initial commit of ebook 18917HEADmain

10 files changed, 16100 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/18917-8.txt b/18917-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..faf9171
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18917-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4959 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Goldsmith, by William Black
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Goldsmith
+       English Men of Letters Series
+
+Author: William Black
+
+Editor: John Morley
+
+Release Date: July 27, 2006 [EBook #18917]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDSMITH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Sankar Viswanathan,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        English Men of Letters
+
+                        EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY
+
+
+
+
+                              GOLDSMITH
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+
+                            WILLIAM BLACK
+
+
+
+                                London
+
+                           MACMILLAN AND CO
+
+                                 1878
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SCHOOL AND COLLEGE
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+IDLENESS, AND FOREIGN TRAVEL
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+EARLY STRUGGLES.--HACK-WRITING
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+BEGINNING OF AUTHORSHIP.--THE BEE
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+PERSONAL TRAITS
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD.--BEAU NASH
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE ARREST
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE TRAVELLER
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+MISCELLANEOUS WRITING
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE GOOD-NATURED MAN
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+GOLDSMITH IN SOCIETY
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE DESERTED VILLAGE
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+OCCASIONAL WRITINGS
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+INCREASING DIFFICULTIES.--THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GOLDSMITH
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+"Innocently to amuse the imagination in this dream of life is wisdom."
+So wrote Oliver Goldsmith; and surely among those who have earned the
+world's gratitude by this ministration he must be accorded a
+conspicuous place. If, in these delightful writings of his, he mostly
+avoids the darker problems of existence--if the mystery of the tragic
+and apparently unmerited and unrequited suffering in the world is
+rarely touched upon--we can pardon the omission for the sake of the
+gentle optimism that would rather look on the kindly side of life.
+"You come hot and tired from the day's battle, and this sweet minstrel
+sings to you," says Mr. Thackeray. "Who could harm the kind vagrant
+harper? Whom did he ever hurt? He carries no weapon save the harp on
+which he plays to you; and with which he delights great and humble,
+young and old, the captains in the tents, or the soldiers round the
+fire, or the women and children in the villages, at whose porches he
+stops and sings his simple songs of love and beauty." And it is to be
+suspected--it is to be hoped, at least--that the cheerfulness which
+shines like sunlight through Goldsmith's writings, did not altogether
+desert himself even in the most trying hours of his wayward and
+troubled career. He had, with all his sensitiveness, a fine
+happy-go-lucky disposition; was ready for a frolic when he had a
+guinea, and, when he had none, could turn a sentence on the humorous
+side of starvation; and certainly never attributed to the injustice or
+neglect of society misfortunes the origin of which lay nearer home.
+
+Of course, a very dark picture might be drawn of Goldsmith's life; and
+the sufferings that he undoubtedly endured have been made a whip with
+which to lash the ingratitude of a world not too quick to recognise
+the claims of genius. He has been put before us, without any brighter
+lights to the picture, as the most unfortunate of poor devils; the
+heart-broken usher; the hack ground down by sordid booksellers; the
+starving occupant of successive garrets. This is the aspect of
+Goldsmith's career which naturally attracts Mr. Forster. Mr. Forster
+seems to have been haunted throughout his life by the idea that
+Providence had some especial spite against literary persons; and that,
+in a measure to compensate them for their sad lot, society should be
+very kind to them, while the Government of the day might make them
+Companions of the Bath or give them posts in the Civil Service. In the
+otherwise copious, thorough, and valuable _Life and Times of Oliver
+Goldsmith_, we find an almost humiliating insistance on the complaint
+that Oliver Goldsmith did not receive greater recognition and larger
+sums of money from his contemporaries. Goldsmith is here "the poor
+neglected sizar"; his "marked ill-fortune" attends him constantly; he
+shares "the evil destinies of men of letters"; he was one of those who
+"struggled into fame without the aid of English institutions"; in
+short, "he wrote, and paid the penalty." Nay, even Christianity itself
+is impeached on account of the persecution suffered by poor Goldsmith.
+"There had been a Christian religion extant for seventeen-hundred and
+fifty-seven years," writes Mr. Forster, "the world having been
+acquainted, for even so long, with its spiritual necessities and
+responsibilities; yet here, in the middle of the eighteenth century,
+was the eminence ordinarily conceded to a spiritual teacher, to one of
+those men who come upon the earth to lift their fellow-men above its
+miry ways. He is up in a garret, writing for bread he cannot get, and
+dunned for a milkscore he cannot pay." That Christianity might have
+been worse employed than in paying the milkman's score is true enough,
+for then the milkman would have come by his own; but that
+Christianity, or the state, or society should be scolded because an
+author suffers the natural consequences of his allowing his
+expenditure to exceed his income, seems a little hard. And this is a
+sort of writing that is peculiarly inappropriate in the case of
+Goldsmith, who, if ever any man was author of his own misfortunes, may
+fairly have the charge brought against him. "Men of genius," says Mr.
+Forster, "can more easily starve, than the world, with safety to
+itself, can continue to neglect and starve them." Perhaps so; but the
+English nation, which has always had a regard and even love for
+Oliver Goldsmith, that is quite peculiar in the history of literature,
+and which has been glad to overlook his faults and follies, and eager
+to sympathise with him in the many miseries of his career, will be
+slow to believe that it is responsible for any starvation that
+Goldsmith may have endured.
+
+However, the key-note has been firmly struck, and it still vibrates.
+Goldsmith was the unluckiest of mortals, the hapless victim of
+circumstances. "Yielding to that united pressure of labour, penury,
+and sorrow, with a frame exhausted by unremitting and ill-rewarded
+drudgery, Goldsmith was indebted to the forbearance of creditors for a
+peaceful burial." But what, now, if some foreigner strange to the
+traditions of English literature--some Japanese student, for example,
+or the New Zealander come before his time--were to go over the
+ascertained facts of Goldsmith's life, and were suddenly to announce
+to us, with the happy audacity of ignorance, that he, Goldsmith, was a
+quite exceptionally fortunate person? "Why," he might say, "I find
+that in a country where the vast majority of people are born to
+labour, Oliver Goldsmith was never asked to do a stroke of work
+towards the earning of his own living until he had arrived at man's
+estate. All that was expected of him, as a youth and as a young man,
+was that he should equip himself fully for the battle of life. He was
+maintained at college until he had taken his degree. Again and again
+he was furnished with funds for further study and foreign travel; and
+again and again he gambled his opportunities away. The constant
+kindness of his uncle only made him the best begging-letter-writer
+the world has seen. In the midst of his debt and distress as a
+bookseller's drudge, he receives £400 for three nights' performance of
+_The Good-Natured Man_; he immediately purchases chambers in Brick
+Court for £400; and forthwith begins to borrow as before. It is true
+that he died owing £2000, and was indebted to the forbearance of
+creditors for a peaceful burial; but it appears that during the last
+seven years of his life he had been earning an annual income
+equivalent to £800 of English currency.[1] He was a man liberally and
+affectionately brought up, who had many relatives and many friends,
+and who had the proud satisfaction--which has been denied to many men
+of genius--of knowing for years before he died that his merits as a
+writer had been recognised by the great bulk of his countrymen. And
+yet this strange English nation is inclined to suspect that it treated
+him rather badly; and Christianity is attacked because it did not pay
+Goldsmith's milkscore."
+
+[Footnote 1: The calculation is Lord Macaulay's: see his _Biographical_
+_Essays_.]
+
+Our Japanese friend may be exaggerating; but his position is after all
+fairly tenable. It may at least be looked at, before entering on the
+following brief _résumé_ of the leading facts in Goldsmith's life, if
+only to restore our equanimity. For, naturally, it is not pleasant to
+think that any previous generation, however neglectful of the claims
+of literary persons (as compared with the claims of such wretched
+creatures as physicians, men of science, artists, engineers, and so
+forth) should so cruelly have ill-treated one whom we all love now.
+This inheritance of ingratitude is more than we can bear. Is it true
+that Goldsmith was so harshly dealt with by those barbarian ancestors
+of ours?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SCHOOL AND COLLEGE.
+
+
+The Goldsmiths were of English descent; Goldsmith's father was a
+Protestant clergyman in a poor little village in the county of
+Longford; and when Oliver, one of several children, was born in this
+village of Pallas, or Pallasmore, on the 10th November, 1728, the Rev.
+Charles Goldsmith was passing rich on £40 a year. But a couple of
+years later Mr. Goldsmith succeeded to a more lucrative living; and
+forthwith removed his family to the village of Lissoy, in the county
+of Westmeath.
+
+Here at once our interest in the story begins: is this Lissoy the
+sweet Auburn that we have known and loved since our childhood? Lord
+Macaulay, with a great deal of vehemence, avers that it is not; that
+there never was any such hamlet as Auburn in Ireland; that _The
+Deserted Village_ is a hopelessly incongruous poem; and that
+Goldsmith, in combining a description of a probably Kentish village
+with a description of an Irish ejectment, "has produced something
+which never was, and never will be, seen in any part of the world."
+This criticism is ingenious and plausible, but it is unsound, for it
+happens to overlook one of the radical facts of human nature--the
+magnifying delight of the mind in what is long remembered and remote.
+What was it that the imagination of Goldsmith, in his life-long
+banishment, could not see when he looked back to the home of his
+childhood, and his early friends, and the sports and occupations of
+his youth? Lissoy was no doubt a poor enough Irish village; and
+perhaps the farms were not too well cultivated; and perhaps the
+village preacher, who was so dear to all the country round, had to
+administer many a thrashing to a certain graceless son of his; and
+perhaps Paddy Byrne was something of a pedant; and no doubt pigs ran
+over the "nicely sanded floor" of the inn; and no doubt the village
+statesmen occasionally indulged in a free fight. But do you think that
+was the Lissoy that Goldsmith thought of in his dreary lodgings in
+Fleet-Street courts? No. It was the Lissoy where the vagrant lad had
+first seen the "primrose peep beneath the thorn"; where he had
+listened to the mysterious call of the bittern by the unfrequented
+river; it was a Lissoy still ringing with the glad laughter of young
+people in the twilight hours; it was a Lissoy for ever beautiful, and
+tender, and far away. The grown-up Goldsmith had not to go to any
+Kentish village for a model; the familiar scenes of his youth,
+regarded with all the wistfulness and longing of an exile, became
+glorified enough. "If I go to the opera where Signora Colomba pours
+out all the mazes of melody," he writes to Mr. Hodson, "I sit and sigh
+for Lissoy's fireside, and _Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night_ from
+Peggy Golden."
+
+There was but little in the circumstances of Goldsmith's early life
+likely to fit him for, or to lead him into, a literary career; in
+fact, he did not take to literature until he had tried pretty nearly
+everything else as a method of earning a living. If he was intended
+for anything, it was no doubt his father's wish that he should enter
+the Church; and he got such education as the poor Irish clergyman--who
+was not a very provident person--could afford. The child Goldsmith was
+first of all taught his alphabet at home, by a maid-servant, who was
+also a relation of the family; then, at the age of six, he was sent to
+that village school which, with its profound and learned master, he
+has made familiar to all of us; and after that he was sent further
+a-field for his learning, being moved from this to the other
+boarding-school as the occasion demanded. Goldsmith's school-life
+could not have been altogether a pleasant time for him. We hear,
+indeed, of his being concerned in a good many frolics--robbing
+orchards, and the like; and it is said that he attained proficiency in
+the game of fives. But a shy and sensitive lad like Goldsmith, who was
+eagerly desirous of being thought well of, and whose appearance only
+invited the thoughtless but cruel ridicule of his schoolmates, must
+have suffered a good deal. He was little, pitted with the small-pox,
+and awkward; and schoolboys are amazingly frank. He was not strong
+enough to thrash them into respect of him; he had no big brother to
+become his champion; his pocket-money was not lavish enough to enable
+him to buy over enemies or subsidise allies.
+
+In similar circumstances it has sometimes happened that a boy
+physically inferior to his companions has consoled himself by proving
+his mental prowess--has scored off his failure at cricket by the
+taking of prizes, and has revenged himself for a drubbing by writing a
+lampoon. But even this last resource was not open to Goldsmith. He was
+a dull boy; "a stupid, heavy blockhead," is Dr. Strean's phrase in
+summing up the estimate formed of young Goldsmith by his
+contemporaries at school. Of course, as soon as he became famous,
+everybody began to hunt up recollections of his having said or done
+this or that, in order to prove that there were signs of the coming
+greatness. People began to remember that he had been suspected of
+scribbling verses, which he burned. What schoolboy has not done the
+like? We know how the biographers of great painters point out to us
+that their hero early showed the bent of his mind by drawing the
+figures of animals on doors and walls with a piece of chalk; as to
+which it may be observed that, if every schoolboy who scribbled verses
+and sketched in chalk on a brick wall, were to grow up a genius, poems
+and pictures would be plentiful enough. However, there is the
+apparently authenticated anecdote of young Goldsmith's turning the
+tables on the fiddler at his uncle's dancing-party. The fiddler,
+struck by the odd look of the boy who was capering about the room,
+called out "Æsop!" whereupon Goldsmith is said to have instantly
+replied,
+
+    "Our herald hath proclaimed this saying,
+    See Æsop dancing and his monkey playing!"
+
+But even if this story be true, it is worth nothing as an augury; for
+quickness of repartee was precisely the accomplishment which the adult
+Goldsmith conspicuously lacked. Put a pen into his hand, and shut him
+up in a room: then he was master of the situation--nothing could be
+more incisive, polished, and easy than his playful sarcasm. But in
+society any fool could get the better of him by a sudden question
+followed by a horse-laugh. All through his life--even after he had
+become one of the most famous of living writers--Goldsmith suffered
+from want of self-confidence. He was too anxious to please. In his
+eager acquiescence, he would blunder into any trap that was laid for
+him. A grain or two of the stolid self-sufficiency of the blockheads
+who laughed at him would not only have improved his character, but
+would have considerably added to the happiness of his life.
+
+As a natural consequence of this timidity, Goldsmith, when opportunity
+served, assumed airs of magnificent importance. Every one knows the
+story of the mistake on which _She Stoops to Conquer_ is founded.
+Getting free at last from all the turmoil, and anxieties, and
+mortifications of school-life, and returning home on a lent hack, the
+released schoolboy is feeling very grand indeed. He is now sixteen,
+would fain pass for a man, and has a whole golden guinea in his
+pocket. And so he takes the journey very leisurely until, getting
+benighted in a certain village, he asks the way to the "best house,"
+and is directed by a facetious person to the house of the squire. The
+squire by good luck falls in with the joke; and then we have a very
+pretty comedy indeed--the impecunious schoolboy playing the part of a
+fine gentleman on the strength of his solitary guinea, ordering a
+bottle of wine after his supper, and inviting his landlord and his
+landlord's wife and daughter to join him in the supper-room. The
+contrast, in _She Stoops to Conquer_, between Marlow's embarrassed
+diffidence on certain occasions and his audacious effrontery on
+others, found many a parallel in the incidents of Goldsmith's own
+life; and it is not improbable that the writer of the comedy was
+thinking of some of his own experiences, when he made Miss Hardcastle
+say to her timid suitor: "A want of courage upon some occasions
+assumes the appearance of ignorance, and betrays us when we most want
+to excel."
+
+It was, perhaps, just as well that the supper, and bottle of wine, and
+lodging at Squire Featherston's had not to be paid for out of the
+schoolboy's guinea; for young Goldsmith was now on his way to college,
+and the funds at the disposal of the Goldsmith family were not over
+abundant. Goldsmith's sister having married the son of a well-to do
+man, her father considered it a point of honour that she should have a
+dowry: and in giving her a sum of £400 he so crippled the means of the
+family, that Goldsmith had to be sent to college not as a pensioner
+but as a sizar. It appears that the young gentleman's pride revolted
+against this proposal; and that he was won over to consent only by the
+persuasions of his uncle Contarine, who himself had been a sizar. So
+Goldsmith, now in his eighteenth year, went to Dublin; managed somehow
+or other--though he was the last in the list--to pass the necessary
+examination; and entered upon his college career (1745.)
+
+How he lived, and what he learned, at Trinity College, are both
+largely matters of conjecture; the chief features of such record as we
+have are the various means of raising a little money to which the
+poor sizar had to resort; a continual quarrelling with his tutor, an
+ill-conditioned brute, who baited Goldsmith and occasionally beat him;
+and a chance frolic when funds were forthcoming. It was while he was
+at Trinity College that his father died; so that Goldsmith was
+rendered more than ever dependent on the kindness of his uncle
+Contarine, who throughout seems to have taken much interest in his
+odd, ungainly nephew. A loan from a friend or a visit to the
+pawnbroker tided over the severer difficulties; and then from time to
+time the writing of street-ballads, for which he got five shillings
+a-piece at a certain repository, came in to help. It was a
+happy-go-lucky, hand-to-mouth sort of existence, involving a good deal
+of hardship and humiliation, but having its frolics and gaieties
+notwithstanding. One of these was pretty near to putting an end to his
+collegiate career altogether. He had, smarting under a public
+admonition for having been concerned in a riot, taken seriously to his
+studies and had competed for a scholarship. He missed the scholarship,
+but gained an exhibition of the value of thirty shillings; whereupon
+he collected a number of friends of both sexes in his rooms, and
+proceeded to have high jinks there. In the midst of the dancing and
+uproar, in comes his tutor, in such a passion that he knocks Goldsmith
+down. This insult, received before his friends, was too much for the
+unlucky sizar, who, the very next day, sold his books, ran away from
+college, and ultimately, after having been on the verge of starvation
+once or twice, made his way to Lissoy. Here his brother got hold of
+him; persuaded him to go back; and the escapade was condoned somehow.
+Goldsmith remained at Trinity College until he took his degree (1749.)
+He was again lowest in the list; but still he had passed; and he must
+have learned something. He was now twenty-one, with all the world
+before him; and the question was as to how he was to employ such
+knowledge as he had acquired.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+IDLENESS, AND FOREIGN TRAVEL.
+
+
+But Goldsmith was not in any hurry to acquire either wealth or fame.
+He had a happy knack of enjoying the present hour--especially when
+there were one or two boon companions with him, and a pack of cards to
+be found; and, after his return to his mother's house, he appears to
+have entered upon the business of idleness with much philosophical
+satisfaction. If he was not quite such an unlettered clown as he has
+described in Tony Lumpkin, he had at least all Tony Lumpkin's high
+spirits and love of joking and idling; and he was surrounded at the
+ale-house by just such a company of admirers as used to meet at the
+famous Three Pigeons. Sometimes he helped in his brother's school;
+sometimes he went errands for his mother; occasionally he would sit
+and meditatively play the flute--for the day was to be passed somehow;
+then in the evening came the assemblage in Conway's inn, with the
+glass, and the pipe, and the cards, and the uproarious jest or song.
+"But Scripture saith an ending to all fine things must be," and the
+friends of this jovial young "buckeen" began to tire of his idleness
+and his recurrent visits. They gave him hints that he might set about
+doing something to provide himself with a living; and the first thing
+they thought of was that he should go into the Church--perhaps as a
+sort of purification-house after George Conway's inn. Accordingly
+Goldsmith, who appears to have been a most good-natured and compliant
+youth, did make application to the Bishop of Elphin. There is some
+doubt about the precise reasons which induced the Bishop to decline
+Goldsmith's application, but at any rate the Church was denied the aid
+of the young man's eloquence and erudition. Then he tried teaching,
+and through the good offices of his uncle he obtained a tutorship
+which he held for a considerable time--long enough, indeed, to enable
+him to amass a sum of thirty pounds. When he quarrelled with his
+patron, and once more "took the world for his pillow," as the Gaelic
+stories say, he had this sum in his pocket and was possessed of a good
+horse.
