No More Learning

' She complied in a manner so
exquisitely pathetic as moved me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Sir--As there is nothing I dislike so much as newspaper controversy,
particularly upon trifles, permit me to be as concise as possible in
informing a correspondent of yours that I recommended Blainville's travels
because I thought the book was a good one; and I think so still. I said I
was told by the bookseller that it was then first published; but in that it
seems I was misinformed, and my reading was not extensive enough to set me
right.

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

"I am, sir, yours, etc. ,

"OLIVER GOLDSMITH. "

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER NINETEEN

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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




CHAPTER TWENTY

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next day Goldsmith wrote to Garrick, who was at Lichfield, informing
him of his having transferred his piece to Covent Garden, for which it had
been originally written, and by the patentee of which it was claimed,
observing, "As I found you had very great difficulties about that piece, I
complied with his desire. . . . I am extremely sorry that you should think me
warm at our last meeting; your judgment certainly ought to be free,
especially in a matter which must in some measure concern your own credit
and interest. I assure you, sir, I have no disposition to differ with you
on this or any other account, but am, with a high opinion of your
abilities, and a very real esteem, Sir, your most obedient humble servant.
Oliver Goldsmith. "

In his reply, Garrick observed, "I was, indeed, much hurt that your warmth
at our last meeting mistook my sincere and friendly attention to your play
for the remains of a former misunderstanding, which I had as much forgot as
if it had never existed. What I said to you at my own house I now repeat,
that I felt more pain in giving my sentiments than you possibly would in
receiving them. It has been the business, and ever will be, of my life to
live on the best terms with men of genius; and I know that Dr. Goldsmith
will have no reason to change his previous friendly disposition toward me,
as I shall be glad of every future opportunity to convince him how much I
am his obedient servant and well-wisher. D. Garrick. "




CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

MORE HACK AUTHORSHIP--TOM DAVIES AND THE ROMAN HISTORY--CANONBURY
CASTLE--POLITICAL AUTHORSHIP--PECUNIARY TEMPTATION--DEATH OF NEWBERY THE
ELDER


Though Goldsmith's comedy was now in train to be performed, it could not be
brought out before Christmas; in the meantime, he must live. Again,
therefore, he had to resort to literary jobs for his daily support. These
obtained for him petty occasional sums, the largest of which was ten
pounds, from the elder Newbery, for a historical compilation; but this
scanty rill of quasi patronage, so sterile in its products, was likely soon
to cease; Newbery being too ill to attend to business, and having to
transfer the whole management of it to his nephew.

At this time Tom Davies, the sometime Roscius, sometime bibliopole, stepped
forward to Goldsmith's relief, and proposed that he should undertake an
easy popular history of Rome in two volumes. An arrangement was soon made.
Goldsmith undertook to complete it in two years, if possible, for two
hundred and fifty guineas, and forthwith set about his task with cheerful
alacrity. As usual, he sought a rural retreat during the summer months,
where he might alternate his literary labors with strolls about the green
fields. "Merry Islington" was again his resort, but he now aspired to
better quarters than formerly, and engaged the chambers occupied
occasionally by Mr. Newbery in Canonbury House, or Castle, as it is
popularly called. This had been a hunting lodge of Queen Elizabeth, in
whose time it was surrounded by parks and forests. In Goldsmith's day
nothing remained of it but an old brick tower; it was still in the country,
amid rural scenery, and was a favorite nestling-place of authors,
publishers, and others of the literary order. [Footnote:

See on the distant slope, majestic shows
Old Canonbury's tower, an ancient pile
To various fates assigned; and where by turns
Meanness and grandeur have alternate reign'd;
Thither, in latter days, have genius fled
From yonder city, to respire and die.
There the sweet bard of Auburn sat, and tuned
The plaintive moanings of his village dirge.
There learned Chambers treasured lore for _men_,
And Newbery there his A B C's for _babes_. ]

A number of these he had for fellow occupants of the castle; and they
formed a temporary club, which held its meetings at the Crown Tavern, on
the Islington lower road; and here he presided in his own genial style, and
was the life and delight of the company.

