No More Learning

It
produced a golden harvest to Mr. Newbery, but all the remuneration on
record, doled out by his niggard hand to the author, was twenty guineas!




CHAPTER SIXTEEN

NEW LODGINGS--JOHNSON'S COMPLIMENT--A TITLED PATRON--THE POET AT
NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE--HIS INDEPENDENCE OF THE GREAT--THE COUNTESS OF
NORTHUMBERLAND--EDWIN AND ANGELINA--GOSFORD AND LORD CLARE--PUBLICATION OF
ESSAYS--EVILS OF A RISING REPUTATION--HANGERS-ON--JOB WRITING--GOODY TWO
SHOES--A MEDICAL CAMPAIGN--MRS. SIDEBOTHAM


Goldsmith, now that he was rising in the world, and becoming a notoriety,
felt himself called upon to improve his style of living. He according
emerged from Wine-Office Court, and took chambers in the Temple. It is true
they were but of humble pretensions, situated on what was then the library
staircase, and it would appear that he was a kind of inmate with Jeffs, the
butler of the society. Still he was in the Temple, that classic region
rendered famous by the "Spectator" and other essayists, as the abode of gay
wits and thoughtful men of letters; and which, with its retired courts and
embowered gardens, in the very heart of a noisy metropolis, is, to the
quiet-seeking student and author, an oasis freshening with verdure in the
midst of a desert. Johnson, who had become a kind of growling supervisor of
the poet's affairs, paid him a visit soon after he had installed himself in
his new quarters, and went prying about the apartment, in his near-sighted
manner, examining everything minutely. Goldsmith was fidgeted by this
curious scrutiny, and apprehending a disposition to find fault, exclaimed,
with the air of a man who had money in both pockets, "I shall soon be in
better chambers than these. " The harmless bravado drew a reply from Johnson
which touched the chord of proper pride. "Nay, sir," said he, "never mind
that. Nil te quæsiveris extra," implying that his reputation rendered him
independent of outward show. Happy would it have been for poor Goldsmith
could he have kept this consolatory compliment perpetually in mind, and
squared his expenses accordingly.

Among the persons of rank who were struck with the merits of The Traveler
was the Earl (afterward Duke) of Northumberland. He procured several other
of Goldsmith's writings, the perusal of which tended to elevate the author
in his good opinion, and to gain for him his good will. The earl held the
office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and understanding Goldsmith was an
Irishman, was disposed to extend to him the patronage which his high post
afforded. He intimated the same to his relative, Dr. Percy, who, he found,
was well acquainted with the poet, and expressed a wish that the latter
should wait upon him. Here, then, was another opportunity for Goldsmith to
better his fortune, had he been knowing and worldly enough to profit by it.
Unluckily the path to fortune lay through the aristocratical mazes of
Northumberland House, and the poet blundered at the outset. The following
is the account he used to give of his visit: "I dressed myself in the best
manner I could, and, after studying some compliments I thought necessary on
such an occasion, proceeded to Northumberland House, and acquainted the
servants that I had particular business with the duke. They showed me into
an antechamber, where, after waiting some time, a gentleman, very elegantly
dressed, made his appearance; taking him for the duke, I delivered all the
fine things I had composed in order to compliment him on the honor he had
done me; when, to my great astonishment, he told me I had mistaken him for
his master, who would see me immediately. At that instant the duke came
into the apartment, and I was so confounded on the occasion that I wanted
words barely sufficient to express the sense I entertained of the duke's
politeness, and went away exceedingly chagrined at the blunder I had
committed. "

Sir John Hawkins, in his life of Dr. Johnson, gives some further
particulars of this visit, of which he was, in part, a witness. "Having one
day," says he, "a call to make on the late Duke, then Earl, of
Northumberland, 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 Dr. Goldsmith was waiting without. The earl asked me if I
was acquainted with him. I told him that I was, adding what I thought was
most likely to recommend him. I retired, and stayed in the outer room to
take him home. Upon his coming out, I asked him the result of his
conversation. 'His lordship,' said he, 'told me he had read my poem,
meaning The Traveler, and was much delighted with it; that he was going
to be lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and that, hearing I was a native of that
country, he should be glad to do me any kindness. ' 'And what did you
answer,' said I, 'to this gracious offer? ' 'Why,' said he, 'I could say
nothing but that I had a brother there, a clergyman, that stood in need of
help: as for myself, I have no great dependence on the promises of great
men; I look to the booksellers for support; they are my best friends, and
I am not inclined to forsake them for others. '" "Thus," continues Sir
John, "did this idiot in the affairs of the world trifle with his
fortunes, and put back the hand that was held out to assist him. "

We cannot join with Sir John in his worldly sneer at the conduct of
Goldsmith on this occasion. While we admire that honest independence of
spirit which prevented him from asking favors for himself, we love that
warmth of affection which instantly sought to advance the fortunes of a
brother: but the peculiar merits of poor Goldsmith seem to have been little
understood by the Hawkinses, the Boswells, and the other biographers of the
day.

After all, the introduction to Northumberland House did not prove so
complete a failure as the humorous account given by Goldsmith, and the
cynical account given by Sir John Hawkins, might lead one to suppose. Dr.
Percy, the heir male of the ancient Percies, brought the poet into the
acquaintance of his kinswoman, the countess, who, before her marriage with
the earl, was in her own right heiress of the House of Northumberland. "She
was a lady," says Boswell, "not only of high dignity of spirit, such as
became her noble blood, but of excellent understanding and lively talents. "
Under her auspices a poem of Goldsmith's had an aristocratical introduction
to the world. This was the beautiful ballad of the Hermit, originally
published under the name of Edwin and Angelina. It was suggested by an old
English ballad beginning "Gentle Herdsman," shown him by Dr. Percy, who was
at that time making his famous collection, entitled Reliques of Ancient
English Poetry, which he submitted to the inspection of Goldsmith prior to
publication. A few copies only of the Hermit were printed at first, with
the following title page: "Edwin and Angelina: a Ballad. By Mr. Goldsmith.
Printed for the Amusement of the Countess of Northumberland. "

All this, though it may not have been attended with any immediate pecuniary
advantage, contributed to give Goldsmith's name and poetry the high stamp
of fashion, so potent in England; the circle at Northumberland House,
however, was of too stately and aristocratical a nature to be much to his
taste, and we do not find that he became familiar in it.