+
+He started away from Ballymahon, where his mother was now living, with
+some vague notion of making his fortune as casual circumstance might
+direct. The expedition came to a premature end; and he returned
+without the money, and on the back of a wretched animal, telling his
+mother a cock-and-bull story of the most amusing simplicity. "If Uncle
+Contarine believed those letters," says Mr. Thackeray, "---- if
+Oliver's mother believed that story which the youth related of his
+going to Cork, with the purpose of embarking for America; of his
+having paid his passage-money, and having sent his kit on board; of
+the anonymous captain sailing away with Oliver's valuable luggage, in
+a nameless ship, never to return; if Uncle Contarine and the mother at
+Ballymahon believed his stories, they must have been a very simple
+pair; as it was a very simple rogue indeed who cheated them." Indeed,
+if any one is anxious to fill up this hiatus in Goldsmith's life, the
+best thing he can do is to discard Goldsmith's suspicious record of
+his adventures, and put in its place the faithful record of the
+adventures of Mr. Barry Lyndon, when that modest youth left his
+mother's house and rode to Dublin, with a certain number of guineas in
+his pocket. But whether Uncle Contarine believed the story or no, he
+was ready to give the young gentleman another chance; and this time it
+was the legal profession that was chosen. Goldsmith got fifty pounds
+from his uncle, and reached Dublin. In a remarkably brief space of
+time he had gambled away the fifty pounds, and was on his way back to
+Ballymahon, where his mother's reception of him was not very cordial,
+though his uncle forgave him, and was once more ready to start him in
+life. But in what direction? Teaching, the Church, and the law had
+lost their attractions for him. Well, this time it was medicine. In
+fact, any sort of project was capable of drawing forth the good old
+uncle's bounty. The funds were again forthcoming; Goldsmith started
+for Edinburgh, and now (1752) saw Ireland for the last time.
+
+He lived, and he informed his uncle that he studied, in Edinburgh for
+a year and a half; at the end of which time it appeared to him that
+his knowledge of medicine would be much improved by foreign travel.
+There was Albinus, for example, "the great professor of Leyden," as he
+wrote to the credulous uncle, from whom he would doubtless learn
+much. When, having got another twenty pounds for travelling expenses,
+he did reach Leyden (1754), he mentioned Gaubius, the chemical
+professor. Gaubius is also a good name. That his intercourse with
+these learned persons, and the serious nature of his studies, were not
+incompatible with a little light relaxation in the way of gambling is
+not impossible. On one occasion, it is said, he was so lucky that he
+came to a fellow student with his pockets full of money; and was
+induced to resolve never to play again--a resolution broken about as
+soon as made. Of course he lost all his winnings, and more; and had to
+borrow a trifling sum to get himself out of the place. Then an
+incident occurs which is highly characteristic of the better side of
+Goldsmith's nature. He had just got this money, and was about to leave
+Leyden, when, as Mr. Forster writes, "he passed a florist's garden on
+his return, and seeing some rare and high-priced flower, which his
+uncle Contarine, an enthusiast in such things, had often spoken and
+been in search of, he ran in without other thought than of immediate
+pleasure to his kindest friend, bought a parcel of the roots, and sent
+them off to Ireland." He had a guinea in his pocket when he started on
+the grand tour.
+
+Of this notable period in Goldsmith's life (1755-6) very little is
+known, though a good deal has been guessed. A minute record of all the
+personal adventures that befell the wayfarer as he trudged from
+country to country, a diary of the odd humours and fancies that must
+have occurred to him in his solitary pilgrimages, would be of quite
+inestimable value; but even the letters that Goldsmith wrote home from
+time to time are lost; while _The Traveller_ consists chiefly of a
+series of philosophical reflections on the government of various
+states, more likely to have engaged the attention of a Fleet-Street
+author, living in an atmosphere of books, than to have occupied the
+mind of a tramp anxious about his supper and his night's lodging.
+Boswell says he "disputed" his way through Europe. It is much more
+probable that he begged his way through Europe. The romantic version,
+which has been made the subject of many a charming picture, is that he
+was entertained by the peasantry whom he had delighted with his
+playing on the flute. It is quite probable that Goldsmith, whose
+imagination had been captivated by the story of how Baron von Holberg
+had as a young man really passed through France, Germany, and Holland
+in this Orpheus-like manner, may have put a flute in his pocket when
+he left Leyden; but it is far from safe to assume, as is generally
+done, that Goldsmith was himself the hero of the adventures described
+in Chapter XX. of the _Vicar of Wakefield_. It is the more to be
+regretted that we have no authentic record of these devious
+wanderings, that by this time Goldsmith had acquired, as is shown in
+other letters, a polished, easy, and graceful style, with a very
+considerable faculty of humorous observation. Those ingenious letters
+to his uncle (they usually included a little hint about money) were,
+in fact, a trifle too literary both in substance and in form; we could
+even now, looking at them with a pardonable curiosity, have spared a
+little of their formal antithesis for some more precise information
+about the writer and his surroundings.
+
+The strangest thing about this strange journey all over Europe was
+the failure of Goldsmith to pick up even a common and ordinary
+acquaintance with the familiar facts of natural history. The ignorance
+on this point of the author of the _Animated Nature_ was a constant
+subject of jest among Goldsmith's friends. They declared he could not
+tell the difference between any two sorts of barndoor fowl until he
+saw them cooked and on the table. But it may be said prematurely here
+that, even when he is wrong as to his facts or his sweeping
+generalisations, one is inclined to forgive him on account of the
+quaint gracefulness and point of his style. When Mr. Burchell says,
+"This rule seems to extend even to other animals: the little vermin
+race are ever treacherous, cruel, and cowardly, whilst those endowed
+with strength and power are generous, brave, and gentle," we scarcely
+stop to reflect that the merlin, which is not much bigger than a
+thrush, has an extraordinary courage and spirit, while the lion, if
+all stories be true, is, unless when goaded by hunger, an abject
+skulker. Elsewhere, indeed, in the _Animated Nature_, Goldsmith gives
+credit to the smaller birds for a good deal of valour, and then goes
+on to say, with a charming freedom,--"But their contentions are
+sometimes of a gentler nature. Two male birds shall strive in song
+till, after a long struggle, the loudest shall entirely silence the
+other. During these contentions the female sits an attentive silent
+auditor, and often rewards the loudest songster with her company
+during the season." Yet even this description of the battle of the
+bards, with the queen of love as arbiter, is scarcely so amusing as
+his happy-go-lucky notions with regard to the variability of species.
+The philosopher, flute in hand, who went wandering from the canals of
+Holland to the ice-ribbed falls of the Rhine, may have heard from time
+to time that contest between singing-birds which he so imaginatively
+describes; but it was clearly the Fleet-Street author, living among
+books, who arrived at the conclusion that intermarriage of species is
+common among small birds and rare among big birds. Quoting some lines
+of Addison's which express the belief that birds are a virtuous
+race--that the nightingale, for example, does not covet the wife of
+his neighbour, the blackbird--Goldsmith goes on to observe,--"But
+whatever may be the poet's opinion, the probability is against this
+fidelity among the smaller tenants of the grove. The great birds are
+much more true to their species than these; and, of consequence, the
+varieties among them are more few. Of the ostrich, the cassowary, and
+the eagle, there are but few species; and no arts that man can use
+could probably induce them to mix with each other."
+
+What he did bring back from his foreign travels was a medical degree.
+Where he got it, and how he got it, are alike matters of pure
+conjecture; but it is extremely improbable that--whatever he might
+have been willing to write home from Padua or Louvain, in order to
+coax another remittance from his Irish friends--he would afterwards,
+in the presence of such men as Johnson, Burke, and Reynolds, wear sham
+honours. It is much more probable that, on his finding those supplies
+from Ireland running ominously short, the philosophic vagabond
+determined to prove to his correspondents that he was really at work
+somewhere, instead of merely idling away his time, begging or
+borrowing the wherewithal to pass him from town to town. That he did
+see something of the foreign universities is evident from his own
+writings; there are touches of description here and there which he
+could not well have got from books. With this degree, and with such
+book-learning and such knowledge of nature and human nature as he had
+chosen or managed to pick up during all those years, he was now called
+upon to begin life for himself. The Irish supplies stopped altogether.
+His letters were left unanswered. And so Goldsmith somehow or other
+got back to London (February 1, 1756), and had to cast about for some
+way of earning his daily bread.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Early Struggles.--Hack-writing.
+
+
+Here ensued a very dark period in his life. He was alone in London,
+without friends, without money, without introductions; his appearance
+was the reverse of prepossessing; and, even despite that medical
+degree and his acquaintance with the learned Albinus and the learned
+Gaubius, he had practically nothing of any value to offer for sale in
+the great labour-market of the world. How he managed to live at all is
+a mystery: it is certain that he must have endured a great deal of
+want; and one may well sympathise with so gentle and sensitive a
+creature reduced to such straits, without inquiring too curiously into
+the causes of his misfortunes. If, on the one hand, we cannot accuse
+society, or Christianity, or the English government of injustice and
+cruelty because Goldsmith had gambled away his chances and was now
+called on to pay the penalty, on the other hand, we had better, before
+blaming Goldsmith himself, inquire into the origin of those defects of
+character which produced such results. As this would involve an
+_excursus_ into the controversy between Necessity and Free-will,
+probably most people would rather leave it alone. It may safely be
+said in any case that, while Goldsmith's faults and follies, of which
+he himself had to suffer the consequences, are patent enough, his
+character on the whole was distinctly a lovable one. Goldsmith was his
+own enemy, and everybody else's friend: that is not a serious
+indictment, as things go. He was quite well aware of his weaknesses;
+and he was also--it may be hinted--aware of the good-nature which he
+put forward as condonation. If some foreigner were to ask how it is
+that so thoroughly a commercial people as the English are--strict in
+the acknowledgment and payment of debt--should have always betrayed a
+sneaking fondness for the character of the good-humoured scapegrace
+whose hand is in everybody's pocket, and who throws away other
+people's money with the most charming air in the world, Goldsmith
+might be pointed to as one of many literary teachers whose own
+circumstances were not likely to make them severe censors of the
+Charles Surfaces, or lenient judges of the Joseph Surfaces of the
+world. Be merry while you may; let to-morrow take care of itself;
+share your last guinea with any one, even if the poor drones of
+society--the butcher, and baker, and milkman with his score--have to
+suffer; do anything you like, so long as you keep the heart warm. All
+this is a delightful philosophy. It has its moments of misery--its
+periods of reaction--but it has its moments of high delight. When we
+are invited to contemplate the "evil destinies of men of letters," we
+ought to be shown the flood-tides as well as the ebb-tides. The tavern
+gaiety; the brand new coat and lace and sword; the midnight frolics,
+with jolly companions every one--these, however brief and
+intermittent, should not be wholly left out of the picture. Of course
+it is very dreadful to hear of poor Boyse lying in bed with nothing
+but a blanket over him, and with his arms thrust through two holes in
+the blanket, so that he could write--perhaps a continuation of his
+poem on the _Deity_. But then we should be shown Boyse when he was
+spending the money collected by Dr. Johnson to get the poor
+scribbler's clothes out of pawn; and we should also be shown him, with
+his hands through the holes in the blanket, enjoying the mushrooms and
+truffles on which, as a little garniture for "his last scrap of beef,"
+he had just laid out his last half-guinea.
+
+There were but few truffles--probably there was but little beef--for
+Goldsmith during this sombre period. "His threadbare coat, his uncouth
+figure, and Hibernian dialect caused him to meet with repeated
+refusals." But at length he got some employment in a chemist's shop,
+and this was a start. Then he tried practising in a small way on his
+own account in Southwark. Here he made the acquaintance of a printer's
+workman; and through him he was engaged as corrector of the press in
+the establishment of Mr. Samuel Richardson. Being so near to
+literature, he caught the infection; and naturally began with a
+tragedy. This tragedy was shown to the author of _Clarissa Harlowe_;
+but it only went the way of many similar first inspiritings of the
+Muse. Then Goldsmith drifted to Peckham, where we find him (1757)
+installed as usher at Dr. Milner's school. Goldsmith as usher has been
+the object of much sympathy; and he would certainly deserve it, if we
+are to assume that his description of an usher's position in the
+_Bee_, and in George Primrose's advice to his cousin, was a full and
+accurate description of his life at Peckham. "Browbeat by the master,
+hated for my ugly face by the mistress, worried by the boys"--if that
+was his life, he was much to be pitied. But we cannot believe it. The
+Milners were exceedingly kind to Goldsmith. It was at the intercession
+of young Milner, who had been his fellow-student at Edinburgh, that
+Goldsmith got the situation, which at all events kept him out of the
+reach of immediate want. It was through the Milners that he was
+introduced to Griffiths, who gave him a chance of trying a literary
+career--as a hack-writer of reviews and so forth. When, having got
+tired of that, Goldsmith was again floating vaguely on the waves of
+chance, where did he find a harbour but in that very school at
+Peckham? And we have the direct testimony of the youngest of Dr.
+Milner's daughters, that this Irish usher of theirs was a remarkably
+cheerful, and even facetious person, constantly playing tricks and
+practical jokes, amusing the boys by telling stories and by
+performances on the flute, living a careless life, and always in
+advance of his salary. Any beggars, or group of children, even the
+very boys who played back practical jokes on him, were welcome to a
+share of what small funds he had; and we all know how Mrs. Milner
+good-naturedly said one day, "You had better, Mr. Goldsmith, let me
+keep your money for you, as I do for some of the young gentlemen;" and
+how he answered with much simplicity, "In truth, Madam, there is equal
+need." With Goldsmith's love of approbation and extreme sensitiveness
+he no doubt suffered deeply from many slights, now as at other times;
+but what we know of his life in the Peckham school does not incline us
+to believe that it was an especially miserable period of his
+existence. His abundant cheerfulness does not seem to have at any time
+deserted him; and what with tricks, and jokes, and playing of the
+flute, the dull routine of instructing the unruly young gentlemen at
+Dr. Milner's was got through somehow.
+
+When Goldsmith left the Peckham school to try hack-writing in
+Paternoster Row, he was going further to fare worse. Griffiths the
+bookseller, when he met Goldsmith at Dr. Milner's dinner-table and
+invited him to become a reviewer, was doing a service to the English
+nation--for it was in this period of machine-work that Goldsmith
+discovered that happy faculty of literary expression that led to the
+composition of his masterpieces--but he was doing little immediate
+service to Goldsmith.
+
+The newly-captured hack was boarded and lodged at Griffiths' house in
+Paternoster Row (1757); he was to have a small salary in consideration
+of remorselessly constant work; and--what was the hardest condition of
+all--he was to have his writings revised by Mrs. Griffiths. Mr.
+Forster justly remarks that though at last Goldsmith had thus become a
+man-of-letters, he "had gratified no passion and attained no object of
+ambition." He had taken to literature, as so many others have done,
+merely as a last resource. And if it is true that literature at first
+treated Goldsmith harshly, made him work hard, and gave him
+comparatively little for what he did, at least it must be said that
+his experience was not a singular one. Mr. Forster says that
+literature was at that time in a transition state: "The patron was
+gone, and the public had not come." But when Goldsmith began to do
+better than hack-work, he found a public speedily enough. If, as Lord
+Macaulay computes, Goldsmith received in the last seven years of his
+life what was equivalent to £5,600 of our money, even the villain
+booksellers cannot be accused of having starved him. At the outset of
+his literary career he received no large sums, for he had achieved no
+reputation; but he got the market-rate for his work. We have around us
+at this moment plenty of hacks who do not earn much more than their
+board and lodging with a small salary.
+
+For the rest, we have no means of knowing whether Goldsmith got
+through his work with ease or with difficulty; but it is obvious,
+looking over the reviews which he is believed to have written for
+Griffiths' magazine, that he readily acquired the professional
+critic's airs of superiority, along with a few tricks of the trade, no
+doubt taught him by Griffiths. Several of these reviews, for example,
+are merely epitomes of the contents of the books reviewed, with some
+vague suggestion that the writer might, if he had been less careful,
+have done worse, and, if he had been more careful, might have done
+better. Who does not remember how the philosophic vagabond was taught
+to become a cognoscento? "The whole secret consisted in a strict
+adherence to two rules: the one always to observe that the picture
+might have been better if the painter had taken more pains; and the
+other to praise the works of Pietro Perugino." It is amusing to
+observe the different estimates formed of the function of criticism by
+Goldsmith the critic, and by Goldsmith the author. Goldsmith, sitting
+at Griffiths' desk, naturally magnifies his office, and announces his
+opinion that "to direct our taste, and conduct the poet up to
+perfection, has ever been the true critic's province." But Goldsmith
+the author, when he comes to inquire into the existing state of Polite
+Learning in Europe, finds in criticism not a help but a danger. It is
+"the natural destroyer of polite learning." And again, in the _Citizen
+of the World_, he exclaims against the pretensions of the critic. "If
+any choose to be critics, it is but saying they are critics; and from
+that time forward they become invested with full power and authority
+over every caitiff who aims at their instruction or entertainment."
+
+This at least may be said, that in these early essays contributed to
+the _Monthly Review_ there is much more of Goldsmith the critic than
+of Goldsmith the author. They are somewhat laboured performances. They
+are almost devoid of the sly and delicate humour that afterwards
+marked Goldsmith's best prose work. We find throughout his trick of
+antithesis; but here it is forced and formal, whereas afterwards he
+lent to this habit of writing the subtle surprise of epigram. They
+have the true manner of authority, nevertheless. He says of Home's
+_Douglas_--"Those parts of nature, and that rural simplicity with
+which the author was, perhaps, best acquainted, are not unhappily
+described; and hence we are led to conjecture, that a more universal
+knowledge of nature will probably increase his powers of description."
+If the author had written otherwise, he would have written
+differently; had he known more, he would not have been so ignorant;
+the tragedy is a tragedy, but why did not the author make it a
+comedy?--this sort of criticism has been heard of even in our own day.
+However, Goldsmith pounded away at his newly-found work, under the eye
+of the exacting bookseller and his learned wife. We find him dealing
+with Scandinavian (here called Celtic) mythology, though he does not
+adventure on much comment of his own; then he engages Smollett's
+_History of England_, but mostly in the way of extract; anon we find
+him reviewing _A Journal of Eight Days' Journey_, by Jonas Hanway, of
+whom Johnson said that he made some reputation by travelling abroad,
+and lost it all by travelling at home. Then again we find him writing
+a disquisition on _Some Enquiries concerning the First Inhabitants,
+Language, Religion, Learning, and Letters of Europe_, by a Mr. Wise,
+who, along with his critic, appears to have got into hopeless
+confusion in believing Basque and Armorican to be the remains of the
+same ancient language. The last phrase of a note appended to this
+review by Goldsmith probably indicates his own humble estimate of his
+work at this time. "It is more our business," he says, "to exhibit the
+opinions of the learned than to controvert them." In fact he was
+employed to boil down books for people who did not wish to spend more
+on literature than the price of a magazine. Though he was new to the
+trade, it is probable he did it as well as any other.
+
+At the end of five months, Goldsmith and Griffiths quarrelled and
+separated. Griffiths said Goldsmith was idle; Goldsmith said Griffiths
+was impertinent; probably the editorial supervision exercised by Mrs.
+Griffiths had something to do with the dire contention. From
+Paternoster Row Goldsmith removed to a garret in Fleet Street; had his
+letters addressed to a coffee-house; and apparently supported himself
+by further hack-work, his connection with Griffiths not being quite
+severed. Then he drifted back to Peckham again; and was once more
+installed as usher, Dr. Milner being in especial want of an assistant
+at this time. Goldsmith's lingering about the gates of literature had
+not inspired him with any great ambition to enter the enchanted land.
+But at the same time he thought he saw in literature a means by which
+a little ready money might be made, in order to help him on to
+something more definite and substantial; and this goal was now put
+before him by Dr. Milner, in the shape of a medical appointment on the
+Coromandel coast. It was in the hope of obtaining this appointment,
+that he set about composing that _Enquiry into the Present State of
+Polite Learning in Europe_, which is now interesting to us as the
+first of his more ambitious works. As the book grew under his hands,
+he began to cast about for subscribers; and from the Fleet-Street
+coffee-house--he had again left the Peckham school--he addressed to
+his friends and relatives a series of letters of the most charming
+humour, which might have drawn subscriptions from a millstone. To his
+brother-in-law, Mr. Hodson, he sent a glowing account of the great
+fortune in store for him on the Coromandel coast. "The salary is but
+trifling," he writes, "namely £100 per annum, but the other
+advantages, if a person be prudent, are considerable. The practice of
+the place, if I am rightly informed, generally amounts to not less
+than £1,000 per annum, for which the appointed physician has an
+exclusive privilege. This, with the advantages resulting from trade,
+and the high interest which money bears, viz. 20 per cent., are the
+inducements which persuade me to undergo the fatigues of sea, the
+dangers of war, and the still greater dangers of the climate; which
+induce me to leave a place where I am every day gaining friends and
+esteem, and where I might enjoy all the conveniences of life."
