both to 
nd rest; there is no drawback on the profit of the 
old plays ; and any access of reputation to a dead 
carries no impertinent claims and invidious dis- 
ls along with it. "When the playhouse is named,” 
bitterly, “ I make it a point to pull off my hat, 
ik myself obliged to the lowest implement belonging 
I am ready to make my best acknowledgments 
arlequin, who has continence enough to look 
author in the green-room, of what consideration 
without laughing at him.” Other pamphlets 
in the cry ,* and Ned Purdon drew up a number of 

as suggestions as to “ how Mr. Garrick ought to 
” * 

employment of this tone which introduced needless 
of bitterness. The charge was a simple one, 
it have been stated simply. No doubt Garrick, 
on with every manager-actor, before or since his 
» fairly exposed to it. I have turned to the play- 


1750. 

2E1.31. 


Taming of the Shrew as a farce, but one original production : 
Lilliput, played by children. It is not immaterial to the 
question, however, to recount the highest tragic claimants 

* An unpublished letter is before me, written by this same Mr. Ralph to Garrick, 
the year before his pamphlet, containing a brief summary of his private wrongs, 
and furnishing so complete an illustration of Garrick’s case, as well as of that of his 
opponents, that I am glad to have the opportunity of printing it. The weakness 
as well as strength of both may be observed in it. The manager’s mistake was to 
encourage hopes up to the point when it no longer seemed unreasonable to the 
expectant to claim a sort of property in their realisation. The author’s mistake 
was to suppose that any such encouragement could involve the right to force a play 
upon a theatre irrespective not only of the manager’s convenience, but of his final 
right of judgment and rejection. Let it be observed, too, that Garrick has evidently 
obliged Mr. Ralph with money, and that the offence which causes the rupture does 
not appear to have been anything more grave than the suggestion that Mr. Ralph 
should wait one season more. “ Sir,” he writes, dating his letter the 17th Sep¬ 
tember 1757, “ So long ago as the year 1743, I had reason to be convinced that 
“ the stage was enchanted ground to me, which I might see, but was never to 
!! take hold o£ and I then resolved to turn my back on the delusion for good and 
!! all. This resolution I adhered to invariably for ten years in succession, and you 
‘ ! were the only man that could have induced me to break it, which you did 
“ by putting me on altering some old comedy under promise that it should be 
“ performed when done. In this service I employed time enough to convince me 
‘ ‘ that to compose was as easy as to cobble. I then turned my hand from old to 
“newthings, hoping to be instrumental at least in preserving a secret which 
“ seemed to be on the point of being lost to the country ; but on this I was again 
“ unlucky, for having submitted to be judged in part by producing three acts only 
“out of five, my plan w r as condemned without mercy, and I acquiesced in the 
“ sentence almost without a murmur. I then became humble enough to think of 
“ stooping to a farce, which it is true I was promised room for, by Mr. Lacy in 
“ your name: but on second thoughts chose to avoid the imprudence of risking the 
“ little character I had in a way which could add so little to it, and again applied 
“ myself to the construction of another comedy, on a plan acknowledged by your- 
‘ ‘ self to be new aud striking, which, having licked into something like shape, 

‘ ! I took care to tender before your doors were opened, believing in such case no 
11 danger of a disappointment could be against me in point of time. But by some 
“ strange fatality, I was never, it seems, to make a right judgment with regard to 
“ the theatre. Tour letter of the 10th gave me to understand this belief of mine 
“ was ill-grounded, and your other letter of Wednesday the 14th is full of 
“ resentment that a man of the wrong side of fifty should find out another year 
“ of waiting was too large a tax on a short term for any man of common sense to 


mus anrontea oy anaicspeare, h letcner, amney, ana ijiaipui. ivo 
Tliey were Whitehead, Crisp, Francis, Francldin, Glover, iEt.; 
Brown, Mallet, Murphy, and Dodsley: for denying whose 
higher attractiveness to the Shakspeares and Fletchers, nay, 
for preferring even the comic to that tragic Lilliput,* the 
public seems a better object of attack than the manager. 
"When, some years afterwards, Horace Walpole joined the cry, 
this had sarcastic admission. “ Garrick is treating the town 
“ as it deserves,” he said, “ and likes to be treated: with scenes, 

£i fireworks, and his own writing. A good new play I never 
“ expect to see more; nor have seen since the Provoked 
“ Husband, which came out when I was at school.” t Was 
it Garrick's crime, without good new plays, to make the 
venture of good old ones ? 

In truth, looking fairly at his theatrical management, with 


‘ 1 teims in my power to use ; and if some little impatience had been visible at 
“ bottom, allow me to ask you, Sir, whether it would not have been nobler in you 
“ to have imputed it to the peevishness incident to all mankind under disap - 
“ pointments and difficulties, and whether in your happy situation you could not 
‘ ‘ very well have afforded to do so. For the rest, Sir, you must be convinced that 
“ I cannot be so absurd as to put my time into the scale against yours or even 
11 your very harlequins. I was in fact desirous to avoid a farther cclaircissement 
! ‘ which I foresaw would administer no consolation to me; and as to the favours you 
“have done me, and the trouble you have bestowed upon me, nothing that 
“ has happened, or can happen, shall ever put me on diminishing their value, or 
“ explaining away the duties of acknowledgment incumbent on me for them. 
“ Being still, with truth and sincerity, Sir, Your most obliged, humble Servant, 

‘ ‘ J. Ralph.” It is characteristic of Mr. Ralph, that even in this last appeal for a 
friendly settlement before open war (for so I apprehend the letter should be taken), he 
cannot suppress his jeer about the harlequins. 

* Most happily did Goldsmith himself, a few months later, ridicule these 
tragedies, as “good, instructive, moral sermons enough,” which a theatre-goer 
might turn to much profit. “There,” he says, “I learn several great truths : 
!! as, that it is impossible to see into the ways of futurity; that punishment 
“ always attends the villain ; that love is the fond soother of the human breast; 


it was a great improvement, in all generous and liberal 
points, on those which preceded it. Booth treated writers 
of Anne much more scurvily than the writers of George the 
Second were treated by Garrick. “ Booth often declared,” 
says his biographer, “ in public company, that he and his 
“ partners lost money by new plays ; and that, if he were 
“ not obliged to it, he would seldom give his consent to 
“ perform one of them.” Garrick transposed and altered 
often; but he never forced upon the unhappy author of a 
tragedy a change in the religion of his hero, nor told a 
dramatist of good esteem that he had better have turned to 
an honest and laborious calling, nor complacently prided 
himself on clioaldng ■ singing birds, when his stern negative 
had silenced a young aspirant. Those were the achieve¬ 
ments of manager Cibber. He was at all times fonder than 
needful of his own importance, it is true : but society has no 
right to consent to even the nominal depression, in the so- 
called social scale, of a man whose calling exacts no common 
accomplishments, and then resent the self-exaggeration 
unwholesomely begotten on its own injustice. When Junius 
took offence at the player whom dukes and duchesses tolerated 
at their table, it was not a matter to waste wit upon, or sar¬ 
casm, or scathing eloquence : he simply told the “ Vagabond ” 
to stick to his pantomimes. Even men of education were 
known to have pursued Garrick, when on country visits to 
noblemen of his acquaintance, with dirty, clumsily-folded 
notes, passed amid the ill-concealed laughter of servants to 
the great man’s guest, with the address of “ Mr. David 


even dependents listened to his public distress on the 
mornings of crowded rehearsals, that to decline some 
ambassador’s proffered courtesies made him wretched, hut 
prior promises to countess dowagers must he kept. 

A satisfaction of this kind was afforded to Mr. Ralph, when, 
in the season (57-58) of this the appearance of his pamphlet, 
the outraged manager, laughing heartily at all authors’ 
complaints and attacks, and tearing up their rebellious 
pamphlets with as elaborate carelessness as he would the 
card of a duke, lord, judge, or bishop, to strike awe and 
admiration into bystanders, did yet, most laboriously and 
most clumsily, bring out Doctor Smollett, in a piece alto¬ 
gether unworthy of his genius." 1 The concession was appro¬ 
priately followed by production of the Agis of Mr. Home ; 
not without reason cried over, for its exclusively modern 
Greek, by Douglas -loving Gray, and compared to “ an 

antique statue, painted white and red, frizzed and dressed 
“ in a negligee made by a Yorkshire mantua-maker.'T Then, 
failure and laughter repaying this pains and warmth, the 
cold fit came violently back ; and in the season of ’58 and ’9 
the wrongs of Robert Dodsley and Arthur Murphy, the 
bereaved Clconc and deserted Orphan of China, were the 
talk of the town. The topic seemed to force itself on 
one who was delivering in a protest against the wrongs of 
men of letters; and with the Enquiry into Polite Learning 
appeared these remarks, in a chapter devoted to the staged 

* The Reprisals, or the Tars of Old England, written find acted to animate tlie 
people against tlie French ; a poor comedy, or rather farce, but containing some 
capital sailor-talk, and inimitable touches of caricature. 


“ chemical, before it is presented to the public. It must be 
“ tried in the manager’s fire, strained through a licenser, 
“ suffer from repeated corrections till it may be a mere caput 
“ mort-uum when it arrives before the public. It may be 
“ said that we have a sufficient number of plays upon our 
“ theatres already, and therefore there is no need of new 
“ ones. But are they sufficiently good ? And is the credit 
“ of our age nothing ? Must our present times pass away 
“ unnoticed by posterity ? If these are matters of incliffer- 
ence, it then signifies nothing, whether we are to be 
“ entertained with the actor or the poet, with fine sentiments 
“ or painted canvas ; or whether the dancer or the carpenter 
“ be constituted master of the ceremonies. How is it at 
“ present ? Old pieces are revived, and scarcely any new 
“ ones admitted. The actor is ever in our eye, the poet 
“ seldom permitted to appear; and the stage, instead of 
“ serving the people, is made subservient to the interests of 
“ avarice. Getting a play on even in three or four years, 
“ is a privilege reserved only for the happy few who have 
“ the arts of courting the Manager as well as the Muse : 
“ who have adulation to please his vanity, powerful patrons 
to support their merit, or money to indemnify disappoint- 
“ ment. Our Saxon ancestors had but one name for a wit 
“ and a witch. I will not dispute the propriety of uniting 
“ those characters then: but the man who, under the present 
“ discouragements, ventures to write for the stage, whatever 
“ claim he may have to the appellation of a wit, at least has 
“ no right to be called a conjuror.” 



‘ 01 act, as vreil as the pamphlet of Mr. Ralph, was now 
becoming general with the literary class, and tended greatly 
embitter the successes of Garrick’s later life. In con- 
llec tioii with it, at the same time, a regret will always arise, 
Remembering the differences of a Goldsmith and a Ralph, 
flial the lively irritable actor should have been indiscrimi- 
n ate in the resentments it provoked, and unable, in any 
^stance, to conceive a better actuating motive than the 
env y his prosperity had excited. Thomas Davies tells us, 
fhat when, somewhere about the time of liis connection with 
tlle Goldsmith sought to obtain, what a struggling man 
letters was thought to have some claim to, the vacant 


Sec i’etaryship of the Society of Arts, Garrick made answer 
a personal application for his vote, that Mr. Goldsmith 
paving “ taken pains to deprive himself of his assistance by 


ai1 unprovoked attack upon his management of the theatre 
111 his Present State of Learning ,” it was “ impossible he 
could lay claim to any recommendation from him.”* 
^avies adds, that “ Goldsmith, instead of making an 
apology f or his conduct, either from misinformation or 

it « 

^conception, blun% replied, ‘ In truth, lie had spoken 
kis mind, and believed what he said was very right.’ 
Ihe manager dismissed him with civility.” 

Ike manager might with wisdom have done more. The 
Want reply, in a generous man’s interpretation, should at least 
liave blunted the fancied wrong. It is painful to think that 


^either of these famous men, whose cheerful gaieties of 
heart were the natural bonds of a mutual sympathy and fast 
alliance, should throughout their lives have wholly lost the 



removed from the second edition of the Polite Learning 
much of the remark that had given Garrick most offence, 
and in the ordinary copies it is now no longer found, it may 
the more freely he admitted that the grounds of offence 
were not altogether imaginary. Indeed, besides what I have 
quoted, there were incidental expressions yet more likely to 
breed resentment in a sensitive, quick nature. “ I am not 
“ at present writing for a party,” said Goldsmith, “ but 
‘ £ above theatrical connexions in every sense of the expres- 
“ sion. I have no particular spleen against the fellow who 
“ sweeps the stage with the besom, or the hero who brushes 
“ it with his train. It were a matter of indifference to me, 
“ whether our heroines are in keeping, or our candle- 
“ snuffers burn their fingers, did not such make a great part 
“ of public care and polite conversation. Our actors assume 
“ all that state off the stage which they do on it; and, to 
“ use an expression borrowed from the green-room, every 
“ one is up in his part. I am sorry to say it, they seem to 
“ forget their real characters.”* With sorrow is it also to 
be said, that here the writer was manifestly wrong. Mr. 
Ralph’s “ implements ” and “ harlequins ” were not less 
tasteful and considerate than this jeering tone. 

There is no intellectual art so peculiarly circumstanced as 
that of the actor. If, in the hurried glare which surrounds 
him, each vanity and foible that he has comes forth in 
strong relief, it is hard to grudge him the better incidents to 


* The same feeling and spirit are perceptible in Letter lxxxv of the Citizen of 
the World. “How will your surprise, my Fum, increase when told that though 



influences they wither soonest. He may plant in infinite 
hearts the seeds of goodness, of ideal beauty, and of practical 
virtue ; but with them fruits his name will not be remembered, 
or remembered only as a name. And surely, if he devotes 
a genius that might command success in any profession, to 
one whose rewards, if they come at all, must be immediate 
as the pleasure and instruction it diffuses, it is a short-sighted 
temper that would eclipse the pleasure and deny the rewards. 

The point of Hew at this time taken by Goldsmith was, 
in fact, obscured by his own unlucky fortunes; but the 
injustice he shrunk from committing in the case of the 
prosperous painter, Mr. lieynolds, he should not thus care¬ 
lessly have inflicted on the prosperous actor, Mr. Garrick. 
If to neither artist might be conceded the claim of creative 
genius, at least the one might have claimed to be a painter of 
portraits, even as the other was. Uneasy relations, indeed, 
which only exist between author and actor, have had a mani¬ 
fest tendency at all times unfairly to disparage the actor’s 
intellectual claims, and to set any of the inferior arts above 
them. Nevertheless, the odds might be made more even. 
The deepest and rarest beauties of poetry are those which the 
actor cannot grasp; but, in the actor’s startling triumphs, 
whether of movement, gesture, look, or tone, the author has 
no great share. Thus, were accounts fairly struck with the 
literary class, a Garrick might be honestly left between the 
gentle and grand superiority of a Shakspeare on the one hand, 
who, from the heights of his immeasurable genius, smiles 
down help and fellowship upon him; and the eternal petulance 


could have mounted, looks down with ludicrous contempt 
on what Mr. Balph would call the “implements” of his 
elevation. 

Let me here add, that since this portion of my hook was 
first written, I have had access to unprinted letters* which not 
only place Garrick in a more favourable light than his 
biographers generally have shown him in, but suggest a 
tenderness of consideration for what was defective in his 
character, even greater than I have ventured to claim for 
him. In the actual path of life he crossed Goldsmith so 
often, that perhaps the reader will not think it a censurable 
digression, if in some few additional pages I give him tidings 
he. has not before seen of a man so famous, and whose gay, 
bright, glancing little figure, reappears with such frequent 
and pleasant cheerfulness in every social picture of the 
time. 

David Garrick was, as all of us know, the son of a 
recruiting captain whose family originally was French (the 
name was Garrique), and from whom he appears to have 
inherited his little figure, his expressive eye, his happy 
buoyancy of spirit, and restless vivacity of motion. His 
biographers describe him acting Serjeant Kite at a private 
play when he was eleven years old; and the first of these 
letters I have seen, written to his father when he was fifteen, 
marks exactly that bent of his tastes in describing “ a very 
“ pretty woman, only she squints a little, as Captain Brazen 



Garrick’s increasing family made it desirable that lie sliould 
exchange for liis own half-pay, even at the sacrifice of a 
lengthened exile from his home at Lichfield. What Johnson 
said of his old friend, the year after his death, stands out on 
the very face of this correspondence. “ Garrick, sir, was a 
“ very good man, the cheerfullest man of his age. He began 
“ the world with a great hunger for money. The son of a half- 
“ pay officer, he was bred in a family whose study was to make 
“ fourpence do as much as others made fourpence halfpenny 
“ do. But when he had got money he was very liberal.”* 

In no querulous or complaining spirit, the boy’s letters yet 
show us, from year to year, the straitened circumstances of 
that otherwise happy home. Their “ accoutrements,” as, in 
the necessity of describing the family wardrobe to his father, 
he prefers dramatically to express himself, are shabby. 
Another year, his mother’s health is not strong, and wine has 
to be purchased for her. Another, and he is himself showing 
off quite grand at a fine house in the neighbourhood, on the 
strength of two half-crowns which Mr. Walmsley has given 
him to bestow on the servants. Then, sisters Lenny and Jenny 
(Magdalen and Jane) want small sums to buy lace for then’ 
head-dresses, or how otherwise distinguish them from the 
vulgar madams ? And at length he has to inform his dear 
papa that he is himself quite turned philosopher; but yet, to 
show that he is not vain of it, he protests that he would 
gladly “get shut” of the philosopher’s characteristic, to wit, 
a ragged pair of breeches (especially as he has lately had a 
pair of silver breeches-buckles presented to him); wherefore, 



if the gallant captain wouici cure ms sun uj. wu- 

templation, the only way will he to send some handsome thing 
for a waistcoat and breeches as aforesaid. £ They tell me 
“ velvet is very cheap at Gibraltar. Amen, and so be it! 

One fancies the smile and tear together starting to the 
father’s face as he reads little David’s letters; and if, over 
that last, the tear lingered a little' its successor of a fort¬ 
night’s later date brought happier thoughts again. Here 
the young letter-writer broke off into talk about art and 
painters, saying suddenly, that there existed one piece of 
Le Grout’s (a miniature-painter of that day) which he valued 
above all the pieces of Zeuxis or Apelles; and it gave him 
more pleasure, he would affirm, to have one glance of that 
than to look a whole day at the finest picture in the world ; 
nay, it had this effect upon him, that whenever he looked 
upon it he fancied himself at Gibraltar, saw the Spaniards, 
and sometimes mounted garrison. The portrait was then in 
his hand, he added, yet he could not satisfactorily describe 
it. ££ It is the figure of a gentleman, and I suppose military 
££ by his dress; I think Le Grout told me his name was one 
££ Captain Peter Garrick; perhaps as you are in the army 
££ you may know him, he is pretty jolly, and I believe not 
££ very tall.” Is not the letter a bit of comedy in itself, a 
piece of character and feeling such as Farquliar might have 
written ? 

Meanwhile there has been talk of the University for the 
young letter-writer, which again and again recedes under 
pressure of wants more craving, but is still not wholly given 
up, when, on the good Gilbert Walmsley’s suggestion, he avails 


“ Staffordshire, young gentlemen are boarded, and taught 
“ the Latin and Greek languages, by Samuel Johnson.” 
Here he remains but a very few months; which nevertheless 
suffice to break up the teacher’s establishment, to dissipate 
the scholar’s hopes either of army-chaplaincy or country- 
rectory, and to bring up both to London in search of other 
fortune. They separate on arriving there, in what altered 
circumstances to meet again ! 

Another interval of some five years has seen little David 
a student of Lincoln’s Inn, a lounger about the theatres, a 
mourner within the same year for the deaths of his father 
and mother, andj on the receipt- of a legacy of a thousand 
pounds from an uncle wdio had been in the wine trade in 
Lisbon, a partner with his elder brother Peter as wine 
merchant of London and Lichfield. Peter, born six years 
before David, was an honest worthy man, who according to 
Boswell strongly resembled David in countenance, though 
of more sedate and placid manners, and of whom Johnson 
believed that if he had cultivated all the arts of gaiety as much 
as David, he might have been as brisk and lively; * but in 
reality of very formal cut, anything but brisk or lively, not in 
the least a cultivator of gaiety, on the contrary methodical and 
precise in the extreme, and always objecting to his brother’s 
hankering for the stage, even from those youthful days when 
the sprightly lad of fourteen underwent sharp lectures from 
his grave senior of twenty, on the impropriety of getting up 
theatrical squibs, or writing comic verses against the ladies 
of Lichfield. Davies, Murphy, Galt, and Boaden, all tell 
us that then altercati ns became at la t so freciuent. that in 


slnp was dissolved; nut tins jl can uuw snow lu ue a 
mistake. They were partners to tlie close of tliat year, 
tliougli Peter even then had heard painful rumours of the 
younger member of the firm being frequently seen in com¬ 
pany with an actor and playhouse manager, Mr. Giffard 
of Goodman’s Fields. They were in partnership in the 
summer of the following year, when Peter, on coming to 
London, found his brother subject to unaccountable fits of 
depression, abstraction, and lowness of spirits ; warned 
him against play-actors and play-managers (notwithstanding 
advantages gained to the firm by Mr. Giffard having re¬ 
commended it to supply the Bedford coffee-house, “ one 
“ of the best in London ”); and, happily for himself, did 
not know that his associate in a respectable business had 
already, impelled by a secret passion he dared not openly 
divulge, gone privately to Ipswich with that very manager 
Giffard, and under the name of Lyddai had played in 
Oronoko and the Orphan , and had performed Sir Harry 
Wildair, and our old friend Captain Brazen. They were 
partners still, as that year went on, though the business had 
fallen very low, and Foote afterwards remembered Davy, as 
he said in his malicious way, living in Durham-yard with 
three quarts of vinegar in the cellar, calling himself a wine 
merchant. They continued even to be partners, when at 
last, on the evening of the 19th October 1741, the curtain 
rose on the performance of Richard the Third in the theatre 
at Goodman’s Fields. 

The tragic stage was then sunk very low. Betterton had 
been dead more than thirt ears. th had emitted the am- 


liand at tragedy, lie is careful to tell us what pains lie took 175! 
to ground himself on some great actor of file days of his a 
youth, to the minutest copy of look, gesture, gait, speech, 
and “ every motion of him;" nor does it appear that at this 
time any higher impression of the tragic art prevailed. In 
comedy, genius might yet he seen; it was something more 
than tradition that shone in Mrs. Clive, Mrs. Pritchard, 
and Mrs. Woffington;* Cibber still occasionally (and to 
good audiences) played one of his comic parts,f Quin’s 
Falstaff and Fondlewife were not yet passed away, and 
originality, by those who had a taste for it in no very tasteful 
form, might be enjoyed in Harper, Neale, Hippisley, Ben 
Johnson, Woodward, and Macklin. But the lovers were 
now bellowed forth by Ryan, Bridgewater and Walker 
stormed in the tyrants, and the heroes belonged exclusively 
to Mil ward and Delane, except when Quin, tinning from 
what he could to what he could not do, mouthed forth 
Othello, Richard, or Lear. In such a night of tragedy, it 
was with the sudden effulgence as of new-risen day that 
Garrick burst upon the scene. It is not for one who can 
speak but from report of others, to pretend to describe the 
effect upon those who actually witnessed it. But let me 
borrow the description of a sixth-form scholar of Westminster 
School, who saw Garrick’s acting at the age most impressible 
to all such emotions, and saw it side by side with the style 
of acting it displaced; who remembered it as vividly to the 

* Horace Walpole (who however was seldom a just, and never an indulgent 
critic of theatres) was thus writing to Mann three days (22nd October, 1741) 
after Gfarri k’s first armparanee at (rooflman’s Fields'. £< I have been w or 


.Et. 3 i. seems to vouch, for the truth, and exactness of its record. 

The scene is Covent Garden, for the time is nearly five 
years advanced from the first night at Goodman’s Fields; 
and the play, which is Rowe’s Fair Penitent, is to he 
played by Quin and Ryan in Horatio and Altamont, by 
Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Pritchard, and Garrick, in Calista, 
Lavinia, and Lothario. The curtain rises, and Quin 
presents himself. His dress is a green velvet coat, em¬ 
broidered down the seams, an enormous full-bottomed 
periwig, rolled stockings, and high-heeled square-toed shoes. 
He goes through the scene with very little variation of 
cadence. In a deep full tone, accompanied by a sawing 
kind of action, which has more of the senate than the 
stage in it, he rolls out his heroics with an air of dignified 
indifference that seems to disdain the plaudits bestowed on 
him. Then enters Mrs. Cibber, and in a key, high pitched, 
but sweet withal, sings, or rather recitatives, Rowe’s lines: 
but her voice so extremely wants contrast, that though it 
does not wound the ear it wearies it; when she has once 
recited two or three speeches, the manner of every succeed¬ 
ing one is known; and the hearer listens as to a long old 
legendary ballad of innumerable stanzas, every one of 
which is chanted to the same tune, eternally chiming with¬ 
out variation or relief. Mrs. Pritchard follows, and some¬ 
thing of the habit of nature, caught from comedy, enters the 
scene with her. She has more change of tone, more variety 
both of action and expression ; and the comparison is 
decidedly in her favour. “ But when,” continues Richard 


■ transition! it seemed as it a whole century had been 
“ stepped over in tlie passage of a single scene ; old 
“ tilings were done away, and a new order at once brought 
“ forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined to dispel 
“ the barbarisms of a tasteless age, too long superstitiously 
“ devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation.” 

Such was the actor whose Pd chard first blazed forth on the 
night of the 19th October 1741, to the sudden amazement 
of all whom sympathy or chance had brought to Goodman’s 
Fields, and the abiding delight of the few who had the taste 
or powers of appreciation of this Westminster scholar. But 
if any such were present, they have made no sign for us, and 
the glories of that night are passed away. What survives of 
it, and I can alone exhibit, are the fears which dashed the 
triumph; the misgivings inseparable from the calling on 
which little David had entered; the sense as of a shameful 
forfeiture of station, which had lowered the son of a marching 
captain into a mean stage-player; and the trembling deference 
and deprecation with which tidings had to be conveyed to 
the sedate and respectable Lichfield wine-merchant, that 
his younger brother had taken that fatal step in life, which 
at no distant day was to associate him with whatever the 
land contained illustrious by birth or genius, to open to him 
such instant means of giving innocent pleasure to great 
masses of his fellow creatures as any other human being 
has perhaps never enjoyed, to load himself with wealth, to 
lift above necessity all who were related to him, and to make 
the name they bore a pleasant and long-remembered word 
all over England. 


to its date of the 20th of October 1741. Many there are, 
this good old citizen does not question, who, because their 
fathers were called gentlemen, or perhaps themselves the 
first, will think it a disgrace and a scandal that the child 
of an old friend should endeavour to get an honest liveli¬ 
hood, and is not content to live in a scanty manner all his life 
because his father was a gentleman. But Mr. Swynfen thinks 
he knows “Mr. Garwick” well enough to be convinced 
that he has not the same sentiments ; and he knows better 
of his friend’s judgment than to suppose him partaking of 
the prejudices of other country friends of theirs, who have 
been most used to theatrical performances in town-halls, &c, 
by strollers, and will be apt to imagine the highest pitch a 
man can arrive at on the stage is about that exalted degree 
of heroism which they two, in old days at Lichfield, used to 
laugh and cry at in “ the Herberts and the Hallams ;” but, 
as he does not doubt but that Mr. Peter will soon hear 
“ my good friend David Garwick performed last night at 
“ Goodman’s Fields theatre,” for fear he should hear any 
false or malicious account that may perhaps be disagreeable 
to him, “ 1 will give you the truth,” says the good old gentle¬ 
man plunging into it, “ which much pleased me. I was there , 
“ and was witness to a most general applause He gain’d in 
“ the character of Bichard the Third; for I believe their 
“ was not one in the House that was not in Baptures, and 
“ I heard several Men of Judgment declare it their Opinion 
“ that nobody ever excelled Him in that Part; and that they 
“ were surprised, with so peculiar a Genius, how it was 


be hoped that Mr. Peter was able to read thus far with 
reasonable patience ; but, if he had opened his old friend’s 
letter first (as David, who no doubt suggested it, seems to 
have reckoned on his doing), one may imagine the nervous 
haste with which he now took up another letter that had 
travelled to him by the same post, superscribed in the 
well-known hand of brother David himself. 

It began by telling “Dear Peter” that he had received 
his shirt safe, and was now to tell him what he sup¬ 
poses he may already have heard; but before he lets him 
into the affair, it was proper to premise some things that 
the writer may appear less culpable in his brother's opinion 
than he might otherwise do. He has made an exact estimate 
of his stock of wine, and what money he has out at interest; 
and finds that since he has been a wine-merchant he has run 
out near four hundred pounds, and, trade not increasing, he 
became very sensible some way must be thought of to 
redeem it. Then out ventures a weakness never before 
confessed. “ My mind (as you must know) has been always 
“ inclined to y e Stage, nay so strongly so that all my Illness 
“ and lowness of Spirits was owing to my want of resolution 
“ to tell you my thoughts when here. Finding at last both 
“ mylnchnation and Interest requir’d some new way of Life, 
“ I have chose y e most agreeable to myself, and though 
“ I know you will be much displeas’d at me, yet I hope 
“ when you shall find that I may have y e genius of an Actor 
“ without y e vices you will think less severe of me, and not 
“ be asham’d to own me for a Brother.” After this appeal 


1759 . either send hnn his share, or seme it, any ouier way ue snan 
eI7i. propose. Then, at last, out comes the awful fact which can 
no longer he withheld; and then, as suddenly on the heels 
of it, as if ashamed of the brief show of courage he had made, 
the wine business again! “ Last night I played Richard 

« y e Third to y e Surprise of Every Body, and as I shall make 
“ very near £300 per annum by it, and'as it is really what I 
“ doat upon, I am resolv’d to 'pursue it. I believe I shall 
tf have Bower’s money, which when I have it shall go 
“ towards my part of the wine you have at Lichfield. Pray 
“ write me an answer immediately. I am, D 1 ' Brother, 
“ y rs sincerely D. Garrick. I have a farce (y e Lying Valet) 
££ coming out at Drury Lane.” 

Ah, poor David ! a brother who has the charge of a 
respectable business, who is the eldest of a family, including 
two sisters, that have yet to hold up then heads among the 
gentlefolks at Lichfield, who has to bear the upbraidings of 
an uncle too prosperous in trade to have any toleration for 
those who do not prosper, and who lias never himself done 
anything to discredit your father’s memory and red coat, is 
not propitiated so easily. Peter’s reply is now only to be 
inferred from the prompt rejoinder it wrung from David, 
bearing date the 27th October, and too plainly revealing to 
us all that both brother and sisters had suffered from the 
dreadful news. He begins by assuring his dear brother that 
the uneasiness he has received at his letter is inexpressible. 
However, it was a shock he expected, and had guarded him¬ 
self against as well as he could. Nay, the love lie sincerely 
bore his broth r Pete . t aet er with the nrevailino- a’em- 


so much, to blame as Peter seemed to think he was. As to 175 , 
their uncle* upbraiding liis brother with keeping their circum- 
stances a secret, he was indeed surprised at it; for, to be 
sure what he, David, had run out had been more owing to 
his own wilfulness than any great miscarriage in trade. But 
run out he had, and, let him live never so warily, must run 
out more ; and indeed let Peter only reflect a little seriously, 
and he will hardly say that the trade they have could ever 
be sufficient to maintain himself and a servant handsomely. 

“ As for the stage,” he continues, gathering boldness again 
to speak of it, “ I know in the General it deserves your 
££ Censure, but if you will consider how handsomely and how 
k£ reputably some have liv’d, as Booth, Mills, Wilks, 

££ Cibber, &c, and admitted into, and admir'd by, y e best 
££ Companies ; and as my Genius that way (by y e best Judges) 

* I am able also to subjoin, from another collection, the letter in which, 
enclosing one from Garrick himself, his cousin sorrowfully communicates to the 
wealthier branch of his family (that from which his Lisbon legacy had been derived) 
the sad step he had taken. £< Dear Madam, The underwritten is a Copy of a Letter 
“ sent me from David Garrie, w’ho play’d Crook’d Back Richard last night and 
£t does it to night again at Goodman’s Fields. The Letter. ‘ Dear Sir, I 
“ ‘ suppose you must have heard by this time of my playing King Richard at 
££ £ Goodman’s Fields, and suppose yon are Apprehensive I design to Continue on 
“ £ the Stage—I have troubled you with an Account of my Intention. You must 
‘ ‘ ‘ know that since I have been in Business (the wine-trade I mean), I have run out 
“ ‘ almost half my Fortune, and though to this Day I don’t owe anything, yet the 
“ 4 terrible prospect of running it all out made me think of something to redeem it. 

“ ‘ My Mind led me to the Stage which from being very Young I found myself very 
££ £ much Inclining too, and have been very unhappy that I could not come upon it 
“ 1 before. The only thing that gives me pain is that my Friends I suppose will 
“ £ look very cool upon me, particularly the Chief of them, those at Carsbolton ; 

“ ‘ but what can I do ? I am wholly bent upon the thing, and can make £300 per 
“ ‘ ann of it. As my brother will settle at Litchfield I design to throw up the 
££ £ wine business as soon as I can conveniently, and desire you’ll let my Uncle 
“ ‘know. Tf von sb d want o Snea wi e. the Stave Door will b alwa s 



“ ceedings when not only my Inclinations, but my Friends 
“ who at first were surpris’d at my Intent, by seeing me on 
“ y u stage are now well convinc’d ’twas impossible for me 
“ to keep of. As to Company, y e Best in Town are desirous 
“ of mine, and I have received more Civilities and favours 
“ from such since my playing than I ever did in all my life 
“ before. Mr. Glover (Leonidas I mean)* has been every 
“ Night to see me, and sent for me and told me as well as 
“ Every Body he converses with, that he had not seen Acting 
tf for ten years before. In short, were I to tell you what 
“ they say about me, ’twould be too vain tho’ I am now 
“ writing to a Brother.” 

Nor is it less clear that another feeling checks him, the 
fear that he has already said too much. However, he adds, 
so willing is he to be continued in his dear Peter’s affections, 
that were he certain of a less income with more reputation, 
he would gladly take to it. He has not yet had his name in 
the bills, and has only played the part of Richard the Third, 
which brings crowded audiences every night, and Mr. Giffard 
returns the service he has done him very amply. However 
(as though again in dread that he may be showing too little 
regard to his objectors), let “ dear Peter ” send him a letter 
next post, and he’ll give a full answer, not having time enough 

* Richard (Hover was a merchant of that day, whose popular speaking, clever 
writing, and influence in the city, procured him a distinguished place in the 
Leicester House councils; hut unhappily, on the Prince’s death, his affairs 
became embarrassed, his services were no longer required by the politicians with 
whom he had acted, and, acutely sensible of certain social neglects he then 
experienced, he ultimately died by his own hand. Horace Walpole, coupling him 


sisters are under such uneasinesses, and, as I really love 
“ both them and you, will ever make it my study to appear 
“your affectionate Brother, D. Garrick.” 

The post brings back the letter asked for, but as far as 
ever from the tone desired. Peter still protests, urges, 
entreats, casts discredit on Giffard, and, while he washes 
his own hands of the consequences he sees impending, 
warns David against them with such persevering emphasis, 
that, but for each day’s felt and palpable increase to 
the actor’s unexampled success, it might have gone hard 
with him in this epistolary war. But how should he 
now turn back with the incentives that on the other side 
urged him on — plebeian Goodman’s Fields lighted up 
with the splendour of Grosvenor-square and St. James’s ! 
grand people’s coaches jammed up in the narrow alleys 
between Temple-bar and Whitechapel! and, though he has 
not yet been three weeks on the stage, the ve;ry patriots from 
Whitehall, in the agony of their struggle with Walpole, 
flocking to that wretched little theatre in the lowest and 
most vulgar of the suburbs ? Has not the Prince’s confidant, 
Mr. Glover, been every night to see him ? And, since he 
wrote last to Lichfield, even grave Mr. Lyttelton has been 
there, the Prince himself is daily expected, and he has been 
praised and encouraged by that fiery young orator Mr. Pitt, 
who, already reckoned the greatest actor in the House of Com¬ 
mons, has given eager welcome to an actor reported to be even 
greater than himself. “ Sometimes, at Goodman’s Fields,” 
writes Gray to Chute, “ there are a dozen dukes of a Bight.” * 


that liis “ Dear Brother ” should still seem so utterly averse 
to what he was so greatly inclined to, and to what the best 
judges think he has the greatest genius for, should go on to say 
that the great, nay, incredible success and approbation he has 
met with from the greatest persons in England, had almost 
made him resolve (though he is sorry to say it, against dear 
Peter’s entreaties) to pursue it, as he shall certainly make a 
fortune by it if health continues. He then talks of money 
affairs in the old strain ; and as to Giffard, protests that 30Z. 
was all he had ever lent that manager in former daj's, which 
sum was paid long ago. He adds, that at present he receives 
from Giffard (though this was a secret) six guineas a week, 
and was to have a clear benefit, and the benefit was to be 
very soon, and he had been offered 120Z. for it, and dear 
Peter cannot imagine what regard he meets with, and on the 
occasion of that benefit the pit and boxes are to be put 
together, and he shall have all his friends (who still continue 
so though his brother is not to be brought over), and if his 
brother will only come his lodgings shall cost him nothing. 
“Mr. Littleton, Mr. Pit, and Several other Members of 
“ Parliament were to see me play Chamont, in y e Orphan , and 
“ Mr. Pit, who is reckon'd y e greatest Orator in the House of 
“ Commons, said I was y e best Actor y e English Stage had 
“ produc’d, and he sent a Gentleman to me to let me know 
“ he and y e other Gentlemen would be glad to see Me. The 
“ Prince has heard so great a Character of me that we are in 
“ daily expectations of his coming to see me.” And so the 
gossiping, kindly, anxious letter ends, with another entreaty 

tiVlfri*. "Ppf.PV Will lA*f lniY» Irn/WTr tttTi q 4* Vwn rvl ty/~vo< hia/ui 


xjut not ritt, nor nytiemon, nor mover, nor me rnnce 
himself, can yet entirely break down the obdurate resolution 
of Peter, who proves well worthy of his name. There are 
some signs of relenting, nevertheless; as even rocks may 
yield to melting influences at last. He cannot, of course, save 
David the pain of feeling that he has inflicted irreparable 
hurt on the respected mercantile position of Mr. Peter 
Garrick of Lichfield; but he brings himself to close his 
letter by saying, that though he never can approve of the 
stage, yet he will always be David’s affectionate brother. 
Well, for even such scant mercies, the brother is thankful. 
In the first flush of a success that might well have spurned 
at every kind of control, the good-hearted little fellow con¬ 
tinues as eager to propitiate this formal, unsympathising, 
intolerant old vendor of claret and sherry, as if he were him¬ 
self still the hobbledehoy youth of fourteen looking up •with 
timid deference to his revered superior of twenty. Every 
point of complaint, as if each were the first and not the 
dozenth time of urging, he meets with respectful argument 
or loving remonstrance; and as to the alleged injury to 
him in his mercantile position, he has now to tell Peter that 
their uncle, he has it on good authority, will be reconciled 
to him, “ for even the Merchants say ’tis an honour to him, 
“ not Otherwise. As to hurting you in y r affairs,” he 
goes on (his letter bears date the 24th Nov 1 '), “it shall be 
“ my constant Endeavour to promote y r welfare with my all. 
“ If you should want Money, and I have it, you shall com- 
“ mand my whole, and I know I shall soon be more able by 
“ playing and writing to do you service than any other wajr.” 



but comedian in England. C£ I would not,” be pr< 
interposes here, cc say so much to any body else ; but as 
“may somewhat palliate my folly, you must excuse 
“ Mr. Littleton was w th Me last Night, and took me 
“ hand and said, he never saw such playing upon y e En 
“ Stage before.” And for other more practical proofs o 
success, he tells Peter that he has had great offers 
Fleetwood; that they have had finer business than e 
Drury Lane or Covent Garden; that Mr. Giffard hi] 
had given him yesterday twenty guineas for a ticket; 
(for a climax) that next week he designed buying 200Z. c 
stock out of his profits of playing. So, as to the bus 
between them, and the selling off of their joint sto( 
London, if his brother should want more money thai 
share comes to, he will supply it. In conclusion he at 
that the trade is rather better than it was, but, his : 
being quite tinned another way, he desires to be releast 
soon as possible from it. 

Now, that this was a highly practical, business-like I 
though written by a flighty stage-player, even the obstin 
unbelieving Peter appears to have felt. It went, at any 
straight to the heart of the partnership affairs between t 
and, however reluctantly, he would seem to have mai 
his mind to accept it as the best of a bargain that mu 
any way a bad one. But one matter he should like to 
cleared up. Had his brother really been playing HarU 
as reported , before he came out at Goodman's Fields ? 


tlie whole town both in comedy and tragedy, nay, who had 
just come out as an author, and whose farce of the Lying Valet, 
acted (not at Drury Lane, but) at Goodman’s Fields six days 
after the date of his last letter, was taking prodigiously, and 
was approved of by men of genius, and thought the most 
diverting farce that ever was performed. “ I believe you’11 
“ find it read pretty well,” he continues, addressing Peter 
with somewhat more courage than usual, and sending him 
a copy; “ and in performance ’tis a General Roar from 
“ beginning to end; and I have got as much Reputation 
“ in y e Character of Sharp, as in any other character I 
“ have perform’d, tho far different from y e others.” 

Far different, indeed! as different as Romeo from Sir 
John Brute, as Othello from Foncllewife, as Richard from 
Jack Smatter, as Shakspeare’s Lear from Colley Cibber’s 
Master Johnny, as eighty-four from fifteen.* Yet even 
such was the surprising versatility now displayed with 
consummate ease by this greatest of actors; who alone, 
of all performers on record, seems to have hit the 
consummation of the actor’s art in being able to drop 
altogether his own personality. “ All the run is now after 
“ Garrick,” writes Walpole. “ The Duke of Argyll says he 
“is superior to Betterton.”t “We are all wrong, if this 

* ££ For Lis benefit on the ISth of March,” says Mr. Boaden, “he amazed the 
“ town by repeating” (he had first played it on the preceding 22nd of February) 
“ after his performance of King Lear, his Master Johnny, a lad of fifteen, in the 
££ Schoolboy. The farce was written by Colley Cibber, who was still living ; and 
££ he might, and very probably did, see that wonderful junction of eighty-four and 
£C fifteen by the same actor.” Memoir, vii, viii (Gar. Cor.) “The stage” said 
the play bills of the night “will be formed into an amphitheatre, where servants 
“ will be allowed to keep places.” Account of the Staac, iv 24. 



mill. Cibber, taking snuff, and turning to bis ancient partner 
theatrical glory, Mrs. Bracegirdle, “ the lad is clever ! ” 

Justly was Garrick proud of that opinion; for only a ; 
before, the Apology had given proof of what a masterly c. 
Cibber was, and all the old man’s prejudices and tastes \ 
strongly counter to the admission thus wrung from him. 1 
it teas given, however, and in still stronger terms, may ft 
be inferred from what Garrick goes on to say to his brot 
in this letter dated the 22nd December. “ You perhaps w< 
“ be glad to know what parts I have play’d. King Hi 
“ Jack Smatter in Pamela, Clody Fop’s Fortune , Lotb 
“ Fair Penitent, Cliamont Orphan, Ghost Hamlet, and £ 
“ soon be ready in Bays, in y e Rehearsal, and in y e pa] 
“ Othello, Both which I believe will do Me and Gii 
“ great service. I have had great success in all, and ’tis 
“ yet determin’d whether I play Tragedy or Comedy 1 
“ Old Cibber has spoke with y e Greatest Commenda 
“ of my Acting.” Of course the reader has observed 
the grave question as to Harlequin has not been answc 
But it creeps into the letter before its close. “Ai 
“ playing a Harlequin, ’tis quite false. Yates * last se: 
“ was taken very ill, and was not able to begin y e Enterl 
“ ment; so I put on y e Dress, and did two or three sc 

“ He plays all parts, and is a very good mimic. His acting I liave seen, am 
“ say to yon, who will not tell it again here, I see nothing wonderful in it 
“ it is heresy to say so : the Duke of Argyll sajs, ‘ he is superior to Better! 
Coll. Lett. i. 189. 

* Then a brother actor at Goodman’s-fields, who afterwards married tin 
brated actress, his second wife, for whom Goldsmith, as will hereafter be see] 


u for him, but Nobody knew it but liim and Giffard. I know 
“ it has been said I play’d Harlequin at Covent Garden, 
“ but ’tis quite false.” "With, which imperfect explanation 
Peter’s ruffled dignity had to compose itself, as best it might. 

The anticipation of a triumph in Bayes proved thoroughly 
well-founded. After Bayes there was no disputing the pre¬ 
dominance he had reached. To the roar of laughter and 
delight at its imitations, what still remained of the old 
school came tumbling down irrecoverably. “ Heresy,” 
growled Quin ; * “ Reformation,” cried Garrick; and the 
smartness of the retort showed off also his pretensions as a 
man of wit. Noblemen had him to then houses; Pope came 
out of his retirement to see him play; the great Mr. Murray, 
leader of the King’s Bench, forgot his briefs and his politics 
to entertain him at supper in Lincoln’s-inn-fields; ladies 
fell in love with him; he had to write to Lichfield to protest 
he was not going to be married; and if, in the last letter 
I shall quote from this remarkable collection, and which is 
dated within less than six months from the first I have 
quoted, he refers to some of these distinctions and compli¬ 
ments with a modest and manly pride, let us admit that 
some such set-off was needed to all the bitter mortifications 
his brother Peter had been heaping upon him, and that 
while he remains victor in the epistolary duel, he sings no 

* “ Pooh ! pooh ! ” exclaimed that old stage despot. “ This Garrick is a new 
“ religion. Whitfield was followed for a time, but they'll all come to church 
“again.” It was the “Bayes” which gave Quin mortal offence. Quin was 
not himself among the actors who were ridiculed, but he took to himself the 
laughter at others who were in fact his imitators and disciples. “ Delane” says 


o 


ZEt. 31. “ with from y e Greatest men/’ he writes to his brother on 
the 19th of April, “ has made me far from repenting of 
“ my choice. I am very intimate with Mr. Glover, who will 
“ bring ont a Tragedy next winter upon my acG. Twice I 
“ have sup’d w th y e Great Mr. Murray, Counsell 1 ', and shall 
<c w t]l Mr. Pope, by his Introduction. I sup’d with y e Mr. 
“ Littleton, y e Prince’s Favourite, last Thursday night, and 
“ that with y e highest Civility and complaisance. He told 
“ me he never knew what Acting was till I appeared, and said 
“ I was only born to act w t Shakespear writ. These things 
“ daily occurring give me Great Pleasure. I din’d with L d 
“ Hallifax and L d Sandwich, two very ingenious Noblemen, 
“ yesterday, and am to dine at L d Plallifax’s next Sunday 
“ with L d Chesterfield. I have the Pleasure of being very 
“intimate, too, with Mr. Hawkins Browne, of Burton* In 
“ short, I believe nobody (as an Actor) was ever more 
“ caress’d, and my Character as a private Man makes ’em 
“ more desirous of my Company. (All this entre nous, as one 
“ Broth r to another.) I am not fix’d for next year, but shall 
“ certainly be at y e Other End of y e Town. I am offered 500 
“ guineas and a Clear Benefit, or part of y e Management.” 

Here, then, I leave him, rapidly on his way to the other 
end of town, manager in expectancy already, the architect in 
six months of a fortune which went on increasing for thirty- 
six years, now as always the darling of the great,! and a 

* The author, among other things, of A Pipe of Tobacco (the original of the 
Rejected Addresses, Odes and Addresses , &c. &c.), -which Goldsmith praises 
deservedly in his Beauties of English Poetry , not on the ground that the parody is 
ridiculous, hut that the imitation is excellent. “ I am told ” he remarks “that 


jr by anticiimtion of the bitters as well as the sweets of 1759. 
:up so plentifully filled for him. For those reproaches iEt.31. 
is brother's had a sting to be remembered when his 
her’s outraged dignity had been long forgotten. The 
r we have seen sensibly assuaged even in the letters 
ed; and its conclusion and moral might be yet more 
tedly drawn out of others of later date in the same 
;ction, which show Mr. Peter Garrick solely indebted to 
xctor for retrieval of his shattered fortune, a successful 
diant for favours over and over again conferred on him, 
finally indebted to no less a friend and patron of 
id’s than the Duke of Devonshire for “ the finger ” that 
;ed” himself “out of those cursed wine-vaults.” But 
ithstanding all this, very correctly did Peter’s first shock 
orror on learning that David had become a player, reflect 
ding which others used throughout his life to gall and to 
iliate him; which, while it could not shut against him the 
ms of the great, for that reason more bitterly exposed him 
le malice and insult of the little; which threw him into 
isy relations with men of his own social station; obscured 
often his better nature; and remains for us the clue by 
jh, if we would judge him favourably, we may unravel 
t appears least consistent in his character. I have had 
.ess scruple in giving at some length, therefore, even to the 
porary interruption of my narrative, that critical passage 
is life which till now has never been authentically told. 


s, the crooked Hostyn, and Dabreu the Spanish minister; two regents, of 
‘ch one is lord chamberlain, the other groom of the stole; and the wife of a 
retarv of state. This is be’ntr ftur un asscz ion ton for a player ! Don’t von 


CHAPTER III. 


