No More Learning

"

Charles Goldsmith did not remain long to embarrass his brother in London.
With the same roving disposition and inconsiderate temper of Oliver, he
suddenly departed in a humble capacity to seek his fortune in the West
Indies, and nothing was heard of him for above thirty years, when, after
having been given up as dead by his friends, he made his reappearance in
England.

Shortly after his departure Goldsmith wrote a letter to his brother-in-law,
Daniel Hodson, Esq. , of which the following is an extract; it was partly
intended, no doubt, to dissipate any further illusions concerning his
fortunes which might float on the magnificent imagination of his friends in
Ballymahon.

"I suppose you desire to know my present situation. As there is nothing in
it at which I should blush, or which mankind could censure, I see no reason
for making it a secret. In short, by a very little practice as a physician,
and a very little reputation as a poet, I make a shift to live. Nothing is
more apt to introduce us to the gates of the muses than poverty; but it
were well if they only left us at the door. The mischief is they sometimes
choose to give us their company to the entertainment; and want, instead of
being gentleman-usher, often turns master of the ceremonies.

"Thus, upon learning I write, no doubt you imagine I starve; and the name
of an author naturally reminds you of a garret. In this particular I do not
think proper to undeceive my friends. But, whether I eat or starve, live in
a first floor or four pairs of stairs high, I still remember them with
ardor; nay, my very country comes in for a share of my affection.
Unaccountable fondness for country, this _maladie du pais_, as the
French call it! Unaccountable that he should still have an affection for a
place, who never, when in it, received above common civility; who never
brought anything out of it except his brogue and his blunders. Surely my
affection is equally ridiculous with the Scotchman's, who refused to be
cured of the itch because it made him unco' thoughtful of his wife and
bonny Inverary.

"But now, to be serious: let me ask myself what gives me a wish to see
Ireland again. The country is a fine one, perhaps? No. There are good
company in Ireland? No. The conversation there is generally made up of a
smutty toast or a bawdy song; the vivacity supported by some humble cousin,
who had just folly enough to earn his dinner. Then, perhaps, there's more
wit and learning among the Irish? Oh, Lord, no! There has been more money
spent in the encouragement of the Padareen mare there one season than given
in rewards to learned men since the time of Usher. All their productions in
learning amount to perhaps a translation, or a few tracts in divinity; and
all their productions in wit to just nothing at all. Why the plague, then,
so fond of Ireland? Then, all at once, because you, my dear friend, and a
few more who are exceptions to the general picture, have a residence there.
This it is that gives me all the pangs I feel in separation. I confess I
carry this spirit sometimes to the souring the pleasures I at present
possess. If I go to the opera, where Signora Columba pours out all the
mazes of melody, I sit and sigh for Lissoy fireside, and Johnny Armstrong's
'Last Good-night' from Peggy Golden. If I climb Hampstead Hill, than where
nature never exhibited a more magnificent prospect, I confess it fine; but
then I had rather be placed on the little mount before Lissoy gate, and
there take in, to me, the most pleasing horizon in nature.

"Before Charles came hither my thoughts sometimes found refuge from severer
studies among my friends in Ireland. I fancied strange revolutions at home;
but I find it was the rapidity of my own motion that gave an imaginary one
to objects really at rest. No alterations there. Some friends, he tells me,
are still lean, but very rich; others very fat, but still very poor. Nay,
all the news I hear of you is, that you sally out in visits among the
neighbors, and sometimes make a migration from the blue bed to the brown. I
could from my heart wish that you and she (Mrs. Hodson), and Lissoy and
Ballymahon, and all of you, would fairly make a migration into Middlesex;
though, upon second thoughts, this might be attended with a few
inconveniences. Therefore, as the mountain will not come to Mohammed, why
Mohammed shall go to the mountain; or, to speak plain English, as you
cannot conveniently pay me a visit, if next summer I can contrive to be
absent six weeks from London, I shall spend three of them among my friends
in Ireland. But first, believe me, my design is purely to visit, and
neither to cut a figure nor levy contributions; neither to excite envy nor
solicit favor; in fact, my circumstances are adapted to neither. I am too
poor to be gazed at, and too rich to need assistance. "




CHAPTER NINE

HACKNEY AUTHORSHIP--THOUGHTS OF LITERARY SUICIDE--RETURN TO
PECKHAM--ORIENTAL PROJECTS--LITERARY ENTERPRISE TO RAISE FUNDS--LETTER TO
EDWARD WELLS--TO ROBERT BRYANTON--DEATH OF UNCLE CONTARINE--LETTER TO
COUSIN JANE


For some time Goldsmith continued to write miscellaneously for reviews and
other periodical publications, but without making any decided hit, to use a
technical term. Indeed, as yet he appeared destitute of the strong
excitement of literary ambition, and wrote only on the spur of necessity
and at the urgent importunity of his bookseller. His indolent and truant
disposition, ever averse from labor and delighting in holiday, had to be
scourged up to its task; still it was this very truant disposition which
threw an unconscious charm over everything he wrote; bringing with it
honeyed thoughts and pictured images which had sprung up in his mind in the
sunny hours of idleness: these effusions, dashed off on compulsion in the
exigency of the moment, were published anonymously; so that they made no
collective impression on the public, and reflected no fame on the name of
their author.

In an essay published some time subsequently in the "Bee," Goldsmith
adverts, in his own humorous way, to his impatience at the tardiness with
which his desultory and unacknowledged essays crept into notice. "I was
once induced," says he, "to show my indignation against the public by
discontinuing my efforts to please; and was bravely resolved, like Raleigh,
to vex them by burning my manuscripts in a passion. Upon reflection,
however, I considered what set or body of people would be displeased at my
rashness. The sun, after so sad an accident, might shine next morning as
bright as usual; men might laugh and sing the next day, and transact
business as before; and not a single creature feel any regret but myself.
Instead of having Apollo in mourning or the Muses in a fit of the spleen;
instead of having the learned world apostrophizing at my untimely decease;
perhaps all Grub Street might laugh at my fate, and self-approving dignity
be unable to shield me from ridicule. "

Circumstances occurred about this time to give a new direction to
Goldsmith's hopes and schemes. Having resumed for a brief period the
superintendence of the Peckham school during a fit of illness of Dr.
Milner, that gentleman, in requital for his timely services, promised to
use his influence with a friend, an East India director, to procure him a
medical appointment in India.