+
+The surprising part of this episode in Goldsmith's life is that he did
+really receive the appointment; in fact he was called upon to pay £10
+for the appointment-warrant. In this emergency he went to the
+proprietor of the _Critical Review_, the rival of the _Monthly_, and
+obtained some money for certain anonymous work which need not be
+mentioned in detail here. He also moved into another garret, this time
+in Green-Arbour Court, Fleet Street, in a wilderness of slums. The
+Coromandel project, however, on which so many hopes had been built,
+fell through. No explanation of the collapse could be got from either
+Goldsmith himself, or from Dr. Milner. Mr. Forster suggests that
+Goldsmith's inability to raise money for his outfit may have been made
+the excuse for transferring the appointment to another; and that is
+probable enough; but it is also probable that the need for such an
+excuse was based on the discovery that Goldsmith was not properly
+qualified for the post. And this seems the more likely, that Goldsmith
+immediately afterwards resolved to challenge examination at Surgeons'
+Hall. He undertook to write four articles for the _Monthly Review_;
+Griffiths became surety to a tailor for a fine suit of clothes; and
+thus equipped, Goldsmith presented himself at Surgeons' Hall. He only
+wanted to be passed as hospital mate; but even that modest ambition
+was unfulfilled. He was found not qualified; and returned, with his
+fine clothes, to his Fleet-Street den. He was now thirty years of age
+(1758); and had found no definite occupation in the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+BEGINNING OF AUTHORSHIP.--THE BEE.
+
+
+During the period that now ensued, and amid much quarrelling with
+Griffiths and hack-writing for the _Critical Review_, Goldsmith
+managed to get his _Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning
+in Europe_ completed; and it is from the publication of that work, on
+the 2nd of April, 1759, that we may date the beginning of Goldsmith's
+career as an author. The book was published anonymously; but Goldsmith
+was not at all anxious to disclaim the parentage of his first-born;
+and in Grub Street and its environs, at least, the authorship of the
+book was no secret. Moreover there was that in it which was likely to
+provoke the literary tribe to plenty of fierce talking. The _Enquiry_
+is neither more nor less than an endeavour to prove that criticism has
+in all ages been the deadly enemy of art and literature; coupled with
+an appeal to authors to draw their inspiration from nature rather than
+from books, and varied here and there by a gentle sigh over the loss
+of that patronage, in the sunshine of which men of genius were wont to
+bask. Goldsmith, not having been an author himself, could not have
+suffered much at the hands of the critics; so that it is not to be
+supposed that personal feeling dictated this fierce onslaught on the
+whole tribe of critics, compilers, and commentators. They are
+represented to us as rank weeds, growing up to choke all
+manifestations of true art. "Ancient learning," we are told at the
+outset, "may be distinguished into three periods: its commencement, or
+the age of poets; its maturity, or the age of philosophers; and its
+decline, or the age of critics." Then our guide carries us into the
+dark ages; and, with lantern in hand, shows us the creatures swarming
+there in the sluggish pools--"commentators, compilers, polemic
+divines, and intricate metaphysicians." We come to Italy: look at the
+affectations with which the Virtuosi and Filosofi have enchained the
+free spirit of poetry. "Poetry is no longer among them an imitation of
+what we see, but of what a visionary might wish. The zephyr breathes
+the most exquisite perfume; the trees wear eternal verdure; fawns, and
+dryads, and hamadryads, stand ready to fan the sultry shepherdess, who
+has forgot, indeed, the prettiness with which Guarini's shepherdesses
+have been reproached, but is so simple and innocent as often to have
+no meaning. Happy country, where the pastoral age begins to
+revive!--where the wits even of Rome are united into a rural group of
+nymphs and swains, under the appellation of modern Arcadians!--where
+in the midst of porticoes, processions, and cavalcades, abbés turned
+shepherds and shepherdesses without sheep indulge their innocent
+_divertimenti_!"
+
+In Germany the ponderous volumes of the commentators next come in for
+animadversion; and here we find an epigram, the quaint simplicity of
+which is peculiarly characteristic of Goldsmith. "Were angels to write
+books," he remarks, "they never would write folios." But Germany gets
+credit for the money spent by her potentates on learned institutions;
+and it is perhaps England that is delicately hinted at in these words:
+"Had the fourth part of the immense sum above-mentioned been given in
+proper rewards to genius, in some neighbouring countries, it would
+have rendered the name of the donor immortal, and added to the real
+interests of society." Indeed, when we come to England, we find that
+men of letters are in a bad way, owing to the prevalence of critics,
+the tyranny of booksellers, and the absence of patrons. "The author,
+when 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 of the other to write as much as possible.
+Accordingly, tedious compilations and periodical magazines are the
+result of their joint endeavours. 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. His reputation never spreads in
+a wider circle than that of the trade, who generally value him, not
+for the fineness of his compositions, but the quantity he works off in
+a given time.
+
+"A long habit of writing for bread thus turns the ambition of every
+author at last into avarice. He finds that he has written many years,
+that the public are scarcely acquainted even with his name; he
+despairs of applause, and turns to profit, which invites him. He finds
+that money procures all those advantages, that respect, and that ease
+which he vainly expected from fame. Thus the man who, under the
+protection of the great, might have done honour to humanity, when only
+patronized by the bookseller, becomes a thing little superior to the
+fellow who works at the press."
+
+Nor was he afraid to attack the critics of his own day, though he knew
+that the two Reviews for which he had recently been writing would have
+something to say about his own _Enquiry_. This is how he disposes of
+the _Critical_ and the _Monthly_: "We have two literary Reviews in
+London, with critical newspapers and magazines without number. The
+compilers of these resemble the commoners of Rome; they are all for
+levelling property, not by increasing their own, but by diminishing
+that of others. The man who has any good-nature in his disposition
+must, however, be somewhat displeased to see distinguished reputations
+often the sport of ignorance,--to see, by one false pleasantry, the
+future peace of a worthy man's life disturbed, and this only because
+he has unsuccessfully attempted to instruct or amuse us. Though
+ill-nature is far from being wit, yet it is generally laughed at as
+such. The critic enjoys the triumph, and ascribes to his parts what is
+only due to his effrontery. I fire with indignation, when I see
+persons wholly destitute of education and genius indent to the press,
+and thus turn book-makers, adding to the sin of criticism the sin of
+ignorance also; whose trade is a bad one, and who are bad workmen in
+the trade." Indeed there was a good deal of random hitting in the
+_Enquiry_, which was sure to provoke resentment. Why, for example,
+should he have gone out of his way to insult the highly respectable
+class of people who excel in mathematical studies? "This seems a
+science," he observes, "to which the meanest intellects are equal. I
+forget who it is that says 'All men might understand mathematics if
+they would.'" There was also in the first edition of the _Enquiry_ a
+somewhat ungenerous attack on stage-managers, actors, actresses, and
+theatrical things in general; but this was afterwards wisely excised.
+It is not to be wondered at that, on the whole, the _Enquiry_ should
+have been severely handled in certain quarters. Smollett, who reviewed
+it in the _Critical Review_, appears to have kept his temper pretty
+well for a Scotchman; but Kenrick, a hack employed by Griffiths to
+maltreat the book in the _Monthly Review_, flourished his bludgeon in
+a brave manner. The coarse personalities and malevolent insinuations
+of this bully no doubt hurt Goldsmith considerably; but, as we look at
+them now, they are only remarkable for their dulness. If Griffiths had
+had another Goldsmith to reply to Goldsmith, the retort would have
+been better worth reading: one can imagine the playful sarcasm that
+would have been dealt out to this new writer, who, in the very act of
+protesting against criticism, proclaimed himself a critic. But
+Goldsmiths are not always to be had when wanted; while Kenricks can be
+bought at any moment for a guinea or two a head.
+
+Goldsmith had not chosen literature as the occupation of his life; he
+had only fallen back on it, when other projects failed. But it is
+quite possible that now, as he began to take up some slight position
+as an author, the old ambition of distinguishing himself--which had
+flickered before his imagination from time to time--began to enter
+into his calculations along with the more pressing business of earning
+a livelihood. And he was soon to have an opportunity of appealing to a
+wider public than could have been expected for that erudite treatise
+on the arts of Europe. Mr. Wilkie, a bookseller in St. Paul's
+Churchyard, proposed to start a weekly magazine, price threepence, to
+contain essays, short stories, letters on the topics of the day, and
+so forth, more or less after the manner of the _Spectator_. He asked
+Goldsmith to become sole contributor. Here, indeed, was a very good
+opening; for, although there were many magazines in the field, the
+public had just then a fancy for literature in small doses; while
+Goldsmith, in entering into the competition, would not be hampered by
+the dulness of collaborateurs. He closed with Wilkie's offer; and on
+the 6th of October, 1759, appeared the first number of the _Bee_.
+
+For us now there is a curious autobiographical interest in the opening
+sentences of the first number; but surely even the public of the day
+must have imagined that the new writer who was now addressing them,
+was not to be confounded with the common herd of magazine-hacks. What
+could be more delightful than this odd mixture of modesty, humour, and
+an anxious desire to please?--"There is not, perhaps, a more
+whimsically dismal figure in nature than a man of real modesty, who
+assumes an air of impudence--who, while his heart beats with anxiety,
+studies ease and affects good-humour. In this situation, however, a
+periodical writer often finds himself upon his first attempt to
+address the public in form. All his power of pleasing is damped by
+solicitude, and his cheerfulness dashed with apprehension. Impressed
+with the terrors of the tribunal before which he is going to appear,
+his natural humour turns to pertness, and for real wit he is obliged
+to substitute vivacity. His first publication draws a crowd; they part
+dissatisfied; and the author, never more to be indulged with a
+favourable hearing, is left to condemn the indelicacy of his own
+address or their want of discernment. For my part, as I was never
+distinguished for address, and have often even blundered in making my
+bow, such bodings as these had like to have totally repressed my
+ambition. I was at a loss whether to give the public specious
+promises, or give none; whether to be merry or sad on this solemn
+occasion. If I should decline all merit, it was too probable the hasty
+reader might have taken me at my word. If, on the other hand, like
+labourers in the magazine trade, I had, with modest impudence, humbly
+presumed to promise an epitome of all the good things that ever were
+said or written, this might have disgusted those readers I most desire
+to please. Had I been merry, I might have been censured as vastly low;
+and had I been sorrowful, I might have been left to mourn in solitude
+and silence; in short, whichever way I turned, nothing presented but
+prospects of terror, despair, chandlers' shops, and waste paper."
+
+And it is just possible that if Goldsmith had kept to this vein of
+familiar _causerie_, the public might in time have been attracted by
+its quaintness. But no doubt Mr. Wilkie would have stared aghast; and
+so we find Goldsmith, as soon as his introductory bow is made, setting
+seriously about the business of magazine-making. Very soon, however,
+both Mr. Wilkie and his editor perceived that the public had not been
+taken by their venture. The chief cause of the failure, as it appears
+to any one who looks over the magazine now, would seem to be the lack
+of any definite purpose. There was no marked feature to arrest public
+attention, while many things were discarded on which the popularity of
+other periodicals had been based. There was no scandal to appeal to
+the key-hole and back-door element in human nature; there were no
+libels and gross personalities to delight the mean and envious; there
+were no fine airs of fashion to charm milliners anxious to know how
+the great talked, and posed, and dressed; and there was no solemn and
+pompous erudition to impress the minds of those serious and sensible
+people who buy literature as they buy butter, by its weight. At the
+beginning of No. IV. he admits that the new magazine has not been a
+success; and, in doing so, returns to that vein of whimsical, personal
+humour with which he had started: "Were I to measure the merit of my
+present undertaking by its success or the rapidity of its sale, I
+might be led to form conclusions by no means favourable to the pride
+of an author. Should I estimate my fame by its extent, every newspaper
+and magazine would leave me far behind. Their fame is diffused in a
+very wide circle--that of some as far as Islington, and some yet
+farther still; while mine, I sincerely believe, has hardly travelled
+beyond the sound of Bow Bell; and, while the works of others fly like
+unpinioned swans, I find my own move as heavily as a new-plucked
+goose. Still, however, I have as much pride as they who have ten times
+as many readers. It is impossible to repeat all the agreeable
+delusions in which a disappointed author is apt to find comfort. I
+conclude, that what my reputation wants in extent is made up by its
+solidity. _Minus juvat gloria lata quam magna._ I have great
+satisfaction in considering the delicacy and discernment of those
+readers I have, and in ascribing my want of popularity to the
+ignorance or inattention of those I have not. All the world may
+forsake an author, but vanity will never forsake him. Yet,
+notwithstanding so sincere a confession, I was once induced to show my
+indignation against the public, by discontinuing my endeavours to
+please; and was bravely resolved, like Raleigh, to vex them by burning
+my manuscript in a passion. Upon recollection, 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."
+
+Goldsmith was certainly more at home in this sort of writing, than in
+gravely lecturing people against the vice of gambling; in warning
+tradesmen how ill it became them to be seen at races; in demonstrating
+that justice is a higher virtue than generosity; and in proving that
+the avaricious are the true benefactors of society. But even as he
+confesses the failure of his new magazine, he seems determined to show
+the public what sort of writer this is, whom as yet they have not
+regarded too favourably. It is in No. IV. of the _Bee_ that the famous
+_City Night Piece_ occurs. No doubt that strange little fragment of
+description was the result of some sudden and aimless fancy, striking
+the occupant of the lonely garret in the middle of the night. The
+present tense, which he seldom used--and the abuse of which is one of
+the detestable vices of modern literature--adds to the mysterious
+solemnity of the recital:--
+
+"The clock has just struck two, the expiring taper rises and sinks in
+the socket, the watchman forgets the hour in slumber, the laborious
+and the happy are at rest, and nothing wakes but meditation, guilt,
+revelry, and despair. The drunkard once more fills the destroying
+bowl, the robber walks his midnight round, and the suicide lifts his
+guilty arm against his own sacred person.
+
+"Let me no longer waste the night over the page of antiquity or the
+sallies of contemporary genius, but pursue the solitary walk, where
+Vanity, ever changing, but a few hours past walked before me--where
+she kept up the pageant, and now, like a froward child, seems hushed
+with her own importunities.
+
+"What a gloom hangs all around! The dying lamp feebly emits a yellow
+gleam; no sound is heard but of the chiming clock, or the distant
+watch-dog. All the bustle of human pride is forgotten; an hour like
+this may well display the emptiness of human vanity.
+
+"There will come a time, when this temporary solitude may be made
+continual, and the city itself, like its inhabitants, fade away, and
+leave a desert in its room.
+
+"What cities, as great as this, have once triumphed in existence, had
+their victories as great, joy as just and as unbounded; and, with
+short-sighted presumption, promised themselves immortality! Posterity
+can hardly trace the situation of some; the sorrowful traveller
+wanders over the awful ruins of others; and, as he beholds, he learns
+wisdom, and feels the transience of every sublunary possession.
+
+"'Here,' he cries, 'stood their citadel, now grown over with weeds;
+there their senate-house, but now the haunt of every noxious reptile;
+temples and theatres stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of
+ruin. They are fallen, for luxury and avarice first made them feeble.
+The rewards of the state were conferred on amusing, and not on useful,
+members of society. Their riches and opulence invited the invaders,
+who, though at first repulsed, returned again, conquered by
+perseverance, and at last swept the defendants into undistinguished
+destruction.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+PERSONAL TRAITS.
+
+
+The foregoing extracts will sufficiently show what were the chief
+characteristics of Goldsmith's writing at this time--the grace and
+ease of style, a gentle and sometimes pathetic thoughtfulness, and,
+above all, when he speaks in the first person, a delightful vein of
+humorous self-disclosure. Moreover, these qualities, if they were not
+immediately profitable to the booksellers, were beginning to gain for
+him the recognition of some of the well-known men of the day. Percy,
+afterwards Bishop of Dromore, had made his way to the miserable garret
+of the poor author. Smollett, whose novels Goldsmith preferred to his
+History, was anxious to secure his services as a contributor to the
+forthcoming _British Magazine_. Burke had spoken of the pleasure given
+him by Goldsmith's review of the _Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas
+of the Sublime and Beautiful_. But, to crown all, the great Cham
+himself sought out this obscure author, who had on several occasions
+spoken with reverence and admiration of his works; and so began what
+is perhaps the most interesting literary friendship on record. At what
+precise date Johnson first made Goldsmith's acquaintance, is not
+known; Mr. Forster is right in assuming that they had met before the
+supper in Wine-Office Court, at which Mr. Percy was present. It is a
+thousand pities that Boswell had not by this time made his appearance
+in London. Johnson, Goldsmith, and all the rest of them are only
+ghosts until the pertinacious young laird of Auchinleck comes on the
+scene to give them colour, and life, and form. It is odd enough that
+the very first remarks of Goldsmith's which Boswell jotted down in his
+notebook, should refer to Johnson's systematic kindness towards the
+poor and wretched. "He had increased my admiration of the goodness of
+Johnson's heart by incidental remarks in the course of conversation,
+such as, when I mentioned Mr. Levett, whom he entertained under his
+roof, 'He is poor and honest, which is recommendation enough to
+Johnson'; and when I wondered that he was very kind to a man of whom I
+had heard a very bad character, 'He is now become miserable, and that
+ensures the protection of Johnson.'"
+
+For the rest, Boswell was not well-disposed towards Goldsmith, whom he
+regarded with a jealousy equal to his admiration of Johnson; but it is
+probable that his description of the personal appearance of the
+awkward and ungainly Irishman is in the main correct. And here also it
+may be said that Boswell's love of truth and accuracy compelled him to
+make this admission: "It has been generally circulated and believed
+that he (Goldsmith) was a mere fool in conversation; but, in truth,
+this has been greatly exaggerated." On this exaggeration--seeing that
+the contributor to the _British Magazine_ and the _Public Ledger_ was
+now becoming better known among his fellow authors--a word or two may
+fitly be said here. It pleased Goldsmith's contemporaries, who were
+not all of them celebrated for their ready wit, to regard him as a
+hopeless and incurable fool, who by some strange chance could produce
+literature, the merits of which he could not himself understand. To
+Horace Walpole we owe the phrase which describes Goldsmith as an
+"inspired idiot." Innumerable stories are told of Goldsmith's
+blunders; of his forced attempts to shine in conversation; of poor
+Poll talking nonsense, when all the world was wondering at the beauty
+of his writing. In one case we are told he was content to admit, when
+dictated to, that this, and not that, was what he really had meant in
+a particular phrase. Now there can be no question that Goldsmith,
+conscious of his pitted face, his brogue, and his ungainly figure, was
+exceedingly nervous and sensitive in society, and was anxious, as such
+people mostly are, to cover his shyness by an appearance of ease, if
+not even of swagger; and there can be as little question that he
+occasionally did and said very awkward and blundering things. But our
+Japanese friend, whom we mentioned in our opening pages, looking
+through the record that is preserved to us of those blunders which are
+supposed to be most conclusive as to this aspect of Goldsmith's
+character, would certainly stare. "Good heavens," he would cry, "did
+men ever live who were so thick-headed as not to see the humour of
+this or that 'blunder'; or were they so beset with the notion that
+Goldsmith was only a fool, that they must needs be blind?" Take one
+well-known instance. He goes to France with Mrs. Horneck and her two
+daughters, the latter very handsome young ladies. At Lille the two
+girls and Goldsmith are standing at the window of the hotel,
+overlooking the square in which are some soldiers; and naturally the
+beautiful young Englishwomen attract some attention. Thereupon
+Goldsmith turns indignantly away, remarking that elsewhere he also has
+his admirers. Now what surgical instrument was needed to get this
+harmless little joke into any sane person's head? Boswell may perhaps
+be pardoned for pretending to take the incident _au sérieux_; for as
+has just been said, in his profound adoration of Johnson, he was
+devoured by jealousy of Goldsmith; but that any other mortal should
+have failed to see what was meant by this little bit of humorous
+flattery is almost incredible. No wonder that one of the sisters
+afterwards referring to this "playful jest," should have expressed her
+astonishment at finding it put down as a proof of Goldsmith's envious
+disposition. But even after that disclaimer, we find Mr. Croker, as
+quoted by Mr. Forster, solemnly doubting "whether the vexation so
+seriously exhibited by Goldsmith was real or assumed"!
+
+Of course this is an extreme case; but there are others very similar.