He was much more at home at Gosford, the noble seat of his countryman,
Robert Nugent, afterward Baron Nugent and Viscount Clare, who appreciated
his merits even more heartily than the Earl of Northumberland, and
occasionally made him his guest both in town and country. Nugent is
described as a jovial voluptuary, who left the Roman Catholic for the
Protestant religion, with a view to bettering his fortunes; he had an
Irishman's inclination for rich widows, and an Irishman's luck with the
sex; having been thrice married and gained a fortune with each wife. He was
now nearly sixty, with a remarkably loud voice, broad Irish brogue, and
ready, but somewhat coarse wit. With all his occasional coarseness he was
capable of high thought, and had produced poems which showed a truly poetic
vein. He was long a member of the House of Commons, where his ready wit,
his fearless decision, and good-humored audacity of expression, always
gained him a hearing, though his tall person and awkward manner gained him
the nickname of Squire Gawky, among the political scribblers of the day.
With a patron of this jovial temperament Goldsmith probably felt more at
ease than with those of higher refinement.

The celebrity which Goldsmith had acquired by his poem of The Traveler,
occasioned a resuscitation of many of his miscellaneous and anonymous tales
and essays from the various newspapers and other transient publications in
which they lay dormant. These he published in 1765, in a collected form,
under the title of "Essays by Mr. Goldsmith. " "The following essays,"
observes he in his preface, "have already appeared at different times, and
in different publications. The pamphlets in which they were inserted being
generally unsuccessful, these shared the common fate, without assisting the
booksellers' aims, or extending the author's reputation. The public were
too strenuously employed with their own follies to be assiduous in
estimating mine; so that many of my best attempts in this way have fallen
victims to the transient topic of the times--the Ghost in Cock Lane, or the
Siege of Ticonderoga.

"But, though they have passed pretty silently into the world, I can by no
means complain of their circulation. The magazines and papers of the day
have indeed been liberal enough in this respect. Most of these essays 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 labors sixteen times reprinted,
and claimed by different parents as their own. I have seen them flourished
at the beginning with praise, and signed at the end with the names of
Philautos, Philalethes, Phileleutheros, and Philanthropos. It is time,
however, at last to vindicate my claims; and as these entertainers of the
public, as they call themselves, have partly lived upon me for some years,
let me now try if I cannot live a little upon myself. "

It was but little, in fact, for all the pecuniary emolument he received
from the volume was twenty guineas. It had a good circulation, however, was
translated into French, and has maintained its stand among the British
classics.

Notwithstanding that the reputation of Goldsmith had greatly risen, his
finances were often at a very low ebb, owing to his heedlessness as to
expense, his liability to be imposed upon, and a spontaneous and
irresistible propensity to give to every one who asked. The very rise in
his reputation had increased these embarrassments. It had enlarged his
circle of needy acquaintances, authors poorer in pocket than himself, who
came in search of literary counsel; which generally meant a guinea and a
breakfast. And then his Irish hangers-on! "Our doctor," said one of these
sponges, "had a constant levee of his distressed countrymen, whose wants,
as far as he was able, he always relieved; and he has often been known to
leave himself without a guinea, in order to supply the necessities of
others. "

This constant drainage of the purse therefore obliged him to undertake all
jobs proposed by the booksellers, and to keep up a kind of running account
with Mr. Newbery; who was his banker on all occasions, sometimes for
pounds, sometimes for shillings; but who was a rigid accountant, and took
care to be amply repaid in manuscript. Many effusions, hastily penned in
these moments of exigency, were published anonymously, and never claimed.
Some of them have but recently been traced to his pen; while of many the
true authorship will probably never be discovered. Among others it is
suggested, and with great probability, that he wrote for Mr. Newbery the
famous nursery story of Goody Two Shoes, which appeared in 1765, at a
moment when Goldsmith was scribbling for Newbery, and much pressed for
funds. Several quaint little tales introduced in his Essays show that he
had a turn for this species of mock history; and the advertisement and
title-page bear the stamp of his sly and playful humor.

"We are desired to give notice that there is in the press, and speedily
will be published, either by subscription or otherwise, as the public shall
please to determine, the History of Little Goody Two Shoes, otherwise Mrs.
Margery Two Shoes; with the means by which she acquired learning and
wisdom, and, in consequence thereof, her estate; set forth at large for the
benefit of those

"Who, from a state of rags and care,
And having shoes but half a pair,
Their fortune and their fame should fix,
And gallop in a coach and six. "

The world is probably not aware of the ingenuity, humor, good sense, and
sly satire contained in many of the old English nursery-tales. They have
evidently been the sportive productions of able writers, who would not
trust their names to productions that might be considered beneath their
dignity. The ponderous works on which they relied for immortality have
perhaps sunk into oblivion, and carried their names down with them; while
their unacknowledged offspring, Jack the Giant Killer, Giles Gingerbread,
and Tom Thumb, flourish in wide-spreading and never-ceasing popularity.

As Goldsmith had now acquired popularity and an extensive acquaintance, he
attempted, with the advice of his friends, to procure a more regular and
ample support by resuming the medical profession. He accordingly launched
himself upon the town in style; hired a man-servant; replenished his
wardrobe at considerable expense, and appeared in a professional wig and
cane, purple silk small-clothes, and a scarlet roquelaure buttoned to the
chin: a fantastic garb, as we should think at the present day, but not
unsuited to the fashion of the times.

With his sturdy little person thus arrayed in the unusual magnificence of
purple and fine linen, and his scarlet roquelaure flaunting from his
shoulders, he used to strut into the apartments of his patients swaying his
three-cornered hat in one hand and his medical scepter, the cane, in the
other, and assuming an air of gravity and importance suited to the
solemnity of his wig; at least, such is the picture given of him by the
waiting gentlewoman who let him into the chamber of one of his lady
patients.

