No More Learning

The first authentic trace we have of him in this new part of his career, is
filling the situation of an usher to a school, and even this employ he
obtained with some difficulty, after a reference for a character to his
friends in the University of Dublin. In the Vicar of Wakefield he makes
George Primrose undergo a whimsical catechism concerning the requisites for
an usher. "Have you been bred apprentice to the business? " "No. " "Then you
won't do for a school. Can you dress the boys' hair? " "No. " "Then you won't
do for a school. Can you lie three in a bed? " "No. " "Then you will never do
for a school. Have you a good stomach? " "Yes. " "Then you will by no means
do for a school. I have been an usher in a boarding-school myself, and may
I die of an anodyne necklace, but I had rather be under-turnkey in Newgate.
I was up early and late; I was browbeat by the master, hated for my ugly
face by the mistress, worried by the boys. "

Goldsmith remained but a short time in this situation, and to the
mortifications experienced there we doubtless owe the picturings given in
his writings of the hardships of an usher's life. "He is generally," says
he, "the laughingstock of the school. Every trick is played upon him; the
oddity of his manner, his dress, or his language, is a fund of eternal
ridicule; the master himself now and then cannot avoid joining in the
laugh; and the poor wretch, eternally resenting this ill-usage, lives in a
state of war with all the family. "--"He is obliged, perhaps, to sleep in
the same bed with the French teacher, who disturbs him for an hour every
night in papering and filleting his hair, and stinks worse than a carrion
with his rancid pomatums, when he lays his head beside him on the bolster. "

His next shift was as assistant in the laboratory of a chemist near Fish
Street Hill. After remaining here a few months, he heard that Dr. Sleigh,
who had been his friend and fellow-student at Edinburgh, was in London.
Eager to meet with a friendly face in this land of strangers, he
immediately called on him; "but though it was Sunday, and it is to be
supposed I was in my best clothes, Sleigh scarcely knew me--such is the tax
the unfortunate pay to poverty. However, when he did recollect me, I found
his heart as warm as ever, and he shared his purse and friendship with me
during his continuance in London. "

Through the advice and assistance of Dr. Sleigh, he now commenced the
practice of medicine, but in a small way, in Bankside, Southwark, and
chiefly among the poor; for he wanted the figure, address, polish, and
management, to succeed among the rich. His old schoolmate and college
companion, Beatty, who used to aid him with his purse at the university,
met him about this time, decked out in the tarnished finery of a
second-hand suit of green and gold, with a shirt and neckcloth of a
fortnight's wear.

Poor Goldsmith endeavored to assume a prosperous air in the eyes of his
early associate. "He was practicing physic," he said, "and _doing very
well! _" At this moment poverty was pinching him to the bone in spite of
his practice and his dirty finery. His fees were necessarily small, and ill
paid, and he was fain to seek some precarious assistance from his pen. Here
his quondam fellow-student, Dr. Sleigh, was again of service, introducing
him to some of the booksellers, who gave him occasional, though starveling
employment. According to tradition, however, his most efficient patron just
now was a journeyman printer, one of his poor patients of Bankside, who had
formed a good opinion of his talents, and perceived his poverty and his
literary shifts. The printer was in the employ of Mr. Samuel Richardson,
the author of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison; who combined the
novelist and the publisher, and was in flourishing circumstances. Through
the journeyman's intervention Goldsmith is said to have become acquainted
with Richardson, who employed him as reader and corrector of the press, at
his printing establishment in Salisbury Court; an occupation which he
alternated with his medical duties.

Being admitted occasionally to Richardson's parlor, he began to form
literary acquaintances, among whom the most important was Dr. Young, the
author of Night Thoughts, a poem in the height of fashion. It is not
probable, however, that much familiarity took place at the time between the
literary lion of the day and the poor Aesculapius of Bankside, the humble
corrector of the press. Still the communion with literary men had its
effect to set his imagination teeming. Dr. Farr, one of his Edinburgh
fellow-students, who was at London about this time, attending the hospitals
and lectures, gives us an amusing account of Goldsmith in his literary
character.