OVERTURES FROM SMOLLETT AND MR. NEWBERY. 

1759—1760. 

But, at tlie door of Mr. Oliver Goldsmith, Doctor Smc 
1759. and Mr. Newbery have been waiting us all this while, 
TEt.^i. neither of them belonged to that leisurely class which 
very well afford to wait. The Doctor was full of energy 
movement always, as one of his own headlong heroes; 
who remembers not the philanthropic bookseller in 
Vicar of Wakefield , the good-natured man with the 
pimpled face, who had no sooner alighted hut he was in 1 
to he gone, “ for he was ever on business of the utmost inc 
“ tance, and was at that time actually compiling mate 
“ for the history of one Mr. Thomas Trip.” But no 
Mr. Thomas Trip’s affairs had the child-loving publis 
now ventured up Break-neck Steps; and upon other 
the old Critical business was the author of Peregrine P 
a visitor in Green Arbour Court. Both had new and 
portant schemes in hand, and with both it was an obje 
secure the alliance and services of Goldsmith. Smolleti 

* “ He called himself their friend,” says Doctor Primrose, “but he w 
friend of all mankind ... he had published for me against the Deuterog 
“ of the age, aud from him I borrowed a few pieces.” And see Nichols’s L 
Anecdotes , iii. 731-2. 


patrons of the author of the unsuccessful Bee. Their offers 
were of course accepted; and it seems to imply something, 
however slight, of a worldly advance in connection with 
them, that, in the month which followed, the luckless Bee 
was issued in the independent form of a small half-crown 
volume hy Mr. Wilkie, and Kenrick received instructions 
from Mr. Ralph Griffiths to treat it in the Monthly Revieiv 
“ with the greatest candour toward an unsuccessful Author.”* 

The 1st of January, 1760, saw the first venture launched. 
It was published for sixpence, “ embellished with curious 
“ copperplates,” and entitled “ The British Magazine , or 
“ Monthly Repository for Gentlemen ancl Ladies. By 
“ T. Smollett, M.D., and others.” It was dedicated with 
much fervour to Mr. Pitt; and Mr. Pitt’s interest (greatly to 
the spleen of Horace Walpole, who thinks the matter worthy 
of mention in his Memoirs of George the Second t) enabled 
Smollett to put it forth with a royal license, granted in con¬ 
sideration of the fact that Doctor Smollett had “represented 
“ to his Majesty that he has been at great labour and 
“ expense in writing original pieces himself, and engaging 

* Monthly Review, xxii. 42, January 1760. A specimen of the candour is 
worth quoting. “We do not mean” (after saying that experience had, no doubt, 
proved the justice of the author’s anticipations of failure, as well as of his belief that 
nobody but himself would regret it) “ to insinuate that his lucubrations are so void 
“ of merit as not to deserve the public attention. On the contrary, we must 
‘ ‘ confess ourselves to have found no inconsiderable entertainment in their perusal. 

‘ ‘ His stile is not the worst, and his manner is agreeable enough, in our opinion, 

‘ ‘ however it may have failed of exciting universal admiration. The truth is, most 
“ of bis subjects are already sufficiently worn-out, and his observations frequently 
“ trite and common.” 

t iii. 259, 261. It follows an allusion to the abusive portrait of Lord Lyttelton 
in Roderick Random, “a novel of which sort he published two or three.” 



tliiee mourns ULLIjjriKUXliJLltJXlb 1UL J- 1 UOJ. uxuv vyxxj.^j_u iaiq o^xxjlucu 

avowal of the authorship of a criticism on Admiral Knowles 
had betrayed him; and the king’s patronage had probably 
been sought as a counterpoise to the king’s prison. But 
the punishment had not been without its uses. In the 
nature of Smollett, to the last, there were not a few of the 
heedless impulses of boyhood; and from this three months’ 
steady gaze on the sadder side of things, he seems to have 
turned with tempered and gentler thoughts. In the first 
number of the British Magazine was the opening of the tale 
which contained his most feminine heroine (Aurelia Darnel), 
and the most amiable and gentlemanly of his heroes (Sir 
Launcelot Greaves); for, though Sir Launcelot is mad, wise 
thoughts have made him so; and in the hope to “ remedy 
“ evils which the law cannot reach, to detect fraud and 
“ treason, to abase insolence, to mortify pride, to discourage 
“ slander, to disgrace immodesty, and to stigmatise ingrati- 
“ tude,” he stumbles through his odd adventures. There is 
a pleasure in connecting this alliance of Smollett and Gold¬ 
smith, with the first approach of our great humourist to that 
milder humanity and more genial wisdom which shed its 
mellow rays on Matthew Bramble. 

1760. Nor were the services engaged from Oliver unworthy of 

2Et. 32. his friend’s Six Launcelot. Side by side with the kindly 
enthusiast, appeared some of the most agreeable of the 
Essays which were afterwards re-published with their writer’s 
name; and many which were never connected with it, until 
half a century after the writer’s death. Here Mr. Bigmarole 
fell into that Boar’s Head reverie in Eastchean, since so 


Andrew, Bajazet, and AYildair, laughed at Garrick in Iris 
glory. Here journey was made to the Fountain in whose 
waters sense and genius mingled, and hy whose side the 
traveller found Johnson and Gray (a pity it did not prove so !) 
giving and receiving fame.* And here, above all, the poor, 
hearty, wooden-legged beggar, first charmed the world with 
a philosophy of content and cheerfulness which no mis¬ 
fortune could subdue. This was he who had lost his leg 
and the use of his hand, and had a wound in his breast 
which was troublesome, and was obliged to beg, but with 
these exceptions blessed his stars for knowing no reason to 
complain: some had lost both legs and an eye, but thank 
Heaven it was not so bad with him. This was he who 
remarked that people might say this and that of being in gaol, 
but when he was found guilty of being poor, and was sent to 
Newgate, he found it as agreeable a place as ever he was in, 
in all his life : t who fought the French in six pitched battles, 
and verily believed, that, but for some good reason or other 
his captain would have given him promotion and made him a 
corporal: who was beaten cruelly by a boatswain, but the 
boatswain did it without considering what he was about: who 


* Another proof that Goldsmith had not yet surrendered his own judgment 
to Johnson’s in the matter of Gray. The four papers enumerated will he found in 
Mfecell. Works, i. 179, 229, 195, and ii. 461 ; the last having been transferred to 
the Citizen of the World. 

+ “0 liberty ! liberty ! liberty ! that is the property of every Englishman, and I 
‘ ‘ will die in its defence ; I was afraid, however, that I should be indicted for a 
“ vagabond once more, so did not much care to go into the country, but kept about 
‘ ‘ town, and did little jobs when I could get them. I was very happy in this manner 
‘ ‘ for some time ; till one evening, coming home from work, two men knocked me 
‘ ‘ down, and then desired me to stand still. They belonged to a press-gang.” ii. 465. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH’S LIFE AND TIMES. 


[Book III. 


slept on a bed of boards in a French prison, but with a 
warm blanket about him, because, as he remarked, he always 
loved to lie well: and to whom, when he came to sum up 
and balance his life’s adventures, it occurred that had he had 
the good fortune to have lost his leg and the use of his hand 
on board a king’s ship, and not a privateer, he should have 
had his sixpence a week for the rest of his days; but that 
was not his chance; one man was born with a silver spoon 
in his mouth, and another with a wooden ladle : “ however, 
“ blessed be God, I enjoy good health.” This was as wise 
philosophy as Candicle’s, at which Europe was then laughing 
heartily; and it is worth mention that from the countrymen 
of Voltaire this little essay should first have derived its 
fame. So popular in France was the “ humble optimist,” as 
his translator called him, that he is not unlikely to have 
visited even the halls of Les D dices; to be read there, as 
everywhere, with mirth upon the face and tenderness at the 
heart; perhaps to reawaken recollections of the ungainly, 
wandering scholar. 

Of upwards of twenty essays thus contributed to Smollett’s 
magazine, few were republished by Goldsmith ; but from 
other causes, certainly, than lack of merit. One was a 
criticism of two rival singers, two Polly Peachums then 
dividing Vauxhall, so pleasantly worded that neither could 
take offence; but of temporary interest chiefly. Another 
was a caution against violent courtships, from a true story in 


A fourth was a little history of seduction, hasty, abrupt, and 
not very real; but in which the hero bore such a general 
though indistinct resemblance to the immortal family of the 
Primroses, as to have fitly merged and been forgotten in 
their later glory.* 

The last of these detached essays which I shall mention 
for the present, did not appear in the British Magazine, but 
much concerned it; and, though not reckoned worthy of 
preservation by its writer, is evidence not to be omitted of 
his hearty feeling to Smollett, and ready resource to serve a 
friend. It was in plain words a puff of the British Magazine 
and its projector; and a puff of as witty pretension as ever 
visited the ingenious brain of the yet unborn friend of 
Mr. Dangle. It purported to describe a Wow-wow; a kind 
of newspaper club of a country town, to which the writer 
amusingly described himself driven, by his unavailing efforts 
to find anybody anywhere else. All were at the Wow-wow, 
from the apothecary to the drawer of the tavern; and there 
he found, inspired by pipes and newspapers, such a smoke 
and fire of political discussion, such a setting right of all the 
mistakes of the generals in the war, such a battle, conducted 
with chalk, upon the blunders of Finck and Daun, and such 
quidnunc explosions against the Dutch in Pondicherry, that 
infallibly the Wow-wow must have come to a war of its own 


* This “History of Miss Stanton” is included in Mr. Prior’s edition of the 
Miscellaneous Works (i. 214) with, many other pieces not before collected, which 
make the hook by far the best of the collections that have yet appeared, though 
it is by no means carefully or accurately edited. The other three papers mentioned 
above are in i. 201, 205, 224 ; and for the Wow-wow, see i. 322. 


“ Launcelot Greaves, to the entire satisfaction ol the 
“ audience, which being finished, he threw the pamphlet 
“ upon the table: ‘ That piece, gentlemen,’ says he, * is 
“ ‘ written in the very spirit and manner of Cervantes; 
“ ‘ there is great knowledge of human nature, and evident 
“ ‘ marks of the master in almost every sentence ; and from 
“ ‘ the plan, the humour, and the execution, I can venture 
“ ‘ to say that it dropped from the pen of the ingenious 

“ ‘ Doctor -’ Every one was pleased with the per- 

“ formance, and I was particularly gratified in hearing all 
" the sensible part of the company give orders for the 
“ British Magazine” 

So said the not less anonymous or ingenious Doctor, in 
that venture of good Mr. Newbery’s which started but twelve 
days after Smollett’s, and in which also had been enlisted 
the services of the Green Arbouy Court lodger. War is the 
time for newspapers ; and the inventive head which planned 
the Universal Chronicle, with the good taste that enlisted 
Johnson in its service, now made a bolder effort in the same 
direction. The first number of The Public Ledger was 
published on the 12th of January 1760. Nothing less than 
a Daily Newspaper had the busy publisher of children’s 
books projected. But a daily newspaper was not an appalling 
speculation, then. Not then, morning after morning, did it 
throw its eyes of Argus over all the world. No universal 
command was needed for it then, over sources of foreign 
intelligence that might controul and govern the money 
transactions of rival hemispheres. There existed with it, 



YULttU IU H p^litCLIUU JLlJLgU Lib LUC Jil^CUU b 1UJJJ11, bYYJJL Ub LUC 

Conner’s horse, or deep as the secret drawer of tlie diplo¬ 
matist’s bureau. Then, it was no more essential to a paper’s 
existence, that countless advertisements should be scattered 
broadcast through its columns ; than to a city’s business, that 
puffing vans should perambulate its highways, and armies of 
placard-bearing paupers seize upon its pavements. Neither 
as a perfect spy of the time, nor as a full informer or high 
improver of the time, did a daily journal yet put forth its 
claims. Neither to prompt and correct intelligence, nor to 
great political or philanthropic aims, did it as yet devote 
itself. The triumphs or discomfitures of Freedom were not 
yet its daily themes. Not yet did it assume, or dare, to ride 
in the whirlwind and direct the storm of great political 
passions; to grapple resistlessly with social abuses; or to 
take broad and philosophic views of the world’s contem¬ 
poraneous history, the history which is a-making from day 
to day. It was content with humbler duties. It called itself 
a daily register of commerce and intelligence, and fell short 
of even so much modest pretension. The letter of a Probus 
or a Manlius sufficed for discussion of the war; and a 
modest rumour in some dozen lines, for what had occupied 
parliament during as many days. “ We are unwilling,” said 
the editor of the Public Ledger (Mr. Griffith Jones, who 
wrote children’s books for Mr. Newbery)* in his first number, 

* “It is not, perhaps, generally known, that to Mr. Griffith Jones, and a brother 
“ of his, Mr. Giles Jones, in conjunction with Mr. John Newbery, the public are in- 
‘ ‘ debted for the origin of those numerous and popular little books for the amusement 
“ and instruction of children, the Lilliputian histories of Goody Two-shoes, Giles 
“ Gingerbread, Tommy Trip, &e. &c. which have been ever since received with 
“ universal ann obat' n ” Nich Is’s Literary Ane dotes, iii. 66. Hereafter ar 


fctp]icU.CLUilJ UaiUUifl/lCU JLUi uuu jJll.u.ui.V’ wvu. ^j.wux^vuXj 

avoiding, thus, all undue expectation, there quietly came 
forth into the -world, from Mr. Bristow’s office “ next the 
“ great toy-shop in St. Paul’s-churchyard,” the first number 
of the Public Ledger. It was circulated gratis : with 
announcement that all future numbers would be sold for 
two-pence half-penny each. 

The first four numbers were enlightened by Probus in 
politics and Sir Simeon Swift in literature ; the one 
defending the war, the other commencing the “ Ranger,” and 
both very mildly justifying the modest editorial announce¬ 
ments. The fifth number was not so common-place. It 
had a letter (vindicating with manly assertion the character 
and courage of the then horribly unpopular French, and 
humorously condemning the national English habit of 
abusing rival nations), which implied a larger spirit as it 
showed a livelier pen. The same hand again appeared in 
the next number but one; and the correspondent of Green 
Arbour Court became entitled to receive two guineas from 
Mr. Newbery for his first week’s contributions to the Public 
Ledger. His arrangement was to write twice in the week, 
and to be paid a guinea for each article. 

books. He did not thrust all naughty boys into the jaws of the dragon, nor 
elevate all good boys to ride in King Pepin’s coach. That Goldsmith had a 
hankering to write for children he more than once confessed; and if he had 
realised his intention of composing the fables in which little fishes and other 
creatures should talk, our children’s libraries would have had one rich possession 
the more. 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD. 

1760. 

"With the second week of his engagement on the Public 17 GC 
Ledger, Goldsmith had taken greater courage. The letter 2Et. s 
which appeared on the 24th of January, though without 
title or numbering to imply intention of continuance, threw 
out the hint of a series of letters, and of a kind of narrative 
as in the Lcttres Persanes . The character assumed was that 

of a Chinese visitor to London: the writer’s old interest in 
the flowery people having received new strength, of late, from 
the Chinese novel on which his dignified acquaintance 
Mr. Percy had been recently engaged.* The second letter, 
still without title, appeared five days after the first; some 
inquiry seems to have been made for their continuance; 
and thence uninterruptedly the series went on. Not until 

* “1 will endeavour,” writes Shenstone in the following year (Nichols’s Illus¬ 
trations, vii. 222), “to procure and send you a copy of Percy’s translation of a 
* ‘ genuine Chinese novel in four small volumes, printed months ago, hut not to he 
“published before winter.” Percy was the editor, and wrote the preface and 
notes ; hut the actual translation of Hau Eiou Choaan from the Chinese was 
executed by Mr. Wilkinson, and all that Percy did in that respect was to translate 
the translator “into good reading English.” It may he worth remarking, that, 
three years before, some noise had been made by a smart political squib of Horace 
Walpole’s, which he protested he had writ in an hour-and-a-half, and which passed 
through five editions in a fortnight, the Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese Philosopher 
at London, to his friend Lien Chi at Pekin. See Coll. Lett. iv. 289, 290. 


ancl contributed more than any other cause to its succe: 
establishment. Sir Simeon Swift and his “ Ean^ 
Mr. Philanthropy Candid and his “Visitor,” struggled 
departed as newspaper shadows are wont to do; Lien 
Altangi became real, and lived. From the ephemeral sp 
the immortal. On that column of ungainly-looking, pe: 
able type, depended not alone the paper of the day, 1 
book to last throughout the year, a continuous pleasur 
the age, and one which was for all time. It arausec 
hour, was wise for the interval beyond it, is still divei 
and instructing us, and will delight generations yet uni 
At the close of 1760, ninety-eight of the letters had 
published; within the next few months, at less re£ 
intervals, the series was brought to completion; and in 
following year, the whole were republished by Mr. New 
“ for the author,”* in two duodecimo volumes, but wit 
any author’s name, as “ The Citizen of the World; 
“ Letters from a Chinese Philosopher in London, to 
‘‘ Friend in the East.” 

“ Light, agreeable, summer reading,” observed the Bi 
Magazine, with but dry and laconic return for the Wow- 
The Monthly Review had to make return of a different ] 
Mr. Griffiths now decently resolving to swallow his ] 


* This specification, which appears upon no other hook written by Gold 
appears to imply either some reluctance on Newbery’s part to undergo tl 
of the republication, or some quarrel as to terms; but whichever it ma 
been, it is clear that a very small payment a few months later put the 
seller in possession of the whole “copy” [copyright] of the book. “ Reee 
Mr. Newbery, five guineas, which, 'with what I have received at differeni 
before, is in full for the copy of the Chinese Letters, as witness my hand, 

“ Onli-lomU , K 1 had » XT_i lrTr. 


OU.AJLIlJLCU.LiJr tt^L^Ua-U-LLCU. H JLULL UUC 1UC1AU Ui DUCOC OHLCi UcLLLLLUg 

“ Letters, which were first printed in The Ledger , and are 
cc supposed to have contributed not a little towards the 
“ success of that paper. They are said to be the work of 
“ the lively and ingenious Writer of An Enquiry into the 
“ Present State of Polite Learning in Europe; a Writer whom, 
“ it seems, we undesignedly offended by some Strictures 
“ on the conduct of many of our modem Scribblers. As the 
“ observation was entirely general, in its intention, we were 
“ surprised to hear that this Gentleman had imagined him- 
“ self in any degree pointed at, as we conceive nothing can be 
“ more illiberal in a Writer, or more foreign to the character 
“ of a Literary Journal, than to descend to the meanness 
“ of personal reflection.” * Pity might be reasonably given 
to men humiliated thus; but Goldsmith withheld forgiveness. 
Private insults could not so be retracted; nor could impu¬ 
tations which sink deepest in the simplest and most 
honourable natures, be thus easily purged away. Mr. Griffiths 
was left to the consolation of reflecting, that he had himself 
eaten the dirt which it would have made him far happier to 
have flung at the Citizen of the World. 

In what different language, by what different men, how 
highly and justly this book has since been praised, for its 
fresh original perception, its delicate delineation of life and 
manners, its wit and humour, its playful and diverting 
satire, its exhilarating gaiety, and its clear and lively style, 


Monthly Review, xxvi. 477, June 1762. 


turn back to read in it. 

One marked peculiarity its best admirers have failed to 
observe upon; its detection and exposure, not simply of 
the foibles and follies which, lie upon the surface, but of 
those more pregnant evils which rankle at the heart, of 
society. The occasions were frequent in which the Chinese 
citizen so lifted his voice that only in a later generation 
could he find his audience ; and they were not few, in which 
he has failed to find one even yet. He saw, in the Russian 
Empire, what by the best English statesman since lias not 
been sufficiently guarded against, the natural enemy of the 
more western parts of Europe, “ an enemy already possessed 
“ of great strength, and, from the nature of the government, 
“ every day threatening to become more powerful.” He 
warned the all-credulous and too-confident English of their 
insecure tenure of the American colonies ; telling them, with 
a truth as prophetic, and which anticipated the vigorous 
reasoning of Dean Tucker, that England would not lose her 
vigour when those colonies obtained their independence. 
He unveiled the social pretences, which, under colour of 
protecting female honour, are made the excuse for its 
violation. He denounced that evil system which left the 
magistrate, the country justice, and the squire, to punish 
transgressions in which they had themselves been the 
guiltiest transgressors. He laughed at the sordidness 
which makes penny shows of our public temples, turns 
Deans and Chapters into importunate “ beggars,” and stoops 
to pick up half-pence at the tombs of our patriots and 



by either.! He protested earnestly against the insufficient 


* “ I marched, up without farther ceremony, and was going to enter, -when a 
“ person, who held the gate in his hand, told me I must pay first. I was 
‘ ‘ surprised at such a demand, and asked the man whether the people of England 
“ kept a show ? whether the paltry sum he demanded was not a national 
“ reproach ? whether it was not more to the honour of the country to let their 
“ magnificence or their antiquities be openly seen, than thus meanly to tax a 
‘ ‘ curiosity which tended to their own honour ? As for your questions, 
“replied the gate-keeper, to he sure they may he very right, because I don’t 
“ understand them ; but, as for that there threepence, I farm it from one—who rents 
“ it from another—who hires it from a third—who leases it from the guardians of 
“ the temple ; and we all must live.” Citizen of the World. Letter xiii. 

+ 'Who does not remember the talk that the astonished traveller had to listen to 
soon after his arrival, outside a metropolitan jail ? “ The conversation was carried 
“ on between a debtor through the grate of his prison, a porter who had stopped 
“ to rest his burthen, and a soldier at the window. The subject, was upon a 
“ threatened invasion from France, and each seemed extremely anxious to rescue 
“ his country from the impending danger. ‘ For my part,’ cries the prisoner, ‘ the 
“ ‘ greatest of my apprehensions is for our freedom ; if the French should conquer, 
“ ‘ what would become of English liberty ? My dear friends, liberty is the English- 
“ ‘ man’s prerogative ; we must preserve that at the expense of our lives ; of that 
‘ ‘ ‘ the French shall never deprive us ; it is not to be expected that men who are 
“ ‘ slaves themselves would preserve our freedom should they happen to conquer.’ 
“ * Ay, slaves,’ cries the porter, ‘ they are all slaves, fit only to carry burthens, 

‘ ‘ ‘ every one of them. Before I would stoop to slavery, may this he my poison, 

‘ ‘ (and he held the gohlet in his hand), ‘ may this be my poison—but I would 
“ ‘ sooner list for a soldier.’ The soldier, taking the goblet from his friend, with 
“ much awe fervently cried out, ‘ It is not so much our liberties as our religion 
“ ‘ that would suffer by such a change ; ay, our religion, my bids. May the Devil 
‘ ‘ ‘ sink me into flames (such was the solemnity of his adjuration), if the French 
“ ‘should come over, but our religion would be utterly undone.’” Citizen 
“ of the World. Letter iv. Byrom’s Tom the Porter is now forgotten, but 
Goldsmith evidently knew the lines : 

“ The soldier, touch’d a little ■with surprise, 

“ To see his friend’s indifference, replies, 

“ ‘ What you say, Tom, I own is very good ; 

“ ‘ But—our religion !' (and he d—d his blood)— 

‘ ‘ ‘ What will become of our religion ? ’ ‘ True, ’ 

“ Says the jail bird, ‘and our freedom too ? 

“ ‘ If the Pretender,’ rapt he out, ‘comes on, 

‘ ‘ ‘ Our liberties and properties are gone ! ’ ” 




against the laws which meted out, in so much gold or silver, 
the price of a wife’s or daughter’s honour. He ridiculed the 
prevailing nostrums current in that age of quacks ; doubted 
the graces of such betailing and bepowdering fashions, as 
then made beauty hideous, and sent even lads cocked- 
liatted and wigged to school; and had sense and courage 
to avow his contempt for that prevailing cant of con- 
noissieurship (“ your Raffaelles, Correggios, and Stuff ”) 
at which Reynolds shifted his trumpet. The abuses of 
church patronage did not escape him; any more than the 
tendency to “superstition and imposture” in the “bonzes 
“ and priests of all religions.” He thought it a fit theme 
for mirth, that holy men should he content to receive all 
the money, and let others do all the good; and that pre¬ 
ferment to the most sacred and exalted duties should wait 
upon the whims of members of parliament, and the wants 
of younger branches of the nobility.* The incapacities and 
neglect thus engendered in the upper clergy, he also con¬ 
nected with that disregard of the lower, which left a reverend 

* I would, refer the reader to George Selwyn’s Correspondence if he would desire 
to study attentively one of the latest full-blown specimens of the breed of clergymen 
engendered by this system, and introduce himself to by no means one of the 
most objectionable of the smoking, reading, claret-drinking, toadying, gor¬ 
mandising, good-humoured parsons of the time when Goldsmith lived and wrote. 
He will find Doctor Warner quite an ornament to the Establishment throughout 
that book, and only cursing, flinging, stamping, or gnashing, when anything goes 
amiss with Selwyn. He will observe that the reverend doctor is ready to wager 
his best cassock against a dozen of claret any day ; and that the holy man would 
quote you even texts with the most pious of his cloth, “if our friend the Countess 
“ had not blasted them.” In short, at whatever page he opens the Coirespunclcnce , 
he will find parson Warner in the highest possible spirits, whether quizzing 
“ canting pot-bellied justices,” contemplating with equanimity “a fine corpse at 

Slirffftmi «! 5 TTftll 55 nr InnlH-ncr frvrwarrl nri+Vl rmufnl vhrnnl+v +a hft im/n iirlittn lin oll.tll 


risen to put down cheerfulness, and could find its only music 
in a chorus of sighs and groans, he aimed the shafts of liis 
wit as freely, as at the over-indulging, gormandising priests 
of the bishop's visitation-dinner, face to face with whom, 
gorged and groaning with excess, he brought the hungry 
beggar, faint with want, to ask of them the causes of his 
utter destitution, body and soul. Nor did he spare that 
other dignified profession, which, in embarrassing what it 
professed to make clear, in retarding with cumbrous im¬ 
pediments the steps of justice, in reserving as a luxury 
for the rich what it pretended to throw open to all, in 
fencing round property with a multiplicity of laws and 
exposing poverty without a guard to whatever threatened 
or assailed it, countenanced and practised no less a false¬ 
hood.* Almost alone in that age of indifference, the Citizen 


contemplate this. Goldsmith is less severe in his exposure, hnt it is efficient, too; 
aiul I confess I never read a letter of Doctor Warner’s, or think of his gnzzling, his 
telling the same story over and over again, and his indifference to any kind of 
treatment shown him or service exacted of him so long as his bumper of claret is 
well filled, without being forcibly reminded of Doctor Marrowfat. “ ‘ As good a 
“ ‘ story,’ cries he, bursting into a violent fit of laughter himself, ‘as ever you 
‘ ‘ ‘ heard in your lives. There was a farmer in my parish who used to sup upon 
“ ‘ wild ducks and flummery; so this farmer’—‘Doctor Marrowfat,’ cries his 
“lordship, interrupting him, ‘give me leave to drink your health’—‘so being 
“ ‘ fond of wild ducks and flummery’— ‘ Doctor,’ adds a gentleman who sat next 
‘ ‘ him, ‘ let me advise you to a wing of this turkey; ’—‘ so this fanner being fond ’ 
“ ‘ —Hob and nob, doctor, which do you choose, white or red ? ’—‘so being fond of 
‘ ‘ ‘ wild ducks and flummery; ’— ‘ Take care of your band, sir, it may dip in the 
“ c gravy.’ The doctor, now looking round, found not a single ear disposed to 
“ listen : wherefore, calling for a glass of wine, he gulped down the disappoint- 
“ ment and the tale in a bumper.” Letter lviii. 

* The simple notions of the Chinese citizen on this subject appear very alarming 
to his friend, who uses precisely the defensive argument with which the absurdity 
has been upheld ever since. “ ‘I see,’ cries my friend, ‘that you are for a speedy 




was to make it an infrequent, punishment; and wai 
society of the crime of disregarding human life and 
temptations of the miserable, by visiting petty thefts ^ 
penalties of blood.* 

He who does not read for amusement only, may 
find in these delightful letters, thus published from v 
to week, a comment of special worth on casual incicl 
of the time. There was in this year a city-campaig] 
peculiar cruelty. A mob has indiscriminate tastes for bl 


“ ‘ administration of justice; but all the world will grant, that the more time 
“ ‘ istakenup in considering any subject, the better it will be understood. Be 
“ ‘ it is the boast of an Englishman, that his property is secure, and all the 
‘ ‘ ‘ will grant that a deliberate administration of justice is the best way to secu 
“ ‘ property. Why have we so many lawyers, but to secure our property ? v 
“ ‘ many formalities, but to secure our property ? Not less than one hu 
“ ‘ thousand families live in opulence, elegance, and ease, merely by sccunn 
“ ‘ property .’ . . . ‘But bless me,’ returned I, ‘what numbers do I see h 
“ ‘ all in black—how is it possible that half this multitude find employm 
“ — ‘Nothing so easily conceived,’returned my companion, ‘they live by wal 
‘ ‘ ‘ each other. For instance, the catchpole watches the man in debt, the ati 
“ ‘ watches the catchpole, the counsellor watches the attorney, the solicit! 
“ ‘ counsellor, and all find sufficient employment.’—‘I conceive you,’ interr 
“ I, ‘ they watch each other : but it is the client that pays them all for watchi 
Letter xcviii. The reader is to remember that this was written a hundred 
ago, and that we are only at this hour bestirring ourselves to provide someth 
a remedy. 

* Could anything be better reasoned than this, which indeed anticipatf 
closest arguments of Bentham ? “ When a law, enacted to make theft punif 

“ with death, happens to be equitably executed, it can at best only guai 
“possessions; but when, by favour or ignorance, justice pronounces a • 
‘ ‘ verdict, it then attacks our lives, since in such a case the whole comn 
‘ ‘ suffers with the innocent victim : if, therefore, in order to secure the effe 
“ one man, I should make a law which may take away the life of another, ir 
‘ ‘ a case, to attain a smaller good, I am guilty of a greater evil; to secure s 
‘ ‘ in the possession of a bauble, I render a real and valuable possession preca 
“ . . . Since punishments are sometimes necessary, let them at least be rei 
“ terrible, b being executed but seldom, and let Justice lift her sword rati 


were slaughtered wholesale, and their bodies literally blocked 
up the streets. “ The dear, good-natured, honest, sensible 
“ creatures 1exclaimed Horace Walpole. “ Christ! How 
u can anybody hurt them ?” But what Horace said’ only to 
his friend, Goldsmith said to everybody : publicly denouncing 
the cruelty, in a series of witty stories ridiculing the motives 
alleged for it, and pleading with eloquent warmth for the 
honest associate of man.* Nor was this the only mad-dog- 
cry of the year. The yell of a Grub-street mob as fierce, on 
a false report of the death of Voltaire, brought Goldsmith as 
warmly to the rescue. With eager admiration, he asserted 
the claims of the philosopher and wit; told the world it 
was its lusts of war and sycophancy which unfitted it to 
receive such a friend; set forth the independence of his 
life, in a country of Pompadours and an age of venal 
oppression; declared (this was before the Calas family) the 
tenderness and humanity of his nature; and claimed 
freedom of religious thought for him and all men. “ I am 
“ not displeased with my brother because he happens to 
“ ask our father for favours hi a different manner from 
“ me.” As we read the Chinese Letters with this comment 
of the time, those actual days come vividly back to us. 


* It is pleasant to quote liis most kindly speech. “ Of all the Leasts that graze 
“ the lawn, or hunt the forest, a dog is the only animal that, leaving his fellows, 
“ attempts to cultivate the friendship of man ; to man he looks in all his necessities 
‘ ‘ with a speaking eye for assistance ; exerts for him all the little service in his 
“ power with cheerfulness and pleasure ; for him bears famine and fatigue with 
‘ ‘ patience and resignation ; no injuries can abate his fidelity, no distress induce 
‘ ‘ him to forsake his benefactor; studious to please, and fearing to offend, he is 
“ still an humble stedfast dependant; and in him alone fawning is not flattery. 

I + 1,00 loff Too fsvract 



again contend with, their Pollys and Macheaths, and tire 
the town with perpetual Beggars’ Operas. Merry and 
fashionable crowds repeople White Conduit and Yauxliall. 
We get occasional glimpses of even the stately commoner 
and his unstately ducal associate. Old George the Second 
dies, and young George the Third ascends the throne. 
Churchill makes his hit with the Rosciacl; and Sterne, 
having startled the town with the humour and extrava¬ 
gance of his Tristram Shandy , comes up from country quiet 
to enjoy popularity. 

How sudden and decisive it was, need not be related. 
No one was so talked of in London this year, and no one 
so admired, as that tall, thin, hectic-looking Yorkshire 
parson. He who was to die within eight years, unheeded 
and untended, in a common lodging-house, was every¬ 
where the honoured guest of the rich and noble. His 
book had become a fashion, and east and west were moved 
alike. Mr. Dodsley offered him 650Z. for a second edition 
and two more volumes; Lord Falconberg gave him a 
curacy of 150Z. a-year ; Mr. Reynolds painted his portrait; 
and Warburton, not having yet pronounced him an “ irre- 

coverable scoundrel,” went round to the bishops and told 
them he was the English Rabelais. “ They had never 
“ heard of such a writer,” adds the sly narrator of the 
incident.* “ One is invited to dinner where he dines,” said 
Gray, “ a fortnight beforehand: ” t and he was boasting, 

* Walpole’s Coll. Lett. iv. 39. 

■f Letter to Wharton, 22<1 April, 1760. Works, iii. 241. In another letter to 

Wha •tull. two m nths later, he Writes. w‘ ,h Lis is ml rrmnlv nimreeintinn of .ill tlmt. 


Perliaps lie referred to Goldsmith, from whose garret in 
Green Arbour Court the first heavy blow was levelled at 
him; but there were other assailants, as active though less 
avowed, in cellars of Arlington-street and garrets of Straw¬ 
berry-hill. Walpole may yet more easily be forgiven than 
Goldsmith in such a case. The attack in the Citizen of the 
World was aimed, it is true, where the work was most 
vulnerable ; * and it was not ill done to protest against the 
indecency and affectation, which doubtless had largely con¬ 
tributed to the so sudden popularity, as they found promptest 
imitators;—but the humour and wit ought surely to have been 
admitted ; and if the wisdom and charity of an uncle Toby, 
a Mr. Shandy, or a corporal Trim, might anywhere have 
claimed trank and immediate recognition, it should have 
been in that series of essays which Beau Tibbs and the 
Man in Black have helped to make immortal. 

Most charming are these two characters. Addison would 


“ the two future volumes with pleasure. Have you read his sermons (with his 
“ own comic figure at the head of them) ? They are in the style, I think, most 
“ proper for the pulpit, and show a very strong imagination and a sensible heart. 
“ But you see him often tottering on the verge of laughter, and ready to throw his 
“ periwig in the face of his audience.” iii. 251. 

* “If a bawdy blockhead thus breaks in on the community, he sets his whole 
‘ ‘ fraternity in a roar; nor can he escape, even though he should fly to the nobility for 
‘ ‘ shelter .” Citizen of the World, Letter Lvxv. The sarcasm of this may be forgiven, 
since Goldsmith showed always an honest and high-minded dislike of all coarseness, 
all approach to even sensnal allusions, in his own writings ; but why blockhead ? 
except indeed in the sense that the man who resorts to such, may be held so far 
to open himself to the imputation expressed by Roscommon’s couplet, so often 
given to Pope,— 

‘ ‘ Immodest words admit of no defence, 

For want of decency is waut of seuso.” 



togeuiei W1WI JUlOle jJltiJ'AUl wxu, ux a ixxuxo luxillcx ovveeuieBS. 

Fielding’s majestic major, who will hear of nothing less 
than the honour and dignity of a man, and is caught in an 
old woman’s bedgown warming his sick sister’s posset, is 
not a nobler specimen of manhood than the one; Steele’s 
friend at the trumpet club, that very insignificant fellow but 
exceeding gracious, who has but a bare subsistence yet is 
always promising to introduce you into the world, who answers 
to matters of no consequence with great circumspection, 
maintains an insolent benevolence to all whom he has to do 
with, and will desire one of ten times his substance to let 
him see him sometimes, hinting that he does not forget him, 
is not more delicious in his vanity than the other. The 
country ramble of the Man in Black, wherein, to accompani¬ 
ment of the most angry invective, he performs acts of the 
most exquisite charity; where with harsh loud voice he 
denounces the poor, while with wistful compassionate face 
he relieves them; where, by way of detecting imposture, he 
domineeringly buys a shilling’s worth of matches, receives 
the astonished beggar’s whole bundle and blessing, and, 
intimating that he has taken in the seller and shall make 
money of his bargain, bestows them next moment on a 
tramper with an objurgation; is surely never to he read 
unmoved. For Beau Tibbs, who has not laughed at and 
loved him, from the first sorry glimpse of his faded finery ? * 
Who has not felt, in the airs of wealth and grandeur with 

* “His hat was pinched up with peculiar smartness; his looks were pale, 
“ thin, and sharp ; round his neck he wore a hroad black ribbon, and in his 
“ bosom a buckle studded with glass ; bis coat was trimmed with tarnished twist; 



thorough enjoyment, which all the real wealth might have 
purchased cheaply ? AATiat would his friends Lords Muddler 
and Crump, the Duchess of Piccadilly or the Countess of 
Allnight, have given for it ? Gladly, for hut a tithe of it, 
might the lords have put up with his two shirts, and uncom¬ 
plainingly the ladies assisted Mrs. Tibbs, and her sweet 
pretty daughter Carolina AVilhelmina Amelia, in seeing them 
through the wash-tub. It is an elegant little dinner he talks of 
giving his friend, with bumpers of wine, a turbot, an ortolan, 
and what not: but who would not as soon have had the smart 
bottled-beer which was all he had to give, with the nice 
pretty bit of ox-cheek, piping-hot, and dressed with a little 
of Mrs. Tibbs’s own sauce which “ his grace ” was so fond 
of? It is supposed that this exquisite sketch had a living 
original in one of Goldsmith’s casual acquaintance ; a person 
named Thornton, once in the army. 

This is not improbable, any more than that the beau's two 
shirts might have been copied from Goldsmith’s own; for 
everywhere throughout the Letters actual incidents appear, 
and the “ fairy tale ” of the prince and the white mouse had 
an origin whimsical as the story itself. Mr. Newbery’s two 
guineas a-week would seem to have attracted weekly levies, 
in a double sense, from Grub-street (when was there ever a 
good-natured Irishman with five shillings in his pocket, and 
any lack of Irish hangers-on to share the spoil ?), at which 
Pilkington, son of the notorious Lsetitia, was most assiduous. 
But with other than his usual begging aspect, he appeared 
in Green Arbour Court one day; for good luck had dawned 


ready to offer the most extravagant price for. Aware of her 
grace’s weakness, he had long ago implored of a friend 
going out to India to procure him, if possible, two white 
mice, and here they were actually arrived; they were in the 
river at that moment, having come by an Indiaman, now in 
the docks; and the small sum, to which allusion had been 
made, was all that now stood between Jack Pilkington and 
independence for life ! Yes ; all he wanted was two guineas, 
to buy a cage for the creatures sufficiently handsome to be 
received by a duchess;—but what was to be done, for Gold¬ 
smith had only half a guinea ? The anxious client then 
pointed to a watch, with which his poor patron (indulging in 
a luxury which Johnson did not possess till he was sixty) had 
lately enriched himself; deferentially suggested one week’s 
loan as a solution of the difficulty; and carried it off.* And 
though Goldsmith never again had tidings of either, or of 

* Cooke tells the story as one •which Goldsmith used himself to tell very humour¬ 
ously ; informing us, however, that even Goldsmith’s credulity could not he at 
first imposed upon hy so preposterous a flam. But Jack was prepared for the 
worst, and he instantly produced his friend’s letter advising of the shipping of the 
white mice, their size, qualities, &c. which so entirely convinced the Doctor of the 
fact, that he wished him joy of it. “ ‘ How much will a cage cost ? ’ said Gold- 
“ smith, upon this. ‘ About two guineas ,’ replied Pilkington. ‘ In truth, Jack, 
“ ‘ then you’re out of luck, for I have got hut half-a-guinea in the world.’ ‘ Ay, 
“ ‘hut my dear Doctor,’ continues Pilkington, ‘ you have got a watch, and though 
“ ‘I would rather die than propose such an indelicacy upon any other occasion than 
“ ‘the present, if you could let me have that, I could pawn it across the way for 
“ ‘two guineas, and he able to repay you, with heartfelt gratitude, in a few days.’ 
“ This last bait took poor Goldsmith fully on the hook ; he confidently gave him 
“ his watch, which he was some months after obliged to take up himself, without 
“ hearing anything more of his friend or the success of his white mice. The Doctor 
“ used to tell this story with some humour, and never without an eulogium on the 
“ingenuity of Pilkington, who could take him in after such experience of his 
“ shifts and contrivances.” European Magazine, xxiv. 259-60. 



“ P—Ik—g—on was endeavouring to raise money,”—yet a 
messenger, not long afterwards, carried to tire poor starving 
creature's death-bed “ a guinea from Mr. Goldsmith.” 

The same journal (by the favour of an old friend, Ivenrick) 
described for the public at the same time an amusing 
adventure in "White-conduit gardens, of which no other 
than “ Mr. G—d—th ” himself was the hero. Strolling 
through that scene of humble holiday, he seems to have met 
the wife and two daughters of an honest tradesman who had 
done him some service, and invited them to tea ; but after 
much enjoyment of the innocent repast, he discovered a want 
of money to discharge the bill, and had to undergo some 
ludicrous annoyances, and entertain his friends at other 
expense than he had bargained for, before means were found 
for his release. Another contemporary anecdote reverses 
this picture a little, and exhibits him paymaster, at the 
Chapter-coffee-house, for Churchill’s friend Charles Lloyd, 
who in his careless way, without a shilling to pay for the 
entertainment, had invited him to sup with some friends of 
Grub-street.* A third incident of the same date presents 


* Cooke tells this story pleasantly enough, and I think it worth quoting, with 
some obvious and unimportant corrections rendered necessary by its date. “Gold- 
“ smith sitting one morning at the Chapter-coffee-house, Lloyd came up to him 
“ with great frankness, and asked him how he did? Goldsmith, who certainly 
£< was a very modest man, seeing a stranger accost him so intimately, shrunk back 
“ a little, and returned his inquiries with an air of distant civility. ‘ Pho ! pho ! ’ 
“ says Lloyd, ‘ my name is Lloyd, and you are Mr. Goldsmith, and, though not 
“ ‘ formally introduced to one another, we should be acquainted as brother poets and 
“ ‘ literary men ; therefore, without any ceremony, will you sup -with me this 
“ 1 evening at this house, where you will meet half-a-dozen honest fellows, who, 
“ ‘ I think, will please you.’ Goldsmith, who admired the frankness of the 
“ introduction, immediately accepted. The party, w'liich principally consisted of 


“ "Why, sir,” said Johnson laughing, when Boswell told 
some years later of a different kind of fracas in which 1 
friend had been engaged, “ I believe it is the first tim 
“ has beat; he may have been beaten before. This, sir, 
“ new plume to him.” If the somewhat doubtful sur: 
of the beating be correct, the scene of it was Black's 
and if (a surmise still more doubtful) the story Haw 
tells about the trick played off by Roubiliac, which lik 
such tricks tells against both the parties to it, be also • 
this was the time when it happened. The “ little ” scul; 
as he is called in the Chinese Letters, being a fan 
acquaintance, and fond of music, Goldsmith would plaj 
flute for him; and to such assumed delight on the pa: 
his listener did he do this one day, that Roubiliac, prote: 
he must copy the air upon the spofe took up a sheet of pi 
scored a few lines and spaces (the form of the notes heir 
he knew of the matter), and with random blotches prete: 
to take down the time as repeated by the good-nat 
musician; while gravely, and with great attention, Goldsi 
surveying these musical hieroglyphics, “ said they 
“ very correct, and that if he had not seen him do i 


“ his voice was heard rather loud in the adjoining passage, in conversatioi 
“the master of the house. Goldsmith immediately flew to his new fri< 
“ inquire what was the matter; when he found Lloyd in vain attempting ti 
“ to an understanding with the landlord, who, protesting that already he 
“ more than 14 1, swore that nothing should induce him to take either hi 
“ or his note for the reckoning. ‘ Pho ! pho!’ says Goldsmith, ‘mydea 
“ ‘ let’s have no more words about the mattex-, ’tis not the first time a gen 
“ 1 wanted cash; will you accept my word for the reckoning?’ The la 
“assented. ‘Why then,’ says Lloyd, whispering to him and forgetti 

“ animosities. ‘ send in an nt.tipr rant. r>f wind n-nrl nrlrl if n fUa XU 11 » T 


tow upon liis friends, yet with an innocent conceit of 
tending to the science of music, gives great delight to 
ipous Hawkins, as a learned historian of crotchets and 
vers. It seems more than probable, notwithstanding, 
fc there is not a syllable of truth in the story * 

>o passed the thoughtless life of Goldsmith in his first 
r of success: if so may be called the scanty pittance 
ch served to expose his foibles, but not to protect him 
a their consequence. So may his life be read in these 
ters to the Public Ledger ; and still with the comment 
pleasure and instruction for others, though at the cost of 
ering to himself. His habits as well as thoughts are in 
n. He is at the theatre, enjoying Garrick’s Abel Dnigger 
laughing at all who call it “ low; ” a little tired of Polly 
Macheath; t not at all interested by the famous and 


I quote an address “to the Philological Society of London,” on Sir John 
kins’s Life of Johnson, published in May 17S7. “The writer of this is 
juainted with a gentleman who knew Goldsmith well, and has often requested 
n to play different pieces from music which he laid before him; and this, 
ldsmith has done with accuracy and precision, while the gentleman, who is 
self musical, looked over him; a circumstauce utterly impossible, if we admit 
* foolish story related by Sir John Hawkins of Roubiliac’s imposition on 
ldsmith.” Nor can I help thinking that this explicit contradiction is strongly 
.enanced by his essay on the different schools of music (written for Smollett’s 
zine in 1760), and still more by the notes which (“ iu so much respect were 
i talents then held, though he had not obtained celebrity, but lived in an 
scure lodging in Green Arbour Court,” &c.) Smollett permitted him to append 
s remonstrance of a correspondent against that essay. The notes ( Mhcell. 
:s, i. 176) possess great merit, and show' a larger amount of knowledge in ready 
lian Goldsmith generally was able to display. 

The allusion, however, implies no envy of the popularity of this piece of 
ne wit, as unfriendly critics have implied. The complaint expressly is that 
lg women, instead of singing for the public, should be allowed to “sing at 
h other,” and nothing but the same song. “What! Polly and the Pick- 


his way home alter ail is over, tnrougn. a nunareci oosti 
from coach-wheels and palanquin-poles, “ like a bird ii 
“ flight through the branches of a forest.” He is a visit* 
the humble pot-house clubs, whose follies and enjoymen 
moralises with touching pleasantry. “ Were I to be a 
“ at men for being fools, I could here have found ai 
“ room for declamation; but, alas ! I have been a 
“ myself, and why should I be angry with them for 1 
“ something so natural to every child of humanity.” 
sparing historian of this folly of his own, he conceals 
imprudence as little as his poverty; and his kind lieai 
has not the choice to conceal. Everywhere it betrays i 
In hours of depression, recalling the disastrous fate of 
of genius, and “ mighty poets in their misery dead; 

“ pocket to-night, Polly and the Pickpocket to-moiTOw night, and Polly a 
“ Pickpocket again ! I want patience. I will hear no more.” Goldsmith t 
part whatever in a graver outcry which was afterwards levelled against 
masterpiece, and which at last, the year before his death, took the form 
application from the magistrates of Bow-street to request the managers of 
Lane and Covent Garden “ not to exhibit this opera, deeming it productive i 
“ chief to society.” Peake’s Memoirs of the Oohnans; i. 317. 

* All the tumblers,he says, with a sarcastic humour that may be forgive 
in his garret, “from the wonderful dog of knowledge, at present und 
“ patronage of the nobility, down to the man with the box, who professes ti 
“ ‘the best imitation of nature that was ever seen,’ they all live in 1 
“ A singing-woman shall collect subscriptions in her own coacli-aud-six ; a 
‘ 1 shall make a fortune by tossing a straw from his toe to his nose ; one in pai 
“ has found that eating fire was the most x-eady way to live ; and anotb 
“ gingles several bells fixed to his cap, is the only man that I know of w 
“ received emolument from the labours of his head.” Letter xlv. The ch 
encouragement, now-a-days, Goldsmith had before remarked bitterly—and ho 
since has the same thought occurred to a struggling man of letters !—lies 
the head, but in the heels. “ One who jumps up and flourishes his toe 
“ times before he comes to the ground, may have three hundred a year ; 

“ flourishes them four times, gets four hundred; but he who arrives at 
“ inestimable anc mav demaxn what. » +u,r,Xrc! uv, 


warning them of the danger of despising each other; and, in 
rarer periods of perfect self-reliance, rising to a lofty 
superiority above the temporary accidents around him, 
asserting the power and claims of men of letters, and 
denouncing the short-sightedness of statesmen. “ Instead 
‘‘ of complaining that winters are over-paid, when their works 
“ procure them a bare subsistence, I should imagine it the 
;i duty of a state, not only to encourage their numbers, but 
“ their industry. . . "Whatever be the motives which induce 
“ men to write, whether avarice or fame, the country becomes 
“ most wise and happy, in which they most serve for 
“ instructors. The countries where sacerdotal instruction 
“ alone is permitted, remain in ignorance, superstition, and 
“ hopeless slavery. In England, where there are as many 
“ new books published as in all the rest of Europe together, a 
“ spirit of freedom and reason reigns among the people : they 
“ have been often known to act like fools, they are generally 
“ found to think like men.” * At the close of the same paper 
he rises into a pathetic eloquence while pleading for those 
who have thus served and instructed England; men “ whom 
“ nature has blest with talents above the rest of mankind; 
“ men capable of thinking with precision, and impressing 
“ their thoughts with rapidity; beings who diffuse those 
“ regards upon mankind, which others contract and settle 
“ upon themselves. These deserve every honour from that 
“ community of which they are more peculiarly the children; 
“ to such I would give my heart, since to them I am indebted 
“ for its humanity! ” In another letter the subject is more 


siBieuce , me i y xitivc jj-uw uu ~ ^ i- ,t 

“ and the public, collectively considered, is a good a 
“ generous master. It is, indeed, too frequently mist 
“ as to the merits of every candidate for favour; but to ] 
“ amends, it is never mistaken long. . . A man of lette 
“ present, whose works are valuable, is perfectly sensib 
“ their value. Every polite member of the communit 
“ buying what he writes, contributes to reward him. 