He soon, however, grew tired and impatient of the duties and restraints of
his profession; his practice was chiefly among his friends, and the fees
were not sufficient for his maintenance; he was disgusted with attendance
on sick-chambers and capricious patients, and looked back with longing to
his tavern haunts and broad convivial meetings, from which the dignity and
duties of his medical calling restrained him. At length, on prescribing to
a lady of his acquaintance who, to use a hackneyed phrase, "rejoiced" in
the aristocratical name of Sidebotham, a warm dispute arose between him and
the apothecary as to the quantity of medicine to be administered. The
doctor stood up for the rights and dignities of his profession, and
resented the interference of the compounder of drugs. His rights and
dignities, however, were disregarded; his wig and cane and scarlet
roquelaure were of no avail; Mrs. Sidebotham sided with the hero of the
pestle and mortar; and Goldsmith flung out of the house in a passion. "I am
determined henceforth," said he to Topham Beauclerc, "to leave off
prescribing for friends. " "Do so, my dear doctor," was the reply; "whenever
you undertake to kill, let it be only your enemies. "

This was the end of Goldsmith's medical career.




CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

PUBLICATION OF THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD--OPINIONS CONCERNING IT--OF DR.
JOHNSON--OF ROGERS THE POET--OF GOETHE--ITS MERITS--EXQUISITE
EXTRACT--ATTACK BY KENRICK--REPLY--BOOK-BUILDING--PROJECT OF A COMEDY


The success of the poem of The Traveler, and the popularity which it had
conferred on its author, now roused the attention of the bookseller in
whose hands the novel of The Vicar of Wakefield had been slumbering for
nearly two long years. The idea has generally prevailed that it was Mr.
John Newbery to whom the manuscript had been sold, and much surprise has
been expressed that he should be insensible to its merit and suffer it to
remain unpublished, while putting forth various inferior writings by the
same author. This, however, is a mistake; it was his nephew, Francis
Newbery, who had become the fortunate purchaser. Still the delay is equally
unaccountable. Some have imagined that the uncle and nephew had business
arrangements together, in which this work was included, and that the elder
Newbery, dubious of its success, retarded the publication until the full
harvest of The Traveler should be reaped. Booksellers are prone to make
egregious mistakes as to the merit of works in manuscript; and to
undervalue, if not reject, those of classic and enduring excellence, when
destitute of that false brilliancy commonly called "effect. " In the present
instance, an intellect vastly superior to that of either of the booksellers
was equally at fault. Dr. Johnson, speaking of the work to Boswell, some
time subsequent to its publication, observed, "I myself did not think it
would have had much success. It was written and sold to a bookseller
before The Traveler, but published after, so little expectation had the
bookseller from it. Had it been sold after The Traveler, he might have had
twice as much money; _though sixty guineas was no mean price_. "

Sixty guineas for the Vicar of Wakefield! and this could be pronounced
_no mean_ price by Dr. Johnson, at that time the arbiter of British
talent, and who had had an opportunity of witnessing the effect of the work
upon the public mind; for its success was immediate. It came out on the
27th of March, 1766; before the end of May a second edition was called for;
in three months more a third; and so it went on, widening in a popularity
that has never flagged. Rogers, the Nestor of British literature, whose
refined purity of taste and exquisite mental organization rendered him
eminently calculated to appreciate a work of the kind, declared that of all
the books which, through the fitful changes of three generations, he had
seen rise and fall, the charm of the Vicar of Wakefield had alone continued
as at first; and could he revisit the world after an interval of many more
generations, he should as surely look to find it undiminished. Nor has its
celebrity been confined to Great Britain. Though so exclusively a picture
of British scenes and manners, it has been translated into almost every
language, and everywhere its charm has been the same. Goethe, the great
genius of Germany, declared in his eighty-first year that it was his
delight at the age of twenty, that it had in a manner formed a part of his
education, influencing his taste and feelings throughout life, and that he
had recently read it again from beginning to end--with renewed delight, and
with a grateful sense of the early benefit derived from it.

It is needless to expatiate upon the qualities of a work which has thus
passed from country to country, and language to language, until it is now
known throughout the whole reading world, and is become a household book in
every hand. The secret of its universal and enduring popularity is
undoubtedly its truth to nature, but to nature of the most amiable kind; to
nature such as Goldsmith saw it. The author, as we have occasionally shown
in the course of this memoir, took his scenes and characters in this as in
his other writings, from originals in his own motley experience; but he has
given them as seen through the medium of his own indulgent eye, and has set
them forth with the colorings of his own good head and heart. Yet how
contradictory it seems that this, one of the most delightful pictures of
home and homefelt happiness, should be drawn by a homeless man; that the
most amiable picture of domestic virtue and all the endearments of the
married state should be drawn by a bachelor, who had been severed from
domestic life almost from boyhood; that one of the most tender, touching,
and affecting appeals on behalf of female loveliness should have been made
by a man whose deficiency in all the graces of person and manner seemed to
mark him out for a cynical disparager of the sex.

We cannot refrain from transcribing from the work a short passage
illustrative of what we have said, and which within a wonderfully small
compass comprises a world of beauty of imagery, tenderness of feeling,
delicacy and refinement of thought, and matchless purity of style. The two
stanzas which conclude it, in which are told a whole history of woman's
wrongs and sufferings, is, for pathos, simplicity, and euphony, a gem in
the language. The scene depicted is where the poor Vicar is gathering
around him the wrecks of his shattered family, and endeavoring to rally
them back to happiness.

"The next morning the sun arose with peculiar warmth for the season, so
that we agreed to breakfast together on the honeysuckle bank; where, while
we sat, my youngest daughter at my request joined her voice to the concert
on the trees about us. It was in this place my poor Olivia first met her
seducer, and every object served to recall her sadness. But that melancholy
which is excited by objects of pleasure, or inspired by sounds of harmony,
soothes the heart instead of corroding it. Her mother, too, upon this
occasion, felt a pleasing distress, and wept, and loved her daughter as
before. 'Do, my pretty Olivia,' cried she, 'let us have that melancholy air
your father was so fond of; your sister Sophy has already obliged us. Do,
child; it will please your old father. ' She complied in a manner so
exquisitely pathetic as moved me.

"'When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy.
What art can wash her guilt away?