+"He affected," says Hawkins, "Johnson's style and manner of
+conversation, and, when he had uttered, as he often would, a laboured
+sentence, so tumid as to be scarce intelligible, would ask if that was
+not truly Johnsonian?" Is it not truly dismal to find such an
+utterance coming from a presumably reasonable human being? It is not
+to be wondered at that Goldsmith grew shy--and in some cases had to
+ward off the acquaintance of certain of his neighbours as being too
+intrusive--if he ran the risk of having his odd and grave humours so
+densely mistranslated. The fact is this, that Goldsmith was possessed
+of a very subtle quality of humour, which is at all times rare, but
+which is perhaps more frequently to be found in Irishmen than among
+other folks. It consists in the satire of the pretence and pomposities
+of others by means of a sort of exaggerated and playful
+self-depreciation. It is a most delicate and most delightful form of
+humour; but it is very apt to be misconstrued by the dull. Who can
+doubt that Goldsmith was good-naturedly laughing at himself, his own
+plain face, his vanity, and his blunders, when he professed to be
+jealous of the admiration excited by the Miss Hornecks; when he
+gravely drew attention to the splendid colours of his coat; or when he
+no less gravely informed a company of his friends that he had heard a
+very good story, but would not repeat it, because they would be sure
+to miss the point of it?
+
+This vein of playful and sarcastic self-depreciation is continually
+cropping up in his essay writing, as, for example, in the passage
+already quoted from No. IV. of the _Bee_: "I conclude, that what my
+reputation wants in extent, is made up by its solidity. _Minus juvat
+gloria lata quam magna_. I have great satisfaction in considering the
+delicacy and discernment of those readers I have, and in ascribing my
+want of popularity to the ignorance or inattention of those I have
+not." But here, no doubt, he remembers that he is addressing the world
+at large, which contains many foolish persons; and so, that the
+delicate raillery may not be mistaken, he immediately adds, "All the
+world may forsake an author, but vanity will never forsake him." That
+he expected a quicker apprehension on the part of his intimates and
+acquaintances, and that he was frequently disappointed, seems pretty
+clear from those very stories of his "blunders." We may reasonably
+suspect, at all events, that Goldsmith was not quite so much of a fool
+as he looked; and it is far from improbable that when the ungainly
+Irishman was called in to make sport for the Philistines--and there
+were a good many Philistines in those days, if all stories be
+true--and when they imagined they had put him out of countenance, he
+was really standing aghast, and wondering how it could have pleased
+Providence to create such helpless stupidity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+The Citizen of the World.--Beau Nash.
+
+
+Meanwhile, to return to his literary work, the _Citizen of the World_
+had grown out of his contributions to the _Public Ledger_, a daily
+newspaper started by Mr. Newbery, another bookseller in St. Paul's
+Churchyard. Goldsmith was engaged to write for this paper two letters
+a week at a guinea a-piece; and these letters were, after a short time
+(1760), written in the character of a Chinese who had come to study
+European civilisation. It may be noted that Goldsmith had in the
+_Monthly Review_, in mentioning Voltaire's memoirs of French writers,
+quoted a passage about Montesquieu's _Lettres Persanes_ as follows:
+"It is written in imitation of the _Siamese Letters_ of Du Freny and
+of the _Turkish Spy_; but it is an imitation which shows what the
+originals should have been. The success their works met with was, for
+the most part, owing to the foreign air of their performances; the
+success of the _Persian Letters_ arose from the delicacy of their
+satire. That satire which in the mouth of an Asiatic is poignant,
+would lose all its force when coming from an European." And it must
+certainly be said that the charm of the strictures of the _Citizen of
+the World_ lies wholly in their delicate satire, and not at all in any
+foreign air which the author may have tried to lend to these
+performances. The disguise is very apparent. In those garrulous,
+vivacious, whimsical, and sometimes serious papers, Lien Chi Altangi,
+writing to Fum Hoam in Pekin, does not so much describe the aspects of
+European civilisation which would naturally surprise a Chinese, as he
+expresses the dissatisfaction of a European with certain phases of the
+civilisation visible everywhere around him. It is not a Chinaman, but
+a Fleet-Street author by profession, who resents the competition of
+noble amateurs whose works--otherwise bitter pills enough--are gilded
+by their titles:--"A nobleman has but to take a pen, ink, and paper,
+write away through three large volumes, and then sign his name to the
+title-page; though the whole might have been before more disgusting
+than his own rent-roll, yet signing his name and title gives value to
+the deed, title being alone equivalent to taste, imagination, and
+genius. As soon as a piece, therefore, is published, the first
+questions are--Who is the author? Does he keep a coach? Where lies his
+estate? What sort of a table does he keep? If he happens to be poor
+and unqualified for such a scrutiny, he and his works sink into
+irremediable obscurity, and too late he finds, that having fed upon
+turtle is a more ready way to fame than having digested Tully. The
+poor devil against whom fashion has set its face vainly alleges that
+he has been bred in every part of Europe where knowledge was to be
+sold; that he has grown pale in the study of nature and himself. His
+works may please upon the perusal, but his pretensions to fame are
+entirely disregarded. He is treated like a fiddler, whose music,
+though liked, is not much praised, because he lives by it; while a
+gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws
+the audience into raptures. The fiddler, indeed, may in such a case
+console himself by thinking, that while the other goes off with all
+the praise, he runs away with all the money. But here the parallel
+drops; for while the nobleman triumphs in unmerited applause, the
+author by profession steals off with--nothing."
+
+At the same time it must be allowed that the utterance of these
+strictures through the mouth of a Chinese admits of a certain
+_naïveté_, which on occasion heightens the sarcasm. Lien Chi
+accompanies the Man in Black to a theatre to see an English play. Here
+is part of the performance:--"I was going to second his remarks, when
+my attention was engrossed by a new object; a man came in balancing a
+straw upon his nose, and the audience were clapping their hands in all
+the raptures of applause. 'To what purpose,' cried I, 'does this
+unmeaning figure make his appearance? is he a part of the
+plot?'--'Unmeaning do you call him?' replied my friend in black; 'this
+is one of the most important characters of the whole play; nothing
+pleases the people more than seeing a straw balanced: there is a great
+deal of meaning in a straw: there is something suited to every
+apprehension in the sight; and a fellow possessed of talents like
+these is sure of making his fortune.' The third act now began with an
+actor who came to inform us that he was the villain of the play, and
+intended to show strange things before all was over. He was joined by
+another who seemed as much disposed for mischief as he; their
+intrigues continued through this whole division. 'If that be a
+villain,' said I, 'he must be a very stupid one to tell his secrets
+without being asked; such soliloquies of late are never admitted in
+China.' The noise of clapping interrupted me once more; a child six
+years old was learning to dance on the stage, which gave the ladies
+and mandarins infinite satisfaction. 'I am sorry,' said I, 'to see the
+pretty creature so early learning so bad a trade; dancing being, I
+presume, as contemptible here as in China.'--'Quite the reverse,'
+interrupted my companion; 'dancing is a very reputable and genteel
+employment here; men have a greater chance for encouragement from the
+merit of their heels than their heads. One who jumps up and nourishes
+his toes three times before he comes to the ground may have three
+hundred a year: he who flourishes them four times, gets four hundred;
+but he who arrives at five is inestimable, and may demand what salary
+he thinks proper. The female dancers, too, are valued for this sort of
+jumping and crossing; and it is a cant word amongst them, that she
+deserves most who shows highest. But the fourth act is begun; let us
+be attentive.'"
+
+The Man in Black here mentioned is one of the notable features of this
+series of papers. The mysterious person whose acquaintance the
+Chinaman made in Westminster Abbey, and who concealed such a wonderful
+goodness of heart under a rough and forbidding exterior, is a charming
+character indeed; and it is impossible to praise too highly the vein
+of subtle sarcasm in which he preaches worldly wisdom. But to assume
+that any part of his history which he disclosed to the Chinaman was a
+piece of autobiographical writing on the part of Goldsmith, is a very
+hazardous thing. A writer of fiction must necessarily use such
+materials as have come within his own experience; and Goldsmith's
+experience--or his use of those materials--was extremely limited:
+witness how often a pet fancy, like his remembrance of _Johnny
+Armstrong's Last Good Night_, is repeated. "That of these simple
+elements," writes Professor Masson, in his _Memoir of Goldsmith_,
+prefixed to an edition of his works, "he made so many charming
+combinations, really differing from each other, and all, though
+suggested by fact, yet hung so sweetly in an ideal air, proved what an
+artist he was, and was better than much that is commonly called
+invention. In short, if there is a sameness of effect in Goldsmith's
+writings, it is because they consist of poetry and truth, humour and
+pathos, from his own life, and the supply from such a life as his was
+not inexhaustible."
+
+The question of invention is easily disposed of. Any child can invent
+a world transcending human experience by the simple combination of
+ideas which are in themselves incongruous--a world in which the horses
+have each five feet, in which the grass is blue and the sky green, in
+which seas are balanced on the peaks of mountains. The result is
+unbelievable and worthless. But the writer of imaginative literature
+uses his own experiences and the experiences of others, so that his
+combination of ideas in themselves compatible shall appear so natural
+and believable that the reader--although these incidents and
+characters never did actually exist--is as much interested in them as
+if they had existed. The mischief of it is that the reader sometimes
+thinks himself very clever, and, recognising a little bit of the story
+as having happened to the author, jumps to the conclusion that such
+and such a passage is necessarily autobiographical. Hence it is that
+Goldsmith has been hastily identified with the Philosophic Vagabond in
+the _Vicar of Wakefield_, and with the Man in Black in the _Citizen of
+the World_. That he may have used certain experiences in the one, and
+that he may perhaps have given in the other a sort of fancy sketch of
+a person suggested by some trait in his own character, is possible
+enough; but further assertion of likeness is impossible. That the Man
+in Black had one of Goldsmith's little weaknesses is obvious enough:
+we find him just a trifle too conscious of his own kindliness and
+generosity. The Vicar of Wakefield himself is not without a spice of
+this amiable vanity. As for Goldsmith, every one must remember his
+reply to Griffiths' accusation: "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."
+
+The Man in Black, in any case, is a delightful character. We detect
+the warm and generous nature even in his pretence of having acquired
+worldly wisdom: "I now therefore pursued a course of uninterrupted
+frugality, seldom wanted a dinner, and was consequently invited to
+twenty. I soon began to get the character of a saving hunks that had
+money, and insensibly grew into esteem. Neighbours have asked my
+advice in the disposal of their daughters; and I have always taken
+care not to give any. I have contracted a friendship with an alderman,
+only by observing, that if we take a farthing from a thousand pounds
+it will be a thousand pounds no longer. I have been invited to a
+pawnbroker's table, by pretending to hate gravy; and am now actually
+upon treaty of marriage with a rich widow, for only having observed
+that the bread was rising. If ever I am asked a question, whether I
+know it or not, instead of answering, I only smile and look wise. If a
+charity is proposed I go about with the hat, but put nothing in
+myself. If a wretch solicits my pity, I observe that the world is
+filled with impostors, and take a certain method of not being deceived
+by never relieving. In short, I now find the truest way of finding
+esteem, even from the indigent, is to give away nothing, and thus have
+much in our power to give." This is a very clever piece of writing,
+whether it is in strict accordance with the character of the Man in
+Black, or not. But there is in these _Public Ledger_ papers another
+sketch of character, which is not only consistent in itself, and in
+every way admirable, but is of still further interest to us when we
+remember that at this time the various personages in the _Vicar of
+Wakefield_ were no doubt gradually assuming definite form in
+Goldsmith's mind. It is in the figure of Mr. Tibbs, introduced
+apparently at haphazard, but at once taking possession of us by its
+quaint relief, that we find Goldsmith showing a firmer hand in
+character-drawing. With a few happy dramatic touches Mr. Tibbs starts
+into life; he speaks for himself; he becomes one of the people whom we
+know. And yet, with this concise and sharp portraiture of a human
+being, look at the graceful, almost garrulous, ease of the style:--
+
+     "Our pursuer soon came up and joined us with all the
+     familiarity of an old acquaintance. 'My dear Drybone,' cries
+     he, shaking my friend's hand, 'where have you been hiding
+     this half a century? Positively I had fancied you were gone
+     to cultivate matrimony and your estate in the country.'
+     During the reply I had an opportunity of surveying the
+     appearance of our new companion: his hat was pinched up with
+     peculiar smartness; his looks were pale, thin, and sharp;
+     round his neck he wore a broad black riband, and in his
+     bosom a buckle studded with glass; his coat was trimmed with
+     tarnished twist; he wore by his side a sword with a black
+     hilt; and his stockings of silk, though newly washed, were
+     grown yellow by long service. I was so much engaged with the
+     peculiarity of his dress, that I attended only to the latter
+     part of my friend's reply, in which he complimented Mr.
+     Tibbs on the taste of his clothes and the bloom in his
+     countenance. 'Pshaw, pshaw, Will,' cried the figure, 'no
+     more of that, if you love me: you know I hate flattery,--on
+     my soul I do; and yet, to be sure, an intimacy with the
+     great will improve one's appearance, and a course of venison
+     will fatten; and yet, faith, I despise the great as much as
+     you do; but there are a great many damn'd honest fellows
+     among them, and we must not quarrel with one half, because
+     the other wants weeding. If they were all such as my Lord
+     Mudler, one of the most good-natured creatures that ever
+     squeezed a lemon, I should myself be among the number of
+     their admirers. I was yesterday to dine at the Duchess of
+     Piccadilly's. My lord was there. "Ned," says he to me,
+     "Ned," says he, "I'll hold gold to silver, I can tell you
+     where you were poaching last night." "Poaching, my lord?"
+     says I: "faith, you have missed already; for I staid at home
+     and let the girls poach for me. That's my way: I take a fine
+     woman as some animals do their prey--stand still, and,
+     swoop, they fall into my mouth."' 'Ah, Tibbs, thou art a
+     happy fellow,' cried my companion, with looks of infinite
+     pity; 'I hope your fortune is as much improved as your
+     understanding, in such company?' 'Improved!' replied the
+     other: 'you shall know,--but let it go no farther--a great
+     secret--five hundred a year to begin with--my lord's word of
+     honour for it. His lordship took me down in his own chariot
+     yesterday, and we had a _tête-à-tête_ dinner in the country,
+     where we talked of nothing else.'--'I fancy you forget,
+     sir,' cried I; 'you told us but this moment of your dining
+     yesterday in town.'--'Did I say so?' replied he, coolly; 'to
+     be sure, if I said so, it was so. Dined in town! egad, now I
+     do remember, I did dine in town; but I dined in the country
+     too; for you must know, my boys, I ate two dinners. By the
+     bye, I am grown as nice as the devil in my eating. I'll tell
+     you a pleasant affair about that: we were a select party of
+     us to dine at Lady Grogram's,--an affected piece, but let it
+     go no farther--a secret.--Well, there happened to be no
+     asafoetida in the sauce to a turkey, upon which, says I,
+     I'll hold a thousand guineas, and say done, first,
+     that--But, dear Drybone, you are an honest creature; lend me
+     half-a-crown for a minute or two, or so, just till ----; but
+     hearkee, ask me for it the next time we meet, or it may be
+     twenty to one but I forget to pay you.'"
+
+Returning from those performances to the author of them, we find him a
+busy man of letters, becoming more and more in request among the
+booksellers, and obtaining recognition among his fellow-writers. He
+had moved into better lodgings in Wine Office Court (1760-2); and it
+was here that he entertained at supper, as has already been mentioned,
+no less distinguished guests than Bishop, then Mr., Percy, and Dr.,
+then Mr., Johnson. Every one has heard of the surprise of Percy, on
+calling for Johnson, to find the great Cham dressed with quite unusual
+smartness. On asking the cause of this "singular transformation,"
+Johnson replied, "Why, sir, I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great
+sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting
+my practice; and I am desirous this night to show him a better
+example." That Goldsmith profited by this example--though the tailors
+did not--is clear enough. At times, indeed, he blossomed out into the
+splendours of a dandy; and laughed at himself for doing so. But
+whether he was in gorgeous or in mean attire, he remained the same
+sort of happy-go-lucky creature; working hard by fits and starts;
+continually getting money in advance from the booksellers; enjoying
+the present hour; and apparently happy enough when not pressed by
+debt. That he should have been thus pressed was no necessity of the
+case; at all events we need not on this score begin now to abuse the
+booksellers or the public of that day. We may dismiss once for all the
+oft-repeated charges of ingratitude and neglect.
+
+When Goldsmith was writing those letters in the _Public Ledger_--with
+"pleasure and instruction for others," Mr. Forster says, "though at
+the cost of suffering to himself"--he was receiving for them alone
+what would be equivalent in our day to £200 a year. No man can affirm
+that £200 a year is not amply sufficient for all the material wants of
+life. Of course there are fine things in the world that that amount of
+annual wage cannot purchase. It is a fine thing to sit on the deck of
+a yacht on a summer's day, and watch the far islands shining over the
+blue; it is a fine thing to drive four-in-hand to Ascot--if you can do
+it; it is a fine thing to cower breathless behind a rock and find a
+splendid stag coming slowly within sure range. But these things are
+not necessary to human happiness: it is possible to do without them
+and yet not "suffer." Even if Goldsmith had given half of his
+substance away to the poor, there was enough left to cover all the
+necessary wants of a human being; and if he chose so to order his
+affairs as to incur the suffering of debt, why, that was his own
+business, about which nothing further needs be said. It is to be
+suspected, indeed, that he did not care to practise those excellent
+maxims of prudence and frugality which he frequently preached; but the
+world is not much concerned about that now. If Goldsmith had received
+ten times as much money as the booksellers gave him, he would still
+have died in debt. And it is just possible that we may exaggerate
+Goldsmith's sensitiveness on this score. He had had a life-long
+familiarity with duns and borrowing; and seemed very contented when
+the exigency of the hour was tided over. An angry landlady is
+unpleasant, and an arrest is awkward; but in comes an opportune
+guinea, and the bottle of Madeira is opened forthwith.
+
+In these rooms in Wine Office Court, and at the suggestion or
+entreaty of Newbery, Goldsmith produced a good deal of miscellaneous
+writing--pamphlets, tracts, compilations, and what not--of a more or
+less marketable kind. It can only be surmised that by this time he may
+have formed some idea of producing a book not solely meant for the
+market, and that the characters in the _Vicar of Wakefield_ were
+already engaging his attention; but the surmise becomes probable
+enough when we remember that his project of writing the _Traveller_,
+which was not published till 1764, had been formed as far back as
+1755, while he was wandering aimlessly about Europe, and that a sketch
+of the poem was actually forwarded by him then to his brother Henry in
+Ireland. But in the meantime this hack-work, and the habits of life
+connected with it, began to tell on Goldsmith's health; and so, for a
+time, he left London (1762), and went to Tunbridge and then to Bath.
+It is scarcely possible that his modest fame had preceded him to the
+latter place of fashion; but it may be that the distinguished folk of
+the town received this friend of the great Dr. Johnson with some small
+measure of distinction; for we find that his next published work, _The
+Life of Richard Nash, Esq._, is respectfully dedicated to the Right
+Worshipful the Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen, and Common Council of the
+City of Bath. The Life of the recently deceased Master of Ceremonies
+was published anonymously (1762); but it was generally understood to
+be Goldsmith's; and indeed the secret of the authorship is revealed in
+every successive line. Among the minor writings of Goldsmith there is
+none more delightful than this: the mock-heroic gravity, the
+half-familiar contemptuous good-nature with which he composes this
+Funeral March of a Marionette, are extremely whimsical and amusing.
+And then what an admirable picture we get of fashionable English
+society in the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Bath and Nash
+were alike in the heyday of their glory--the fine ladies with their
+snuff-boxes, and their passion for play, and their extremely effective
+language when they got angry; young bucks come to flourish away their
+money, and gain by their losses the sympathy of the fair; sharpers on
+the look-out for guineas, and adventurers on the look-out for
+weak-minded heiresses; duchesses writing letters in the most doubtful
+English, and chair-men swearing at any one who dared to walk home on
+foot at night.
+
+No doubt the _Life of Beau Nash_ was a bookseller's book; and it was
+made as attractive as possible by the recapitulation of all sorts of
+romantic stories about Miss S----n, and Mr. C----e, and Captain
+K----g; but throughout we find the historian very much inclined to
+laugh at his hero, and only refraining now and again in order to
+record in serious language traits indicative of the real goodness of
+disposition of that fop and gambler. And the fine ladies and
+gentlemen, who lived in that atmosphere of scandal, and intrigue, and
+gambling, are also from time to time treated to a little decorous and
+respectful raillery. Who does not remember the famous laws of polite
+breeding written out by Mr. Nash--Goldsmith hints that neither Mr.
