" Any one else, knowing the
character
and habits of
Johnson, would have thought the same; and no one but Boswell would have
supposed his office of bear-leader to the ursa major a thing to be envied.
Johnson, would have thought the same; and no one but Boswell would have
supposed his office of bear-leader to the ursa major a thing to be envied.
Oliver Goldsmith
" asked Paoli.
"Yes," replied
Goldsmith, "all our _happy_ revolutions. They have hurt our
constitution, and _will_ hurt it, till we mend it by another HAPPY
REVOLUTION. " This was a sturdy sally of Jacobitism that quite surprised
Boswell, but must have been relished by Johnson.
General Paoli mentioned a passage in the play, which had been construed
into a compliment to a lady of distinction, whose marriage with the Duke of
Cumberland had excited the strong disapprobation of the king as a
mesalliance. Boswell, to draw Goldsmith out, pretended to think the
compliment unintentional. The poet smiled and hesitated. The general came
to his relief. "Monsieur Goldsmith," said he, "est comme la mer, qui jette
des perles et beaucoup d'autres belles choses, sans s'en appercevoir" (Mr.
Goldsmith is like the sea, which casts forth pearls and many other
beautiful things without perceiving it).
"Très-bien dit, et très-elegamment" (very well said, and very elegantly),
exclaimed Goldsmith; delighted with so beautiful a compliment from such a
quarter.
Johnson spoke disparagingly of the learning of a Mr. Harris, of Salisbury,
and doubted his being a good Grecian. "He is what is much better," cried
Goldsmith, with a prompt good-nature, "he is a worthy, humane man. " "Nay,
sir," rejoined the logical Johnson, "that is not to the purpose of our
argument; that will prove that he can play upon the fiddle as well as
Giardini, as that he is an eminent Grecian. " Goldsmith found he had got
into a scrape, and seized upon Giardini to help him out of it. "The
greatest musical performers," said he, dexterously turning the
conversation, "have but small emoluments; Giardini, I am told, does not get
above seven hundred a year. " "That is indeed but little for a man to get,"
observed Johnson, "who does best that which so many endeavor to do. There
is nothing, I think, in which the power of art is shown so much as in
playing on the fiddle. In all other things we can do something at first.
Any man will forge a bar of iron, if you give him a hammer; not so well as
a smith, but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of wood, and make a box,
though a clumsy one; but give him a fiddle and fiddlestick, and he can do
nothing. "
This, upon the whole, though reported by the one-sided Boswell, is a
tolerable specimen of the conversations of Goldsmith and Johnson; the
farmer heedless, often illogical, always on the kind-hearted side of the
question, and prone to redeem himself by lucky hits; the latter closely
argumentative, studiously sententious, often profound, and sometimes
laboriously prosaic.
They had an argument a few days later at Mr. Thrale's table, on the subject
of suicide. "Do you think, sir," said Boswell, "that all who commit suicide
are mad? " "Sir," replied Johnson, "they are not often universally
disordered in their intellects, but one passion presses so upon them that
they yield to it, and commit suicide, as a passionate man will stab
another. I have often thought," added he, "that after a man has taken the
resolution to kill himself, it is not courage in him to do anything,
however desperate, because he has nothing to fear. " "I don't see that,"
observed Goldsmith. "Nay, but, my dear sir," rejoined Johnson, "why should
you not see what every one else does? " "It is," replied Goldsmith, "for
fear of something that he has resolved to kill himself; and will not that
timid disposition restrain him? " "It does not signify," pursued Johnson,
"that the fear of something made him resolve; it is upon the state of his
mind, after the resolution is taken, that I argue. Suppose a man, either
from fear, or pride, or conscience, or whatever motive, has resolved to
kill himself; when once the resolution is taken he has nothing to fear. He
may then go and take the King of Prussia by the nose at the head of his
army. He cannot fear the rack who is determined to kill himself. " Boswell
reports no more of the discussion, though Goldsmith might have continued it
with advantage; for the very timid disposition, which, through fear of
something, was impelling the man to commit suicide, might restrain him from
an act involving the punishment of the rack, more terrible to him than
death itself.
It is to be regretted in all these reports by Boswell we have scarcely
anything but the remarks of Johnson; it is only by accident that he now and
then gives us the observations of others, when they are necessary to
explain or set off those of his hero. "When in _that presence_," says
Miss Burney, "he was unobservant, if not contemptuous of every one else. In
truth, when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly forbore even answering
anything that was said, or attending to anything that went forward, lest he
should miss the smallest sound from that voice, to which he paid such
exclusive, though merited, homage. But the moment that voice burst forth,
the attention which it excited on Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain. His
eyes goggled with eagerness; he leaned his ear almost on the shoulder of
the doctor; and his mouth dropped open to catch every syllable that might
be uttered; nay, he seemed not only to dread losing a word, but to be
anxious not to miss a breathing; as if hoping from it latently, or
mystically, some information. "
On one occasion the doctor detected Boswell, or Bozzy, as he called him,
eavesdropping behind his chair, as he was conversing with Miss Burney at
Mr. Thrale's table. "What are you doing there, sir? " cried he, turning
round angrily, and clapping his hand upon his knee. "Go to the table, sir. "
Boswell obeyed with an air of affright and submission, which raised a smile
on every face. Scarce had he taken his seat, however, at a distance, than,
impatient to get again at the side of Johnson, he rose and was running off
in quest of something to show him, when the doctor roared after him
authoritatively, "What are you thinking of, sir? Why do you get up before
the cloth is removed? Come back to your place, sir"--and the obsequious
spaniel did as he was commanded. "Running about in the middle of meals! "
muttered the doctor, pursing his mouth at the same time to restrain his
rising risibility.
Boswell got another rebuff from Johnson, which would have demolished any
other man. He had been teasing him with many direct questions, such as What
did you do, sir? What did you say, sir? until the great philologist became
perfectly enraged. "I will not be put to the _question! _" roared he.
"Don't you consider, sir, that these are not the manners of a gentleman? I
will not be baited with _what_ and _why;_ What is this? What is
that? Why is a cow's tail long? Why is a fox's tail bushy? " "Why,
sir," replied pil-garlick, "you are so good that I venture to trouble you,"
"Sir," replied Johnson, "my being so _good_ is no reason why you
should be so _ill_. " "You have but two topics, sir," exclaimed he on
another occasion, "yourself and me, and I am sick of both. "
Boswell's inveterate disposition to _toad_ was a sore cause of
mortification to his father, the old laird of Auchinleck (or Affleck). He
had been annoyed by his extravagant devotion to Paoli, but then he was
something of a military hero; but this tagging at the heels of Dr. Johnson,
whom he considered a kind of pedagogue, set his Scotch blood in a ferment.
"There's nae hope for Jamie, mon," said he to a friend; "Jamie is gaen
clean gyte. What do you think, mon? He's done wi' Paoli; he's off wi' the
land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican; and whose tail do you think he has
pinn'd himself to now, mon? A _dominie_ mon; an auld dominie: he
keeped a schule, and cau'd it an acaadamy. "
We shall show in the next chapter that Jamie's devotion to the dominie did
not go unrewarded.
CHAPTER FORTY
CHANGES IN THE LITERARY CLUB--JOHNSON'S OBJECTION TO GARRICK--ELECTION OP
BOSWELL
The Literary Club (as we have termed the club in Gerard Street, though it
took that name some time later) had now been in existence several years.
Johnson was exceedingly chary at first of its exclusiveness, and opposed to
its being augmented in number. Not long after its institution, Sir Joshua
Reynolds was speaking of it to Garrick. "I like it much," said little
David, briskly; "I think I shall be of you. " "When Sir Joshua mentioned
this to Dr. Johnson," says Boswell, "he was much displeased with the
actor's conceit. '_He'll be of us? _' growled he. 'How does he know we
will _permit_ him? The first duke in England has no right to hold such
language. '"
When Sir John Hawkins spoke favorably of Garrick's pretensions, "Sir,"
replied Johnson, "he will disturb us by his buffoonery. " In the same spirit
he declared to Mr. Thrale that if Garrick should apply for admission he
would blackball him. "Who, sir? " exclaimed Thrale, with surprise; "Mr.
Garrick--your friend, your companion--blackball him! " "Why, sir," replied
Johnson, "I love my little David dearly--better than all or any of his
flatterers do; but surely one ought to sit in a society like ours,
"'Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player. '"
The exclusion from the club was a sore mortification to Garrick, though he
bore it without complaining. He could not help continually to ask questions
about it--what was going on there--whether he was ever the subject of
conversation. By degrees the rigor of the club relaxed: some of the members
grew negligent. Beauclerc lost his right of membership by neglecting to
attend. On his marriage, however, with Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of the
Duke of Marlborough, and recently divorced from Viscount Bolingbroke, he
had claimed and regained his seat in the club. The number of members had
likewise been augmented. The proposition to increase it originated with
Goldsmith. "It would give," he thought, "an agreeable variety to their
meetings; for there can be nothing new among us," said he; "we have
traveled over each other's minds. " Johnson was piqued at the suggestion.
"Sir," said he, "you have not traveled over my mind, I promise you. " Sir
Joshua, less confident in the exhaustless fecundity of his mind, felt and
acknowledged the force of Goldsmith's suggestion. Several new members,
therefore, had been added; the first, to his great joy, was David Garrick.
Goldsmith, who was now on cordial terms with him, had zealously promoted
his election, and Johnson had given it his warm approbation. Another new
member was Beauclerc's friend, Lord Charlemont; and a still more important
one was Mr. , afterward Sir William Jones, the famous Orientalist, at that
time a young lawyer of the Temple and a distinguished scholar.
To the great astonishment of the club, Johnson now proposed his devoted
follower, Boswell, as a member. He did it in a note addressed to Goldsmith,
who presided on the evening of the 23d of April. The nomination was
seconded by Beauclerc. According to the rules of the club, the ballot would
take place at the next meeting (on the 30th); there was an intervening
week, therefore, in which to discuss the pretensions of the candidate. We
may easily imagine the discussions that took place. Boswell had made
himself absurd in such a variety of ways, that the very idea of his
admission was exceedingly irksome to some of the members. "The honor of
being elected into the Turk's Head Club," said the Bishop of St. Asaph, "is
not inferior to that of being representative of Westminster and Surrey. "
What had Boswell done to merit such an honor? What chance had he of gaining
it? The answer was simple: he had been the persevering worshiper, if not
sycophant of Johnson. The great lexicographer had a heart to be won by
apparent affection; he stood forth authoritatively in support of his
vassal. If asked to state the merits of the candidate, he summed them up in
an indefinite but comprehensive word of his own coining; he was
_clubable_. He moreover gave significant hints that if Boswell were
kept out he should oppose the admission of any other candidate. No further
opposition was made; in fact none of the members had been so fastidious and
exclusive in regard to the club as Johnson himself; and if he were pleased,
they were easily satisfied; besides, they knew that, with all his faults,
Boswell was a cheerful companion, and possessed lively social qualities.