"Early in January he called upon me one morning before I was up, and, on my
entering the room, I recognized my old acquaintance, dressed in a rusty,
full-trimmed black suit, with his pockets full of papers, which instantly
reminded me of the poet in Garrick's farce of Lethe. After we had finished
our breakfast he drew from his pocket part of a tragedy, which he said he
had brought for my correction. In vain I pleaded inability, when he began
to read; and every part on which I expressed a doubt as to the propriety
was immediately blotted out. I then most earnestly pressed him not to trust
to my judgment, but to take the opinion of persons better qualified to
decide on dramatic compositions. He now told me he had submitted his
productions, so far as he had written, to Mr. Richardson, the author of
Clarissa, on which I peremptorily declined offering another criticism on
the performance. "

From the graphic description given of him by Dr. Farr, it will be perceived
that the tarnished finery of green and gold had been succeeded by a
professional suit of black, to which, we are told, were added the wig and
cane indispensable to medical doctors in those days. The coat was a
second-hand one, of rusty velvet, with a patch on the left breast, which he
adroitly covered with his three-cornered hat during his medical visits; and
we have an amusing anecdote of his contest of courtesy with a patient who
persisted in endeavoring to relieve him from the hat, which only made him
press it more devoutly to his heart.

Nothing further has ever been heard of the tragedy mentioned by Dr. Farr;
it was probably never completed. The same gentleman speaks of a strange
Quixotic scheme which Goldsmith had in contemplation at the time, "of going
to decipher the inscriptions on the _written mountains_," though he
was altogether ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which they might be
supposed to be written. "The salary of three hundred pounds," adds Dr.
Farr, "which had been left for the purpose, was the temptation. " This was
probably one of many dreamy projects with which his fervid brain was apt to
teem. On such subjects he was prone to talk vaguely and magnificently, but
inconsiderately, from a kindled imagination rather than a well-instructed
judgment. He had always a great notion of expeditions to the East, and
wonders to be seen and effected in the Oriental countries.




CHAPTER SEVEN

LIFE OP A PEDAGOGUE--KINDNESS TO SCHOOLBOYS--PERTNESS IN RETURN--EXPENSIVE
CHARITIES--THE GRIFFITHS AND THE "MONTHLY REVIEW"--TOILS OF A LITERARY
HACK--RUPTURE WITH THE GRIFFITHS


Among the most cordial of Goldsmith's intimates in London during this time
of precarious struggle were certain of his former fellow-students in
Edinburgh. One of these was the son of a Dr. Milner, a dissenting minister,
who kept a classical school of eminence at Peckham, in Surrey. Young Milner
had a favorable opinion of Goldsmith's abilities and attainments, and
cherished for him that good will which his genial nature seems ever to have
inspired among his school and college associates. His father falling ill,
the young man negotiated with Goldsmith to take temporary charge of the
school. The latter readily consented; for he was discouraged by the slow
growth of medical reputation and practice, and as yet had no confidence in
the coy smiles of the muse. Laying by his wig and cane, therefore, and once
more wielding the ferule, he resumed the character of the pedagogue, and
for some time reigned as vicegerent over the academy at Peckham. He appears
to have been well treated by both Dr. Milner and his wife, and became a
favorite with the scholars from his easy, indulgent good nature. He mingled
in their sports, told them droll stories, played on the flute for their
amusement, and spent his money in treating them to sweetmeats and other
schoolboy dainties. His familiarity was sometimes carried too far; he
indulged in boyish pranks and practical jokes, and drew upon himself
retorts in kind, which, however, he bore with great good humor. Once,
indeed, he was touched to the quick by a piece of schoolboy pertness. After
playing on the flute, he spoke with enthusiasm of music, as delightful in
itself, and as a valuable accomplishment for a gentleman, whereupon a
youngster, with a glance at his ungainly person, wished to know if he
considered himself a gentleman. Poor Goldsmith, feelingly alive to the
awkwardness of his appearance and the humility of his situation, winced at
this unthinking sneer, which long rankled in his mind.