“ ridicule, therefore, of living in a garret, might have 
“ wit in the last age, but continues such no longer, be* 
“ no longer true.” * 

The quiet composure of this passage exhibits the heall 
aspect of his mind. Bookseller and public are confn 
calmly, and the consequences fairly challenged. It is ii 
very obvious, at the close of this first year of the I 
Ledger , that increasing opportunities of employment (t 
nothing of the constant robbery of his writings by ] 
magazine-men) were really teaching him his value, 
suggesting hopes he had not earlier dared to entertain, 
resumed his connection with the Lady's Magazine. 
became its editor: publishing in it, among other wr: 
known and unknown, what he' had written of his L 
Voltaire; and retiring from its editorship at the close 
year, when he had raised its circulation (if Mr. Wi 
advertisements are to be believed) to three thousand 
hundred. He continued his contributions, meanwhile, 1 
British Magazine; from which he was not wholly seps 
till two months before poor Smollett, pining for the 1 
his only daughter, went upon the continent (in 1763) 


English Poets alphabetically displayed ; + and lie gave some 
papers (among them a Li fe of Christ and Lives of the Fathers, 
re-published with his name, in shilling pamphlets, a few 
months after his death) to a so-called Christian Magazine, 
undertaken by Newbery in connection with the macaroni 
parson Dodd, and conducted by that villainous pretender as 
an organ of fashionable divinity. 

It seems to follow as of course upon these engagements, 
that the room in Green Arbour Court should at last be 
exchanged for one of greater comfort. He had left that 
place in the later months of 1760, and gone into what were 
called respectable lodgings in "Wine Office Court, Fleet- 
street. The house belonged to a relative of Newbery’s, and 
he occupied two rooms in it for nearly two years. 

* Of course these prefaces were always strictly taskwork. To seek to connect 
them in any way with the work prefaced, would he generally labour in vain. The 
moral of them is in a remark of Johnson’s, when Boswell, admiring greatly his 
preface to Rolfs Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, asked him whether he knew 
much of Bolt and of his work. “Sir,’’ said Johnson, “I never saw the man, and 
“ never read the book. The booksellers wanted a Preface to a Dictionary of Trade 
‘ ‘ and Commerce. I knew very well what such a Dictionary should be, and I wrote 
“ a Preface accordingly.” Boswell, ii. 125. 

h Mr. Crossley possesses a copy of this selection, which is rare and very little 
known, and says of it (Notes and Queries, v. 534) that “the preface is evidently 
“ -written by Goldsmith, and with his usual elegance and spirit; and the selection 
“ which follows is one of the best that has ever yet been made.” 



CHAPTER V. 


FELLOWSHIP WITH JOHNSON. 

1761-1762. 

A circumstance occurred in the new abode of which Gold¬ 
smith had now taken possession in Wine Office Court, which 
must have endeared it always to his remembrance ; but more 
deeply associated with the wretched habitation he had left 
behind him in Green Arbour Court, were days of a most 
forlorn misery as well as of a manly resolution, and, round 
that beggarly dwelling (“ the shades,” as he used to call it 
in the more prosperous aftertime), and all connected with 
it, there crowded to the last the kindest memories of his 
gentle and true nature. Thus, when bookseller Davies tells 
us, after his death, how tender and compassionate he was ; 
how no unhappy person ever sued to him for relief without 
obtaining it, if he had anything to give ; and how he would 
borrow, rather than not relieve the distressed,—he adds that 
“ the poor woman with whom he had lodged during his 
“ obscurity, several years in Green Arbour Court, by his 
“ death lost an excellent friend; for the Doctor often sup- 
“ plied her with food from his own table, and visited her 
“ frequently, with the sole purpose to be kind to her.” * As 



tu lUigCU Ulilt VUllll^UU. UUW -LLL o b \lSiLCU iJJJJLl LiUJlc. 

Ley had probably met before. I have shown bow 
ently the thoughts of Goldsmith vibrated to that great 
-street figure of independence and manhood, which, in 
;e not remarkable for either, was undoubtedly presented 

2 person of the author of the English Dictionary. One 
ie last Chinese Letters had again alluded to the 
msons and Smolletts ” as veritable poets, though they 
t never have made a verse in their whole lives; and 
g the earliest greetings of the new essay-writer, I suspect 
Johnson’s would be found. The opinion expressed in his 
•ous question of a few years later (“ Is there a man, sir, 
r, who can pen an essay with such ease and elegance as 
Ldsmith ? ” *) he was not the man to wait for the world to 
lira to. Himself connected with Newbery, and engaged 
re occupation, the new adventurer wanted his helping 

and would be therefore sure to have it; nor, if it had 
)een a hearty one, is Mr. Percy likely to have busied 
elf to bring about the present meeting. It was arranged 
at learned divine; and this was the first time, he says, 
.d seen them together. The day fixed was the 31st of 
1761, and Goldsmith gave a supper in Wine Office 
t in honour of his visitor. 

rcy called to take up Johnson at Inner Temple Lane, 
ound him, to his great astonishment, in a marked con- 
of studied neatness; without his rusty brown suit or 
filed shirt, his loose knee-breeches, his unbuckled shoes, 

3 old little shrivelled unpowdered wig; and not at all 

>ctor Farr was dining -with Reynolds the year before Goldsmith’s death, 


scenes on tlie first of the nine nights of Irene, in a scarlet 
gold-laced waistcoat, and rich gold-laced hat. In fact, says 
Percy, “ he had on a new suit of clothes, a new wig nicely 
“ powdered, and everything about him so perfectly dissimilar 
“ from his usual habits and appearance, that his companion 
“ could not help enquiring the cause of this singular trans¬ 
formation. ‘Why, sir/ said Johnson, ‘I hear that Gold- 
“ ‘smith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard 
“ ‘ of cleanliness and decency by quoting my practice ; and 
“‘lam desirous this night to show him a better example.’ ” * 
The example was not lost, as extracts from tailors’ bills will 
shortly show; and tlie anecdote, which offers pleasant proof of 
the interest already felt by Johnson for his new acquaintance, 
is our only record connected with that memorable supper. 
It had no Boswell-historian, and is gone into oblivion. But 
the friendship which dates from it will never pass away. 


* Percy Memoir, 62, 63. Campbell, writing to Percy about this anecdote when 
arranging the Memoir, says, “ The anecdote of Johnson I had recollected, but had 
“ forgot that it was at Goldsmith’s you were to sup. The story of the Valet de 
“ Chambre will, as Lord Bristol says, fill the basket of his absurdities; and 
“really we may have a hamper full of them.” Nichols's Illustrations, vii. 780. 
Unfortunately the anecdote of the Valet de Chambre has not emerged. To another 
anecdote, also unluckily lost, Campbell refers in a previous letter to Percy 
{Ibid, 779). “ One thing, however, I could wish, if it met your approbation, that 
“ I had before me some hints respecting the affair of Goldsmith and Perrot: it 
“ may, without giving offence, be related ; at least so as to embellish the work, 
“ by showing more of Goldsmith’s character, which he himself has fairly drawn : 
“ ‘ fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future, his sentiments those of a 
“ 1 man of sense, his actions those of a fool; of fortitude able to stand unmoved 
“ ‘ at the bursting of an earthquake, yet of sensibility to be affected by the breaking 
“ ‘ of a tea-cup. 5 ” To which, in a later letter (781) this is added : “Your 
“ sketch of Sir Richard Perrot will come in as an episode towards the conclusion, 
“ with good effect; but there, neither that nor anything that can sully, shall 
“ . 1 ,nn par as eominv from vnn ” Sn t.Tia T> Q ™.n+ To «,1 oa Wf +n a UooVof 


London among the booksellers.” * The booksellers were 
ttle mark in Milton’s days ; but the presence of such 
among them began a social change important to both, 
not ill expressed in an incident of the days I am 
ribing, when Horace Walpole met the wealthy represen- 
e of the profits of Paradise Lost at a great party at the 
iker’s, while Johnson was appealing to public charity 
he last destitute descendant of Milton. But from the 
existing compact between trade and letters, the popular 
ient could not wholly be excluded; and, to even the 
iest drudge, hope was a part of it. From the loopholes 
aternoster Row, he could catch glimpses of the world, 
ro bill had emerged, and Sterne, for a few biief years; 
but that Johnson had sunk into idleness, he might have 
. reaping a harvest more continuous than theirs, and yet 
dependent on the trade. Drudgery is not good, but 
uy and falsehood are worse ; and it had become plain to 
Isrnith, even since the days of the Enquiry, how much 
ir it was for men of letters to live by the labour of their 
Is till more original labour became popular with trading 
ms, than to wait with their hands across, as Johnson 
emptuously described it, till great men came to feed 
l.f Whatever the call that Newbery or any other 


odd’s Milton, vii. 176-7. And see Aubrey’s Letters and Lives , ii. 285, 440. 
the “ infamous Gill ” whose “ railing rhymes ” against himself Ben Jonson 
o much reason bitterly abuses. See them in Wood’s Athence Qxonienses 
813) ii, 597-8 ; but incorrectly attributed to Gill’s father, whom he succeeded 
ster of St. Paul’s. 

)ccasions for observing with what cheerful acquiescence Goldsmith hereafter 
ed these relations of author and bookseller, will frequently occur. According 


attracted to liis Chinese Letters; and that he was 
slaving altogether without hope. 

1762. His first undertaking in 1762 was a pamphlet on the C 

Jit. 34. Lane Ghost, for which Newbery paid him three guin 
hut whether, with Johnson, he thought the impudent 
posture worth grave enquiry; or, with Hogarth, turned 
wise purposes of satire; or only laughed at it, as Cliur 
did; the pamphlet has not with certainty survived to ini 
us.* His next labour, which has been attributed to hin 
the authority of “ several personal acquaintances,” f was 
revision of a History of Mechlenburgh from the first settlei 
of the Vandals in that country, which the settlement of 
young Queen Charlotte in this country was expecte( 
make popular; and for which, according to his ordii 
rates of payment, he would have received £20. This 
have been that first great advance “ hi a lump ” w 
seemed to his monied inexperience a sum so enormoi 
to require the grandest schemes for disposing of it. t 
a subsequent payment of £10, he assisted Newbery wit] 
Art of Poetry on a New Plan, or in other words, a < 
pilation of poetical extracts; and concurrently with 
Mr. Newbery begged leave to offer to the young gentle 

* A pamphlet on the subject published by Bristow, who was a neiglibi 
Newber/s and with whom he had occasional connexion, has been assumed 
that for which Goldsmith was paid ; and Mr. Orossley, who possesses a copy c 
pamphlet, says ( Notes and Queries, v. 77) that he thinks the beginninj 
conclusion, “though evidently written in haste, are not without mar 
“ Goldsmith’s serious and playful manner.” Of course all this can only b 
jecture, but it is at the least very unlikely that Newbery should have de 
to issue what he had consented to pay Goldsmith for writing; and that B 

rmblioliA/l _x ~ * f y~t y t • r -» /•* , it 


i msiory oi me lives oi mose great personages, DOtn 
nt and modem, who are most worthy of their esteem and 
,tion, and most likely to inspire their minds with a love of 
3 ; for which offering to the juvenile mind, beginning with 
uidgment of Plutarch, he was to pay Goldsmith at the 
if about eight pounds a volume. The volumes were brief, 
bed monthly, and meant to have gone through many 
s if the scheme had thriven; hut it fell before Dilly's 
sh Plutarch, and perished with the seventh volume, 
r did it run without danger even this ignoble career. 
5s fell upon the compiler in the middle of the fifth 
le. “ Deai’ Sir,” he wrote to Newbery, “ As I have 
n out of order for some time past, and am still not 
te recovered, the fifth volume of Plutarch’s Lives 
lains unfinished. I fear I shall not be able to do it 
ess there be an actual necessity, and that none else can 
found. If therefore you would send it to Mr. Collier, 
liould esteem it a kindness, and I will pay for whatever 
aay come to. N.B. I received twelve guineas for the 
i volumes. I am, Sir, Your obliged, humble servant, 
rvEB, Goldsmith. Pray let me have an answer.” The 
3r was not favourable. Twelve guineas had been ad- 
id, the two volumes were due, and Mr. Collier, though 
genious man, was not Mr. Goldsmith. “ Sh’,” returned 
itter coldly, “ One volume is done, namely the fourth. 
Len I said I should be glad Mr. Collier would do 
fifth for me, I only demanded it as a favour; but if 
cannot conveniently do it, though I have kept my 
niber these three weeks, and am not quite recovered, 


Mr. Collier, to whom a share of the pittance advanced 
of course to be returned. * 

These paltry advances are a hopeless entanglement. *] 
bar freedom of judgment on anything proposed, and es 
is felt to be impossible. Some days, some weeks perl 
have been lost in idleness or illness; the future becom 
mortgage to the past; every hour has its want, forest 
upon the labour of the succeeding hour; and Gullivei 
bound in Lilliput. “ Sir,” said Johnson, who had exce 
experience on this head, “you may escape a heavy debt 
“ not a small one. Small debts are like small shot; 

“ are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be esc 
“ without a wound. Great debts are like cannon, of 
“ noise but little danger.”! 

Mention of Goldsmith’s illness now frequently re 
It originated in the habits of his London life, contra 
with the activity and movement they had replaced; am 
remedy prescribed was change of scene, if change of life 
impossible. He is to be traced in this year to Tunb: 
and Bath; I find him known to Mr. Wood, whose solic 
tasteful architecture was ennobling the latter city ; an( 
of Mr. Newbery’s pithy acknowledgments is connected 
those brief residences, where the improbus labor hac 
failed to follow him. “ Received from Mr. Newbej 
“ different times, and for which gave receipts, fou 

* Prior, i. 391—393. Mr. Newbery’s grandson appears to have collec 
such papers as he could find of his grandfather’s, throwing light on Gold; 
connexion with him; and to these I shall have frequent occasion to refer 



rated Beau liad suggested a subject, Avliicli, with 
ents in its comedy of manners that recommended it to 
of wit in our own day, had some to recommend it to 
smith. The king of fashion had at least the oddity of a 
; and sufficient harmlessness, not to say usefulness, to 
; him original among heroes and kings. It is a clever 
; and as one examines the original edition with its 234 
Ly pages, still not uncommon on the book-stalls, it 
irs quite a surprising performance for fourteen guineas, 
ame was on the title page; * but the writer, whose powers 
so vaiious and performance so felicitous, “that he 
r ays seemed to do best that which he was doing,” finds 
fieult not to reveal his name. The preface was dis- 
ngly written. That a man who had diffused society 
nade manners more cheerful and refined, should have 
ls to attention from his own age, while his pains in 
ring pleasure, and his solemnity in adjusting trifles, 
a claim to even a smile from posterity, was so set forth 
reassure the stateliest reader; and if somewhat thrown 
by the biographer’s bolder announcement in the open- 
if his book, that a page of Montaigne or Colley Cibber 
, orth more than the most grandiose memoirs of “ im- 
rtal statesmen already forgotten,” he had but to remern- 
ifter how many years of uninterrupted power the old 
3 of Newcastle had just resigned, to think that as grave 

ivies and otliers speak of tlie book as Goldsmith's, wliick it was generally 
to be at tlie time ; Percy of course assigns it to him in tbe Memoir (63) ; 
e cleverness of its treatment, with its touches of ‘ 1 knavish subtleties and 
punctious visitings *’ in the letter of the highway rogue, Poulter alias Baxter, 


and it is difficult not to connect some points of the bit 
pliers own history with its oddly mixed anecdotes of sill 
and shrewdness, taste and tawdriness, blossom-colc 
coats and gambling debts, vanity, carelessness, and £ 
heartedness. The latter quality in its hero was foiled 
want of prudence which deprived it of half its value : 
the extenuation is so frequently and so earnestly set for 
connexion with the fault, as, with what we now kno 
the writer, to convey a sort of uneasy personal refer 
Eemembering, indeed, that what we know now was not 
unknown then, but even waiting for what remained of ( 
smith’s life to develop and call it forth, this Life of . 
Nash is in some respects a curious, and was probabl 
unconscious, revelation of character. Hitherto carelei 
his wardrobe, and unknown to the sartorial books of 
William Filby, he gravely discusses the mechanical 
moral influence of dress, in the exaction of respect 
esteem. Quite ignorant, as yet, of his own position ai 
the remarkable men of his time, he dwells strongly on 
class of impulsive virtues, which, in a man otherwise 
tinguisked, are more adapted to win friends than adm: 
and more capable of raising love than esteem. A str£ 
still to the London whist table, even to the moderate e: 
in which he subsequently sought its excitement and r 
he sets forth with singular pains the temptation of a 
who has “ led' a life of expedients and thanked chanc 
“ his support,” to become a stranger to prudence, an 
back to chance for those “vicissitudes of ranture 


though very poor, was very fine, and spread out the little 
gold he had as thinly and far as it would go,'* hut whose 
poverty was the more to he regretted, that it denied him the 
indulgence not only of his favourite follies, hut of his 
favourite virtues; who had pity for every creature’s distress, 
hut wanted prudence in the application of Iris benefits, and 
in whom this ill-controlled sensibility was so strong, that, 
unable to witness the misfortunes of the miserable, he was 
always borrowing money to relieve them; who had not¬ 
withstanding done a thousand good things, and whose 
greatest vice was vanity.f The self-painted picture will 
appear more striking as this narrative proceeds; and it 
would seem to have the same sort of unconscious relation to 
the future, that one of Nash’s friends is mentioned in the 
hook to have gone by the name of The Good-natured Man. 
Nor should I omit the casual evidence of acquaintanceship 
between its hero and his biographer that occurs in a lively 
notice of the three periods of amatory usage which the beau’s 
long life had witnessed, and in which not only had flaxen 
hobs been succeeded by majors, and negligents been routed 
by hags and ramifies, but the modes of making love had 
varied as much as the periwigs. “ The only way to make 
“ love now, I have heard Mr. Nash say, was to take no 
“ manner of notice of the lady.” t 

* Life, 9, 14. The passage suggests the original of Beau Tibbs, 
f Life, 104-119. 

XLife, 75. ‘ 1 1 have hn/jwn Mm, ” h e remarks in another passage, “on a ball-night 

“ strip even the dutchess of Q-, and throw her apron at one of the hinder 

“ benches among the ladies’ women; observing that none but Abigails appeared in 



book-purchases were never abundant; though better s 
afford them now than at any previous time, for the I 
this year had seen a change in his fortunes. Bute’s pe: 
to his Scottish crew showing meaner than ever in Ohm 
daring verse, it occurred to the shrewd and wary W 
burne (whose sister had married the favourite’s most in 
friend) to advise, for a set-off, that Samuel Johnson ; 
be pensioned. Of all the wits at the Grecian or the Be 
Arthur Murphy, who had been some months fight! 
North Briton with the Auditor, and was now watch! 
Courts at Westminster preparatory to his first circ 
the following year, was best known to Bute’s rising k 
and Arthur was sent to Johnson. It was an “ ab< 
“ wretchedness,” said this messenger of glad tidings, di 
ing on his return those rooms of Inner Temple Lane 
a visitor of some months before had found the author 
Rambler and Rasselas, now fifty-three years old, v 
pen, ink, or paper, “ in poverty, total idleness, and tin 
“ of literature.” Yet great as was the poverty, and g] 
tidings, a shade passed over Johnson’s face. After 
pause, “ he asked if it was seriously intended.” Undou 
His majesty, to reward literary merit, and with no 

“ white aprons . . . and the good-natured dutcliess acquiesced in his cense 
I cannot help adding one more passage of very unconscious and most 
self-revelation. “ The business of love somewhat resembles the business c 
“ no matter for qualifications, he that mates vigorous pretensions to 
“ surest of success. Nature had by no means favoured Mr. Nash foi 
“ Gargon; his person was clumsy, too large, and awkward, and his featiu 
“strong, and peculiarly irregular; yet, even with these disadvantages, 
“ love, became an universal admirer, and was universally admired. 


mgh tlie premier his pleasure to grant to Samuel 
nson three hundred pounds a year. “ He fell into a 
nfound meditation, and liis own definition of a pensioner 
:eurred to him.’’ He was told that “ he, at least, did not 
me within the definitionbut it was not till after dinner 
t Murphy at the Mitre on the following day, that he 
sented to wait on Bute and accept the proffered bounty.* 
be pensioned noth the fraudulent and contemptible 
bbeare, so lately pilloried for a Jacobite libel on the Re- 
ition of ’88 ; to find himself in the same Bute-list with a 
tch court-architect, with a Scotch court-painter, with the 
mous David Mallet, and with Johnny Home, must have 
? ed Sam Johnson's pride a little; and when, in a few 
e months, as author of another English Dictionary, old 
rid an the actor received two hundred a year (because his 
itre had suffered in the Dublin riots, pleaded Wedder- 
ae; because he had gone to Edinburgh to teach Bute's 
nd to talk English, said Wilkes), it had become very 
n to him that Lord Bute knew nothing of literature. 

, he had compromised no independence in the course he 
c, and might afford to laugh at the outcry which followed, 
wish my pension were twice as large, sir,” he said after- 
ds at Davies’s, “that they might make twice as much 
oise.’H 

>ut Davies was now grown into so much importance, and 
shop was a place so often memorable for the persons 
> met there, that more must be said of both in a new 
pter. 


CHAPTER VI. 


INTRODUCTIONS AT TOM DAVIES’S. 

1762. 

1762. Thomas Davies, ex-perfonner of Drury Lane, and m 
R3t. 34. Hslier and bookseller of Russell-street, Covent Garch 
now (with his “very pretty wife ”) left the stage and 
wholly to bookselling, which he had recently, and 
second time, attempted to combine with acting. The 1 
put a final extinguisher on his theatrical existence.* IT 
afterwards mouthed a sentence in one of the kin£ 
heavy parts he was in the habit of playing, that Chi 
image of cur and bone did not confuse the sentence 
followed; his eye never fell upon any prominent 
in the front row of the pit, that he did not trei 
fancy it the brawny person of Churchill. What he tl 
in self-possession, Garrick meanwhile lost in tempi 
matters came to a breach, in which Johnson, being a 
to, took part against Garrick, as he was seldom disi 
to do. Pretty Mrs. Davies may have helped his ine 
here ; for when seized with his old moody abstractior 


* Tlie rev. Mr. Granger mentions the most interesting fact in it. ‘ 
“ he acted at the-theatre in the Havmarket. w e ’e he was the fi - st n 


what it might, the pompons little bibliopole never after¬ 
wards lost favour; and it became as natural for men 
interested in Johnson, or those who clustered round him, 
to repaii- to Davies's the bookseller in Russell-street, as for 
those who wanted to hear of George Selwyn, Lord March, 
or Lord Carlisle, to call at Betty’s the fruiterer in 
St. James’s-street. 

A frequent visitor was Goldsmith ; his thick, short, clumsy 
figure, and his awkward though genial manners, oddly con¬ 
trasting with Mr. Percy’s, precise, reserved, and stately. The 
high-bred and courtly Beauclere might deign to saunter in. 
Often would be seen there, the broad fat face of Foote, with 
wicked humour flashing from the eye ; and sometimes the 
mild long face of Bennet Langton, filled with humanity and 
gentleness. There had Goldsmith met a rarer visitor, the 
bland and gracious [Reynolds, soon after his first introduction 
to him, a few months back, in Johnson’s chambers ; and there 
would even Warburton drive on some proud business of 
his own, in his equipage “ besprinkled with mitres,” after 
calling on Garrick in Soutliampton-street. For Garrick 
himself, it was perhaps the only place of meeting he cared to 
avoid, in that neighbourhood which had so profited and been 
gladdened by his genius; in which his name was oftener 
resounded than that of any other human being; and through¬ 
out which, we are told, there was a fondness for him, that, as 
his sprightly figure passed along, “ darted electrically from 
“ shop to shop.” What the great actor said some years later, 
indeed, he already seems to have fancied: that “ he believed 



quite a patron of the players ;* affected the insides as 
outsides of hooks ; became a critic, pronounced upon 
and actors,f and discussed themes of scholarship ; ini 
upon everyone his experiences of the Edinburgh m 
sity, which he attended as a youth; and when G 
Steevens called one day to buy the Oxford Homer , 1 
he had seen tossing about upon his shelves, was to 
the modest bookseller that he had but one, and kept 
his own reading.!: 

Poor Goldsmith’s pretensions, as yet, were small i 
scale of such conceit; he being but the best of the 
writers, not the less bound on that account to unrep 
drudgery, somewhat awkward in his manners, and lai 
at for a carelesss implieity. Such was the character li 


* Beauclerc, on Being told loy Boswell that Davies Bad clapped Moody the 
on tlie Back to encourage Bim, remarked that “Bo conldnot conceive a mori 
“ Bating situation than to be clapped on the Back By Tom Davies.” Life, 
t Pray, when you see Davies, the Bookseller,” writes Garrick to Colmi 
Bath (April 12, 1766), “assure Bim that I Boar Bim not the least malice 
“Be is told I do, for Baving mentioned the vulgarisms in The Glm 
“ Marriage; and, that I may convince Bim that all is well Between us, 1 
“ know tBat I was well assured that Be wrote Bis criticism Before Be Bad s 
“ play. Quod eri dcim." Memoirs of the Colmans, i. 181. 

t Steevens to Garrick, Correspondence, i. 608. InanotBer letter (i. 
Steevens protests to Garrick tBat Tom continues “ to tBe full as much a 
“Bis own sBop as ever Be was on your stage. When Be was on tBe ] 
‘ ‘ leaving tBe theatre Be most certainly stole some copper diadem from a si 
“ put it in Bis pocket. He has worn it ever since.” So too Johnson, in a 
well worth quoting, when Boswell mentioned to Bim the fact of Davies 
protested Be could not sleep for thinking of a certain sad affair : “ ‘ A 

“ ‘ sleeping, sir, Tom Davies is a very great man ; Tom has Been upon tB 
“ ‘ and knows how to do those things ; I have not Been upon the stage, ant 
“ ‘ do those things.’ Boswell : ‘I have often Blamed myself, sir, for not 
“ ‘ for others as sensibly as many say they do.’ Johnson : ‘ Sir, don’t Be di 


in later life. Only • Johnson saw into that life as yet, or could 
measure what the past had been to him; and few so well as 
Goldsmith had reason to know the great heart which heat so 
gently under those harsh manners. The friendship of 
Johnson was his first relish of fame; he repaid it with 
affection and deference of no ordinary land; and so com¬ 
monly were they seen together, now that Johnson’s change of 
fortune brought him more into the world, that when a puppet- 
caricature of the Idler was threatened this summer by the 
Haymarket Aristophanes, the Citizen of the "World was to be 
a puppet too. “ What is the common price of an oak stick, 
“ sir ? ” asked Johnson, when he heard of it. “ Sixpence,” 
answered Davies. “ Why then, sir, give me leave to send your 
“ servant to purchase me a shilling one. I’ll have a double 
“ quantity; for I am told Foote means to take me off, 
“ as he calls it, and I am determined the fellow shall not do 
“ it with impunity.”* The Orators came out without the 

* Bosivdl, v. 232, 3. Johnson’s offence to Foote was reported from Garrick’s 
dinner-table, at which, on the occasion of a Christmas party (1760) with Burke, the 
Wartons, Murphy, and others, after hearing that somebody in Dublin bad thonght it 
‘ ‘ worth while ” to horsewhip the modem Aristophanes, he had said he was glad 
“ the man was rising in the world.” Foote in return gave out that he would in a 
short time produce the Caliban of literature on the stage. Being informed of this 
design, Johnson sent -word to Foote, that, the theatre being intended for the refor¬ 
mation of vice, he would go from the boxes on the stage, and correct him before the 
audience. “ Foote abandoned the design. No ill-will ensued. Johnson used to 
“ say that for broad-faced mirth, Foote had not his equal.” See an article in the 
Monthly Review (lxxvi. 374), one of a series admirably written, I suspect by 
Murphy. Since I threw out this suggestion, I have found several passages from 
these reviews reproduced in Murphy’s Essay on Johnson, and among them the 
notice of the Christmas-day dinner at Garrick’s (55). Let me not here omit what 
Johnson so admirably said of Foote, in talking of him to Boswell a few years later. 
Boswell. “ Foote has a great deal of humour.” Johnson. “Yes, sir.” Boswell. 


prosecution o± tne libeller; by pirating me iiDei ana se 
it most extensively ; while the satirist had the more dc 
ful consolation of reflecting, three years later, that 
“ taking off ” of Faulkner’s one leg* would have keen r 
more perfect, could he have waited till the surgeon had t 
off his own. It was the first dramatic piece, I may ad 
which actors were stationed among the audience, and s 
from the public boxes. 

It had been suggested by a debating society eallec 
Kobin Hood, somewhat famous in those days, which use 
meet near Temple-bar; with which the connection of Bu 
earliest eloquence may serve to keep it famous still, 
it had numbered among its members that eager Te 
student, whose public life was now at last beginning 
under-secretary Hamilton in Dublin; and to which ( 
smith was introduced by Samuel Derrick, his aequaiir 
and countryman.! Struck by the eloquence and imp 
aspect of the president, who sat in a large gilt cha: 
thought nature had meant him for a lord chancellor. ‘ 

“it is farce, -which, exhibits individuals.’ 5 Boswell. “Did not he tl 
“ exhibiting you, sir V ’ Johnson. “ Sir, fear restrained him ; he knew ] 
“ have broken his bones. I would have saved him the trouble of cutting oh 
“ I would not have left him a leg to cut off.” Boswell , iii. 95, 6. No man, 
same time, was less sore than Johnson at mere ordinary personal abuse. C 
one reporting to him that Gilbert Cooper had invented for him the name, 
Foote applies to him above, of the Caliban of literature, he merely smi 
said, “Well, then, I must dub him the Punchinello.” Ib. iii. 143, 4. 

* See Boswell, iii. 181, 2. 

+ Derrick had strange experiences to relate, by which doubtless Go' 
profited. “Sir,” said Johnson to Boswell, “I honour Derrick for his prei 
“ mind. One night, when Floyd, another poor author, was wandering ah 
“streets in the night, he found Derrick fast asleep upon a bulk : upo 




occasion, and obliged to sit down in confusion f but till 
rick went away to succeed Beau Hash at Batli, be 
is to have continued bis visits, and even spoken occa- 
ally; for be figures in a flattering account of tbe 
fibers published at about this time, as “ a good orator 
d candid disputant, with a clear bead and an honest heart, 
ough coming but seldom to the society.” The honest 
■t was worn upon his sleeve, whatever his society might 
He could not even visit the three Cherokees, whom all 
vorld were at this time visiting, without leaving the savage 
fs a trace of it. He gave them some “ trifle ” they did 
look for; and so did the gift, or the manner of it, 


‘ The great room of the society now mentioned,” says Doctor Kippis, at the 
of his memoir of Mr. Gilbert Cooper, and referring to the Society of Aids, 
for several years the place where many persons chose to try, or to display, 
:ir oratorical abilities. Doctor Goldsmith, I remember, made an attempt at a 
‘ech, bat was obliged to sit down in confusion. X once heard Doctor Johnson 
:ak there, upon a subject relating to mechanics, with a propriety, perspicuity, 
1 energy which excited general admiration.” Bvog. Brit, (new edit.) iv. 266. 
ast this, however, in so far as Johnson is concerned, we have to set off the express 
ery interesting statement in Boswell’s Life , iii. 157-8. “I remember it was ob- 
Ted by Mr. Flood, that Johnson, having been long nsed to sententious brevity, 
1 the short flights of conversation, might have failed in that continued and ex¬ 
uded kind of argument which is requisite in stating complicated matters in public 
aking; and, as a proof of this, he mentioned the supposed speeches in parliament 
itten by him for the magazine, none of which, in his opinion, were at all like 
d debates. The opinion of one who was himself so eminent an orator, must 
allowed to have great weight. It was confirmed by Sir William Scott [Lord 
well], who mentioned, that Johnson had told him that he had several times 
ed to speak in the Society of Arts and Sciences, but had found he could not 
b on. From Mr. William Gerard H amil ton I have heard, that Johnson, when 
serving to him that it was prudent for a man who had not been accustomed to 
ak in public to begin his speech in as simple a manner as possible, 
knowledged that he rose in that society to deliver a speech which he had 
epared; ‘but,’said he, ‘all my flowers of oratory forsook me.’” 


greeted liim in the street, the extent and fervour of them 
gratitude * 

Not always such ready recipients, however, did Goldsmith 
find the objects of his always ready kindness. One of the mem¬ 
bers of this Robin Hood was Peter Annet, a man, who, though 
ingenious and deserving in other respects, became unhappily 
notorious by a kind of fanatic crusade against the Bible, for 
which (publishing weekly papers against the Book of 
Genesis) he stood twice this year in the pillory, and was now 
undergoing imprisonment in the King’s Bench. To Annet’s 
rooms in St. George's-fields we trace Goldsmith. Pie had 
brought Newbery with him to conclude the purchase of a 
child’s book on grammar by the prisoner, hoping so to 
relieve his distress; but, on the prudent bookseller objecting 
to a publication of the author’s name, Annet accused him of 
cowardice, rejected his assistance with contempt, and in a 
furious rage bade him and his introducer good evening. Yet 
the amount of Newbery’s intended assistance was so liberal 
as to have startled both Goldsmith and Annet, no less a sum 
than ten guineas being offered for the child’s grammar,! 
though for the “ completion of a history of England ” he had 


* “We have a very wrong idea of savage finery, and are apt to suppose that like 
“ the beasts of the forest, they rise, and are dressed with a shake; hut the reverse 
“ is time : for no birth-night beauty takes more time or pains in the adorning her 
“ person than they. I remember, when the Cherokee kings were over here, that I 
“ have waited for three hours during the time they were dressing. . . they had their 
“ boxes of oil and ochre, their fat and their perfumes.” Animated Nature, i. 420. 

f It was the magnificence of the offer which brought about the catastrophe, such 
a fervour of gratitude being excited in Annet that he suddenly protested he would 
add a dedication and append his name, and Newbery should have the benefit of 
both. I derive the anecdote from Cooke, who says it was one of those stories which 



just given CioidsmitJi inmself only two guineas.* Which 1702 
latter munificent payment was exactly contemporaneous witli jeT 3- 
tlie completion of another kind of history, on more expensive 
terms, by paymaster Henry Fox; from whom twenty-five 
thousand pounds had gone in one morning, at the formal 
rate of ^200 a vote, to patriotic voters for the Peace. 

There is reason to believe (from another of the book¬ 
seller’s memoranda) that the two guineas was for “ seventy- 
“ nine leaves” of addition to a school-history, comprising the 
reign of George the Second, and paid at the rate of eight 
shillings a sheet. This payment, with what has before been 
mentioned, and an addition of five guineas for the assignment 
and republication of the Chinese Letters (to which Newbery, 
as we have seen, appears to have assented reluctantly, and 
only because Goldsmith would else have printed them on his 
own account), are all the profits of his drudgery which can 
be traced to him in the present year. He needed to have a 
cheerful disposition to bear him through; nor was nature chary 

portion of the dialogue in which, as Goldsmith repeated it, the contrast of Newbery’s 
slow gravity, with Annet’s impatience, rising at last into fury, had a most amusing 
effect. “But, Mr. Arnet,” says Newbery, in his grave manner, “would putting 
‘ ‘ your name to it, do you think, increase the value of your book ? ” Anet. 

“Why not, sir?” Newb. “ Consider a bit, Mr. Anet.” Anet. “Well, sir, I do : 

“what then?” Newb. “Why, then, sir, you must recollect that you have been 
“ pilloried , and that can be no recommendation to any man’s book.” Anet. “I 
“ grant I have been pilloried, but I am not the first man that has had this 
“ accident; besides, sir, the public very often support a man the more for those 
“ unavoidable misfortunes.” Newb. “ Unavoidable , Mr. Anet! Why, sir, you 
“ brought it on yourself by writing against the established religion of your 
“ country; and let me tell you, Mr. Anet, a man who is supposed to have 
“ forfeited his ears on such an account, stands but a poor candidate for public 
“ favour.” Anet. “ Well, well, Mr. Newbery, it does not signify talking; you 
“ either suffer me to put my name to it, or by G— ! you publish no book of 
” Anri on in n. mi'tp nupvnfietp.rl cat str nhe of flaming wrath the visitors 


pension, with the scheme we have seen him throw out hints 
of in his review of Van Egmont’s Asia ;* and nothing is more 
probable than that the notion might have revived with him, 
on hearing Johnson’s remark to Langton in connection with 
his pension. “ Had this happened twenty years ago, I 
“ should have gone to Constantinople to learn Arabic, as 
“ Pocock did.” But what with Samuel Johnson might he 
a noble ambition, with little Goldy was but theme for a 
jest; and nothing so raised the laugh against him, a few 
years later, as Johnson’s notice of the old favourite project 
he was still at that time clinging to, that some time or other, 
“ when his circumstances should be easier,” he would like to 
go to Aleppo, and bring home such arts peculiar to the East 
as he might be able to find there. “ Of all men Goldsmith is 
“ the most unfit to go out upon such an inquiry; for he is 
“ utterly ignorant of such arts as we already possess, and 
“ consequently could not know what would be accessories 
“ to our present stock of mechanical knowledge. Sir, he 
“ would bring home a grinding barrow, which you see in 
“ every street in London, and think that he had furnished 
“ a wonderful improvement.”! 

But brighter than these visionary fancies were shining for 

* See ante, 186. The same subject is pursued in Letter cviii of the Citizen of the 
World. ‘ ‘ To Lord Bute Goldsmith made an application to be allowed a salary to enable 
“ him to execute his favourite plan. . but poor Goldsmith, who had not then 
“ published his Traveller , or distinguished his name by any popular display of 
“ genius, being obscure and unfriended, was not successful. His petition or 
“ memorial was unnoticed and neglected.” Percy Memoir, 65. 

t Yet there is a passage in the Letter above named which shows that Goldsmith 
took no mean view of the objects to be aimed at in such an enterprise, and felt 



lum now. lhere is little doubt, from allusions wliicli would 1762 
most naturally liave arisen at the close of the present year, 
that, in moments snatched from his thankless and ill-rewarded 
toil for Newbery, he was at last secretly indulging in a labour, 
which, whatever its effect might be upon his fortunes, was 
its own thanks and its own reward. He had begun the 
Vicar of Wakefield. Without encouragement or favour in 
its progress, and with little hope of welcome at the close of 
it; earning meanwhile, apart from it, his bread for the day 
by a full day’s labour at the desk;—it is his “ shame in 
“ crowds, his solitary pride ” to seize and give shape to its 
fancies of happiness and home, before they pass for ever. 

Most affecting, yet also most cheering! With everything 
before him in his hard life that the poet has placed at the 
Gates of Hell,* he is content, for h im self, to undergo the 
chances of them all, that for others he may open the neigh¬ 
bouring Elysian Gate. Nor could the effort fail to bring 
strength of its own, and self-sustained resource. In all else 
he might be weak and helpless, dependant on others’ judg¬ 
ment and doubtful of his own; but, there, it was not so. 

He took his own course in that. It was not for Mr. Newbery 
he was writing then. Even the poetical fragments which 

“ that great and hardy genius ! He it is who allows of secrets yet unknown; 

“ who, undaunted ky the seeming difficulties that oppose, prompts human 
“ curiosity to examine every part of nature, and even exhorts man to try whether 
“ he cannot subject the tempest, the thunder, and even earthquakes to human 
“ control. 0, did a man of his daring spirit, of his genius, penetration, and 
‘ 1 learning, travel to those countries which have been visited only by the super- 
“ stitious and the mercenary, what might not mankind expect! . . what a variety 
‘ ‘ of knowledge and useful improvement would he not bring back in exchange ! ” 

Cit. of the World. Letter cviii. 


a. 


/vP +lo n on+TO 1 


PUl-Lt XJJL J-LJLO V.L^^J.1. 


1762. 
Jit. 34. 


ucgau in Qwitzieiiauu me xyjLug 




They are not to tell for so many pitiful items in the drudgery 
for existence. They are to “ catch the heart, and strike for 
“ honest fame.” 

He thought poorly, with exceptions already named in this 
narrative, of the poetry of the day. He regarded Churchill’s 
astonishing success as a mere proof of the rage of faction; 
and did not hesitate to call his satires lampoons, and his 
force turbulence. Fawkes and Woty were now compiling 
them Poetical Calendar, and through Johnson, who con¬ 
tributed, they asked if he would contribute ; but he declined. 
Between himself and Fawkes, who was rector of a small 
Kentish village he had occasionally visited, civilities had 
passed; but he shrunk from the poetical school of Fawkes 
and Woty, and did not hesitate to say so. Fie dined at the 
close of the year at Davies’s, in company with Robert 
Dodsley, where the matter came into discussion. “ This is 
“ not a poetical age,” said Goldsmith; “ there is no poetry 
“ produced in it.” “ Nay,” returned Dodsley, “ have you 
“ seen my Collection. You may not be able to find palaces 
“ in it, like Dry den’s Ode, but you have villages composed 
“ of very pretty houses, such as the Spleen.” Johnson was 
not present; but when the conversation was afterwards 
reported to him by Boswell, he remarked that Dodsley had 
said the same thing as Goldsmith, only in a softer manner.* 

Another guest, besides Dodsley, was present at Davies’s 


* Life, vi. 156-7. Yet Dodsley -was quite right in his praise of the Spleen, 
which was especially liked hy Gray, as it has been hy all men of taste. “The 
“ Spleen, a poem in Dodsley’s Collection, hy Mr. Green of the Custom House, was 




J.X. J UU.UU. UJ. on u OiUU u>V dluj } blJLC OUJ-L 1 / bl:. 

i Scottish, judge and respectable old whig laird, urged to 
sr the law hut eager to bestow himself on the army, had 
le up at the end of the year from Edinburgh to see 
nson and the London wits, and not a little anxious that 
nson and the London wits should see him. Attending 
iridan’s summer lectures in the northern city, he had 
rd wonderful things from the lecturer about the solemn 
. ponderous lexicographer ; what he said, and what he did, 

. how he would talk over his port wine and his tea until 
le or four o’clock in the morning. It was in the nature 
Lis new admirer that port wine and late horns should 
m a brighter halo over any object of his admiration; 
it was with desperate resolve to accomplish an introduc- 
l which he had tried and failed in two years before, that 
vas now again hi London. But he had again been baffled, 
nson’s sneer at Sheridan’s pension having brought cool- 
s between the old friends,* that way there was no access; 
though Davies had arranged this dinner with the hope 


on to Nicholls, and which is interesting to me for its mention of Johnson, Gray 
pleasantly criticised Dodsley's hook on its first appearance (the letter is 
.ted, hut was written at the close of 1751). Here he says that he had always 
gilt Tickell’s Colin and Lucy the prettiest ballad in the world (one of the 
dest it surely is, notwithstanding Southey’s depreciation of it); he then says 
reen, after praising his “profusion of wit,” that reading would have formed 
ndgment and harmonised his verse, for even his wood-notes often break out 
strains of real poetry and music ; and afterwards he continues, “The School- 
istress is excellent in its kind, and masterly; and (I am sorry to differ from 
u, hut) London is to me one of those few imitations that have all the ease 
d all the spirit of an original. The same man’s verses on the Opening of 
wrick's Theatre are far from bad.” Works, iii,, 89-90. A pity that Johnson 
not known of this letter ; it might have mitigated his strange and unaccount- 
dislike of the writer. His criticism of the Collection which thus elicited Gray’s 


other matters to attend to. James Boswell was not yet to see 
Samuel Johnson. He saw only Oliver Goldsmith, and was 
doubtless much disappointed. 

Perhaps the feeling was mutual, if Oliver gave a thought 
to this new acquaintance ; and strange enough the dinner 
must have been. As Goldsmith discussed poetry with 
Dodsley, Davies, mouthing his words and rolling his head at 
Boswell, delighted that eager and social gentleman with 
imitations of Johnson; while, as the bottle emptied itself 
more freely, sudden loquacity, conceited coxcombry, and 
officious airs of consequence, came as freely pouring forth 
from the youtlrful Scot. He had to tell them all he had seen 
in London, and all that had seen him. How Wilkes had 
said “ how d’ye do ” to him, and Churchill had shaken hands 
with him, Scotchman though he was ; how he had been to 
the Bedford to see that comical fellow Foote, and heard him 
dashing away at everybody and everything (“ Have you had 
“ good success in Dublin, Mr. Foote ? ” “ Poh ! damn ’em ! 
“ There was not a shilling in the country, except what the 
“ Duke of Bedford, and I, and Mr. Bigby have brought 
“ away ” *); how he had seen Garrick in the new farce of 
the Farmer’s Return, and gone and peeped over Hogarth’s 
shoulder as he sketched little David in the Farmer; and 
how, above all, he had on another night attracted general 
attention and given prodigious entertainment in the Drury 
Lane pit, by extempore imitations of the lowing of a cow. 
“ The universal cry of the galleries,” said he, gravely 
describing the incident some few years afterwards, “ was, 


gave sensible advice. “ My dear sir,” said Doctor Blair, 
earnestly, “ I would confine myself to tlie cow! ” or, as 
Walter Scott tells the anecdote in purer vernacular, “ Stick 
“ to tlie cow, mon.”* Nor was the advice lost altogether; for 
Boswell stuck afterwards to liis cow, in other words to what 
he could best achieve, pretty closely; though Goldsmith, 
among others, had no small reason to regret, that he should 
also, doing the cow so well, still “ with very inferior effect ” 
attempt imitations of other animals. 

But little does Goldsmith or any other man suspect as yet, 
that within this wine-bibbing tavern babbler, this meddling, 
conceited, inquisitive, loquacious lion-hunter, this bloated 
and vain young Scot, lie qualities of reverence, real insight, 
quick observation, and marvellous memory, which, strangely 
assorted as they are with those other meaner habits, and 
parasitical, self-complacent absurdities, will one day connect 
his name eternally with the men of genius of his time, and 
enable him to influence posterity in its judgments on them. 
They seem to have met occasionally before Boswell returned 
to Edinburgh; but only two of Goldsmith’s answers to the 
other’s perpetual and restless questionings remain to indicate 
the nature of their intercourse. There lived at this time 
with Johnson, a strange, silent, grotesque companion, whom 
he had supported for many years, and continued to keep 
with him till death; and Boswell could not possibly conceive 

* Boswell, Life, v. 148,9, and note. Tlie story was incautiously told to 
Johnson ; and afterwards, on Boswell’s talking, as he himself tells us, “too 
“ confidently upon some point, which I now forget, he did not spare me. ‘Nay, 
“ ‘ sir,’ said he, ‘ if you cannot talk better as d man, I’d have you bellow like a 



wim tne claim oi mat msigiiincant xtoDert juevett coiuci De, 
on the great object of Lis own veneration. “ He is poor and. 
“ honest,” was Goldsmith’s answer, “ which is recommenda- 
“ tion enough for Johnson.”* Discovery of another object of 
the great man’s charity, however, seemed difficult to be 
reconciled with this; for here was a man of whom Mr. James 
Boswell had heard a very bad and shameful character,! and, 
in almost the same breath, that Johnson had been kind to 
him also. “ He is now become miserable,” was Goldsmith’s 
quiet explanation, “ and that ensures the protection of 
Johnson.”! 

* ii. 194. See notices of him in Boswell, Life, i. 289-90 ; ii. 138-9 ; vii. 45; 
viii, 121, &c. Johnson’s letters on the death of his thirty years’ companion arc 
most affecting. “He was not unprepared, for he was very [food to the poor. 
“ How much soever I valued him, I now wish I had valued him more.” Boswell 
describes him as an obscure practiser of physic amongst the lower people, his 
fees being sometimes such provisions as his patients could afford Mm; and his 
popularity in this was so great, that “his walk was from Houndsditch to 
“Marylebone.” He began life as a waiter in a coffee-house in Paris frequented by 
medical men, whose attention he .attracted, and thus qualified himself ultimately. 
George Steevens, who relates this, describes also the other great event of his life. 
'When past middle life, he married a woman of the town, who had persuaded him 
(notwithstanding their place of congress was a small coal-shed in Fetter Lane) that 
she was nearly related to a man of fortune, hut was kept by him out of large pos¬ 
sessions. Johnson used to say, that, compared with the marvels of this transaction, 
the stories of the Arabian Nights were familiar occurrences. He had not been 
married four months before a writ was taken out against him, for debts contracted 
by Ms wife. Afterwards she ran away from him, and was tried for picking pockets 
at the Old Bailey. She pleaded her own cause, and was acquitted ; a separation 
took place; and Johnson then took Levett home, where he continued till his death. 
His name will always he remembered in connection with Johnson’s noble verse : 

“ In Misery’s darkest caverns known, 

“ His useful care was ever nigh, 

“ Where hopeless AngMsh pour’d his groan, 

“ And lonely Want retir’d to die.” 