On Friday, when the ballot was to take place, Beauclerc gave a dinner, at
his house in the Adelphi, where Boswell met several of the members who were
favorable to his election. After dinner the latter adjourned to the club,
leaving Boswell in company with Lady Di Beauclerc until the fate of his
election should be known. He sat, he says, in a state of anxiety which even
the charming conversation of Lady Di could not entirely dissipate. It was
not long before tidings were brought of his election, and he was conducted
to the place of meeting, where, besides the company he had met at dinner,
Burke, Dr. Nugent, Garrick, Goldsmith, and Mr. William Jones were waiting
to receive him. The club, notwithstanding all its learned dignity in the
eyes of the world, could at times "unbend and play the fool" as well as
less important bodies. Some of its jocose conversations have at times
leaked out, and a society in which Goldsmith could venture to sing his song
of "an old woman tossed in a blanket," could not be so very staid in its
gravity. We may suppose, therefore, the jokes that had been passing among
the members while awaiting the arrival of Boswell. Beauclerc himself could
not have repressed his disposition for a sarcastic pleasantry. At least we
have a right to presume all this from the conduct of Dr. Johnson himself.
With all his gravity he possessed a deep fund of quiet humor, and felt a
kind of whimsical responsibility to protect the club from the absurd
propensities of the very questionable associate he had thus inflicted on
them. Rising, therefore, as Boswell entered, he advanced with a very
doctorial air, placed himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a
desk or pulpit, and then delivered, _ex cathedra_, a mock solemn
charge, pointing out the conduct expected from him as a good member of the
club; what he was to do, and especially what he was to avoid; including in
the latter, no doubt, all those petty, prying, questioning, gossiping,
babbling habits which had so often grieved the spirit of the lexicographer.
It is to be regretted that Boswell has never thought proper to note down
the particulars of this charge, which, from the well known characters and
positions of the parties, might have furnished a parallel to the noted
charge of Launcelot Gobbo to his dog.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
DINNER AT THE DILLYS'--CONVERSATIONS ON NATURAL HISTORY--INTERMEDDLING OF
BOSWELL--DISPUTE ABOUT TOLERATION--JOHNSON'S REBUFF TO GOLDSMITH--HIS
APOLOGY--MAN-WORSHIP--DOCTORS MAJOR AND MINOR--A FAREWELL VISIT
A few days after the serio-comic scene of the elevation of Boswell into the
Literary Club, we find that indefatigable Biographer giving particulars of
a dinner at the Dillys', booksellers, in the Poultry, at which he met
Goldsmith and Johnson, with several other literary characters. His
anecdotes of the conversation, of course, go to glorify Dr. Johnson; for,
as he observes in his biography, "His conversation alone, or what led to
it, or was interwoven with it, is the business of this work. " Still on the
present, as on other occasions, he gives unintentional and perhaps
unavoidable gleams of Goldsmith's good sense, which show that the latter
only wanted a less prejudiced and more impartial reporter to put down the
charge of colloquial incapacity so unjustly fixed upon him. The
conversation turned upon the natural history of birds, a beautiful subject,
on which the poet, from his recent studies, his habits of observation, and
his natural tastes, must have talked with instruction and feeling; yet,
though we have much of what Johnson said, we have only a casual remark or
two of Goldsmith. One was on the migration of swallows, which he pronounced
partial; "the stronger ones," said he, "migrate, the others do not. "
Johnson denied to the brute creation the faculty of reason. "Birds," said
he, "build by instinct; they never improve; they build their first nest as
well as any one they ever build. " "Yet we see," observed Goldsmith, "if you
take away a bird's nest with the eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest
and lay again. " "Sir," replied Johnson, "that is because at first she has
full time, and makes her nest deliberately. In the case you mention, she is
pressed to lay, and must, therefore, make her nest quickly, and
consequently it will be slight. " "The nidification of birds," rejoined
Goldsmith, "is what is least known in natural history, though one of the
most curious things in it. " While conversation was going on in this
placid, agreeable and instructive manner, the eternal meddler and busybody
Boswell, must intrude, to put it in a brawl. The Dillys were dissenters;
two of their guests were dissenting clergymen; another, Mr. Toplady, was a
clergyman of the established church. Johnson, himself, was a zealous,
uncompromising churchman. None but a marplot like Boswell would have
thought, on such an occasion, and in such company, to broach the subject of
religious toleration; but, as has been well observed, "it was his perverse
inclination to introduce subjects that he hoped would produce difference
and debate. " In the present instance he gamed his point. An animated
dispute immediately arose in which, according to Boswell's report, Johnson
monopolized the greater part of the conversation; not always treating the
dissenting clergymen with the greatest courtesy, and even once wounding the
feelings of the mild and amiable Bennet Langton by his harshness.
Goldsmith mingled a little in the dispute and with some advantage, but was
cut short by flat contradictions when most in the right. He sat for a time
silent but impatient under such overbearing dogmatism, though Boswell, with
his usual misinterpretation, attributes his "restless agitation" to a wish
to _get in and shine_. "Finding himself excluded," continued Boswell,
"he had taken his hat to go away, but remained for a time with it in his
hand, like a gamester, who, at the end of a long night, lingers for a
little while to see if he can have a favorable opportunity to finish with
success. " Once he was beginning to speak when he was overpowered by the
loud voice of Johnson, who was at the opposite end of the table, and did
not perceive his attempt; whereupon he threw down, as it were, his hat and
his argument, and, darting an angry glance at Johnson, exclaimed in a
bitter tone, "_Take it. _"
Just then one of the disputants was beginning to speak, when Johnson
uttering some sound, as if about to interrupt him, Goldsmith, according to
Boswell, seized the opportunity to vent his own _envy and spleen_
under pretext of supporting another person. "Sir," said he to Johnson, "the
gentleman has heard you patiently for an hour; pray allow us now to hear
him. " It was a reproof in the lexicographer's own style, and he may have
felt that he merited it; but he was not accustomed to be reproved. "Sir,"
said he sternly, "I was not interrupting the gentleman; I was only giving
him a signal of my attention. Sir, _you are impertinent_. " Goldsmith
made no reply, but after some time went away, having another engagement.
That evening, as Boswell was on the way with Johnson and Langton to the
club, he seized the occasion to make some disparaging remarks on Goldsmith,
which he thought would just then be acceptable to the great lexicographer.
"It was a pity," he said, "that Goldsmith would, on every occasion,
endeavor to shine, by which he so often exposed himself. " Langton
contrasted him with Addison, who, content with the fame of his writings,
acknowledged himself unfit for conversation; and on being taxed by a lady
with silence in company, replied, "Madam, I have but ninepence in ready
money, but I can draw for a thousand pounds. " To this Boswell rejoined that
Goldsmith had a great deal of gold in his cabinet, but was always taking
out his purse. "Yes, sir," chuckled Johnson, "and that so often an empty
purse. "
By the time Johnson arrived at the club, however, his angry feelings had
subsided, and his native generosity and sense of justice had got the
uppermost. He found Goldsmith in company with Burke, Garrick, and other
members, but sitting silent and apart, "brooding," as Boswell says, "over
the reprimand he had received. " Johnson's good heart yearned toward him;
and knowing his placable nature, "I'll make Goldsmith forgive me,"
whispered he; then, with a loud voice, "Dr. Goldsmith," said he, "something
passed to-day where you and I dined--_I ask your pardon_. " The ire of
the poet was extinguished in an instant, and his grateful affection for the
magnanimous though sometimes overbearing moralist rushed to his heart. "It
must be much from you, sir," said he, "that I take ill! " "And so," adds
Boswell, "the difference was over, and they were on as easy terms as ever,
and Goldsmith rattled away as usual. " We do not think these stories tell to
the poet's disadvantage, even though related by Boswell.
Goldsmith, with all his modesty, could not be ignorant of his proper merit;
and must have felt annoyed at times at being undervalued and elbowed aside
by light-minded or dull men, in their blind and exclusive homage to the
literary autocrat. It was a fine reproof he gave to Boswell on one
occasion, for talking of Johnson as entitled to the honor of exclusive
superiority. "Sir, you are for making a monarchy what should be a
republic. " On another occasion, when he was conversing in company with
great vivacity, and apparently to the satisfaction of those around him, an
honest Swiss, who sat near, one George Michael Moser, keeper of the Royal
Academy, perceiving Dr. Johnson rolling himself as if about to speak,
exclaimed, "Stay, stay! Toctor Shonson is going to say something. " "And are
you sure, sir," replied Goldsmith, sharply, "that _you_ can comprehend
what he says? "
This clever rebuke, which gives the main zest to the anecdote, is omitted
by Boswell, who probably did not perceive the point of it.
He relates another anecdote of the kind, on the authority of Johnson
himself. The latter and Goldsmith were one evening in company with the Rev.
George Graham, a master of Eton, who, notwithstanding the sobriety of his
cloth, had got intoxicated "to about the pitch of looking at one man and
talking to another. " "Doctor," cried he in an ecstasy of devotion and
good-will, but goggling by mistake upon Goldsmith, "I should be glad to see
you at Eton. " "I shall be glad to wait upon you," replied Goldsmith. "No,
no! " cried the other eagerly, "'tis not you I mean, Doctor _Minor_,
'tis Doctor _Major_ there. " "You may easily conceive," said Johnson in
relating the anecdote, "what effect this had upon Goldsmith, who was
irascible as a hornet. " The only comment, however, which he is said to have
made, partakes more of quaint and dry humor than bitterness: "That Graham,"
said he, "is enough to make one commit suicide. " What more could be said to
express the intolerable nuisance of a consummate bore?
We have now given the last scenes between Goldsmith and Johnson which stand
recorded by Boswell. The latter called on the poet a few days after the
dinner at Dillys', to take leave of him prior to departing for Scotland;
yet, even in this last interview, he contrives to get up a charge of
"jealousy and envy. " Goldsmith, he would fain persuade us, is very angry
that Johnson is going to travel with him in Scotland; and endeavors to
persuade him that he will be a dead weight "to lug along through the
Highlands and Hebrides.
" Any one else, knowing the character and habits of
Johnson, would have thought the same; and no one but Boswell would have
supposed his office of bear-leader to the ursa major a thing to be envied.
[Footnote: One of Peter Pindar's (Dr. Wolcot) most amusing _jeux
d'esprit_ is his congratulatory epistle to Boswell on his tour, of which
we subjoin a few lines.
"O Boswell, Bozzy, Bruce, whate'er thy name,
Thou mighty shark for anecdote and fame;
Thou jackal, leading lion Johnson forth,
To eat M'Pherson 'midst his native north;
To frighten grave professors with his roar,
And shake the Hebrides from shore to shore.
* * * * *
"Bless'd be thy labors, most adventurous Bozzy,
Bold rival of Sir John and Dame Piozzi;
Heavens! with what laurels shall thy head be crown'd!
A grove, a forest, shall thy ears surround!