As usual, while in Dr. Milner's employ, his benevolent feelings were a
heavy tax upon his purse, for he never could resist a tale of distress, and
was apt to be fleeced by every sturdy beggar; so that, between his charity
and his munificence, he was generally in advance of his slender salary.
"You had better, Mr. Goldsmith, let me take care of your money," said Mrs.
Milner one day, "as I do for some of the young gentlemen. "--"In truth,
madam, there is equal need! " was the good-humored reply.

Dr. Milner was a man of some literary pretensions, and wrote occasionally
for the "Monthly Review," of which a bookseller, by the name of Griffiths,
was proprietor. This work was an advocate for Whig principles, and had been
in prosperous existence for nearly eight years. Of late, however,
periodicals had multiplied exceedingly, and a formidable Tory rival had
started up in the "Critical Review," published by Archibald Hamilton, a
bookseller, and aided by the powerful and popular pen of Dr. Smollett.
Griffiths was obliged to recruit his forces. While so doing he met
Goldsmith, a humble occupant of a seat at Dr. Milner's table, and was
struck with remarks on men and books which fell from him in the course of
conversation. He took occasion to sound him privately as to his inclination
and capacity as a reviewer, and was furnished by him with specimens of his
literary and critical talents. They proved satisfactory. The consequence
was that Goldsmith once more changed his mode of life, and in April, 1757,
became a contributor to the "Monthly Review," at a small fixed salary, with
board and lodging, and accordingly took up his abode with Mr. Griffiths, at
the sign of the Dunciad, Paternoster Row. As usual we trace this phase of
his fortunes in his semi-fictitious writings; his sudden transmutation of
the pedagogue into the author being humorously set forth in the case of
"George Primrose," in the Vicar of "Wakefield. " "Come," says George's
adviser, "I see you are a lad of spirit and some learning; what do you
think of commencing author like me? You have read in books, no doubt, of
men of genius starving at the trade; at present I'll show you forty very
dull fellows about town that live by it in opulence. All honest, jog-trot
men, who go on smoothly and dully, and write history and politics, and are
praised: men, sir, who, had they been bred cobblers, would all their lives
only have mended shoes, but never made them. " "Finding" (says George) "that
there is no great degree of gentility affixed to the character of an usher,
I resolved to accept his proposal; and having the highest respect for
literature, hailed the _antiqua mater_ of Grub Street with reverence.
I thought it my glory to pursue a track which Dryden and Otway trod before
me. Alas, Dryden struggled with indigence all his days; and Otway, it is
said, fell a victim to famine in his thirty-fifth year, being strangled by
a roll of bread, which he devoured with the voracity of a starving man. "

In Goldsmith's experience the track soon proved a thorny one. Griffiths was
a hard business man, of shrewd, worldly good sense, but little refinement
or cultivation. He meddled, or rather muddled with literature, too, in a
business way, altering and modifying occasionally the writings of his
contributors, and in this he was aided by his wife, who, according to
Smollett, was "an antiquated female critic and a dabbler in the 'Review. '"
Such was the literary vassalage to which Goldsmith had unwarily subjected
himself. A diurnal drudgery was imposed on him, irksome to his indolent
habits, and attended by circumstances humiliating to his pride. He had to
write daily from nine o'clock until two, and often throughout the day;
whether in the vein or not, and on subjects dictated by his taskmaster,
however foreign to his taste; in a word, he was treated as a mere literary
hack. But this was not the worst; it was the critical supervision of
Griffiths and his wife which grieved him: the "illiterate, bookselling
Griffiths," as Smollett called them, "who presumed to revise, alter, and
amend the articles contributed to their 'Review. ' Thank heaven," crowed
Smollett, "the 'Critical Review' is not written under the restraint of a
bookseller and his wife. Its principal writers are independent of each
other, unconnected with booksellers, and unawed by old women! "