The writer of these pages visited old Canonbury Castle some years since,
out of regard to the memory of Goldsmith. The apartment was still shown
which the poet had inhabited, consisting of a sitting-room and small
bedroom, with paneled wainscots and Gothic windows. The quaintness and
quietude of the place were still attractive. It was one of the resorts of
citizens on their Sunday walks, who would ascend to the top of the tower
and amuse themselves with reconnoitering the city through a telescope. Not
far from this tower were the gardens of the White Conduit House, a Cockney
Elysium, where Goldsmith used to figure in the humbler days of his fortune.
In the first edition of his Essays he speaks of a stroll in these gardens,
where he at that time, no doubt, thought himself in perfectly genteel
society. After his rise in the world, however, he became too knowing to
speak of such plebeian haunts. In a new edition of his Essays, therefore,
the White Conduit House and its garden disappears, and he speaks of "a
stroll in the Park. "

While Goldsmith was literally living from hand to mouth by the forced
drudgery of the pen, his independence of spirit was subjected to a sore
pecuniary trial. It was the opening of Lord North's administration, a time
of great political excitement. The public mind was agitated by the question
of American taxation, and other questions of like irritating tendency.
Junius and Wilkes and other powerful writers were attacking the
administration with all their force; Grub Street was stirred up to its
lowest depths; inflammatory talent of all kinds was in full activity, and
the kingdom was deluged with pamphlets, lampoons and libels of the grossest
kinds. The ministry were looking anxiously round for literary support. It
was thought that the pen of Goldsmith might be readily enlisted. His
hospitable friend and countryman, Robert Nugent, politically known as
Squire Gawky, had come out strenuously for colonial taxation; had been
selected for a lordship of the board of trade, and raised to the rank of
Baron Nugent and Viscount Clare. His example, it was thought, would be
enough of itself to bring Goldsmith into the ministerial ranks; and then
what writer of the day was proof against a full purse or a pension?
Accordingly one Parson Scott, chaplain to Lord Sandwich, and author of Anti
Se anus Panurge, and other political libels in support of the
administration, was sent to negotiate with the poet, who at this time was
returned to town. Dr. Scott, in after years, when his political
subserviency had been rewarded by two fat crown livings, used to make what
he considered a good story out of this embassy to the poet. "I found him,"
said he, "in a miserable suit of chambers in the Temple. I told him my
authority: I told how I was empowered to pay most liberally for his
exertions; and, would you believe it! he was so absurd as to say, 'I can
earn as much as will supply my wants without writing for any party; the
assistance you offer is therefore unnecessary to me'; and so I left him in
his garret! " Who does not admire the sturdy independence of poor Goldsmith
toiling in his garret for nine guineas the job, and smile with contempt at
the indignant wonder of the political divine, albeit his subserviency
_was_ repaid by two fat crown livings?

Not long after this occurrence, Goldsmith's old friend, though
frugal-handed employer, Newbery, of picture-book renown, closed his mortal
career. The poet has celebrated him as the friend of all mankind; he
certainly lost nothing by his friendship. He coined the brains of his
authors in the times of their exigency, and made them pay dear for the
plank put out to keep them from drowning. It is not likely his death caused
much lamentation among the scribbling tribe; we may express decent respect
for the memory of the just, but we shed tears only at the grave of the
generous.




CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THEATRICAL MANEUVERING--THE COMEDY OF FALSE DELICACY--FIRST PERFORMANCE OF
THE GOOD-NATURED MAN--CONDUCT OF JOHNSON--CONDUCT OF THE
AUTHOR--INTERMEDDLING OF THE PRESS


The comedy of The Good-Natured Man was doomed to experience delays and
difficulties to the very last. Garrick, notwithstanding his professions,
had still a lurking grudge against the author, and tasked his managerial
arts to thwart him in his theatrical enterprise. For this purpose he
undertook to build up Hugh Kelly, Goldsmith's boon companion of the
Wednesday Club, as a kind of rival. Kelly had written a comedy called False
Delicacy, in which were embodied all the meretricious qualities of the
sentimental school. Garrick, though he had decried that school, and had
brought out his comedy of The Clandestine Marriage in opposition to it, now
lauded False Delicacy to the skies, and prepared to bring it out at Drury
Lane with all possible stage effect. He even went so far as to write a
prologue and epilogue for it, and to touch up some parts of the dialogue.
He had become reconciled to his former colleague, Colman, and it is
intimated that one condition in the treaty of peace between these
potentates of the realms of pasteboard (equally prone to play into each
other's hands with the confederate potentates on the great theater of life)
was that Goldsmith's play should be kept back until Kelly's had been
brought forward.

In the meantime the poor author, little dreaming of the deleterious
influence at work behind the scenes, saw the appointed time arrive and pass
by without the performance of his play; while False Delicacy was brought
out at Drury Lane (January 23, 1768) with all the trickery of managerial
management. Houses were packed to applaud it to the echo; the newspapers
vied with each other in their venal praises, and night after night seemed
to give it a fresh triumph.