Yes! whilst the Rambler shall a comet blaze,
And gild a world of darkness with his rays,
Thee, too, that world with wonderment shall hail,
A lively, bouncing cracker at his tail! "]
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
PROJECT OF A DICTIONARY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES--DISAPPOINTMENT--NEGLIGENT
AUTHORSHIP--APPLICATION FOR A PENSION--BEATTIE'S ESSAY ON TRUTH--PUBLIC
ADULATION--A HIGH-MINDED REBUKE
The works which Goldsmith had still in hand being already paid for, and the
money gone, some new scheme must be devised to provide for the past and the
future--for impending debts which threatened to crush him, and expenses
which were continually increasing. He now projected a work of greater
compass than any he had yet undertaken; a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences
on a comprehensive scale, which was to occupy a number of volumes. For this
he received promises of assistance from several powerful hands. Johnson was
to contribute an article on ethics; Burke, an abstract of his Essay on the
Sublime and Beautiful, an essay on the Berkleyan system of philosophy, and
others on political science; Sir Joshua Reynolds, an essay on painting; and
Garrick, while he undertook on his own part to furnish an essay on acting,
engaged Dr. Burney to contribute an article on music. Here was a great
array of talent positively engaged, while other writers of eminence were to
be sought for the various departments of science. Goldsmith was to edit the
whole. An undertaking of this kind, while it did not incessantly task and
exhaust his inventive powers by original composition, would give agreeable
and profitable exercise to his taste and judgment in selecting, compiling,
and arranging, and he calculated to diffuse over the whole the acknowledged
graces of his style.
He drew up a prospectus of the plan, which is said by Bishop Percy, who saw
it, to have been written with uncommon ability, and to have had that
perspicuity and elegance for which his writings are remarkable. This paper,
unfortunately, is no longer in existence.
Goldsmith's expectations, always sanguine respecting any new plan, were
raised to an extraordinary height by the present project; and well they
might be, when we consider the powerful coadjutors already pledged. They
were doomed, however, to complete disappointment. Davies, the bibliopole of
Russell Street, lets us into the secret of this failure. "The booksellers,"
said he, "notwithstanding they had a very good opinion of his abilities,
yet were startled at the bulk, importance, and expense of so great an
undertaking, the fate of which was to depend upon the industry of a man
with whose indolence of temper and method of procrastination they had long
been acquainted. "
Goldsmith certainly gave reason for some such distrust by the heedlessness
with which he conducted his literary undertakings. Those unfinished, but
paid for, would be suspended to make way for some job that was to provide
for present necessities. Those thus hastily taken up would be as hastily
executed, and the whole, however pressing, would be shoved aside and left
"at loose ends," on some sudden call to social enjoyment or recreation.
Cradock tells us that on one occasion, when Goldsmith was hard at work on
his Natural History, he sent to Dr. Percy and himself, entreating them to
finish some pages of his work which lay upon his table, and for which the
press was urgent, he being detained by other engagements at Windsor. They
met by appointment at his chambers in the Temple, where they found
everything in disorder, and costly books lying scattered about on the
tables and on the floor; many of the books on natural history which he had
recently consulted lay open among uncorrected proof-sheets. The subject in
hand, and from which he had suddenly broken off, related to birds. "Do you
know anything about birds? " asked Dr. Percy, smiling. "Not an atom,"
replied Cradock; "do you? " "Not I! I scarcely know a goose from a swan:
however, let us try what we can do. " They set to work and completed their
friendly task. Goldsmith, however, when he came to revise it, made such
alterations that they could neither of them recognize their own share. The
engagement at Windsor, which had thus caused Goldsmith to break off
suddenly from his multifarious engagements, was a party of pleasure with
some literary ladies. Another anecdote was current, illustrative of the
carelessness with which he executed works requiring accuracy and research.
On the 22d of June he had received payment in advance for a Grecian History
in two volumes, though only one was finished. As he was pushing on doggedly
at the second volume, Gibbon, the historian, called in. "You are the man of
all others I wish to see," cried the poet, glad to be saved the trouble of
reference to his books. "What was the name of that Indian king who gave
Alexander the Great so much trouble? " "Montezuma," replied Gibbon,
sportively. The heedless author was about committing the name to paper
without reflection, when Gibbon pretended to recollect himself, and gave
the true name, Porus.
This story, very probably, was a sportive exaggeration; but it was a
multiplicity of anecdotes like this and the preceding one, some true and
some false, which had impaired the confidence of booksellers in Goldsmith,
as a man to be relied on for a task requiring wide and accurate research,
and close and long-continued application. The project of the Universal
Dictionary, therefore, met with no encouragement, and fell through.
The failure of this scheme, on which he had built such spacious hopes, sank
deep into Goldsmith's heart. He was still further grieved and mortified by
the failure of an effort made by some of his friends to obtain for him a
pension from government. There had been a talk of the disposition of the
ministry to extend the bounty of the crown to distinguished literary men in
pecuniary difficulty, without regard to their political creed: when the
merits and claims of Goldsmith, however, were laid before them, they met no
favor. The sin of sturdy independence lay at his door. He had refused to
become a ministerial hack when offered a _carte blanche_ by Parson,
Scott, the cabinet emissary. The wondering parson had left him his poverty
and "_his garrets_" and there the ministry were disposed to suffer him
to remain.
In the meantime Dr. Beattie comes out with his Essay On Truth, and all the
orthodox world are thrown into a paroxysm of contagious ecstasy. He is
cried up as the great champion of Christianity against the attacks of
modern philosophers and infidels; he is feted and flattered in every way.
He receives at Oxford the honorary degree of doctor of civil law, at the
same time with Sir Joshua Reynolds. The king sends for him, praises his
Essay, and gives him a pension of two hundred pounds.
Goldsmith feels more acutely the denial of a pension to himself when one
has thus been given unsolicited to a man he might without vanity consider
so much his inferior. He was not one to conceal his feelings. "Here's such
a stir," said he one day at Thrale's table, "about a fellow that has
written one book, and I have written so many! "
"Ah, doctor! " exclaimed Johnson, in one of his caustic moods, "there go two
and forty sixpences, you know, to one guinea. " This is one of the cuts at
poor Goldsmith in which Johnson went contrary to head and heart in his love
for saying what is called a "good thing. " No one knew better than himself
the comparative superiority of the writings of Goldsmith; but the jingle of
the sixpences and the guinea was not to be resisted.
"Everybody," exclaimed Mrs. Thrale, "loves Dr. Beattie, but Goldsmith, who
says he cannot bear the sight of so much applause as they all bestow upon
him. Did he not tell us so himself no one would believe he was so
exceedingly ill-natured. "
He told them so himself because he was too open and unreserved to disguise
his feelings, and because he really considered the praise lavished on
Beattie extravagant, as in fact it was. It was all, of course, set down to
sheer envy and uncharitableness. To add to his annoyance, he found his
friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds, joining in the universal adulation. He had
painted a full-length portrait of Beattie decked in the doctor's robes in
which he had figured at Oxford, with the Essay on Truth under his arm and
the angel of truth at his side, while Voltaire figured as one of the demons
of infidelity, sophistry, and falsehood, driven into utter darkness.
Goldsmith had known Voltaire in early life; he had been his admirer and his
biographer; he grieved to find him receiving such an insult from the
classic pencil of his friend. "It is unworthy of you," said he to Sir
Joshua, "to debase so high a genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as
Beattie. Beattie and his book will be forgotten in ten years, while
Voltaire's fame will last forever. Take care it does not perpetuate this
picture to the shame of such a man as you. " This noble and high-minded
rebuke is the only instance on record of any reproachful words between the
poet and the painter; and we are happy to find that it did not destroy the
harmony of their intercourse.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
TOIL WITHOUT HOPE--THE POET IN THE GREEN-ROOM--IN THE FLOWER GARDEN--AT
VAUXHALL--DISSIPATION WITHOUT GAYETY--CRADOCK IN TOWN--FRIENDLY SYMPATHY--A
PARTING SCENE--AN INVITATION TO PLEASURE
Thwarted in the plans and disappointed in the hopes which had recently
cheered and animated him, Goldsmith found the labor at his half-finished
tasks doubly irksome from the consciousness that the completion of them
could not relieve him from his pecuniary embarrassments. His impaired
health, also, rendered him less capable than formerly of sedentary
application, and continual perplexities disturbed the flow of thought
necessary for original composition. He lost his usual gayety and
good-humor, and became, at times, peevish and irritable. Too proud of
spirit to seek sympathy or relief from his friends, for the pecuniary
difficulties he had brought upon himself by his errors and extravagance;
and unwilling, perhaps, to make known their amount, he buried his cares and
anxieties in his own bosom, and endeavored in company to keep up his usual
air of gayety and unconcern. This gave his conduct an appearance of
fitfulness and caprice, varying suddenly from moodiness to mirth, and from
silent gravity to shallow laughter; causing surprise and ridicule in those
who were not aware of the sickness of heart which lay beneath.
His poetical reputation, too, was sometimes a disadvantage to him; it drew
upon him a notoriety which he was not always in the mood or the vein to act
up to. "Good heavens, Mr. Foote," exclaimed an actress at the Haymarket
Theater, "what a humdrum kind of man Dr. Goldsmith appears in our
green-room compared with the figure he makes in his poetry! " "The reason of
that, madam," replied Foote, "is because the muses are better company than
the players. "
Beauclerc's letters to his friend, Lord Charlemont, who was absent in
Ireland, give us now and then an indication of the whereabout of the poet
during the present year. "I have been but once to the club since you left
England," writes he; "we were entertained, as usual, with Goldsmith's
absurdity. " With Beauclerc everything was absurd that was not polished and
pointed. In another letter he threatens, unless Lord Charlemont returns to
England, to bring over the whole club, and let them loose upon him to drive
him home by their peculiar habits of annoyance--Johnson shall spoil his
books; Goldsmith shall _pull his flowers;_ and last, and most
intolerable of all, Boswell shall--talk to him. It would appear that the
poet, who had a passion for flowers, was apt to pass much of his time in
the garden when on a visit to a country seat, much to the detriment of the
flowerbeds and the despair of the gardener.
The summer wore heavily away with Goldsmith. He had not his usual solace of
a country retreat; his health was impaired and his spirits depressed. Sir
Joshua Reynolds, who perceived the state of his mind, kindly gave him much
of his company. In the course of their interchange of thought, Goldsmith
suggested to him the story of Ugolino, as a subject for his pencil. The
painting founded on it remains a memento of their friendship.
On the 4th of August we find them together at Vauxhall; at that time a
place in high vogue, and which had once been to Goldsmith a scene of
Oriental splendor and delight. We have, in fact, in the Citizen of the
World, a picture of it as it had struck him in former years and in his
happier moods. "Upon entering the gardens," says the Chinese philosopher,
"I found every sense occupied with more than expected pleasure; the lights
everywhere glimmering through the scarcely-moving trees; the full-bodied
concert bursting on the stillness of the night; the natural concert of the
birds in the more retired part of the grove, vying with that which was
formed by art; the company gayly dressed, looking satisfaction, and the
tables spread with various delicacies, all conspired to fill my imagination
with the visionary happiness of the Arabian lawgiver, and lifted me into an
ecstasy of admiration. " [Footnote: Citizen of the World, Letter xxi]
Everything now, however, is seen with different eyes; with him it is
dissipation without pleasure; and he finds it impossible any longer, by
mingling in the gay and giddy throng of apparently prosperous and happy
beings, to escape from the carking care which is clinging to his heart.