"'The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom--is to die. '"

Scarce had the Vicar of Wakefield made its appearance and been received
with acclamation than its author was subjected to one of the usual
penalties that attend success. He was attacked in the newspapers. In one of
the chapters he had introduced his ballad of the Hermit, of which, as we
have mentioned, a few copies had been printed some considerable time
previously for the use of the Countess of Northumberland. This brought
forth the following article in a fashionable journal of the day:

"_To the Printer of the 'St. James's Chronicle_. '

"Sir--In the Reliques of Ancient Poetry, published about two years ago, is
a very beautiful little balled called A Friar of Orders Gray. The ingenious
editor, Mr. Percy, supposes that the stanzas sung by Ophelia in the play of
Hamlet were parts of some ballad well known in Shakespeare's time, and from
these stanzas with the addition of one or two of his own to connect them,
he has formed the above-mentioned ballad; the subject of which is, a lady
comes to a convent to inquire for her love who had been driven there by her
disdain. She is answered by a friar that he is dead:

"'No, no, he is dead, gone to his death's bed.
He never will come again. '

"The lady weeps and laments her cruelty; the friar endeavors to comfort her
with morality and religion, but all in vain; she expresses the deepest
grief and the most tender sentiments of love, till at last the friar
discovers himself:

"'And lo! beneath this gown of gray
Thy own true love appears. '

"This catastrophe is very fine, and the whole, joined with the greatest
tenderness, has the greatest simplicity; yet, though this ballad was so
recently published in the Ancient Reliques, Dr. Goldsmith has been hardy
enough to publish a poem called The Hermit, where the circumstances and
catastrophe are exactly the same, only with this difference, that the
natural simplicity and tenderness of the original are almost entirely lost
in the languid smoothness and tedious paraphrase of the copy, which is as
short of the merits of Mr. Percy's ballad as the insipidity of negus is to
the genuine flavor of champagne.

"I am, sir, yours, etc. , DETECTOR. "

This attack, supposed to be by Goldsmith's constant persecutor, the
malignant Kenrick, drew from him the following note to the editor:

"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 recommended Blainville's travels
because I thought the book was a good one; and I think so still. I said I
was told by the bookseller that it was then first published; but in that it
seems I was misinformed, and my reading was not extensive enough to set me
right.

"Another correspondent of yours accuses me of having taken a ballad I
published some time ago, from one by the ingenious Mr. Percy. I do not
think there is any great resemblance between the two pieces in question. If
there be any, his ballad was taken from mine. I read it to Mr. Percy some
years ago; and he, as we both considered these things as trifles at best,
told me, with his usual good-humor, the next time I saw him, that he had
taken my plan to form the fragments of Shakespeare into a ballad of his
own. He then read me his little Cento, if I may so call it, and I highly
approved it. Such petty anecdotes as these are scarcely worth printing; and
were it not for the busy disposition of some of your correspondents, the
public should never have known that he owes me the hint of his ballad, or
that I am obliged to his friendship and learning for communications of a
much more important nature.

"I am, sir, yours, etc. ,

"OLIVER GOLDSMITH. "

The unexpected circulation of the Vicar of Wakefield enriched the
publisher, but not the author. Goldsmith no doubt thought himself entitled
to participate in the profits of the repeated editions; and a memorandum,
still extant, shows that he drew upon Mr. Francis Newbery, in the month of
June, for fifteen guineas, but that the bill was returned dishonored. He
continued therefore his usual job-work for the booksellers, writing
introductions, prefaces, and head and tail pieces for new works; revising,
touching up, and modifying travels and voyages; making compilations of
prose and poetry, and "building books," as he sportively termed it. These
tasks required little labor or talent, but that taste and touch which are
the magic of gifted minds. His terms began to be proportioned to his
celebrity. If his price was at anytime objected to, "Why, sir," he would
say, "it may seem large; but then a man may be many years working in
obscurity before his taste and reputation are fixed or estimated; and then
he is, as in other professions, only paid for his previous labors. "

He was, however, prepared to try his fortune in a different walk of
literature from any he had yet attempted. We have repeatedly adverted to
his fondness for the drama; he was a frequent attendant at the theaters;
though, as we have shown, he considered them under gross mismanagement. He
thought, too, that a vicious taste prevailed among those who wrote for the
stage. "A new species of dramatic composition," says he, in one of his
essays, "has been introduced under the name of _sentimental comedy_,
in which the virtues of private life are exhibited, rather than the vices
exposed; and the distresses rather than the faults of mankind make our
interest in the piece. In these plays almost all the characters are good
and exceedingly generous; they are lavish enough of their tin money on the
stage; and though they want humor, have abundance of sentiment and feeling.
If they happen to have faults or foibles, the spectator is taught not only
to pardon, but to applaud them in consideration of the goodness of their
hearts; so that folly, instead of being ridiculed, is commended, and the
comedy aims at touching our passions, without the power of being truly
pathetic. In this manner we are likely to lose one great source of
entertainment on the stage; for while the comic poet is invading the
province of the tragic muse, he leaves her lively sister quite neglected.
Of this, however, he is no ways solicitous, as he measures his fame by his
profits. . . .

"Humor at present seems to be departing from the stage; and it will soon
happen that our comic players will have nothing left for it but a fine coat
and a song. It depends upon the audience whether they will actually drive
those poor merry creatures from the stage, or sit at a play as gloomy as at
the tabernacle. It is not easy to recover an art when once lost; and it
will be a just punishment, that when, by our being too fastidious, we have
banished humor from the stage, we should ourselves be deprived of the art
of laughing. "

Symptoms of reform in the drama had recently taken place. The comedy of the
Clandestine Marriage, the joint production of Colman and Garrick, and
suggested by Hogarth's inimitable pictures of "Marriage a la mode," had
taken the town by storm, crowded the theaters with fashionable audiences,
and formed one of the leading literary topics of the year. Goldsmith's
emulation was roused by its success. The comedy was in what he considered
the legitimate line, totally different from the sentimental school; it
presented pictures of real life, delineations of character and touches of
humor, in which he felt himself calculated to excel. The consequence was
that in the course of this year (1766), he commenced a comedy of the same
class, to be entitled the Good Natured Man, at which he diligently wrought
whenever the hurried occupation of "book building" allowed him leisure.




CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SOCIAL POSITION OF GOLDSMITH--HIS COLLOQUIAL CONTESTS WITH
JOHNSON--ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS


THE social position of Goldsmith had undergone a material change since the
publication of The Traveler. Before that event he was but partially known
as the author of some clever anonymous writings, and had been a tolerated
member of the club and the Johnson circle, without much being expected from
him. Now he had suddenly risen to literary fame, and become one of the
_lions of the day. The highest regions of intellectual society were now
open to him; but he was not prepared to move in them with confidence and
success. Ballymahon had not been a good school of manners at the outset of
life; nor had his experience as a "poor student" at colleges and medical
schools contributed to give him the polish of society. He had brought from
Ireland, as he said, nothing but his "brogue and his blunders," and they
had never left him. He had traveled, it is true; but the Continental tour
which in those days gave the finishing grace to the education of a
patrician youth, had, with poor Goldsmith, been little better than a course
of literary vagabondizing. It had enriched his mind, deepened and widened
the benevolence of his heart, and filled his memory with enchanting
pictures, but it had contributed little to disciplining him for the polite
intercourse of the world.
His life in London had hitherto been a struggle
with sordid cares and sad humiliations. "You scarcely can conceive," wrote
he some time previously to his brother, "how much eight years of
disappointment, anguish, and study have worn me down. " Several more years
had since been added to the term during which he had trod the lowly walks
of life. He had been a tutor, an apothecary's drudge, a petty physician of
the suburbs, a bookseller's hack, drudging for daily bread. Each separate
walk had been beset by its peculiar thorns and humiliations. It is
wonderful how his heart retained its gentleness and kindness through all
these trials; how his mind rose above the "meannesses of poverty," to
which, as he says, he was compelled to submit; but it would be still more
wonderful, had his manners acquired a tone corresponding to the innate
grace and refinement of his intellect. He was near forty years of age when
he published The Traveler, and was lifted by it into celebrity. As is
beautifully said of him by one of his biographers, "he has fought his way
to consideration and esteem; but he bears upon him the scars of his twelve
years' conflict; of the mean sorrows through which he has passed; and of
the cheap indulgences he has sought relief and help from. There is nothing
plastic in his nature now. His manners and habits are completely formed;
and in them any further success can make little favorable change, whatever
it may effect for his mind or genius. " [Footnote: Forster's Goldsmith]

We are not to be surprised, therefore, at finding him make an awkward
figure in the elegant drawing-rooms which were now open to him, and
disappointing those who had formed an idea of him from the fascinating ease
and gracefulness of his poetry.

Even the literary club, and the circle of which it formed a part, after
their surprise at the intellectual flights of which he showed himself
capable, fell into a conventional mode of judging and talking of him, and
of placing him in absurd and whimsical points of view. His very celebrity
operated here to his disadvantage. It brought him into continual comparison
with Johnson, who was the oracle of that circle and had given it a tone.
Conversation was the great staple there, and of this Johnson was a master.
He had been a reader and thinker from childhood; his melancholy
temperament, which unfitted him for the pleasures of youth, had made him
so. For many years past the vast variety of works he had been obliged to
consult in preparing his Dictionary had stored an uncommonly retentive
memory with facts on all kinds of subjects; making it a perfect colloquial
armory. "He had all his life," says Boswell, "habituated himself to
consider conversation as a trial of intellectual vigor and skill. He had
disciplined himself as a talker as well as a writer, making it a rule to
impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it in,
so that by constant practice and never suffering any careless expression to
escape him, he had attained an extraordinary accuracy and command of
language. "

His common conversation in all companies, according to Sir Joshua Reynolds,
was such as to secure him universal attention, something above the usual
colloquial style being always expected from him.

"I do not care," said Orme, the historian of Hindostan, "on what subject
Johnson talks; but I love better to hear him talk than anybody. He either
gives you new thoughts or a new coloring. "

A stronger and more graphic eulogium is given by Dr. Percy. "The
conversation of Johnson," says he, "is strong and clear, and may be
compared to an antique statue, where every vein and muscle is distinct and
clear. "

Such was the colloquial giant with which Goldsmith's celebrity and his
habits of intimacy brought him into continual comparison; can we wonder
that he should appear to disadvantage? Conversation grave, discursive, and
disputatious, such as Johnson excelled and delighted in, was to him a
severe task, and he never was good at a task of any kind. He had not, like
Johnson, a vast fund of acquired facts to draw upon; nor a retentive memory
to furnish them forth when wanted. He could not, like the great
lexicographer, mold his ideas and balance his periods while talking. He had
a flow of ideas, but it was apt to be hurried and confused, and as he said
of himself, he had contracted a hesitating and disagreeable manner of
speaking. He used to say that he always argued best when he argued alone;
that is to say, he could master a subject in his study, with his pen in his
hand; but when he came into company he grew confused, and was unable to
talk about it. Johnson made a remark concerning him to somewhat of the same
purport. "No man," said he, "is more foolish than Goldsmith when he has not
a pen in his hand, or more wise when he has. " Yet with all this conscious
deficiency he was continually getting involved in colloquial contests with
Johnson and other prime talkers of the literary circle. He felt that he had
become a notoriety; that he had entered the lists and was expected to make
fight; so with that heedlessness which characterized him in everything
else, he dashed on at a venture; trusting to chance in this as in other
things, and hoping occasionally to make a lucky hit. Johnson perceived his
hap-hazard temerity, but gave him no credit for the real diffidence which
lay at bottom. "The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation," said he, "is
this, he goes on without knowing how he is to get off. His genius is great,
but his knowledge is small. As they say of a generous man it is a pity he
is not rich, we may say of Goldsmith it is a pity he is not knowing. He
would not keep his knowledge to himself. " And, on another occasion he
observes: "Goldsmith, rather than not talk, will talk of what he knows
himself to be ignorant, which can only end in exposing him. If in company
with two founders, he would fall a talking on the method of making cannon,
though both of them would soon see that he did not know what metal a cannon
is made of. " And again: "Goldsmith should not be forever attempting to
shine in conversation; he has not temper for it, he is so much mortified
when he fails. Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of
chance; a man may be beat at times by one who has not the tenth part of his
wit. Now Goldsmith, putting himself against another, is like a man laying a
hundred to one, who cannot spare the hundred. It is not worth a man's
while. A man should not lay a hundred to one unless he can easily spare it,
though he has a hundred chances for him; he can get but a guinea, and he
may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this state. When he contends, if he
gets the better, it is a very little addition to a man of his literary
reputation; if he does not get the better, he is miserably vexed. "