There was every reason to believe that the influence of Dr. Milner would be
effectual; but how was Goldsmith to find the ways and means of fitting
himself out for a voyage to the Indies? In this emergency he was driven to
a more extended exercise of the pen than he had yet attempted. His
skirmishing among books as a reviewer, and his disputatious ramble among
the schools and universities and literati of the Continent, had filled his
mind with facts and observations which he now set about digesting into a
treatise of some magnitude, to be entitled "An Inquiry into the Present
State of Polite Learning in Europe. " As the work grew on his hands his
sanguine temper ran ahead of his labors. Feeling secure of success in
England, he was anxious to forestall the piracy of the Irish press; for as
yet, the Union not having taken place, the English law of copyright did not
extend to the other side of the Irish Channel. He wrote, therefore, to his
friends in Ireland, urging them to circulate his proposals for his
contemplated work, and obtain subscriptions payable in advance; the money
to be transmitted to a Mr. Bradley, an eminent bookseller in Dublin, who
would give a receipt for it and be accountable for the delivery of the
books. The letters written by him on this occasion are worthy of copious
citation as being full of character and interest. One was to his relative
and college intimate, Edward Wells, who had studied for the bar, but was
now living at ease on his estate at Roscommon. "You have quitted," writes
Goldsmith, "the plan of life which you once intended to pursue, and given
up ambition for domestic tranquillity. I cannot avoid feeling some regret
that one of my few friends has declined a pursuit in which he had every
reason to expect success. I have often let my fancy loose when you were the
subject, and have imagined you gracing the bench, or thundering at the bar:
while I have taken no small pride to myself, and whispered to all that I
could come near, that this was my cousin. Instead of this, it seems, you
are merely contented to be a happy man; to be esteemed by your
acquaintances; to cultivate your paternal acres; to take unmolested a nap
under one of your own hawthorns or in Mrs. Wells' bedchamber, which, even a
poet must confess, is rather the more comfortable place of the two. But,
however your resolutions may be altered with regard to your situation in
life, I persuade myself they are unalterable with respect to your friends
in it. I cannot think the world has taken such entire possession of that
heart (once so susceptible of friendship) as not to have left a corner
there for a friend or two, but I flatter myself that even I have a place
among the number. This I have a claim to from the similitude of our
dispositions; or setting that aside, I can demand it as a right by the most
equitable law of nature; I mean that of retaliation; for indeed you have
more than your share in mine. I am a man of few professions; and yet at
this very instant I cannot avoid the painful apprehension that my present
professions (which speak not half my feelings) should be considered only as
a pretext to cover a request, as I have a request to make. No, my dear Ned,
I know you are too generous to think so, and you know me too proud to stoop
to unnecessary insincerity--I have a request, it is true, to make; but as I
know to whom I am a petitioner, I make it without diffidence or confusion.
It is in short, this, I am going to publish a book in London," etc. The
residue of the letter specifies the nature of the request, which was merely
to aid in circulating his proposals and obtaining subscriptions. The letter
of the poor author, however, was unattended to and unacknowledged by the
prosperous Mr. Wells, of Roscommon, though in after years he was proud to
claim relationship to Dr. Goldsmith, when he had risen to celebrity.

Another of Goldsmith's letters was to Robert Bryanton, with whom he had
long ceased to be in correspondence. "I believe," writes he, "that they who
are drunk, or out of their wits, fancy everybody else in the same
condition. Mine is a friendship that neither distance nor tune can efface,
which is probably the reason that, for the soul of me, I can't avoid
thinking yours of the same complexion; and yet I have many reasons for
being of a contrary opinion, else why, in so long an absence, was I never
made a partner in your concerns? To hear of your success would have given
me the utmost pleasure; and a communication of your very disappointments
would divide the uneasiness I too frequently feel for my own. Indeed, my
dear Bob, you don't conceive how unkindly you have treated one whose
circumstances afford him few prospects of pleasure, except those reflected
from the happiness of his friends. However, since you have not let me hear
from you, I have in some measure disappointed your neglect by frequently
thinking of you. Every day or so I remember the calm anecdotes of your
life, from the fireside to the easy-chair; recall the various adventures
that first cemented our friendship; the school, the college, or the tavern;
preside in fancy over your cards; and am displeased at your bad play when
the rubber goes against you, though not with all that agony of soul as when
I was once your partner. Is it not strange that two of such like affections
should be so much separated, and so differently employed as we are? You
seem placed at the center of fortune's wheel, and, let it revolve ever so
fast, are insensible of the motion. I seem to have been tied to the
circumference, and whirled disagreeably round, as if on a whirligig. "

He then runs into a whimsical and extravagant tirade about his future
prospects. The wonderful career of fame and fortune that awaits him, and
after indulging in all kinds of humorous gasconades, concludes: "Let me,
then, stop my fancy to take a view of my future self--and, as the boys say,
light down to see myself on horseback. Well, now that I am down, where the
d--l _is I_? Oh gods! gods! here in a garret, writing for bread, and
expecting to be dunned for a milk score! "

He would, on this occasion, have doubtless written to his uncle Contarine,
but that generous friend was sunk into a helpless, hopeless state from
which death soon released him.

Cut off thus from the kind co-operation of his uncle, he addresses a letter
to his daughter Jane, the companion of his schoolboy and happy days, now
the wife of Mr. Lawder. The object was to secure her interest with her
husband in promoting the circulation of his proposals. The letter is full
of character.