+ It has been supposed that tMs was the wretched Bickerstaff, but it was not 
till en vea s 1. te hat his ame me unon lim. 


CHAPTER VII. 

HOGARTH AND REYNOLDS. 

1762—1763. 

ewbery’s account-books and memoranda cany us, at the 1762. 

of 1762, to a country lodging in Islington, kept by 34. 
out and elderly lady named Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming, and 
ibited by Oliver Goldsmith. He is said to have moved 
> to be near Newbery, who had chambers at the time 
)anonbury-house or tower; and that the publisher had 
.ed out the lodgings for him, may be inferred from the fact 
Mrs. Fleming was a friend of Mr. Newbery’s, and, when 
afterwards held the lease of Canonbury-house, seems 
ave rented or occupied part of it. But Goldsmith had 
otless also a stronger inducement in thus escaping, for 
is together, from the crowded noise of Wine Office Court 
;re he retained a lodging for town uses), to comparative 
t and healthy air. There were still green fields and 
s ’ Islington. Glimnses were discernible yet, even of 


nearly double that amount), and, when the state of their 
accounts permitted it, to he paid each quarter hy Mr. Newhery; 
the publisher taking credit for these payments in his literary 
settlements with Goldsmith. The first quarterly payment 
had become due on the 24th of March 1763; and on that 
day the landlady’s claim of £12 10s. made up to ,£14 hy 
1765 . “ incidental expenses,” was discharged by Newbery. It 

EtJs. stands as one item in an account of his cash advances for 
the first nine months of 1763, which characteristically 
exhibits the relations of bookwriter and bookseller. Mrs. 
Fleming’s bills recur at their stated intervals; and on the 8th 
of September, there is a payment of £15 to William Filby the 
tailor. The highest advance in money is one (which is not re¬ 
peated) of three guineas; the rest vary, with intervals of a week 
or so between each, from two guineas to one guinea and half a 
guinea. The whole amount, from January to October 1763, is 
little more than £96; upwards of £60 of which Goldsmith had 
meanwhile satisfied by “ copies of different kinds,” when on 
settlement day he gave his note for the balance.* 

What these “ copies ” in every case were, it is not so easy 


* “ Doctor Goldsmith Dr. to John Newhery. 

1761. Oct, 14. 1 set of the Idler . . .£060 

1762. Noy. 9. To cash.10 10 0 

Dec. 22. To ditto . . . . 3 3 0 

29. To ditto.110 

1763. Jan. 22. To ditto . . . . 110 

25. To ditto . . . . 110 

Feb. 14. To ditto . . . . 110 

March 11. To ditto.2 2 0 

Carried forward.£20 4 0 




was meant to be a humorous recommendation of female 
ament entitled Description of Millenium Hall, as well 
making additions to four juvenile volumes of Wonders 
hire and Art ; and he had yet more to do with another 
the System of Natural History by Dr. Brookes (the 
v of the Gazetteer), which he thoroughly revised, and to 
he not only contributed a graceful preface, but several 


Brought 

forward ..... 

£20 

4 

0 

March 12. 

To ditto .... 

1 

1 

0 

24. 

To cash paid Mrs. Fleming . . 

14 

0 

0 

30. 

To cash .... 

0 

10 

6 

May 4. 

To ditto . . ... 

2 

2 

0 

21. 

To ditto .... 

3 

3 

0 

June 3. 

To cash paid Mrs. Fleming . . 

14 

11 

0 

25. 

To cash .... 

2 

2 

0 

July 1. 

To ditto ..... 

2 

2 

0 

20. 

To ditto .... 

14 14 

0 

Sept. 2. 

To ditto. 

1 

1 

0 

8. 

To cash paid your draft to Wm.' 

► 15 

2 

0 


Filby . 

10. 

To cash . . . . . 

0 

10 

6 

19. 

To ditto .... 

1 

1 

0 

24. 

To ditto. 

2 

2 

0 

Oct. 8. 

To ditto .... 

2 

2 

0 

10. 

To cash paid your bill to Mrs. ] 

14 13 

6 


Fleming J 






£111 

1 

6 


By copies of different kinds . 

63 

0 

0 



£48~ 

1 

6 

Oct. 11. 

By note of hand sent and delivered 





up the vouchers.” 





imissory note was given by Goldsmith for the balance. Newbery MSS. 

. 459-60. 

fov. 25, 1762. Lent Dr. Goldsmith. Martin’s Philosophy, 3 vols 8vo; 
ntroduction ; Macquart’s Chemistry, 3 vols, French; Encyclopedia, 8 vols 
rench; Chinese Letter's, French ; Persian, ditto; Pemberton’s Views of 
s Philosophy; Hale's Vegetable Statics, 2 vols 8vo ; Ferguson's Astronomy, 
uffon's Natural History, 9 vols 4to ; The Origin of Laws, Arts, and 
irnlcj 5-rrrv TiMi-nTm verb 51 "NT^toT^W TVTR 1. 415. 



“ guineas in full,” but it was increased to nearly thirty. He 
had also some share in the Martial Review or General 
History of the late War, the profits of which Newbery had 
set apart for his luckless son-in-law, Kit Smart. In a 
memorandum furnished by himself to the publisher, he claims 
three guineas for Preface to Universal History (a rival to the 
existing publication of that name, set on foot by Newbery 
and edited by Guthrie); two guineas for Preface to Rhetoric, 
and one for Preface to Chronicle, neither of these last now 
traceable; three guineas for Critical and Monthly, presumed 
to be contributions to Newbery’s magazines; and twenty-one 
pounds on account of a History of England. A subsequent 
receipt acknowledges another twenty-one pounds “ which with 
“ what I received before, is in full for the copy of the Plistory 
“ of England in a series of Letters, two volumes in 12mo.” * 
This latter book, which was not published till the following 
year, claims a word of description. Such of the labours of 
17G3 as had yet seen the light, were not of a land to attract 
much notice. “ Whenever I write anything,” said Goldsmith, 
“ I think the public make a point to know nothing about 
“ it.” t So, remembering what Pope had said of the lucky 
lines that had a lord to own them, the present book was 
issued, doubtless with Newbery’s glad concurrence, as a 
History of England in a series of Letters from a Nobleman 
to his Son. It had a great success in that character; passed 

* Newbery MSS. Prior, i. 468, 473-4, 477, 479, and 498. The subjoined is 
from a copy in Goldsmith’s own handwriting: “ Brookes’ History, 11Z 11s ; Pre- 
“ face to Universal History, 3Z 3s ; Preface to Rhetoric, 2Z 2s; Preface to Chronicle, 
“ 1Z Is; History of England, 21Z; The Life of Christ, 10Z 10s ; The Life [Lives] 


Chap. VIL] 


HOGARTH AND REYNOLDS. 


through, many editions ; and was afterwards translated into 
French hy the wife of Brissot, with notes by the revolutionary 
leader himself. The nobleman was supposed to be Lord 
Chesterfield, so refined was the style; Lord Orrery had also 
the credit of it; but the persuasion at last became general 
that the author was Lord Lyttelton,* and the name of that 
grave good lord t is occasionally still seen affixed to it on the 
bookstalls. The mistake was never formally corrected: it being 
the bookseller’s interest to continue it, and not less the author’s 
as well, when in his own name he subsequently went over the 
same ground. But it was not concealed from his friends; 
copies of the second edition of the book were sent with his 
autograph to both Percy and Johnson; and his friend Cooke 
tells us, not only that he had really written it in his lodgings 
at Islington, but how and in what way he did so. In the 
morning, says this authority, he would study, in Rapin, Carte, 
Kennett’s Complete History, and the recent volumes of Hume, 
as much of what related to the period on which he was engaged 

* As late as 1793, it became matter of discussion in the Gentleman's Magazine 
(lxiii. 799, &c) -which of these three noblemen had written the letters ; whereupon 
a better informed correspondent told Mr. Urban the real name of the writer, and 
added: ‘ ‘ Goldsmith was much gratified to find the assumed character so well 
“ sustained, as to pass upon the world for real; and was often diverted with the 
“ contending opinions of such as ascribed it to one or other of the above noblemen. 
“ This information comes from one who had a copy given him by the real author 
“ when it first came from the press, and who had often laughed with him at the 
“ success of his fiction.” Gent. Mag. lxiii. 1189. 

f It may have been in consequence of its success in this instance, that the reck¬ 
less author of Dr. Syntax, Combe, placed the name of the second or “wicked” 
lord to his wonderfully clever collection of letters. In the course of a recent 
attempt in the Quarterly Review (xc. 91-163) to identify this second lord with 


walked out with a companion, certain of his mends at this 
time being in the habit of constantly calling upon him; 
and if, on returning to dinner, his friend returned with him, 
he spent the evening convivially, but without much drinking 
(“ which he was never in the habit of”); finally taking up 
with him to his bed-room the books and papers prepared in 
the morning, and there writing the chapter, or the best part 
of it, before he went to rest. This latter exercise cost him 
very little trouble, he said; for, having all his materials ready, 
he wrote it with as much facility as a common letter.* 

One may clearly trace these very moderate “ convivialities,” 
I think, in occasional entries of Mrs. Fleming’s incidental 
expenses. The good lady was not loath to be generous 
at times, but is careful to give herself the full credit of it; 
and a not infrequent item in her bill is “ a gentlemans dinner, 
“ nothing .” Four gentlemen have tea, for eigliteen-pence ; 
“ wine and cakes ” are supplied for the same sum; bottles of 
port are charged two shillings each; and such special favourites 
are “ Mr. Baggott ” and one “ Doctor Reman,” that three 
elaborate cyphers (^0. Os. 0 d.) follow them teas as well as 
them dinners.! Redmond was the latter’s real name. He was 

* Europ. Mag. xxiv. 94. 

t “ 1763. Doctor Goldsmith Dr. to Eliz. Fleming. 

Aug. 22. A pint of mountain.£0 10 

A gentleman’s dinner.0 0 0 

24. A hottle of port . . . . . . 0 2 0 

4 gentlemen’s teas.0 16 

Aug. 25. Dr. Ileman’s dinner aud tea . . . . 0 0 0 

Sept. 5.-dinner.0 0 0 

7. Sassafras . . . . , , _ 0 0 6 

11. Dr. Eeman’s dinner.0 0 0 

29. A hottle of port . . . . . _ 0 2 0 



ir ui^ julis vr iLiojL/ *yjlu.lj. uaj.^ mvujluuj \jjl ijo.uo uu ovrnu 

alleged discoveries in tlie properties of antimony. Among 
Mrs. Fleming’s anonymous entries, liowever, were some that 
must have related to more distinguished visitors. 

The greatest of these I would introduce as he was seen 
one day in the present year by a young and eager admirer, 
passing quickly through Cranboum-alley. He might have 
been on his way to Goldsmith. He was a bustling, active, 
stout little man, dressed in a sky-blue coat. His admirer 
saw him at a distance, turning the corner; and, running with 
all expedition to have a nearer view, came up with him in 
Castle-street, as he stood patting one of two quarrelling boys 
on the back, and, looking steadfastly at the expression in the 
coward’s face, was saying in very audible voice, “ Damn him, 
“ if I would take it of him! at him again! ” Enemy or 



Brought forward 

. • £0 

7 

0 

Oct. 8. 

Sassafras 

0 

0 

3 

10. 

Mr. Baggott, tea 

. . o 

0 

0 

14. 

Paper .... 

0 

1 

0 

24. 

Sassafras 

. . o 

0 

3 

25. 

Paid the newsman 

0 

16 

10| 

30. 

"Wine and cakes 

. . o 

1 

6 

31. 

To the Bey. Mr. Tyrrell 

0 

2 

6 


Mr. Baggott, dinner 

. . o 

0 

0 


Sassafras 

0 

0 

6 

Not. 5. 

Ditto .... 

. . o 

0 

6 


10 sheets of paper 

0 

0 

5 

8. 

Pens .... 

. . 0 

0 

2| 


Paper .... 

o 

1 

0 


Sassafras 

. . o 

0 

6 


To 3 months’ hoard 

. 12 

10 

0 


To shoes-cleaning 

. . o 

2 

6 


To washing 

0 18 

0i 






interest in homely life, his preference of the real in art, and his 
quick apprehension of character; his love of hard hitting, and 
his indomitable English spirit. The admirer, who, at the close 
of his own chequered life, thus remembered and related it, was 
James Barry of Cork; who had followed Mr. Edmund Burke 
to London with letters from Doctor Sleigh, and whose birth, 
genius, and poverty soon made him known to Goldsmith. 

Between Goldsmith and Hogarth existed many reasons for 
sympathy. Few so sure as the great, self-taught, philosophic 
artist, to penetrate at once, through any outer husk of dis¬ 
advantage, to discernment of an honest and loving soul. 
Genius, in both, took side with the homely and the poor; 
and they had personal foibles in common. No man can be 
supposed to have read the letters in the Public Ledger with 
heartier agreement than Hogarth; no man so little likely as 
Goldsmith to suffer a sky-blue coat, or conceited, strutting, 
consequential airs, to weigh against the claims of the painter 
of Manage a-la-Mode. How they first met has not been 
related, but they met frequently. In these last two years of 
Hogarth’s life, admiration had become precious to him; and 
Goldsmith was ready with his tribute. Besides, there was 
Wilkes to rail against, and Churchill to condemn, as well as 
Johnson to praise and love. “ I’ll tell you what,” would 
Hogarth say: “ Sam Johnson’s conversation is to the talk of 
“ other men like Titian’s painting compared to Hudson’s : 
“ but don’t you tell people, now, that I say so ; for the 
“ connoisseurs and I are at war, you know; and because I 
“ hate them, they think I hate Titian—and let them! ” * 


of which Hogarth has himself left the only memorial. A 
portrait in oil, representing an elderly lady in satin with an 
open hook before her, known by the name of “ Goldsmith’s 
“ Hostess,” and so exhibited in London several years back,* 
is the work of his pencil. } It involves no great stretch of 
fancy to suppose it painted in the Islington lodgings, at 
some crisis of domestic pressure. Newbery’s accounts 
reveal to us how often it was needful to mitigate Mrs. 
Fleming’s impatience, to moderate her wrath, and, when 
money was not immediately at hand, to minister to her 
vanities. For Newbery was a strict accountant, and kept 
sharply within the terms of his bargains; exacting notes of 
hand at each quarterly settlement for whatever the balance 
might be, and objecting to add to it by new payments when 
it happened to be large. It is but to imagine a visit from 
Hogarth at such time. If his good nature wanted any 
stimulus, the thought of Newbery would give it. He had 
himself an old grudge against the booksellers. He charges 
them in his autobiography with “cruel treatment” of his 
father, and dilates on the bitterness they add to the necessity 
of earning bread by the pen. But, though the copyrights 
of his prints were a source of certain and not inconsiderable 
income, his money at command was scanty; and it would 
better suit his generous good-humour, as well as better serve 

“ for my father induced him perhaps to take notice of his little girl, and give her 
“ some odd particular directions about dress, dancing, and many other matters, 
“ interesting now only because they were his. As he made all his talents, how- 
il ever, subservient to the great purposes of morality, and the earnest desire he 
‘ ‘ had to mend mankind, his discourse commonly ended in an ethical dissertation, 


have been painted; and much laughter there would he in its 
progress, I do not doubt, at the very different sort of sitters 
and subjects whose coronetted-coaches were crowding the 
west side of Leicester-square. 

The good-humour of Reynolds was a different thing from 
that of Hogarth. It had no antagonism about it. Ill-humour 
with any other part of the world had nothing to do with it. 
It was gracious and diffused; singling out some, it might be, 
for special warmth, but smiling blandly upon all. He was 
eminently the gentleman of his time; and if there is a hidden 
charm in his portraits, it is that. His own nature pervades 
them, and shines out from them still. He was now forty 
years old, being younger than Hogarth by a quarter of a 
century; was already in the receipt of nearly six thousand 
pounds a year; and had known nothing but uninterrupted 
prosperity. He had moved from St. Martin’s-lane into 
Newport-street, and from Newport-street into Leicester- 
square ; he had raised his prices from five, ten, and twenty 
guineas (his earliest charge for the three sizes of portraits), 
successively to ten, twenty, and forty, to twelve, twenty-four 
and forty-eight, to fifteen, thirty, and sixty, to twenty, forty, 
and eighty, and to twenty-five, fifty, and a hundred, the 
sums he now charged; he had lately built a gallery for his 
works; and he had set up. a gay gilt coach, with the four 
seasons painted on its panels.* Yet, of those to whom the 

* See Farington’s Memoirs in the Works, i. clxii, and the Life by Beechey, i. 
124-5,139-40. He greatly advanced his prices in later days. Mr. Crolcer states, 
in a note to his last edition of JBosivell (113) : “I have been informed by Sir 
“ Thomas Lawrence, his admirer and rival, that in 1787 his prices were two 


generosity and grace, and justified by noble qualities; 
while few indeed should have been the exceptions, whether 
among those who knew or those who knew him not, to the feel¬ 
ing of pride that an Englishman had at last arisen, who could 
measure himself successfully with the Dutch and the Italian.* 

This was what Reynolds had striven for; and what common 
men might suppose to be his envy or self-sufficiency. Not 
with any sense of triumph over living competitors, did he 
listen to the praise he loved; not of being better than 
Hogarth, or than Gainsborough, or than his old master 
Hudson, was he thinking continually, but of the glory of 
being one day placed by the side of Vandyke and of Rubens. 
Undoubtedly he must be said to have overrated the effects of 
education, study, and the practice of schools; and it is 
matter of much regret that he should never have thought of 
Hogarth but as a moral satirist and man of wit, or sought for 
his favourite art the dignity of a closer alliance with such 
philosophy and genius. But the difficult temper of Hogarth 
himself cannot be kept out of view. His very virtues had 
a stubbornness and a dogmatism that repelled. "What 
Reynoldsmost desired,—to bring men of then common calling 
together, and, by consent and union, by study and co-opera¬ 
tion, establish claims to respect and continuance,—Hogarth 
had been all his life opposing; and was now, at the close of 

“ ‘for my picture of the three ladies Waldegrave.’ Walpoliana .” This latter 
picture contained half-lengths of the three ladies on one canvas. For curious lists 
of his prices, see Malone’s Account of Reynolds , in the Works, i. lxii-lxxi, and 
Northcote, ii. 347-56. 

* “ I remember once going through a suite of rooms where they were showing me 


neither would make the advance which might have reconciled 
the views of both. Be it remembered, at the same time, that 
Hogarth, in the daring confidence of his more astonishing 
genius, kept himself at the farthest extreme. “ Talk of 
“ sense, and study, and all that,” he said to Walpole, “ why, 
“ it is owing to the good sense of the English that they have 
“ not painted better. The people who have studied painting 
“ least are the best judges of it. There’s Reynolds, who 
“ certainly has genius; why but t’other day he offered a 
“ hundred pounds for a picture that I would not hang in 
“my cellar.”* Reynolds might have some excuse if he 
turned from this with a smile, and a supposed confirmation 
of his error that the critic was himself no painter. Thus 
these great men lived separate to the last. The only feeling 
they shared in common may have been that kindness to 
Oliver Goldsmith, which, after them respective fashion, each 
manifested well. The one, with his ready help and robust 
example, would have strengthened him for life, as for a 
solitary warfare which awaited every man of genius; the 
other, more gently, would have drawn him from contests 
and solitude, from discontents and low esteem, to the sense 
that worldly consideration and social respect might gladden 
even literary toil. While Hogarth was propitiating and 
painting Mrs. Fleming, Reynolds was founding the Literary 
Club. 

* The whole dialogue from which these expressions are taken will he found in the 
Cull. Lett, iv, 141. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


THE CLUB AND ITS FIRST MEMBERS. 

1763. 

The association of celebrated men of this period univer¬ 
sally known as the Literary Club, did not receive that 
name till many years after it was formed and founded; but 
that Reynolds was its Romulus (so Mrs. Thrale said Johnson 
called him),* and this year of 1703 the year of its foundation, 
is unquestionable: though the meetings did not begin till 
winter. Johnson caught at the notion eagerly; suggested as 
its model a club he had himself founded in Ivy-lane some 
fourteen years before, and which the deaths or dispersion of 
its members had now interrupted for nearly seven years; 
and on this suggestion being adopted, the members, as in 
the earlier club, were limited to rune, and Mr. Hawkins, as 
an original member of the Ivy-lane, was invited to join. 
Topham Beauclerc and Bennet Langton were also asked, and 
welcomed earnestly ; and, of course, Mr. Edmund Burke. He 
had lately left Dublin and politics for a time, and returned to 
literature in Queen-Anne-street; where a solid mark of his 
patron Hamilton’s satisfaction had accompanied him, in 
shape of a pension on the Irish Establishment of .£300 a year. 


the name which was soon to he so famous, having little iami- 
liarity or fame as yet. The notion of the club delighted Burke ; 
and he asked admission for his father-in-law, Doctor Nugent, 
an accomplished Roman Catholic physician, who lived with 
him. Beauclerc in like manner suggested his friend Chamier, 
then secretary in the war-office.* Oliver Goldsmith completed 
the number. But another member of the original Ivy-lane 
society, Samuel Dyer,f making unexpected appearance from 
abroad in the following year, was joyfully admitted; and 
though it was resolved to make election difficult, and only for 
special reasons permit addition to their number,! the limita¬ 
tion at first proposed was thus of course done away with. A 
second limitation, however, to the number of twelve, was 
definitively made on the occasion of the second balloting, and 
will be duly described. The place of meeting was the Turk’s- 
head tavern in Gerrard-street Soho, § where, the chair being 


* Chamier was not appointed under-secretary till 1775. In the account of the 
club there may still he one or two slight inaccuracies, though I have been at some 
pains to obtain correct information since my last edition. Obvious errors, indeed, 
exist in every description of this celebrated society, from the first supplied by 
Malone to the last furnished by Mr. Hatchett. 

t For an interesting account of this remarkable man, see Malone’s Life of 
Di'yden, 181-5 (note.) 

I It was intended, according to Malone (Account of Reynolds, Ixxxiii), that the 
club should consist of such men as that if only two of them chanced to meet they 
should be able to entertain each other sufficiently, without wishing for more 
company with whom to pass an evening. ‘ ‘ This,” writes Percy to Boswell (Nichols’s 
Illustrations, vii. 311), “ I have heard Johnson mention as the principal or avowed 
“ reason for the small number of members to which for many years it was 
“limited.” And so far Johnson was right in holding that the club’s adversity 
did not arrive till the numbers were large, and the members not very select; nor 
is it easy to imagine that Lord Liverpool, in comparatively recent days, when he 
found himself on one occasion solus at the dinner, was able to entertain himself 
sufficiently without wishing for more company. The men are few indeed who can 


about the ninth year of their existence, they changed their 
day of meeting to Friday; and, some years later (Percy and 
Malone say in 1775),* in place of their weekly supper they 
resolved to dine together once a fortnight during the meeting 
of parliament. Each member present was to bear his share of 
the reckoning; and conversation, from which politics only were 
excluded, was kept up always to a late hour. 

So originated and was formed that famous club, which had 
made itself a name in literary history long before it received, 
at Garrick’s funeral, the name of the Literary Club by which 
it is now known. Its meetings were noised abroad; the fame 
of its conversations received eager addition from the difficulty 
of obtaining admission to it; and it came to be as generally 
understood that literature had fixed her social head-quarters 
here, as that politics reigned supreme at Wildman’s or the 
Cocoa-tree. Not without advantage, let me add, to the 
dignity and worldly consideration of men-of-letters them¬ 
selves. “ I believe Mr. Fox will allow me say,” wrote the 
Bishop of St. Asaph to Mr. William Jones, when the society 
was not more than fifteen years old, “ that the honour of 
“ being elected into the Turk’s-head Club is not inferior to 


romance of whig politics in it, in consequence of tlie remarkable prominence in its 
conversations of Burke, Fox, Lord Spencer, Sheridan, Dunning, and others (as 
Johnson phrased it, “the Fox star and the Irish constellation,” when he com¬ 
plained of Reynolds being “too much under” those planets, Bos. vii. 96), had so 
thoroughly disgusted Johnson, that he almost wholly withdrew himself in the 
latter years of his life. “He then,” says Mrs. Piozzi, “loudly proclaimed his 
“carelessness who might be admitted, when it was become a mere dinner-club.” 
(Anecdotes, 122.) After 1783 it removed to Prince’s, in Sackville-street; and on 
his house being soon afterwards shut up, it removed to Baxter’s, which subsequently 
became Thomas’s, in Dover-street. In January 1792 it removed to Parsloe’s, in 


“ say they were much better judges oi merit, ii tney naa not 
“ rejected Lord Camden and chosen me.”* The Bishop of 
St. Asaph had just been elected, and on the very night when 
Lord Camden and the Bishop of Chester were blackballed^ 
Shall we wonder if distinction in a society such as this, 
should open a new life to Goldsmith ? 

His claim to enter it would seem to have been somewhat 
canvassed, at first, by at least one of the members. “ As he 
“ wrote for the booksellers,” says Hawkins, “ we at the club 
“ looked on him as a mere literary drudge, equal to the task 
“ of compiling and translating, but little capable of original, 
“ and still less of poetical composition: he had, nevertheless, 
“ unknown to us ”1 ... I need not anticipate what it was 
that so startled Hawkins with its unknown progress : the 
reader has already intimation of it. It is however more 
than probable, whatever may have been thought of Gold¬ 
smith’s drudgery, that this extremely low estimate of his 
capacity was limited to Mr. Hawkins, whose opinions were 
seldom popular with the other members of the club. Early 
associations clung hard to Johnson, and, for the sake of these, 
Hawkins was borne with to the last; but, in the newly-formed 
society, even Johnson admitted him to be out of place. 
Neither in habits nor opinions did he harmonise with the 
rest. He had been an attorney for many years, affecting 
literary tastes, and dabbling in music at the Madrigal-club ; 

* Teignmouth’s Life and Correspondence of Sir William Jones , i. 347. 
f “When bishops and chancellors,” says Jones, commenting on this fact, 
“honour us 'with offering to dine at a tavern, it seems very extraordinary that we 
“shonld ever reject such an offer ; hut there is no reasoning on the caprice of 
“men. Of our club I will only say that there is no branch of human knowledge 



law, and lived and judged with, severe propriety as a Middle¬ 
sex magistrate. 'Within two years he will he elected chair¬ 
man of the sessions ; after seven years more, will be made 
a knight; and, in four years after that, will deliver himself 
of five quarto volumes of a history of music, in the slow 
and laborious conception of which he is already painfully 
engaged.* Altogether, his existence was a kind of pompous, 
parsimonious, insignificant drawl, cleverly ridiculed by one of 
the wits in an absurd epitaph: “ Here lies Sir John Hawkins, 
“ Without his shoes and stauckins.” To him belonged the 
original merit, in that age of penal barbarity and perpetual 
executions, of lamenting that in no less than fourteen cases 
it was still possible to cheat the gallows. Another of liis 
favourite themes was the improvidence of what he called 
sentimental writers, at the head of whom he placed the 
author of Tom Jones; a book which he charged with having 
“ corrupted the rising generation,” and sapped “ the founda- 
“ tion of that morality which it is the duty of parents and 
“ all public instructors to inculcate in the minds of young 
“ people.”! This was his common style of talk. He would 
speak contemptuously of Hogarth as a man who knew nothing 
out of Covent Harden. Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, and 
Sterne, he looked upon as “ stuff; ” and for the three last, as 

* Gent. Mag. lix. 473. A lucky pun condemned Sir John Hawkins’s sixteen 
years’ labour to long obscurity and oblivion. Some wag in the interest of Dr. 
Burney’s rival publication wrote the following catch, which Dr. Callcott set to 
music : 

“ Have you read Sir John Hawkins's History ? 

“ Some folks think it quite a mystery; 

‘ ‘ Both I have, and I aver 

“ That Burney’s History I prefer.” 



sessions, what other judgment coiua ne De expected to nave 
of them ? Being men of loose principles, he would say, bad 
economists, and living without foresight, “ it is their endea- 
“ vour to commute for their failings by professions of greater 
“ love to mankind, more tender affections and finer feelings 
“ than they will allow men of more regular lives, whom they 
“ deem formalists, to possess.” * With a man of such regular 
life, denouncing woe to loose characters that should endeavour 
to commute for their failings, poor Goldsmith had naturally 
little chance; and it fared as ill with the rest of the club 
when questions of “ economy ” or “ foresight ” came up. 
Mr. Hawkins, after the first four meetings, begged to be 
excused his share of the reckoning, on the ground that lie 
did not partake of the supper. “ And was he excused ? ” 
asked Doctor Burney, when Johnson told him of the incident 
many years after. “ Oh yes, sir,” was the reply ; “ and very 
“ readily. No man is angry at another for being inferior 
“ to himself. We all admitted his plea publicly, for the grati- 
“ fication of scorning him privately. Sir John, sir, is a very 
“ unclubbable man. Yet I really believe him,” pursued John¬ 
son, on the same occasion, very characteristically, “ to be an 
“ honest man at the bottom; though to he sure he is rather 
“ penurious, and he is somewhat mean, and it must be owned 
“ he has some degree of brutality, and is not without a 
“ tendency to savageness that cannot well be defended.”! 
It was this latter tendency which caused his early secession 
from the club. He was not a member for more than two or 


Life of Johnson, 218. 


ments :* * * § but the fact was, says Boswell, that lie one evening 
attacked Mr. Burke in so rude a manner,! that all the 
company testified their displeasure ; and at their next 
meeting his reception was such that he never came again. 

Letitia Matilda Hawkins herself, proposing to defend her 
father, corroborates this statement. “ The Burkes,” she says, 
describing the impressions of her childhood, “ as the men of 
“ that family were called, were not then what they were 
“ afterwards considered, nor what the head of them deserved 
“ to be considered for his splendid talents: they were, as my 
“ father termed them, Irish Adventurers; and came into this 
“ country with no good auguries, nor any very decided prin- 
“ ciples of action. They had to talk their way in the world 
“ that was to furnish their means of living." + 

Ail Irish adventurer who had to talk his way in the world, 
is much what Burke was considered by the great as well 
as little vulgar, for several more years to come. He was 
now thirty-three, yet had not achieved his great want, 
“ ground to stand upon.” § Until the present year he had 

* “We seldom got together till nine ; the enquiry into the contents of the 
“ larder, and preparing supper, took up till ten ; and by the time that the table 
“ was cleared, it was near eleven, at which hour my servants were ordered to 
“ come for me ; and, as I could not enjoy the pleasure of these meetings without 
“ disturbing the economy of my family, I chose to forego it.” Life of Johnson, 
425. Their evening toast, he tells us in the same passage, was the motto of Padre 
Paolo, “Esto perpetua.” 

f Life, ii. 273. See also the Percy Memoir, 72. Burke was attacked in good 
company, let me subjoin ; for on the same authority Lord Chatham was “a per¬ 
tinacious yelper,” and (for a comparison quite original) Lord Chesterfield “a bear.” 

X Memoirs, i. 9S-101. 

§ Doctor Markham thus introduces him to the famous Duchess of Queensberry, 
as a, candidate f office : “ It is time I should say who in friend is. His name is 


portion of tlie Annual Register. He had been but a few 
months in enjoyment of Hamilton’s pension, and was already 
extremely uneasy as to the conditions on which he began to 
suspect it had been granted. His patron does not seem to 
have relished his proposed return to London society. 
“ I know your business ought on all occasions to have the 
“ preference,” wrote Burke, in deprecation ; “ to be the first, 
“ and the last, and indeed in all respects the main concern. 
“ All I contend for is, that I may not be considered as 
“ absolutely excluded from all other thoughts, in their proper 
“ time and due subordination.” * The whole truth was not 
made obvious to him till two years later. He then found, and 
on finding it flung up the pension, that Hamilton had thought 
him placed by it in “ a sort of domestic situation.” It was the 
consideration of a bargain and sale of independence. It was a 
claim for absolute servitude. “ Not to value myself as a gentle- 
“ man,” remonstrated Burke, “ a freeman, a man of education, 
“ and one pretending to literature, is there any situation in 
“ life so low, or even so criminal, that can subject a man to 
“ the possibility of such an engagement ? Would you dare 
“ attempt to bind yonr footman to such terms ? ” t Mr. 
Hawkins, it is clear, would have thought the terms suitable 

“last year, called a Treatise on the Sublime and the Beautiful. I must farther 
“ say of Mm, that Ms cMef application has been to the knowledge of public 
“ business, and our commercial interests; that he seems to have a most extensive 
“knowledge, with extraordinary talents for business, and to want nothing but 
“ ground to stand upon to do his country very important services.” Chatham 
Correspondence, i. 432. Burke’s first piece was the Vindication (not the advan¬ 
tages) of Natural Society, wMch up to 1763 Johnson seems to have thought a 
serious and “imprudent” assertion of the opinions of Bolingbroke. It was not till 
two years later (17651 that the iron w xnlic 1 1 id aside in a nreface t,n the 


less Ms natural defects, tlian Ms painful sense of wliat 
anted in the eyes of others. When, in later years, he 
illy reviewed those exertions wHch had been the soul 
le revived whig party, wMch had re-established their 
gth, consolidated their power and influence, and been 
L’ded with insignificant office and uniform exclusion from 
abinet, he had to reflect that at every step in the progress 
s life he had been traversed and opposed, and forced to 
3 every inch of his way in the teeth of prejudice and 
ce. “ The narrowness of Ms fortune,” says Walpole, 
pt Mm down.” * At every turnpike he met, he had been 
d to show Ms passport; otherwise no admission, no 
■ation for him. Improved by this, his manners could 
ly be ;—the more other spheres of consideration were 
id to him, the more would he be driven to dominate in 
>wn ;—and I have little doubt that he somewhat painfully 
mes, in the first few years of the club, impressed others 
ell as Hawkins with a sense of Ms predominance. He 
to “ talk Ms way in the world that was to furnish his 
3ans of living,” andtMs was the only theatre open to Mm 
Here only could he as yet pour forth, to an audience 
h exciting, the stores of argument and eloquence he was 
fling to employ upon a wider stage; the variety of 
vledge and its practical application, the fund of astonish- 
imagery, the ease of philosopMc illustration, the over¬ 
ring copiousness of words, in which he has never had a 
l. A civil guest, says Herbert, will no more talk all, than 
all, the feast; and perhaps this might be forgotten now 


* a r„.. 


~j! n. 


tit :: 


o*ro a 


“ fatlier was disgusted with the overpowering deportment of 
“ Burke, and his monopoly of the conversation, which made 
“ all the other members, excepting his antagonist Johnson, 
“ merely his auditors.” Something of the same sort was 
said by that antagonist ten years after the present date, 
though in a more generous way. “ "What I most envy Burke 
“ for,” said Johnson, after admitting the astonishing range of 
his resources, but denying him the faculty of wit, “is, Iris being 
“ constantly the same. He is never what we call hum-drum; 
“ never unwilling to begin to talk, nor in haste to leave off.” 
(“ Take up whatever topic you please,” he said on another 
occasion, “ he is ready to meet you. . His stream of mind 
“ is perpetual.”) “I cannot say he is good at listening. So 
“ desirous is he to talk, that if one is speaking at this end of 
“ the table, he’ll speak to somebody at the other end. Burke, 

sir, is such a man, that if you met him for the first time in 
“ the street, where you were stopped by a drove of oxen, and 
“ you and he stepped aside to take shelter but for five 
“ minutes, he’d talk to you in such a manner, that, when you 
“ parted, you would say, This is an extraordinary man.* 
“ Now, you may be long enough with me, without finding 
“ anything extraordinary.” t 

* Over and over again Johnson repeated this illustration. Boswell. “Mr. Burke 
“ has a constant stream of conversation.” J ohnson. ‘ ‘ Yes, sir; if a man were to 
“ go By chance at the same time with Burke under a shed, to shun a shower, he 
‘ ‘ would say, This is an extraordinary man ! If Burke should go into a stable 
“ to see his horse dressed, the ostler would say, We have had an extraordinary 
“ man here ! ” Life, iv. 301. He goes on to say, “When Burke does not descend 
“to be merry, his conversation is very superior indeed. There is no proportion 
“ between the powers which he shows in serious talk and in jocularity. When 
“ he lets himself down to that, he is in the kennel.” Not quite : as the reader 



certainly the subtler and more able. He penetrated 
ir into the principles of things, below common life and 
is called good sense, than Johnson could. “ Is he like 
rke,” asked Goldsmith, when Boswell seemed to exalt 
son’s talk too highly, “ who winds into a subject like a 
[)ent ?”* On the other hand, there was a strength and 
less in Johnson’s conversational expression which was 
‘s own, and which originated Percy’s likening of it, as 
sted with ordinary conversation, to an antique statue 
every vein and muscle distinct and bold, by the side of 
iferior cast, t He had also wit, often an incompa- 
liumour, and a hundred other interesting qualities, 
1 Burke had not; while his rough dictatorial manner, 
oud voice, and slow deliberate utterance, so much 
er suggested an objection than gave help to what he 
that one may doubt the truth of Lord Pembroke’s 
ntry to Boswell, that “ liis sayings would not appear 
extraordinary, were it not for his bow-wow way.” 1 
ae ordinary listener, at any rate, the bow-wow way 
ed something too much ; and was quite as likely to stun 
strike him. “ He’s a tremendous companion,” said poor 
ge Garrick, when urged to confess of him what he really 
> - lit.§ He brought, into common talk, too plain an antici- 
1 of victory and triumph. He wore his determination 
be thrown or beaten, whatever side he might please 
ke, somewhat defiantly upon his sleeve; and startled 
iful society a little too much with his uncle Andrew’s 
s in the ring at Smithfield.|| It was a sense, on his own 


that ri he were to see Burke then, it would kill him. D rom 
the first day of their meeting, now some years ago, at 
Garrick’s dinner-table, his desire had been to measure him¬ 
self, on all occasions, with Burke. “ I suppose, Murphy,” 
he said to Arthur, as they came away from the dinner, “ you 
“ are proud of your countryman. Cum tails sit, utinam 
“ noster essetCl The club was an opportunity for both, and 
promptly seized; to the occasional overshadowing, no doubt, 
of the comforts and opportunities of other members. Yet for 
the most part their wit-combats seem not only to have 
interested the rest, but to have improved the temper of the 
combatants, and made them more generous to each other. 
“ How very great Johnson has been to-night,” said Burke to 
Langton, as they left the club together. Langton assented, 
but could have wished to hear more from another person. 
“ Oh, no !” replied Burke, “ it is enough for me to have rung 
“ the bell to him.” t 

spending the Christmas of 1793 at Beaconsfield, Burke said to him that Johnson 
showed more powers of mind in company than in his writings ; but he argued 
only for victory; and when he had neither a paradox to defend, nor an antagonist 
to crush, he would preface his assent with “ Why no, sir !” Croker, 70S. 
Boswell mentions the same peculiarity, and tells us that he used to consider the 
Why no, sir! as a kind of flag of defiance; as if he had said, “Any argument you 
“ may offer against this is not just. No, sir, it is not.” It was like Falstaff’s 
“ I deny your major.” viii. 318. 

* “ Thai fellow calls forth all my 'powers. Were 1 to see Burke now, it would 
“ kill me. So much was he accustomed to consider conversation as a contest, and 
“ such was his notion of Burke as an opponent.” Boswell, vi. 80. On the other 
hand with what complacency, in his better health, he writes to Mrs. Thrale 
(Letters, ii. 127.) “ But [Mrs. Montagu] and you have had, with all your adulation, 

‘ ‘ nothing finer said of you than was said last Saturday night of Burke and me. 
“ We were at the Bishop of [St. Asaph’s], a bishop little better than your bishop 
“ [Hinchliffe]; and towards twelve we fell into talk, to which the ladies listened, 
“just as they do to you; and said, as I heard, There is no rising unless 


tlie bell to their friends. Admiration of the Rambler 
i him seek admittance to its author, when he was himself, 
eight years hack, hut a lad of eighteen; and his inge- 
s manners and mild enthusiasm at once won Johnson's 

mt described to Boswell. “ My excellent friend, Dr. Langton, told me, be 
once present at a dispute between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke, on the 
parative merits of Homer and Virgil, which was carried on with extraordinary 
.ties on both sides. Dr. Johnson maintained the superiority of Homer.” 
v. 78. Another argument one would like to hare heard on those frequent occa- 
hen Johnson would quote Dryden’s lines (of which he was so fond) about living 
Bars again, and for his part protest that he never lived that -week in his life 
he would wish to repeat were an angel to make the proposal to him 
•II, iii. 139); to which Burke would reply (Boswell does not represent it as 
sed to Johnson, but it obviously must have been), that for his part he 
d that every man “would lead his life over again ; for every man is willing 
j on and take an addition to his life, which, as he grows older, he has no 
on to think will be better, or even so good as what has preceded.” viii. 304. 
le remark, which Johnson might nevertheless have met by simply again 
mg the masterly lines of the old poet, which hit the truth so finely in marking 
inconsistency, a self-cozenage, what the argument of Burke would bring 
the control of consistency and reason. “ Strange cozenage ! ” cries the poet, 
‘ ‘ When I consider life, ’tis all a cheat, 

“Yet, fool’d with hope, men favour the deceit; 

“ Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay: 

‘ ‘ To-morrow’s falser than the former day .... 

“ Strange cozenage ! none would live past years again, 

“ Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; 

‘ ‘ And from the dregs of life think to receive 
“ What the first sprightly running could not give. 

“I’m tired with waiting for this ehemie gold, 

“ Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.” 

'ch, let me add, if Burke unshed to make poetical rejoinder, he had but to 
the lines of Nourmahal from the same tragedy ( Aurung-Zebe ), 

“ ’Tis not for nothing that we life pursue, 

“ It pays our hopes with something still that’s new ! ” 

Scott’s Dryden, v. 241. 

xtraordinary how little of Burke’s conversation Boswell has attempted to 
. It is chiefly confined to his puns, one or two specimens of which I shall 
ereafter. Meanwhile I close this note with what I have always regarded as 


churn, and junior by two years, Topliam Beauclerc, grandson 
of the first Duke of St. Albans.t These two young men 
had several qualities in common, — ready intellect, perfect 
manners, great love of literature, and a thorough admira¬ 
tion of Johnson; but, with these, such striking points 
of difference, that Johnson could not comprehend their 
intimacy when first he saw them together. It was not till 
he discovered what a scorn of fools Beauclerc blended with 
his love of folly, what virtues of the mind he set off against 
his vices of the body, and with how much gaiety and wit he 
carried off his licentiousness, that he became as fond of the 
laughing rake as of his quiet contemplative companion. “ I 
“ shall have my old friend to bail out of the round house,” 
exclaimed Garrick, when he heard of it; and of an incident 
in connexion with it, that occurred in the next Oxford vaca¬ 
tion. His old friend had turned out of his chambers, at three 
o’clock in the morning, to have a “ frisk ” with the young 
“ dogs ft had gone to a tavern in Covent Garden, and roared 


of Yoitny a pretty successful imitation of Johnson's style, when Burke instantly 
opposed this vehemently, exclaiming, “No, no, it is not a good imitation of 
‘ £ J ohnson; it has all his pomp without his force; it has all the nodosities of 
“ the oak without its strength.” This was an image so happy, says Boswell, 
that one might have thought he would have been satisfied with it; but he was 
not. Setting his inind again to work, he added with exquisite felicity, ‘ ‘ It has 
“ all the contortions of the sibyl, without the inspiration.” viii. 29. 

* “I have heard him say, with pleasure, ‘Langton, sir, has a grant of free- 
“ ‘ warren from Henry H .; and Cardinal Stephen Langton, in King John’s reign, 
“ ‘ was of this family.’ ” Boswell, i. 295. 

+ ibid, i. 295-298. 

+ One night when Beauclerk and Langton had supped at a tavern in London, 
and sat till about three in the morning, it came into their heads to go and knock 



•ding to Boswell) liad resolved, with. Beauclerc, “ to 
severe in dissipation for the rest of the day,” when 
ton pleaded an engagement to breakfast with some 
>■ ladies, and was scolded by Johnson for leaving social 
Is to go and sit with a set of wretched un-idea d girls. 
:1 as for Garrick, sir,” said the sage, when his flight was 
ted to him, “he durst not do such a thing. His wife 
Id not let him!”* It was on hearing of similar proposed 
yagances, soon after, that Beauclerc’s mother angrily 
:ed Johnson himself, and told him an old man 
1 not put such things in young people’s heads; 
the frisking philosopher had as little respect for 
Sydney’s anger as for Garrick’s decorous alarm. 
3 had no notion of a joke, sir,” he said; “ had 
le late into life, and had a mighty unpliable under¬ 
iding ! ” t 

.e taste for un-idea d girls was not laughed out ofLangton, 
■theless; and to none did his gentle domesticities 
ne dearer than to Johnson. He left Oxford with a first- 
knowledge of Greek, and, what is of rarer growth at 
L’d, with untiring and all-embracing tolerance. His 
iers endeared him to men from whom he differed most; 
tened even better than he talked ; and there is no figure 
.s memorable club more pleasing, none that takes kinder 

son, and see if they could prevail on him to join them in a ramble. They 
violently at the door of his chambers in the Temple, till at last he appeared 
shirt, with his little black wig on the top of his head, instead of a nightcap, 
oker in his hand, imagining, probably, that some ruffians were coming to 
him. “When he discovered who they were, and was told their errand, he 




jJU.lJ.CU U LLu CLLL UUJLUJJLg gUlU UJ-L” UUA JLXO 

talk, and had a habit of sitting with one leg twisted round 
the other and his hands locked together on his knee, as if 
fearing to occupy more space than was equitable.* Beauclerc 
said he was like the stork standing on one leg, in Baffaelle’s 
cartoon ;t but good-naturedly; for the still siuwiving affection 
of their college-days checked even Beauclerc’s propensity to 
satire, and as freely still, as in those college-days, Johnson 
frisked and philosophised with his Lanky and his Beau. The 
man of fashion had changed as little as the easy, kindly scholar. 
Alternating, as in his Oxford career, pleasure and literature, 
the tavern and the court, books and the gaming table, 1 he had 
but widened the scene of his wit and folly, his reasoning and 
merriment, his polished manners and well-bred contempt, 
his acuteness and maliciousness. Between the men of letters 


* Miss Hawkins’s Memoirs, ii. 282. 

fl* Mr. Best (Personal and Literary Memorials, 62), gives another authority for 
this saying. ‘ ‘ In early youth I knew Bennet Langton . . he was a very tall, meagre, 
“ long-visaged man, much resembling, according to Richard Paget, a stork standing 
‘ ‘ on one leg near the shore, in Raphael’s cartoon of the miraculous draught of 
“ fishes. His manners were, in the highest degree, polished ; his conversation 
‘ ‘ mild, equable, and always pleasing. He had the uncommon faculty (’tis strange it 
“ should be an uncommon faculty,) of being a good reader; and read Shakspeare 
££ with such animation, such just intonation and inflexion of the voice, that they 
' ‘ who heard him declared themselves more delighted with his recitation than with 
‘ ‘ an exhibition of the same dramatic piece on the stage.” It may be worth mention 
that Langton succeeded J ohnson as professor of ancient literature in the Royal 
Academy; and as I cannot always praise Miss Hawkins, I^may as well add that 
her sketch of Langton is very agreeable. Not that even her liking for him, how¬ 
ever, is free from uncomfortable touches; “for,” she says, “wefemales ofthefamily 
‘ ‘ might get through much occupation of the after-breakfast description, drive out 
“for two or three honrs, return and dress, and my mother might turn in her 
“ mind the postponement of dinner, all within the compass of a morning visit from 
“Bennet Langton. But I never saw my father weary of his conversation, or 
“ knew any body complain of him as a visitor.” Memoirs, i. 233, 234. 