His kind friend, Cradock, came up to town toward autumn, when all the
fashionable world was in the country, to give his wife the benefit of a
skillful dentist. He took lodgings in Norfolk Street, to be in Goldsmith's
neighborhood, and passed most of his mornings with him. "I found him," he
says, "much altered and at times very low. He wished me to look over and
revise some of his works; but, with a select friend or two, I was more
pressing that he should publish by subscription his two celebrated poems of
the Traveler and the Deserted Village, with notes. " The idea of Cradock was
that the subscription would enable wealthy persons, favorable to Goldsmith,
to contribute to his pecuniary relief without wounding his pride.
"Goldsmith," said he, "readily gave up to me his private copies, and said,
'Pray do what you please with them. ' But while he sat near me, he rather
submitted to than encouraged my zealous proceedings.
"I one morning called upon him, however, and found him infinitely better
than I had expected; and, in a kind of exulting style, he exclaimed, 'Here
are some of the best of my prose writings; _I have been hard at work
since midnight,_ and I desire you to examine them. ' 'These,' said I,
'are excellent indeed. ' 'They are,' replied he, 'intended as an
introduction to a body of arts and sciences. '"
Poor Goldsmith was, in fact, gathering together the fragments of his
shipwreck; the notes and essays and memoranda collected for his dictionary,
and proposed to found on them a work in two volumes, to be entitled A
Survey of Experimental Philosophy.
The plan of the subscription came to nothing, and the projected survey
never was executed. The head might yet devise, but the heart was failing
him; his talent at hoping, which gave him buoyancy to carry out his
enterprises, was almost at an end.
Cradock's farewell scene with him is told in a simple but touching manner.
"The day before I was to set out for Leicestershire I insisted upon his
dining with us. He replied, 'I will, but on one condition, that you will
not ask me to eat anything. ' 'Nay,' said I, 'this answer is absolutely
unkind, for I had hoped, as we are supplied from the Crown and Anchor, that
you would have named something you might have relished. ' 'Well,' was the
reply, 'if you will but explain it to Mrs. Cradock, I will certainly wait
upon you. '
"The doctor found, as usual, at my apartments, newspapers and pamphlets,
and with a pen and ink he amused himself as well as he could. I had ordered
from the tavern some fish, a roasted joint of lamb, and a tart; and the
doctor either sat down or walked about just as he pleased. After dinner he
took some wine with biscuits; but I was obliged soon to leave him for a
while, as I had matters to settle prior to my next day's journey. On my
return coffee was ready, and the doctor appeared more cheerful (for Mrs.
Cradock was always rather a favorite with him), and in the evening he
endeavored to talk and remark as usual, but all was forced. He stayed till
midnight, and I insisted on seeing him safe home, and we most cordially
shook hands at the Temple gate. " Cradock little thought that this was to be
their final parting. He looked back to it with mournful recollections in
after years, and lamented that he had not remained longer in town at every
inconvenience, to solace the poor broken-spirited poet.
The latter continued in town all the autumn. At the opening of the Opera
House, on the 20th of November, Mrs. Yates, an actress whom he held in
great esteem, delivered a poetical exordium of his composition. Beauclerc,
in a letter to Lord Charlemont, pronounced it very good, and predicted that
it would soon be in all the papers. It does not appear, however, to have
been ever published. In his fitful state of mind Goldsmith may have taken
no care about it, and thus it has been lost to the world, although it was
received with great applause by a crowded and brilliant audience.
A gleam of sunshine breaks through the gloom that was gathering over the
poet. Toward the end of the year he receives another Christmas invitation
to Barton. A country Christmas! with all the cordiality of the fireside
circle, and the joyous revelry of the oaken hall--what a contrast to the
loneliness of a bachelor's chambers in the Temple! It is not to be
resisted. But how is poor Goldsmith to raise the ways and means? His purse
is empty; his booksellers are already in advance to him. As a last
resource, he applies to Garrick. Their mutual intimacy at Barton may have
suggested him as an alternative. The old loan of forty pounds has never
been paid; and Newbery's note, pledged as a security, has never been taken
up. An additional loan of sixty pounds is now asked for, thus increasing
the loan to one hundred; to insure the payment, he now offers, besides
Newbery's note, the transfer of the comedy of the Good-Natured Man to Drury
Lane, with such alterations as Garrick may suggest. Garrick, in reply,
evades the offer of the altered comedy, alludes significantly to a new one
which Goldsmith had talked of writing for him, and offers to furnish the
money required on his own acceptance.
The reply of Goldsmith bespeaks a heart brimful of gratitude and
overflowing with fond anticipations of Barton and the smiles of its fair
residents. "My dear friend," writes he, "I thank you. I wish I could do
something to serve you. I shall have a comedy for you in a season, or two
at furthest, that I believe will be worth your acceptance, for I fancy I
will make it a fine thing. You shall have the refusal. . . . I will draw upon
you one month after date for sixty pounds, and your acceptance will be
ready money, _part of which I want to go down to Barton with_. May God
preserve my honest little man, for he has my heart. Ever,
"OLIVER GOLDSMITH. "
And having thus scrambled together a little pocket-money, by hard
contrivance, poor Goldsmith turns his back upon care and trouble, and
Temple quarters, to forget for a time his desolate bachelorhood in the
family circle and a Christmas fireside at Barton.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
A RETURN TO DRUDGERY--FORCED GAYETY--RETREAT TO THE COUNTRY--THE POEM OF
RETALIATION--PORTRAIT OF GARRICK--OF GOLDSMITH--OF REYNOLDS--ILLNESS OF THE
POET--HIS DEATH--GRIEF OF HIS FRIENDS--A LAST WORD RESPECTING THE JESSAMY
BRIDE
The Barton festivities are over; Christmas, with all its home-felt revelry
of the heart, has passed like a dream; the Jessamy Bride has beamed her
last smile upon the poor poet, and the early part of 1774 finds him in his
now dreary bachelor abode in the Temple, toiling fitfully and hopelessly at
a multiplicity of tasks. His Animated Nature, so long delayed, so often
interrupted, is at length announced for publication, though it has yet to
receive a few finishing touches. He is preparing a third History of
England, to be compressed and condensed in one volume, for the use of
schools. He is revising his Inquiry into Polite Learning, for which he
receives the pittance of five guineas, much needed in his present
scantiness of purse; he is arranging his Survey of Experimental Philosophy,
and he is translating the Comic Romance of Scarron. Such is a part of the
various labors of a drudging, depressing kind, by which his head is made
wrong and his heart faint. "If there is a mental drudgery," says Sir Walter
Scott, "which lowers the spirits and lacerates the nerves, like the toil of
a slave, it is that which is exacted by literary composition, when the
heart is not in unison with the work upon which the head is employed. Add
to the unhappy author's task sickness, sorrow, or the pressure of
unfavorable circumstances, and the labor of the bondsman becomes light in
comparison. " Goldsmith again makes an effort to rally his spirits by going
into gay society. "Our club," writes Beauclerc to Charlemont, on the 12th
of February, "has dwindled away to nothing. Sir Joshua and Goldsmith have
got into such a round of pleasures that they have no time. " This shows how
little Beauclerc was the companion of the poet's mind, or could judge of
him below the surface. Reynolds, the kind participator in joyless
dissipation, could have told a different story of his companion's
heart-sick gayety.
In this forced mood Goldsmith gave entertainments in his chambers in the
Temple; the last of which was a dinner to Johnson, Reynolds, and others of
his intimates, who partook with sorrow and reluctance of his imprudent
hospitality. The first course vexed them by its needless profusion. When a
second, equally extravagant, was served up, Johnson and Reynolds declined
to partake of it; the rest of the company, understanding their motives,
followed their example, and the dishes went from the table untasted.
Goldsmith felt sensibly this silent and well-intended rebuke.
The gayeties of society, however, cannot medicine for any length of time a
mind diseased. Wearied by the distractions and harassed by the expenses of
a town life, which he had not the discretion to regulate, Goldsmith took
the resolution, too tardily adopted, of retiring to the serene quiet and
cheap and healthful pleasures of the country, and of passing only two
months of the year in London. He accordingly made arrangements to sell his
right in the Temple chambers, and in the month of March retired to his
country quarters at Hyde, there to devote himself to toil. At this
dispirited juncture, when inspiration seemed to be at an end, and the
poetic fire extinguished, a spark fell on his combustible imagination and
set it in a blaze.
He belonged to a temporary association of men of talent, some of them
members of the Literary Club, who dined together occasionally at the St.
James' Coffee-house. At these dinners, as usual, he was one of the last to
arrive. On one occasion, when he was more dilatory than usual, a whim
seized the company to write epitaphs on him, as "The late Dr. Goldsmith,"
and several were thrown off in a playful vein, hitting off his
peculiarities. The only one extant was written by Garrick, and has been
preserved, very probably, by its pungency:
"Here lies poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor poll. "
Goldsmith did not relish the sarcasm, especially as coming from such a
quarter. He was not very ready at repartee; but he took his time, and in
the interval of his various tasks concocted a series of epigrammatic
sketches, under the title of Retaliation, in which the characters of his
distinguished intimates were admirably hit off, with a mixture of generous
praise and good-humored raillery. In fact, the poem for its graphic truth;
its nice discrimination; its terse good sense, and its shrewd knowledge of
the world, must have electrified the club almost as much as the first
appearance of The Traveler, and let them still deeper into the character
and talents of the man they had been accustomed to consider as their butt.
Retaliation, in a word, closed his accounts with the club, and balanced all
his previous deficiencies.
The portrait of David Garrick is one of the most elaborate in the poem.
When the poet came to touch it off, he had some lurking piques to gratify,
which the recent attack had revived. He may have forgotten David's cavalier
treatment of him, in the early days of his comparative obscurity; he may
have forgiven his refusal of his plays; but Garrick had been capricious in
his conduct in the times of their recent intercourse; sometimes treating
him with gross familiarity, at other times affecting dignity and reserve,
and assuming airs of superiority; frequently he had been facetious and
witty in company at his expense, and lastly he had been guilty of the
couplet just quoted. Goldsmith, therefore, touched off the lights and
shadows of his character with a free hand, and, at the same time, gave a
side hit at his old rival, Kelly, and his critical persecutor, Kenrick, in
making them sycophantic satellites of the actor. Goldsmith, however, was
void of gall, even in his revenge, and his very satire was more humorous
than caustic:
"Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can,
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man;
As an actor, confess'd without rival to shine;
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line:
Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart.
The man had his failings, a dupe to his art.
Like an ill-judging beauty, his colors he spread,
And beplaster'd with rouge his own natural red.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
'Twas only that when he was off he was acting.