"If you should ask," he begins, "why, in an interval of so many years, you
never heard from me, permit me, madam, to ask the same question. I have the
best excuse in recrimination. I wrote to Kilmore from Leyden in Holland,
from Louvain in Flanders, and Rouen in France, but received no answer. To
what could I attribute this silence but to displeasure or forgetfulness?
Whether I was right in my conjecture I do not pretend to determine; but
this I must ingenuously own that I have a thousand times in my turn
endeavored to forget _them_, whom I could not but look upon as
forgetting _me_. I have attempted to blot their names from my memory,
and, I confess it, spent whole days in efforts to tear their image from my
heart. Could I have succeeded, you had not now been troubled with this
renewal of a discontinued correspondence; but, as every effort the restless
make to procure sleep serves but to keep them waking, all my attempts
contributed to impress what I would forget deeper on my imagination. But
this subject I would willingly turn from, and yet, 'for the soul of me,' I
can't till I have said all. I was, madam, when I discontinued writing to
Kilmore, in such circumstances that all my endeavors to continue your
regards might be attributed to wrong motives. My letters might be looked
upon as the petitions of a beggar, and not the offerings of a friend; while
all my professions, instead of being considered as the result of
disinterested esteem, might be ascribed to venal insincerity. I believe,
indeed, you had too much generosity to place them in such a light, but I
could not bear even the shadow of such a suspicion. The most delicate
friendships are always most sensible of the slightest invasion, and the
strongest jealousy is ever attendant on the warmest regard. I could not--I
own I could not--continue a correspondence in which every acknowledgment
for past favors might be considered as an indirect request for future ones;
and where it might be thought I gave my heart from a motive of gratitude
alone, when I was conscious of having bestowed it on much more
disinterested principles. It is true, this conduct might have been simple
enough; but yourself must confess it was in character. Those who know me at
all, know that I have always been actuated by different principles from the
rest of mankind: and while none regarded the interest of his friend more,
no man on earth regarded his own less. I have often affected bluntness to
avoid the imputation of flattery; have frequently seemed to overlook those
merits too obvious to escape notice, and pretended disregard to those
instances of good nature and good sense, which I could not fail tacitly to
applaud; and all this lest I should be ranked among the grinning tribe, who
say 'very true' to all that is said; who fill a vacant chair at a
tea-table; whose narrow souls never moved in a wider circle than the
circumference of a guinea; and who had rather be reckoning the money in
your pocket than the virtue in your breast. All this, I say, I have done,
and a thousand other very silly, though very disinterested, things in my
time, and for all which no soul cares a farthing about me. . . . Is it to be
wondered that he should once in his life forget you, who has been all his
life forgetting himself? However, it is probable you may one of these days
see me turned into a perfect hunks, and as dark and intricate as a
mouse-hole. I have already given my landlady orders for an entire reform in
the state of my finances. I declaim against hot suppers, drink less sugar
in my tea, and check my grate with brickbats. Instead of hanging my room
with pictures, I intend to adorn it with maxims of frugality. Those will
make pretty furniture enough, and won't be a bit too expensive; for I will
draw them all out with my own hands, and my landlady's daughter shall frame
them with the parings of my black waistcoat. Each maxim is to be inscribed
on a sheet of clean paper, and wrote with my best pen; of which the
following will serve as a specimen. _Look sharp: Mind the main chance:
Money is money now: If you have a thousand pounds you can put your hands by
your sides, and say you are worth a thousand pounds every day of the year:
Take a farthing from a hundred and it will be a hundred no longer. _
Thus, which way soever I turn my eyes, they are sure to meet one of those
friendly monitors; and as we are told of an actor who hung his room round
with looking-glass to correct the defects of his person, my apartment shall
be furnished in a peculiar manner, to correct the errors of my mind. Faith!
madam, I heartily wish to be rich, if it were only for this reason, to say
without a blush how much I esteem you. But, alas! I have many a fatigue to
encounter before that happy times comes, when your poor old simple friend
may again give a loose to the luxuriance of his nature; sitting by Kilmore
fireside, recount the various adventures of a hard-fought life; laugh over
the follies of the day; join his flute to your harpsichord; and forget that
ever he starved in those streets where Butler and Otway starved before him.
And now I mention those great names--my uncle! he is no more that soul of
fire as when I once knew him. Newton and Swift grew dim with age as well as
he. But what shall I say? His mind was too active an inhabitant not to
disorder the feeble mansion of its abode: for the richest jewels soonest
wear their settings. Yet who but the fool would lament his condition! He
now forgets the calamities of life. Perhaps indulgent Heaven has given him
a foretaste of that tranquillity here, which he so well deserves hereafter.
But I must come to business; for business, as one of my maxims tells me,
must be minded or lost. I am going to publish in London a book entitled
'The Present State of Taste and Literature in Europe. ' The booksellers in
Ireland republish every performance there without making the author any
consideration. I would, in this respect, disappoint their avarice and have
all the profits of my labor to myself. I must therefore request Mr. Lawder
to circulate among his friends and acquaintances a hundred of my proposals
which I have given the bookseller, Mr. Bradley, in Dame Street, directions
to send to him. If, in pursuance of such circulation, he should receive any
subscriptions, I entreat, when collected, they may be sent to Mr. Bradley,
as aforesaid, who will give a receipt, and be accountable for the work, or
a return of the subscription. If this request (which, if it be complied
with, will in some measure be an encouragement to a man of learning) should
be disagreeable or troublesome, I would not press it; for I would be the
last man on earth to have my labors go a-begging; but if I know Mr. Lawder
(and sure I ought to know him), he will accept the employment with
pleasure. All I can say--if he writes a book, I will get him two hundred
subscribers, and those of the best wits in Europe. Whether this request is
complied with or not, I shall not be uneasy; but there is one petition I
must make to him and to you, which I solicit with the warmest ardor, and in
which I cannot bear a refusal. I mean, dear madam, that I may be allowed to
subscribe myself, your ever affectionate and obliged kinsman, OLIVER
GOLDSMITH. Now see how I blot and blunder, when I am asking a favor. "




CHAPTER TEN

ORIENTAL APPOINTMENT--AND DISAPPOINTMENT--EXAMINATION AT THE COLLEGE OF
SURGEONS--HOW TO PROCURE A SUIT OF CLOTHES--FRESH DISAPPOINTMENT--A TALE OF
DISTRESS--THE SUIT OF CLOTHES IN PAWN--PUNISHMENT FOR DOING AN ACT OF
CHARITY--GAYETIES OF GREEN ARBOR COURT--LETTER TO HIS BROTHER--LIFE OF
VOLTAIRE--SCROGGIN, AN ATTEMPT AT MOCK HEROIC POETRY


While Goldsmith was yet laboring at his treatise, the promise made him by
Dr. Milner was carried into effect, and he was actually appointed physician
and surgeon to one of the factories on the coast of Coromandel. His
imagination was immediately on fire with visions of Oriental wealth and
magnificence. It is true the salary did not exceed one hundred pounds, but
then, as appointed physician, he would have the exclusive practice of the
place, amounting to one thousand pounds per annum; with advantages to be
derived from trade, and from the high interest of money--twenty per cent;
in a word, for once in his life, the road to fortune lay broad and straight
before him.