George Selwyn at Wliite’s, or at Strawberry-hill witli 
tole, was as mucli at home as with Johnson in Gerrard- 
. It gave him an influence, a sort of secret charm, 
lg these lettered companions, which Johnson himself very 
fly confessed to. “ Beauclerc could take more liberty 
,h him,” says Boswell, “ than anybody with whom I ever 
v himand when his friends were studying stately 
ratulations on his pension, and Beau simply hoped, 
Falstaff, that he’d in future purge and live cleanly 
a gentleman, he laughed at the advice and took it * 
i, indeed, was the effect upon him of that kind of accom- 
ment in which he felt himself deficient, that he more 
once instanced Beauclerc’s talents as those which he 
more disposed to envy than those of any whom he had 
m.f 

peculiarity in Beauclerc’s conversation seems undoubt- 
and half unconsciously, to have impressed every one. 
veil tries to describe it by assigning to it “ that air of 
world which has I know not what impressive effect, as 
there were something more than is expressed, or than 


cait of Johnson, which now became Langton’s property, and on the frame of 
had been inscribed by Beauclerc, “ Ingenium ingens ineulto latet hoc sub 
lore : ” which inscription Langton caused to be defaced. ‘ ‘ It was kind in you 
ike it off,” said Johnson to him, complacently ; and then, after a short pause, 
i manly kindness and delicacy of feeling, he added, “and not unkind in him to 
it on.” He was much affected by Beauclerc’s direction in his will, that he 
. be buried by the side of his mother. Boswdl, vii. 810-11. 
losvjell, i. 298. Johnson was some time with Beauclerk at his house at 
or, where he was entertained with experiments in natural philosophy, 
unlay, when the weather was very fine, Beauclerk enticed him, insensibly, 
inter about all the morning. They went into a churchyard, in the time of 



UXLUoaigJ-iCJLL. JLU u UJ.UiC u uvuuuu 3 jl 

imagine, as the feeling of a superiority to his subject. No 
man was ever so free, said Johnson very happily, when he 
was going to say a good thing, from a look which expressed 
that it was coming; or, when he had said it, from a 
look that expressed that it had coined This was a sense 
of the same superiority; and it gave Beauclerc a predomi¬ 
nance of a certain sort over his company, little likely to 
be always pleasant, and least so when it pointed shafts 
of sarcasm against his friends. Even Johnson was not 
tolerant of these. “ Sir,” he said to him, after one of his 
malicious sallies, “ you never open your mouth but with 
“ intention to give pain; and you have often given me pain, 
“ not from the power of what you said, but from seeing your 
“ intention.” J No one suffered from the evil habit so much 
as Goldsmith. 

* Essay, 2S. Boswell, vii. 265. “ As Johnson and I,” Boswell adds, 
“ accompanied Sir Joshua Reynolds in his coach, Johnson said, ‘ There is in 
“ 1 Beauclerk a predominance over his company, that one does not like. But he is 
“ ‘a man who has lived so much in the world, that he has a short story on every 
“ ‘ occasion : he is always ready to talk, and is never exhausted.’ ” 

h Bosicell,' vii. 821. “ Sir,” he said to Boswell, on another occasion, “ every- 

“ thing comes from him so easily. It appears to me that I labour, when I say a 
“ good thing.” Boswell. “ You are loud, Sir, but it is not an effort of miiul.” 
I could give many examples of this exquisite ease of Beauclerk’s talk, but one 
perhaps will be enough. During one of the frequent disputes when the whigs, 
“ the cursed whigs,” “ the bottomless whigs,” as Johnson called them, had become 
predominant in the club, and when, in the course of repelling a bitter attack on 
Fox and Burke, Beauclerk had fallen foul of George Steevens, Boswell interposed : 
“The gentleman, Mr. Beauclerk, against whom you are so violent, is, I know, 
a man of good principles.” Beauclerc. “Then he does not wear them out in 
practice.” Bos. vii. 123. 

+ Lord Charlemont, who loved him thoroughly, has not omitted to observe this. 
“ He was eccentric, often querulous, entertaining a contempt for the generality 
£ ‘ of the world, which the politeness of his manners could not always conceal: 


3e, at a great disadvantage. The leading traits of 
icter which this narrative has exhibited, here, for the 
; part, told against him. If, on entering it, his rank and 
is in letters had been better ascertained, more allowance 
d have then been made, not alone by the Hawkinses, 
by the Beauclercs and Burkes, for awkwardness of 
aers and ungainliness of aspect, for that ready credulity 
h is said to be the only disadvantage of an honest man, 
simplicity of nature that should have disarmed instead 
lviting ridicule, and for the too sensitive spirit which 
1 annoyances overthrew. They who have no other 
is of acquiring respect than by insisting on it, will com- 
ly succeed ; but Goldsmith had too many of those other 
as unrecognised, and was too constantly contending for 
, to have energy to spare for that simpler method, 
i could only have arrived, where Steele was brought by 
vitty yet gentle ridicule of Dick Eastcourt, at the happi- 
of thinking nothing a diminution to him but what argued 
pravity of his will, then might anything Beauclerc or 
kins could have said, of his shape, his air, his manner, 
peech, or his address, have but led to a manly enforce- 
t of more real claims.* But there was nothing in this 


lie reader who is not already familiar with this wise and exquisite paper will 
me for referring him to it in the 46Sth number of the Spectator. How 
iite are the subjoined passages in thought as well as style ! “It is an 
ilence natural to the Wealthy, to affix, as much as in them lies, the 
raeter of a Man to his Circumstances. Thus it is ordinary with them to 
ise faintly the good Qualities of those below them, and say, It is very extra¬ 
inary in such a Man as he is, or the like, when they are forced to acknowledge 
Value of him whose Lowness upbraids their Exaltation. It is to this 

««1tt ?+• i « 4-n bn oenriba/l +V10+. n nninlr Wit in P.nn w/vreiniin-n 


5>. ni/*P 


exacting enoit anuiuiiure anew, xt was nuw, uiuxe wua,u cvci, 
lie called William Filby to his aid, and appeared in tailor’s 
finery which made plainer the defects it was meant to hide. 
It was now he resented non-acceptance of himself by affecting 
careless judgments of others. It was now that his very avarice 
of social pleasure made him fretful of the restraints of Gerrard- 
street; and all he had suffered or enjoyed of old, in the college 
class room, at the inn of Ballymahon, among the Axe-lane 
beggars, or in the garret of Griffiths, reacted on his cordial 
hut fitful nature ;—never seriously to spoil, but very often to 
obscure it. Too little self-confidence begets the forms of 
vanity, and self-love will exaggerate faults as well as virtues. If 
Goldsmith had been more thoroughly assured of his own fine 
genius, the slow social recognition of it would have made him 
less uneasy; but he was thrust suddenly into this society, 
with little beyond a vague sense of other claims than it -was 
disposed to concede to him, however little it might sympathise 
with the special contempts of Hawkins ; and what argued a 
doubt in others, seems to have become one to himself, which 
he took as doubtful means of reinforcing. If they could 
talk, why so could he ; but unhappily he did not talk, as in 
festive evenings at Islington or the White-conduit, to please 

‘ ‘ Foot of contributing to Mirth and Diversion. ... It is certainly as great an 
“ Instance of Self-love to a Weakness, to be impatient of being mimick’d, as any 
“ can be imagined. There were none but the Vain, the Formal, the Proud, or 
“ those who were incapable of amending their Faults, that dreaded him ; to others 
“ he was in the highest Degree pleasing ; and I do not know any Satisfaction of 
“ any indifferent kind I ever tasted so much, as having got over an Impatience of 
“ my seeing myself in the Air he could put me when I have displeased him. It 
“ is indeed to his exquisite Talent this way, more than any Philosophy I could 
“read on the Subject, that my Person is very little of my Care ; and it is 


so far from desiring to appear to tlie best advantage, 
ok more pains to be esteemed worse than he was, 
others do to appear better than they are :* which was 
aying, awkwardly enough, that he failed to make him- 
nderstood. How time will modify all this; how far the 
sition of his fame, and its effects upon himself, will 
*then, with respect, the love which even they who 
laughed at already bore him; and in how much this 
ing habit will nevertheless still beset his friends, 
ring its excuses and occasion; the course of this nar- 
must show. That his future would more than redeem 
st, Johnson was the first to maintain; for his own 
ience of hardship had helped his affection to discern 
d he was never, at any period of their intercourse, so 
aring as at this. Goldsmith’s position in these days 
d nevertheless be well understood, if w r e would read 
t the ampler chronicle which later years obtained, 
s who was to be the chronicler had arrived again in 
on. “ Look, my lord! ” exclaimed Tom Davies with 
ice and attitude of Horatio, addressing a young gentle- 
who was sitting at tea with himself and Mrs. Davies in 
little back parloiu, on the evening of Monday the 16 tli 
ay, and pointing to an uncouth figure advancing towards 
/Lass door by which the parlour opened to the shop, 
comes ! ” The hope of the young gentleman’s life was 
st arrived. “ Don’t tell where I come from,” he whis- 
., as Johnson entered with Arthur Murphy.f “ This is 


Life of Garrick, ii. 168. 


“ Scotland, sir! ” “ Mr. Johnson,” said poor Boswell in a 

flutter (for tlie town was now ringing witli Number Forty-Jive, 
Bute liad just retired before tlie anti-Scottish, storm, and 
Johnson’s antipathies were notorious), “ I do indeed come 
“ from Scotland, but I cannot help it. “ That, sir, I find,” 
said the remorseless wit, “ is what a very great many of your 
“ countrymen cannot help. Now,” he added, turning to 
Davies as he sat down, regardless of the stunned young 
gentleman, “ what do you think of Garrick? He has refused 
“ me an order to the play for Miss Williams, because he 
“ knows the house will be full, and that an order would be 
“ worth three skillings.” Boswell roused himself at this, 
for what he thought would be a flattering thing to say. He 
knew that Garrick had, but a few years before, assisted this 
very Miss Williams by a free benefit at his theatre ; but he 
did not yet know how little Johnson meant by such a sally, 
or that he claimed to himself a kind of exclusive property in 
Garrick, for abuse as well as praise. “ 0, sir,” he exclaimed, 
“ I cannot think Mr. Garrick would grudge such a trifle to 
“ you." “ Sir ! ” rejoined the other, with a look and tone 
that shut up his luckless admirer for the rest of the evening, 
“ I have known David Garrick longer than you have done ; 
“ and I know no right you have to talk to me on the 
“ subject.” * A characteristic commencement of a friendship 

“This writer went with him [Johnson] into the shop of Davies, the bookseller, in 
“ Eussell-street, Covent-garden. Davies came running to him almost out of breath 
“ with joy : ‘ The Scots gentleman is come, sir; his principal wish is to see you ; 
“ ‘ he is now in the back parlour.’ ‘Well, well, I’ll see the gentleman,’ said 
“ Johnson. He walked towards the room. Mr. Boswell was the person. This 

“ writer fnllnwprl itTi -nn omoll nnrinm+Tr ‘ T nr,. t j. t 



b. again, very widely opened his ears, and showed eager- 
md admiration unabated. 

)on’t be uneasy,” said Davies, following him to the 
is he went away : “ I can see he likes you very well.”* 
mboldened, the “ giant’s den ” itself was daringly 
.ed after a few days; and the giant, among other 
lal w r ays of showing his benevolence, took to praising 
.ck this time. After that, the fat little pompous figure 
jager to make itself the giant’s shadow, might be seen 
lonly on the wait for him at his various haunts : in 
aries at the social dinner hour, or by Temple-bar in 
ivial midnight watches (Johnson’s present habit, as he 
us himself, was to leave his chambers at four in the 
loon, and seldom to return till tw T o in the morning) to 
t him to the Mitre. They supped at that tavern for the 
ime on the 25th of June; but Boswell, who tells us 
passed, has failed to tell us at what particular dish it was 
nr “ good supper,” or at what glass of the “ two bottles ” 
id, they disposed of, that Johnson suddenly roared across 
able, “ Give me your hand; I have taken a liking to 
They talked of Goldsmith. He was a somewhat uneas 3 r 
ct to Boswell, who could not comprehend how he had 
,ged to become so great a favourite with so great a man. 
he had published absolutely nothing with his name 
veil himself had just published “ Newmarket, a Tale ”); 
is a man that as yet you never heard of, but as f£ one 
Goldsmith; ” and all who knew him seemed to know that 


* Boswell, ii. 168. 


“ now have as an author, and he is a very worthy man too. He 
“ has "been loose in his principles, but he is coming right.” * 
A first supper so successful would of course be soon 
repeated, but few could have guessed how often. They 
supped again at the Mitre on the 1st of July; they were 
together in Inner Temple-lane on the 5th; they supped 
a third time at the Mitre on the Oth; they met once more on 
the Oth ; the Mitre again received them on the 14th; f on the 
19th they were talking again; they supped at Boswell’s 
chambers on the 20th ; they passed the 21st together, and 
supped at the Turk’s-head in the Strand; they were 
discussing the weather and other themes on the 2Gth; they 
had another supper at the Turk’s-head on the 28th, and 
were walking from it, arm in arm down the Strand, when 
Johnson gently put aside the enticing solicitations of wretch¬ 
edness with No, no, my Girl, it wont do; + they sculled down 
to Greenwich, read verses on the river, and closed the day 
once more with supper at the Turk’s-head, on the 30th ; on 
the 31st they again saw each other; they took tea together, 
after a morning in Boswell’s rooms, on the 2nd of August; on 
the 3rd they had theirlast supper at the Turk’s-head (Johnson 
encouraged the house because the mistress of it was a good 
civil woman, and had not much business) before Boswell’s 

* Boswell , ii. 184. 

t That supper on the 14th might he memorable if only for the immortal thing 
Johnson said when told of “an impudent fellow from Scotland,” who maintained 
that there was no distinction between virtue and vice. “Why, sir, if the 
“ fellow does not think as he speaks, he is lying ; and I see not what honour he 
“ can propose to himself from having the character of a liar. But if he does 
“ really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when 



latlnes had thus early been awakened by the untiring 
enjoyment, the eagerness for talk, the unbounded 
ence for himself, exhibited by Boswell, strengthened 
tless by his youth and idleness (of themselves enough, 
m, to make any man acceptable), by his condition in life, 
sort of romance in the lairdship of Auchinleck which 
as one day to inherit, and not a little, it may be, by even 
abbering conceits and inexpressible absurdities, that on 
)th of August, the sage took a place beside him in the 
■vich coach, accompanied him to the port he was to sail 
, and as they parted on the beach enjoined him to keep 
Lrnal, and himself promised to write to him. “ Who is 
.s Scotch cur at Johnson’s heels ? ” asked some one, 
zed at the sudden intimacy. “ He is not a cur,” answered 
Ismith ; “ you are too severe. He is only a bur. Tom 
ivies flung him at Johnson in sport, and he has the 
julty of sticking.” * 

swell has retorted this respectful contempt; and in him 
excessively ludicrous. “ It has been generally circulated 
d believed,” he says, “ that the Doctor was a mere fool 
conversation; but in truth this has been greatly exag- 
rated.” Goldsmith had supped with them at the Mitre 
be 1st of July, and flung a paradox at both their heads, 
maintained that knowledge was not desirable on its own 
unt, for it often was a source of unhappiness, f He 
>ed with them again at the Mitre five days later, as 
well’s guest, when Tom Davies and others were present; 
again was paradoxical^ He disputed very warmly with 
Lison, it seems against the sacred maxim of the British 


Constitution, that the king can do no wrong: affirming his 
belief that what was morally false could not be politically 
true; and that, as the king might, in the exercise of liis regal 
power, command and cause the doing of what was wrong, it 
certainly might be said, in sense and in reason, that he could 
do wrong : all which appeared to Boswell sensible or reason¬ 
able proof of nothing but the speaker’s vanity, and eager desire 
to be conspicuous wherever he was. “ As usual, lie endea- 
“ voured, with too much eagerness, to shine.”* It is added, 
indeed, that his respectful attachment to Johnson was now 
at its height; but no better reason is given for it, than that 
his own literary reputation had not yet distinguished him so 
much “ as to excite a vain desire of competition with his 
“ great master.” t In short, it is impossible not to perceive, 
that, from the first hour of their acquaintance, Boswell is 
impatient of Goldsmith, who appears to him very much what 
the French pall un etourdi, a giddy pate; Mr. Boswell, no 
doubt, feeling Iris own steady gravity and good sense quite 
shocked by the contrast of such levity. Also, lie is parti¬ 
cular to inform us, he finds Goldsmith’s person short, his 
countenance coarse and vulgar, and his deportment that of 
a scholar awkwardly affecting the easy gentleman.! How 

who was unlucky enough to hit upon praise of Scotland for a subject. He began 
by modestly remarking that there was very rich land around Edinburgh, upon 
which, says Boswell, “ Goldsmith, who had studied physic there, contradicted 
“this, very untruly, with a sneering laugh. Disconcerted a little by this, 
“ Mr. Ogilvie then took new grounds, where, I suppose, he thought himself 
“perfectly safe; for he observed that Scotland had a great many noble wild 
“ prospects.” “ I believe, sir,” said Johnson, upon this, “ you have a great many. 
“Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for 


r yet to De borne, tnat suen a man snouid be a pnvi- 
man. “ Doctor Goldsmith being a privileged man, 

Lt with h im this night ” (the first supper at the Mitre) 
Ltting away, and calling to me with an air of superiority, 
i that of an esoteric over an exoteric disciple of a 
e of antiquity, I go to Miss Williams '’ * 
he allowed to go to Miss "Williams was decisive of 
son’s favour. She was one of his pensioners,! blind and 
was now living in a lodging in Bolt-court, provided by 

!y account for much, of this feeling. “ It may also be observed, that Gold- 
li was sometimes content to be treated with an easy familiarity, but upon 
Ions would be consequential and important.” iii. 301. We have but to imagine 
l suddenly discovering that Goldsmith might be treated with an easy 
rity, to be quite certain that the familiarity would be carried to an extent 
n mere self-defence must have rendered necessary a resort to the consequential 
portant. And ldnc illiu Inch ri/ hue. * Boswell, ii. 199. 

tilers will appear in the course of this narrative, nor can I ever think of 
n without thinking of the wise, kind words, with which Mrs. Thrale tells us 
raged all the laws of political economy in regard to the poor. “ He loved 
poor,” she says, “as I never yet saw any one else do, with an earnest desire 
ake them happy. What signifies, says some one, giving halfpence to common 
;ars ? they only lay it out in gin or tobacco. And why should they be 
ed such sweeteners of their existence, says Johnson : it is surely very savage 
:fase them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our 
acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without 
ng ; yet for the poor w r e delight in stripping it still barer, and are not 
.rned to show even visible displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from 
r mouths.” After telling us this, the lively little lady adds, that in consequence 
e principles he nursed ‘ ‘ whole nests ” of people in his house, where the lame, 
ind, the sick, and the sorrowful found a sure retreat from all the evils 
e his little income could secure them. Antedates, S4, 85. Mr. Maxwell 
is also, in his collectanea, that “he frequently gave all the silver in his 
vet to the poor, who watched him between his huuse and the tavern where he 
id.” Boswell, iii. 133. We learn, too, from another authority, Mr. Harwood, 
hen visiting Lichfield, towards the latter part of his life, he w r as accustomed, 
s arrival, tu deposit with Miss Porter as much cash as w r ould pay his 
ses back to London. He could not trust himself with his own money, as 
t himself unable to resist the importunity of the numerous claimants on 
mcvolence. Ibid, ii. 1-1(1. Hawkins notes the same peculiarity. “ He 


to have tea with Miss Williams. “Why clo you keep that old 


“ certainly "without intending it, that good but weak man, old Mr. "Whiston, whom I 
“ have seen distributing, in the streets of London, money to beggars on each hand 
“ of him, till his pocket was nearly exhausted.” Life of Johnson, 395. Good, but 
weak Whiston—good, but weak Johnson. Well, Hawkins at any rate is not weak 
on these points, whatever else he may have been. What an unexceptionable poor- 
law guardian he must have made ! “I shall never forget,” says Miss Reynolds, 

1 ‘ the impression I felt in Dr. Johnson’s favoru-, the first time I was in his company, 
“ on his saying, that as he returned to his lodgings, at one or two o’clock in the 
“ morning, he often saw poor children asleep on thresholds and stalls, and that he 
‘ ‘ used to put pennies into their hands to buy them a breakfast.” Croker’s Boswell, 
834. “I have heard Gray say that Johnson would go out in London with his 
“pockets full of silver, and give it all away in the streets before he returned 
“ home.” Nieholls, in the Works, v. 33. Let me add that Burke, though no 
mean political economist, had the same habit, and justified it on similar grounds. 
But it is also to be remarked that, even in the short space of three quarters of a 
century, society has made such great advances in its care and provision for the 
poor, that it would be difficult to justify the practice now so easily as Burke and 
Johnson did. 

* “Mrs. Williams made it,’ 5 says Boswell, “with sufficient dexterity, notwith- 
‘ 5 standing her blindness, though her manner of satisfying herself that the cups 
“were full enough, appeared to me a little awkward ; for I fancied she put her 
“finger down a certain way, till she felt the tea touch it.” iii. 102. On the 
other hand Percy, whose vicarage she visited in Johnson’s company in the year 
following this, says, in a communication to Dr. Robert Anderson : “When she 
“ made tea for Johnson and his friends, she conducted it with so much delicacy, 

‘ ‘ by gently touching the outside of the cup, to feel, by the heat, the tea as it 
“ ascended within, that it was rather matter of admiration than of dislike.” 
And see Hawkins’s Life of Johnson, 321-5, &e: “I see her now,” says Miss 
Hawkins, in one of the pleasantest passages of her Memoirs, i. 152, “a pale, 
“ shrunken old lady, dressed in scarlet, made in the handsome French fashion of the 
“ time, with a lace cap, with two stiffened projecting wings on the temples, and a 
‘ ‘ black lace hood over it.. . Her temper has been recorded as marked with the Welsh 
‘ 1 fire, and this might be excited by some of the meaner inmates of the upper floors ” 
[of Dr. Johnson’s house]; “but her gentle kindness to me I never shall forget, 
“or think consistent with a bad temper.” The bad temper seems nevertheless 
indisputable. “Age, and sickness, and pride,” Johnson himself writes a few years 
later, “have made her so peevish, that I was forced to bribe the maid to stay 
“with her by a secret stipulation of half-a-crown a week over her wages.” 
Boswell, vi. 263. In another letter he writes to Mrs. Thrale : “Williams hates 
“ every body. Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams. Desmoulins 
“hates them both. Poll loves none of them.” Piozd Letters (1788), ii. 38; 



ielp his appreciation of such gallantry as this ; though he 
ns to have known none, in even the circles of fashion, so 
inguishecl, that he did not take a pride in showing them 
rusty-coated philosopher-friend. The then reader of the 
nple, Mr. Maxwell, has described the levees at Inner 
nple-lane. He seldom called at twelve o’clock in the day, 
says, without finding Johnson in bed, or declaiming over 
tea to a party of morning visitors, chiefly men of letters, 
mg whom Goldsmith, Murphy, Hawkesworth (an old 
nd and fellow-worker under Cave), and Langton, are 
red as least often absent. Sometimes learned ladies were 
re, too; and particularly did he remember a French lady 
wit and fashion doing him the honour of a visit. It was 
he summer of this year: and the lady was no other than 
famous Countess de Boufflers, acknowledged leader of 
mcli society, mistress of the Prince of Conti, aspiring to 
his wife, and of course, in the then universal fashion of 
savantes, pliilosophes, and beaux esprits of Paris, an 
jlomane. She had even written a tragedy in English 


see 28-9. Poll was a Hiss Carmichael, who, with Mrs. Desmoulins and her 
;hter, Miss Williams and Mr. Levett, formed what Miss Hawkins calls the 
mates of the upper floors/’ and Mrs. Tkrale “the whole nests” of people, 
were indebted for their only home to the charity of Johnson. “He used to 
ment pathetically to me,” adds the little lady, in one of the most delightful of 
Anecdotes (213), “that they made his life miserable from the impossibility he 
and of making theirs happy. . . . If, however, I ventured to blame their ingrati- 
de and condemn their conduct, he would instantly set about softening the one 
id justifying the other ; and finished commonly by telling me that I knew not 
>w to make allowances for situations I never experienced.” Such was his 
.anity, and such his generosity, exclaims Boswell, “that Mrs. Desmoulins 
srself told me he allowed her half-a-guinea a week. Let it be remembered, 
rnt this was above a twelfth part of his pension.” Life , vii. 50. 


Beauclerc’s, out of patience witli every body’s ridiculous 
abuse of every body that meddled in politics, and out of 
breath with her own social exertions. “ Dans ce pays-ci,” 
she exclaimed, “ c’est un effort perpetuel pour se divertir; ” 
and, exhausted with it herself, she did not seem to think that 
any one else succeeded any better. It was a few days after 
Horace Walpole’s great breakfast at Strawberry-hill, where 
he describes her with her eyes a foot deep in her head, her 
hands dangling and scarce able to support her knitting-bag, 
that Beauclerc took her to see Johnson. They sat and 
talked with him some time; and were retracing their way up 
Inner Temple-lane to the carriage, when all at once they 
heard a voice like thunder, and became conscious of Johnson 
hurrying after them. On nothing priding himself more than 
on his politeness, he had taken it into his head, after a little 
reflection, that he ought to have done the honours of his 
literary residence to a foreign lady of quality; and, eager to 
show himself a man of gallantry, was now hurrying down 
the staircase in violent agitation. He overtook them before 
they reached the Temple-gate, and, brushing in between 
Beauclerc and the Countess, seized her hand and conducted 
her to her coach.* His dress was a rusty brown morning 
suit, a pah of old shoes by way of slippers, a little shrivelled 

* BomoeU , vi. 25-6. “When our visit was ended,” says Hannah More, describing 
herself and her sister calling on Johnson in the year of Goldsmith’s death, “lie 
“ called for his hat, as it rained, to attend us down a long winding to our coach.” 
Memoirs, i. 49. And Miss Reynolds expressly tells us {CroJccr, 832), that he never 
suifered any lady to walk from his house to her carriage, through Bolt-court, un¬ 
attended by himself to hand her into it; and if any obstacle prevented it from 
driving off, “there he would fr.ndbvt.hod nnr nf it nnrl nfhr>v o mol ovmiti* 


ierable crowd of people gathered round,” says Beauelere, 
id were not a little struck by this singular appearance.” 
s hero of the incident would be the last person to be 
ed by it. The more the state of his toilet dawned upon 
, the less likely would he be to notice it. There was no 
e remarkable trait in Johnson, and certainly none in 
sh he more contrasted with the subject of this narrative, 
that, as Miss Reynolds was always surprised to remark 
rim, no external circumstances ever prompted him to 
:e the least apology for them, or to seem even sensible of 
r existence. 

: was not many months after this that he went to see 
dsmitli in a new lodging in the locality which not Johnson 
le has rendered illustrious, but its association with a line 
:he greatest names of English literature; the Dorsets, 
eighs, Seldens, Clarendons, Beaumonts, Fords, Marstons, 
clierleys, and Congreves. He had taken rooms on the then 
ary staircase of the Temple. They were a humble set 
chambers enough (one Jeffs, the butler of the society, 
red them with him); and, on Johnson’s prying and peering 
ut in them, after his short-sighted fashion, flattening his 
i against every object he looked at. Goldsmith’s uneasy 
se of their deficiencies broke out. “ I shall soon be in 
etter chambers, sir, than these,” he said. “ Nay, sir,” 
wered Johnson, “ never mind that. Nil te qiuesiveris 
ctra” Invaluable advice ! could Goldsmith, blotting out 
Lembrance of his childhood and youth, and looking solely 
steadily on the present and the future, but have dared 
ic.t linon it 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE ARREST AND WHAT PRECEDED IT. 

1763—1764. 

763 . Goldsmith’s removal from the apartments of Newbery’s 
iuk relative in Wine Office Court, to his new lodging on the 
library stair-case of the Temple, took place in an early 
month of 1764, and seems to connect itself with circum¬ 
stances at the close of 1763 which indicate a less cordial 
imderstanding between himself and Newbery. He had 
ceased writing for the British Magazine; was contemplating 
an extensive engagement with James Dodsley; and had 
attempted to open a connection with Tonson of the Strand. 
The engagement with Dodsley went as far as a formal signed 
agreement (for a Chronological History of the Lives of 
eminent Persons of Great Britain ancl Ireland), in which, the 
initials of medical bachelor are first assumed by him; and 
at the close of which another intimation of his growing 
importance appears, in the stipulation that “ Oliver 
“ Goldsmith shall print Iris name to the said work.” It was 
.to be in two volumes, octavo, of the size and type of the 
Universal History; each volume was to contain thirty- 
five-sheets ; Goldsmith was to be paid at the rate of three 
guineas a sheet: and th wi e was to bp. deliv .rod in tip 


JLu \V£U> a JJJLUjJUoildUUL JL1UIL L VJTU1USJULULU XVI a IltJW 

edition of Pope, which Tonson was so little disposed to enter¬ 
tain that he did not condescend to write his refusal. He sent 
a printer with a message declining it; delivered with so much 
insolence, that the messenger received a caning for his pains. 

The desire to connect himself with Pope, seems to point 
in the direction of those secret labours which are to prove 
such wonderment to Hawkins. He was busy at this time 
with his poem and his novel; and, if there he any truth 
in what great fat Doctor Chevne of Bath told Thomson, 
that, as you put a bird’s eyes out to make it sing the 
sweeter, you should keep poets poor to animate their 

* As an example of such agreements, and the first formal evidence of Goldsmith’s 
growing importance with the booksellers, I subjoin Dodsley’s. The original is now 
in the British Museum, Mr. Rogers having lately presented it, along with his more 
interesting gifts to the nation of Milton’s agreement for Paradise Lost and Dryden’s 
for the Fables. “ It is agreed between Oliver Goldsmith M.B. on one hand, and 
“ James Dodsley on the other, that Oliver Goldsmith shall write for James Dodsley 
“ a book called a Chronological History of the Lives of Eminent Persons of Great 
“ Britain and Ireland, or to that effect, consisting of about two volumes Svo. about 
“the sam e size and letter with the Universal History published in Svo; for the writing 
“ of which and compiling the same, James Dodsley shall pay Oliver Goldsmith three 
“ guineas for every printed sheet, so that the whole shall be delivered complete 
“ in the space of two years at farthest; James Dodsley, however, shall print the 
“ above work in whatever manner or size he shall think fit, only the Universal 
“ History above mentioned shall be the standard by which Oliver Goldsmith shall 
“ expect to be paid. Oliver Goldsmith shall be paid one moiety upon delivery of 
“ the whole copy complete, and the other moiety, one half of it at the conclusion 
“ of six months, and the other half at the expiration of the twelve months next 
“ after the publication of the work, James Dodsley giving, however, upon the 
“ delivery of the whole copy, two notes for the money left unpaid. Each volume 
“ of the above intended work shall not contain more than five-and-thirty sheets, 
“ and if they should contain more, the surplus shall not be paid for by James 
“ Dodsley. Oliver Goldsmith shall print his name to the said work. 

“ Oliver Goldsmith, 

“ March 31st, 1763. “ James Dodsley.” 



amid luxuriant woods, with the full spring blooming around 
them.* What alone seems certain as to that matter, be it 
light or dark, is that the song, if a true song, will make itself 
audible. 

There is a note among Newbery’s papers with the date of 
the 17th of December 17G3, which states Goldsmith to have 
received twenty-five guineas from the publisher, for which 
he promises to account. At this time, too, he dis¬ 
appears from his usual haunts, and is supposed to have 
been in concealment somewhere. Certainly he was in distress, 
and on a less secure footing with Newbery than at the com¬ 
mencement of the year.f Yet it is also at this time we find 

* Goldsmith’s philosophy on this subject appears in that delightfully written 
book, the Animated, Nature , and is very much opposed to lat Dr. Chcyne’s. 
“ The music of every bird in captivity produces no very pleasing sensations : it 
“ is but the mirth of a little animal insensible of its unfortunate situation. It is 
“the landscape, the grove, the golden break of day, the contest upon the haw- 
“ thorn, the fluttering from branch to branch, the soaring in the air, and the 
“ answering of its young, that gives the bird’s song its true relish. These united, 
“ improve each other, and raise the mind to a state of the highest, yet most 
“ harmless exultation. Nothing can in this situation of mind be more pleasing 
“ than to see the lark warbling on the wing ; raising its note as it soars, until it 
“ seems lost in the immense heights above us ; the note continuing, the bird itself 
“ unseen ; to see it then descending with a swell as it comes from the clouds, yet 
“ sinking by degrees as it approaches its nest; the spot where all its affections 
“are centred, the spot that has prompted all this joy.” iv.261-2. In the same chapter 
Goldsmith incidentally contributes his experience to what Charles Fox, Coleridge, 
and other famous men have since written on the song of the nightingale. ‘ ‘ For weeks 
“ together, if undisturbed, they sit upon the same tree ; and Shakspearo rightly 
“ describes the nightingale sitting nightly in the same place, which I have 
“ frequently observed she seldom departs from. . Her note is soft, various, and 
“ interrupted; she seldom holds it without a pause above the tune that one can 
“ count twenty. The nightingale's pausing song would be the proper epithet for 
“ this bird’s music with us, which is more pleasing than the warbling of any other 
“ bird, because it is heard at a time when all,the rest are silent, iv. 25G-7. 
These nassaues. exouisite in liusr. in exnression pnnilntp tUn mneip tlipvd <ar>rll>p 


copy of an appeal to the public for poor Kit Small,* who had 
married Newbery’s step-daughter ten years before, and had 
since, with his eccentricities and imprudences, wearied out 
all his friends hut Goldsmith and Johnson. Very recently, 
as a last resource, he had been taken to a mad-house; and it 
was under this restraint, while pens and ink were denied to 
him, that he indented on the walls of his cell with a key, his 
Song to Davul .f His friends accounted for the excellence of 

ments made in it. It would seem that between the date of his leaving Wine 
Office Court in “ an early month of 1764 ” (ante, 364), and his return to Islington at 
‘ ‘ the beginning of April ” in that year (post, 369), he had occupied, while his attic in 
library staircase of the Temple was preparing, a temporary lodging in Gray’s Inn; 
and that the engagement with the Dodsleys which I have described as opened at 
this time, had actually proceeded as far as the preparation of copy, and the claim 
for advance of money. This, as well as the sharp poverty he was suffering, 
appears from the brief note to James Dodsley, which has been communicated to 
me by my friend Mr. Peter Cunningham, whose success in matters of literary 
research is as little to he questioned as the vivacity and ease with which he 
imparts his discoveries. “Sir,” it runs, being dated from “Gray’s Inn,” 
and addressed “ to Mr. James Dodesley in Pall Mall,” on the 10th of March 
1764, “I shall take it as a favour if you can let me have ten guineas per 
“ bearer, for which I promise to account. I am, sir, your humble servant, 
“ Oliver Goldsmith. P.S. I shall call to see you on Wednesday next with copy, 
“ &e.” Whether the money was advanced, or the copy supplied, does not appear. 

41 Percy calls it (Letter to Malone, Oct. 17, 1786) “ a paper which he wrote to 
“ set about a subscription for poor Smart, the mad poet.” For a very whimsical 
account of Smart’s vagaries, while yet a resident fellow of Pembroke in Cambridge, 
written in .Gray’s quaint thoughtful way, see WorJcs, iii. 42. He describes him 
amusing himself with a comedy of his own writing, which, “he says, is inimitable, 
“ true sterling wit, and humour by God ; and he can’t hear the Prologue without 
“ being ready to die with laughter. He acts five parts himself, and is only sorry 
“ he can’t do all the rest. ... All this, you see, must come to a Jayl, or Bedlam, 
“ and that without any help, almost without pity.” And see Correspondence of 
Gray and Mason, 169, 175 ; and Mrs. Piozzi’s Anecdotes, 260. 

+ Boswell did great wrong to Smart by making him the hero of the ever famous 
comparison with Derrick. (Life, viii. 182-3.) It was of Boyce and Derrick that 
Johnson was asked at Lord Shelburne’s which he thought the best poet. “ Sir, 
“ there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea!” The 
question was put by Morgann (who wrote the admirable Essay on Fablaff), ex- 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH’S LIRE AND TIMES. 


IBook Iir. 


1763. 
3t. 35. 


1764. 
Et. 36. 


tlie composition by asserting that he was most religious when 
most mad; but Goldsmith and Johnson were nevertheless 
now exerting themselves for his release. “ Sir,” said the 
latter to Boswell, at one of their recent interviews, “my 
“ poor friend Smart showed the disturbance of his mind, 
“ by falling upon his knees and saying his prayers in the 
“ street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, 
“ rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray 
“ at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are 
“ so many who do not pray, that then understanding is not 
“ called in question.” “ I did not think,” he remarked to 
Burney, “ he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were 
“ not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying 
“ with him; and I’d as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one 
“ else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean 
“ linen; and, sir, I have no passion for it.” 

Their exertions were successful. Smart was again at 
large at the close of the year, and on the 3rd of the fol¬ 
lowing April (17G-1) a sacred composition named Hannah , 
with his name as its author, and music by Mr. Worgan, 
was produced at the king’s theatre. The effort connects 
itself with a similar one by Goldsmith, made at the 
same time. He wrote the words of an Oratorio in three 
acts, on the subject of the Captivity in Babylon. But 
it is easier to help a friend than oneself; and liis own 
Oratorio lay unrepresented in his desk. All lie received 

fnv it was tnn oTiinfins. id bv Tfndslnv fnv bis vicrbt. ,n 



use ui me asraemisn women. 


“ To the last moment of liis breath 
On Hope the wretch relies. 

And even the pang preceding death 
Bids Expectation rise. 

“ Hope, like the gleaming taper’s light, 

Adorns and cheers our way, 

And still as darker grows the night 
Emits a brighter ray.” * 

e night was very dark round Goldsmith just now, yet 
ry was shining steadily too. In few of the years of his 
ave we more decisive evidence of struggles and distress 
‘n this of 1764 ; in none did he accomplish so much for 
iduring fame. But it is a year very difficult to describe 
my accuracy of detail. We have little to guide us beyond 
ccasional memoranda of publishers and the accounts of 
Elizabeth Fleming. To the Islington lodging he 
ned at the beginning of April (having paid rent for 
etention of “ the room,” meanwhile, at the rate of about 
shillings a week); and his expenses to the end of June 
ontained in his landlady’s bill. They seem to argue 
■ enjoyments, and less credit with Mrs. Fleming. No 
:rs or teas are thrown into the bargain. The sixpence 
sassafras ” (a humble decoction which the poet does not 
to have despised, now dealt in by apothecaries chiefly) 
fays carefully charged. The loans are only four, and of 
rate amount; a shilling to “ pay the laundress," and 
ence, one and two-pence, and sixpence “ in cash.” 
e are none of the old entries for port wine. Two-pence, 


IllOlltJy HUVHalUcUj ULJL DLUAIO XJLUJ.^UJLUU.oxj qxj.xcoxx 3 cim-xii. x\jx fD 

work as the revision of short translations, and papers for 


subjoin tlie account from tbe Newbery MSS, Prior, ii. 12-13. 

“ 1764. Doct. Goldsmith Dr. to Eliz. Fleming. 

To the rent of tbe room from Dec. 25 to March 29. . <£1 17 

6 

April 2. A post letter. 

0 0 

1 

3. Tbe stage-coach to London 

0 0 

6 

7. Leut to pay the laundress .... 

0 1 

0 

11. A post letter ..... 

0 0 

1 

15. A parcel by the coach .... 

0 0 

2 

18. A post letter. 

0 0 

1 

19. Sassafras ...... 

0 0 

0 

25. Sassafras ...... 

0 0 

6 

May 2. Sassafras ...... 

0 0 

G 

3. A post letter ..... 

0 0 

1 

7. A post letter. 

0 0 

1 

Sassafras. 

0 0 

G 

Gave the boy for carrying a parcel to Pall Mall 

0 0 

8 

12. Sassafras. 

0 0 

G 

16. A post letter ..... 

0 0 

4 

17. Pens and paper. 

0 1 

3 

21. Sassafras ...... 

0 0 

6 

23. A post letter. 

0 0 

1 

24. Lent in cash. 

0 0 

10 

A pint of ale . 

0 0 

2 

25. Paper. 

0 0 

G 

28. Sassafras ...... 

0 0 

6 

Opodeldoek ...... 

0 0 

2 

June 8. A letter to the post ..... 

0 0 

1 

9. Lent in cash. 

0 1 

2 

Sassafras ....... 

0 0 

6 

21. Lent in cash ..... 

0 0 

6 

27. A post letter ...... 

0 0 

1 

28. A post letter ..... 

0 0 

1 

30. Sassafras. 

0 0 

6 

To cleaning shoes ..... 

0 2 

6 

Washing and Mending. 

April 17. 3 Shirts, 3 neckcloths, 4 pair of stockings . 

0 1 

54 

May 3. 2 Shirts, 2 neckcloths, 1 cap . 

0 0 

94 

12. 4 Shirts, 4 neckcloths, 3 pair of stockings . 

0 1 

9 

To mending 3 pair of stockings 

0 0 

3 

26. 3 Shirts, 3 neckcloths, 1 pair stockings 

0 1 

21 







guineas, from the publisher, have now dwindled down to 
lillings ” and “ half-crownsand it is matter of doubt 
ther Newbery, to satisfy outstanding claims, did not 
age him for some part of his time in work for his 
mile library. The author of Caleb Williams , who had 
a a child’s publisher himself, had always a strong persua- 
l that Goldsmith wrote Goody Two Shoes (an ingenious 
g critic has claimed Tom Hickathrift for Fielding); + 
if so, the effort belongs to the present year; for Mrs. 
*gery, radiant with gold and ginger-bread, and rich in 
ures as extravagantly iU-drawn as they are dear and well- 
.embered, made her appearance at Christmas. Other aid 
also sought to eke out that of Newbery; and a sum of 

Brought forward £2 17 111 
June 8. 4 Shirts, 4 neckcloths, 1 pair stockings, 1 cap . 0 1 74 

1 Pair stockings, mending . . ..001 

22. 4 Shirts, 4 neckcloths, 4 pair stockings . . 0 1 10 

3 Pair stockings, mending . . ..003 

For cloth and wristing a shirt . . .006 

To 3 months’ hoard, from March 29 to June 29 . 12 10 0 

15 12 3 

Oliver Goldsmith. ” - 

For this, the Life of Christ and Lives of the Fathers , before referred to, appear 
ive been translated ; Goldsmith receiving 21Z. for the task work. 

There will perhaps be no harm in now saying that the critic to whom I here 
red is Mr. Thackeray. Yet (such are the differences of taste !) Mr. G. S. Carey, 
or of Chrononhotontholof/oS) thus writes to Garrick three years after the present 
. “I had rather they had laid the History of Tom Hickathrift to my charge, 
n to say I was the author of The Theatrical Monitor ; for, in my opinion, there 
is never published anything more puerile, invidious, and exceptionable.” Garrick 
•espondence , i. 276. It may not be out of place to add, that Johnson thought 
rommy Prudent and Goody Two Shoes class of children’s books too childish, 
ibies do not want,” he said to Mrs. Thrale, when he saw these books of New¬ 
’s in her nursery, “to hear about babies. They like to he told of giants and 
.sties, and of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their little minds.” 



puDiisner oi me assays m me ionowmg year;, uul wiuuoui, 
mention of the labours it rewarded. 

That, in all these memoranda, the entire labours of the 
year cannot yet be accounted for, it is hardly necessary to 
add. We are left to guess what other work was in progress, 
for which advances were not available; and in this, an 
anecdote told by Reynolds will offer some assistance. He 
went out to call upon Goldsmith, he says, not having seen 
him for some time; and no one answering at his door, he 
opened it without announcement, and walked in. His friend 
was at his desk, but with hand uplifted, and a look directed 
to another part of the room; where a little dog sat with 
difficulty on his haunches, looking imploringly at his 
teacher, whose rebuke for toppling over he had evidentlyjust 
received. Reynolds advanced, and looked past Goldsmith’s 
shoulder at the writing on his desk. It seemed to he some 
portions of a poem. He looked more closely, and was able 
to read a couplet which had been that instant written. The 
ink of the second line was wet. 

“ By sports like these are all their cares beguil’d ; 

The sports of children satisfy the child.” 

This visit of Reynolds is one of the few direct evidences 
which the year affords of his usual intercourse with his 
more distinguished friends. There is no reason to doubt, 
however, that he had been pretty constant in his attendance 
at the club during the past winter; he was a member of the 
Society of Arts, and had been often at their meetings, of 
which the only trace now left is the record of loans of money 



he last season had been one of peculiar interest. The 
1763 had opened with evil omen to Garrick. For the first 
! since the memorable night at which I left him in my 
ative of his triumphs at Goodman’s Fields, when, in the 
st of unexampled enthusiasm, his eye fell upon a little de¬ 
ed figure in a side box, was met by the approving glance 
a eye as bright as his own, and, in the admiration of Alex- 
m Pope, his heart swelled with the sense of fame,f Garrick, 
le commencement of that year, felt his influence shaken 
his ground insecure. On a question of prices, the 
>ble whom Churchill has gibbetted in the Rosciad led a 
dus opposition in his theatre, to which he was compelled 
ffer a modified submission; and not many weeks later, 
r appearing in a comedy by Mrs. Sheridan and giving 

ic'd) 10s. 6 d. Doctor Goldsmith, Dr. Money lent at the Society of Arts 
i pencil), 3 1. 3s. Feb. 14, Lent Dr. Goldsmith (in pencil), 1Z. Is. March 5, 

. Goldsmith, 15 1. 15s. May 1, Lent Dr. Goldsmith, 10s. 6cZ. Ditto, 2s. 6 d. 
Iyl4, Dr. Goldsmith, 29Z. 8s. Aug. 15, Ditto. 4Z. 4s. Sept. 1, Ditto, 51. os. 
>v. 17, Lent Dr. Goldsmith, 5s. 3 d. July 7, 1764, Lent Dr. Goldsmith (in 
ncil), 2s. Lent before (in pencil), 2s. 6cZ. April 30, 1765, Lent Dr. Goldsmith 
the Society (in pencil), 3 1. 3s.” 

“ As I opened the part I saw our little poetical hero, dressed in black, seated 
a side box near the stage, and viewing me with a serious and earnest attention, 
s look shot and thrilled like lightning through my frame, and I had some 
sitation in proceeding, from anxiety and from joy. As Richard gradually 
ized forth, the house was in a roar of applause, and the conspiring hand of 
ipe shadowed me with laurels.” Such w r as Garrick’s own account of the 
jest triumph of the opening of his career ; and, at the close of it, after an 
val of six-and-thirty years of uninterrupted success, he told a friend with 
; emotion he had seen Charles Fox in one of the side boxes, as he rushed off 
itage at the close of the second act of Lear, holding up his hands with animated 
ire expressive of the wonder of his admiration. It is very pleasing, let me add, 
scover repeated evidences, in this not very reverential age, of the deep respect, 
feeling akin to awe, with which Pope was regarded towards the close of his 
Fjvp.u Johns nlias hi tiers nal nride connected with him, and often “told us 


ances),*he announced his determination to go abroad for two 
years. The pretence was health ; but the real cause (resent¬ 
ment of what he thought the public indifference, and a resolve 
that they should feel his absence) is surmised in a note of 
Lord Bath’s which lies before me, addressed to his nephew 
Colman, the ad interim manager of the theatre. 

Garrick left London in the autumn; and his first letter to 
Colman from Paris describes the honours which were 
showering upon him, the plays revived to please him, and 
the veteran actors recalled to act before him. He had supped 
with Marmontel and d’Alembert; “ the Clairon ” was at the 
supper, and recited them a charming scene from Athalie ; 
and he had himself given the dagger scene in Macbeth, the 
curse in Lear, and the falling asleep of Sir John Brute, with 
such extraordinary effect, that “the most wonderful wonder 
“ of wonders ” was nothing to it. Yet on the very day that 
letter was written (the 8tli of October, 1763), a more won¬ 
derful wonder was enacting on the boards of his own theatre. 
A young bankers’ clerk named Powell, to whom, on hearing 


supreme despot, of the age of literature just passed away. He was in a crowded 
auction-room on liis first arrival in London, watching a sale of pictures for his master 
Hudson, when, as he stood near the auctioneer at the upper end of the room, he 
became aware of an extraordinary hustle among the crowd at the other extremity 
near the door, which he could only account for at the moment by supposing that 
some one had fainted from the effect of the heat. But he soon heard the name 
of Mr. Pope whispered from every mouth, and became conscious that the poet 
was just entering the door. Every person forming that crowd then drew back 
and divided to make way for him up the centre of the room, and all present, on 
either side of the passage which was formed, held out their hands that he 
might touch them as he passed. Reynolds occupied a modest position behind 
the front rank, but he put out his hand under the arm of the person who stood 
before him, and Pope took it as he did those of others in advancing. Revnolds, 



lpole; and Foote’s jeering went for nothing. Walpole 
sribes the scene with what seems to he a satisfied secret 
suasion (in which Goldsmith certainly shared) that 
:rick had at last met a dangerous rival. He calls the new 
>r “ what Mr. Pitt called my Lord Clive,” a heaven-horn 
o;f says the heads of the whole town are turned; and 
cribes all the boxes taken for a month. Powell’s salary 
i at once raised to ten pounds a-week, George Garrick 
senting on the part of his brother; and such was the 
fiety of the town to see him in new characters, and the 
diness of the management in giving way to it, that in this 
first season, from October ’63 to May ’64, he appeared in 
enteen different plays, to a profit on the receipts of nearly 
en thousand pounds.! His most successful efforts indicate 
attractive points of his style. In Philaster he appeared 
een times, in Posthumus eleven, seven times in Jaffier, 
in Castalio, and five in Alexander. Garrick himself had 
anwhile written to him from Italy to warn liim against 
ill characters as the latter, and restrain him from attempt- 
f too much.§ The advice was admirably written, and 

Davies’s Life of Garrick, ii. 71. i Letters to Mann , i. 167. 

See Boaden’s prefatory memoir to Gar. Corr. i. xlii. 

“I am very angry with Powell,” he writes to Colman, “for playing that 
etestable part of Alexander. Every genius must despise it, because that, and 
uch fustian-like stuff, is the bane of true merit. If a man can act it well, 
mean to please the people, he has something in him that a good actor should 
iot have. He might have served Mrs. Pritchard, and himself too, in some good 
atural character. I hate your roarers.” Rome, April 11, 17G4. Memoirs of 


green-room of Drury Lane. He knew himself yet unassailed 
in wliat lie had always felt to he his main strength, his 
versatility and variety of power.* Three men were now 

the Cohums, i. Ill, 112. And .see an excellent letter to Powell himself, written 
from Paris in December 1764, Garrich Correspondence, i. 177-8. 