+Nash nor his fair correspondent at Blenheim, the Duchess of
+Marlborough, excelled in English composition--for the guidance of the
+ladies and gentlemen who were under the sway of the King of Bath? "But
+were we to give laws to a nursery, we should make them childish
+laws," Goldsmith writes gravely. "His statutes, though stupid, were
+addressed to fine gentlemen and ladies, and were probably received
+with sympathetic approbation. It is certain they were in general
+religiously observed by his subjects, and executed by him with
+impartiality; neither rank nor fortune shielded the refractory from
+his resentment." Nash, however, was not content with prose in
+enforcing good manners. Having waged deadly war against the custom of
+wearing boots, and having found his ordinary armoury of no avail
+against the obduracy of the country squires, he assailed them in the
+impassioned language of poetry, and produced the following "Invitation
+to the Assembly," which, as Goldsmith remarks, was highly relished by
+the nobility at Bath on account of its keenness, severity, and
+particularly its good rhymes.
+
+      "Come, one and all, to Hoyden Hall,
+    For there's the assembly this night;
+      None but prude fools
+      Mind manners and rules;
+    We Hoydens do decency slight.
+      Come, trollops and slatterns,
+      Cocked hats and white aprons,
+    This best our modesty suits;
+      For why should not we
+      In dress be as free
+    As Hogs-Norton squires in boots?"
+
+The sarcasm was too much for the squires, who yielded in a body; and
+when any stranger through inadvertence presented himself in the
+assembly-rooms in boots, Nash was so completely master of the
+situation that he would politely step up to the intruder and suggest
+that he had forgotten his horse.
+
+Goldsmith does not magnify the intellectual capacity of his hero; but
+he gives him credit for a sort of rude wit that was sometimes
+effective enough. His physician, for example, having called on him to
+see whether he had followed a prescription that had been sent him the
+previous day, was greeted in this fashion: "Followed your
+prescription? No. Egad, if I had, I should have broken my neck, for I
+flung it out of the two pair of stairs window." For the rest, this
+diverting biography contains some excellent warnings against the vice
+of gambling; with a particular account of the manner in which the
+Government of the day tried by statute after statute to suppress the
+tables at Tunbridge and Bath, thereby only driving the sharpers to new
+subterfuges. That the Beau was in alliance with sharpers, or, at
+least, that he was a sleeping partner in the firm, his biographer
+admits; but it is urged on his behalf that he was the most generous of
+winners, and again and again interfered to prevent the ruin of some
+gambler by whose folly he would himself have profited. His constant
+charity was well known; the money so lightly come by was at the
+disposal of any one who could prefer a piteous tale. Moreover he made
+no scruple about exacting from others that charity which they could
+well afford. One may easily guess who was the duchess mentioned in the
+following story of Goldsmith's narration:--
+
+     "The sums he gave and collected for the Hospital were great,
+     and his manner of doing it was no less admirable. I am told
+     that he was once collecting money in Wiltshire's room for
+     that purpose, when a lady entered, who is more remarkable
+     for her wit than her charity, and not being able to pass by
+     him unobserved, she gave him a pat with her fan, and said,
+     'You must put down a trifle for me, Nash, for I have no
+     money in my pocket.' 'Yes, madam,' says he, 'that I will
+     with pleasure, if your grace will tell me when to stop;'
+     then taking an handful of guineas out of his pocket, he
+     began to tell them into his white hat--' One, two, three,
+     four, five ----' 'Hold, hold!' says the duchess, 'consider
+     what you are about.' 'Consider your rank and fortune,
+     madam,' says Nash, and continues telling--'six, seven,
+     eight, nine, ten.' Here the duchess called again, and seemed
+     angry. 'Pray compose yourself, madam,' cried Nash, 'and
+     don't interrupt the work of charity,--eleven, twelve,
+     thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.' Here the duchess stormed, and
+     caught hold of his hand. 'Peace, madam,' says Nash, 'you
+     shall have your name written in letters of gold, madam, and
+     upon the front of the building, madam,--sixteen, seventeen,
+     eighteen, nineteen, twenty.' 'I won't pay a farthing more,'
+     says the duchess. 'Charity hides a multitude of sins,'
+     replies Nash,--'twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three,
+     twenty-four, twenty-five.' 'Nash,' says she, 'I protest you
+     frighten me out of my wits. L--d, I shall die!' 'Madam, you
+     will never die with doing good; and if you do, it will be
+     the better for you,' answered Nash, and was about to
+     proceed; but perceiving her grace had lost all patience, a
+     parley ensued, when he, after much altercation, agreed to
+     stop his hand and compound with her grace for thirty
+     guineas. The duchess, however, seemed displeased the whole
+     evening, and when he came to the table where she was
+     playing, bid him, 'Stand farther, an ugly devil, for she
+     hated the sight of him.' But her grace afterwards having a
+     run of good luck, called Nash to her. 'Come,' says she, 'I
+     will be friends with you, though you are a fool; and to let
+     you see I am not angry, there is ten guineas more for your
+     charity. But this I insist on, that neither my name nor the
+     sum shall be mentioned.'"
+
+At the ripe age of eighty-seven the "beau of three generations"
+breathed his last (1761); and, though he had fallen into poor ways,
+there were those alive who remembered his former greatness, and who
+chronicled it in a series of epitaphs and poetical lamentations. "One
+thing is common almost with all of them," says Goldsmith, "and that is
+that Venus, Cupid, and the Graces are commanded to weep, and that Bath
+shall never find such another." These effusions are forgotten now; and
+so would Beau Nash be also, but for this biography, which, no doubt
+meant merely for the book-market of the day, lives and is of permanent
+value by reason of the charm of its style, its pervading humour, and
+the vivacity of its descriptions of the fashionable follies of the
+eighteenth century. _Nullum fere genus scribendi non tetigit. Nullum
+quod tetigit non ornavit._ Who but Goldsmith could have written so
+delightful a book about such a poor creature as Beau Nash?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+The Arrest.
+
+
+It was no doubt owing to Newbery that Goldsmith, after his return to
+London, was induced to abandon, temporarily or altogether, his
+apartments in Wine Office Court, and take lodgings in the house of a
+Mrs. Fleming, who lived somewhere or other in Islington. Newbery had
+rooms in Canonbury House, a curious old building that still exists;
+and it may have occurred to the publisher that Goldsmith, in this
+suburban district, would not only be nearer him for consultation and
+so forth, but also might pay more attention to his duties than when he
+was among the temptations of Fleet Street. Goldsmith was working
+industriously in the service of Newbery at this time (1763-4); in
+fact, so completely was the bookseller in possession of the hack, that
+Goldsmith's board and lodging in Mrs. Fleming's house, arranged for at
+£50 a year, was paid by Newbery himself. Writing prefaces, revising
+new editions, contributing reviews--this was the sort of work he
+undertook, with more or less content, as the equivalent of the modest
+sums Mr. Newbery disbursed for him or handed over as pocket-money. In
+the midst of all this drudgery he was now secretly engaged on work
+that aimed at something higher than mere payment of bed and board.
+The smooth lines of the _Traveller_ were receiving further polish; the
+gentle-natured _Vicar_ was writing his simple, quaint, tender story.
+And no doubt Goldsmith was spurred to try something better than
+hack-work by the associations that he was now forming, chiefly under
+the wise and benevolent friendship of Johnson.
+
+Anxious always to be thought well of, he was now beginning to meet
+people whose approval was worthy of being sought. He had been
+introduced to Reynolds. He had become the friend of Hogarth. He had
+even made the acquaintance of Mr. Boswell, from Scotland. Moreover, he
+had been invited to become one of the original members of the famous
+Club of which so much has been written; his fellow-members being
+Reynolds, Johnson, Burke, Hawkins, Beauclerk, Bennet Langton, and Dr.
+Nugent. It is almost certain that it was at Johnson's instigation that
+he had been admitted into this choice fellowship. Long before either
+the _Traveller_ or the _Vicar_ had been heard of, Johnson had
+perceived the literary genius that obscurely burned in the uncouth
+figure of this Irishman; and was anxious to impress on others
+Goldsmith's claims to respect and consideration. In the minute record
+kept by Boswell of his first evening with Johnson at the Mitre Tavern,
+we find Johnson saying, "Dr. Goldsmith is one of the first men we now
+have as an author, and he is a very worthy man too. He has been loose
+in his principles, but he is coming right." Johnson took walks with
+Goldsmith; did him the honour of disputing with him on all occasions;
+bought a copy of the _Life of Nash_ when it appeared--an unusual
+compliment for one author to pay another, in their day or in ours;
+allowed him to call on Miss Williams, the blind old lady in Bolt
+Court; and generally was his friend, counsellor, and champion.
+Accordingly, when Mr. Boswell entertained the great Cham to supper at
+the Mitre--a sudden quarrel with his landlord having made it
+impossible for him to order the banquet at his own house--he was
+careful to have Dr. Goldsmith of the company. His guests that evening
+were Johnson, Goldsmith, Davies (the actor and bookseller who had
+conferred on Boswell the invaluable favour of an introduction to
+Johnson), Mr. Eccles, and the Rev. Mr. Ogilvie, a Scotch poet who
+deserves our gratitude because it was his inopportune patriotism that
+provoked, on this very evening, the memorable epigram about the
+high-road leading to England. "Goldsmith," says Boswell, who had not
+got over his envy at Goldsmith's being allowed to visit the blind old
+pensioner in Bolt-court, "as usual, endeavoured with too much
+eagerness to _shine_, and disputed very warmly with Johnson against
+the well-known maxim of the British constitution, 'The king can do no
+wrong.'" It was a dispute not so much about facts as about
+phraseology; and, indeed, there seems to be no great warmth in the
+expressions used on either side. Goldsmith affirmed that "what was
+morally false could not be politically true;" and that, in short, the
+king could by the misuse of his regal power do wrong. Johnson replied,
+that, in such a case, the immediate agents of the king were the
+persons to be tried and punished for the offence. "The king, though he
+should command, cannot force a judge to condemn a man unjustly;
+therefore it is the judge whom we prosecute and punish." But when he
+stated that the king "is above everything, and there is no power by
+which he can be tried," he was surely forgetting an important chapter
+in English history. "What did Cromwell do for his country?" he himself
+asked, during his subsequent visit to Scotland, of old Auchinleck,
+Boswell's father. "God, Doctor," replied the vile Whig, "_he garred
+kings ken they had a lith in their necks_."
+
+For some time after this evening Goldsmith drops out of Boswell's
+famous memoir; perhaps the compiler was not anxious to give him too
+much prominence. They had not liked each other from the outset.
+Boswell, vexed by the greater intimacy of Goldsmith with Johnson,
+called him a blunderer, a feather-brained person; and described his
+appearance in no flattering terms. Goldsmith, on the other hand, on
+being asked who was this Scotch cur that followed Johnson's heels,
+answered, "He is not a cur: you are too severe--he is only a bur. Tom
+Davies flung him at Johnson in sport, and he has the faculty of
+sticking." Boswell would probably have been more tolerant of Goldsmith
+as a rival, if he could have known that on a future day he was to have
+Johnson all to himself--to carry him to remote wilds and exhibit him
+as a portentous literary phenomenon to Highland lairds. It is true
+that Johnson, at an early period of his acquaintance with Boswell, did
+talk vaguely about a trip to the Hebrides; but the young Scotch
+idolater thought it was all too good to be true. The mention of Sir
+James Macdonald, says Boswell, "led us to talk of the Western Islands
+of Scotland, to visit which he expressed a wish that then appeared to
+me a very romantic fancy, which I little thought would be afterwards
+realised. He told me that his father had put Martin's account of
+those islands into his hands when he was very young, and that he was
+highly pleased with it; that he was particularly struck with the St.
+Kilda man's notion that the high church of Glasgow had been hollowed
+out of a rock; a circumstance to which old Mr. Johnson had directed
+his attention." Unfortunately Goldsmith not only disappears from the
+pages of Boswell's biography at this time, but also in great measure
+from the ken of his companions. He was deeply in debt; no doubt the
+fine clothes he had been ordering from Mr. Filby in order that he
+might "shine" among those notable persons, had something to do with
+it; he had tried the patience of the booksellers; and he had been
+devoting a good deal of time to work not intended to elicit immediate
+payment. The most patient endeavours to trace out his changes of
+lodgings, and the fugitive writings that kept him in daily bread, have
+not been very successful. It is to be presumed that Goldsmith had
+occasionally to go into hiding to escape from his creditors; and so
+was missed from his familiar haunts. We only reach daylight again, to
+find Goldsmith being under threat of arrest from his landlady; and for
+the particulars of this famous affair it is necessary to return to
+Boswell.
+
+Boswell was not in London at that time; but his account was taken down
+subsequently from Johnson's narration; and his accuracy in other
+matters, his extraordinary memory, and scrupulous care, leave no doubt
+in the mind that his version of the story is to be preferred to those
+of Mrs. Piozzi and Sir John Hawkins. We may take it that these are
+Johnson's own words:-- "I received one morning a message from poor
+Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his
+power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as
+possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I
+accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady
+had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I
+perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle
+of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle,
+desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by
+which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a novel
+ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it, and
+saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon return; and, having
+gone to a bookseller, sold it for £60. I brought Goldsmith the money,
+and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high
+tone for having used him so ill."
+
+We do not know who this landlady was--it cannot now be made out
+whether the incident occurred at Islington, or in the rooms that
+Goldsmith partially occupied in the Temple; but even if Mrs. Fleming
+be the landlady in question, she was deserving neither of Goldsmith's
+rating nor of the reprimands that have been bestowed upon her by later
+writers. Mrs. Fleming had been exceedingly kind to Goldsmith. Again
+and again in her bills we find items significantly marked £0 0_s._
+0_d._ And if her accounts with her lodger did get hopelessly into
+arrear; and if she was annoyed by seeing him go out in fine clothes to
+sup at the Mitre; and if, at length, her patience gave way, and she
+determined to have her rights in one way or another, she was no worse
+than landladies--who are only human beings, and not divinely appointed
+protectresses of genius--ordinarily are. Mrs. Piozzi says that when
+Johnson came back with the money, Goldsmith "called the woman of the
+house directly to partake of punch, and pass their time in merriment."
+This would be a dramatic touch; but, after Johnson's quietly corking
+the bottle of Madeira, it is more likely that no such thing occurred;
+especially as Boswell quotes the statement as an "extreme inaccuracy."
+
+The novel which Johnson had taken away and sold to Francis Newbery, a
+nephew of the elder bookseller, was, as every one knows, the _Vicar of
+Wakefield_. That Goldsmith, amidst all his pecuniary distresses,
+should have retained this piece in his desk, instead of pawning or
+promising it to one of his bookselling patrons, points to but one
+conclusion--that he was building high hopes on it, and was determined
+to make it as good as lay within his power. Goldsmith put an anxious
+finish into all his better work; perhaps that is the secret of the
+graceful ease that is now apparent in every line. Any young writer who
+may imagine that the power of clear and concise literary expression
+comes by nature, cannot do better than study, in Mr. Cunningham's big
+collection of Goldsmith's writings, the continual and minute
+alterations which the author considered necessary even after the first
+edition--sometimes when the second and third editions--had been
+published. Many of these, especially in the poetical works, were
+merely improvements in sound as suggested by a singularly sensitive
+ear, as when he altered the line
+
+    "Amidst the ruin, heedless of the dead,"
+
+which had appeared in the first three editions of the _Traveller_,
+into
+
+    "There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,"
+
+which appeared in the fourth. But the majority of the omissions and
+corrections were prompted by a careful taste, that abhorred everything
+redundant or slovenly. It has been suggested that when Johnson carried
+off the _Vicar of Wakefield_ to Francis Newbery, the manuscript was
+not quite finished, but had to be completed afterwards. There was at
+least plenty of time for that. Newbery does not appear to have
+imagined that he had obtained a prize in the lottery of literature. He
+paid the £60 for it--clearly on the assurance of the great father of
+learning of the day, that there was merit in the little
+story--somewhere about the end of 1764; but the tale was not issued to
+the public until March, 1766. "And, sir," remarked Johnson to Boswell,
+with regard to the sixty pounds, "a sufficient price too, when it was
+sold; for then the fame of Goldsmith had not been elevated, as it
+afterwards was, by his _Traveller_; and the bookseller had such faint
+hopes of profit by his bargain, that he kept the manuscript by him a
+long time, and did not publish it till after the _Traveller_ had
+appeared. Then, to be sure, it was accidentally worth more money."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE TRAVELLER.
+
+
+This poem of the _Traveller_, the fruit of much secret labour and the
+consummation of the hopes of many years, was lying completed in
+Goldsmith's desk when the incident of the arrest occurred; and the
+elder Newbery had undertaken to publish it. Then, as at other times,
+Johnson lent this wayward child of genius a friendly hand. He read
+over the proof-sheets for Goldsmith; was so kind as to put in a line
+here or there where he thought fit; and prepared a notice of the poem
+for the _Critical Review_. The time for the appearance of this new
+claimant for poetical honours was propitious. "There was perhaps no
+point in the century," says Professor Masson, "when the British Muse,
+such as she had come to be, was doing less, or had so nearly ceased to
+do anything, or to have any good opinion of herself, as precisely
+about the year 1764. Young was dying; Gray was recluse and indolent;
+Johnson had long given over his metrical experimentations on any
+except the most inconsiderable scale; Akenside, Armstrong, Smollett,
+and others less known, had pretty well revealed the amount of their
+worth in poetry; and Churchill, after his ferocious blaze of what was
+really rage and declamation in metre, though conventionally it was
+called poetry, was prematurely defunct. Into this lull came
+Goldsmith's short but carefully finished poem." "There has not been so
+fine a poem since Pope's time," remarked Johnson to Boswell, on the
+very first evening after the return of young Auchinleck to London. It
+would have been no matter for surprise had Goldsmith dedicated this
+first work that he published under his own name to Johnson, who had
+for so long been his constant friend and adviser; and such a
+dedication would have carried weight in certain quarters. But there
+was a finer touch in Goldsmith's thought of inscribing the book to his
+brother Henry; and no doubt the public were surprised and pleased to
+find a poor devil of an author dedicating a work to an Irish parson
+with £40 a year, from whom he could not well expect any return. It
+will be remembered that it was to this brother Henry that Goldsmith,
+ten years before, had sent the first sketch of the poem; and now the
+wanderer,
+
+    "Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow."
+
+declares how his heart untravelled
+
+    "Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
+    And drags at each remove a lengthening chain."
+
+The very first line of the poem strikes a key-note--there is in it a
+pathetic thrill of distance, and regret, and longing; and it has the
+soft musical sound that pervades the whole composition. It is
+exceedingly interesting to note, as has already been mentioned, how
+Goldsmith altered and altered these lines until he had got them full
+of gentle vowel sounds. Where, indeed, in the English language could
+one find more graceful melody than this?--
+
+    "The naked negro, panting at the line,
+    Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,
+    Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
+    And thanks his gods for all the good they gave."
+
+It has been observed also that Goldsmith was the first to introduce
+into English poetry sonorous American--or rather Indian--names, as
+when he writes in this poem,
+
+    "Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
+    And Niagara stuns with thundering sound,"
+
+--and if it be charged against him that he ought to have known the
+proper accentuation of Niagara, it may be mentioned as a set-off that
+Sir Walter Scott, in dealing with his own country, mis-accentuated
+"Glenaládale," to say nothing of his having made of Roseneath an
+island. Another characteristic of the _Traveller_ is the extraordinary
+choiceness and conciseness of the diction, which, instead of
+suggesting pedantry or affectation, betrays on the contrary nothing
+but a delightful ease and grace.
+
+The English people are very fond of good English; and thus it is that
+couplets from the _Traveller_ and the _Deserted Village_ have come
+into the common stock of our language, and that sometimes not so much
+on account of the ideas they convey, as through their singular
+precision of epithet and musical sound. It is enough to make the
+angels weep, to find such a couplet as this--
+
+    "Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
+    Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes,"
+
+murdered in several editions of Goldsmith's works by the substitution
+of the commonplace "breathes" for "breasts"--and that, after Johnson
+had drawn particular attention to the line by quoting it in his
+Dictionary. Perhaps, indeed, it may be admitted that the literary
+charm of the _Traveller_ is more apparent than the value of any
+doctrine, however profound or ingenious, which the poem was supposed
+to inculcate. We forget all about the "particular principle of
+happiness" possessed by each European state, in listening to the
+melody of the singer, and in watching the successive and delightful
+pictures that he calls up before the imagination.