Hitherto, in his correspondence with his friends, he had said nothing of
his India scheme; but now he imparted to them his brilliant prospects,
urging the importance of their circulating his proposals and obtaining him
subscriptions and advances on his forthcoming work, to furnish funds for
his outfit.

In the meantime he had to task that poor drudge, his muse, for present
exigencies. Ten pounds were demanded for his appointment-warrant. Other
expenses pressed hard upon him. Fortunately, though as yet unknown to fame,
his literary capability was known to "the trade," and the coinage of his
brain passed current in Grub Street. Archibald Hamilton, proprietor of the
"Critical Review," the rival to that of Griffiths, readily made him a small
advance on receiving three articles for his periodical. His purse thus
slenderly replenished, Goldsmith paid for his warrant; wiped off the score
of his milkmaid; abandoned his garret, and moved into a shabby first floor
in a forlorn court near the Old Bailey; there to await the time for his
migration to the magnificent coast of Coromandel.

Alas! poor Goldsmith! ever doomed to disappointment. Early in the gloomy
month of November, that mouth of fog and despondency in London, he learned
the shipwreck of his hope. The great Coromandel enterprise fell through; or
rather the post promised to him was transferred to some other candidate.
The cause of this disappointment it is now impossible to ascertain. The
death of his quasi patron, Dr. Milner, which happened about this time, may
have had some effect in producing it; or there may have been some
heedlessness and blundering on his own part; or some obstacle arising from
his insuperable indigence; whatever may have been the cause, he never
mentioned it, which gives some ground to surmise that he himself was to
blame. His friends learned with surprise that he had suddenly relinquished
his appointment to India, about which he had raised such sanguine
expectations: some accused him of fickleness and caprice; others supposed
him unwilling to tear himself from the growing fascinations of the literary
society of London.

In the meantime, cut down in his hopes and humiliated in his pride by the
failure of his Coromandel scheme, he sought, without consulting his
friends, to be examined at the College of Physicians for the humble
situation of hospital mate. Even here poverty stood in his way. It was
necessary to appear in a decent garb before the examining committee; but
how was he to do so? He was literally out at elbows as well as out of cash.
Here again the muse, so often jilted and neglected by him, came to his aid.
In consideration of four articles furnished to the "Monthly Review,"
Griffiths, his old taskmaster, was to become his security to the tailor for
a suit of clothes. Goldsmith said he wanted them but for a single occasion,
on which depended his appointment to a situation in the army; as soon as
that temporary purpose was served they would either be returned or paid
for. The books to be reviewed were accordingly lent to him; the muse was
again set to her compulsory drudgery; the articles were scribbled off and
sent to the bookseller, and the clothes came in due time from the tailor.

From the records of the College of Surgeons, it appears that Goldsmith
underwent his examination at Surgeons' Hall, on the 21st of December, 1758.

Either from a confusion of mind incident to sensitive and imaginative
persons on such occasions, or from a real want of surgical science, which
last is extremely probable, he failed in his examination, and was rejected
as unqualified. The effect of such a rejection was to disqualify him for
every branch of public service, though he might have claimed a
re-examination, after the interval of a few months devoted to further
study. Such a re-examination he never attempted, nor did he ever
communicate his discomfiture to any of his friends.

On Christmas day, but four days after his rejection by the College of
Surgeons, while he was suffering under the mortification of defeat and
disappointment, and hard pressed for means of subsistence, he was surprised
by the entrance into his room of the poor woman of whom he hired his
wretched apartment, and to whom he owed some small arrears of rent. She had
a piteous tale of distress, and was clamorous in her afflictions. Her
husband had been arrested in the night for debt, and thrown into prison.
This was too much for the quick feelings of Goldsmith; he was ready at any
time to help the distressed, but in this instance he was himself in some
measure a cause of the distress. What was to be done? He had no money, it
is true; but there hung the new suit of clothes in which he had stood his
unlucky examination at Surgeons' Hall. Without giving himself time for
reflection, he sent it off to the pawnbroker's, and raised thereon a
sufficient sum to pay off his own debt, and to release his landlord from
prison.

Under the same pressure of penury and despondency, he borrowed from a
neighbor a pittance to relieve his immediate wants, leaving as a security
the books which he had recently reviewed. In the midst of these straits and
harassments, he received a letter from Griffiths, demanding in peremptory
terms the return of the clothes and books, or immediate payment for the
same. It appears that he had discovered the identical suit at the
pawnbroker's. The reply of Goldsmith is not known; it was out of his power
to furnish either the clothes or the money; but he probably offered once
more to make the muse stand his bail. His reply only increased the ire of
the wealthy man of trade, and drew from him another letter still more harsh
than the first, using the epithets of knave and sharper, and containing
threats of prosecution and a prison.

The following letter from poor Goldsmith gives the most touching picture of
an inconsiderate but sensitive man, harassed by care, stung by
humiliations, and driven almost to despondency.

"Sir--I know of no misery but a jail to which my own imprudences and your
letter seem to point.
I have seen it inevitable these three or four weeks,
and, by heavens! request it as a favor--as a favor that may prevent
something more fatal. I have been some years struggling with a wretched
being--with all that contempt that indigence brings with it--with all those
passions which make contempt insupportable. What, then, has a jail that is
formidable. I shall at least have the society of wretches, and such is to
me true society. I tell you, again and again, that I am neither able nor
willing to pay you a farthing, but I will be punctual to any appointment
you or the tailor shall make: thus far, at least, I do not act the sharper,
since, unable to pay my own debts one way, I would generally give some
security another. No, sir; had I been a sharper--had I been possessed of
less good-nature and native generosity, I might surely now have been in
better circumstances.