* The earliest of Garrick’s critics was one of the most discriminating, and is 
entitled on other grounds to he listened to with respect, for ho became a bishop, and, 
even after he had published his book on the Prophecies, continued to think Shaks- 
peare and Garrick not unworthy of his regard. Newton lived with Lord Carpenter 
in Grosvenor-square, as tutor to his son, when the Goodman’s Fields prodigy began 
to be talked about; took additional interest in him as a fellow townsman of Lich¬ 
field ; and not only used to travel every week that distance of nearly five miles to 
see the new actor, but, sending servants before-hand to keep places (necessary 
then) that nothing of eye or gesture might be lost, carried to Goodman’s Fields 
with, him all the great people he could induce to accompany him, and wrote 
excellent letters of encouragement and advice to the object of his admiration. I 
quote from one which is dated exactly six months from the day of Garrick’s first 
appearance. After telling him that one of the masters of Westminster school who 
remembered Booth and Betterton, was of opinion that in Lear he had far excelled 
the first and even equalled the last, “ The thing,” he continues, “that strikes me 
“above all others, is that variety in your acting, and your being so totally a 
“ different man in Lear from what you are in Richard. There is a sameness in 
“ every other actor. Cibber is something of a coxcomb in everything; and Wolsey, 
“ and Syphax, and Iago, all smell strong of the essence of Lord Foppington. 
“ Booth was a philosopher in Cato, and was a philosopher in overytliing else. 
“ His passion in Hotspur and Lear was much of the same nature, whereas your’s 
“ was an old man’s passion, and an old man’s voice and action ; and in the four 
“parts wherein I have seen you, Richard, Chamont, Bayes, and Lear, I never 
“ saw four actors more different from one another than you are from yourself.” 
This letter (written, be it remembered, when Garrick was only twenty-five) helps 
to explain what was meant by the celebrated prompter of Drury Lane, Waldron, 
a man of discernment and even taste in poetry, when he frankly made answer, on 
a question of comparison between his early master Garrick, and a later ornamont 

of the stage, “No man admires Mr.-, sir, more than I do. Ho is a great 

“man ! a very great man ! but Mr. Garrick, sir, bless my soul ! it was quite a 
“different sort of thing.” Even Horace Walpole, in one of his most elaborate 
depreciations of Garrick (Coll. Lett. v. 11, 12), is unconsciously betrayed into an 
admission of his unrivalled variety and versatility when he siunmous back two of 
the Betterton race, lays under contribution the French stage, and has to pick and 



alarmed. 

Be tliat as it might, however, Powell’s success was a great 
tiling for tlie authors. He came to occupy for them, oppor¬ 
tunely, a field which the other had avowedly abandoned; and 
Goldsmith, always earnest for the claims of writers, sympa¬ 
thised strongly in his success. Another incident of the 
theatrical season made hardly less noise. O’Brien’s charms 
in Banger and Lovemore proved too much for lady Susan 
Fox * and she ran away with him. It cured Walpole for a 
time of his theatre-going. He had a few days before been 
protesting to Lord Hertford, that he had the republican spirit 
of an old Eornan, and that his name was thoroughly Hora- 
tius; t hut a homely-looking earl’s-daughter running away 
with a handsome young player, ran away with all his philo¬ 
sophy. He thought a footman would have been preferable ; + 

choose from among the living English actors, before he can establish the fact of his 
having had equals or superiors in the art. So when Johnson talked of the old 
actors during the tour to the Hebrides ( Boswell , iv. 132:) “you compare them with 
“ Garrick, and see the deficiency. Garrick’s great distinction is his universality.” 

* “ A very pleasing girl, though not handsome. . . . Lord Ilchester doated on 
“ her.” Letters to Mann, i. 195. “ The king,” writes her uncle Lord Holland 

to Mr. Grenville, asking him for a place in the New York Customs to banish 
O’Brien to, “has shown so much compassion on this unhappy occasion, that, &c.” 
Grenville Correspondence , ii. 447. “O’Brien and Lady Susan,” says Walpole to 
Lord Hertford “ are to be transported to the Ohio and have a grant of 40,000 
“ acres.” Coll. Lett. iv. 404. t Hid, iv. 336. 

J Coll. Lett. iv. 405. Within a very few months his preference was gratified 
by another of his lady friends, Lord Rockingham’s youngest sister, actually 
marrying her Irish footman, Mr. William Sturgeon. Coll. Lett. iv. 460. (‘ ‘A sensible, 
“ well-educated woman,” says Gray, “27 years old indeed, and homely enough.” 
Correspondence with Mason, 335.) Yet, such are the strange inconsistencies of 
character, this same Horace Walpole could thus write to Mann eight years later. 
“ We have an instance in ora family of real dignity of mind, and I set it down 



“ as the most honorable alliance in the pedigree. The dowager Lady Walpole,” 
(his aunt) “ you know, was a French staymaker’s daughter. When ambassadress 
“ in France, the queen expressed surprise at her speaking so good French. Lady 
“ Walpole said she was a Frenchwoman. ‘ Framjaise ! ’ replied the queen. c Vous 
“ { Frangaise, madame ! et de quelle famille V ‘D’aucune, madame,’ answered 
“my aunt. Don’t you think that aucune sounded greator than Montmorency 
“ would have done ? One must have a great soul, to he of the cmcmie family ; 
“ which is not necessary, to he a Howard.” Lett, to Mami,, ii. 221. 

* A clever little piece called Cross Purposes was written hy O’Brien, who after- 
wards, on his return from America, less successfully borrowed from the French 
a comedy called the Duel. O’Brien lived to a very great age, and is remembered 
living “on his farm” in one of the midland counties during the first quarter of the 
present century ; while his wife, Lady Susan, did not die till 1827, at tho ripe age 
of 84. I am happy to be able to quote a hitherto unpublished letter of his to George 
Garrick, which pleasantly exhibits the social nature of tho man, the regret with 
which he entered the temporary exile to which the pride of his wife’s grand relations 
had sentenced him, and the wondrous changes which something short of a century 
has made in the scene of his exile. The letter was probably one of his first from 
New York, and its date shows with what a horrible haste (“ O’Brien and his lady 
“ big with child,” writes Gray to the master of Pembroke, Oct. 29, 17G4, “ are 
“embarked for America to cultivate their 40,000 acres of woodland”) the 
fashionable folk had packed them off. “ New York, Nov. 10 th, 1764. Dear 
“ George, Though I think you don’t deserve it at my hands, yet I must write 
“ to you, and beg you will take the first opportunity, to let me hear from you, 
“how you do, and how every thing goes on among you at old Drury, where 
“ I often wish myself, just to take a peep thro’ the curtain and have a frisk in the 
“ green-room. How came you never once to take your leave of us, but go to 
“ Hampton and take no sort of notice of us; you must clear that up to me. Is 
“ your Brother come to England ? I shan’t write to him till I hoar from him, and 
“ know where he is. I suppose you long to have an account of our passage, and 
“ this place. As to the first, it was a very remarkable one for the time of year, 
“ they say, being only 34 days—but between you and I, the tempest we have been 
“ used to see on dry land before a crowded house, is far pleasanter than some we 
“ met with on the American coast. I assure you I thought it a serious affair, and 
“ began to say my short prayers. Lady Susan was vastly ill the whole way, but 
“ is now quite well again and sends you her compliments. New York is not equal 
“ to London, but we shall be very comfortable I make no doubt—every one here 
“ seems extremely disposed to make it as agreeable as possible to us. Everything 
“ appears just in the bud, a world in its infancy, which to folks used to the 
“ conveniences and luxuries of London is at the first rather awkward— time 


-u. urn a lieu u uciiuii. in me ujjjJtJA gautiiy. J£t m 

Poverty pressed heavily just now upon Goldsmith, as I have 
said. His old friend Grainger came over on leave from his 
West India station, to bring out his poem of the Sugar 
Cane; and found him in little better plight than in his 
garret days. “ When I taxed little Goldsmith for not writing.” 
he says to Percy, “ as he promised me, his answer was, that 
“ he never wrote a letter in his life ; and ’faith I believe him, 

“ unless to a bookseller for money.”* In the present year, 
it would seem, he had more experience than success in 

“ makes every tiling feel less so. "Whenever I meet with anything I think worth 
‘ ‘ your while accepting, you may he sure I won’t forget you. In the mean time 
“ I "beg you’ll do me the favor to desire Mr. Woodfall will send me the Public 
“ Advertisers that I may see the progress of Politics and Plays at one view. He 
1 ‘ may send them regularly by the packets as they come; and if possible let me 
‘ ‘ have them from the first day the house opened, aud so on day by day; I’ll have 
“ them all the while I continue in this country. I’ll pay him either by the year 
“ at once, or if he must be paid constantly every day order him to leave them at 
“ Mr. Towchet’s as they come out, and he will send them to me and pay him for 
1 ‘ them. I hope all your little family are well, give my love to them all. Present 
“ my compliments to Mr. Lacy . . tell him I expect to hear from him . . Give my 
“ compliments to Mr. Colman, whom I hope also to hear from, and Hollond. 

“ I hope they won’t take it ill, I don’t write to them ; but I have so little to say 
‘ ‘ and so many letters to write, that I must beg they will excuse me this packet. 

‘ ‘ As I expect they’ll write to me soon, and let me know all the news, they may 
‘ ‘ depend on hearing from me again by the return of every ship. Hearing from 
1 ‘ England will be my greatest pleasure, therefore I hope you among the rest won’t 
“ forget me. East, West, North or South, I am ever, Dear George, Yours most 
“ sincerely Wm. O’Brien.” After his return to England, O’Brien got the place 
of receiver-general of the county of Dorset. See note to Garrick Correspondence, 
i. 170. See also Taylor’s Records of his own Life, i. 176, and Setwyn Correspon¬ 
dence. i. 273. 

* Letter to Percy, dated March 24, 1764, in Nichols’s Ittnslrations, vii. 286. 

In the same letter he describes himself to have been robbed, “ about three o’clock 
‘ ‘ of the day we parted, about three miles on this [London] side of St. Albans. 

‘ ‘ Luckily he did not ask for my watch, and went off by telling me he was sorry to be 
‘ ‘ obliged to take our money. So civil are our highwaymen. In France or Spain 
“ our death would have preceded the robbery.” I may here take the opportunity 


as ne naci long ueen, uusy wilu ms ; aim in xne 

collection and arrangement of that work, which, more than 
any other in its age, contributed to bring back to the study 
and appreciation of poetry, a natural, healthy, and passionate 
tone, took frequent counsel with Goldsmith. To their inter¬ 
course respecting it, we owe the charming ballad with the 
prettiest of opening lines, “ Turn gentle hermit of the dale ; ” 
and Percy admitted many obligations of knowledge and advice, 
in which no other man of letters in that day could so well 
have assisted him. The foremost of them, Johnson himself, 
was indifferent enough to the whole scheme ; though at this 


whether as written by his request, or at the solicitation of some friend introduced 
by bim to Goldsmith. The epitaph itself is well worth subjoining, as a pointed 
and happy specimen of tombstone-literature, and nobly merited if time. It is 
•“ On Zacbary Bayly, Esq.” 

He was a man, 

To whom the endowments of Nature 
Rendered those of Art superfluous. 

He was wise, 

Without the assistance of recorded Wisdom ; 

And eloquent, 

Beyond the precepts of scholastic Rhetoric. 

His study 

Was of Men, and not of Books; 

And he drank of Knowledge, 

Not from the Stream, but from the Source. 

To Genius, which might have been 
Fortunate without Diligence, 

He added a Diligence, which, without Genius, 

Might have commanded Fortune. 

He gathered ricbes with honour, 

And seemed to possess them only to he liberal. 

His private virtues 
Were not less conspicuous than 
His public benevolence. 

He considered Individuals as Brethren, 

And his Country as a Parent. 


Little else than a round of visitings, indeed, does the 
present year seem to have been to Johnson; though the call 
for his Shakspeare (on which he had so long been engaged) 
was never so urgent as now. He passed part of the spring 
with his friend Langton in Lincolnshire, where it was long 
remembered how suddenly, and to what amazement of the 
elders of the family, he had laid himself down on the edge of 
a steep hill behind the house, and rolled over and over to the 
bottom ;* he had stayed the summer months and part of August 
with Percy, at Easton Mauduit vicarage in Northampton¬ 
shire ; f and on his return to town had formed an acquaint¬ 
ance with the Thrales. Is it necessary to describe the tall, 
stately, well-informed, worthy brewer, and tory member for 
Southwark; or his brisk, vivacious, half-learned, plump little 
wife ? Is not then friendship known as the solace of John¬ 
son’s later life, and remembered whenever he is named? 
Tkrale was fond of the society of men of letters and celebrity; 
and Arthur Murphy, who had for some years acted as provider 
in that sort to the weekly dinners I at Southwark and Streat- 
ham, had the honour of introducing Johnson. Mrs. Thrale 

* “ Poor, dear Dr. Johnson,” said Langton to Mr. Best, some years after John¬ 
son’s death, ‘ ‘ when he came to this spot, turned back to look down the hill, and said 
“ he was determined ‘ to take a roll down.’ When we understood what he meant 
“to do, we endeavoured to dissuade him; but he was resolute, saying, ‘he had 
“ 1 not had a roll for a long time ; ’ and taking out of his lesser pockets whatever 
“ might be in them—keys, pencil, purse, or penknife, and laying himself parallel 
“ with the edge of the hill, he actually descended, turning himself over and over, 
“ till he came to the bottom.” Best’s Memorials, 65. 

•f- Boswell, ii. 269, and 282. 

X It was through him “the set” were introduced. He had done the same office 
in Garrick’s case four years earlier. “ You stand engaged,” he writes to him in 
•sir_lwn m,. Tn.vc.ia fr.v WprWsdnv se’e icr t. You ne d not annreliend 


indulged in literary airs and judgments, which she put on 
with an audacity as full of charms as of blunders; and 
beyond measure captivated Johnson. She was liis Madam, 
My Mistress, his Dearest of all Dear Ladies, whom he lectured 
only because he loved; for where she came, she brought him 
sunshine. Like some “gay creature of the element” she 
flitted past the gloomy scholar, still over-toiled and weary, 
though resting at last. “ You little creatures,” he exclaimed, 
on her appearing before him one day in a dark-coloured 
dress, “ you should never wear those sort of clothes; they 
“ are unsuitable in every way. What! have not all insects 
“ gay colours?”! The house of the hospitable brewer became 

* Mr. Crater is the only infallible authority I know on the question of a lady’s 
age, and he has settled Mrs. Thrale’s, though not without great difficulty. In 
his last edition of Boswell (170), he says, “She was about twenty-four or twenty - 
‘ ‘ five years of age, when this acquaintance commenced. At the time of my 
“first edition I was unable to ascertain precisely Mrs. Piozzi’s age—hut a sub- 
“ sequent publication, named Piozziana, fixes her birth on her own authority to the 
“ 16th January, 1740 ; yet even that is not quite conclusive, for she calls it 1740 
“ old style , that is, 1741. I must now of course adopt, though not without some 
“ doubt, the lady’s reckoning.” Happily this doubt was solved before the com¬ 
pletion of his labour, though not in the lady’s favour, for in a subsequent note 
(650) he says, “ I have found evidence under her own hand that my suspicion was 
“just, and that she was horn in 1740, new style.” In another note to the same 
edition, Mr. Croker has the satisfaction of settling the late Lady Cork’s age, long 
held to he insoluble. “ I found by the register of St. James’s parish that she had 
“understated her age by one year. She died on the 30th of May, 1840, aged 95.” 
(646). I need hardly add that the same ruthless authority discovered, at the cost 
of a journey to a much more distant parish-register, that poor Fanny Burney 
had understated her age by no less than ten years; aud that instead of being a 
gild of seventeen, hardly out of the nursery, when she surprised the world by 
Evelina, she was in truth a mature young lady of twenty-seven ! Nevertheless 
this was a fact in literary history worth setting right, and gratitude is due to 
Mr. Croker accordingly. 

d Anecdotes, 2*9. Her greatest fault was a kind of saucy carelessness of 


immediately after liis first visit, tlie Thursdays in every week 
were set apart for dinner witli tlie Thrales ; and before long 
there was a “ Mr. Johnson’s room” both in the Southwark 
mansion and the Streatham villa. Yery obvious was the effect 
upon him. His melancholy was diverted, and his irregular 
habits lessened, all said who observed him closely; hut not 
the less active were his sympathies still, in the direction of 
that Grub-street world of struggle and disaster, of cock-loft 
lodgings and penny-ordinaries, from which he had at last 
effected his own escape. 

An illustration of this, at the commencement of them 
intercourse, much impressed Mrs. Thrale. One day, she 
says, he was called abruptly from them house after dinner, 
and returning in about three hours, said he had been with 
an enraged author, whose landlady pressed him for payment 
within doors, while the bailiffs beset him without; that he 
was drinking himself drunk with madeira to drown care, and 
fretting over a novel which when finished was to be his whole 
fortune; but he could not get it done for distraction, nor 
could he step out of doors to offer it to sale. Mr. Johnson, 
therefore, she continues, set away the bottle, and went to the 
bookseller, recommending the performance, and desiring 
some immediate relief; which when he brought back to the 
writer, the latter called the woman of the house directly to 
partake of punch, and pass their tune in merriment. “ It was 
“ not,” she concludes, “ till ten years after, I dare say, that 
“ something in Doctor Goldsmith’s behaviour struck me with 

ne n tuall watching. “Nay, then.” wisely observed Johnson, “you ought to he 



“ Wakefield”* 

A more scrupulous and patient writer corrects some 
inaccuracies of the lively little lady, and professes to give 
the anecdote authentically from Johnson's own exact narra¬ 
tion. “I received one morning,” Boswell represents Johnson 
to have said, “ a message from poor Goldsmith that he was 
“ in great distress, and, as it was not in his power to come 
“ to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as 
“ possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to 
“ him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, 
“ and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, 
r< at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he 
“ had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of 
“ madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the 
“ bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him 
“ of the means by which he might be extricated.! He then 
“ told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he 
“ produced to me. I looked into it, and saw its merit; told 
“ the landlady I should soon return ; and, having gone 
“ to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought 
“ Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not 

* Anecdotes, 119-20. Mrs. Thrale fixes the date of the incident as not later 
than 1765 or 6 ; hut it is to he kept in mind that' her little volume of Anecdotes 
■was written and printed while she was in Italy (it appeared in 1786) without the 
means of correcting any such slip of memory, 

t Mr. Croker has pointed out that George Steevens (in the London Magazine, 
lv. 253) tells, curiously enough, a not dissimilar story of Johnson himself, who very 
frankly confessed to have keen sometimes in the power of bailiffs, and that Richardson, 
the author of Clarissa, was his constant friend on such occasions. “I remember 
“ 'writing to him,” said Johnson, “from a sponging-house; and was so sure of my 
“ deliverance through his kindness and li e -ali v. hat. before his .nkmc vm oh-h 


r does the rating seem altogether undeserved, since 
3 can hardly he a doubt, I think, that Mrs. Fleming was 
andlady. The attempt to clear her appears to me to fail 
lany essential points. Tracing the previous incidents 
itely, it is almost impossible to disconnect her from this 
ummation of them, with which, at the same time, every 
3 of Goldsmith’s residence in her house is brought to a 
3 . As for the incident itself, it has nothing startling for 
reader who is familiar with what has gone before it. It 
le old story of distress, with the addition of a right to 
at it which poor Goldsmith had not felt till now; and in 
violent passion, the tone of indignant reproach, and the 
Le of madeira, one may see that recent gleams of success 
of worldly consideration have not strengthened the old 
its of endurance. The arrest is plainly connected with 
Aery’s reluctance to make further advances ; of all Mrs. 
ning’s accounts found among his papers, the only one un- 
Led is that for the summer months preceding the arrest;! 

Soswell, ii. 193. For a third and ridiculously inventive account of the incident, 
ach Goldsmith, figures as at his wit’s end how to wipe off his landlady’s score 
:eep a roof over his head, “except hy closing with a very staggering proposal 
her part, and taking his creditor for wife, whose charms were very far from 
aring, whilst her demands were extremely urgent; ” and which contains a 
of other preposterous statements; see Cumberland’s Memoirs, i. 372-3. 

A fourth version, that of Sir John Hawkins (quoted by Mr. Mitford in his 
p. clxxviii), and strongly smacking of the knight’s usual vein, appears to 
o point to Islington as the locality of the arrest, though it does not directly 
cm that suggestion. ‘ 1 Of the booksellers whom he styled his friends, 
\ Newbery was one. This person had apartments in Canonbury-house, v here 
ildsmith often lay concealed from his creditors. Under a pressing necessity, 
there wrote his Vicar of Wakefield, and for it received of Newbery forty 
unds.” It does not detract from the value of this evidence, such as it is, that 
Toh L r 'v s afterwards (Life, 420-1) his own blundering account of the 


or at least sanctioned, the harsh proceeding. The manuscript 
of the novel (of which more hereafter) seems by both state¬ 
ments, in which the discrepancies are not so great but that 
Johnson himself may be held accountable for them, to have 
been produced reluctantly, as a last resource; and it is 
possible, as Mrs. Tlirale intimates, that it was still regarded 
as “unfinished;”—but, if strong adverse reasons had not 
existed, Johnson would surely have carried it to Newbery. 
He did not do this. He went with it to Francis Newbery 
the nephew; does not seem to have given any very brilliant 
account of the “ merit ” he had perceived in it (four years 
after its author’s death he told Reynolds that he did not 
think it would have had much success f); and, rather with 

* My friend Mr. Peter Cunningham was so kind as to examine Newbery’s -will fra¬ 
me, and found in it two bequests, of fifty guineas each, to Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming 
and Mr. Thomas Fleming. From the same will it appears that both John and 
Thomas Carnan had married daughters of Newbery. 

+ The passage is worth quoting from Boswell, vii. 172-3. It occurs in an 
argument which arose at Reynolds’s dinner-tabic, as to whether a man who had 
been asked his opinion by another whether or not his manuscript were worth 
publication, is justified in giving such opinion, or under an obligation to speak 
the truth, on being so put to the torture. In any case, argued Johnson, 
“I shonld scruple much to give a suppressive vote. Both Goldsmith’s comedies 
“were once refused; his first by Garrick, his second by Colman, who was 
“prevailed on at last by much solicitation, nay, a kind of force, to bring it on. 
“His Vicar of Wakefield I myself did not think would have had much success. 
“It was written and sold to a bookseller before his Traveller, but published 
“after; so little expectation had the bookseller from it. Had it been sold after 
4 ‘ The Traveller!', he might have had twice as much money for it, though sixty 
“ guineas was no mean price. The bookseller had the advantage of Goldsmith’s 
“reputation from The Traveller in the sale, though Goldsmith had it not in 
4 selling the copy.’ Sin Joshua Reynolds. “ The Beggars Opera affords a proof 
‘ ‘ k°w strangely people will differ in opinion about a literary performance. Burke 
‘ ‘ thinks it has no merit.” AH this should be remembered before harsh judgments 
are given on the occasional querulous complaints that broke from Goldsmith as to 
the reception given to his writings 



ix.j THE ARREST AND WHAT PRECEDED IT. 


I’d to Goldsmith’s immediate want, than to any confident 
ie of the value of the copy, asked and obtained the sixty 
ids. “ And sir,” he said to Boswell afterwards, “ a suf- 
ient price too, when it was sold; for then the fame of 
oldsmith had not been elevated, as it afterwards was, by 
s Traveller; and the bookseller had such faint hopes of 
ofit by his bargain that he kept the manuscript by him a 
ng time, and did not publish it till after the Traveller 
xl appeared. Then, to be sure, it was accidentally worth 
ore money.” * 

the poem, meanwhile, the elder Newbery had consented 
peculate; and this circumstance may have made it hope- 
to appeal to him with a second work of fancy. For, on 
very day of the arrest, the Traveller lay completed in 
poet’s desk. The dream of eight years, the solace and 
ainment of his exile and poverty, verged at last to fulfil- 
t or extinction; and the hopes and fears which centered 
, doubtless mingled on that miserable day with the fumes 
lie madeira! In the excitement of putting it to press, 
;h followed immediately after, the nameless novel recedes 
aether from the view; but will reappear in due time, 
ison approved the verses more than the novel; read the 
f-sheets for his friend ; substituted here and there, in 
2 emphatic testimony of general approval, a line of his 
; prepared a brief but hearty notice for the Critical 
leiv, which was to appear simultaneously with the poem ; 
as the dav f n blicati n anuroached. bade Goldsmith 


1704. 
i£t. 3fi. 


CHAPTER X. 


THE TRA TELLER AND WHAT FOLLOWED IT. 

1764—1765. 

“ This day is published,” said the Public Advertiser of the 
19th of December 1764, “ price one shilling and sixpence, 
“ The Traveller; or, a Prospect of Society, a Poem. By 
“ Oliver Goldsmith, M.B. Printed for J. Newbery in 
“ St. Paul’s Church Yard.” It was the first time that 
Goldsmith had announced his name in connection with 
anything he had written; and with it he had resolved to 
associate his brother Henry’s name. To him he dedicated 
the poem. From the midst of the poverty which Henry 
could least alleviate, and turning from the celebrated men 
with whose favour his own fortunes were bound up, he 
addressed the friend and companion of his infancy, to whom, 
in all his sufferings and wanderings, his heart, untravelled 
and unsullied, had still lovingly gone back. “ The friendship 


cl obscurity with, an income of forty pounds a year. ,£t~36. 
now perceive, my dear brother,” continued Goldsmith, 
l affecting significance, “ the wisdom of your humble 
mice. You have entered upon a sacred office, where the 
irvest is great, and the labourers are but few; while you 
ive left the field of ambition, where the labourers are 
any, and the harvest not worth carrying away.” Such as 
harvest was, however, lie was at last himself about to 
ler it in. He proceeded to describe to his brother the 
set of his poem, as an attempt to show that there may be 
al happiness in states that are differently governed from 
own, that every state has a particular principle of 
piness, and that this principle in each may be carried to 
ischievous excess: but he expressed a strong doubt, since 
had not taken a political “ side,” whether its freedom 
n individual and party abuse would not wholly bar its 
cess. 

Vhile he wrote, he might have quieted that fear. As the 
m was passing through the press, Churchill died. It was 
who had pressed poetry into the service of party, and for 
last three years, to apparent exclusion of every nobler 
me, made harsh political satire the favoured utterance of 
Muse. But his rude strong spirit had suddenly given 
r. Those unsubdued passions; those principles, unfettered 
ier than depraved ; that real manliness of soul, scorn of 
ivention, and unquestioned courage; that open heart and 
ual hand ; that eager readiness to love or to hate, to strike 
:o embrace, had passed away for ever. Nine days earlier, 

ori+QnrnTTn nv li Imrl rmp snmfi da.vk irmmev : 


to be accomplished in the grave * Be it not the least shame 
of the profligate politics of these three disgraceful years, that, 
arraying in hitter hostility one section of the kingdom against 
the other, they turned into unscrupulous personal enemies 
such men as these; made a patriot of Wilkes; statesmen of 
Sir Francis Dashwood, Lord Sandwich, and Bubb Dodington; 
and, of the free and vigorous verse of Churclnll, a mere 
instrument of perishable faction. Not without reason on that 
ground did Goldsmith condemn and scorn it. It was that 
which had made it the rare mixture it so frequently is, of the 
artificial with the natural and impulsive; which so fitfully 
blended in its author the wholly and the partly true ; which 
impaired his force of style with prosaical weakness; and 
controlled, by the necessities of partisan satire, his feeling for 
nature and for truth. Yet should his critic and fellow-poet 
have paused before, in this dedication to the Traveller, he 
branded him as a writer of lampoons. To Charles ITanbury 
Williams, but not to Charles Churchill, such epithets belong. 
The senators who met to decide the fate of turbots were not 
worthier of the wrath and the scourge of Juvenal, than the 
men who, reeking from the gross indulgences of Medmenham- 
abbey, drove out William Pitt from the cabinet, sat down by 
the side of Bute, denounced in the person of Wilkes their 
own old profligate associate, and took the public morality 
into keeping. Never, that he might merely fawn upon power 
or trample upon weakness, had Churchill let loose his pen. 
There was not a form of mean pretence or servile assump¬ 
tion, which he did not use it to denounce. Low, pimping 



i.J THE TEA YELLER AND WHAT FOLLOWED IT. 


ics, he abhorred; and that their worthless abettors, to 
ie exposure his works are so incessantly devoted, have 
;arried him into oblivion with themselves, argues some- 
l for the sound morality and permanent truth expressed 
.s manly verse. By these the new poet was to profit; 
Luch as by the faults which perished with the satirist, 
left the lesson of avoidance to his successors. In the 
■val since Pope’s and Thomson’s death, since Collins’s 
sweet song, since the silence of Young, of Akenside, 
of Gray, no such easy, familiar, and vigorous verse as 
fchill’s, had dwelt in the public ear. The less likely was 
w to turn away, impatient or intolerant of the Traveller. 
hnson pronounced it a poem to which it would not 
asy to find anything equal, since the death of Pope, 
ugh covering but the space of twenty years,* this was 
;e worth coveting, and was honestly deserved. The 
mate care and skill of the verse, the exquisite choice 
selectness of the diction, at once recalled to others, as 
ohnson, the master so lately absolute in the realms of 
3 ; and with these there was a rich harmony of tone, 
>ftness and simplicity of touch, a happy and jdayful 
erness, which belonged peculiarly to the later poet. 
1 a less pointed and practised force of understanding 
in Pope, and in some respects less subtle and refined, 
ippeal to the heart in Goldsmith is more gentle, direct, 
pure. The predominant impression of the Traveller is of 
aturalness and facility; and then is felt the surpassing 


1764. 
SX 30. 


built upon nature; that it rests upon honest truth; that it 
is not crying to the moon and the stars for impossible sym¬ 
pathy, or dealing with other worlds, in fact or imagination, 
than the writer has himself lived in and known. Wisely had 
Goldsmith avoided, what, in the false-heroic versifiers of his 
day, he had wittily condemned; the practice, even com¬ 
moner since, of building up poetry on fantastic unreality, of 
clothing it in harsh inversions of language, and of patching 
it out with affectations of by-gone vivacity : “ as if the more 
“ it was unlike prose, the more it would resemble poetry.” 
Making allowance for a brief expletive rarely scattered here 
and there, his poetical language is unadorned yet rich, select 
yet exquisitely plain, condensed yet home-felt and familiar. 
He has considered, as he says himself of Parnell, “ the 
“ language of poetry as the language of life, and conveys 
“ the warmest thoughts in the simplest expression.”* 

In what way the Traveller originated, the reader has seen. 
It does not seem necessary to discuss in what precise pro¬ 
portions its plan may have risen out of Addison’s Letter from 
Italy. Shaped in any respect by Thomson’s remark, in one of 
his letters to Bubb Dodington, “ that a poetical landscape of 
“ countries, mixed with moral observations on their characters 
“ and people, would not be an ill-judged undertaking,” it 
certainly could not have been ; f for that letter was not made 
* Miscell. Works, iii. 374. 

f Sir Egerton Brydges has pointed out some resemblance of topics, and a similar 
union of contemplation and description, in a now forgotten poem of the liardly- 
treated Blackmore; but there is nothing in the latter (the Nature of Man) to 
suggest anything like imitation. The only couplet quoted having any resemblance 
to the turns of Goldsmith’s verse is where Blackmore says of the French, 



X j. - - -—. JU£IU UCCJUL, ClLLl“ 

nently and in a peculiar degree, written from personal feeling 
and observation; and the course of its composition lias been 
traced with the course of its author’s life. ‘When Boswell 
came back to London some year or so after its appearance, 
he tells us with what amazement he had heard Johnson say 
that “ there had not been so fine a poem since Pope’s time; ” * 
and then amusingly explains the phenomenon by remarking, 
that “ much, no doubt, both of the sentiments and expression 
“ were derived from conversation ” with the great lexico¬ 
grapher. What the great lexicographer really suggested was 
a title, The Philosophic Wanderer, rejected for something 
simpler; as, if offered, the Johnsonian sentiment and 
expression would, I suspect, have been. But “ Garth did 
“ not write his own Dispensary ,” and Goldsmith had still 
less chance of obtaining credit for his. The rumour that 
Johnson had given great assistance, is nevertheless contra¬ 
dicted by even Hawkins; where he professes to relate the 
extreme astonishment of the club, that a newspaper essayist 
and bookseller’s drudge should have written such a poem. 
Undoubtedly that was his own feeling; and others of the 
members shared it, though it is to be hoped in a less degree. 
“ Well,” exclaimed Chamier, “ I do believe he wrote this 
“ poem himself; and let me tell you, that is believing a 
“ great deal.” Goldsmith had left the club early that night, 
after “ rattling away as usual.” In truth he took little pains 
himself, in the thoughtless simplicity of those social hours, 
to fence round his own property and claim. “ Mr. Gold- 
“ smith,” asked Chamier, at the next meeting of the club, 


was near them, took part in what followed, and has related 
it. “ Goldsmith, who would say something without consider- 
“ ation, answered ‘ Yes.’ I was sitting by, and said, ' No, 

“ ‘ sir, you did not mean tardiness of locomotion: you mean 
“ ‘that sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in 
“ ‘solitude.’ ‘ Ah ! ’ exclaimed Goldsmith, ‘ that was what 
“ ‘ I meant.’ Chamier,” Johnson adds, “ believed then that 
“ I had written the line, as much as if he had seen me write 
“ it.” Yet it might be, if Burke had happened to be present, 
that Johnson would not have been permitted, so obviously to 
the satisfaction of every one in the room, dictatorially to lay 
down thus expressly what the poet meant. For who can doubt 
that he also meant slowness of motion ? The first point of 
the picture is that. The poet is moving slowly, his tardiness 
of gait measuring the heaviness of heart, the pensive spirit, 
the melancholy, of which it is the outward expression and 
sign. Goldsmith ought to have added to Johnson’s remark 
that he meant all it said, and the other too ; but no doubt he 
fell into one of his old flurries when he heard the general 
aye ! aye ! that saluted the great cham’s authoritative 
version. "While he saw that superficially he had been wrong, 
he must have felt that properly explained his answer was 
substantially right; but he had no address to say so, the pen 
not being in his hand. 

The lines which Johnson really contributed he pointed out 
himself to Boswell, when laughing at the notion that he had 
taken any more important part in it. They were the line 


JL --J **’* fc ty— w W O.JJ.C LUUjnet Dv 

grafted on Ms Mend’s insertion by Goldsmith himself, is 
worth all that Johnson added ; though its Mstorical allusion 
was somewhat obscure. 

“ The lifted axe, the agonising wheel, 

Luke’s iron crown, and Damien’s bed of steel.” 

M ho was Luke, and what was Ms iron crown ? is a question 
Tom Davies tells us he had often to answer; being a great 
resource in difficulties of that kind. “ The Doctor referred 
“ me,” he says, in a letter to the reverend Mr. Granger, who 
was compiling Ms Biographical History and wished to be 
exact, “ to a book called Geographic Ciirieuse, for an expla- 
“ nation of Luke’s iron crown.” The explanation, besides 
berng in itself incorrect, did not mend matters much. 
“ Luke ” had been taken simply for the euphony of the line. 
He was one of two brothers who had headed a revolt agamst 
the Hungarian nobles, at the opening of the sixteenth 
century; but, though both were tortured, the special horror 
of the red-hot crown was inflicted upon George.* “ Doctor 
“ Goldsmith says,” adds Davies, “ he meant by Damien’s 

* In a note to this passage in my former edition, I explained that this G6ogra.ph.ie 
Curieuse, which appeared to have been Goldsmith’s authority, was nevertheless 
itself incorrect in the family name of the brothers, which it reports to have been 
Zeck. They were George and Luke, as stated, and George underwent the punish¬ 
ment of the “iron crown but the family name was Dosa. For this I referred 
to the Biographic Universelle, xl 60-1. The origin of the mistake is curious, 
and has since been explained to me by the courtesy of a correspondent who 
writes from America. The two brothers belonged to one of the native races 
of Transylvania called Szeklers or Zecklers, which descriptive addition follows their 
names in the German biographical authorities ; and this, through abridgment, and 
misapprehension, in subsequent books came at last to be substituted for the family 
name. In the next edition of his admirable text of Goldsmith’s poems (the best 
now existing), Mr. Bolton Come will, I hope, restore the original verse, which he 


“ iron the rack; but I believe the newspapers informed us 
“ that he was confined in a high tower, and actually obliged 
“to lie 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 Ins 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 


UXXCCXX U Xt 1 1 l.fV JL/UGGUX vxuiUSUii ILL UgiVj WRS 

tile frank tribute of the sister of Reynolds, after hearing 
Johnson read the Traveller aloud “from the beginning to 
“ the end of it,” a few days after it was published.* Here 
was another point of friendliest and most general agreement. 
“ Renny dear,” now a mature and very fidgety little dame 
of seven-and-thirty, had never been noted for her beauty; 
and few would associate such a thing with the seamed, 
scarred face of Johnson ; but the preponderating ugliness of 
Goldsmith was a thing admitted and allowed for all to fling a 
stone at, however brittle their own habitations. Miss Reynolds 
had founded her admiring tribute on what she had herself said 
at a party in her brother’s house some days before. It had 
been suddenly proposed, as a social game after supper, to 
toast ordinary women, and have them matched by ordinary 
men; whereupon one of the gentlemen having given 
Miss Williams, Johnson’s blind old pensioner, Miss Reynolds 
instantly matched her with Goldsmith; and this whimsical 
union so enchanted Mrs. Cholmondeley, that, though she had 
at the time some pique with Renny dear, she ran round the 
table, kissed her, and said she forgave her everything for her 
last toast. “ Thus,” exclaimed Johnson, who was present, 
and whose wit at his friend’s expense was rewarded with a 
roar, “ thus the ancients, on the making-up of their quarrels, 
“ used to sacrifice a beast betwixt them.”! Poor Goldsmith! 

* See Miss Reynolds’s recollections printed in the appendix to Croker’s Bom-ell. 
Of these I ought to remark, however, that several of them (as Mr. Croker himself 
admits of one) are manifestly fabricated out of imperfect or confused recollections 
of anecdotes elsewhere existing, an example of which I give in my next note. 

-j- My authority for this anecdote, the point of which is missed in Miss Reynolds’s 


to take these equivocal shapes. mere is nox a oaci line 
“ in that poem of the Traveller,” said Langton, as they sat 
talking together at Reynolds’s, four years after the poet’s 
death; “ not one of Dryden’s careless verses.” “ I was glad,” 
interposed Reynolds, “ to hear Charles Fox say it was one 
“ of the first poems in the English language.” “ Why were 
“ you glad?” rejoined Langton. “ You surely had no doubt 
“of this before?” “No,” exclaimed Johnson, decisively; 
“ the merit of the Traveller is so well established, that 
“ l\Jr. Fox’s praise cannot augment it, nor his censure 
“ diminish it.”* 

1765. Not very obvious at the first, however, was its progress to 

Mt.27. this decisive eminence. From the first it had its select 
admirers, but their circle somewhat slowly widened. “ The 
“ beauties of this poem,” observed the principal literary 
newspaper of the clay, the St. James's Chronicle, two months 
after its publication, “ are so great and various, that we 
“ cannot but be surprised they have not been able to recom- 

of strife that elicited gratitude to the gods. Mrs. Cholmondeley (according to 
Johnson “a very airy lady,” Boswell, iv. 272) was a younger sister of Mrs. 
Woffington the actress, married to the Hon. and Rev. George Cholmondeley. 
Fanny Reynolds, Johnson’s “dearest dear,” was eighty when she died, in 
November 1807. 

* Reynolds continued: “ But his friends may suspect they had too great a 
“ partiality for him.” Johnson. “Nay, sir, the partiality of his friends was 
“ always against him. It was with, difficulty we could give him a hearing. 

, “Goldsmith had no settled notions upon any subject; so he talked always at 
“ random. It seemed to be his intention to blurt out whatever was in his mind, 
“ and see what would become of it. He was angry, too, when catched in an 
‘ ‘ absurdity; but it did not prevent him from falling into another the next minute. ” 
Boswell, vii. 84-5. A little later, when Johnson was complaining of Langtou 
being too silent at the club, and letting the whigs have it all their own way, “ Sir,” 
said Boswell, “ you will recollect that he very properly took up Sir Joshua for 


too late into the world for any share of its poetical distinc¬ 
tions ; that Pope and others had taken up the places in the 
temple of fame; and that as hut few at any one period can 
possess poetical reputation, “ a man of genius can now hardly 
“ acquire it.” “ That,” said -Johnson, when this saying was 
related to him, “ is one of the most sensible things I have 
“ ever heard of Goldsmith. It is difficult to get literary fame, 
“ and it is every day getting more difficult.”* Nevertheless, 
though slowly, the poem seems to have advanced steadily; 
and, in due course, translations of it appeared in more than 
one continental language. A month after the notice in the 
St. James’s Chronicle, a second edition was published; 
a third was more quickly called for; a fourth was issued in 
August; and the ninth had appeared in the year when the 
poet died. That anything more substantial than fame arose 
to him out of these editions, is, however, very questionable. 
The only payment that can with certainty be traced in 
Newbery’s papers as for “ Copy of the Traveller, a poem,” 
leaves it more than doubtful, whether for twenty guineas 
Goldsmith had not surrendered all his interest in it, except 
that which, with each successive issue, still prompted 
the limse labor.! Between the first and last, thirty-six new 
lines had been added, and fourteen of the old cancelled. 
Some of the erasures would now, perhaps, raise a smile. No 
honest thought disappeared, no manly word for the oppressed. 
The “wanton judge’’and his “penal statutes ” remained; 

* Life, v. 303-4. What on earth can Mr. Croker mean by the subjoined note 
on that saying of Goldsmith ? “ Goldsmith, who read a great deal of light French 

11 lit,prat,i re. nvnh bl rrowed this from La Bruyere. ‘Les anciens ont tout dit: 


Laws grind the poor and rich men rule the law,' 


were still undisturbed. But words quietly vanished, here 
and there, that had spoken too plainly of the sordid past; 
and no longer did the poet proclaim, in speaking of the great, 
that, “inly satisfied,” above their pomps he held his ragged 
pride. The rags' went the way of the confession of 
poverty in the Polite Learning ;* and of those hints of 
humble habits which were common in the Busy Body and 
the British Magazine, but are found no longer in Essays by 
Mr. Goldsmith . 

With that title, and the motto “ Collecta revirescunt,” a 
three-shilling duodecimo volume of those re-publislied essays 
was now issued by Mr. Griffin for himself and Mr. Newbery, 
who each paid him ten guineas for liberty to offer this tribute 
to the growing reputation of the Traveller. He corrected 
expressions, as I have said; lifted Islington tea-gardens 
into supper atVauxkall; exalted the stroll in White conduit 
garden to a walk in the park; and, in an amusing pre¬ 
face, disclaimed any more ambitious motive than one of 


this payment for the Traveller makes its appearance. Other items in it refer to 
matters already described. “Settle Dr. Goldsmith’s account, and give him credit 
“ for the following copies : 1. The Preface to the History of the World, and charge 
“ it to the Partners, 31. 3s. 3 Prefaces to the Natural History, 61. 6s. Translation 
“ of the Life of Christ, — Ditto, the Lives of the Fathers, — Ditto, the Lives of 
“ the Philosophers, — Correcting 4 vols. Brookes’ Nat. History, — 79 Leaves 
“ of the History of England, — Copy of the Traveller, a Poem, 211. Lent in 
“ Fleet Street at Mr. Adams’s to pay for the instrument, 15s. 6d. Lent him at 
“ the Society of Arts, and to pay arrears, 31. 3s. Get the Copy of Essays for which 
“ paid HE. 10s. as half, and Mr. Griffin to have the other.” 

* “ Perish the wish ; for inly satisfied, 

Above their pomps I hold my ragged pride,” 


Him lor some years, lie was now resolved to try it lie could 
not live a little upon liimself; and lie compared his case 
to that of the fat man he had heard of in a shipwreck, 
who, when the sailors, pressed by famine, were taking 
shoes off him to satisfy their hunger, insisted with great 
justice on having the first cut for himself. “ Most of 
“ these essays,” continued G-oldsmith, “ have been regularly 
“ reprinted twice or thrice a year, and conveyed to the 
“ public through the kennel of some engaging compilation. 

“ If there be a pride in multiplied editions, I have seen 
“ some of my labours sixteen times reprinted, and claimed 
“ by different parents as them own. I have seen them 
“ flourished at the beginning with praise, and signed at 
“ the end with the names of Pliilantos, Philalethes, Phila- 
“ lutheros, and Philnnthropos.” * Names that already 
figured, as the reader will hardly need to be reminded, 
in those adventures of a philosophic vagabond which 
formed part of the little manuscript novel! now lying, 

* Even the Monthly Review cannot but admit (xxxiii. 82, July 1765) that “Mr. 
“ Goldsmith hath here published a collection of Essays, 'which have been so often 
“printed in the newspapers, magazines, and other periodical productions, that we 
‘ 1 despair of selecting a specimen from any one that will not be previously known to 
‘ 1 our readers. But notwithstanding their being so well calculated for cursory 
11 inspection, and notwithstanding their transient success among the duller topics 
“ of the day, we apprehend, he. he. ho,” and then follows the usual depreciation ; 
as for instance, “It is easy to collect from books and conversation, a sufficiency of 
“ superficial knowledge to enable a writer to flourish away with tolerable propriety 
“ through a ncws-papei'-essay ; but when these his lucubrations assume the form of 
“a book, it is, he. he. he. The author tells us, in his preface, that he could 
“have made these Essays more metaphysical, had he thought fit; for our part, 
“we do not find any of them, with which metaphysics have much to do. But be 
“this as it may, we look upon it as a great mark of Mr. Goldsmith s prudence, 
“ that he did neither meddle nor make with them.” Considerate Mr. Griffiths ! 

4 . fUmn+.pv vv cf the Vicar of Wakefield, ODe of the evidences which 


Another piece of writing which belongs to this period, and 
which did not find its way to the public till the appearance 
of the novel, to whose pages (with the title of the Hermit) it 
had been transferred, was the ballad of Edwin and Angelina . 
It was suggested, as I have said, in the course of the ballad- 
discussions with Percy in preparation of the Reliques; and 
was written before the Traveller appeared. “ Without 
“ informing any of us,” says Hawkins, again referring to the 
club, “ he wrote and addressed to the Countess, afterwards 
" Duchess of Northumberland, one of the first poems of the 
“ lyric kind that our language has to boast of.” * A charm¬ 
ing poem undoubtedly it is, if not quite this; delightful for 
its simple and mingled flow of incident and imagery, for the 
pathetic softness and sweetness of its tone, and for its easy, 
artless grace. He had taken pains with it, and he set more 
than common store by it himself; so that when, some two 
years hence, his old enemy ICenrick, taking advantage of its 
appearance in the novel, assumed the character of “Detector” 
in the public prints, denounced it as a plagiarism from the 
Relique s, and entreated the public to compare the insipidity 
of Doctor Goldsmith’s negus with the genuine flavour of Mr. 
Percy’s champagne, he thought it worth while, even against 
that assailant, to defend his own originality.f The poem he 

does not scruple to hint at a weakness of his own. “I found that no genius in 
‘ ‘ another could please me. . . I could neither read nor write with satisfaction; for 
“ excellence in another was my aversion, and writing was my trade.” 

* Life of Johnson, 420. Mr. Mitford (in the anecdotes appended to his Life, 
clxxvii) quotes Hawkins for another statement, which I do not find in his 
biography, to the effect that this beautiful poem was saved from destruction by 
Dr. Chapman of Sudbury, for that, soon after he wrote it, Goldsmith showed it to 



Grainger’s entirely modern and exquisite ballad of Bryan and 
Pereene ): and Goldsmith’s answer was to the effect that he 
did not think there was any great resemblance between the 
two pieces in question; but that if any existed, Mr. Percy’s 
ballad was the imitation, inasmuch as the Edwin and 
Angelina had been read to him two years before (in the 
present year), and at their next meeting he had observed, 
“ with his usual good humour,” that he had taken the plan 
of it to form the fragments of Shakspeare into a ballad of 
his own. “ He then,” added Goldsmith, “ read me his little 
“ cento, if I may so call it, and I highly approved it.”* 

Out of these circumstances it of course arose that Gold¬ 
smith’s ballad was shown to the wife of Percy’s patron, who 
had some taste for literature, and affected a little notice of 
its followers. The countess admired it so much that she 
had a few copies privately printed. I have seen the late 
Mr. Heber’s, with the title-page of “ Edwin and Angelina , a 
“ ballad ; by Mr. Goldsmith. Printed for the amusement of 
“ the Countess of Northumberland.” It is now rare; and 
has a value independent of its rarity, in its illustration of 

an old French novel; hut the attempt at once called forth an expostulatory comment 
from a correspondent, known to he Bishop Percy, in the Monthly Review for Oct. 1797. 
It was afterwards, hy another correspondent, elaborately exposed and ridiculed in the 
same Renew for July 1798; and hy the same writer, on its subsequent revival, 
in the European Magazine for May 1812. I mention it here only to guard against 
any future revival of the slander. 