This literary vassalage, however, did not last long. The bookseller became
more and more exacting. He accused his hack writer of idleness; of
abandoning his writing-desk and literary workshop at an early hour of the
day; and of assuming a tone and manner _above his situation_.
Goldsmith, in return, charged him with impertinence; his wife with meanness
and parsimony in her household treatment of him, and both of literary
meddling and marring. The engagement was broken off at the end of five
months, by mutual consent, and without any violent rupture, as it will be
found they afterward had occasional dealings with each other.

Though Goldsmith was now nearly thirty years of age, he had produced
nothing to give him a decided reputation. He was as yet a mere writer for
bread. The articles he had contributed to the "Review" were anonymous, and
were never avowed by him. They have since been, for the most part,
ascertained; and though thrown off hastily, often treating on subjects of
temporary interest, and marred by the Griffith interpolations, they are
still characterized by his sound, easy, good sense, and the genial graces
of his style. Johnson observed that Goldsmith's genius flowered late; he
should have said it flowered early, but was late in bringing its fruit to
maturity.




CHAPTER EIGHT

NEWBERY, OF PICTURE-BOOK MEMORY--HOW TO KEEP UP APPEARANCES--MISERIES OF
AUTHORSHIP--A POOR RELATION--LETTER TO HODSON


Being now known in the publishing world, Goldsmith began to find casual
employment in various quarters; among others he wrote occasionally for the
"Literary Magazine," a production set on foot by Mr. John Newbery,
bookseller, St. Paul's Churchyard, renowned in nursery literature
throughout the latter half of the last century for his picture-books for
children. Newbery was a worthy, intelligent, kind-hearted man, and a
seasonable though cautious friend to authors, relieving them with small
loans when in pecuniary difficulties, though always taking care to be well
repaid by the labor of their pens. Goldsmith introduces him in a humorous
yet friendly manner in his novel of the Vicar of Wakefield. "This person
was no other than the philanthropic bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard,
who has written so many little books for children; he called himself their
friend; but he was the friend of all mankind. He was no sooner alighted but
he was in haste to be gone; for he was ever on business of importance, and
was at that time actually compiling materials for the history of one Mr.
Thomas Trip. I immediately recollected this good-natured man's red-pimpled
face. "

Besides his literary job work, Goldsmith also resumed his medical practice,
but with very trifling success. The scantiness of his purse still obliged
him to live in obscure lodgings somewhere in the vicinity of Salisbury
Square, Fleet Street; but his extended acquaintance and rising importance
caused him to consult appearances. He adopted an expedient, then very
common, and still practiced in London among those who have to tread the
narrow path between pride and poverty; while he burrowed in lodgings suited
to his means, he "hailed," as it is termed, from the Temple Exchange
Coffeehouse near Temple Bar. Here he received his medical calls; hence he
dated his letters, and here he passed much of his leisure hours, conversing
with the frequenters of the place. "Thirty pounds a year," said a poor
Irish painter, who understood the art of shifting, "is enough to enable a
man to live in London without being contemptible. Ten pounds will find him
in clothes and linen; he can live in a garret on eighteen pence a week;
hail from a coffee-house, where, by occasionally spending threepence, he
may pass some hours each day in good company; he may breakfast on bread and
milk for a penny; dine for sixpence; do without supper; and on
_clean-shirt-day_ he may go abroad and pay visits. "

Goldsmith seems to have taken a leaf from this poor devil's manual in
respect to the coffee-house at least. Indeed, coffee-houses in those days
were the resorts of wits and literati, where the topics of the day were
gossiped over, and the affairs of literature and the drama discussed and
criticised. In this way he enlarged the circle of his intimacy, which now
embraced several names of notoriety.

Do we want a picture of Goldsmith's experience in this part of his career?
we have it in his observations on the life of an author in the "Inquiry
into the State of Polite Learning," published some years afterward.