"I am guilty, I own, of meannesses which poverty unavoidably brings with
it: my reflections are filled with repentance for my imprudence, but not
with any remorse for being a villain; that may be a character you unjustly
charge me with. Your books, I can assure you, are neither pawned nor sold,
but in the custody of a friend, from whom my necessities obliged me to
borrow some money: whatever becomes of my person, you shall have them in a
month. It is very possible both the reports you have heard and your own
suggestions may have brought you false information with, respect to my
character; it is very possible that the man whom you now regard with
detestation may inwardly burn with grateful resentment. It is very possible
that, upon a second perusal of the letter I sent you, you may see the
workings of a mind strongly agitated with gratitude and jealousy. If such
circumstances should appear, at least spare invective till my book with Mr.
Dodsley shall be published, and then, perhaps, you may see the bright side
of a mind, when my professions shall not appear the dictates of necessity,
but of choice.

"You seem to think Dr. Milner knew me not. Perhaps so; but he was a man I
shall ever honor; but I have friendships only with the dead! I ask pardon
for taking up so much time; nor shall I add to it by any other professions
than that I am, sir, your humble servant,

"OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

"P. S. --I shall expect impatiently the result of your resolutions. "

The dispute between the poet and the publisher was afterward imperfectly
adjusted, and it would appear that the clothes were paid for by a short
compilation advertised by Griffiths in the course of the following month;
but the parties were never really friends afterward, and the writings of
Goldsmith were harshly and unjustly treated in the "Monthly Review. "

We have given the preceding anecdote in detail, as furnishing one of the
many instances in which Goldsmith's prompt and benevolent impulses outran
all prudent forecast, and involved him in difficulties and disgraces which
a more selfish man would have avoided. The pawning of the clothes, charged
upon him as a crime by the grinding bookseller, and apparently admitted by
him as one of "the meannesses which poverty unavoidably brings with it,"
resulted, as we have shown, from a tenderness of heart and generosity of
hand in which another man would have gloried; but these were such natural
elements with him that he was unconscious of their merit. It is a pity that
wealth does not oftener bring such "meannesses" in its train.

And now let us be indulged in a few particulars about these lodgings in
which Goldsmith was guilty of this thoughtless act of benevolence. They
were in a very shabby house, No. 12, Green Arbor Court, between the Old
Bailey and Fleet Market. An old woman was still living in 1820 who was a
relative of the identical landlady whom Goldsmith relieved by the money
received from the pawnbroker. She was a child about seven years of age at
the time that the poet rented his apartment of her relative, and used
frequently to be at the house in Green Arbor Court. She was drawn there, in
a great measure, by the good-humored kindness of Goldsmith, who was always
exceedingly fond of the society of children. He used to assemble those of
the family in his room, give them cakes and sweetmeats, and set them
dancing to the sound of his flute. He was very friendly to those around
him, and cultivated a kind of intimacy with a watchmaker in the court, who
possessed much native wit and humor. He passed most of the day, however, in
his room, and only went out in the evenings. His days were no doubt devoted
to the drudgery of the pen, and it would appear that he occasionally found
the booksellers urgent taskmasters. On one occasion a visitor was shown up
to his room, and immediately their voices were heard in high altercation,
and the key was turned within the lock. The landlady, at first, was
disposed to go to the assistance of her lodger; but a calm succeeding, she
forbore to interfere.

Late in the evening the door was unlocked; a supper ordered by the visitor
from a neighboring tavern, and Goldsmith and his intrusive guest finished
the evening in great good-humor. It was probably his old taskmaster
Griffiths, whose press might have been wailing, and who found no other mode
of getting a stipulated task from Goldsmith than by locking him in, and
staying by him until it was finished.

But we have a more particular account of these lodgings in Green Arbor
Court from the Rev. Thomas Percy, afterward Bishop of Dromore, and
celebrated for his relics of ancient poetry, his beautiful ballads, and
other works. During an occasional visit to London, he was introduced to
Goldsmith by Grainger, and ever after continued one of his most steadfast
and valued friends. The following is his description of the poet's squalid
apartment: "I called on Goldsmith at his lodgings in March, 1759, and found
him writing his 'Inquiry' in a miserable, dirty-looking room, in which
there was but one chair; and when, from civility, he resigned it to me, he
himself was obliged to sit in the window. While we were conversing together
some one tapped gently at the door, and, being desired to come in, a poor,
ragged little girl, of a very becoming demeanor, entered the room, and,
dropping a courtesy, said, 'My mamma sends her compliments and begs the
favor of you to lend her a chamber-pot full of coals. '"

"We are reminded in this anecdote of Goldsmith's picture of the lodgings of
Beau Tibbs, and of the peep into the secrets of a makeshift establishment
given to a visitor by the blundering old Scotch woman.

"By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would permit us to
ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously pleased to call the first
floor down the chimney; and, knocking at the door, a voice from within
demanded 'Who's there? ' My conductor answered that it was him. But this not
satisfying the querist, the voice again repeated the demand, to which he
answered louder than before; and now the door was opened by an old woman
with cautious reluctance.

"When we got in he welcomed me to his house with great ceremony; and,
turning to the old woman, asked where was her lady. 'Good troth,' replied
she, in a peculiar dialect, 'she's washing your twa shirts at the next
door, because they have taken an oath against lending the tub any longer. '
'My two shirts,' cried he, in a tone that faltered with confusion; 'what
does the idiot mean? ' 'I ken what I mean weel enough,' replied the other;
'she's washing your twa shirts at the next door, because--' 'Fire and fury!
no more of thy stupid explanations,' cried he; 'go and inform her we have
company. Were that Scotch hag to be forever in my family, she would never
learn politeness, nor forget that absurd poisonous accent of hers, or
testify the smallest specimen of breeding or high life; and yet it is very
surprising, too, as I had her from a Parliament man, a friend of mine from
the Highlands, one of the politest men in the world; but that's a secret. '"
[Footnote: Citizen of the World, Letter iv. ]

Let us linger a little in Green Arbor Court, a place consecrated by the
genius and the poverty of Goldsmith, but recently obliterated in the course
of modern improvements. The writer of this memoir visited it not many years
since on a literary pilgrimage, and may be excused for repeating a
description of it which he has heretofore inserted in another publication.
"It then existed in its pristine state, and was a small square of tall and
miserable houses, the very intestines of which seemed turned inside out, to
judge from the old garments and frippery that fluttered from every window.
It appeared to be a region of washerwomen, and lines were stretched about
the little square, on which clothes were dangling to dry.