While False Delicacy was thus borne on the full tide of fictitious
prosperity, The Good-Natured Man was creeping through the last rehearsals
at Covent Garden. The success of the rival piece threw a damp upon author,
manager, and actors. Goldsmith went about with a face full of anxiety;
Colman's hopes in the piece declined at each rehearsal; as to his fellow
proprietors, they declared they had never entertained any. All the actors
were discontented with their parts, excepting Ned Shuter, an excellent low
comedian, and a pretty actress named Miss Walford; both of whom the poor
author every afterward held in grateful recollection.

Johnson, Goldsmith's growling monitor and unsparing castigator in times of
heedless levity, stood by him at present with that protecting kindness with
which he ever befriended him in time of need. He attended the rehearsals;
he furnished the prologue according to promise; he pish'd and pshaw'd at
any doubts and fears on the part of the author, but gave him sound counsel,
and held him up with a steadfast and manly hand. Inspirited by his
sympathy, Goldsmith plucked up new heart, and arrayed himself for the grand
trial with unusual care. Ever since his elevation into the polite world, he
had improved in his wardrobe and toilet. Johnson could no longer accuse him
of being shabby in his appearance; he rather went to the other extreme. On
the present occasion there is an entry in the books of his tailor, Mr.
William Filby, of a suit of "Tyrian bloom, satin grain, and garter blue
silk breeches, £8 2s. 7d. " Thus magnificently attired, he attended the
theater and watched the reception of the play and the effect of each
individual scene, with that vicissitude of feeling incident to his
mercurial nature.

Johnson's prologue was solemn in itself, and being delivered by Brinsley in
lugubrious tones suited to the ghost in Hamlet, seemed to throw a
portentous gloom on the audience. Some of the scenes met with great
applause, and at such times Goldsmith was highly elated; others went off
coldly, or there were slight tokens of disapprobation, and then his spirits
would sink. The fourth act saved the piece; for Shuter, who had the main
comic character of Croaker, was so varied and ludicrous in his execution of
the scene in which he reads an incendiary letter that he drew down thunders
of applause. On his coming behind the scenes, Goldsmith greeted him with an
overflowing heart; declaring that he exceeded his own idea of the
character, and made it almost as new to him as to any of the audience.

On the whole, however, both the author and his friends were disappointed at
the reception of the piece, and considered it a failure. Poor Goldsmith
left the theater with his towering hopes completely cut down. He endeavored
to hide his mortification, and even to assume an air of unconcern while
among his associates; but, the moment he was alone with Dr. Johnson, in
whose rough but magnanimous nature he reposed unlimited confidence, he
threw off all restraint and gave way to an almost childlike burst of grief.
Johnson, who had shown no want of sympathy at the proper time, saw nothing
in the partial disappointment of overrated expectations to warrant such
ungoverned emotions, and rebuked him sternly for what he termed a silly
affectation, saying that "No man should be expected to sympathize with the
sorrows of vanity. "

When Goldsmith had recovered from the blow, he, with his usual unreserve,
made his past distress a subject of amusement to his friends. Dining one
day, in company with Dr. Johnson, at the chaplain's table at St. James's
Palace, he entertained the company with a particular and comic account of
all his feelings on the night of representation, and his despair when the
piece was hissed. How he went, he said, to the Literary Club; chatted
gayly, as if nothing had gone amiss; and, to give a greater idea of his
unconcern, sang his favorite song about an old woman tossed in a blanket
seventeen times as high as the moon. . . . "All this while," added he, "I was
suffering horrid tortures, and, had I put a bit in my mouth, I verily
believe it would have strangled me on the spot, I was so excessively ill:
but I made more noise than usual to cover all that; so they never perceived
my not eating, nor suspected the anguish of my heart; but, when all were
gone except Johnson here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore that I would
never write again. "

Dr. Johnson sat in amaze at the odd frankness and childlike self-accusation
of poor Goldsmith. When the latter had come to a pause, "All this, doctor,"
said he dryly, "I thought had been a secret between you and me, and I am
sure I would not have said anything about it for the world. " But Goldsmith
had no secrets: his follies, his weaknesses, his errors were all thrown to
the surface; his heart was really too guileless and innocent to seek
mystery and concealment. It is too often the false, designing man that is
guarded in his conduct and never offends proprieties.