Johnson was not aware how much he was himself to blame in producing this
vexation. "Goldsmith," said Miss Reynolds, "always appeared to be overawed
by Johnson, particularly when in company with people of any consequence;
always as if impressed with fear of disgrace; and indeed well he might. I
have been witness to many mortifications he has suffered in Dr. Johnson's
company. "

It may not have been disgrace that he feared, but rudeness. The great
lexicographer, spoiled by the homage of society, was still more prone than
himself to lose temper when the argument went against him. He could not
brook appearing to be worsted; but would attempt to bear down his adversary
by the rolling thunder of his periods; and when that failed, would become
downright insulting. Boswell called it "having recourse to some sudden mode
of robust sophistry"; but Goldsmith designated it much more happily. "There
is no arguing with Johnson," said he, _"for when his pistol misses fire,
he knocks you down with the butt end of it. "_ [Footnote: The following
is given by Boswell as an instance of robust sophistry: "Once, when I was
pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus, 'My dear
Boswell, let's have no more of this; you'll make nothing of it. I'd rather
hear you whistle a Scotch tune. '"]

In several of the intellectual collisions recorded by Boswell as triumphs
of Dr. Johnson, it really appears to us that Goldsmith had the best both of
the wit and the argument, and especially of the courtesy and good-nature.

On one occasion he certainly gave Johnson a capital reproof as to his own
colloquial peculiarities. Talking of fables, Goldsmith observed that the
animals introduced in them seldom talked in character. "For instance," said
he, "the fable of the little fishes, who saw birds fly over their heads,
and, envying them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The skill
consists in making them talk like little fishes. " Just then observing that
Dr. Johnson was shaking his sides and laughing, he immediately added, "Why,
Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for if you were to
make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales. "

But though Goldsmith suffered frequent mortifications in society from the
overbearing, and sometimes harsh, conduct of Johnson, he always did justice
to his benevolence. When royal pensions were granted to Dr. Johnson and Dr.
Shebbeare, a punster remarked that the king had pensioned a she-bear and a
he-bear; to which Goldsmith replied, "Johnson, to be sure, has a roughness
in his manner, but no man alive has a more tender heart. _He has nothing
of the bear but the skin. "_

Goldsmith, in conversation, shone most when he least thought of shining;
when he gave up all effort to appear wise and learned, or to cope with the
oracular sententiousness of Johnson, and gave way to his natural impulses.
Even Boswell could perceive his merits on these occasions. "For my part,"
said he, condescendingly, "I like very well to hear _honest Goldsmith_
talk away carelessly"; and many a much, wiser man than Boswell delighted in
those outpourings of a fertile fancy and a generous heart. In his happy
moods, Goldsmith had an artless simplicity and buoyant good-humor that led
to a thousand amusing blunders and whimsical confessions, much to the
entertainment of his intimates; yet, in his most thoughtless garrulity,
there was occasionally the gleam of the gold and the flash of the diamond.




CHAPTER NINETEEN

SOCIAL RESORTS--THE SHILLING WHIST CLUB--A PRACTICAL JOKE--THE WEDNESDAY
CLUB--THE "TUN OP MAN"--THE PIG BUTCHER--TOM KING--HUGH KELLY--GLOVER AND
HIS CHARACTERISTICS


Though Goldsmith's pride and ambition led him to mingle occasionally with
high society, and to engage in the colloquial conflicts of the learned
circle, in both of which he was ill at ease and conscious of being
undervalued, yet he had some social resorts in which he indemnified himself
for their restraints by indulging his humor without control. One of them
was a shilling whist club, which held its meetings at the Devil Tavern,
near Temple Bar, a place rendered classic, we are told, by a club held
there in old times, to which "rare Ben Jonson" had furnished the rules. The
company was of a familiar, unceremonious kind, delighting in that very
questionable wit which consists in playing off practical jokes upon each
other. Of one of these Goldsmith was made the butt. Coming to the club one
night in a hackney coach, he gave the coachman by mistake a guinea instead
of a shilling, which he set down as a dead loss, for there was no
likelihood, he said, that a fellow of this class would have the honesty to
return the money. On the next club evening he was told a person at the
street door wished to speak with him. He went forth, but soon returned with
a radiant countenance. To his surprise and delight the coachman had
actually brought back the guinea. While he launched forth in praise of
this unlooked-for piece of honesty, he declared it ought not to go
unrewarded. Collecting a small sum from the club, and no doubt increasing
it largely from his own purse, he dismissed the Jehu with many encomiums on
his good conduct. He was still chanting his praises when one of the club
requested a sight of the guinea thus honestly returned. To Goldsmith's
confusion it proved to be a counterfeit. The universal burst of laughter
which succeeded, and the jokes by which he was assailed on every side,
showed him that the whole was a hoax, and the pretended coachman as much a
counterfeit as the guinea. He was so disconcerted, it is said, that he soon
beat a retreat for the evening.

Another of those free and easy clubs met on Wednesday evenings at the Globe
Tavern in Fleet Street. It was somewhat in the style of the Three Jolly
Pigeons; songs, jokes, dramatic imitations, burlesque parodies and broad
sallies of humor, formed a contrast to the sententious morality, pedantic
casuistry, and polished sarcasm of the learned circle. Here is a huge "tun
of man," by the name of Gordon, use to delight Goldsmith by singing the
jovial song of Nottingham Ale, and looking like a butt of it. Here, too, a
wealthy pig butcher, charmed, no doubt, by the mild philanthropy of The
Traveler, aspired to be on the most sociable footing with the author, and
here was Tom King, the comedian, recently risen to consequence by his
performance of Lord Ogleby in the new comedy of the Clandestine Marriage.