"Just as we entered the square, a scuffle took place between two viragoes
about a disputed right to a washtub, and immediately the whole community
was in a hubbub. Heads in mob caps popped out of every window, and such a
clamor of tongues ensued that I was fain to stop my ears. Every Amazon took
part with one or other of the disputants, and brandished her arms, dripping
with soapsuds, and fired away from her window as from the embrasure of a
fortress; while the screams of children nestled and cradled in every
procreant chamber of this hive, waking with the noise, set up their shrill
pipes to swell the general concert. " [Footnote: Tales of a Traveler. ]

While in these forlorn quarters, suffering under extreme depression of
spirits, caused by his failure at Surgeons' Hall, the disappointment of his
hopes, and his harsh collisions with Griffiths, Goldsmith wrote the
following letter to his brother Henry, some parts of which are most
touchingly mournful.

"DEAR SIR--Your punctuality in answering a man whose trade is writing is
more than I had reason to expect; and yet you see me generally fill a whole
sheet, which is all the recompense I can make for being so frequently
troublesome. The behavior of Mr. Wells and Mr. Lawder is a little
extraordinary. However, their answering neither you nor me is a sufficient
indication of their disliking the employment which I assigned them. As
their conduct is different from what I had expected, so I have made an
alteration in mine. I shall, the beginning of next month, send over two
hundred and fifty books, [Footnote: The Inquiry into Polite Literature. His
previous remarks apply to the subscription. ] which are all that I fancy can
be well sold among you, and I would have you make some distinction in the
persons who have subscribed. The money, which will amount to sixty pounds,
may be left with Mr. Bradley as soon as possible. I am not certain but I
shall quickly have occasion for it.

"I have met with no disappointment with respect to my East India voyage,
nor are my resolutions altered; though, at the same time, I must confess,
it gives me some pain to think I am almost beginning the world at the age
of thirty-one. Though I never had a day's sickness since I saw you, yet I
am not that strong, active man you once knew me. You scarcely can conceive
how much eight years of disappointment, anguish, and study have worn me
down. If I remember right you are seven or eight years older than me, yet I
dare venture to say, that, if a stranger saw Us both, he would pay me the
honors of seniority. Imagine to yourself a pale, melancholy visage, with
two great wrinkles between the eyebrows, with an eye disgustingly severe,
and a big wig; and you may have a perfect picture of my present appearance.
On the other hand, I conceive you as perfectly sleek and healthy, passing
many a happy day among your own children or those who knew you a child.

"Since I knew what it was to be a man, this is a pleasure I have not known.
I have passed my days among a parcel of cool, designing beings, and have
contracted all their suspicious manner in my own behavior. I should
actually be as unfit for the society of my friends at home, as I detest
that which I am obliged to partake of here. I can now neither partake of
the pleasure of a revel, nor contribute to raise its jollity. I can neither
laugh nor drink; have contracted a hesitating, disagreeable manner of
speaking, and a visage that looks ill-nature itself; in short, I have
thought myself into a settled melancholy, and an utter disgust of all that
life brings with it. Whence this romantic turn that all our family are
possessed with? Whence this love for every place and every country but that
in which we reside--for every occupation but our own? this desire of
fortune, and yet this eagerness to dissipate? I perceive, my dear sir, that
I am at intervals for indulging this splenetic manner, and following my own
taste, regardless of yours.

"The reasons you have given me for breeding up your son a scholar are
judicious and convincing; I should, however, be glad to know for what
particular profession he is designed If he be assiduous and divested of
strong passions (for passions in youth always lead to pleasure), he may do
very well in your college; for it must be owned that the industrious poor
have good encouragement there, perhaps better than in any other in Europe.
But if he has ambition, strong passions, and an exquisite sensibility of
contempt, do not send him there, unless you have no other trade for him but
your own. It is impossible to conceive how much may be done by proper
education at home. A boy, for instance, who understands perfectly well
Latin, French, arithmetic, and the principles of the civil law, and can
write a fine hand, has an education that may qualify him for any
undertaking; and these parts of learning should be carefully inculcated,
let him be designed for whatever calling he will.

"Above all things, let him never touch a romance or novel; these paint
beauty in colors more charming than nature, and describe happiness that man
never tastes. How delusive, how destructive, are those pictures of
consummate bliss! They teach the youthful mind to sigh after beauty and
happiness that never existed; to despise the little good which fortune has
mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave; and, in general,
take the word of a man who has seen the world, and who has studied human
nature more by experience than precept; take my word for it, I say, that
books teach us very little of the world. The greatest merit in a state of
poverty would only serve to make the possessor ridiculous--may distress,
but cannot relieve him. Frugality, and even avarice, in the lower orders'
of mankind, are true ambition. These afford the only ladder for the poor to
rise to preferment. Teach then, my dear sir, to your son, thrift and
economy. Let his poor wandering uncle's example be placed before his eyes.
I had learned from books to be disinterested and generous before I was
taught from experience the necessity of being prudent. I had contracted the
habits and notions of a philosopher, while I was exposing myself to the
approaches of insidious cunning; and often by being, even with my narrow
finances, charitable to excess, I forgot the rules of justice, and placed
myself in the very situation of the wretch who thanked me for my bounty.
When I am in the remotest part of the world, tell him this, and perhaps he
may improve from my example. But I find myself again falling into my gloomy
habits of thinking.

"My mother, I am informed, is almost blind; even though I had the utmost
inclination to return home, under such circumstances I could not, for to
behold her in distress without a capacity of relieving her from it would
add much to my splenetic habit. Your last letter was much too short; it
should have answered some queries I had made in my former. Just sit down as
I do, and write forward until you have filled all your paper. It requires
no thought, at least from the ease with which my own sentiments rise when
they are addressed to you. For, believe me, my head has no share in all I
write; my heart dictates the whole. Pray give my love to Bob Bryanton, and
entreat him from me not to drink. My dear sir, give me some account about
poor Jenny. [Footnote: His sister, Mrs. Johnston; her marriage, like that
of Mrs. Hodson, was private, but in pecuniary matters much less fortunate. ]
Yet her husband loves her; if so, she cannot be unhappy.