* I subjoin the letter, from the St. James's Chronicle (July 23-2.5, 1767), at 
the commencement of which is an allusion to another ill-natured comment, of 
which he had been the subject in the same journal. “ Sir, As there is nothing 
“ I dislike so much as newspaper controversy, particularly upon trifles, permit me 
“ to be as concise as possible in informing a correspondent of yours, that I recom- 
“ mended Blainville’s travels because I thought the book was a good one ; and I 


afterwards published, we perceive that even the gentle ( 
ing line has been an after-thought; that four stanzas 
been re-written; and that the two which originally i 
last have been removed altogether. These, for their si 
beauty of expression, it is worth while here to pres 
The action of the poem having closed without them, 
were on better consideration rejected; and young w, 
should study and make profit of such lessons. . Poster!! 
always too much upon its hands to attend to wh 
irrelevant or needless; and no one so well as Gold; 
seems to have known that the writer who would hope tc 
must live by the perfection of his style, and by the clier 
and careful beauty of unsuperfluous writing. 

“ Here amidst sylvan bowers we’ll rove, 

From lawn to woodland stray ; 

Blest as the songsters of tlie grove, 

And innocent as they. 

“ To all that want, and all that wail, 

Our pity shall be given ; 

And when this life of love shall fail, 

We’ll love again in heaven.” 

Intercourse with Northumberland-liouse, except 
Mr. Percy’s library was open to him during his chap' 

‘ ‘ think so still. I said I was told by tlie bookseller that it was then first pn 
“ but in that it seems I was misinformed, and my reading was not extensive 
“ to set me right. Another correspondent of yours accuses me of having 
“ ballad I published some time ago from one hy the ingenious Mr. Percy. 

“ think there is any great resemblance between the two pieces in question. 

“ he any, his ballad was taken from mine. I read it to Mr. Percy somo ye 
“ and he, as we both considered these things as trifles at best, told me 1 
‘ ‘ usual good-humour the next time I saw him, that he had taken my plan to 
“ fraem ts fSha snHare’nto ;i hallnd of his own. TTp then rosn-1 mol 


there, began and ended with this poem. Its author is only 
afterwards to be traced there on one occasion, character¬ 
istically described by Hawkins. “Having one day,” he 
says, “ a call to wait on the late Duke, then Earl, of Xorth- 
“ umberland, I found Goldsmith waiting for an audience in 
“ an outer room; I asked him what had brought him there : 

“ he told me, an invitation from his lordship. I made my 
“ business as short as I could, and, as a reason, mentioned 
“ that Doctor Goldsmith was waiting without. The Earl 
“ asked me if I was acquainted with him: I told him 
“ I was, adding wdiat I thought likely to recommend him. 
“ I retired, and staid in the outer room to take him home. 
“ Upon his coming out, I asked him the result of his con- 
“ versation. ‘ His lordship,’ says he, ‘ told me he had red 
“ ‘ [sic] my poem,’ meaning the Traveller , ‘and was much 
“ ‘ delighted with it; that he was going lord-lieutenant of 

‘ ‘ me the hint of his ballad, or that I am obliged to his friendship and learning for 
“ communications of a much more important nature. Iam, Sir, yours, &c. Oliver 
‘ ‘ Goldsmith.’' I happen to have before me a copy, now rarely met with, of the 
original ‘ ‘ proposals ” for publishing Blainville’s travels, to which this letter refers ; 
and as it marks the new estimation in which the Traveller's success placed its 
author, and the uses which the booksellers hastened to make of it, it may be worth 
description. It is the first but by no means the last instance of such employment 
of his name. After an elaborate description of the book, great prominence is given 
to the intimation that it is “.Recommended by Doctor Goldsmith, Author of The 
“ Traveller, a poem, &c ; ” and on the same full title page which precedes the 
conditions of subscription and sale, immediately below the announcement that the 
work will be “printed for J. Johnson and B. Davenport in Paternoster-row and 
“ sold by all Booksellers and News-carriers in Great Britain and Ireland,” follows 
the “Recommendation. I have read the Travels of Monsieur JDe BlainviUe with 
“ the highest Pleasure. As far as I am capable of judging, they are at once 
“ accurate, copious and entertaining. I am told, they are now first translated 
“ from the Author’s Manuscript in the French Language, which has never been 
“ published; and if so, they are a valuable Acquisition to ours. The Translation, 


1705. 
i£t. 37 


“ what did you answer, asked I, to tins gracious otter t 
“ ‘ Why,’ said lie, ‘ I could say nothing but that I had a 
££ ‘brother there, a clergyman, that stood in need of help : 
££ ‘ as for myself’” (this was added for the benefit of 
Hawkins) ££ £ I have no dependence on the promises of great 
££ ‘ men : I look to the booksellers for support; they are my 
££ ‘best Mends, and I am not inclined to forsake them 
“‘for others.’ Thus,” adds the teller of the anecdote, 
“ clid this idiot in the affairs of the world trifle with his 
“ fortunes, and put back the hand that was held out to assist 
“ him! Other offers of a like kind he either rejected or 
“ failed to improve, contenting himself with the patronage 
“ of one nobleman, whose mansion afforded him the delights 
“ of a splendid table, and a retreat for a few days from the 
“ metropolis.” f 

The incident related may excuse the comment attached 
to it. Indeed, the charge of idiotcy in the affairs of the 
Hawkins-world, may even add to the pleasure with which we 
contemplate that older-world picture beside it, of frank sim¬ 
plicity and brotherly affection. This poor poet, who, incom¬ 
prehensibly to the Middlesex magistrate, would thus gently 
have turned aside to the assistance of his poorer brother 
the hand held out to assist himself, had only a few days 
before been obliged to borrow fifteen shillings and sixpence 
“ in Fleet-street,” of one of those “ best friends ” with 
whose support he is now fain to be contented. But the 
reader has already seen that since the essay on Polite 
Learning was written, its author’s personal experience had 


great; and tlie precise value of Lord Northumberland's 
offer seems in itself somewhat doubtful. Percy, indeed, 
took a subsequent opportunity of stating that he had 
discussed the subject with the earl; and had received an 
assurance that if the latter could have known how to serve 
Goldsmith (it does not seem to have occurred to Percy 
that one mode had already been suggested without any 
effect), if he had been made aware, for example, that he 
wished to travel, “ he would have procured him a sufficient 
“ salary on the Irish establishment, and have had it con- 
“ tinued to him during his travels.”* But this was not 
said till after Goldsmith’s death; when many ways of serving 
him, meanwhile, had been suffered to pass by unheeded; 
and when his poor struggling brother, for whom he begged 
thus explicitly the earl’s patronage, had also sunk un¬ 
noticed to the grave. The booksellers, on the other hand, 
were patrons with whom success at once established claims, 
independent and incontrovertible; and the Traveller, to a 
less sanguine heart than its writer’s, already seemed to sepa¬ 
rate, with a broad white line, the past from that which was 
to come. No Griffiths bondage could again await him. He 
had no longer any personal bitterness, therefore, to oppose to 
Johnson’s general allegiance to the “trade;” though, at the 
same time, with Johnson, he made special and large reserva¬ 
tions. For instance, there was old Gardener the bookseller. 
Even Griffiths, by the side of Gardener, looked less ill- 
favoured. This was he who had gone to Kit Smart in the 
depths of his poverty, and drawn him into the most 


speeches that Johnson might ever mane to mm i 1 wrote, 
“ sir,” said the latter, “ for some months in the Universal 
££ Visitor for poor Smart, not then knowing the terms on 
££ which he was engaged to write, and thinking I was doing 
<£ him good. I hoped his wits would soon return to him. 
££ Mine returned to me, and I wrote in the Universal Visitor 
“ no longer.”* It was a sixpenny weekly-pamphlet; the 
agreement was for ninety-nine years ; and the terms were 
that Smart was to write nothing else, and he rewarded with 
one-sixth of the profits ! It was undoubtedly a tiling to 
remember, this agreement of old Gardener’s. The most 
thriving subject in the kingdom of the booksellers could 
hardly fail to recall it now and then. And the very man to 
remind Goldsmith of it, in good-natured contrast to the 
opportunity he had lost, was the companion with whom he 
left Northumberland-house that day. Nevertheless he left 
it with greater cheerfulness, and a better-founded sense of 
independence, than if he had consented to substitute a 
reliance ££ on the promises of great men.” 

* Boswell, v. 288. 


CHAPTER XI. 


GOLDSMITH IN PRACTICE AND BURKE IN OFFICE. 

1765. 

The “nobleman” to whom Sir John Hawkins refers, at the 
close of his anecdote last related, as having vouchsafed to be 
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. Robert 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,t 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!”) 


Dodington, lie was always appointed to office; and had held 
appointments more substantial as comptroller of the prince’s 
household, a lord of the treasury, and vice-treasurer of 
Ireland. He tallied well, though coarsely, ££ with a vivacity 
“ of expression often hordering on the Irish hull,” and was a 
great favourite with women. His first wife, Lord Frugal’s* 
daughter, brought him a good fortune, and bore him a son; 
by his second wife, to whom he was the third husband, the 
sister and heiress of Secretary Craggs (Pope’s friend), and 
described as ££ a good-humoured, pleasant, fat woman,! ” he 
had no issue, but obtained large landed estates, one of the 
finest domains in Essex, and the mansion of Gosfield IIall;i 
and from a third less lucky marriage, with Elizabeth Drax 
the Countess Dowager of Berkeley, sprang the daughter (its 

* Plunket, tlie attainted earl. j* Qmt. Mag. lix. 400. 

J “ Retnraingto England in tlie summer of 1776,” says Wraxall, iu liis Historical 
Memoirs (i. 126), “I went down soon afterwards on a visit to Lord Nugent, at 
‘ ‘ Gosfield in Essex; a seat wliicli lias since, in tlie revolutionary evonts of tlie 
“present times, afforded a temporary asylum to tlie august roprosentativo of the 
“Capetian line, when expelled from a country over which his ancestors had 
“reigned, in uninterrupted male succession, for above eight hundred years.” 
In another passage Sir Nathaniel calls the “house and estato” at Gosfield “ono 
“of the finest domains in Essex;” yet tho present condition of tho inclosuro, 
or paddock, before the mansion, would rathor seem to confirm tlie origin of the name 
as derived from Goosefield. Lord Nugent appears so ploasantly in Goldsmith's 
life, and Wraxall’s sketch of him is so characteristic, that I subjoin ono or two 
passages. “ Of an athletic frame, and a vigorous constitution, though very far 
“advanced in years,” [Wraxall is writing two years after Goldsmith’s death] 
“he was exempt from infirmity; possessing a stentorian voico, with great animal 
“ spirits, and vast powers of conversation. He was indeed a man of very con- 
“siderable natural abilities, though not of a very cultivated mind. . . To a perfect 
“ knowledgo of the world, he joined a coarso, and often licentious, but naturally 
“strong and ready wit, which no place, nor company, prevented him from 
“indulging ; and the effect of which was augmented b an Irish accent that never 


WAXAjr AUUUU A '*uguw\.y ^ U J_l t i JJ. UC U. OJ.LCX 

the separation to live with, her father and aunt, Mrs. Peg 
Nugent, till she married the Marquis of Buckingham in 1775, 
and united the names of Nugent and Grenville. Packard 
Glover (the epic and dramatic poet of Leicester-liouse) cha¬ 
racterises him briefly as a jovial voluptuous Irishman who 
had left popery for the protestant religion, money, and 
widows;—but Glover lived to see him surrender these 
favourites, and, not far from his eightieth year, go back to 
popery again. When his friendship with Goldsmith began, he 
was a tall, stout, vigorous man of nearly sixty, with a remark¬ 
ably loud voice and a broad Irish brogue; whose strong and 
ready wit, careless decision of manner, and reckless auda¬ 
city of expression, obtained him always a hearing from the 
House of Commons, in which he had sat for four-and-twenty 
years. He was now watching, with more than ordinary 
personal interest, the turn of the political wheel. So, for 
the interest they took in the opening of Burke’s great political 
life, was his new friend Goldsmith, and every member of the 
Gerrard-street club. 

The ministry which succeeded Bute’s (that of George 
Grenville and the Bedfords, or, as they were called, the 
Bloomsbury gang) * was coming to a close at last, after a 
series of impolitic blunders without parallel in the annals 
of statesmen. Early in March of the previous year (’64), 
after convulsing England from end to end with the question 


“one of tlie clauses went to propose that watchmen should he compelled to 
“sleep during the day-time, Lord Nugent, with admirable humour, got up 
“and desired that he might be personally included in the provisions of the 


1765 . of general warrants ancl the ignoble persecution ot vvi 
^37. the first attempt was made upon America which roused h 
rehellion. In the autumn of that year, all her towns 
cities were in loud and vehement protest; and before 
year closed, Benjamin Franklin had placed in Grenv; 
hands a solemn protest of resistance on the part oJ 
fellow colonists to any proposition to tax them without i 
consent. But as yet, this met with little sympatlr 
England; and to the stubborn nature of Grenville, fear vn 
strange as wisdom. With only one division in the Comm 
when the attendance was most paltry, and without a si 
negative in the Lords, he passed, at the opening of the pre 
year, the act which virtually created the Republic of Amc 
Burke was in the gallery of the house during its pro£ 
(it had been his habit for some months to attend ah 
every discussion), and said, nine years afterwards, that 
from anything inflammatory, he had never in his life li 
so languid a debate.* Horace Walpole described it to ] 
Hertford as a “ slight day on the American taxes.” B; 
who had served in America and knew the temper of 
people, was the only man whose language approached to 
occasion ; and as he had lately lost his regiment for his 
against general warrants, it was laughed at as the lang 
of a disappointed man. Pitt was absent. On occasions 
momentous he had come to the house on crutches, swa 
in flannel; yet now he was absent. He afterwards pr 
that some friendly hand could have laid him prostrate o] 
floor of the house to bear his testimony against the bill; 


iEt.37 


man eitner gout or lever. 

Tlie minister’s triumph in his Stamp Act, however, was 
brief. The King had hardly given it his glad assent, when 
the first slight seizure of the terrible malady which in 
later days more sorely afflicted him, necessitated an act 
of regency; and the mismanagement of the provisions of 
that act hopelessly embroiled the minister with his 
master. Then came the clash and confusion of the parties 
into which the once predominant old whig party had been 
lately rent asunder, and which the present strange and 
sullen seclusion of Pitt made it hopeless to third- of reuniting. 
In vain he was appealed to ; in vain the poor King made 
piteous submissions to induce him to return to power. 
Fortunate in legacies, a Somersetshire baronet whom he had 
never seen had just left him three thousand a-year ; and it 
began to be whispered about that he would not take office 
again. The opposition lost ground, and the ministry did not 
gain it; the coercion laid upon the King became notorious ; 
the city was shaken with riots, which in tire general disor¬ 
ganisation of affairs rose almost to rebellion; and while, on 
the one hand, a new administration seemed impossible 
without the help of Pitt, on the other it was plain that 
Grenville and the Bedfords were tottering to them final fall. 
The King was intensely grateful to them for their invasion 
of the public liberties, and had joyfully co-operated with them 
in the taxation of America; but he hated them because they 
hated Bute, who had placed them in power; because they 
had insulted his mother the Princess Dowager, whose 
intri ues had sustained them in power ; and because they 



govern without party, ana soieiy Dy me iavour ox me crc 
and here, then, were its four years’ fruits. His ministers 
become his tyrants, and statesmen held themselves aloof 
his service. When his uncle Cumberland came back 
Hayes with Pitt’s formal refusal, he thought in his de; 
of even the old Duke of Newcastle; began to 1 
atonement for recent insults to the house of Devons! 
and threw out baits for those old pure wliigs who 
been to this time the objects of his most concent! 
hatred. Doubts and distrust shook the Princess Dowa, 
friends, in which Nugent of course largely shared; 
expectation stood on tip-toe in Gerrard-street, where 
friends of the club could hardly avoid taking intern 
what affected the fortunes of Edmund Burke. 

For Burke, not unreasonably, looked to obtain employ! 
in the scramble. Hawkins said he had always meant to 
himself to the highest bidder ;t but the calumny is In 
worth refuting. He had honourably disengaged himself 
Hamilton, and scornfully given back his pension; nor 
his friends kept in ignorance that he had since atta 
himself to the party of whigs the most pure and 
powerful in the state. Lord Bockingham was at their he 
a young nobleman of princely fortune and fascim 
manners, who made up for powers of oratory, in wliic' 

* Walpole’s George III. ii. 160. f Miss Hawkins’s Memoirs, i. 101 

J Since my first edition appeared, Lord Albemarle lias publish! 
Memoirs of the Marquis of Roclcingham and Ids Contemporaries, a series of 
relating chiefly to the public affairs of this period, from the collections of his I 
with a highly intelligent and well-informed comment of his own. At the c 

til A linnlc (\\ til A VAfirlor will -G^rl Tlrivlra’ci nrdl „ 



ins associates men line nimsen, less notea lor tneir Dninant 
talents than for their excellent sense and spotless honour. 
The manly independence as well as great landed influence of 
the old Yorkshire family of Savile, was worthily represented 
in their ranks by the present member for the county, Sir 
George: and with him were associated the shrewd clear 
honesty and financial ability of Dowdeswell, a country gentle¬ 
man of Worcestershire; and the many rare -virtues of the 
Duke of Devonshire’s youngest uncle, Lord John Cavendish, 
who, not more remarkable for his fair little clownish person 
than for his princely soul, carried out in politics the prin¬ 
ciples of private honour with what Walpole sneeringly calls 
“ the tyranny of a moral philosopher.”* With the extremer 
opinions of Lord Temple, these men had little in common. 
Though staunch against general warrants and invasions of 
liberties and franchises, they were as far from being Wilkite 
as the reckless demagogue himself; and they had obtained 
the general repute of a kind of middle constitutional party. 
Little compatible was this with present popularity, Burke well 
knew; but he saw beyond the ignorant present. To the last 
he hoped that Pitt might be moved; and in the May of this 
year so expressed himself to his friend Flood, in a letter 
which is curious evidence of his possession of the politi¬ 
cal secrets of the day: t but, though believing that with¬ 
out the splendid talents and boundless popularity of the 

* Memoirs of George III. ii. 25. George Selwyn called Mm, says Walpole, as 
well for bis fair little person, as for the quaintness with which he untreasured, as 
by rote, the stores of his memory, “the learned canary bird.” Gray calls him 
“the best of all Johns.” See Correspondence of Gray and Mason, 78. Mason 
Ins tutor a Cambridge. + Burke’s Correspondence, i. 80. 


that on this plain foundation might he gradually ra 
party that should revive whig purity and honour, am 
when Pitt should he no more. Somewhat thus, to< 
honest and brave Duke of Cumberland may have reas 
when to his hapless nephew the King, again crying ■ 
him in utter despair, and imploring him, with or wi 
Pitt, to save him from George Grenville and the Di 
Bedford, he gave his final counsel. Lord Ilockingliai 
summoned; consented, with his party, to take office 
was sworn in First Lord on the 8tli of duly. 
Shelburne would not join without Pitt: but a young 
duke (Grafton), of whom much was at that time exp 
gave in his adhesion; and General (afterwards Ma 
Conway, Cumberland’s personal friend and the cousii 
favourite of Plorace Walpole,* a braver soldier than polil 

* There is no pleasanter trait in Horaco Walpole than his affection for f 
which continued steady and unalterable to the last, and was niani tested i 
generous disinterested ways. See letters lately published in the OrenvilU 
spondence, ii. 296-9, 320-7, 335-44, kc. The bravo quiet soldier had hardly 
to me the man to have inspired so strong a fooling, till I read soino fragr 
his early correspondence with Walpole lately published by Lord Alboinai 
the originals in Sir Denis le Marchaut’s possession. I subjoin ono or two j 
which show Conway in a character that but for these lottors I should have h 
(with all my admiration for his storling souse and manliness) to ascribe to hii 
date is at the close of Sir Robert Walpole’s ministry, moro than twenty year 
that to which I have brought my text. “Would youbolievo it, Horry,” wri 
way in the autumn of 1740, “I have been hitherto in this dreary city all this 1 
“ summer ? But I can’t bear summer people, and so I live a good deal ah 

“ The marriage of a great silk-dyer to Miss-, a young lady of groat 

“ merit, and fortune, and the death of an eminent distiller in Cornhill, is 
“I find worth your notice. Adieu, dear Horry. Service to Gray . . . 
“here, Horry, here is just such a bit of paper as you wrote to mo up 
“ if I can help it.I won’t write a word more upon it. I have just wr. 

46 fiplwvn rnirl finlrl Tnm +Lo* T -—, —_i.i ^ _ 



Burke, Edmund’s distant relative and dear friend beinf 
appointed bis under-secretary. Upon tliis tke old meddling 
“fizzling”* Duke of Newcastle went and warned Conways 
chief against these Burkes. Edmund’s real name, he said, 
was O’Bourke ; and he was not only an Irish adventurer, 
a jacobite, and a papist, but he had shrewd reasons for 
believing him a concealed jesuit to boot. Nevertheless, 
seven days after the administration was formed, the jesuit 
and jacobite, introduced by their common friend Fitzherbert 
(who had been named to the Board of Trade), was appointed 
private secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham; and Burke’s 
great political life began. 

The first letter of the newly appointed secretary to the 

‘ ‘ you know I am soon appeased. Indeed, Horry, if one did not love you 
“ better tlian anybody, and you did not write better than other people, one 
“ could never forgive yon ; but I forgot, those are the very reasons -why I 
“ should be the most angry with you. So, know that nothing but a vehement 
‘ ‘ long letter can ever make it up betwixt us .... So you cannot bear Mrs. 
‘ ‘ Woffington ? yet all the town is in love with her. To say the truth, I am 
“ glad to find somebody to keep me in countenance, for I think she is an 
“ impudent, Irish-faced girl.... Poor Sir Robert is to lose his head immediately 
“ as they say, about which he seems to trouble his head very little; but I must 
“ tell you a good thing of Lady Thanet’s before I go any farther. Lord Bateman 
“ told her at the Bath that he had Sir Robert’s head in his pocket. ‘ Are you 
“ ‘ sure of it,’ says she.—‘Nothing surer.’—‘Why then,’ says she, ‘you cannot 
‘ ‘ ‘ possibly do so well as to put it on your shoulders.’ ” I close with a pleasant 
passage of banter on a love affair of Horace Walpole’s, from a letter of two years’ 
later date, written from Ghent. “ Dear Horry, I delight in your disowning your 
“ amourette twelve miles out of London. Do you forget all that passed in Chelsea 
“ summer-house on that head, and in Chelsea parlour too ?... . Yes, twelve 
“ miles out of London, Horry; and yet you are in the right to commend London 
“ too. I know your beauty was little out of it at that time, gone to shine 
‘ ‘ and do mischief in some country village : but its satellites accompanied it too, 
“ for I remember you made frequent excursions about that time, spite of all the 
“ dust and heat in the world. I am not simple ; I know that people like London, 




pleasant tJYiutJxiot? wcxcouvo, wum yy^ci.uov^.l ^ w 
of his adventure in politics, there is little- chance 
weaning him from the society of wits and men of lctt 
which this narrative belongs. Burke cheerfully invok 
friend as his “little Horace,” his “lepidissimc lionm 
to call and see his “Maecenas atavis,” and “ prais 
“ administration of Cavendishes and Bockingliams ii 
“ and abuse their enemies in epigram.”*' Garricl 
arrived in England, from his foreign tour, three u 
before ; his old weaknesses coining back as lie verged ] 
and nearer home, and, for liis last few days in Pari 
turbing him with visions of Powell. “ I’ll answc 
“ nothing and nobody in a playhouse,” lie wrote to Co 
“ the devil has put his hoof into it, and lie was a do 
“ from the beginning of the world. Tell me really wli 
“ think of Powell. I am told by several that he wil 
“ and roar. Boss, I hear, has got reputation in Lear. I 
“ doubt it. The Town is a facetious gentleman.”! 
days later, Sterne wrote to him from Bath “ strange ” 
of Powell;+ and when himself on the point of starti: 
London, he met Beauclerc accidentally, who reported 
new tragedian not less strangely. “ What, c all my cliilc 
“ I fear he has taken a wrong turn. liave you advised L 

* Garrick Correspondence, i. 189. “ My dear Garrick,” ho said in t 
letter, “ you have made me perfectly happy hy the friendly and ohligii 
“ faction you are so good to express on this little gleam of prosperity, w 
“ at length fallen on my fortune.” It was indeed hut a transient gloam, 
administration passed away in a month! 

+ March 10, 1765. Peake’s Memoirs, i. 141. 

t “ Powell,” Sterne adds,—“good heaven! give mo some one with let 



uflAr. A1.J urujjjjoj.uixn. ia rmiUJTiLJC; AX JL> rSUKKE IX OFFICE. ■ 

lie wrote again to Colman. “ Do you see him ? Is lie 
“ grateful ? is he modest? Or, is he conceited and undone ? " # 
Nor could the uneasy little great actor bring himself to make 
his journey home, till he had privately sent on for anonymous 
publication at the moment of his arrival, a rhymed satirical 
fable in anticipation and forestalment of expected Grub- 
street attacks, wherein he humbly depicted himself as The 
Sick Monkey, and the whole race of other animals as railing 
at the monkey and his travels. But it was labour all thrown 
away. The finessing and trick were of no use, the hearts of 
his admirers being already securely his without such miserable 
help.! Grub-street, when he came, showed no sign of dis¬ 
composure ; and there was but one desire in London and 
Westminster to see their favourite actor again. 

Let us not be surprised if these intolerable vanities and self¬ 
distrusts weighed, with contemporaries of his own grade, 
against the better qualities of this delightful man, and 
pressed down the scale. Johnson loved him, but could not 
always show it for hatred of his foppery ■ Goldsmith admired 
him, yet was always ready to join in any scheme for his 
mortification and annoyance. Two things had been done 
in his absence to which he addressed himself with great 
anxiety on his return. The Covent Garden actors had 
established a voluntary benefit-subscription, to relieve their 
poorer fellows in distress ; and, jealous of such a proposal 
without previous consultation with himself, he was now 
throwing all his energy into a similar fund at Drury Lane, 


Jonnson resolutely opposcu in. wejuuj-uB iu.du tuuve 
liirn Garrick’s wish, to tlie effect that he liked the idea 
club excessively, and thought he should he of them. “ 
“ be of us! ” exclaimed Johnson; “ how does he know 1 
“ permit him ? The first duke in England has no ri, 
“ hold such language.” * * * § To Thrale, the next inten 
he threw out even threats of a blackball; but this mov 
worthy brewer to remonstrate warmly, and Johnson 
hard pressed, picked up somewhat recklessly a line of 1 
as in self-defence one might pick up a stone by tli 
side, without regard to its form or fitness. “ Wli 
“ I love my little David dearly, better than all or 
“ his flatterers do ; but surely one ought to sit in a i 
“ lilce ours 

“ Unelbow’d by a gamester, pimp or player.” t 

Still the subject was not suffered to let drop, and tl: 
who undertook it was Hawkins. “ He will disturb 
“ by his buffoonery,” was the only and obdurate ai 
Garrick saw that for the present it was hopeless (tliou 
long after, as will be seen, Percy, Chambers, and ( 
obtained their election); and, with his happier ta 
really handsome spirit, § visited Johnson as usual, and i 

* j Boswell, ii. 274-5. Boswell relates this hy way of contradicting ' 

whose account, however, it plainly confirms, 

t Piozzi Leltm, ii. 387. J Life of Johnson, 42 

§ In. the midst of Garrick’s uneasy little vanities, let me show him in 
character (also from an incident of tho present year) as tlio honcfactor a 
of worth and virtue. It will enable me too, as I have already illustra 
smith’s Doctor Marrowfat hy comparison with a living dignitary of tl 
(ante, 278-9), to offer a not unworthy companion picture to Goldsmith 


. -j_u.y gate, an vs ms gooa- j£t.3 

U’ed friend Hawkins, who lived at Twickenham, “ in his 
y to and from Hampton, with messages from Johnson 
dating to his Shakspeare, then in the press, and ask 
ch questions as these: ‘Were you at the club on 
Monday night ? What did you talk of? Was Johnson 
there ? I suppose he said something of Davy ?—that 
Davy was a clever fellow in his way, full of convivial 
pleasantly, hut no poet, no writer, ha! ’ ” * Hawkins 
lit heai* all this, however, with better grace than any 
else ■ for that worthy magistrate took little interest in 
club. In a letter to Langton, written shortly after, John- 
specially mentions him as remiss in attendance, while he 

e happiest man upon earth with a small addition to his present income. . . He is 
liged to undergo more labour and fatigue than he can possibly support another 
nter ; he has uot only the severe duty of Egham upon him, but, besides that, 
is obliged to ride five or six miles through much water, and often to swim his 
rse, for the sake of about thirty pounds a-year—this, to a gouty man, and 
rned of sixty, is a terrible consideration. I entered Lately into a very serious 
nversation with him about his affairs, and he confessed to me that he found a 
rate was necessary for him ; I made him an offer of money for that purpose, 

1 something might happen, but he absolutely refused me. I am persuaded 
at any small .preferment, with what he has, would make him look down with 
by on the Archbishop of Canterbury. ‘ My good friend Mr. Garrick,’ said he, 
ring me by the hand, and giving his head the usual jerk of affection, ‘ could I 
ave fifty pounds for a curate, and fifty to keep up my little garden, I feel no 
mbition or happiness beyond it.’—‘And thirty,’ said I, ‘Beighton, to keep 
fannah your housekeeper.’—‘Pooh ! pooh ! ’ jerking his head again, ‘ you turn 
verything into a joke ; let me show you the finest arbor vitce in the country : * 
away he trotted and forgot his wants in a moment. This is the plain, simple, 
d affecting truth. .. I assure you, upon my word and honour, that this step is 
ten without his knowledge or concurrence. . . My friend is a great dabbler in 
iosities, and he has collected some few in his little library and garden ; but I 
fy him to show me a greater rarity than himself, for he is a generous, modest, 

;enious, and disinterested clergyman.” Two years later, this application having 
1, he wrote to the wife of the chancellor, Lord Camden, with better effect. 
ie good man ” he writes to her, acknowledging her answer, “ happened to dine 


Without its dignified doctorial prefix, Goldsmith’s na 
now seldom mentioned; even Newhery is careful to pre 
it in his memoranda of hooks lent for the purposes of 
pilation; and he does not seem, himself, to have agair 
it wholly aside. Indeed he now made a brief effort, t 
suggestion of Reynolds, to make positive professional i 
it. It was much to have a regular calling, said the succ 
painter; it gave a man social rank, and consideration i 
world. Advantage should be taken of the growing popu 
of the Traveller. To be at once physician and mi 
letters, was the most natural tiling possible : there we] 
Arbuthnots and Garths, to say nothing of Cowley liii 
among the dead; there were the Akensides, Grab 
Armstrongs, and Smolletts, still among the living; and - 
was the degree in medicine belonging to any of tin 
which the degree in poetry or wit had not given more 
acceptance ? Out came Goldsmith accordingly (in the J 
this year, according to the account books of Mr. William 
the tailor),! in purple silk small-clothes, a handsome s 
roquelaure buttoned close under the chin, and with a 
additional importance derivable from a full dress profes 
wig, a sword, and a gold-headed cane. The style of til 
and small-clothes may be presumed from the “ four gi 
“ and a half ” paid for them; and, as a child with i 

* Boswell, ii. 321. In the same letter he writes “Mr. Lye is printing h 
1 ‘ and Gothic dictionary : all The Club subscribes. ” 

+ These account hooks were communicated to Mr. Prior by the son of 
Filby (miscalled John in Boswell), Mr. John Filby, “ a respectable meuibe 


xxu iCM Liitiu Lmue similar suits, not less expensive, j£t .3 
ldsmitli amazed liis friends in the next six months. The 
nity he was obliged to put on with these fine clothes, 
eed, left him this as their only enjoyment; for he had 
ncl it much harder to give up the actual reality of his old 
nhle haunts, of his tea at the White-conduit, of his ale- 
ise club at Islington, of his nights at the Wrekin or 
Giles’s, than to blot their innocent but vulgar names from 
now genteeler page. In truth, he would say (in truth 
5 a favourite phrase of his, interposes Cooke, who relates 
anecdote), one has to make vast sacrifices for good 
ipany’s sake; “ for here am I shut out of several places 
diere I used to play the fool very agreeably.” * Nor is it 
te clear that the most moderate accession of good company, 
fessionally speaking, rewarded this reluctant gravity, 
e only instance remembered of his practice, was in the 
e of a Mrs. Sidebotham, described as one of his recent 
uaintance of the better sort; whose waiting-woman was 
m afterwards known to relate with what a ludicrous 
umption of dignity he would show off his cloak and his 
.e, as he strutted with his queer little figure, stuck through 
with a huge pin by his wandering sword, into the sick- 
m of her mistress. At last it one day happened, that, his 
nion differing somewhat from the apothecary’s in attend- 
:e, the lady thought her apothecary the safer counsellor 
l Goldsmith quitted the house in high indignation. He 
ild leave off prescribing for his friends, he said. “ Do so, 
ly dear Doctor,” observed Beauclerc. “ Whenever you 
ndertake to kill, let it only be your enemies.” Upon the 


CHAPTER XII. 


1765. 
Ait. 37. 


NEWS FOR THE CLUB OF VARIOUS KINDS AND FROM VARIOUS T 

1765-1766. 

The literary engagements of Doctor Oliver G-olc 
were meanwhile going on with Newbcry; and towar 
close of the year he appears to have completed a compi 
of a kind somewhat novel to him, induced in all prob: 
by his concurrent professional attempts. It was “ A L 
“ of Experimental Philosophy, considered in its preseir 
“ of improvementand Newbery paid him sixty gum 
it.* He also took great interest at this time in the pr 
ings of the Society of Arts; and is supposed, from the 
small advances entered in Newbery’s memoranda as m 
connection with that Society,t to have contributed t 
reports and disquisitions on its proceedings and affair! 

* I give the memorandum (Newhery MSS. Prior, ii. 102-3) of hooka 
Goldsmith for the purpose of this compilation. “Sont to Dr. Goldsmith, So 
“ 1765, from Canhery (Oanonhury) House the copy of Lho Philosophy to ho 
“ with the Ahh6 Nollot’s Philosophy, and to havo an account added t 
“ Ventilation, together with Lire following hooka. 1. Pemberton’s Now 
“ 2. Two pamphlets of Mr. Franklin’s on Electricity. 3. 1 ol‘ Ferguson 
“nomy, 4to. 4. D’Alemhert’s Treatise of Fluids, 4to. 5. Martin’s Ph 
' ‘ 3 vols. 8vo. 6. Ferguson’s Lectures, ditto. 7. Helsliam’a ditto, i 
“Introduction, ditto. 9. Kiel’s Astronomy, ditto. 10. Nature Displayot 
“ 12mo. 11. Nollct’s Philosophy, 3 vols. 12mo.” 

+ See ante , 302, note. Besides the entries there civcn, others exia 


be scant and indifferent enough. Johnson's blind pensioner. 
Miss Williams, had for several months been getting together 
a subscription volume of Miscellanies, to which Goldsmith 
had promised a poem; and she complains that she found him 
always too busy to redeem his promise, and was continually 
put off with a “ Leave it to me.” Nor was Johnson, who 
had made like promises, much better. “Well, we’ll think 
“ about it,” was his form of excuse* With Johnson,in truth, 
a year of most unusual exertion had succeeded his year of 
visitings, and he had at last completed, nine years later than 
he promised it, his edition of Shaksjpeare. It came out in 
October, in eight octavo volumes; and was bitterly assailed 
(nor, it may be admitted, without a certain coarse smartness) 
by Kenrick, who, in one of the notes to his attack, coupling 
“ learned doctors of Dublin,” with “ doctorial dignities of 
“ Bbeims and Louvain,” may have meant a sarcasm at 
Goldsmith. I have indicated the latter place as the pro¬ 
bable source of his medical degree; and, three months before, 
Dublin Universit} 7 had conferred a doctorship on Johnson, 
though not until ten years later, when Oxford did him similar 
honour, did he consent to acknowledge the titled He had 
now, I may add, left his Temple chambers, and become 

* The poor old lady was more nervous about having received and spent her 
subscription halfcrowns than Johnson felt about his subscription guineas (ante, 219); 
“but,” she said to Lady Knight, “what can I do ? the Doctor [Johnson] always 
“ puts me off with ‘Well, we’ll think about it;’ and Goldsmith says, ‘ Leave it 
“ ‘ to me.’ ” Boswell , iii. 9. 

j, pj e never, himself, actually assumed it. It was in recognition of the comple¬ 
tion of his Shalcspcare that Dublin University did itself the honour to send him the 
doctor’s diploma, which Oxford (his own University) had not the grace to do till 
ten years later, on the nomination of Lord North. It is certain, however, and not 
•.. t—U na rUcmit.v became in his person. 


while to have got into somewhat better chambers in the same 
(Garden) court where his library stair-case chambers stood, 
which he was able to furnish more decently; and to which 
we shortly trace (by the help of Mr. Filby’s bills, and their 
memoranda of altered suits) the presence of a man-servant. 

So passed the year 1765. It was the year in which he had 
first felt any advantage of rank arising from literature; and 
it closed upon him as he seems to have resolved to make the 
most of his growing importance, and enjoy it in all possible 
ways. Joseph Warton, now preparing for the head mastership 
of Winchester school, was in London at the opening of 1766, 
and saw something of the society of the club. lie had wished 
to see Hume ; but Hume, though he had left Paris (where he 
had been secretary of the embassy to Lord Hertford, recalled 
and sent to Dublin by the new administration), was not yet 
in London. A strange Paris “ season ” it had beqn, and odd 
and ill-assorted its assemblage of visitors. There had Sterne, 
Foote, Walpole, and Wilkes, been thrown together at the 
same dinner-table. There had Hume, with his broad Scotch 
accent, his unintelligible French, his imbecile fat face, and 
his corpulent body, been the object of enthusiasm without 
example, and played the Sultan in pantomimic tableaux to 
the prettiest women of the time.* There had the author 

* “They believe in Mr. Hume,” writes Walpole, “the only thing in tho world 
“ that they believe implicitly ; which they must do; for I defy thorn to understand 
“any language that he speaks.” “Le eelebre David Hume, grand et gros 
“ historiographe d’ Angleterre, connu et estuno par sos ocrits, n’a pas nutaut do 
“talens pour ce genre cl’ amusemens anquel toutes nos jolies femmes l’avoionfc 
“ decide propre. II fit son debut chez Madame cle T-; on lui avoit destine 



flattered out of the rest of his wits by the persecution that 
followed it, stalked about with all Paris at his heels, in 
a caftan and Armenian robes, and so enchanted the Scotch 
historian and sage, to whom he seemed a sort of better 
Socrates, that he had offered him a home in England * There 
was the young painter student, Barry, writing modest letters 
on his way to Rome, where "William and Edmund Burke 
had subscribed out of their limited means to send him. 
There was the young lion-hunting Boswell, more pompous 
and conceited than ever; as little laden with law from 
Utrecht, where he has studied since we saw him last, as 
with heroism from Corsica, where he has visited Pascal 
Paoli, or with wit from Eerney, where he has been to see 
Voltaire; pushing his way into every salon, inflicting him- 


“ le role d’un Sultan assis entre deux esclaves, employant toute son eloquence 
“pour s’en faire aimer; lestrouvant inexorables, il devoit clierclier le sujet de 
“leurs peines, et de leur resistance: on le place sur un soplia entre les deux 
“ plus jolies femmes de Paris, il les regarde atteutivemeut, il se frappe le ventre 
‘ ‘ et les genoux a’ plusieurs reprises, et ne trouve jamais autre chose a’ leur dire 
“ que : ‘Eli l>ien ! mes demoiselles .. . Eh bien ! vous voila done.. . Eh bien ! 
“ ‘vous voila. . . vous voila id? 5 Cette phrase dura un quart d’ heure, sans 
“ qu’il pfit en sortir. Une d’elles se leva d’ impatience : ‘Ah !’ dit elle, ‘je m’en 
“ ‘etois bien doutee, cet homme n’est bon qu’ a manger du veau !’ Depuis ce 
“ temps il est releque au role de spectateur, et n’en est par moins fete et 
“ cajole.” Memoires et Correspondence de Madame d’ Epinay, iii. 284. 

* “I find him,” says the too impressible philosopher, “mild, and gentle, and 
“modest, and good-humoured; and he has more the behaviour of a man of the 
“ world, than any of the learned here, except M. de Buffon; who, in his figure, 
“and air, and deportment, answers your idea of a marechal of France, rather 
‘ ‘ than that of a philosopher, hi. Eousseau is of a small stature, and would rather 
“be ugly, bad he not the finest physiognomy in the world: I mean the most 
“ expressive countenance. . .His Armenian dress is not affectation. He has had an 
‘ ‘ infirmity from his infancy, which makes breeches inconvenient for him.” Burton’s 
Hume, ii. 299, 302. In connection with this passage it may be worth adding that 
Buffon was the only known French writer of this period whom Johnson declared he 
nnva t.hp Rpn. t,n visit, and la his reason for not going) “ I can find in 


OXJJLCijX UJLU.£ JULWJ-U. jjUAAUAVtw* £) * * w i ttj.uj.jl 

laughter at everybody around him and beyond him: now 
with aspiring Geoffrin and the philosophers, now with blind 
Du Deffand and the wits i ( cc women who violated all the 
c£ duties of life and gave very pretty suppers ”); lumping 
up in the same contempt, Wilkes and Foote, Boswell and 
Sterne; t proclaiming as impostors in their various ways, 
alike the jesuits, the methodists, the philosophers, the 
politicians, the encyclopedists, the hypocrite Rousseau, the 
scoffer Voltaire, the I-Iumes, the Lytteltons, the Grenvilles, 
the atheist tyrant of Prussia, and the mountebank of history 
Mr. Pitt; and counting a ploughman who sows, reads his 
almanack, and believes the stars but so many farthing 
candles created to prevent his falling into a ditch as he goes 
home at night, a wiser and more rational, and certainly an 
lionester being than any of them.§ Such was the winter 

* ££ He is a strange being,” mites Walpole of Boswell, “and, lilco Cambridgo, 
“ lias a rage of knowing anybody that ever was talked of. Ho forced liiinsclf upon 
“me at Paris in spite of my teeth and my doors.” Coll. Lett. v. 102. 

+ Coll. Lett. v. 1234. I must give tho reader a poop (from a letter in the 
Sehmjn Correspondence) at one of tbe leading members of this distinguished society. 
“ Madame de Deffand has filled up her vaeaneies, and given mo onough new 
“ French. With one of them you would bo delighted, a Madame do Marehais. 
“She is not perfectly young, has a face like a Jew pedlar, her person is about 
“ four feet, her head about six, and her coiffure about ten. Her forehead, chin, 
“ and neck, are whiter than a miller’s ; and she wears more festoons of natural 
“ flowers than all the firjurantes at the Opera. Her eloquence is still more 
“abundant, her attentions exuberant. Sho talks volumes, writes folios—I mean 
“in lillets; presides over the Academic, inspires passions, and has not time 
“ enough to heal a quarter of the wounds she gives. Sho has a houso in a nut- 
“ shell, that is fuller of invention than a fairy tale; her bed stands in tho middle 
“ of the room, because there is no other space that would hold it; it is surrounded 
‘ ‘ by such a perspective of looking-glasses, that you may see all that passes in it 
“ from the first ante-chamber.” ;J; Coll. Lett. v. 91 113. 

8 flnlL 7,Pt.t. V. Qfi. 101 T'Jnr pnn Tknln Pi.,v*v* +1»« 


/i n n\ 


vi jjLbeiaLiue m xjojlluou. i ameu Wltll d oiiuson, lie 
writes to his brother, Cf who seemed cold and indifferent, 

“ and scarce said anything to me. Perhaps he has heard 
“ what I said of his Shakspcarc. Of all solemn coxcombs, 

£C Goldsmith is the first; yet sensible ; but affects to use 
“ Johnson’s hard words in conversation.* We had a 

£ ‘ having engaged 'with the latter, who contradicts and quarrels with all mankind 
“ in order to obtain their admiration. I think both his means and his end below 
“ such a genius. If I had talents like his, I should despise any suffrage below my 
£< own standard, and should blush to owe any part of my fame to singularities and 
‘ ‘ affectations. But great parts seem like high towers erected on high mountains, 

£ ‘ the more exposed to every wind, and readier to tumble. Charles Townshend 
“ is blown round the compass; Rousseau insists that the north and south blow at 
“ the same time ; and Voltaire demolishes the Bible to erect fatalism in its stead. 

££ So compatible are the greatest abilities and greatest absurdities !” Gray’s anti¬ 
cipations were not less shrewd. 

* This charge, which the not very lively Joe Warton (see post, Book iv. chap, iv.) 
brings against Goldsmith, of affecting to use Johnson’s hard words in conversation, 
is one which Hawkins also brings against him (“He affected Johnson’s style and 
“ manner of conversation, and, when he had uttered, as he often would, a laboured 
‘ ‘ sentence, so tumid as to be scarce intelligible, would ask, if that was not truly 
££ Johnsonian ?” Life of Johnson, 416); and which Boswell has not omitted (“To 
“ me and many others it appeared that he studiously copied the manner of 
“ Johnson, though indeed upon a smaller scale,” ii. 189). It is however to be 
remarked that the same thing is found said so often, and of so many other people, 
as for the most part to lose its distinctive or pertinent character. Of Boswell 
himself it is undoubtedly far more certain than of Goldsmith, that he was ludicrous 
for this kind of imitation of Johnson. Walpole laughs at him for it; Madame 
D’Arblay highly colours all its most comical incidents ; and above all we see it in 
the conversations of his own wonderful book,—so that when he proceeds to turn the 
laugh on Johnson’s landlord, little Allen the printer of Bolt-court, for “imitating 
“the stately periods and slow and solemn utterance of the great man” (vii. 106), and 
on another occasion professes himself ‘ ‘ not a little amused by observing Allen 
“ perpetually struggling to talk in the manner of Johnson, like the little frog in 
“ the fable blowing himself up to resemble the stately ox” (viii. 68-9)—the effect 
is amazingly absurd. On the whole, though I think it by no means unlikely that 
Goldsmith, as well as others who looked up to Johnson, may have fallen now and 
then into unconscious Johnsonianisms, I am disposed to regard Joe Warton’s charge 
as a sort of f alling in with a fashionable cant, in vogue more or less against all with 
whom Johnson was familiar. It is at least indisputable that no trace of the absurd 
iinit-.n ,inn alleaed is discoverable, as a habit, in Boswell’s reports of Goldsmith s 


“ editions.” 

What Garrick could with greater difficulty forgive 
(Warton’s allusion is to that passage in the Prtvface to 
his edition which regrets that he could not collate more 
copies, since he had not found the collectors of those rarities 
very communicative) was the absence of any mention of his 
acting. He had not withheld his old plays; lie had been 
careful, through others, to let Johnson understand (too 
notoriously careless of books,* as he was, to be safely 
trusted with rare editions) that the books were at liis service, 
and that in his absence abroad the keys of his library had, 
with that view solely, been entrusted to a servant: but this 
implied an overture from Johnson, who thought it Garrick’s 
duty, on the contrary, to make overtures to him ; who knew 
that the other course involved acknowledgments lie was not 
prepared to make; and who laughed at nothing so much, on 
Davy’s subsequent loan of all his plays to George Stccvens.t 
as when he read this year, in the first publication of that 
acute young Mephistophelean critic, that ££ Mr. Garrick’s 
£C zeal would not permit him to withhold anything that 
“ might ever so remotely tend to show the perfections of 


* Cooke says (in his Life of Foote) Ms ordinary habit was to open a book so wide 
as almost to break the back of it, and then to fling it down. Cradock describes the 
same peculiarity; and adds that on one occasion, Johnson having been admitted 
to Garrick’s room in Southampton-street to wait till its master should arrive, tiie 
latter found, on bis arrival, all his most splendidly hound presentation-volumes 
from various authors and writers of plays &c. flung damaged on the floor as 
“ stuff, trash, and nonsense.” Boswell, who refers to the eiremustnneos mentioned 
in the text, adds that, “considering the slovenly and careless manner in which 
“ hooks were treated by Johnson, it could not have boon cxnccted that scarce an 1 


sucn satirical nicety; ne must Have praised honestly, it at 
all, and it went against his grain to do it. He let out the 
reason to Boswell eight years afterwards. “ Ganich has 
“ been liberally paid, sir, for anything he has clone for 
“ Shakspeare. If I should praise him, I should mucli 
“ more praise the nation who paid him.” * AVith better 
reason he used to laugh at liis managerial preference of the 
player’s text (which it is little to the credit of the stage 
that the latest of the great actors t should have been the 
first to depart from), and couple it with a doubt if he had 
ever examined one of the original plays from the first scene 
to the last. Nor did Garrick take all this quietly. The 
king had commanded his reappearance in Benedict at the 
close of the year; and, though he did not think it safe to 
resume any part of which Powell was in possession, except 
Lusignan, Lothario, and Leon, his popularity had again 
shone forth unabated. It brought back his sense of power; 
and with it a disposition to use it, even against Johnson. 
The latter had not hesitated, notwithstanding their doubtful 
relations, to seek to “ secure an honest prejudice * in favour 
of his book, by formally asking the popular actor’s “suffrage” 
for it on its appearance; yet the suffrage of the popular 

* Boswell, iv. 266. The real truth of his apparent inconsistencies about Garrick, 
of which so many instances are given in this biography, was admirably hit off 
by Reynolds in the remark, that in point of fact J ohnson considered him to be 
as it were his property; and would allow no man either to blame.or to praise 
Garrick in his presence, without contradicting him. In proof of this Sir Joshua 
himself compiled, from actual recollected scraps of his talk about Davy, two 
imaginary conversations, in the first of which Johnson attacks Garrick against Sir 
Joshua, and in the second defends him against Gibbon. These dialogues are to 

be found in Miss Hawkins’s Memoirs, i. 110-128. 