A member of more note was one Hugh Kelly, a second-rate author, who, as he
became a kind of competitor of Goldsmith's, deserves particular mention. He
was an Irishman, about twenty-eight years of age, originally apprenticed to
a staymaker in Dublin; then writer to a London attorney; then a Grub Street
hack, scribbling for magazines and newspapers. Of late he had set up for
theatrical censor and satirist, and, in a paper called Thespis, in
emulation of Churchill's Rosciad, had harassed many of the poor actors
without mercy, and often without wit; but had lavished his incense on
Garrick, who, in consequence, took him into favor. He was the author of
several works of superficial merit, but which had sufficient vogue to
inflate his vanity. This, however, must have been mortified on his first
introduction to Johnson; after sitting a short time he got up to take
leave, expressing a fear that a longer visit might be troublesome. "Not in
the least, sir," said the surly moralist, "I had forgotten you were in the
room. " Johnson used to speak of him as a man who had written more than he
had read.

A prime wag of this club was one of Goldsmith's poor countrymen and
hangers-on, by the name of Glover. He had originally been educated for the
medical profession, but had taken in early life to the stage, though
apparently without much success. While performing at Cork, he undertook,
partly in jest, to restore life to the body of a malefactor, who had just
been executed. To the astonishment of every one, himself among the number,
he succeeded. The miracle took wind. He abandoned the stage, resumed the
wig and cane, and considered his fortune as secure. Unluckily, there were
not many dead people to be restored to life in Ireland; his practice did
not equal his expectation, so he came to London, where he continued to
dabble indifferently, and rather unprofitably, in physic and literature.

He was a great frequenter of the Globe and Devil taverns, where he used to
amuse the company by his talent at story-telling and his powers of mimicry,
giving capital imitations of Garrick, Foote, Coleman, Sterne, and other
public characters of the day. He seldom happened to have money enough to
pay his reckoning, but was always sure to find some ready purse among those
who had been amused by his humors. Goldsmith, of course, was one of the
readiest. It was through him that Glover was admitted to the Wednesday
Club, of which his theatrical imitations became the delight. Glover,
however, was a little anxious for the dignity of his patron, which
appeared to him to suffer from the overfamiliarity of some of the members
of the club. He was especially shocked by the free and easy tone in which
Goldsmith was addressed by the pig butcher: "Come, Noll," would he say, as
he pledged him, "here's my service to you, old boy. "

Glover whispered to Goldsmith that he "should not allow such liberties. "
"Let him alone," was the reply, "you'll see how civilly I'll let him down. "
After a time, he called out, with marked ceremony and politeness, "Mr. B. ,
I have the honor of drinking your good health. " Alas! dignity was not poor
Goldsmith's forte: he could keep no one at a distance. "Thank'ee, thank'ee,
Noll," nodded the pig-butcher, scarce taking the pipe out of his mouth. "I
don't see the effect of your reproof," whispered Glover. "I give it up,"
replied Goldsmith, with a good-humored shrug, "I ought to have known before
now there is no putting a pig in the right way. "

Johnson used to be severe upon Goldsmith for mingling in these motley
circles, observing that, having been originally poor, he had contracted a
love for low company. Goldsmith, however, was guided not by a taste for
what was low, but for what was comic and characteristic. It was the feeling
of the artist; the feeling which furnished out some of his best scenes in
familiar life; the feeling with which "rare Ben Jonson" sought those very
haunts and circles in days of yore, to study "Every Man in His Humor. "

It was not always, however, that the humor of these associates was to his
taste: as they became boisterous in their merriment he was apt to become
depressed. "The company of fools," says he, in one of his essays, "may at
first make us smile; but at last never fails of making us melancholy. "
"Often he would become moody," says Glover, "and would leave the party
abruptly to go home and brood over his misfortune. "


It is possible, however, that he went home for quite a different purpose;
to commit to paper some scene or passage suggested for his comedy of The
Good-Natured Man. The elaboration of humor is often a most serious task;
and we have never witnessed a more perfect picture of mental misery than
was once presented to us by a popular dramatic writer--still, we hope,
living--whom we found in the agonies of producing a farce which
subsequently set the theaters in a roar.




CHAPTER TWENTY

THE GREAT CHAM OF LITERATURE AND THE KING--SCENE AT SIR JOSHUA
REYNOLDS'--GOLDSMITH ACCUSED OF JEALOUSY--NEGOTIATIONS WITH GARRICK--THE
AUTHOR AND THE ACTOR--THEIR CORRESPONDENCE


The comedy of The Good-Natured Man was completed by Goldsmith early in
1767, and submitted to the perusal of Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, and others
of the literary club, by whom it was heartily approved. Johnson, who was
seldom half way either in censure or applause, pronounced it the best
comedy that had been written since The Provoked Husband, and promised to
furnish the prologue. This immediately became an object of great solicitude
with Goldsmith, knowing the weight an introduction from the Great Cham of
literature would have with the public; but circumstances occurred which he
feared might drive the comedy and the prologue from Johnson's thoughts. The
latter was in the habit of visiting the royal library at the Queen's
(Buckingham) House, a noble collection of books, in the formation of which
he had assisted the librarian, Mr. Bernard, with his advice. One evening,
as he was seated there by the fire reading, he was surprised by the
entrance of the king (George III. ), then a young man; who sought this
occasion to have a conversation with him. The conversation was varied and
discursive; the king shifting from subject to subject according to his
wont; "during the whole interview," says Boswell, "Johnson talked to his
majesty with profound respect, but still in his open, manly manner, with a
sonorous voice, and never in that subdued tone which is commonly used at
the levee and in the drawing-room. 'I found his majesty wished I should
talk,' said he, 'and I made it my business to talk. I find it does a man
good to be talked to by his sovereign. In the first place, a man cannot be
in a passion--'" It would have been well for Johnson's colloquial
disputants could he have often been under such decorous restraint. He
retired from the interview highly gratified with the conversation of the
king and with his gracious behavior. "Sir," said he to the librarian, "they
may talk of the king as they will, but he is the finest gentleman I have
ever seen. " "Sir," said he subsequently to Bennet Langton, "his manners are
those of as fine a gentleman as we may suppose Louis the Fourteenth or
Charles the Second. "

While Johnson's face was still radiant with the reflex of royalty, he was
holding forth one day to a listening group at Sir Joshua Reynolds', who
were anxious to hear every particular of this memorable conversation. Among
other questions, the king had asked him whether he was writing anything.
His reply was that he thought he had already done his part as a writer. "I
should have thought so too," said the king, "if you had not written so
well. " "No man," said Johnson, commenting on this speech, "could have made
a handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a king to pay. It was decisive. "
"But did you make no reply to this high compliment? " asked one of the
company. "No, sir," replied the profoundly deferential Johnson, "when the
king had said it, it was to be so. It was not for me to bandy civilities
with my sovereign. "

During all the tune that Johnson was thus holding forth, Goldsmith, who was
present, appeared to take no interest in the royal theme, but remained
seated on a sofa at a distance, in a moody fit of abstraction; at length
recollecting himself, he sprang up, and advancing, exclaimed, with what
Boswell calls his usual "frankness and simplicity," "Well, you acquitted
yourself in this conversation better than I should have done, for I should
have bowed and stammered through the whole of it. " He afterward explained
his seeming inattention, by saying that his mind was completely occupied
about his play, and by fears lest Johnson, in his present state of royal
excitement, would fail to furnish the much-desired prologue.