With no reason on earth to go out of his way,
He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day:
Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick
If they were not his own by finessing and trick:
He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew, when he pleased, he could whistle them back.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came,
And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame;
Till his relish, grown callous almost to disease,
Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.
But let us be candid, and speak out our mind,
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.
Goldsmith, "all our _happy_ revolutions. They have hurt our
constitution, and _will_ hurt it, till we mend it by another HAPPY
REVOLUTION. " This was a sturdy sally of Jacobitism that quite surprised
Boswell, but must have been relished by Johnson.
General Paoli mentioned a passage in the play, which had been construed
into a compliment to a lady of distinction, whose marriage with the Duke of
Cumberland had excited the strong disapprobation of the king as a
mesalliance. Boswell, to draw Goldsmith out, pretended to think the
compliment unintentional. The poet smiled and hesitated. The general came
to his relief. "Monsieur Goldsmith," said he, "est comme la mer, qui jette
des perles et beaucoup d'autres belles choses, sans s'en appercevoir" (Mr.
Goldsmith is like the sea, which casts forth pearls and many other
beautiful things without perceiving it).
"Très-bien dit, et très-elegamment" (very well said, and very elegantly),
exclaimed Goldsmith; delighted with so beautiful a compliment from such a
quarter.
Johnson spoke disparagingly of the learning of a Mr. Harris, of Salisbury,
and doubted his being a good Grecian. "He is what is much better," cried
Goldsmith, with a prompt good-nature, "he is a worthy, humane man. " "Nay,
sir," rejoined the logical Johnson, "that is not to the purpose of our
argument; that will prove that he can play upon the fiddle as well as
Giardini, as that he is an eminent Grecian. " Goldsmith found he had got
into a scrape, and seized upon Giardini to help him out of it. "The
greatest musical performers," said he, dexterously turning the
conversation, "have but small emoluments; Giardini, I am told, does not get
above seven hundred a year. " "That is indeed but little for a man to get,"
observed Johnson, "who does best that which so many endeavor to do. There
is nothing, I think, in which the power of art is shown so much as in
playing on the fiddle. In all other things we can do something at first.
Any man will forge a bar of iron, if you give him a hammer; not so well as
a smith, but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of wood, and make a box,
though a clumsy one; but give him a fiddle and fiddlestick, and he can do
nothing. "
This, upon the whole, though reported by the one-sided Boswell, is a
tolerable specimen of the conversations of Goldsmith and Johnson; the
farmer heedless, often illogical, always on the kind-hearted side of the
question, and prone to redeem himself by lucky hits; the latter closely
argumentative, studiously sententious, often profound, and sometimes
laboriously prosaic.
They had an argument a few days later at Mr. Thrale's table, on the subject
of suicide. "Do you think, sir," said Boswell, "that all who commit suicide
are mad? " "Sir," replied Johnson, "they are not often universally
disordered in their intellects, but one passion presses so upon them that
they yield to it, and commit suicide, as a passionate man will stab
another. I have often thought," added he, "that after a man has taken the
resolution to kill himself, it is not courage in him to do anything,
however desperate, because he has nothing to fear. " "I don't see that,"
observed Goldsmith. "Nay, but, my dear sir," rejoined Johnson, "why should
you not see what every one else does? " "It is," replied Goldsmith, "for
fear of something that he has resolved to kill himself; and will not that
timid disposition restrain him? " "It does not signify," pursued Johnson,
"that the fear of something made him resolve; it is upon the state of his
mind, after the resolution is taken, that I argue. Suppose a man, either
from fear, or pride, or conscience, or whatever motive, has resolved to
kill himself; when once the resolution is taken he has nothing to fear. He
may then go and take the King of Prussia by the nose at the head of his
army. He cannot fear the rack who is determined to kill himself. " Boswell
reports no more of the discussion, though Goldsmith might have continued it
with advantage; for the very timid disposition, which, through fear of
something, was impelling the man to commit suicide, might restrain him from
an act involving the punishment of the rack, more terrible to him than
death itself.
It is to be regretted in all these reports by Boswell we have scarcely
anything but the remarks of Johnson; it is only by accident that he now and
then gives us the observations of others, when they are necessary to
explain or set off those of his hero. "When in _that presence_," says
Miss Burney, "he was unobservant, if not contemptuous of every one else. In
truth, when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly forbore even answering
anything that was said, or attending to anything that went forward, lest he
should miss the smallest sound from that voice, to which he paid such
exclusive, though merited, homage. But the moment that voice burst forth,
the attention which it excited on Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain. His
eyes goggled with eagerness; he leaned his ear almost on the shoulder of
the doctor; and his mouth dropped open to catch every syllable that might
be uttered; nay, he seemed not only to dread losing a word, but to be
anxious not to miss a breathing; as if hoping from it latently, or
mystically, some information. "
On one occasion the doctor detected Boswell, or Bozzy, as he called him,
eavesdropping behind his chair, as he was conversing with Miss Burney at
Mr. Thrale's table. "What are you doing there, sir? " cried he, turning
round angrily, and clapping his hand upon his knee. "Go to the table, sir. "
Boswell obeyed with an air of affright and submission, which raised a smile
on every face. Scarce had he taken his seat, however, at a distance, than,
impatient to get again at the side of Johnson, he rose and was running off
in quest of something to show him, when the doctor roared after him
authoritatively, "What are you thinking of, sir? Why do you get up before
the cloth is removed? Come back to your place, sir"--and the obsequious
spaniel did as he was commanded. "Running about in the middle of meals! "
muttered the doctor, pursing his mouth at the same time to restrain his
rising risibility.
Boswell got another rebuff from Johnson, which would have demolished any
other man. He had been teasing him with many direct questions, such as What
did you do, sir? What did you say, sir? until the great philologist became
perfectly enraged. "I will not be put to the _question! _" roared he.
"Don't you consider, sir, that these are not the manners of a gentleman? I
will not be baited with _what_ and _why;_ What is this? What is
that? Why is a cow's tail long? Why is a fox's tail bushy? " "Why,
sir," replied pil-garlick, "you are so good that I venture to trouble you,"
"Sir," replied Johnson, "my being so _good_ is no reason why you
should be so _ill_. " "You have but two topics, sir," exclaimed he on
another occasion, "yourself and me, and I am sick of both. "
Boswell's inveterate disposition to _toad_ was a sore cause of
mortification to his father, the old laird of Auchinleck (or Affleck). He
had been annoyed by his extravagant devotion to Paoli, but then he was
something of a military hero; but this tagging at the heels of Dr. Johnson,
whom he considered a kind of pedagogue, set his Scotch blood in a ferment.
"There's nae hope for Jamie, mon," said he to a friend; "Jamie is gaen
clean gyte. What do you think, mon? He's done wi' Paoli; he's off wi' the
land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican; and whose tail do you think he has
pinn'd himself to now, mon? A _dominie_ mon; an auld dominie: he
keeped a schule, and cau'd it an acaadamy. "
We shall show in the next chapter that Jamie's devotion to the dominie did
not go unrewarded.
CHAPTER FORTY
CHANGES IN THE LITERARY CLUB--JOHNSON'S OBJECTION TO GARRICK--ELECTION OP
BOSWELL
The Literary Club (as we have termed the club in Gerard Street, though it
took that name some time later) had now been in existence several years.
Johnson was exceedingly chary at first of its exclusiveness, and opposed to
its being augmented in number. Not long after its institution, Sir Joshua
Reynolds was speaking of it to Garrick. "I like it much," said little
David, briskly; "I think I shall be of you. " "When Sir Joshua mentioned
this to Dr. Johnson," says Boswell, "he was much displeased with the
actor's conceit. '_He'll be of us? _' growled he. 'How does he know we
will _permit_ him? The first duke in England has no right to hold such
language. '"
When Sir John Hawkins spoke favorably of Garrick's pretensions, "Sir,"
replied Johnson, "he will disturb us by his buffoonery. " In the same spirit
he declared to Mr. Thrale that if Garrick should apply for admission he
would blackball him. "Who, sir? " exclaimed Thrale, with surprise; "Mr.
Garrick--your friend, your companion--blackball him! " "Why, sir," replied
Johnson, "I love my little David dearly--better than all or any of his
flatterers do; but surely one ought to sit in a society like ours,
"'Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player. '"
The exclusion from the club was a sore mortification to Garrick, though he
bore it without complaining. He could not help continually to ask questions
about it--what was going on there--whether he was ever the subject of
conversation. By degrees the rigor of the club relaxed: some of the members
grew negligent. Beauclerc lost his right of membership by neglecting to
attend. On his marriage, however, with Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of the
Duke of Marlborough, and recently divorced from Viscount Bolingbroke, he
had claimed and regained his seat in the club. The number of members had
likewise been augmented. The proposition to increase it originated with
Goldsmith. "It would give," he thought, "an agreeable variety to their
meetings; for there can be nothing new among us," said he; "we have
traveled over each other's minds. " Johnson was piqued at the suggestion.
"Sir," said he, "you have not traveled over my mind, I promise you. " Sir
Joshua, less confident in the exhaustless fecundity of his mind, felt and
acknowledged the force of Goldsmith's suggestion. Several new members,
therefore, had been added; the first, to his great joy, was David Garrick.
Goldsmith, who was now on cordial terms with him, had zealously promoted
his election, and Johnson had given it his warm approbation. Another new
member was Beauclerc's friend, Lord Charlemont; and a still more important
one was Mr. , afterward Sir William Jones, the famous Orientalist, at that
time a young lawyer of the Temple and a distinguished scholar.
To the great astonishment of the club, Johnson now proposed his devoted
follower, Boswell, as a member. He did it in a note addressed to Goldsmith,
who presided on the evening of the 23d of April. The nomination was
seconded by Beauclerc. According to the rules of the club, the ballot would
take place at the next meeting (on the 30th); there was an intervening
week, therefore, in which to discuss the pretensions of the candidate. We
may easily imagine the discussions that took place. Boswell had made
himself absurd in such a variety of ways, that the very idea of his
admission was exceedingly irksome to some of the members. "The honor of
being elected into the Turk's Head Club," said the Bishop of St. Asaph, "is
not inferior to that of being representative of Westminster and Surrey. "
What had Boswell done to merit such an honor? What chance had he of gaining
it? The answer was simple: he had been the persevering worshiper, if not
sycophant of Johnson. The great lexicographer had a heart to be won by
apparent affection; he stood forth authoritatively in support of his
vassal. If asked to state the merits of the candidate, he summed them up in
an indefinite but comprehensive word of his own coining; he was
_clubable_. He moreover gave significant hints that if Boswell were
kept out he should oppose the admission of any other candidate. No further
opposition was made; in fact none of the members had been so fastidious and
exclusive in regard to the club as Johnson himself; and if he were pleased,
they were easily satisfied; besides, they knew that, with all his faults,
Boswell was a cheerful companion, and possessed lively social qualities.