+
+    "As in those domes where Cæsars once bore sway,
+    Defaced by time, and tottering in decay,
+    There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
+    The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed;
+    And, wondering man could want the larger pile,
+    Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile."
+
+Then notice the blaze of patriotic idealism that bursts forth when he
+comes to talk of England. What sort of England had he been familiar
+with when he was consorting with the meanest wretches--the poverty
+stricken, the sick, and squalid--in those Fleet-Street dens? But it is
+an England of bright streams and spacious lawns of which he writes;
+and as for the people who inhabit the favoured land--
+
+    "Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state,
+    With daring aims irregularly great;
+    Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
+    I see the lords of human kind pass by."
+
+"Whenever I write anything," Goldsmith had said, with a humorous
+exaggeration which Boswell, as usual, takes _au sérieux_, "the public
+_make a point_ to know nothing about it." But we have Johnson's
+testimony to the fact that the _Traveller_ "brought him into high
+reputation." No wonder. When the great Cham declares it to be the
+finest poem published since the time of Pope, we are irresistibly
+forced to think of the _Essay on Man_. What a contrast there is
+between that tedious and stilted effort, and this clear burst of
+bird-song! The _Traveller_, however, did not immediately become
+popular. It was largely talked about, naturally, among Goldsmith's
+friends; and Johnson would scarcely suffer any criticism of it. At a
+dinner given long afterwards at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, and fully
+reported by the invaluable Boswell, Reynolds remarked, "I was glad to
+hear Charles Fox say it was one of the finest poems in the English
+language." "Why were you glad?" said Langton. "You surely had no doubt
+of this before?" Hereupon Johnson struck in: "No; the merit of the
+_Traveller_ is so well established, that Mr. Fox's praise cannot
+augment it, nor his censure diminish it." And he went on to
+say--Goldsmith having died and got beyond the reach of all critics and
+creditors some three or four years before this time "Goldsmith was a
+man who, whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do.
+He deserved a place in Westminster Abbey; and every year he lived
+would have deserved it better."
+
+Presently people began to talk about the new poem. A second edition
+was issued; a third; a fourth. It is not probable that Goldsmith
+gained any pecuniary benefit from the growing popularity of the little
+book; but he had "struck for honest fame," and that was now coming to
+him. He even made some slight acquaintance with "the great;" and here
+occurs an incident which is one of many that account for the love that
+the English people have for Goldsmith. It appears that Hawkins,
+calling one day on the Earl of Northumberland, found the author of the
+_Traveller_ waiting in the outer room, in response to an invitation.
+Hawkins, having finished his own business, retired, but lingered about
+until the interview between Goldsmith and his lordship was over,
+having some curiosity about the result. Here follows Goldsmith's
+report to Hawkins. "His lordship told me he had read my poem, and was
+much delighted with it; that he was going to be Lord-lieutenant of
+Ireland; and that, hearing that I was a native of that country, he
+should be glad to do me any kindness." "What did you answer?" says
+Hawkins, no doubt expecting to hear of some application for pension or
+post. "Why," said Goldsmith, "I could say nothing but that I had a
+brother there, a clergyman, that stood in need of help,"--and then he
+explained to Hawkins that he looked to the booksellers for support,
+and was not inclined to place dependence on the promises of great men.
+"Thus did this idiot in the affairs of the world," adds Hawkins, with
+a fatuity that is quite remarkable in its way, "trifle with his
+fortunes, and put back the hand that was held out to assist him! Other
+offers of a like kind he either rejected or failed to improve,
+contenting himself with the patronage of one nobleman, whose mansion
+afforded him the delights of a splendid table and a retreat for a few
+days from the metropolis." It is a great pity we have not a
+description from the same pen of Johnson's insolent ingratitude in
+flinging the pair of boots down stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+MISCELLANEOUS WRITING.
+
+
+But one pecuniary result of this growing fame was a joint offer on the
+part of Griffin and Newbery of £20 for a selection from his printed
+essays; and this selection was forthwith made and published, with a
+preface written for the occasion. Here at once we can see that
+Goldsmith takes firmer ground. There is an air of confidence--of
+gaiety, even--in his address to the public; although, as usual,
+accompanied by a whimsical mock-modesty that is extremely odd and
+effective. "Whatever right I have to complain of the public," he says,
+"they can, as yet, have no just reason to complain of me. If I have
+written dull Essays, they have hitherto treated them as dull Essays.
+Thus far we are at least upon par, and until they think fit to make me
+their humble debtor by praise, I am resolved not to lose a single inch
+of my self-importance. Instead, therefore, of attempting to establish
+a credit amongst them, it will perhaps be wiser to apply to some more
+distant correspondent; and as my drafts are in some danger of being
+protested at home, it may not be imprudent, upon this occasion, to
+draw my bills upon Posterity.
+
+     "MR. POSTERITY,
+
+     "SIR,--Nine hundred and ninety-nine years after sight hereof
+     pay the bearer, or order, a thousand pounds worth of praise,
+     free from all deductions whatsoever, it being a commodity
+     that will then be very serviceable to him, and place it to
+     the account of, &c."
+
+The bill is not yet due; but there can in the meantime be no harm in
+discounting it so far as to say that these Essays deserve very decided
+praise. They deal with all manner of topics, matters of fact, matters
+of imagination, humorous descriptions, learned criticisms; and then,
+whenever the entertainer thinks he is becoming dull, he suddenly tells
+a quaint little story and walks off amidst the laughter he knows he
+has produced. It is not a very ambitious or sonorous sort of
+literature; but it was admirably fitted for its aim--the passing of
+the immediate hour in an agreeable and fairly intellectual way. One
+can often see, no doubt, that these Essays are occasionally written in
+a more or less perfunctory fashion, the writer not being moved by much
+enthusiasm in his subject; but even then a quaint literary grace
+seldom fails to atone, as when, writing about the English clergy, and
+complaining that they do not sufficiently in their addresses stoop to
+mean capacities, he says--"Whatever may become of the higher orders of
+mankind, who are generally possessed of collateral motives to virtue,
+the vulgar should be particularly regarded, whose behaviour in civil
+life is totally hinged upon their hopes and fears. Those who
+constitute the basis of the great fabric of society should be
+particularly regarded; for in policy, as in architecture, ruin is most
+fatal when it begins from the bottom." There was, indeed, throughout
+Goldsmith's miscellaneous writing much more common sense than might
+have been expected from a writer who was supposed to have none.
+
+As regards his chance criticisms on dramatic and poetical literature,
+these are generally found to be incisive and just; while sometimes
+they exhibit a wholesome disregard of mere tradition and authority.
+"Milton's translation of Horace's Ode to Pyrrha," he says, for
+example, "is universally known and generally admired, in our opinion
+much above its merit." If the present writer might for a moment
+venture into such an arena, he would express the honest belief that
+that translation is the very worst translation that was ever made of
+anything. But there is the happy rendering of _simplex munditiis_,
+which counts for much.
+
+By this time Goldsmith had also written his charming ballad of _Edwin
+and Angelina_, which was privately "printed for the amusement of the
+Countess of Northumberland," and which afterwards appeared in the
+_Vicar of Wakefield_. It seems clear enough that this quaint and
+pathetic piece was suggested by an old ballad beginning,
+
+    "Gentle heardsman, tell to me,
+    Of curtesy I thee pray,
+    Unto the towne of Walsingham
+    Which is the right and ready way,"
+
+which Percy had shown to Goldsmith, and which, patched up,
+subsequently appeared in the _Reliques_. But Goldsmith's ballad is
+original enough to put aside all the discussion about plagiarism which
+was afterwards started. In the old fragment the weeping pilgrim
+receives directions from the herdsman, and goes on her way, and we
+hear of her no more; in _Edwin and Angelina_ the forlorn and
+despairing maiden suddenly finds herself confronted by the long-lost
+lover whom she had so cruelly used. This is the dramatic touch that
+reveals the hand of the artist. And here again it is curious to note
+the care with which Goldsmith repeatedly revised his writings. The
+ballad originally ended with these two stanzas:--
+
+    "Here amidst sylvan bowers we'll rove,
+    From lawn to woodland stray;
+    Blest as the songsters of the grove,
+    And innocent as they.
+
+    "To all that want, and all that wail,
+    Our pity shall be given,
+    And when this life of love shall fail,
+    We'll love again in heaven."
+
+But subsequently it must have occurred to the author that, the
+dramatic disclosure once made, and the lovers restored to each other,
+any lingering over the scene only weakened the force of the climax;
+hence these stanzas were judiciously excised. It may be doubted,
+however, whether the original version of the last couplet:
+
+    "And the last sigh that rends the heart
+    Shall break thy Edwin's too,"
+
+was improved by being altered into
+
+    "The sigh that rends thy constant heart
+    Shall break thy Edwin's too."
+
+Meanwhile Goldsmith had resorted to hack-work again; nothing being
+expected from the _Vicar of Wakefield_, now lying in Newbery's shop,
+for that had been paid for, and his expenses were increasing, as
+became his greater station. In the interval between the publication of
+the _Traveller_ and of the _Vicar_, he moved into better chambers in
+Garden Court; he hired a man-servant, he blossomed out into very fine
+clothes. Indeed, so effective did his first suit seem to be--the
+purple silk small-clothes, the scarlet roquelaure, the wig, sword, and
+gold-headed cane--that, as Mr. Forster says, he "amazed his friends
+with no less than three similar suits, not less expensive, in the next
+six months." Part of this display was no doubt owing to a suggestion
+from Reynolds that Goldsmith, having a medical degree, might just as
+well add the practice of a physician to his literary work, to magnify
+his social position. Goldsmith, always willing to please his friends,
+acceded; but his practice does not appear to have been either
+extensive or long-continued. It is said that he drew out a
+prescription for a certain Mrs. Sidebotham which so appalled the
+apothecary that he refused to make it up; and that, as the lady sided
+with the apothecary, he threw up the case and his profession at the
+same time. If it was money Goldsmith wanted, he was not likely to get
+it in that way; he had neither the appearance nor the manner fitted to
+humour the sick and transform healthy people into valetudinarians. If
+it was the esteem of his friends and popularity outside that circle,
+he was soon to acquire enough of both. On the 27th March, 1766,
+fifteen months after the appearance of the _Traveller_, the _Vicar of
+Wakefield_ was published.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.
+
+
+The _Vicar of Wakefield_, considered structurally, follows the lines
+of the Book of Job. You take a good man, overwhelm him with successive
+misfortunes, show the pure flame of his soul burning in the midst of
+the darkness, and then, as the reward of his patience and fortitude
+and submission, restore him gradually to happiness, with even larger
+flocks and herds than before. The machinery by which all this is
+brought about is, in the _Vicar of Wakefield_, the weak part of the
+story. The plot is full of wild improbabilities; in fact, the
+expedients by which all the members of the family are brought together
+and made happy at the same time, are nothing short of desperate. It is
+quite clear, too, that the author does not know what to make of the
+episode of Olivia and her husband; they are allowed to drop through;
+we leave him playing the French horn at a relation's house; while she,
+in her father's home, is supposed to be unnoticed, so much are they
+all taken up with the rejoicings over the double wedding. It is very
+probable that when Goldsmith began the story he had no very definite
+plot concocted; and that it was only when the much-persecuted Vicar
+had to be restored to happiness, that he found the entanglements
+surrounding him, and had to make frantic efforts to break through
+them. But, be that as it may, it is not for the plot that people now
+read the _Vicar of Wakefield_; it is not the intricacies of the story
+that have made it the delight of the world. Surely human nature must
+be very much the same when this simple description of a quiet English
+home went straight to the heart of nations in both hemispheres.
+
+And the wonder is that Goldsmith of all men should have produced such
+a perfect picture of domestic life. What had his own life been but a
+moving about between garret and tavern, between bachelor's lodgings
+and clubs? Where had he seen--unless, indeed, he looked back through
+the mist of years to the scenes of his childhood--all this gentle
+government, and wise blindness; all this affection, and consideration,
+and respect? There is as much human nature in the character of the
+Vicar alone as would have furnished any fifty of the novels of that
+day, or of this. Who has not been charmed by his sly and quaint
+humour, by his moral dignity and simple vanities, even by the little
+secrets he reveals to us of his paternal rule. "'Ay,' returned I, not
+knowing well what to think of the matter, 'heaven grant they may be
+both the better for it this day three months!' This was one of those
+observations I usually made to impress my wife with an opinion of my
+sagacity; for if the girls succeeded, then it was a pious wish
+fulfilled; but if anything unfortunate ensued, then it might be looked
+on as a prophecy." We know how Miss Olivia was answered, when, at her
+mother's prompting, she set up for being well skilled in
+controversy:--
+
+"'Why, my dear, what controversy can she have read?' cried I. 'It does
+not occur to me that I ever put such books into her hands: you
+certainly overrate her merit.'--'Indeed, papa,' replied Olivia, 'she
+does not; I have read a great deal of controversy. I have read the
+disputes between Thwackum and Square; the controversy between Robinson
+Crusoe and Friday, the savage; and I am now employed in reading the
+controversy in Religious Courtship.'--'Very well,' cried I, 'that's a
+good girl; I find you are perfectly qualified for making converts, and
+so go help your mother to make the gooseberry pie.'"
+
+It is with a great gentleness that the good man reminds his wife and
+daughters that, after their sudden loss of fortune, it does not become
+them to wear much finery. "The first Sunday, in particular, their
+behaviour served to mortify me. I had desired my girls the preceding
+night to be dressed early the next day; for I always loved to be at
+church a good while before the rest of the congregation. They
+punctually obeyed my directions; but when we were to assemble in the
+morning at breakfast, down came my wife and daughters, dressed out in
+all their former splendour; their hair plastered up with pomatum,
+their faces patched to taste, their trains bundled up in a heap
+behind, and rustling at every motion. I could not help smiling at
+their vanity, particularly that of my wife, from whom I expected more
+discretion. In this exigence, therefore, my only resource was to order
+my son, with an important air, to call our coach. The girls were
+amazed at the command; but I repeated it with more solemnity than
+before. 'Surely, my dear, you jest,' cried my wife; 'we can walk it
+perfectly well: we want no coach to carry us now.'--'You mistake,
+child,' returned I, 'we do want a coach; for if we walk to church in
+this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after
+us.'--'Indeed,' replied my wife, 'I always imagined that my Charles
+was fond of seeing his children neat and handsome about him.'--'You
+may be as neat as you please,' interrupted I, 'and I shall love you
+the better for it; but all this is not neatness, but frippery. These
+rufflings, and pinkings, and patchings will only make us hated by all
+the wives of our neighbours. No, my children,' continued I, more
+gravely, 'those gowns may be altered into something of a plainer cut;
+for finery is very unbecoming in us, who want the means of decency. I
+do not know whether such flouncing and shredding is becoming even in
+the rich, if we consider, upon a moderate calculation, that the
+nakedness of the indigent world might be clothed from the trimmings of
+the vain.'
+
+"This remonstrance had the proper effect: they went with great
+composure, that very instant, to change their dress; and the next day
+I had the satisfaction of finding my daughters, at their own request,
+employed in cutting up their trains into Sunday waistcoats for Dick
+and Bill, the two little ones; and, what was still more satisfactory,
+the gowns seemed improved by this curtailing." And again when he
+discovered the two girls making a wash for their faces:--"My daughters
+seemed equally busy with the rest; and I observed them for a good
+while cooking something over the fire. I at first supposed they were
+assisting their mother, but little Dick informed me, in a whisper,
+that they were making a wash for the face. Washes of all kinds I had a
+natural antipathy to; for I knew that, instead of mending the
+complexion, they spoil it. I therefore approached my chair by sly
+degrees to the fire, and grasping the poker, as if it wanted mending,
+seemingly by accident overturned the whole composition, and it was too
+late to begin another."
+
+All this is done with such a light, homely touch, that one gets
+familiarly to know these people without being aware of it. There is no
+insistance. There is no dragging you along by the collar; confronting
+you with certain figures; and compelling you to look at this and study
+that. The artist stands by you, and laughs in his quiet way; and you
+are laughing too, when suddenly you find that human beings have
+silently come into the void before you; and you know them for friends;
+and even after the vision has faded away, and the beautiful light and
+colour and glory of romance-land have vanished, you cannot forget
+them. They have become part of your life; you will take them to the
+grave with you.
+
+The story, as every one perceives, has its obvious blemishes. "There
+are an hundred faults in this Thing," says Goldsmith himself, in the
+prefixed Advertisement. But more particularly, in the midst of all the
+impossibilities taking place in and around the jail, when that
+chameleon-like _deus ex machinâ_, Mr. Jenkinson, winds up the tale in
+hot haste, Goldsmith pauses to put in a sort of apology. "Nor can I go
+on without a reflection," he says gravely, "on those accidental
+meetings, which, though they happen every day, seldom excite our
+surprise but upon some extraordinary occasion. To what a fortuitous
+concurrence do we not owe every pleasure and convenience of our lives!
+How many seeming accidents must unite before we can be clothed or fed!
+The peasant must be disposed to labour, the shower must fall, the wind
+fill the merchant's sail, or numbers must want the usual supply." This
+is Mr. Thackeray's "simple rogue" appearing again in adult life.
+Certainly, if our supply of food and clothing depended on such
+accidents as happened to make the Vicar's family happy all at once,
+there would be a good deal of shivering and starvation in the world.
+Moreover it may be admitted that on occasion Goldsmith's fine instinct
+deserts him; and even in describing those domestic relations which are
+the charm of the novel, he blunders into the unnatural. When Mr.
+Burchell, for example, leaves the house in consequence of a quarrel
+with Mrs. Primrose, the Vicar questions his daughter as to whether she
+had received from that poor gentleman any testimony of his affection
+for her. She replies No; but remembers to have heard him remark that
+he never knew a woman who could find merit in a man that was poor.
+"Such, my dear," continued the Vicar, "is the common cant of all the
+unfortunate or idle. But I hope you have been taught to judge properly
+of such men, and that it would be even madness to expect happiness
+from one who has been so very bad an economist of his own. Your mother
+and I have now better prospects for you. The next winter, which you
+will probably spend in town, will give you opportunities of making a
+more prudent choice." Now it is not at all likely that a father,
+however anxious to have his daughter well married and settled, would
+ask her so delicate a question in open domestic circle, and would then
+publicly inform her that she was expected to choose a husband on her
+forthcoming visit to town.
+
+Whatever may be said about any particular incident like this, the
+atmosphere of the book is true. Goethe, to whom a German translation
+of the _Vicar_ was read by Herder some four years after the
+publication in England, not only declared it at the time to be one of
+the best novels ever written, but again and again throughout his life
+reverted to the charm and delight with which he had made the
+acquaintance of the English "prose-idyll," and took it for granted
+that it was a real picture of English life. Despite all the machinery
+of Mr. Jenkinson's schemes, who could doubt it? Again and again there
+are recurrent strokes of such vividness and naturalness that we yield
+altogether to the necromancer. Look at this perfect picture--of human
+emotion and outside nature--put in in a few sentences. The old
+clergyman, after being in search of his daughter, has found her, and
+is now--having left her in an inn--returning to his family and his
+home. "And now my heart caught new sensations of pleasure, the nearer
+I approached that peaceful mansion. As a bird that had been frighted
+from its nest, my affections outwent my haste, and hovered round my
+little fireside with all the rapture of expectation. I called up the
+many fond things I had to say, and anticipated the welcome I was to
+receive. I already felt my wife's tender embrace, and smiled at the
+joy of my little ones. As I walked but slowly, the night waned apace.
+The labourers of the day were all retired to rest; the lights were
+out in every cottage; no sounds were heard but of the shrilling cock,
+and the deep-mouthed watch-dog at hollow distance. I approached my
+little abode of pleasure, and, before I was within a furlong of the
+place, our honest mastiff came running to welcome me." "_The
+deep-mouthed watch-dog at hollow distance_;"--what more perfect
+description of the stillness of night was ever given?
+
+And then there are other qualities in this delightful _Vicar of
+Wakefield_ than merely idyllic tenderness, and pathos, and sly humour.