How natural and truthful is this explanation. Yet Boswell presumes to
pronounce Goldsmith's inattention affected and attributes it to jealousy.
"It was strongly suspected," says he, "that he was fretting with chagrin
and envy at the singular honor Dr. Johnson had lately enjoyed. " It needed
the littleness of mind of Boswell to ascribe such pitiful motives to
Goldsmith, and to entertain such exaggerated notions of the honor paid to
Dr. Johnson.

The Good-Natured Man was now ready for performance, but the question was
how to get it upon the stage. The affairs of Covent Garden, for which it
had been intended, were thrown into confusion by the recent death of Rich,
the manager. Drury Lane was under the management of Garrick, but a feud, it
will be recollected, existed between him and the poet, from the
animadversions of the latter on the mismanagement of theatrical affairs,
and the refusal of the former to give the poet his vote for the
secretaryship of the Society of Arts. Times, however, were changed.
Goldsmith when that feud took place was an anonymous writer, almost unknown
to fame, and of no circulation in society. Now he had become a literary
lion; he was a member of the Literary Club; he was the associate of
Johnson, Burke, Topham Beauclerc, and other magnates; in a word, he had
risen to consequence in the public eye, and of course was of consequence in
the eyes of David Garrick. Sir Joshua Reynolds saw the lurking scruples of
pride existing between the author and actor, and thinking it a pity that
two men of such congenial talents, and who might be so serviceable to each
other, should be kept asunder by a worn-out pique, exerted his friendly
offices to bring them together. The meeting took place in Reynolds' house
in Leicester Square. Garrick, however, could not entirely put off the mock
majesty of the stage; he meant to be civil, but he was rather too gracious
and condescending. Tom Davies, in his Life of Garrick, gives an amusing
picture of the coming together of these punctilious parties. "The manager,"
says he, "was fully conscious of his (Goldsmith's) merit, and perhaps more
ostentatious of his abilities to serve a dramatic author than became a man
of his prudence; Goldsmith was, on his side, as fully persuaded of his own
importance and independent greatness. Mr. Garrick, who had so long been
treated with the complimentary language paid to a successful patentee and
admired actor, expected that the writer would esteem the patronage of his
play a favor; Goldsmith rejected all ideas of kindness in a bargain that
was intended to be of mutual advantage to both parties, and in this he was
certainly justifiable; Mr. Garrick could reasonably expect no thanks for
the acting a new play, which he would have rejected if he had not been
convinced it would have amply rewarded his pains and expense. I believe the
manager was willing to accept the play, but he wished to be courted to it;
and the doctor was not disposed to purchase his friendship by the
resignation of his sincerity. " They separated, however, with an
understanding on the part of Goldsmith that his play would be acted. The
conduct of Garrick subsequently proved evasive, not through any lingerings
of past hostility, but from habitual indecision in matters of the kind, and
from real scruples of delicacy. He did not think the piece likely to
succeed on the stage, and avowed that opinion to Reynolds and Johnson; but
hesitated to say as much to Goldsmith, through fear of wounding his
feelings. A further misunderstanding was the result of this want of
decision and frankness; repeated interviews and some correspondence took
place without bringing matters to a point, and in the meantime the
theatrical season passed away.

Goldsmith's pocket, never well supplied, suffered grievously by this delay,
and he considered himself entitled to call upon the manager, who still
talked of acting the play, to advance him forty pounds upon a note of the
younger Newbery. Garrick readily complied, but subsequently suggested
certain important alterations in the comedy as indispensable to its
success; these were indignantly rejected by the author, but pertinaciously
insisted on by the manager. Garrick proposed to leave the matter to the
arbitration of Whitehead, the laureate, who officiated as his "reader" and
elbow critic. Goldsmith was more indignant than ever, and a violent dispute
ensued, which was only calmed by the interference of Burke and Reynolds.

Just at this time, order came out of confusion in the affairs of Covent
Garden. A pique having risen between Colman and Garrick, in the course of
their joint authorship of The Clandestine Marriage, the former had become
manager and part proprietor of Covent Garden, and was preparing to open a
powerful competition with his former colleague. On hearing of this,
Goldsmith made overtures to Colman; who, without waiting to consult his
fellow proprietors, who were absent, gave instantly a favorable reply.
Goldsmith felt the contrast of this warm, encouraging conduct, to the
chilling delays and objections of Garrick. He at once abandoned his piece
to the discretion of Colman. "Dear sir," says he in a letter dated Temple
Garden Court, July 9th, "I am very much obliged to you for your kind
partiality in my favor, and your tenderness in shortening the interval of
my expectation. That the play is liable to many objections I well know, but
I am happy that it is in hands the most capable in the world of removing
them. If then, dear sir, you will complete your favor by putting the piece
into such a state as it may be acted, or of directing me how to do it, I
shall ever retain a sense of your goodness to me. And indeed, though most
probably this be the last I shall ever write, yet I can't help feeling a
secret satisfaction that poets for the future are likely to have a
protector who declines taking advantage of their dreadful situation; and
scorns that importance which may be acquired by trifling with their
anxieties. "

The next day Goldsmith wrote to Garrick, who was at Lichfield, informing
him of his having transferred his piece to Covent Garden, for which it had
been originally written, and by the patentee of which it was claimed,
observing, "As I found you had very great difficulties about that piece, I
complied with his desire. . .