. t i n ± t\t,. i\/Tnrt-wnrtriir bw TirLnm "Pool i Lc&v* And other m&ster* 


ingenious mischief, with Iial’s gay compliance in Falst 
vices, such a critic might he at home ; hut from Lear ir 
storm, and from Macbeth on the blasted heath, he mus 
content to he far away. He could, there, hut mount 
high horse, and bluster about imperial tragedy. The 
was caught by the actor’s friends ; is perceptible throug 
his correspondence ; t is in the letters of Warburton, 
in such as I have quoted of the Wartons ,* and gradn 
to even Johnson’s disturbance, passed from society into 
press, and became a stock theme with the newspa] 
Garrick went too far, however, when ho suffered the lib 
Kenriek, not many months after his published attacl 
Johnson, to exhibit upon his theatre a play called Fals 
Wedding; and to make another attempt, the folio 
season, with a piece called the Widowed Wife. The 
was damned, and, till Shakspcare’s fat Jack is forgo 
is not likely to be heard of again; the second passed 
oblivion more slowly: t but Garrick was brought, by 1 
into personal relations with the writer which he live 
have reason to deplore. Meanwhile, and for some 
time to come, what Joseph War ton had written was bn 
true. Garrick and Johnson were entirely off; and 

* His extraordinary argument in support of the unapproached oxeellem 
passage in Congreve’s Mourning Bride (which he hold to ho superior to ai 
in Shakspeare, because the latter “never had six lines togotlior without a 
Boswell , iii. 97) is well known; hut notwithstanding this and othor ah 
proofs of his insensibility to the higher and more subtle parts of Slinks 
genius, his edition was an excellent one, and did noble service to tho poet’s 
such was his knowledge of language, and the powor of his strong common 

t Qarrick Correspondence, i. 205. But see what Mrs. Piozzi says, Aiu 


stage appeared to liave passed away. 

1 I think, Mr. Johnson,” said Goldsmith, as they sat 
dng together one evening in February, “ you don’t go 
ear the theatres now. You give yourself no more 
neern about a new play, than if you had never had 
nything to do with the stage.” Johnson avoided the 
-stion, * and his friend shifted the subject. He spoke of 
public claim and expectation that the author of Irene 
mid give them “ something in some other way; ” on 
ich Johnson began to talk of making verses, and said 
ry truly) that the great difficulty was to know when you 

It is worth adding the entire conversation, for in it Johnson offers his excuse 
die comparative scantiness of his writings in the later years of his life: J ohnson : 
r hy, sir, our tastes greatly alter. The lad does not care for the child’s rattle, 
id the oldman does not care for the young man’s whore.” Goldsmith : “Nay, 
r; hut your Muse was not a whore.” Johnson : “Sir, I do not think she was. 
ut as we advance in the journey of life, we drop some of the things which have 
leased us; whether it he that we are fatigued and don’t choose to carry so 
lany things any farther, or that we find other things which we like better.” 
well : “But, sir, why don’t you give us something in some other way?” 
msMiTH : “Ay, sir, we have a claim upon you.” Johnson: “No, sir, I am 
ot obliged to do anymore. No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A 
an is to have part of his life to himself. If a soldier has fought a good many 
ampaigns, he is not to be blamed if he retires to ease and tranquillity. A phyli¬ 
nn, who has practised long in a great city, may be excused if he retires to a 
mall town, and takes less practice. Now, sir, the good I can do by my con- 
ersation bears the same proportion to the good I can do by my writings, that 
be practice of a physician, retired to a small town, does to his practice in a great 
ity.” Boswell : “But I wonder, sir, you have not more pleasure in writing 
ban in not writing.” Johnson : “ Sir, you may wonder.” Boswell, ii. 318-9. 
en years later the same subject was resumed, when Johnson, less disposed 
be tolerant of himself than in the present instance, told Boswell that he had 
n trying to cure his laziness all his life, and could not do it; upon which 
swell, with broad allusion to the great achievement of the Dictionary , interposed 
remark, that if a man does in a shorter time what might be the labour 
a life, there was nothing to be said against him ; and elicited from Johnson 
i • it _ _. tc a +Vi«+ flo+fovsT tn hp Ltup t.bp cnnsfi- 


Wishes; and turning quickly to Goldsmith, added, Doctor, 
“ I am not quite idle; I made one line t’other day; hut 
“ I made no more.” “ Let us hear it,” said the other, 
laughing; “ we’ll put a bad one to it.” £C No, sir,” replied 
Johnson, cc I have forgot it.” 

Boswell was the reporter of this conversation. He had 
arrived from Paris a few days before, bringing with him 
Rousseau’s old servant maid, Mademoiselle le Vasseur. 
cc She’s very homely and very awkward,” says Hume, cc but 
cc more talked of than the Princess of Morocco or the 
cc Countess of Egmont, on account of her fidelity and attach - 
cc ment towards him. His very dog, who is no better than 
“ a collie, has a name and reputation in the world ! ”* It 
was enough for Boswell, who clung to any rag of celebrity ; 
nor, remembering how the ancient widow of Cicero and 
Sallust had seduced a silly young patrician into thinking 
that her close connection with genius must have given her 
the secret of it, were Hume and Walpole quite secure of 
even the honour of the young Scotch escort of the ugly old 
Frenchwoman. They arrived safely and virtuously, notwith¬ 
standing ; and Boswell straightway went to Johnson, whom, 
not a little to his discomfort, he found put by his doctors on 
a water regimen. Though they supped twice at the Mitre, 
it was not as in the old social time. On the night of the 
conversation just given, being then on the eve of his return 
to Scotland, he had taken Goldsmith with him to call again 
on Johnson, “ with the hope of prevailing on him to sup 
“with us at the Mitre.” But they found him indisposed, and 


ling at the jovial Irish phrase, called for a bottle of 
; of which, adds Boswell, “ Goldsmith and I partook, 
ile our friend, now a water drinker, sat by us.” * 
le does not discover, in such anecdotes as these, what 
st though somewhat dry Joe Warton calls Goldsmith’s 
an coxcombry. But beside Boswell’s effulgence in that 
, any lesser light could hardly hope to shine. Even 
Le great commoner himself, at whose unapproachable 
ision all London had so lately been amazed, and who 
ngtli, with little abatement of the haughty mystery, had 
geared in the House of Commons, was he now resolved, 
re leaving London, to force his way. Corsican Paoli 
the card to play for this mighty Pam; and already he 
3ent mysterious intimation to Pitt of certain views of the 
ogling patriot, of the illustrious Paoli, which he desired 
mmunicate to “ the prime minister of the brave, the 
rretary of freedom and of spirit.” "Wonder reigned at 
club when they found the interview granted, and 
tinguishable laughter when they heard of the interview 
t. Profiting by Rousseau’s Armenian example, Boswell 
i in Corsican robes. “ He came in the Corsican dress, 
Lord Buchan, who was present; £C and Mr. Pitt smiled ; 
k received him very graciously, in his pompous manner, t 
is an advantage the young Scot followed up; very soon 
•ting on Pitt a brief history of himself. He described 
general love of great people, and how that Mr. Pitt s 

* ii. 318. 

‘ In consequence of this letter,” wrote Lord Buchan on the hack of one of 
11*8 epistles, “I desired him to call at Mr. Pitt’s, and took care to he with 



“ disinterested soul can enjoy in the bower of philosophy.” 
He told him he was going to publish an account of Corsica, 
and of Paoli’s gallant efforts against the tyrant Genoese. 
He added that to please his father, “ one of our Scots 
“ judges,” he had himself studied law, and was now fairly 
entered to the bar. And he concluded thus. “ I begin to 
“ like it. I can labour hard; I feel myself coming forward, 
“ and I hope to be useful to my country. Could, you find time 
“ to honour me notv and then with a letter ? ” * To no wiser 
man than this, it should be always kept in mind, posterity 
became chiefly indebted for its laugh at Goldsmith’s 
literary vanities, social absurdities, and so-called self- 
important ways. 

With Pitt’s reappearance had meanwhile been connected 
another event of not less mighty consequence. On the day 
(the 14th of January) when he rose to support Conway’s 
repeal of the American stamp-act, and to resist his accom¬ 
panying admission that such an act was not void in itself; 
when, in answer to Nugent’s furious denunciation of rebel¬ 
lious colonies, he rejoiced that Massachusetts had resisted, 
and affirmed that colonies unrepresented could not be taxed 
by parliament;—Burke took his seat, by an arrangement with 
Lord Yerney, for Wendover borough. A fortnight later he 
made his first speech, and divided the admiration of the 
house with Pitt himself.t Afterwards, and with increased 

* Chatham, Correspondence, iii. 247. 

t In the best passages of his Memoirs of Qeorge HI, Horace Walpole celebrates 
Pitt’s farewell, and Burke’s accession, to the House of Commons. “Two great 
“ orators and statesmen,” says Mr. Macaulay, speaking of the debates on Conway’s 



e; ” and wlien the struggle for the repeal was over, after 
st victorious division on the memorable morning of the 
of February, and Pitt and Conway came out amid 
uzzaings of the crowded lobby, where the leading 
.ants of the kingdom whom this great question so 
' affected had till “ almost a winter’s return of light ” 
lingly awaited the decision, Burke stood at their side, 
iceived share of the same shouts and benedictions.* 
:raordinary news for the club, all this; and again the 
ent Hawkins is in a state of wonder. “ Sir,” exclaimed 
on, “ there is no wonder at all. We who know Mr. 
ke, know that he will be one of the first men in the 
itry.” f But he had regrets with which to sober this ad- 
)n. He disliked the Bocldngham party, and was zealous 
ore strict attendance at the club. “ We have the loss 
ftirke’s company,” he complained to Langton, “ since 
las been engaged in the public business.” Yet he cannot 
idding (it was the first .letter he had written to Langton 
his new study in Johnson’s-com’t, which he thinks 
:s very pretty ” about him) that it is well so great a 
>y nature as Burke, should be expected soon to attain 
greatness. “ He has gained more reputation than 

co should be assigned. It was indeed a splendid sunset and a splendid 
Essays , iii. 517. Burke himself, as though -unconscious of his own more 
ding greatness, speaks in a precisely similar strain of the sudden burst of 
Townshend on the scene, as Pitt was magnificently retreating. “Even 
sir, even before this splendid orb was entirely set, and while the western 
in was in a blaze with his descending glory, on the opposite quarter of the 
ns arose another luminary, and for his hour became lord of the ascendant. 

482. I may refer the reader who desires to have a notion of Burke’s 


Ten days after the date ot this letter came out an 
advertisement in the St. James’s Chronicle, which affected 
the town with neither wonder nor curiosity, though not 
without matter for both to the members of the club. “ In 
“ a few days will be published,” it said, “ in two volumes, 
“ twelves, price six shillings bound, or five shillings sewed, 
“ The Vicar of Wakefield. A tale, supposed to be written 
“ by himself. Printed for F. Newbery at the Crown in 
“ Paternoster Row.” This was the manuscript story sold 
to Newbery’s nephew fifteen months before; and it seems 
impossible satisfactorily to account for the bookseller’s 
delay. Johnson says that not till now had the Traveller’s 
success made the publication worth while; but eight months 
were passed, even now, since the Traveller had reached its 
fourth edition. We are left to conjecture; and the most 
likely supposition will probably be, that the delay was conse¬ 
quent on business arrangements between the younger and 
elder Newbery. Goldsmith had certainly not claimed the 
interval for any purpose of retouching his work; t and can 
hardly have failed to desire speedy publication, for what had 
been to him a labour of love as rare as the Traveller itself. 
But the elder Newbery may have interposed some claim to 
a property in the novel, and objected to its appearance con¬ 
temporaneously with the Traveller. He often took part in 
this way in his nephew’s affairs; and thus, for a translation 
of a French book on philosophy which the nephew published 

* Boswell, ii. 320-1. 

+ My opinion on this point is strengthened by a communication of Doctor Farr’s 




LJLLC Y cou-f, uuu wmuu uowsmm at tins very time was 1766 
ring at, we find, from the summer account lianded in 
e elder Newbery, that the latter had himself provided 
layment* He gave Goldsmith twenty pounds for it; 
bad also advanced him, at about the time when the 
• was put in hand (it was printed at Salisbury, and was 
y three months in passing through the press), the sum 
ven guineas on his own promissory note. The impres- 
if a common interest between the booksellers is con- 
d by what I find appended to all Mr. Francis Newbery’s 
tisements of the novel in the various papers of the day 
whom may be had The Traveller, or a Prospect of 
iety, a poem by Doctor Goldsmith. Price Is. 6cl”); 
t seems further to strengthen the surmise of Mr. John 
jery’s connection with the book, that he is himself 
d into it. Pie is introduced as the philanthropic book- 
in St. Paul's-churchyard, who had written so many 
books for children (“he called himself their friend, 
he was the friend of all mankind”); and as having 
lied for the Vicar against the deuterogamists of 

let the worthy bookseller, whose philanthropy was 
s under watchful care of his prudence, continue to live 
the Whistonian controversy; for the good Doctor 
:ose, that courageous monogamist, has made both 
rtal. 

bub for another reason. “ ‘ He gave me (I think he said) £60 for the copy; 
had I made it ever so perfect or correct, I should not have had a s hillin g 
c.’ ” Percy Memoir, 62. 


APPENDIX TO VOLUME I. 


A. (Page 12.) 


DOCTOR STREAN AND THE REVEREND EDWARD MANGIN. 

Strean was a physician who had taken orders. He died eleven years 
ago, at nearly ninety years of age. He then held the perpetual cure 
of St. Peter’s in Athlone ; hut had in his early life succeeded Henry 
Goldsmith in the curacy of Kilkenny West, which the latter occupied 
at the period of his death, and, as he is careful to tell us, in its emolu¬ 
ments of £40 a-year, “ which was not only his salary, hut continued to 
“ be the same when I, a successor, was appointed to that parish.” His 
relative by marriage, the Rev. Edward Mangin, to whose intelligent 
inquiries (the answers to which are published in an Essay on Light 
Reading , 12mo. 1808), we owe much of our knowledge of the poet’s 
youth, still lives in Bath. 

Thus far I had written in a note appended to my first edition, since 
when, on the 17th of October 1852, the life of Mr. Mangin closed at 
the ripe age of eighty-one. A “ friend of forty years” thus wrote of 
him in the Standard newspaper of a few evenings later : 

“Descended from a Huguenot family, who took refuge in Ireland from the 
“persecutions in the time of Louis XIV., and who rose to opulent and important 
“ stations in their adopted country, Mr. Mangin had much of the manners of both 
“ France and Ireland—foreign acuteness of conversation, with a remarkable sluiro 
“ of the pleasantry and good humour of the Irish gentleman. 

“ Educated at Oxford, for the Church, obtaining preferment in Iroland at an 
‘ ‘ early age, and always disposed to literature and society, no man could commcnco 
“ his career under happier auspices, and no man enjoyed it with moro manly 
“gratification. Possessing all the allowable indulgences of life without trouble, 

‘ ‘ and thus wanting the great stimulus to exertion, he published but little, and that 
“ little rather as the overflow of a remarkably ingenious mind, than as the labour 



. now form tlio melancholy pleasure of friends, who retrace in them the 
liness, point, and force of his conversation. 

/Tallying early, but soon left a widower, with an only daughter, worthy of 
L, and to whom he was affectionately attached through life; after a long 
ii-val he married again, and has left two sons, like himself educated at 
brd, and now in the Church. 

tesiding for many years in Bath, writing occasionally, and associating with all 
intelligent in that intelligent city; easy in fortune, and scarcely visited by the 
imon casualties of life, he rather glided through years than felt them. 

Iis death was like his life—tranquil. He walked out the day before, sat 
li his family diming the evening, retired to rest with no appearance of an 
•ease of illness, and slept undisturbed during the night. In that sleep, 
ween soveu and eight next morning, he expired.” 

will not, I trust, be thought unbecoming, notwithstanding its 
issions complimentary to myself, to subjoin a letter on the subject 
ildsmith with which Mr. Mangin favoured me shortly after the pub- 
on of this book. Its personal information and anecdote may not 
Lwelcome to my readers. 


“ Bath, Monday April 24, 1848. 

im, I trust you will kindly pardon my freedom in venturing to 
able you with this, for which the least bad apology I can offer is 
circumstance of your having kindly mentioned the writer in your 
dy published delightful work The Life and Adventures of Oliver 
dsinith. 

r our book will, beyond doubt, be generally sought for and relished; 

indeed cannot, I should imagine, fail of a place in the collection 
jvery one who has a taste for genuine poetry, and discernment 
‘cient to approve of your labours in behalf of Goldsmith’s renown. 
Ixcuso my pointing out a minute oversight in the early part of 
r most interesting volume. I refer to a passage in which you 
.e my having addressed my inquiries to Doctor Strean ‘ twenty- 
e years ago.’ I lament to say that more than forty years have 
?ed since I put my queries to the Doctor ; whose letter in reply 
! observe, dated on the closing day of the year 1807, and was 
oduced into a brief forgotten Essay on Light Reading published 
he spring of 1808. 

Fpon a different occasion, I have said that when he died, Strean s 
was almost ninety : this is probably not correct ; but I remember 


“ rare in Ireland, a good prosodian. He had a thoroughly mechanical 
“ genius ; he sometimes bound his own books ; and had made, in a 
££ very worlcman-like manner, many articles of furniture in his parson- 
“ age-house. He was an expert mathematician, and was valued as such 
“ by the learned Bishop Law, of Elphin, with whom he corresponded 
“ on their favourite science. The good bishop had, besides, a high 
“ opinion of him as a regular and conscientious pastor. 

“ Through Strean, I made acquaintance, in 1798, with an old friend 
“ of his, Anthony Devenish, who had been, I believe, Goldsmith’s 
“ school-fellow, and used to enlarge on the Bard’s dexterity in the craft 
“ of ball-playing. 

“ I also, in those times, met at Athloue a Doctor Nelligan, a cheerful, 
££ shrewd little man, with much humour ; and of him this story was in 
“ circulation :—Some one argued in his hearing, that Goldsmith must 
“ have written the Deserted Village in England, because the nightingale 
“ is sketched in as a feature in his rural picture, and it is supposed that 
“ there are not any nightingales in Ireland. 

“ Nelligan’s retort was, that his opponent’s logic was defective ; for, 
“ by his mode of drawing an inference, it might be shown that when 
“ Paradise Lost was written the immortal author must have been in 
“ Hell. 

“ As to the name of the birth-place of the poet of Auburn, it is 
“ unquestionably Pattis; the word, so spelled, was transcribed from a 
“ leaf of the Goldsmith family Bible ; and the entry is concluded to be 
“ in the hand-writing of Oliver’s father. 

“ Your analysis of the Life and c Strange surprising ’ Adventures of 
“ Goldsmith appears to me most ingeniously devised and executed ; 
££ the idea strikes me as being eminently happy and new ; and your 
“ book might well have been announced as the history of Oliver Gold- 
“ smith’s mind, for such it really is. 

“ You rather intimate, to my great gratification, that you do not 
cc conceive Goldsmith to have been understood by the persons among 
cc whom he usually moved ; I own I have always thought he was not, 
“ and that his ordinary deportment and powers of conversation are 
“ grossly misrepresented by several who have talked and scribbled so 
£1 flippantly about his peculiarities and blunders. "We had formerly at 
££ Upham’s Library here (once Bull’s), an assistant in the establishment 
“ of ^ame of Crute or Croot. He had filled the situation for many 



“““ “““ “ v " , ajmu one aay, speaking 

“ of Goldsmith., he told us that the poet ivas eagerly greeted on his 
“ entrance, and always conversed so pleasantly, that he had behind his 
“ chair a crowd of respectful auditors and admirers. 

“ Your efforts to uphold the fair fame of him who has bequeathed to 
“ the national literature the undying Vicar of Wakefield &c, will I 
“ hope, plead for me, and prevail with you to forgive this intrusion on 
“ the part of Sir, 

“ Your most obt. humble servant, 

“ John Forster, Esq. “ Edward Margin.” 


B. (Pages 45—47.) 


The letter to Mrs. Anne Goldsmith, which must be read with the 
allowance mentioned in the text, is here subjoined. 

“ My dear Mother, 

“ If you will sit down and calmly listen to what I say, you shall he 
‘ ‘ fully resolved in every one of those many questions you have asked me. I went 
“ to Cork ami converted my horse, which you prize so much higher than Fiddle- 
‘ 1 hack, into cash, took my passage in a ship houncl for America, and, at the same 
“ Lime, paid the captain for my freight and all the other expenses of my voyage. 
“ 13ut it so happened that the -wind did not answer for three weeks; and you 
“ know, mother, that I could not command the elements. My misfortune was 
“ that when the wind served I happened to he with a party in the country, and 
“ my friend the captain never inquired after me, hut set sail with as much indif- 
‘ ‘ foroueo an if I had keen on hoard. The remainder of my time I employed in the 
‘ ‘ city and its environs, viewing everything curious, and you know no one can 
“ starvo while he has money in his pocket. 

C£ Reduced, however, to my last two guineas, I began to think of my dear 
‘ c mother and friends whom I had left behind me, and so bought that generous 
££ beast Piddleback, and mado adieu to Cork with only five shillings in my pocket. 
£t This to ho sure was hut a scanty 'allowance for man and horse towards a journey 
££ of above a hundred miles; hut I did not despair, for I knew I must find Mends 
“ on the road. 

££ I recollected particularly an old and faithful acquaintance I made at college, 
“ who had often and earnestly pressed me to spend a summer with him, and he 
‘ 1 lived hut eight miles from Cork. This circumstance of vicinity he would 
££ expatiate on to me with peculiar emphasis. ‘We shall,’ says he, ‘enjoy the 
“ ‘delights of both city and country, and you shall command my stable and my 
“ ‘purso.’” , , 


“ relieved me from the jaws of this Cerberus, and was prevailed on to carry up my 
“ name to her master. 

“ Without suffering me to wait long, my old friend, who was then recovering 
“ from a severe fit of sickness, came down in his night-cap, night-gown, and 
“ slippers, and embraced me with the most cordial welcome, showed me in, and, 
“ after giving me a history of his indisposition, assured me that ho considered 
“ himself peculiarly fortunate in having undor his roof the man he most luved 
“ on earth, and whose stay-with him must, above all things, contribute to his 
“ perfect recovery. I now repented sorely I had not given the poor woman the 
“ other half-crown, as I thought all my bills of humanity would be punctually 
‘ ‘ answered by this worthy man. I revealed to him my whole soul; I opened to 
“ him all my distresses ; and freely owned that I had hut one half-crown in my 
“ pocket; but that now, like a ship after weathering out the storm, I considered 
“ myself secure in a safe and hospitable harbour. He made no answer, but 
“ walked about the room, rubbing his hands as one in deep study. This I 
“ imputed to the sympathetic feelings of a tender heart, which increased my esteem 
“ for him, and, as that increased, I gave the most favourable interpretation to his 
“ silence. I construed it into delicacy of sentiment, as if he dreaded to wound my 
“ pride by expressing his commiseration in words, leaving Ms generous conduct to 
“ speak for itself. 

“ It now approached six o’clock in the evening, and as I had eaten no broakfast, 
“ and as my spirits were raised, my appetite for dinner grew uncommonly keen. 

‘ ‘ At length the old woman came into the room rvitli two plates, one spoon, aud a 
“ dirty cloth, which she laid upon the table. This appearance, without increasing 
‘ ( my spirits, did not diminish my appetite. My protectress soon returned with a 
‘ ‘ small bowl of sago, a small porringer of sour milk, a loaf of stalo brown bread, 
“ and the heel of an old cheese all over crawling with mites. My friend apologised 
‘ ‘ that Ms illness obliged him to live on slops, and that better faro was not in tlio 
“house; observing, at the same time, that a milk diet was certainly the most 
“ healthful; and at eight o’clock he again recommended a regular life, declaring 
‘ ‘ that for his part he would lie clovm with the lamb and rise with the larJc. My 
‘ ‘ hunger was at this time so exceedingly sharp that I wished for another slice of 
“ the loaf, but was obliged to go to bed without even that refreshment. 

“This lenten entertainment I had received made me resolve to depart as 
“ soon as possible ; accordingly next morning, when I spoke of going, ho did not 
“ oppose my resolution ; he rather commended my design, adding some very sage 
“ counsel upon the occasion. ‘To be sure,’ said he, ‘the longer you stay away 
“ ‘ from your mother the more you will grieve her aud your other friends ; and 
“ ‘ possibly they are already afflicted at hearing of this foolish expedition you 
“ ‘ have made.’ Notwithstanding all this, and without any hopo of softening 
“ such a sordid heart, I again renewed the tale of my distress, and asking ‘how 
“ ‘he thought I could travel above a hundred miles upon oue half-crown?’ I 



“ ‘ neither here nor there. 1 have paid you all you ever lent me, and this sick- 
‘ ‘ ‘ ness of mine has left me hare of cash. But I have "bethought myself of a 
“ ( conveyance for you ; sell your horse and I will furnish you with a much better 
“ ‘one to ride on.’ I readily grasped at his proposal, and begged to see the nag, 

“ on which he led me to his bedchamber, and from under the hed he pulled out a 
“ stout oak stick. ‘ Here he is,’ said he; ‘ take this in your hand, and it will 
‘ ‘ ‘ carry you to your mother’s with more safety than such a horse as you ride.’ I 
“ was in doubt, when I got it into my hand, whether I should not, in the first 
“ placo, apply it to his pate; but a rap at the street-door made the wretch fly to 
“ it, and when I returned to the parlour, he introduced me, as if nothing of the 
“ kind had happened, to the gentleman who entered, as Mr. Goldsmith, his most 
“ ingenious and worthy friend, of whom he had so often heard him speak with 
‘ ‘ rapture. I could scarcely compose myself; and must have betrayed indignation 
“ in my mien to the stranger, who was a counsellor at law in the neighbourhood, 

‘ ‘ a man of engaging aspect and polite address. 

“ After spending an hour, he asked my friend and me to dine with him at his 
“ house. This I declined at first, as I wished to have no further communication 
‘ ‘ with my hospitable friend ; but at the solicitation of both I at last consented, 

‘ ‘ determined as I was by two motives ; one, that I was prejudiced in favour of 
“ tho looks and manner of the counsellor : and the other, that I stood in need of 
“ a comfortable dinner. And there indeed I found everything that I could wish, 
“ ahundaueo without profusion, aud elegance without affectation. In the evening, 
“ when my old friend, who had eaten very plentifully at liis neighbour’s table, 

‘ ‘ hut talked again of lying down with the lamb, made a motion to me for retiring, 

‘ ‘ our generous host requested I should take a bed with him, upon which I plainly 
‘ ‘ told my old friend that he might go home and take care of the horse he had given 
‘ ‘ mo, but that I should never re-enter his doors. He went away with a laugh, 
“ leaving me to add this to the other little things the counsellor already knew of 


; his plausible neighbour. 

“ And now, my dear mother, I found sufficient to reconcile me to ah my follies; 

: for hero I spent three whole days. The counsellor had two sweet girls to his 
‘ daughters, who played enchantingly on the harpsichord; and yet it was hut a 
: melancholy pleasure I felt the first time I heard them; for that being the first 
‘ time also that cither of them had touched the instrument since then: mother s 
‘ death, I saw the tears in silence trickle down their father’s cheeks. I every day 
‘ endeavoured to go away, hut every day was pressed and obliged to stay. On my 
‘ going, the counsellor offered me his purse, with ahorse and servant to convey 
‘ mo home ; but the latter I declined, and only took a guinea to hear my necessary 


“ expenses on tho road. 


“ Oliver Goldsmith. 


“ To Mrs. Annis Goldsmith, JBallymahon ." 



I. TO ROBERT BIIYANTON. 


This letter, to which I have alluded at p. SO, is dated Edinburgh, 
Sept. 26, 1753 ; and is addressed to Hubert Bryanton, Esq. at Bally- 
mahon, Ireland: 

“My Dear Bob, 

“ How many good excuses (and you know I was over good at au 
“ excuse) might I call up to vindicate my past shameful silence ! I might tell 
“how I wrote a long letter on my first coming hither, and seom vastly angry at my 
“not receiving an answer; I might allege that business (with business you know I 
“was always pestered) had never given me time to finger a pen;—but I suppress 
“these and twenty more equally plausible, and as easily invented, since they 
“ might be attended with a slight inconvonienco of being known to be lies. Let 
“me then speak truth : an hereditary indolence (I have it from the mother’s side) 
“has hitherto prevented my writing to you, and still prevents my writing at least 
“twenty-five letters more, due to my friends in Ireland. No turnspit dog gets up 
“into his wheel with more reluctance than I sit down to write : yet no dog over 
“loved the roast meat he turns better than I do him I now address. Yob what 
“shall I say now I’m entered? Shall I tire you with a description of this 
“ unfruitful country, where I must lead you over their hills all brown -with heath, 
“ or their vallies scarce able to feed a rabbit ? Man alone seems to ho the oidy 
“ creature who has arrived to the natural size in this poor soil.—Every part of the 
“ country presents the same dismal landscape. No grove nor brook, lend their 
“music to cheer tho stranger, or make the inhabitants forget their poverty : yot 
“ with all these disadvantages, enough to call him down to humility, a Scotchman 
“is one of the proudest things alive.—Tho poor have pride over ready to relievo 
‘ ‘ them :—if mankind should happen to despise thorn, they are masters of their 
“ own admiration; and that thoy can plentifully bestow upon themselves. 

“From their pride and poverty, as I take it, results one advantage this country 
“ enjoys, namely, the gentlemen here are much better bred than amongst us. No such 
“ characters here as our fox-hunters ; and they have expressed great surpriso when 
“I informed them, that some men in Ireland of 10002. a year spend their whole 
“lives in running after a hare, drinking to be drunk, and getting every girl that 
“will let them with child : and truly, if such a being, equipped in his hunting 
“ dress, came among a circle of Scotch gentry, they would behold him with the 
“ same astonishment that a countryman would King George on horseback. 

“ The men here have generally high cheek-bones, and are lean and swarthy, fond 
“of action, dancing in particular. Though now I mention dancing, lot me say 
“ something of their balls which are very frequent here. When a straugor enters 
“the dancing-hall, he sees one end of the room taken up with the ladies, who sit 



; -— • — ugie, aiiu tne gentlemen 

sigh, but an embaigo is laid on any closer commerce. At length, to interrupt 
“hostilities, the lady directress or intendant, or what you will, pitches on a 
“ gentleman and lady to walk a minuet; which they perform with a formality that 
“approaches to despondence. After five or six couple have thus walked the 
“gauntlet, all stand up to country dances; each gentleman furnished with a 
“ partner from the aforesaid lady directress; so they dance much and say nothing, 

£ ‘ and thus concludes our assembly. I told a Scotch gentleman that such profound 
“ silence resembled the ancient procession of the Roman matrons in honour of 
“ Ceres ; and the Scotch gentleman told me (and faith, I believe he was right) 
££ that I was a very great pedant for my pains. 

“ Now I am come to the ladies, and to shew that 1 love Scotland, and 
“ everything that belongs tc so charming a country, I insist on it, and will give 
£ £ him leave to break my head that denies it, that the Scotch ladies are ten 
“ thousand times handsomer and finer than the Irish:—to be sure now I see 
£ ‘ your sisters Betty and Peggy vastly surprised at my partiality, bnt tell them 

“ flatly, I don’t value them, or their fine skins, or eyes, or good sense, or-, 

‘ ‘ a potato ; for I say it, aud will maintain it, and as a convincing proof (I’m 
£ ‘ in a very great passion) of what I assert, the Scotch ladies say it themselves. 

£ ‘ Bnt to be less serious; where will you find a language so pretty become a 
“ pretty month as the broad Scotch ? and the women here speak it in its 
£ ‘ highest purity; for instance, teach one of their young ladies to pronounce 
“ £ Wlioar wull I gong V with a becoming wideness of mouth, and Pll lay my life 
“ tlioy will wound every hearer. 

“ We havo no such character here as a coquet; but, alas ! how many envious 


£ £ prudes I Sorao days ago I walked into my Lord Kilcoubr/s (don’t he surprised, 
“ my lord is but a glovor), when the Duchess of Hamilton (that fair who sacrificed 
“ her beauty to ambition, aud her inward peace to a title and gilt equipage) 
“ passed by in her chariot; lier battered husband, or more properly the guardian 
“ of her charms, sat by her side. Straight envy began, in the shape of no less 
“ than tlirco ladies who sat with me, to find faults in her faultless form. ‘For 


“ ‘ my part,’ says the first, £ I think, what I always thought, that the Duchess 
“ £ has too much red in her complexion.’ £ Madam, Im of your opinion, says 
“ the second ; £ I think her face has a palish cast too much on the delicate order’. 
« £ And let me tell you,’ adds the third lady, whose month was puckered up to 
“ the size of an issue, ‘that the Duchess has fine lips, bnt she wants a mouth.’ 
“ At this every lady drew up her mouth as if going to pronounce the letter P. 

“ But how ill, my Boh, does it become me to ridicule women with whom I 
“have scarco any correspondence! There are, ’ids certain, handsome women 
“ here ; and ’tis as certain there are handsome men to keep them company. An 
“ ugly and a poor man is society for himself; and such society the word lets me 
“ enjoy in great abundance. Fortune has given yon circumstances and nature a 
“ porson to look charming in the eyes of the fair world. Nor do I. envy my 
“ dear Boh such blessings while I may sit down and laugh at the world, an 

. f\ i r i _• . i. n «nn r pvl onariP • QTln 


“ Direct to me, 


Student m Physic, m Edinburgh.' 


II. TO THE REV. MR. OONTARINE. 

The first letter to the reverend Mr. Contarine mentioned in the text 
(p. 51) is dated 8th May, 1753, and runs thus : 

“My dear Unode, 

“ In your letter (the only one I received from Kilmore), you call 
“ me the philosopher who carries all his goods about him. Yet how can micli 
“a character fit me, who have left behind in Ireland every thing I think 
“worth possessing; friends that I loved, and a society that pleased while it 
“instructed? Who hut must regret the loss of such enjoyments? Who but 
“must regret his absence from Kilmore, that over knew it as I. did ? Here, as 
“ recluse as the Turkish Spy at Paris, I am almost unknown to every body, except 
“ some few who attend the professors of physic as I do. 

“ Apropos, I shall give you the professors’ names, and, as far as occurs to me, 

11 their characters ; and first, as most deserving, Mr. Munro, professor of Anatomy; 
“ this man has brought the science he teaches to as much perfection as it is capable 
“of; and not content with barely teaching anatomy, he launches ont into all the 
“branches of physic, when all liis remarks aro new and useful. ’Tin he, T may 
“ venture to say, that draws hither such a number of students from most parts of the 
“ world, even from Russia. He is not only a skilful physician, but an able orator, 
“ and delivers tilings in their nature obscure in so oasy a manner, that the most 
“unlearned may understand him. Plume, professor of Chemistry, understands 
“his business well, but delivers himself so ill, that ho is but little regarded. 
“Alston, professor of Materia Medica, speaks much, but little to tlio purpose. 
“ The professors of Theory and Practice (of physic) say nothing but what we may 
“find in books laid before us ; and speak that in so drowsy and heavy a maimer, 
“that their hearers are not many degrees in a better state than tlioir patients. 

“ You see then, dear sir, that Munro is the only great man among them ; so that 
“I intend to hear him another winter, and go then to hear Alhiuua, the great 
“professor at Leyden. I read (with satisfaction) a science the most pleasing in 
“ nature, so that my labours are but a relaxation, and, I may truly say, the only 
“ thing here that gives me pleasure. How I enjoy the pleasing hope of returning 
“with skill, and to find my friends staud in no need of my assistance I How 

* Mr. Prior prints tho uamo ns Jolm Binoly (i. 145) ; and lot mo huro withdraw tlio objec¬ 
tion which I niado in a former note (ante, CO), and admit that tho discrepancies in thin letter 
as ordinarily printod arc much loss grave than I had at firstsupposod—on tho wliolo indeed 
aro very immaterial. 


—j .yum. iiiu&u uuugea, 

“ Most affectionate nephew, 

“ OLIVER GolBSHITH. 

•S-~I ^aw this time for 6Z., and will draw next October hut for 41., as I 
obliged to buy everything since I came to Scotland, shirts not even excepted, 
n a little more early the first year than I shall he for the future, for I 
ilutely will not trouble you before the time hereafter. 

[y best love attend Mr. and Mrs. Lawder, and Heaven preserve them! I 
again your dutiful nephew, 0. G. 

have been a month in the Highlands. I set out the first day on foot, hut 
ill-natured corn I have got on my toe has for the future prevented that 
tp method of travelling ; so. the second day I hired a horse of about the 
of a ram, and he walked away (trot he could not) as pensive as his master, 
hree days we reached the Highlands. This letter would he too long if it 
lined the description I intend giving of that country, so shall make it the 
ect of my next.” 


III. TO THE REV. ME. CONTAEINE. 

second letter to Mr. Contarine, referred to at p. 54, is not dated, 
is undoubtedly written at the close of 1753 : 

z Dear Uncle, 

“ After having spent two winters in Edinburgh, I now prepare to 
Prance the 10th of next February. I have seen all that this country can 
>ifc in the medical way, and therefore intend to visit Paris, where the 
Mr. Farhein, Petit, and Du Hammel de Monceau instruct their pupils in all 
ranches of medicine. They speak French, and consequently I shall have 
the advantage of most of my countrymen, as I am perfectly acquainted 
that language, and few who leave Ireland are so. 

ice I am upon so pleasing a topic as self applause, give me leave to say 
the circle of science which I have run through, before I undertook the 
of physic, is not only useful, hut absolutely necessary to the making a 
d physician. Such sciences enlarge our understanding, and shaken our 
ity ; and what is a practitioner without both but an empiric, for never yet 
i disorder found entirely the same in two patients. A quack, unable to 
guish the particularities in each disease, prescribes at a venture : if he 
such a disorder may be called by the general name of fever for instance, 
s a set of remedies which he applies to cure it, nor does he desist till his 
;ines are run out, or his patient has lost his life. But the skilful physician 
guishes the symptoms, manures the sterility of nature, or prunes her 
iance; nor does he depend so much on the efficacy of medicines as on their 
r armli cation. T shal snend this snrincr nd am er in Paris, and t e 



Her iaue compiamu i now UOtfSiliy puuj. tfiWKx uumsjjauu v xiuuj. .mo uxovj.ua3j. xn 
“of such, a nature as he won’t easily recover. I wish, ray dear Sir, you would 
“ make me happy by another letter before I go abroad, for there I shall hardly hear 
“from you. I shall carry just 33Z. to France, with good store of clothes, shirts, &c. 
“&c., and that with economy will serve. 

“ I have spent more than a fortnight every second day at the Duke of Hamilton’s, 
“ but it seems they like me more as a jester than as a companion ; so I disdained 
“ so servile an employment; ’twas unworthy my calling as a physician. 

“ I have nothing new to add from this country ; and I beg, dear sir, you will 
“ excuse this letter, so filled with egotism. I wish you may be revenged on inc, 
“ by sending an answer filled with nothing but an account of yourself. 

“ I am, dear Uncle, 

“ Your most devoted 

‘ ‘ Oliver Goldsmith. 

“Give my-how shall I express'it? Give my earnest love to Mr. and 

“ Mrs. Lawder.” 


IV. TO TIIT5 BEV. THOMAS OONTABTNE. 

Finally, I subjoin the whole of the third letter to Mr. Contarine 
described at p. 57, written from Leyden, but without any other date. . 

“ Deab, Sib, “ Leyden. [Dato wanting..! 

“ I suppose by this time I am accused of either neglect or ingratitude, 
“ and my silence imputed to my usual slowness of writing. But bolievo mo, 
“ Sir, when I say, that till now I had not an opportunity of sitting down with 
“ that ease of mind which writing required. You may sec by the top of the letter 
“ that I am at Leyden ; but of my journey hither you must he informed. Somotimo 
“ after the receipt of your last, I embarked for Bourdenux, on board a Scotch 
“ ship called the St. Andrews, Gapt. John Wall, master. The ship made a tolerable 
“ appearance, and as another inducement, I was let' to know that six agroeablo 
“ passengers were to be my company. Well, we were but two days at sea whon a 
“ storm drove us into a city of England called Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Wo all went 
“ ashore to refresh us after the fatigue of our voyage. Seven men and I were one 
“ day on shore, and on the following evening as we were all very merry, the room 
“ door bursts open : enters a serjeant and twelve grenadiors with their bayonots 
“ screwed : and puts us all under the King’s arrest. It seems my company were 
“ Scotchmen in the French service, and had been in Scotland to enlist soldiers for 
“ the French army. I endeavoured all I could to prove my innocence ; however*, 
“ I remained in prison with the rest a fortnight, and with difficulty got off oven 
“ then. Deal* sir, keep this all a secret, or at least say it was for debt*, for if it 
“ were once known at the university, I should hardly get a degree. But hear how 


tliat time ready lor Holland : I embarked, and in nine days, thank my God, 
arrived safe at Rotterdam ; whence I travelled by land to Leyden; and whenee 
.ow write. 


You may expect some account of this country, and though I am not well 
alilied for such an undertaking, yet shall I endeavour to satisfy some part of 
nr expectations. Nothing surprised me more than the books every day 
blished, descriptive of the manners of this country. Any young man who takes 
into liis head to publish his travels, visits the countries he intends to describe; 
sses through them with as much inattention as his valet de chamhre ; and 
nsequontly not having a fund himself to fill a volume, he applies to those who 
rote hofore him, and gives ns the manners of a country, not as he must have 
on them, hut such as they might have been fifty years before. The modem 
ixtcliman is quite a different creature from him of former times : he in every- 
ing imitates a Frenchman, hut in his easy disengaged air, which is the result 
keeping polite company. The Dutchman is vastly ceremonious, and is perhaps 
:nctly what a Frenchman might have been in the reign of Louis XIV. Such 
•o the hotter bred. But the downright Hollander is one of the oddest figures 


i nature : upon a head of lank hair he wears a half-cocked narrow hat laced 
itli black ribbon : no coat, hut seven waistcoats, and nine pairs of breeches ; so 
lat liis hips roach almost up to his arm-pits. This well-clothed vegetable is 
ow Jit to see company, or make love. But what a pleasing creature is the 


ijcct of his appetite ? Why she wears a large fur cap with a deal of Flanders 
co : and for every pair of breeches he carries, she puts on two petticoats. 

A Dutch lady hums nothing about her phlegmatic admirer hut his tobacco, 
on must know, sir, every woman carries in her hand a stove with coals in it, 
liieh, when sho sits, she snugs under her petticoats; and at this chimney 
izing Strcphon lights his pipe. I take it that this continual smoking is what 

vcs'tho man tlio ruddy healthful complexion he generally wears, by draining 

is suporiluous moisturo, while the woman, deprived of this amusement, over- 
owb with such viscidities as tint the complexion, and give that paleness of visage 
hich low fenny grounds and moist air conspire to cause. A Dutchwoman and 
coteh will well hoar an opposition. The one is pale and fat, the other lean and 
uddy • tlio ono walks as if she were straddling after a go-cart, and the other 
ikes too masculine a stride. I shall not endeavour to deprive either country of 
;h share of beauty ; hut must say, that of all objects on this earth an English 
inner’s daughter is most charming. Every woman there is a con^lete beauty, 
dvilu tlio higher class of women want many of the requisites to make them even 
lovable. Their pleasures hero are very dull though very various. You may smoke, 
uu may doze, you may go to tlio Italian comedy, as good an amusement as either 
f tho former. This entertainment always brings in Harlequin, who is general y a 
nagician, and in consequence of his diabolical art performs a thousand tacks on 
ho rest f tho persons of tho drama, who are all fools. I have seen th pit m a 

I'naughJ at this humour, when withhis 

_T, n f. face they laughed at, tor that was 


“ of all nations. Hero the Dutch slumber, the French chatter, aud the 
“ play at cards. Any man who likes company may have them to his tas 
“ my part I generally detached myself from all society, and was wholly t 
“ in observing the face of the country. Nothing can equal its beauty; 1 
“ I turn my eye, fine houses, elegant gardons, statues, grottos, vistas, i 
“ themselves ; but when you enter their towns you are charmed beyond dos 
“ No misery is to be seen here ; every one is usefully omployod. 

“ Scotland and this country bear the highest contrast. There hills a 
“ intercept every prospect: here ’ bis all a continued plain. There you m 
“ a well-dressed duchess issuing from a dirty close ; and hero a dirty D 
“ inhabiting a palace. The Scotch may bo compared to a tulip planted i 
“but I never see a Dutchman in his own house but I think of a nm 
“ Egyptian temple dedicated to an ox. Physic is by no means taught her 
“ as in Edinburgh : and in all Leyden there are but four British studont 
“ to all necessaries being so extremely dear and the professors so very ' 
“ chemical professor excepted) that wo don’t much care to como hither. ! 
“ certain how long my stay here may be; however I expect to have the hap 
‘ ■ seeing you at Kihnore, if I can, next March. 

“ Direct to me, if I am honoured with a letter from you, to Madame I 
“ at Leyden. 

“ Thou best of men, may Heaven guard and preservo you, and thoso yo 

“ Oliver Golds! 


D. (Page 222.) 

>— 

THE PLAY OF GISIPPUS. 

In brief justification of the opinion I have expressed of this t 
and of the interest I feel in its writer’s memory, I subjoin on 
scene. *Th<Pperiod of the action is the reign of Augustus Ccet 
the subject is-the friendship borne by the philosophic Greek, G 
to the ambitious Roman, Fulvius, to secure whoso happiness j 
renders his own. Having made unequalled sacrifices for his f: 
having passed from honoured love and worldly esteem into £ 
and beggary—he finds himself at last, his friend apparently heei 
forgetful of his sufferings, a slave. The lessons of the A cade] 
the Porch (so often taught in unison in the later Athenian day) 
desert their old follower, and the character takes colouring fro 
middle-ages-romance which furnished "Boccacio with the sub 




. j , ° reputans dim mid 

■smct mjendHM, has mouoted nearly to the top of the ladder of 

“ “'“f 01 ' arid m tlle I " id!t of an Ovation, with neither 
>c djgmt.ee contented, when hie former friend, in mgs and squalid 
itclieduess, planting himself in the streets before his Iictom fi™ 
lance upon him, which, though steadily returned, leads to no recoa- 
on ; and, on the seeming miserable beggar persisting still in his 
.re to have audience of the Praetor, he is struck by the Lictors’ 
:es - Tho result is tliat ^ippus deliberately resolves to place 
iself in the way of death, and be is sentenced to execution by 
vius on the false charge of a murder he has taken on himself, 
at follows is at the scene of execution. It is brief, but into the 
ipass of a very few minutes, by the writer who possesses such 
itery, may be crowded thought and passion in abundance. The laugh 
li which it closes tells us this. In the thought not worth the notice 
lie Roman soldier, there is all that the Greek had studied by the 
ch and in the Grove, on appearance and the realities. 


Decius. Remove liis chains. 

Gkippus. Let it he ever thus— 

Tho generous still he poor ; the niggard thrive; 

Fortune still pave the ingrate’s path with gold ; 

Death dog the innocent still; and surely those 
Who now uplift their streaming eyes and murmur 
Against oppressive fate, will own its justice. 

Invisible ruler ! should man meet thy tiials 
With silent and lethargic sufferance, 

Or lift his hands and ask heaven for a reason ? 

Our hearts must speak—the sting, the whip is on t hem ! 

Wo rush in madness forth to tear away 
The veil that blinds us to the cause—in vain. 

Tho hand of that Eternal Providence 
Still holds it there, unmoved, impenetrable. 

Wo oan hut pause, and turn away again 
To mourn—to wonder—and endure. 

Dccim. My duty 

Gompols mo to disturb you, prisoner. 

O'inipjms. I am glad you do so, for my thoughts were growing 
Somowhat unfriendly to mo.—World, farewell; 

And thou whose image never left this heart, 

Swoot vision of my memory, fare thee well ! 

Pray walk this way. 


Deems, lve witnessed tliat 
In many a desperate fight. 

Gisipipus. In sliort, there lives not 
A man of fairer fame in Rome ? 

Decius. Nor out of it. 

Gisippus. Good.—Look on me now, look on my face 
I am a villain, am I not ?—nay, apeak ! 

Decius. You are found a murderer. 

Gisippus. A coward murderer : 

A secret, sudden stahber. ’Tis not possible 
That you can find a blacker, fouler character, 

Than this of mine ? 

Decius. The Gods must judge your guilt, 

But it is such as man should shudder at. 

Gisippus. This is a wise world, too, frieud, is it uut' 
Men have eyes, ears, and (sometimes) judgment. 

Have they not ? 

Decius. Thoy are not all fools. 

Gisippus. Ha ! ha ! 

Decius. You laugh ! 

Gisippus. A thought 
Not worth your notice, sir. 


END OP VOL. I. 


mtADIiUltV AND liVANS, VIHtiTTCllfi, WIITTKVIUAlltf.