+There is a firm presentation of the crimes and brutalities of the
+world. The pure light that shines within that domestic circle is all
+the brighter because of the black outer ring that is here and there
+indicated rather than described. How could we appreciate all the
+simplicities of the good man's household, but for the rogueries with
+which they are brought in contact? And although we laugh at Moses and
+his gross of green spectacles, and the manner in which the Vicar's
+wife and daughter are imposed on by Miss Wilhelmina Skeggs and Lady
+Blarney, with their lords and ladies and their tributes to virtue,
+there is no laughter demanded of us when we find the simplicity and
+moral dignity of the Vicar meeting and beating the jeers and taunts of
+the abandoned wretches in the prison. This is really a remarkable
+episode. The author was under the obvious temptation to make much
+comic material out of the situation; while another temptation, towards
+the goody-goody side, was not far off. But the Vicar undertakes the
+duty of reclaiming these castaways with a modest patience and
+earnestness in every way in keeping with his character; while they, on
+the other hand, are not too easily moved to tears of repentance. His
+first efforts, it will be remembered, were not too successful. "Their
+insensibility excited my highest compassion, and blotted my own
+uneasiness from my mind. It even appeared a duty incumbent upon me to
+attempt to reclaim them. I resolved, therefore, once more to return,
+and, in spite of their contempt, to give them my advice, and conquer
+them by my perseverance. Going, therefore, among them again, I
+informed Mr. Jenkinson of my design, at which he laughed heartily, but
+communicated it to the rest. The proposal was received with the
+greatest good humour, as it promised to afford a new fund of
+entertainment to persons who had now no other resource for mirth but
+what could be derived from ridicule or debauchery.
+
+"I therefore read them a portion of the service with a loud,
+unaffected voice, and found my audience perfectly merry upon the
+occasion. Lewd whispers, groans of contrition burlesqued, winking and
+coughing, alternately excited laughter. However, I continued with my
+natural solemnity to read on, sensible that what I did might mend
+some, but could itself receive no contamination from any.
+
+"After reading, I entered upon my exhortation, which was rather
+calculated at first to amuse them than to reprove. I previously
+observed, that no other motive but their welfare could induce me to
+this; that I was their fellow-prisoner, and now got nothing by
+preaching. I was sorry, I said, to hear them so very profane; because
+they got nothing by it, but might lose a great deal: 'For be assured,
+my friends,' cried I,--'for you are my friends, however the world may
+disclaim your friendship,--though you swore twelve thousand oaths in
+a day, it would not put one penny in your purse. Then what signifies
+calling every moment upon the devil, and courting his friendship,
+since you find how scurvily he uses you? He has given you nothing
+here, you find, but a mouthful of oaths and an empty belly; and, by
+the best accounts I have of him, he will give you nothing that's good
+hereafter.
+
+"'If used ill in our dealings with one man, we naturally go elsewhere.
+Were it not worth your while, then, just to try how you may like the
+usage of another master, who gives you fair promises at least to come
+to him? Surely, my friends, of all stupidity in the world, his must be
+the greatest, who, after robbing a house, runs to the thief-takers for
+protection. And yet, how are you more wise? You are all seeking
+comfort from one that has already betrayed you, applying to a more
+malicious being than any thief-taker of them all; for they only decoy
+and then hang you; but he decoys and hangs, and, what is worst of all,
+will not let you loose after the hangman has done.'
+
+"When I had concluded, I received the compliments of my audience, some
+of whom came and shook me by the hand, swearing that I was a very
+honest fellow, and that they desired my further acquaintance. I
+therefore promised to repeat my lecture next day, and actually
+conceived some hopes of making a reformation here; for it had ever
+been my opinion, that no man was past the hour of amendment, every
+heart lying open to the shafts of reproof, if the archer could but
+take a proper aim."
+
+His wife and children, naturally dissuading him from an effort which
+seemed to them only to bring ridicule upon him, are met by a grave
+rebuke; and on the next morning he descends to the common prison,
+where, he says, he found the prisoners very merry, expecting his
+arrival, and each prepared to play some gaol-trick on the Doctor.
+
+"There was one whose trick gave more universal pleasure than all the
+rest; for, observing the manner in which I had disposed my books on
+the table before me, he very dexterously displaced one of them, and
+put an obscene jest-book of his own in the place. However, I took no
+notice of all that this mischievous group of little beings could do,
+but went on, perfectly sensible that what was ridiculous in my attempt
+would excite mirth only the first or second time, while what was
+serious would be permanent. My design succeeded, and in less than six
+days some were penitent, and all attentive.
+
+"It was now that I applauded my perseverance and address, at thus
+giving sensibility to wretches divested of every moral feeling, and
+now began to think of doing them temporal services also, by rendering
+their situation somewhat more comfortable. Their time had hitherto
+been divided between famine and excess, tumultuous riot and bitter
+repining. Their only employment was quarrelling among each other,
+playing at cribbage, and cutting tobacco-stoppers. From this last mode
+of idle industry I took the hint of setting such as choose to work at
+cutting pegs for tobacconists and shoemakers, the proper wood being
+bought by a general subscription, and, when manufactured, sold by my
+appointment; so that each earned something every day--a trifle indeed,
+but sufficient to maintain him.
+
+"I did not stop here, but instituted fines for the punishment of
+immorality, and rewards for peculiar industry. Thus, in less than a
+fortnight I had formed them into something social and humane, and had
+the pleasure of regarding myself as a legislator who had brought men
+from their native ferocity into friendship and obedience."
+
+Of course, all this about gaols and thieves was calculated to shock
+the nerves of those who liked their literature perfumed with
+rose-water. Madame Riccoboni, to whom Burke had sent the book, wrote
+to Garrick, "Le plaidoyer en faveur des voleurs, des petits larrons,
+des gens de mauvaises moeurs, est fort éloigné de me plaire."
+Others, no doubt, considered the introduction of Miss Skeggs and Lady
+Blarney as "vastly low." But the curious thing is that the literary
+critics of the day seem to have been altogether silent about the
+book--perhaps they were "puzzled" by it, as Southey has suggested. Mr.
+Forster, who took the trouble to search the periodical literature of
+the time, says that, "apart from bald recitals of the plot, not a word
+was said in the way of criticism about the book, either in praise or
+blame." The _St. James's Chronicle_ did not condescend to notice its
+appearance, and the _Monthly Review_ confessed frankly that nothing
+was to be made of it. The better sort of newspapers, as well as the
+more dignified reviews, contemptuously left it to the patronage of
+_Lloyd's Evening Post_, the _London Chronicle_, and journals of that
+class; which simply informed their readers that a new novel, called
+the _Vicar of Wakefield_, had been published, that "the editor is
+Doctor Goldsmith, who has affixed his name to an introductory
+Advertisement, and that such and such were the incidents of the
+story." Even his friends, with the exception of Burke, did not seem
+to consider that any remarkable new birth in literature had occurred;
+and it is probable that this was a still greater disappointment to
+Goldsmith, who was so anxious to be thought well of at the Club.
+However, the public took to the story. A second edition was published
+in May; a third in August. Goldsmith, it is true, received no
+pecuniary gain from this success, for, as we have seen, Johnson had
+sold the novel outright to Francis Newbery; but his name was growing
+in importance with the booksellers.
+
+There was need that it should, for his increasing expenses--his fine
+clothes, his suppers, his whist at the Devil Tavern--were involving
+him in deeper and deeper difficulties. How was he to extricate
+himself?--or rather the question that would naturally occur to
+Goldsmith was how was he to continue that hand-to-mouth existence that
+had its compensations along with its troubles? Novels like the _Vicar
+of Wakefield_ are not written at a moment's notice, even though any
+Newbery, judging by results, is willing to double that £60 which
+Johnson considered to be a fair price for the story at the time. There
+was the usual resource of hack-writing; and, no doubt, Goldsmith was
+compelled to fall back on that, if only to keep the elder Newbery, in
+whose debt he was, in a good humour. But the author of the _Vicar of
+Wakefield_ may be excused if he looked round to see if there was not
+some more profitable work for him to turn his hand to. It was at this
+time that he began to think of writing a comedy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE GOOD-NATURED MAN.
+
+
+Amid much miscellaneous work, mostly of the compilation order, the
+play of the _Good-natured Man_ began to assume concrete form; insomuch
+that Johnson, always the friend of this erratic Irishman, had promised
+to write a Prologue for it. It is with regard to this Prologue that
+Boswell tells a foolish and untrustworthy story about Goldsmith. Dr.
+Johnson had recently been honoured by an interview with his Sovereign;
+and the members of the Club were in the habit of flattering him by
+begging for a repetition of his account of that famous event. On one
+occasion, during this recital, Boswell relates, Goldsmith "remained
+unmoved upon a sofa at some distance, affecting not to join in the
+least in the eager curiosity of the company. He assigned as a reason
+for his gloom and seeming inattention that he apprehended Johnson had
+relinquished his purpose of furnishing him with a Prologue to his
+play, with the hopes of which he had been flattered; but it was
+strongly suspected that he was fretting with chagrin and envy at the
+singular honour Doctor Johnson had lately enjoyed. At length the
+frankness and simplicity of his natural character prevailed. He
+sprang from the sofa, advanced to Johnson, and, in a kind of flutter,
+from imagining himself in the situation which he had just been hearing
+described, exclaimed, '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.'" It is obvious enough that the
+only part of this anecdote which is quite worthy of credence is the
+actual phrase used by Goldsmith, which is full of his customary
+generosity and self-depreciation. All those "suspicions" of his envy
+of his friend may safely be discarded, for they are mere guesswork;
+even though it might have been natural enough for a man like
+Goldsmith, conscious of his singular and original genius, to measure
+himself against Johnson, who was merely a man of keen perception and
+shrewd reasoning, and to compare the deference paid to Johnson with
+the scant courtesy shown to himself.
+
+As a matter of fact, the Prologue was written by Dr. Johnson; and the
+now complete comedy was, after some little arrangement of personal
+differences between Goldsmith and Garrick, very kindly undertaken by
+Reynolds, submitted for Garrick's approval. But nothing came of
+Reynolds's intervention. Perhaps Goldsmith resented Garrick's airs of
+patronage towards a poor devil of an author; perhaps Garrick was
+surprised by the manner in which well-intentioned criticisms were
+taken; at all events, after a good deal of shilly-shallying, the play
+was taken out of Garrick's hands. Fortunately, a project was just at
+this moment on foot for starting the rival theatre in Covent Garden,
+under the management of George Colman; and to Colman Goldsmith's play
+was forthwith consigned. The play was accepted; but it was a long time
+before it was produced; and in that interval it may fairly be presumed
+the _res angusta domi_ of Goldsmith did not become any more free and
+generous than before. It was in this interval that the elder Newbery
+died; Goldsmith had one patron the less. Another patron who offered
+himself was civilly bowed to the door. This is an incident in
+Goldsmith's career which, like his interview with the Earl of
+Northumberland, should ever be remembered in his honour. The
+Government of the day were desirous of enlisting on their behalf the
+services of writers of somewhat better position than the mere
+libellers whose pens were the slaves of anybody's purse; and a Mr.
+Scott, a chaplain of Lord Sandwich, appears to have imagined that it
+would be worth while to buy Goldsmith. He applied to Goldsmith in due
+course; and this is an account of the interview. "I found him in a
+miserable set of chambers in the Temple. I told him my authority; I
+told him 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 I left him in his
+garret." Needy as he was, Goldsmith had too much self-respect to
+become a paid libeller and cutthroat of public reputations.
+
+On the evening of Friday, the 29th of January, 1768, when Goldsmith
+had now reached the age of forty, the comedy of _The Good-natured Man_
+was produced at Covent Garden Theatre. The Prologue had, according to
+promise, been written by Johnson; and a very singular prologue it was.
+Even Boswell was struck by the odd contrast between this sonorous
+piece of melancholy and the fun that was to follow. "The first lines
+of this Prologue," he conscientiously remarks, "are strongly
+characteristical of the dismal gloom of his mind; which, in his case,
+as in the case of all who are distressed with the same malady of
+imagination, transfers to others its own feelings. Who could suppose
+it was to introduce a comedy, when Mr. Bensley solemnly began--
+
+    "'Pressed with the load of life, the weary mind
+    Surveys the general toil of humankind'?
+
+But this dark ground might make Goldsmith's humour shine the more."
+When we come to the comedy itself, we find but little bright humour in
+the opening passages. The author is obviously timid, anxious, and
+constrained. There is nothing of the brisk, confident vivacity with
+which _She Stoops to Conquer_ opens. The novice does not yet
+understand the art of making his characters explain themselves; and
+accordingly the benevolent uncle and honest Jarvis indulge in a
+conversation which, laboriously descriptive of the character of young
+Honeywood, is spoken "at" the audience. With the entrance of young
+Honeywood himself, Goldsmith endeavours to become a little more
+sprightly; but there is still anxiety hanging over him, and the
+epigrams are little more than merely formal antitheses.
+
+     "_Jarvis._ This bill from your tailor; this from your
+     mercer; and this from the little broker in Crooked Lane. He
+     says he has been at a great deal of trouble to get back the
+     money you borrowed.
+
+     _Hon._ That I don't know; but I'm sure we were at a great
+     deal of trouble in getting him to lend it.
+
+     _Jar._ He has lost all patience.
+
+     _Hon._ Then he has lost a very good thing.
+
+     _Jar._ There's that ten guineas you were sending to the poor
+     gentleman and his children in the Fleet. I believe that
+     would stop his mouth for a while at least.
+
+     _Hon._ Ay, Jarvis, but what will fill their mouths in the
+     mean time?"
+
+This young Honeywood, the hero of the play, is, and remains
+throughout, a somewhat ghostly personage. He has attributes; but no
+flesh or blood. There is much more substance in the next character
+introduced--the inimitable Croaker, who revels in evil forebodings and
+drinks deep of the luxury of woe. These are the two chief characters;
+but then a play must have a plot. And perhaps it would not be fair, so
+far as the plot is concerned, to judge of _The Good-natured Man_
+merely as a literary production. Intricacies that seem tedious and
+puzzling on paper appear to be clear enough on the stage: it is much
+more easy to remember the history and circumstances of a person whom
+we see before us, than to attach these to a mere name--especially as
+the name is sure to be clipped down from _Honeywood_ to _Hon._ and
+from _Leontine_ to _Leon._ However, it is in the midst of all the
+cross-purposes of the lovers that we once more come upon our old
+friend Beau Tibbs--though Mr. Tibbs is now in much better
+circumstances, and has been re-named by his creator Jack Lofty.
+Garrick had objected to the introduction of Jack, on the ground that
+he was only a distraction. But Goldsmith, whether in writing a novel
+or a play, was more anxious to represent human nature than to prune a
+plot, and paid but little respect to the unities, if only he could
+arouse our interest. And who is not delighted with this Jack Lofty and
+his "duchessy" talk--his airs of patronage, his mysterious hints, his
+gay familiarity with the great, his audacious lying?
+
+     "_Lofty._ Waller? Waller? Is he of the house?
+
+     _Mrs. Croaker._ The modern poet of that name, sir.
+
+     _Lof._ Oh, a modern! We men of business despise the moderns;
+     and as for the ancients, we have no time to read them.
+     Poetry is a pretty thing enough for our wives and daughters;
+     but not for us. Why now, here I stand that know nothing of
+     books. I say, madam, I know nothing of books; and yet, I
+     believe, upon a land-carriage fishery, a stamp act, or a
+     jag-hire, I can talk my two hours without feeling the want
+     of them.
+
+     _Mrs. Cro._ The world is no stranger to Mr. Lofty's eminence
+     in every capacity.
+
+     _Lof._ I vow to gad, madam, you make me blush. I'm nothing,
+     nothing, nothing in the world; a mere obscure gentleman. To
+     be sure, indeed, one or two of the present ministers are
+     pleased to represent me as a formidable man. I know they are
+     pleased to bespatter me at all their little dirty levees.
+     Yet, upon my soul, I wonder what they see in me to treat me
+     so! Measures, not men, have always been my mark; and I vow,
+     by all that's honourable, my resentment has never done the
+     men, as mere men, any manner of harm--that is, as mere men.
+
+     _Mrs. Cro._ What importance, and yet what modesty!
+
+     _Lof._ Oh, if you talk of modesty, madam, there, I own, I'm
+     accessible to praise: modesty is my foible: it was so the
+     Duke of Brentford used to say of me. 'I love Jack Lofty,' he
+     used to say: 'no man has a finer knowledge of things; quite
+     a man of information; and when he speaks upon his legs, by
+     the Lord he's prodigious, he scouts them; and yet all men
+     have their faults; too much modesty is his,' says his grace.
+
+     _Mrs. Cro._ And yet, I dare say, you don't want assurance
+     when you come to solicit for your friends.
+
+     _Lof._ Oh, there indeed I'm in bronze. Apropos! I have just
+     been mentioning Miss Richland's case to a certain personage;
+     we must name no names. When I ask, I am not to be put off,
+     madam. No, no, I take my friend by the button. A fine girl,
+     sir; great justice in her case. A friend of mine--borough
+     interest--business must be done, Mr. Secretary.--I say, Mr.
+     Secretary, her business must be done, sir. That's my way,
+     madam.
+
+     _Mrs. Cro._ Bless me! you said all this to the Secretary of
+     State, did you?
+
+     _Lof._ I did not say the Secretary, did I? Well, curse it,
+     since you have found me out, I will not deny it. It was to
+     the Secretary."
+
+Strangely enough, what may now seem to some of us the very best scene
+in the _Good-natured Man_--the scene, that is, in which young
+Honeywood, suddenly finding Miss Richland without, is compelled to
+dress up the two bailiffs in possession of his house and introduce
+them to her as gentlemen friends--was very nearly damning the play on
+the first night of its production. The pit was of opinion that it was
+"low;" and subsequently the critics took up the cry, and professed
+themselves to be so deeply shocked by the vulgar humours of the
+bailiffs that Goldsmith had to cut them out. But on the opening night
+the anxious author, who had been rendered nearly distracted by the
+cries and hisses produced by this scene, was somewhat reassured when
+the audience began to laugh again over the tribulations of Mr.
+Croaker. To the actor who played the part he expressed his warm
+gratitude when the piece was over; assuring him that he had exceeded
+his own conception of the character, and that "the fine comic richness
+of his colouring made it almost appear as new to him as to any other
+person in the house."
+
+The new play had been on the whole favourably received; and, when
+Goldsmith went along afterwards to the Club, his companions were
+doubtless not at all surprised to find him in good spirits. He was
+even merrier than usual; and consented to sing his favourite ballad
+about the Old Woman tossed in a Blanket. But those hisses and cries
+were still rankling in his memory; and he himself subsequently
+confessed that he was "suffering horrid tortures." Nay, when the other
+members of the Club had gone, leaving him and Johnson together, he
+"burst out a-crying, and even swore by ---- that he would never write
+again." When Goldsmith told this story in after-days, Johnson was
+naturally astonished; perhaps--himself not suffering much from an
+excessive sensitiveness--he may have attributed that little burst of
+hysterical emotion to the excitement of the evening increased by a
+glass or two of punch, and determined therefore never to mention it.
+"All which, Doctor," he said, "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." Indeed there was little to cry over, either in the first
+reception of the piece or in its subsequent fate. With the offending
+bailiffs cut out, the comedy would seem to have been very fairly
+successful. The proceeds of three of the evenings were Goldsmith's
+payment; and in this manner he received £400. Then Griffin published
+the play; and from this source Goldsmith received an additional £100;
+so that altogether he was very well paid for his work. Moreover he had
+appealed against the judgment of the pit and the dramatic critics, by
+printing in the published edition the bailiff scene which had been
+removed from the stage; and the _Monthly Review_ was so extremely kind
+as to say that "the bailiff and his blackguard follower appeared
+intolerable on the stage, yet we are not disgusted with them in the
+perusal." Perhaps we have grown less scrupulous since then; but at all
+events it would be difficult for anybody nowadays to find anything but
+good-natured fun in that famous scene. There is an occasional "damn,"
+it is true; but then English officers have always been permitted that
+little playfulness, and these two gentlemen were supposed to "serve in
+the Fleet;" while if they had been particularly refined in their
+speech and manner, how could the author have aroused Miss Richland's
+suspicions? It is possible that the two actors who played the bailiff
+and his follower may have introduced some vulgar "gag" into their
+parts; but there is no warranty for anything of the kind in the play
+as we now read it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+GOLDSMITH IN SOCIETY.
+
+
+The appearance of the _Good-natured Man_ ushered in a halcyon period
+in Goldsmith's life. The _Traveller_ and the _Vicar_ had gained for
+him only reputation: this new comedy put £500 in his pocket. Of course
+that was too big a sum for Goldsmith to have about him long.