"I know not whether I should tell you--yet why should I conceal these
trifles, or, indeed, anything from you? There is a book of mine will be
published in a few days; the life of a very extraordinary man; no less than
the great Voltaire. You know already by the title that it is no more than a
catchpenny. However, I spent but four weeks on the whole performance, for
which I received twenty pounds. When published, I shall take some method of
conveying it to you, unless you may think it dear of the postage, which may
amount to four or five shillings. However, I fear you will not find an
equivalent of amusement.

"Your last letter, I repeat it, was too short; you should have given me
your opinion of the design of the heroi-comical poem which I sent you. You
remember I intended to introduce the hero of the poem as lying in a paltry
alehouse. You may take the following specimen of the manner, which. I
flatter myself is quite original. The room in which he lies may be
described somewhat in this way:

"'The window, patched with paper, lent a ray
That feebly show'd the state in which he lay;
The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread,
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread;
The game of goose was there exposed to view,
And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew;
The Seasons, framed with listing, found a place.
And Prussia's monarch show'd his lampblack face.
The morn was cold: he views with keen desire
A rusty grate unconscious of a fire;
An unpaid reckoning on the frieze was scored,
And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board. '

"And now imagine, after his soliloquy, the landlord to make his appearance
in order to dun him for the reckoning:

"'Not with that face, so servile and so gay,
That welcomes every stranger that can pay:
With sulky eye he smoked the patient man,
hen pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began,' etc.

[Footnote: The projected poem, of which the above were specimens, appears
never to have been completed. ]

"All this is taken, you see, from nature. It is a good remark of
Montaigne's, that the wisest men often hare friends with whom they do not
care how much they play the fool. Take my present follies as instances of
my regard. Poetry is a much easier and more agreeable species of
composition than prose; and could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant
employment to be a poet. I am resolved to leave no space, though I should
fill it up only by telling you, what you very well know already, I mean
that I am your most affectionate friend and brother,

"OLIVER GOLDSMITH. "

The Life of Voltaire, alluded to in the latter part of the preceding
letter, was the literary job undertaken to satisfy the demands of
Griffiths. It was to hare preceded a translation of the Henriade, by Ned
Purdon, Goldsmith's old schoolmate, now a Grub Street writer, who starved
rather than lived by the exercise of his pen, and often tasked Goldsmith's
scanty means to relieve his hunger. His miserable career was summed up by
our poet in the following lines written some years after the tune we are
treating of, on hearing that he had suddenly dropped dead in Smithfield:

"Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed,
Who long was a bookseller's hack;
He led such a damnable life in this world,
I don't think he'll wish to come back. "

The memoir and translation, though advertised to form a volume, were not
published together; but appeared separately in a magazine.

As to the heroi-comical poem, also, cited in the foregoing letter, it
appears to have perished in embryo. Had it been brought to maturity we
should have had further traits of autobiography, the room already described
was probably his own squalid quarters in Green Arbor Court; and in a
subsequent morsel of the poem we have the poet himself, under the
euphonious name of Scroggin:

"Where the Red Lion peering o'er the way,
Invites each passing stranger that can pay;
Where Calvert's butt and Parson's black champagne
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane:
There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,
The muse found Scroggin stretch'd beneath a rug;
A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay,
A cap by night, a stocking all the day! "

It is to be regretted that this poetical conception was not carried out;
like the author's other writings, it might have abounded with pictures of
life and touches of nature drawn from his own observation and experience,
and mellowed by his own humane and tolerant spirit; and might have been a
worthy companion or rather contrast to his Traveler and Deserted Village,
and have remained in the language a first-rate specimen of the mock-heroic.




CHAPTER ELEVEN

PUBLICATION OF THE INQUIRY--ATTACKED BY GRIFFITHS' REVIEW--KENRICK THE
LITERARY ISHMAELITE--PERIODICAL LITERATURE--GOLDSMITH'S ESSAYS--GARRICK AS
A MANAGER--SMOLLETT AND HIS SCHEMES--CHANGE OF LODGINGS--THE ROBIN HOOD
CLUB



Toward the end of March, 1759, the treatise on which Goldsmith had laid so
much stress, on which he at one time had calculated to defray the expenses
of his outfit to India, and to which he had adverted in his correspondence
with Griffiths, made its appearance. It was published by the Dodsleys, and
entitled An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.

In the present day, when the whole field of contemporary literature is so
widely surveyed and amply discussed, and when the current productions of
every country are constantly collated and ably criticised, a treatise like
that of Goldsmith would be considered as extremely limited and
unsatisfactory; but at that time it possessed novelty in its views and
wideness in its scope, and being indued with the peculiar charm of style
inseparable from the author, it commanded public attention and a profitable
sale. As it was the most important production that had yet come from
Goldsmith's pen, he was anxious to have the credit of it; yet it appeared
without his name on the title-page. The authorship, however, was well known
throughout the world of letters, and the author had now grown into
sufficient literary importance to become an object of hostility to the
underlings of the press. One of the most virulent attacks upon him was in a
criticism on this treatise, and appeared in the "Monthly Review," to which
he himself had been recently a contributor. It slandered him as a man while
it decried him as an author, and accused him, by innuendo, of "laboring
under the infamy of having, by the vilest and meanest actions, forfeited
all pretensions to honor and honesty," and of practicing "those acts which
bring the sharper to the cart's tail or the pillory. "