It is singular, however, that Goldsmith, who thus in conversation could
keep nothing to himself, should be the author of a maxim which would
inculcate the most thorough dissimulation. "Men of the world," says he, in
one of the papers of the "Bee," "maintain that the true end of speech is
not so much to express our wants as to conceal them. " How often is this
quoted as one of the subtle remarks of the fine witted Talleyrand!

The Good-Natured Man was performed for ten nights in succession; the third,
sixth, and ninth nights were for the author's benefit; the fifth night it
was commanded by their majesties; after this it was played occasionally,
but rarely, having always pleased more in the closet than on the stage.

As to Kelly's comedy, Johnson pronounced it entirely devoid of character,
and it has long since passed into oblivion. Yet it is an instance how an
inferior production, by dint of puffing and trumpeting, may be kept up for
a time on the surface of popular opinion, or rather of popular talk. What
had been done for False Delicacy on the stage was continued by the press.
The booksellers vied with the manager in launching it upon the town. They
announced that the first impression of three thousand copies was exhausted
before two o'clock on the day of publication; four editions, amounting to
ten thousand copies, were sold in the course of the season; a public
breakfast was given to Kelly at the Chapter Coffee House, and a piece of
plate presented to him by the publishers. The comparative merits of the two
plays were continually subjects of discussion in green-rooms, coffeehouses,
and other places where theatrical questions were discussed.

Goldsmith's old enemy, Kenrick, that "viper of the press," endeavored on
this as on many other occasions to detract from his well-earned fame; the
poet was excessively sensitive to these attacks, and had not the art and
self-command to conceal his feelings.

Some scribblers on the other side insinuated that Kelly had seen the
manuscript of Goldsmith's play, while in the hands of Garrick or elsewhere,
and had borrowed some of the situations and sentiments. Some of the wags of
the day took a mischievous pleasure in stirring up a feud between the two
authors. Goldsmith became nettled, though he could scarcely be deemed
jealous of one so far his inferior. He spoke disparagingly, though no doubt
sincerely, of Kelly's play: the latter retorted. Still, when they met one
day behind the scenes of Covent Garden, Goldsmith, with his customary
urbanity, congratulated Kelly on his success. "If I thought you sincere,
Mr. Goldsmith," replied the other, abruptly, "I should thank you. "
Goldsmith was not a man to harbor spleen or ill-will, and soon laughed at
this unworthy rivalship: but the jealousy and envy awakened in Kelly's mind
long continued. He is even accused of having given vent to his hostility by
anonymous attacks in the newspapers, the basest resource of dastardly and
malignant spirits; but of this there is no positive proof.




CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

BURNING THE CANDLE AT BOTH ENDS--FINE APARTMENTS--FINE FURNITURE--FINE
CLOTHES--FINE ACQUAINTANCES--SHOEMAKER'S HOLIDAY AND JOLLY PIGEON
ASSOCIATES--PETER BARLOW, GLOVER, AND THE HAMPSTEAD HOAX--POOR FRIENDS
AMONG GREAT ACQUAINTANCES


The profits resulting from The Good-Natured Man were beyond any that
Goldsmith had yet derived from his works. He netted about four hundred
pounds from the theater, and one hundred pounds from his publisher.

Five hundred pounds! and all at one miraculous draught! It appeared to him
wealth inexhaustible. It at once opened his heart and hand, and led him
into all kinds of extravagance. The first symptom was ten guineas sent to
Shuter for a box ticket for his benefit, when The Good-Natured Man was to
be performed. The next was an entire change in his domicile. The shabby
lodgings with Jeffs the butler, in which he had been worried by Johnson's
scrutiny, were now exchanged for chambers more becoming a man of his ample
fortune. The apartments consisted of three rooms on the second floor of No.
2 Brick Court, Middle Temple, on the right hand ascending the staircase,
and overlooked the umbrageous walks of the Temple garden. The lease he
purchased for four hundred pounds, and then went on to furnish his rooms
with mahogany sofas, card-tables, and book-cases; with curtains, mirrors,
and Wilton carpets. His awkward little person was also furnished out in a
style befitting his apartment; for, in addition to his suit of "Tyrian
bloom, satin grain," we find another charged about this time, in the books
of Mr. Filby, in no less gorgeous terms, being "lined with silk and
furnished with gold buttons. " Thus lodged and thus arrayed, he invited the
visits of his most aristocratic acquaintances, and no longer quailed
beneath the courtly eye of Beauclerc. He gave dinners to Johnson, Reynolds,
Percy, Bickerstaff, and other friends of note; and supper parties to young
folks of both sexes.