On Friday, when the ballot was to take place, Beauclerc gave a dinner, at
his house in the Adelphi, where Boswell met several of the members who were
favorable to his election. After dinner the latter adjourned to the club,
leaving Boswell in company with Lady Di Beauclerc until the fate of his
election should be known. He sat, he says, in a state of anxiety which even
the charming conversation of Lady Di could not entirely dissipate. It was
not long before tidings were brought of his election, and he was conducted
to the place of meeting, where, besides the company he had met at dinner,
Burke, Dr. Nugent, Garrick, Goldsmith, and Mr. William Jones were waiting
to receive him. The club, notwithstanding all its learned dignity in the
eyes of the world, could at times "unbend and play the fool" as well as
less important bodies. Some of its jocose conversations have at times
leaked out, and a society in which Goldsmith could venture to sing his song
of "an old woman tossed in a blanket," could not be so very staid in its
gravity. We may suppose, therefore, the jokes that had been passing among
the members while awaiting the arrival of Boswell. Beauclerc himself could
not have repressed his disposition for a sarcastic pleasantry. At least we
have a right to presume all this from the conduct of Dr. Johnson himself.
With all his gravity he possessed a deep fund of quiet humor, and felt a
kind of whimsical responsibility to protect the club from the absurd
propensities of the very questionable associate he had thus inflicted on
them. Rising, therefore, as Boswell entered, he advanced with a very
doctorial air, placed himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a
desk or pulpit, and then delivered, _ex cathedra_, a mock solemn
charge, pointing out the conduct expected from him as a good member of the
club; what he was to do, and especially what he was to avoid; including in
the latter, no doubt, all those petty, prying, questioning, gossiping,
babbling habits which had so often grieved the spirit of the lexicographer.
It is to be regretted that Boswell has never thought proper to note down
the particulars of this charge, which, from the well known characters and
positions of the parties, might have furnished a parallel to the noted
charge of Launcelot Gobbo to his dog.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
DINNER AT THE DILLYS'--CONVERSATIONS ON NATURAL HISTORY--INTERMEDDLING OF
BOSWELL--DISPUTE ABOUT TOLERATION--JOHNSON'S REBUFF TO GOLDSMITH--HIS
APOLOGY--MAN-WORSHIP--DOCTORS MAJOR AND MINOR--A FAREWELL VISIT
A few days after the serio-comic scene of the elevation of Boswell into the
Literary Club, we find that indefatigable Biographer giving particulars of
a dinner at the Dillys', booksellers, in the Poultry, at which he met
Goldsmith and Johnson, with several other literary characters. His
anecdotes of the conversation, of course, go to glorify Dr. Johnson; for,
as he observes in his biography, "His conversation alone, or what led to
it, or was interwoven with it, is the business of this work. " Still on the
present, as on other occasions, he gives unintentional and perhaps
unavoidable gleams of Goldsmith's good sense, which show that the latter
only wanted a less prejudiced and more impartial reporter to put down the
charge of colloquial incapacity so unjustly fixed upon him. The
conversation turned upon the natural history of birds, a beautiful subject,
on which the poet, from his recent studies, his habits of observation, and
his natural tastes, must have talked with instruction and feeling; yet,
though we have much of what Johnson said, we have only a casual remark or
two of Goldsmith. One was on the migration of swallows, which he pronounced
partial; "the stronger ones," said he, "migrate, the others do not. "
Johnson denied to the brute creation the faculty of reason. "Birds," said
he, "build by instinct; they never improve; they build their first nest as
well as any one they ever build. " "Yet we see," observed Goldsmith, "if you
take away a bird's nest with the eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest
and lay again. " "Sir," replied Johnson, "that is because at first she has
full time, and makes her nest deliberately. In the case you mention, she is
pressed to lay, and must, therefore, make her nest quickly, and
consequently it will be slight. " "The nidification of birds," rejoined
Goldsmith, "is what is least known in natural history, though one of the
most curious things in it. " While conversation was going on in this
placid, agreeable and instructive manner, the eternal meddler and busybody
Boswell, must intrude, to put it in a brawl. The Dillys were dissenters;
two of their guests were dissenting clergymen; another, Mr. Toplady, was a
clergyman of the established church. Johnson, himself, was a zealous,
uncompromising churchman. None but a marplot like Boswell would have
thought, on such an occasion, and in such company, to broach the subject of
religious toleration; but, as has been well observed, "it was his perverse
inclination to introduce subjects that he hoped would produce difference
and debate. " In the present instance he gamed his point. An animated
dispute immediately arose in which, according to Boswell's report, Johnson
monopolized the greater part of the conversation; not always treating the
dissenting clergymen with the greatest courtesy, and even once wounding the
feelings of the mild and amiable Bennet Langton by his harshness.
Goldsmith mingled a little in the dispute and with some advantage, but was
cut short by flat contradictions when most in the right. He sat for a time
silent but impatient under such overbearing dogmatism, though Boswell, with
his usual misinterpretation, attributes his "restless agitation" to a wish
to _get in and shine_. "Finding himself excluded," continued Boswell,
"he had taken his hat to go away, but remained for a time with it in his
hand, like a gamester, who, at the end of a long night, lingers for a
little while to see if he can have a favorable opportunity to finish with
success. " Once he was beginning to speak when he was overpowered by the
loud voice of Johnson, who was at the opposite end of the table, and did
not perceive his attempt; whereupon he threw down, as it were, his hat and
his argument, and, darting an angry glance at Johnson, exclaimed in a
bitter tone, "_Take it. _"
Just then one of the disputants was beginning to speak, when Johnson
uttering some sound, as if about to interrupt him, Goldsmith, according to
Boswell, seized the opportunity to vent his own _envy and spleen_
under pretext of supporting another person. "Sir," said he to Johnson, "the
gentleman has heard you patiently for an hour; pray allow us now to hear
him. " It was a reproof in the lexicographer's own style, and he may have
felt that he merited it; but he was not accustomed to be reproved. "Sir,"
said he sternly, "I was not interrupting the gentleman; I was only giving
him a signal of my attention. Sir, _you are impertinent_. " Goldsmith
made no reply, but after some time went away, having another engagement.
That evening, as Boswell was on the way with Johnson and Langton to the
club, he seized the occasion to make some disparaging remarks on Goldsmith,
which he thought would just then be acceptable to the great lexicographer.
"It was a pity," he said, "that Goldsmith would, on every occasion,
endeavor to shine, by which he so often exposed himself. " Langton
contrasted him with Addison, who, content with the fame of his writings,
acknowledged himself unfit for conversation; and on being taxed by a lady
with silence in company, replied, "Madam, I have but ninepence in ready
money, but I can draw for a thousand pounds. " To this Boswell rejoined that
Goldsmith had a great deal of gold in his cabinet, but was always taking
out his purse. "Yes, sir," chuckled Johnson, "and that so often an empty
purse. "
By the time Johnson arrived at the club, however, his angry feelings had
subsided, and his native generosity and sense of justice had got the
uppermost. He found Goldsmith in company with Burke, Garrick, and other
members, but sitting silent and apart, "brooding," as Boswell says, "over
the reprimand he had received. " Johnson's good heart yearned toward him;
and knowing his placable nature, "I'll make Goldsmith forgive me,"
whispered he; then, with a loud voice, "Dr. Goldsmith," said he, "something
passed to-day where you and I dined--_I ask your pardon_. " The ire of
the poet was extinguished in an instant, and his grateful affection for the
magnanimous though sometimes overbearing moralist rushed to his heart. "It
must be much from you, sir," said he, "that I take ill! " "And so," adds
Boswell, "the difference was over, and they were on as easy terms as ever,
and Goldsmith rattled away as usual. " We do not think these stories tell to
the poet's disadvantage, even though related by Boswell.
Goldsmith, with all his modesty, could not be ignorant of his proper merit;
and must have felt annoyed at times at being undervalued and elbowed aside
by light-minded or dull men, in their blind and exclusive homage to the
literary autocrat. It was a fine reproof he gave to Boswell on one
occasion, for talking of Johnson as entitled to the honor of exclusive
superiority. "Sir, you are for making a monarchy what should be a
republic. " On another occasion, when he was conversing in company with
great vivacity, and apparently to the satisfaction of those around him, an
honest Swiss, who sat near, one George Michael Moser, keeper of the Royal
Academy, perceiving Dr. Johnson rolling himself as if about to speak,
exclaimed, "Stay, stay! Toctor Shonson is going to say something. " "And are
you sure, sir," replied Goldsmith, sharply, "that _you_ can comprehend
what he says? "
This clever rebuke, which gives the main zest to the anecdote, is omitted
by Boswell, who probably did not perceive the point of it.
He relates another anecdote of the kind, on the authority of Johnson
himself. The latter and Goldsmith were one evening in company with the Rev.
George Graham, a master of Eton, who, notwithstanding the sobriety of his
cloth, had got intoxicated "to about the pitch of looking at one man and
talking to another. " "Doctor," cried he in an ecstasy of devotion and
good-will, but goggling by mistake upon Goldsmith, "I should be glad to see
you at Eton. " "I shall be glad to wait upon you," replied Goldsmith. "No,
no! " cried the other eagerly, "'tis not you I mean, Doctor _Minor_,
'tis Doctor _Major_ there. " "You may easily conceive," said Johnson in
relating the anecdote, "what effect this had upon Goldsmith, who was
irascible as a hornet. " The only comment, however, which he is said to have
made, partakes more of quaint and dry humor than bitterness: "That Graham,"
said he, "is enough to make one commit suicide. " What more could be said to
express the intolerable nuisance of a consummate bore?
We have now given the last scenes between Goldsmith and Johnson which stand
recorded by Boswell. The latter called on the poet a few days after the
dinner at Dillys', to take leave of him prior to departing for Scotland;
yet, even in this last interview, he contrives to get up a charge of
"jealousy and envy. " Goldsmith, he would fain persuade us, is very angry
that Johnson is going to travel with him in Scotland; and endeavors to
persuade him that he will be a dead weight "to lug along through the
Highlands and Hebrides.
" Any one else, knowing the character and habits of
Johnson, would have thought the same; and no one but Boswell would have
supposed his office of bear-leader to the ursa major a thing to be envied.
[Footnote: One of Peter Pindar's (Dr. Wolcot) most amusing _jeux
d'esprit_ is his congratulatory epistle to Boswell on his tour, of which
we subjoin a few lines.
"O Boswell, Bozzy, Bruce, whate'er thy name,
Thou mighty shark for anecdote and fame;
Thou jackal, leading lion Johnson forth,
To eat M'Pherson 'midst his native north;
To frighten grave professors with his roar,
And shake the Hebrides from shore to shore.
* * * * *
"Bless'd be thy labors, most adventurous Bozzy,
Bold rival of Sir John and Dame Piozzi;
Heavens! with what laurels shall thy head be crown'd!
A grove, a forest, shall thy ears surround!