It will be remembered that the "Review" was owned by Griffiths the
bookseller, with whom Goldsmith had recently had a misunderstanding. The
criticism, therefore, was no doubt dictated by the lingerings of
resentment; and the imputations upon Goldsmith's character for honor and
honesty, and the vile and mean actions hinted at, could only allude to the
unfortunate pawning of the clothes. All this, too, was after Griffiths had
received the affecting letter from Goldsmith, drawing a picture of his
poverty and perplexities, and after the latter had made him a literary
compensation. Griffiths, in fact, was sensible of the falsehood and
extravagance of the attack, and tried to exonerate himself by declaring
that the criticism was written by a person in his employ; but we see no
difference in atrocity between him who wields the knife and him who hires
the cut-throat. It may be well, however, in passing, to bestow our mite of
notoriety upon the miscreant who launched the slander. He deserves it for a
long course of dastardly and venomous attacks, not merely upon Goldsmith,
but upon most of the successful authors of the day. His name was Kenrick.
He was originally a mechanic, but, possessing some degree of talent and
industry, applied himself to literature as a profession. This he pursued
for many years, and tried his hand in every department of prose and poetry;
he wrote plays and satires, philosophical tracts, critical dissertations,
and works on philology; nothing from his pen ever rose to first-rate
excellence, or gained him a popular name, though he received from some
university the degree of Doctor of Laws. Dr. Johnson characterized his
literary career in one short sentence. "Sir, he is one of the many who have
made themselves _public_ without making themselves _known_. "

Soured by his own want of success, jealous of the success of others, his
natural irritability of temper increased by habits of intemperance, he at
length abandoned himself to the practice of reviewing, and became one of
the Ishmaelites of the press. In this his malignant bitterness soon gave
him a notoriety which his talents had never been able to attain. We shall
dismiss him for the present with the following sketch of him by the hand of
one of his contemporaries:

"Dreaming of genius which he never had,
Half wit, half fool, half critic, and half mad;
Seizing, like Shirley, on the poet's lyre,
With all his rage, but not one spark of fire;
Eager for slaughter, and resolved to tear
From other's brows that wreath he most not wear
Next Kenrick came: all furious and replete
With brandy, malice, pertness, and conceit;
Unskill'd in classic lore, through envy blind
To all that's beauteous, learned, or refined;
For faults alone behold the savage prowl,
With reason's offal glut his ravening soul;
Pleased with his prey, its inmost blood he drinks,
And mumbles, paws, and turns it--till it stinks. "

The British press about this time was extravagantly fruitful of periodical
publications. That "oldest inhabitant," the "Gentleman's Magazine," almost
coeval with St. John's gate which graced its title-page, had long been
elbowed by magazines and reviews of all kinds; Johnson's Rambler had
introduced the fashion of periodical essays, which he had followed up in
his Adventurer and Idler. Imitations had sprung up on every side, under
every variety of name; until British literature was entirely overrun by a
weedy and transient efflorescence. Many of these rival periodicals choked
each other almost at the outset, and few of them have escaped oblivion.

Goldsmith wrote for some of the most successful, such as the "Bee," the
"Busy-Body," and the "Lady's Magazine. " His essays, though characterized by
his delightful style, his pure, benevolent morality, and his mellow,
unobtrusive humor, did not produce equal effect at first with more garish
writings of infinitely less value; they did not "strike," as it is termed;
but they had that rare and enduring merit which rises in estimation on
every perusal. They gradually stole upon the heart of the public, were
copied into numerous contemporary publications, and now they are garnered
up among the choice productions of British literature.

In his Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning, Goldsmith had given
offense to David Garrick, at that time the autocrat of the Drama, and was
doomed to experience its effect. A clamor had been raised against Garrick
for exercising a despotism over the stage, and bringing forward nothing but
old plays to the exclusion of original productions. Walpole joined in this
charge. "Garrick," said he, "is treating the town as it deserves and likes
to be treated; with scenes, fireworks, and _his own writings_. A good
new play I never expect to see more; nor have seen since the Provoked
Husband, which came out when I was at school. " Goldsmith, who was extremely
fond of the theater, and felt the evils of this system, inveighed in his
treatise against the wrongs experienced by authors at the hands of
managers. "Our poet's performance," said he, "must undergo a process truly
chemical before it is presented to the public. It must be tried in the
manager's fire; strained through a licenser, suffer from repeated
corrections, till it may be a mere _caput mortuum_ when it arrives
before the public. " Again. "Getting a play on even in three or four years
is a privilege reserved only for the happy few who have the arts of
courting the manager as well as the muse; who have adulation to please his
vanity, powerful patrons to support their merit, or money to indemnify
disappointment. Our Saxon ancestors had but one name for a wit and a witch.
I will not dispute the propriety of uniting those characters then; but the
man who under present discouragements ventures to write for the stage,
whatever claim he may have to the appellation of a wit, at least has no
right to be called a conjurer. " But a passage which perhaps touched more
sensibly than all the rest on the sensibilities of Garrick was the
following.

"I have no particular spleen against the fellow who sweeps the stage with
the besom, or the hero who brushes it with his train. It were a matter of
indifference to me whether our heroines are in keeping, or our candle
snuffers burn their fingers, did not such make a great part of public care
and polite conversation. Our actors assume all that state off the stage
which they do on it; and, to use an expression borrowed from the green
room, every one is _up_ in his part. I am sorry to say it, they seem
to forget their real characters. "

These strictures were considered by Garrick as intended for himself, and
they were rankling in his mind when Goldsmith waited upon him and solicited
his vote for the vacant secretaryship of the Society of Arts, of which the
manager was a member. Garrick, puffed up by his dramatic renown and his
intimacy with the great, and knowing Goldsmith only by his budding
reputation, may not have considered him of sufficient importance to be
conciliated. In reply to his solicitations, he observed that he could
hardly expect his friendly exertions after the unprovoked attack he had
made upon his management. Goldsmith replied that he had indulged in no
personalities, and had only spoken what he believed to be the truth. He
made no further apology nor application; failed to get the appointment, and
considered Garrick his enemy. In the second edition of his treatise he
expunged or modified the passages which had given the manager offense; but
though the author and actor became intimate in after years, this false step
at the outset of their intercourse was never forgotten.

About this time Goldsmith engaged with Dr. Smollett, who was about to
launch the "British Magazine. " Smollett was a complete schemer and
speculator in literature, and intent upon enterprises that had money rather
than reputation in view. Goldsmith has a good-humored hit at this
propensity in one of his papers in the "Bee," in which he represents
Johnson, Hume, and others taking seats in the stagecoach bound for Fame,
while Smollett prefers that destined for Riches.