"The author, unpatronized by the great, has naturally recourse to the
bookseller. There cannot, perhaps, be imagined a combination more
prejudicial to taste than this. It is the interest of the one to allow as
little for writing, and for the other to write as much as possible;
accordingly tedious compilations and periodical magazines are the result of
their joint endeavors. In these circumstances the author bids adieu to
fame; writes for bread; and for that only imagination is seldom called in.
He sits down to address the venal muse with the most phlegmatic apathy;
and, as we are told of the Russian, courts his mistress by falling asleep
in her lap. "

Again. "Those who are unacquainted with the world are apt to fancy the man
of wit as leading a very agreeable life. They conclude, perhaps, that he is
attended with silent admiration, and dictates to the rest of mankind with
all the eloquence of conscious superiority. Very different is his present
situation. He is called an author, and all know that an author is a thing
only to be laughed at. His person, not his jest, becomes the mirth of the
company. At his approach the most fat, unthinking face brightens into
malicious meaning. Even aldermen laugh, and avenge on him the ridicule
which was lavished on their forefathers. . . . The poet's poverty is a
standing topic of contempt. His writing for bread is an unpardonable
offense. Perhaps of all mankind an author in these times is used most
hardly. We keep him poor, and yet revile his poverty. We reproach him for
living by his wit, and yet allow him no other means to live. His taking
refuge in garrets and cellars has of late been violently objected to him,
and that by men who, I hope, are more apt to pity than insult his distress.
Is poverty a careless fault? No doubt he knows how to prefer a bottle of
champagne to the nectar of the neighboring ale-house, or a venison pasty to
a plate of potatoes. Want of delicacy is not in him, but in those who deny
him the opportunity of making an elegant choice. Wit certainly is the
property of those who have it, nor should we be displeased if it is the
only property a man sometimes has. We must not underrate him who uses it
for subsistence, and flees from the ingratitude of the age even to a
bookseller for redress. ". . .

"If the author be necessary among us, let us treat him with proper
consideration as a child of the public, not as a rent-charge on the
community. And indeed a child of the public he is in all respects; for
while so well able to direct others, how incapable is he frequently found
of guiding himself. His simplicity exposes him to all the insidious
approaches of cunning; his sensibility, to the slightest invasions of
contempt. Though possessed of fortitude to stand unmoved the expected
bursts of an earthquake, yet of feelings so exquisitely poignant as to
agonize under the slightest disappointment. Broken rest, tasteless meals,
and causeless anxieties shorten life, and render it unfit for active
employments; prolonged vigils and intense application still further
contract his span, and make his time glide insensibly away. "

While poor Goldsmith was thus struggling with the difficulties and
discouragements which in those days beset the path of an author, his
friends in Ireland received accounts of his literary success and of the
distinguished acquaintances he was making. This was enough to put the wise
heads at Lissoy and Ballymahon in a ferment of conjectures. With the
exaggerated notions of provincial relatives concerning the family great man
in the metropolis, some of Goldsmith's poor kindred pictured him to
themselves seated in high places, clothed in purple and fine linen, and
hand and glove with the givers of gifts and dispensers of patronage.
Accordingly, he was one day surprised at the sudden apparition, in his
miserable lodging, of his younger brother Charles, a raw youth of
twenty-one, endowed with a double share of the family heedlessness, and who
expected to be forthwith helped into some snug by-path to fortune by one or
other of Oliver's great friends. Charles was sadly disconcerted on learning
that, so far from being able to provide for others, his brother could
scarcely take care of himself. He looked round with a rueful eye on the
poet's quarters, and could not help expressing his surprise and
disappointment at finding him no better off. "All in good tune, my dear
boy," replied poor Goldsmith, with infinite good-humor; "I shall be richer
by-and-by. Addison, let me tell you, wrote his poem of the Campaign in a
garret in the Haymarket, three stones high, and you see I am not come to
that yet, for I have only got to the second story. "

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.