Yes! whilst the Rambler shall a comet blaze,
And gild a world of darkness with his rays,
Thee, too, that world with wonderment shall hail,
A lively, bouncing cracker at his tail! "]
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
PROJECT OF A DICTIONARY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES--DISAPPOINTMENT--NEGLIGENT
AUTHORSHIP--APPLICATION FOR A PENSION--BEATTIE'S ESSAY ON TRUTH--PUBLIC
ADULATION--A HIGH-MINDED REBUKE
The works which Goldsmith had still in hand being already paid for, and the
money gone, some new scheme must be devised to provide for the past and the
future--for impending debts which threatened to crush him, and expenses
which were continually increasing. He now projected a work of greater
compass than any he had yet undertaken; a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences
on a comprehensive scale, which was to occupy a number of volumes. For this
he received promises of assistance from several powerful hands. Johnson was
to contribute an article on ethics; Burke, an abstract of his Essay on the
Sublime and Beautiful, an essay on the Berkleyan system of philosophy, and
others on political science; Sir Joshua Reynolds, an essay on painting; and
Garrick, while he undertook on his own part to furnish an essay on acting,
engaged Dr. Burney to contribute an article on music. Here was a great
array of talent positively engaged, while other writers of eminence were to
be sought for the various departments of science. Goldsmith was to edit the
whole. An undertaking of this kind, while it did not incessantly task and
exhaust his inventive powers by original composition, would give agreeable
and profitable exercise to his taste and judgment in selecting, compiling,
and arranging, and he calculated to diffuse over the whole the acknowledged
graces of his style.
He drew up a prospectus of the plan, which is said by Bishop Percy, who saw
it, to have been written with uncommon ability, and to have had that
perspicuity and elegance for which his writings are remarkable. This paper,
unfortunately, is no longer in existence.
Goldsmith's expectations, always sanguine respecting any new plan, were
raised to an extraordinary height by the present project; and well they
might be, when we consider the powerful coadjutors already pledged. They
were doomed, however, to complete disappointment. Davies, the bibliopole of
Russell Street, lets us into the secret of this failure. "The booksellers,"
said he, "notwithstanding they had a very good opinion of his abilities,
yet were startled at the bulk, importance, and expense of so great an
undertaking, the fate of which was to depend upon the industry of a man
with whose indolence of temper and method of procrastination they had long
been acquainted. "
Goldsmith certainly gave reason for some such distrust by the heedlessness
with which he conducted his literary undertakings. Those unfinished, but
paid for, would be suspended to make way for some job that was to provide
for present necessities. Those thus hastily taken up would be as hastily
executed, and the whole, however pressing, would be shoved aside and left
"at loose ends," on some sudden call to social enjoyment or recreation.
Cradock tells us that on one occasion, when Goldsmith was hard at work on
his Natural History, he sent to Dr. Percy and himself, entreating them to
finish some pages of his work which lay upon his table, and for which the
press was urgent, he being detained by other engagements at Windsor. They
met by appointment at his chambers in the Temple, where they found
everything in disorder, and costly books lying scattered about on the
tables and on the floor; many of the books on natural history which he had
recently consulted lay open among uncorrected proof-sheets. The subject in
hand, and from which he had suddenly broken off, related to birds. "Do you
know anything about birds? " asked Dr. Percy, smiling. "Not an atom,"
replied Cradock; "do you? " "Not I! I scarcely know a goose from a swan:
however, let us try what we can do. " They set to work and completed their
friendly task. Goldsmith, however, when he came to revise it, made such
alterations that they could neither of them recognize their own share. The
engagement at Windsor, which had thus caused Goldsmith to break off
suddenly from his multifarious engagements, was a party of pleasure with
some literary ladies. Another anecdote was current, illustrative of the
carelessness with which he executed works requiring accuracy and research.
On the 22d of June he had received payment in advance for a Grecian History
in two volumes, though only one was finished. As he was pushing on doggedly
at the second volume, Gibbon, the historian, called in. "You are the man of
all others I wish to see," cried the poet, glad to be saved the trouble of
reference to his books. "What was the name of that Indian king who gave
Alexander the Great so much trouble? " "Montezuma," replied Gibbon,
sportively. The heedless author was about committing the name to paper
without reflection, when Gibbon pretended to recollect himself, and gave
the true name, Porus.
This story, very probably, was a sportive exaggeration; but it was a
multiplicity of anecdotes like this and the preceding one, some true and
some false, which had impaired the confidence of booksellers in Goldsmith,
as a man to be relied on for a task requiring wide and accurate research,
and close and long-continued application. The project of the Universal
Dictionary, therefore, met with no encouragement, and fell through.
The failure of this scheme, on which he had built such spacious hopes, sank
deep into Goldsmith's heart. He was still further grieved and mortified by
the failure of an effort made by some of his friends to obtain for him a
pension from government. There had been a talk of the disposition of the
ministry to extend the bounty of the crown to distinguished literary men in
pecuniary difficulty, without regard to their political creed: when the
merits and claims of Goldsmith, however, were laid before them, they met no
favor. The sin of sturdy independence lay at his door. He had refused to
become a ministerial hack when offered a _carte blanche_ by Parson,
Scott, the cabinet emissary. The wondering parson had left him his poverty
and "_his garrets_" and there the ministry were disposed to suffer him
to remain.
In the meantime Dr. Beattie comes out with his Essay On Truth, and all the
orthodox world are thrown into a paroxysm of contagious ecstasy. He is
cried up as the great champion of Christianity against the attacks of
modern philosophers and infidels; he is feted and flattered in every way.
He receives at Oxford the honorary degree of doctor of civil law, at the
same time with Sir Joshua Reynolds. The king sends for him, praises his
Essay, and gives him a pension of two hundred pounds.
Goldsmith feels more acutely the denial of a pension to himself when one
has thus been given unsolicited to a man he might without vanity consider
so much his inferior. He was not one to conceal his feelings. "Here's such
a stir," said he one day at Thrale's table, "about a fellow that has
written one book, and I have written so many! "
"Ah, doctor! " exclaimed Johnson, in one of his caustic moods, "there go two
and forty sixpences, you know, to one guinea. " This is one of the cuts at
poor Goldsmith in which Johnson went contrary to head and heart in his love
for saying what is called a "good thing. " No one knew better than himself
the comparative superiority of the writings of Goldsmith; but the jingle of
the sixpences and the guinea was not to be resisted.
"Everybody," exclaimed Mrs. Thrale, "loves Dr. Beattie, but Goldsmith, who
says he cannot bear the sight of so much applause as they all bestow upon
him. Did he not tell us so himself no one would believe he was so
exceedingly ill-natured. "
He told them so himself because he was too open and unreserved to disguise
his feelings, and because he really considered the praise lavished on
Beattie extravagant, as in fact it was. It was all, of course, set down to
sheer envy and uncharitableness. To add to his annoyance, he found his
friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds, joining in the universal adulation. He had
painted a full-length portrait of Beattie decked in the doctor's robes in
which he had figured at Oxford, with the Essay on Truth under his arm and
the angel of truth at his side, while Voltaire figured as one of the demons
of infidelity, sophistry, and falsehood, driven into utter darkness.
Goldsmith had known Voltaire in early life; he had been his admirer and his
biographer; he grieved to find him receiving such an insult from the
classic pencil of his friend. "It is unworthy of you," said he to Sir
Joshua, "to debase so high a genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as
Beattie. Beattie and his book will be forgotten in ten years, while
Voltaire's fame will last forever. Take care it does not perpetuate this
picture to the shame of such a man as you. " This noble and high-minded
rebuke is the only instance on record of any reproachful words between the
poet and the painter; and we are happy to find that it did not destroy the
harmony of their intercourse.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
TOIL WITHOUT HOPE--THE POET IN THE GREEN-ROOM--IN THE FLOWER GARDEN--AT
VAUXHALL--DISSIPATION WITHOUT GAYETY--CRADOCK IN TOWN--FRIENDLY SYMPATHY--A
PARTING SCENE--AN INVITATION TO PLEASURE
Thwarted in the plans and disappointed in the hopes which had recently
cheered and animated him, Goldsmith found the labor at his half-finished
tasks doubly irksome from the consciousness that the completion of them
could not relieve him from his pecuniary embarrassments. His impaired
health, also, rendered him less capable than formerly of sedentary
application, and continual perplexities disturbed the flow of thought
necessary for original composition. He lost his usual gayety and
good-humor, and became, at times, peevish and irritable. Too proud of
spirit to seek sympathy or relief from his friends, for the pecuniary
difficulties he had brought upon himself by his errors and extravagance;
and unwilling, perhaps, to make known their amount, he buried his cares and
anxieties in his own bosom, and endeavored in company to keep up his usual
air of gayety and unconcern. This gave his conduct an appearance of
fitfulness and caprice, varying suddenly from moodiness to mirth, and from
silent gravity to shallow laughter; causing surprise and ridicule in those
who were not aware of the sickness of heart which lay beneath.
His poetical reputation, too, was sometimes a disadvantage to him; it drew
upon him a notoriety which he was not always in the mood or the vein to act
up to. "Good heavens, Mr. Foote," exclaimed an actress at the Haymarket
Theater, "what a humdrum kind of man Dr. Goldsmith appears in our
green-room compared with the figure he makes in his poetry! " "The reason of
that, madam," replied Foote, "is because the muses are better company than
the players. "
Beauclerc's letters to his friend, Lord Charlemont, who was absent in
Ireland, give us now and then an indication of the whereabout of the poet
during the present year. "I have been but once to the club since you left
England," writes he; "we were entertained, as usual, with Goldsmith's
absurdity. " With Beauclerc everything was absurd that was not polished and
pointed. In another letter he threatens, unless Lord Charlemont returns to
England, to bring over the whole club, and let them loose upon him to drive
him home by their peculiar habits of annoyance--Johnson shall spoil his
books; Goldsmith shall _pull his flowers;_ and last, and most
intolerable of all, Boswell shall--talk to him. It would appear that the
poet, who had a passion for flowers, was apt to pass much of his time in
the garden when on a visit to a country seat, much to the detriment of the
flowerbeds and the despair of the gardener.
The summer wore heavily away with Goldsmith. He had not his usual solace of
a country retreat; his health was impaired and his spirits depressed. Sir
Joshua Reynolds, who perceived the state of his mind, kindly gave him much
of his company. In the course of their interchange of thought, Goldsmith
suggested to him the story of Ugolino, as a subject for his pencil. The
painting founded on it remains a memento of their friendship.
On the 4th of August we find them together at Vauxhall; at that time a
place in high vogue, and which had once been to Goldsmith a scene of
Oriental splendor and delight. We have, in fact, in the Citizen of the
World, a picture of it as it had struck him in former years and in his
happier moods. "Upon entering the gardens," says the Chinese philosopher,
"I found every sense occupied with more than expected pleasure; the lights
everywhere glimmering through the scarcely-moving trees; the full-bodied
concert bursting on the stillness of the night; the natural concert of the
birds in the more retired part of the grove, vying with that which was
formed by art; the company gayly dressed, looking satisfaction, and the
tables spread with various delicacies, all conspired to fill my imagination
with the visionary happiness of the Arabian lawgiver, and lifted me into an
ecstasy of admiration. " [Footnote: Citizen of the World, Letter xxi]
Everything now, however, is seen with different eyes; with him it is
dissipation without pleasure; and he finds it impossible any longer, by
mingling in the gay and giddy throng of apparently prosperous and happy
beings, to escape from the carking care which is clinging to his heart.
His kind friend, Cradock, came up to town toward autumn, when all the
fashionable world was in the country, to give his wife the benefit of a
skillful dentist. He took lodgings in Norfolk Street, to be in Goldsmith's
neighborhood, and passed most of his mornings with him. "I found him," he
says, "much altered and at times very low. He wished me to look over and
revise some of his works; but, with a select friend or two, I was more
pressing that he should publish by subscription his two celebrated poems of
the Traveler and the Deserted Village, with notes. " The idea of Cradock was
that the subscription would enable wealthy persons, favorable to Goldsmith,
to contribute to his pecuniary relief without wounding his pride.
"Goldsmith," said he, "readily gave up to me his private copies, and said,
'Pray do what you please with them. ' But while he sat near me, he rather
submitted to than encouraged my zealous proceedings.
"I one morning called upon him, however, and found him infinitely better
than I had expected; and, in a kind of exulting style, he exclaimed, 'Here
are some of the best of my prose writings; _I have been hard at work
since midnight,_ and I desire you to examine them. ' 'These,' said I,
'are excellent indeed. ' 'They are,' replied he, 'intended as an
introduction to a body of arts and sciences. '"
Poor Goldsmith was, in fact, gathering together the fragments of his
shipwreck; the notes and essays and memoranda collected for his dictionary,
and proposed to found on them a work in two volumes, to be entitled A
Survey of Experimental Philosophy.
The plan of the subscription came to nothing, and the projected survey
never was executed. The head might yet devise, but the heart was failing
him; his talent at hoping, which gave him buoyancy to carry out his
enterprises, was almost at an end.
Cradock's farewell scene with him is told in a simple but touching manner.
"The day before I was to set out for Leicestershire I insisted upon his
dining with us. He replied, 'I will, but on one condition, that you will
not ask me to eat anything. ' 'Nay,' said I, 'this answer is absolutely
unkind, for I had hoped, as we are supplied from the Crown and Anchor, that
you would have named something you might have relished. ' 'Well,' was the
reply, 'if you will but explain it to Mrs. Cradock, I will certainly wait
upon you. '
"The doctor found, as usual, at my apartments, newspapers and pamphlets,
and with a pen and ink he amused himself as well as he could. I had ordered
from the tavern some fish, a roasted joint of lamb, and a tart; and the
doctor either sat down or walked about just as he pleased. After dinner he
took some wine with biscuits; but I was obliged soon to leave him for a
while, as I had matters to settle prior to my next day's journey. On my
return coffee was ready, and the doctor appeared more cheerful (for Mrs.
Cradock was always rather a favorite with him), and in the evening he
endeavored to talk and remark as usual, but all was forced. He stayed till
midnight, and I insisted on seeing him safe home, and we most cordially
shook hands at the Temple gate. " Cradock little thought that this was to be
their final parting. He looked back to it with mournful recollections in
after years, and lamented that he had not remained longer in town at every
inconvenience, to solace the poor broken-spirited poet.
The latter continued in town all the autumn. At the opening of the Opera
House, on the 20th of November, Mrs. Yates, an actress whom he held in
great esteem, delivered a poetical exordium of his composition. Beauclerc,
in a letter to Lord Charlemont, pronounced it very good, and predicted that
it would soon be in all the papers. It does not appear, however, to have
been ever published. In his fitful state of mind Goldsmith may have taken
no care about it, and thus it has been lost to the world, although it was
received with great applause by a crowded and brilliant audience.
A gleam of sunshine breaks through the gloom that was gathering over the
poet. Toward the end of the year he receives another Christmas invitation
to Barton. A country Christmas! with all the cordiality of the fireside
circle, and the joyous revelry of the oaken hall--what a contrast to the
loneliness of a bachelor's chambers in the Temple! It is not to be
resisted. But how is poor Goldsmith to raise the ways and means? His purse
is empty; his booksellers are already in advance to him. As a last
resource, he applies to Garrick. Their mutual intimacy at Barton may have
suggested him as an alternative. The old loan of forty pounds has never
been paid; and Newbery's note, pledged as a security, has never been taken
up. An additional loan of sixty pounds is now asked for, thus increasing
the loan to one hundred; to insure the payment, he now offers, besides
Newbery's note, the transfer of the comedy of the Good-Natured Man to Drury
Lane, with such alterations as Garrick may suggest. Garrick, in reply,
evades the offer of the altered comedy, alludes significantly to a new one
which Goldsmith had talked of writing for him, and offers to furnish the
money required on his own acceptance.
The reply of Goldsmith bespeaks a heart brimful of gratitude and
overflowing with fond anticipations of Barton and the smiles of its fair
residents. "My dear friend," writes he, "I thank you. I wish I could do
something to serve you. I shall have a comedy for you in a season, or two
at furthest, that I believe will be worth your acceptance, for I fancy I
will make it a fine thing. You shall have the refusal. . . . I will draw upon
you one month after date for sixty pounds, and your acceptance will be
ready money, _part of which I want to go down to Barton with_. May God
preserve my honest little man, for he has my heart. Ever,
"OLIVER GOLDSMITH. "
And having thus scrambled together a little pocket-money, by hard
contrivance, poor Goldsmith turns his back upon care and trouble, and
Temple quarters, to forget for a time his desolate bachelorhood in the
family circle and a Christmas fireside at Barton.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
A RETURN TO DRUDGERY--FORCED GAYETY--RETREAT TO THE COUNTRY--THE POEM OF
RETALIATION--PORTRAIT OF GARRICK--OF GOLDSMITH--OF REYNOLDS--ILLNESS OF THE
POET--HIS DEATH--GRIEF OF HIS FRIENDS--A LAST WORD RESPECTING THE JESSAMY
BRIDE
The Barton festivities are over; Christmas, with all its home-felt revelry
of the heart, has passed like a dream; the Jessamy Bride has beamed her
last smile upon the poor poet, and the early part of 1774 finds him in his
now dreary bachelor abode in the Temple, toiling fitfully and hopelessly at
a multiplicity of tasks. His Animated Nature, so long delayed, so often
interrupted, is at length announced for publication, though it has yet to
receive a few finishing touches. He is preparing a third History of
England, to be compressed and condensed in one volume, for the use of
schools. He is revising his Inquiry into Polite Learning, for which he
receives the pittance of five guineas, much needed in his present
scantiness of purse; he is arranging his Survey of Experimental Philosophy,
and he is translating the Comic Romance of Scarron. Such is a part of the
various labors of a drudging, depressing kind, by which his head is made
wrong and his heart faint. "If there is a mental drudgery," says Sir Walter
Scott, "which lowers the spirits and lacerates the nerves, like the toil of
a slave, it is that which is exacted by literary composition, when the
heart is not in unison with the work upon which the head is employed. Add
to the unhappy author's task sickness, sorrow, or the pressure of
unfavorable circumstances, and the labor of the bondsman becomes light in
comparison. " Goldsmith again makes an effort to rally his spirits by going
into gay society. "Our club," writes Beauclerc to Charlemont, on the 12th
of February, "has dwindled away to nothing. Sir Joshua and Goldsmith have
got into such a round of pleasures that they have no time. " This shows how
little Beauclerc was the companion of the poet's mind, or could judge of
him below the surface. Reynolds, the kind participator in joyless
dissipation, could have told a different story of his companion's
heart-sick gayety.
In this forced mood Goldsmith gave entertainments in his chambers in the
Temple; the last of which was a dinner to Johnson, Reynolds, and others of
his intimates, who partook with sorrow and reluctance of his imprudent
hospitality. The first course vexed them by its needless profusion. When a
second, equally extravagant, was served up, Johnson and Reynolds declined
to partake of it; the rest of the company, understanding their motives,
followed their example, and the dishes went from the table untasted.
Goldsmith felt sensibly this silent and well-intended rebuke.
The gayeties of society, however, cannot medicine for any length of time a
mind diseased. Wearied by the distractions and harassed by the expenses of
a town life, which he had not the discretion to regulate, Goldsmith took
the resolution, too tardily adopted, of retiring to the serene quiet and
cheap and healthful pleasures of the country, and of passing only two
months of the year in London. He accordingly made arrangements to sell his
right in the Temple chambers, and in the month of March retired to his
country quarters at Hyde, there to devote himself to toil. At this
dispirited juncture, when inspiration seemed to be at an end, and the
poetic fire extinguished, a spark fell on his combustible imagination and
set it in a blaze.
He belonged to a temporary association of men of talent, some of them
members of the Literary Club, who dined together occasionally at the St.
James' Coffee-house. At these dinners, as usual, he was one of the last to
arrive. On one occasion, when he was more dilatory than usual, a whim
seized the company to write epitaphs on him, as "The late Dr. Goldsmith,"
and several were thrown off in a playful vein, hitting off his
peculiarities. The only one extant was written by Garrick, and has been
preserved, very probably, by its pungency:
"Here lies poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor poll. "
Goldsmith did not relish the sarcasm, especially as coming from such a
quarter. He was not very ready at repartee; but he took his time, and in
the interval of his various tasks concocted a series of epigrammatic
sketches, under the title of Retaliation, in which the characters of his
distinguished intimates were admirably hit off, with a mixture of generous
praise and good-humored raillery. In fact, the poem for its graphic truth;
its nice discrimination; its terse good sense, and its shrewd knowledge of
the world, must have electrified the club almost as much as the first
appearance of The Traveler, and let them still deeper into the character
and talents of the man they had been accustomed to consider as their butt.
Retaliation, in a word, closed his accounts with the club, and balanced all
his previous deficiencies.
The portrait of David Garrick is one of the most elaborate in the poem.
When the poet came to touch it off, he had some lurking piques to gratify,
which the recent attack had revived. He may have forgotten David's cavalier
treatment of him, in the early days of his comparative obscurity; he may
have forgiven his refusal of his plays; but Garrick had been capricious in
his conduct in the times of their recent intercourse; sometimes treating
him with gross familiarity, at other times affecting dignity and reserve,
and assuming airs of superiority; frequently he had been facetious and
witty in company at his expense, and lastly he had been guilty of the
couplet just quoted. Goldsmith, therefore, touched off the lights and
shadows of his character with a free hand, and, at the same time, gave a
side hit at his old rival, Kelly, and his critical persecutor, Kenrick, in
making them sycophantic satellites of the actor. Goldsmith, however, was
void of gall, even in his revenge, and his very satire was more humorous
than caustic:
"Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can,
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man;
As an actor, confess'd without rival to shine;
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line:
Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart.
The man had his failings, a dupe to his art.
Like an ill-judging beauty, his colors he spread,
And beplaster'd with rouge his own natural red.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
'Twas only that when he was off he was acting.
With no reason on earth to go out of his way,
He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day:
Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick
If they were not his own by finessing and trick:
He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew, when he pleased, he could whistle them back.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came,
And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame;
Till his relish, grown callous almost to disease,
Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.
But let us be candid, and speak out our mind,
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.