+Four-fifths of it he immediately expended on the purchase and
+decoration of a set of chambers in Brick Court, Middle Temple; with
+the remainder he appears to have begun a series of entertainments in
+this new abode, which were perhaps more remarkable for their mirth
+than their decorum. There was no sort of frolic in which Goldsmith
+would not indulge for the amusement of his guests; he would sing them
+songs; he would throw his wig to the ceiling; he would dance a minuet.
+And then they had cards, forfeits, blind-man's-buff, until Mr.
+Blackstone, then engaged on his _Commentaries_ in the rooms below, was
+driven nearly mad by the uproar. These parties would seem to have been
+of a most nondescript character--chance gatherings of any obscure
+authors or actors whom he happened to meet; but from time to time
+there were more formal entertainments, at which Johnson, Percy, and
+similar distinguished persons were present. Moreover, Dr. Goldsmith
+himself was much asked out to dinner too; and so, not content with the
+"Tyrian bloom, satin grain and garter, blue-silk breeches," which Mr.
+Filby had provided for the evening of the production of the comedy, he
+now had another suit "lined with silk, and gold buttons," that he
+might appear in proper guise. Then he had his airs of consequence too.
+This was his answer to an invitation from Kelly, who was his rival of
+the hour: "I would with pleasure accept your kind invitation, but to
+tell you the truth, my dear boy, my _Traveller_ has found me a home in
+so many places, that I am engaged, I believe, three days. Let me see.
+To-day I dine with Edmund Burke, to-morrow with Dr. Nugent, and the
+next day with Topham Beauclerc; but I'll tell you what I'll do for
+you, I'll dine with you on Saturday." Kelly told this story as against
+Goldsmith; but surely there is not so much ostentation in the reply.
+Directly after _Tristram Shandy_ was published, Sterne found himself
+fourteen deep in dinner engagements: why should not the author of the
+_Traveller_ and the _Vicar_ and the _Good-natured Man_ have his
+engagements also? And perhaps it was but right that Mr. Kelly, who was
+after all only a critic and scribbler, though he had written a play
+which was for the moment enjoying an undeserved popularity, should be
+given to understand that Dr. Goldsmith was not to be asked to a
+hole-and-corner chop at a moment's notice. To-day he dines with Mr.
+Burke; to-morrow with Dr. Nugent; the day after with Mr. Beauclerc. If
+you wish to have the honour of his company, you may choose a day
+after that; and then, with his new wig, with his coat of Tyrian bloom
+and blue silk breeches, with a smart sword at his side, his
+gold-headed cane in his hand, and his hat under his elbow, he will
+present himself in due course. Dr. Goldsmith is announced, and makes
+his grave bow; this is the man of genius about whom all the town is
+talking; the friend of Burke, of Reynolds, of Johnson, of Hogarth;
+this is not the ragged Irishman who was some time ago earning a crust
+by running errands for an apothecary.
+
+Goldsmith's grand airs, however, were assumed but seldom; and they
+never imposed on anybody. His acquaintances treated him with a
+familiarity which testified rather to his good-nature than to their
+good taste. Now and again, indeed, he was prompted to resent this
+familiarity; but the effort was not successful. In the "high jinks" to
+which he good-humouredly resorted for the entertainment of his guests
+he permitted a freedom which it was afterwards not very easy to
+discard; and as he was always ready to make a butt of himself for the
+amusement of his friends and acquaintances, it came to be recognised
+that anybody was allowed to play off a joke on "Goldy." The jokes,
+such of them as have been put on record, are of the poorest sort. The
+horse-collar is never far off. One gladly turns from these dismal
+humours of the tavern and the club to the picture of Goldsmith's
+enjoying what he called a "Shoemaker's Holiday" in the company of one
+or two chosen intimates. Goldsmith, baited and bothered by the wits of
+a public-house, became a different being when he had assumed the
+guidance of a small party of chosen friends bent on having a day's
+frugal pleasure. We are indebted to one Cooke, a neighbour of
+Goldsmith's in the Temple, not only for a most interesting description
+of one of those shoemaker's holidays, but also for the knowledge that
+Goldsmith had even now begun writing the _Deserted Village_, which was
+not published till 1770, two years later. Goldsmith, though he could
+turn out plenty of manufactured stuff for the booksellers, worked
+slowly at the special story or poem with which he meant to "strike for
+honest fame." This Mr. Cooke, calling on him one morning, discovered
+that Goldsmith had that day written these ten lines of the _Deserted
+Village_:--
+
+    "Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
+    Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
+    How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
+    Where humble happiness endeared each scene!
+    How often have I paused on every charm,
+    The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,
+    The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
+    The decent church, that topt the neighbouring hill,
+    The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
+    For talking age and whispering lovers made!"
+
+"Come," said he, "let me tell you this is no bad morning's work; and
+now, my dear boy, if you are not better engaged, I should be glad to
+enjoy a shoemaker's holiday with you." "A shoemaker's holiday,"
+continues the writer of these reminiscences, "was a day of great
+festivity to poor Goldsmith, and was spent in the following innocent
+manner. Three or four of his intimate friends rendezvoused at his
+chambers to breakfast about ten o'clock in the morning; at eleven they
+proceeded by the City Road and through the fields to Highbury Barn to
+dinner; about six o'clock in the evening they adjourned to White
+Conduit House to drink tea; and concluded by supping at the Grecian or
+Temple Exchange coffee-house or at the Globe in Fleet Street. There
+was a very good ordinary of two dishes and pastry kept at Highbury
+Barn about this time at tenpence per head, including a penny to the
+waiter; and the company generally consisted of literary characters, a
+few Templars, and some citizens who had left off trade. The whole
+expenses of the day's fete never exceeded a crown, and oftener were
+from three-and-sixpence to four shillings; for which the party
+obtained good air and exercise, good living, the example of simple
+manners, and good conversation."
+
+It would have been well indeed for Goldsmith had he been possessed of
+sufficient strength of character to remain satisfied with these simple
+pleasures, and to have lived the quiet and modest life of a man of
+letters on such income as he could derive from the best work he could
+produce. But it is this same Mr. Cooke who gives decisive testimony as
+to Goldsmith's increasing desire to "shine" by imitating the
+expenditure of the great; the natural consequence of which was that he
+only plunged himself into a morass of debt, advances, contracts for
+hack-work, and misery. "His debts rendered him at times so melancholy
+and dejected, that I am sure he felt himself a very unhappy man."
+Perhaps it was with some sudden resolve to flee from temptation, and
+grapple with the difficulties that beset him, that he, in conjunction
+with another Temple neighbour, Mr. Bott, rented a cottage some eight
+miles down the Edgware Road; and here he set to work on the _History
+of Rome_, which he was writing for Davies. Apart from this hack-work,
+now rendered necessary by his debt, it is probable that one strong
+inducement leading him to this occasional seclusion was the progress
+he might be able to make with the _Deserted Village_. Amid all his
+town gaieties and country excursions, amid his dinners and suppers and
+dances, his borrowings, and contracts, and the hurried literary
+produce of the moment, he never forgot what was due to his reputation
+as an English poet. The journalistic bullies of the day might vent
+their spleen and envy on him; his best friends might smile at his
+conversational failures; the wits of the tavern might put up the
+horse-collar as before; but at least he had the consolation of his
+art. No one better knew than himself the value of those finished and
+musical lines he was gradually adding to the beautiful poem, the
+grace, and sweetness, and tender, pathetic charm of which make it one
+of the literary treasures of the English people.
+
+The sorrows of debt were not Goldsmith's only trouble at this time.
+For some reason or other he seems to have become the especial object
+of spiteful attack on the part of the literary cut-throats of the day.
+And Goldsmith, though he might listen with respect to the wise advice
+of Johnson on such matters, was never able to cultivate Johnson's
+habit of absolute indifference to anything that might be said or sung
+of him. "The Kenricks, Campbells, MacNicols, and Hendersons," says
+Lord Macaulay--speaking of Johnson, "did their best to annoy him, in
+the hope that he would give them importance by answering them." But
+the reader will in vain search his works for any allusion to Kenrick
+or Campbell, to MacNicol or Henderson. One Scotchman, bent on
+vindicating the fame of Scotch learning, defied him to the combat in a
+detestable Latin hexameter--
+
+    'Maxime, si tu vis, cupio contendere tecum.'
+
+But Johnson took no notice of the challenge. He had learned, both from
+his own observation and from literary history, in which he was deeply
+read, that the place of books in the public estimation is fixed, not
+by what is written about them, but by what is written in them; and
+that an author whose works are likely to live, is very unwise if he
+stoops to wrangle with detractors whose works are certain to die. He
+always maintained that fame was a shuttlecock which could be kept up
+only by being beaten back, as well as beaten forward, and which would
+soon fall if there were only one battledore. No saying was oftener in
+his mouth than that fine apophthegm of Bentley, that no man was ever
+written down but by himself.
+
+It was not given to Goldsmith to feel "like the Monument" on any
+occasion whatsoever. He was anxious to have the esteem of his friends;
+he was sensitive to a degree; denunciation or malice, begotten of envy
+that Johnson would have passed unheeded, wounded him to the quick.
+"The insults to which he had to submit," Thackeray wrote with a quick
+and warm sympathy, "are shocking to read of--slander, contumely,
+vulgar satire, brutal malignity perverting his commonest motives and
+actions: he had his share of these, and one's anger is roused at
+reading of them, as it is at seeing a woman insulted or a child
+assaulted, at the notion that a creature so very gentle, and weak,
+and full of love should have had to suffer so." Goldsmith's revenge,
+his defence of himself, his appeal to the public, were the
+_Traveller_, the _Vicar of Wakefield_, the _Deserted Village_; but
+these came at long intervals; and in the meantime he had to bear with
+the anonymous malignity that pursued him as best he might. No doubt,
+when Burke was entertaining him at dinner; and when Johnson was openly
+deferring to him in conversation at the Club; and when Reynolds was
+painting his portrait, he could afford to forget Mr. Kenrick and the
+rest of the libelling clan.
+
+The occasions on which Johnson deferred to Goldsmith in conversation
+were no doubt few; but at all events the bludgeon of the great Cham
+would appear to have come down less frequently on "honest Goldy" than on
+the other members of that famous coterie. It could come down heavily
+enough. "Sir," said an incautious person, "drinking drives away care,
+and makes us forget whatever is disagreeable. Would not you allow a man
+to drink for that reason?" "Yes, sir," was the reply, "if he sat next
+_you_." Johnson, however, was considerate towards Goldsmith, partly
+because of his affection for him, and partly because he saw under what
+disadvantages Goldsmith entered the lists. For one thing, the
+conversation of those evenings would seem to have drifted continually
+into the mere definition of phrases. Now Johnson had spent years of his
+life, during the compilation of his Dictionary, in doing nothing else
+but defining; and, whenever the dispute took a phraseological turn, he
+had it all his own way. Goldsmith, on the other hand, was apt to become
+confused in his eager self-consciousness. "Goldsmith," said Johnson to
+Boswell, "should not be for ever attempting to shine in conversation; he
+has not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails.... 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." Boswell, nevertheless, admits that Goldsmith was
+"often very fortunate in his witty contests, even when he entered the
+lists with Johnson himself," and goes on to tell how Goldsmith, relating
+the fable of the little fishes who petitioned Jupiter, and perceiving
+that Johnson was laughing at him, immediately said, "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." Who but Goldsmith would have
+dared to play jokes on the sage? At supper they have rumps and kidneys.
+The sage expresses his approval of "the pretty little things;" but
+profoundly observes that one must eat a good many of them before being
+satisfied. "Ay, but how many of them," asks Goldsmith, "would reach to
+the moon?" The sage professes his ignorance; and, indeed, remarks that
+that would exceed even Goldsmith's calculations; when the practical
+joker observes, "Why, _one_, sir, if it were long enough." Johnson was
+completely beaten on this occasion. "Well, sir, I have deserved it. I
+should not have provoked so foolish an answer by so foolish a question."
+
+It was Johnson himself, moreover, who told the story of Goldsmith and
+himself being in Poets' Corner; of his saying to Goldsmith
+
+    "Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis,"
+
+and of Goldsmith subsequently repeating the quotation when, having
+walked towards Fleet Street, they were confronted by the heads on
+Temple Bar. Even when Goldsmith was opinionated and wrong, Johnson's
+contradiction was in a manner gentle. "If you put a tub full of blood
+into a stable, the horses are like to go mad," observed Goldsmith. "I
+doubt that," was Johnson's reply. "Nay, sir, it is a fact well
+authenticated." Here Thrale interposed to suggest that Goldsmith
+should have the experiment tried in the stable; but Johnson merely
+said that, if Goldsmith began making these experiments, he would never
+get his book written at all. Occasionally, of course, Goldsmith was
+tossed and gored just like another. "But, sir," he had ventured to
+say, in opposition to Johnson, "when people live together who have
+something as to which they disagree, and which they want to shun, they
+will be in the situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard, 'You may
+look into all the chambers but one.' But we should have the greatest
+inclination to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject." Here,
+according to Boswell, Johnson answered in a loud voice, "Sir, I am not
+saying that _you_ could live in friendship with a man from whom you
+differ as to one point; I am only saying that _I_ could do it." But
+then again he could easily obtain pardon from the gentle Goldsmith for
+any occasional rudeness. One evening they had a sharp passage of arms
+at dinner; and thereafter the company adjourned to the Club, where
+Goldsmith sate silent and depressed. "Johnson perceived this," says
+Boswell, "and said aside to some of us, 'I'll make Goldsmith forgive
+me'; and then called to him in a loud voice, 'Dr. Goldsmith, something
+passed to-day where you and I dined: I ask your pardon.' Goldsmith
+answered placidly, 'It must be much from you, sir, that I take ill.'
+And so at once the difference was over, and they were on as easy terms
+as ever, and Goldsmith rattled away as usual." For the rest, Johnson
+was the constant and doughty champion of Goldsmith as a man of
+letters. He would suffer no one to doubt the power and versatility of
+that genius which he had been amongst the first to recognise and
+encourage. "Whether, indeed, we take him as a poet, as a comic writer,
+or as an historian," he announced to an assemblage of distinguished
+persons met together at dinner at Mr. Beauclerc's, "_he stands in the
+first class_." And there was no one living who dared dispute the
+verdict--at least in Johnson's hearing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+The Deserted Village.
+
+
+But it is time to return to the literary performances that gained for
+this uncouth Irishman so great an amount of consideration from the
+first men of his time. The engagement with Griffin about the _History
+of Animated Nature_ was made at the beginning of 1769. The work was to
+occupy eight volumes; and Dr. Goldsmith was to receive eight hundred
+guineas for the complete copyright. Whether the undertaking was
+originally a suggestion of Griffin's, or of Goldsmith's own, does not
+appear. If it was the author's, it was probably only the first means
+that occurred to him of getting another advance; and that
+advance--£500 on account--he did actually get. But if it was the
+suggestion of the publisher, Griffin must have been a bold man. A
+writer whose acquaintance with animated nature was such as to allow
+him to make the "insidious tiger" a denizen of the backwoods of
+Canada,[2] was not a very safe authority. But perhaps Griffin had
+consulted Johnson before making this bargain; and we know that
+Johnson, though continually remarking on Goldsmith's extraordinary
+ignorance of facts, was of opinion that the _History of Animated
+Nature_ would be "as entertaining as a Persian tale." However,
+Goldsmith--no doubt after he had spent the five hundred
+guineas--tackled the work in earnest. When Boswell subsequently went
+out to call on him at another rural retreat he had taken on the
+Edgware Road, Boswell and Mickle, the translator of the _Lusiad_,
+found Goldsmith from home; "but, having a curiosity to see his
+apartment, we went in and found curious scraps of descriptions of
+animals scrawled upon the wall with a black-lead pencil." Meanwhile,
+this _Animated Nature_ being in hand, the _Roman History_ was
+published, and was very well received by the critics and by the
+public. "Goldsmith's abridgment," Johnson declared, "is better than
+that of Lucius Florus or Eutropius; and I will venture to say that if
+you compare him with Vertot, in the same places of the _Roman
+History_, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the art of
+compiling, and of saying everything he has to say in a pleasing
+manner."
+
+[Footnote 2: See _Citizen of the World_, Letter XVII.]
+
+So thought the booksellers too; and the success of the _Roman History_
+only involved him in fresh projects of compilation. By an offer of
+£500 Davies induced him to lay aside for the moment the _Animated
+Nature_ and begin "An History of England, from the Birth of the
+British Empire to the death of George the Second, in four volumes
+octavo." He also about this time undertook to write a Life of Thomas
+Parnell. Here, indeed, was plenty of work, and work promising good
+pay; but the depressing thing is that Goldsmith should have been the
+man who had to do it. He may have done it better than any one else
+could have done--indeed, looking over the results of all that
+drudgery, we recognise now the happy turns of expression which were
+never long absent from Goldsmith's prose-writing--but the world could
+well afford to sacrifice all the task-work thus got through for
+another poem like the _Deserted Village_ or the _Traveller_. Perhaps
+Goldsmith considered he was making a fair compromise when, for the
+sake of his reputation, he devoted a certain portion of his time to
+his poetical work, and then, to have money for fine clothes and high
+jinks, gave the rest to the booksellers. One critic, on the appearance
+of the _Roman History_, referred to the _Traveller_, and remarked that
+it was a pity that the "author of one of the best poems that has
+appeared since those of Mr. Pope, should not apply wholly to works of
+imagination." We may echo that regret now; but Goldsmith would at the
+time have no doubt replied that, if he had trusted to his poems, he
+would never have been able to pay £400 for chambers in the Temple. In
+fact he said as much to Lord Lisburn at one of the Academy dinners: "I
+cannot afford to court the draggle-tail muses, my Lord; they would let
+me starve; but by my other labours I can make shift to eat, and drink,
+and have good clothes." And there is little use in our regretting now
+that Goldsmith was not cast in a more heroic mould; we have to take
+him as he is; and be grateful for what he has left us.
+
+It is a grateful relief to turn from these booksellers' contracts and
+forced labours to the sweet clear note of singing that one finds in
+the _Deserted Village_. This poem, after having been repeatedly
+announced and as often withdrawn for further revision, was at last
+published on the 26th of May, 1770, when Goldsmith was in his
+forty-second year. The leading idea of it he had already thrown out in
+certain lines in the _Traveller_:--
+
+    "Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore,
+    Her useful sons exchanged for useless ore?
+    Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,
+    Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste?
+    Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
+    Lead stern depopulation in her train,
+    And over fields where scattered hamlets rose
+    In barren solitary pomp repose?
+    Have we not seen at pleasure's lordly call
+    The smiling long-frequented village fall?
+    Beheld the duteous son, the sire decayed,
+    The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
+    Forced from their homes, a melancholy train,
+    To traverse climes beyond the western main;
+    Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
+    And Niagara stuns with thundering sound?"
+
+--and elsewhere, in recorded conversations of his, we find that he had
+somehow got it into his head that the accumulation of wealth in a
+country was the parent of all evils, including depopulation. We need
+not stay here to discuss Goldsmith's position as a political
+economist; even although Johnson seems to sanction his theory in the
+four lines he contributed to the end of the poem. Nor is it worth
+while returning to that objection of Lord Macaulay's which has already
+been mentioned in these pages, further than to repeat that the poor
+Irish village in which Goldsmith was brought up, no doubt looked to
+him as charming as any Auburn, when he regarded it through the
+softening and beautifying mist of years. It is enough that the
+abandonment by a number of poor people of the homes in which they and
+theirs have lived their lives, is one of the most pathetic facts in
+our civilisation; and that out of the various circumstances
+surrounding this forced migration Goldsmith has made one of the most
+graceful and touching poems in the English language. It is clear
+bird-singing; but there is a pathetic note in it. That imaginary
+ramble through the Lissoy that is far away has recalled more than his
+boyish sports; it has made him look back over his own life--the life
+of an exile.
+
+    "I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown,
+    Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
+    To husband out life's taper at the close,
+    And keep the flame from wasting by repose:
+    I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
+    Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill,
+    Around my fire an evening group to draw,
+    And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;
+    And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue
+    Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,
+    I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
+    Here to return--and die at home at last."
+
+Who can doubt that it was of Lissoy he was thinking? Sir Walter Scott,
+writing a generation ago, said that "the church which tops the
+neighbouring hill," the mill and the brook were still to be seen in
+the Irish village; and that even
+
+    "The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade
+    For talking age and whispering lovers made,"
+
+had been identified by the indefatigable tourist, and was of course
+being cut to pieces to make souvenirs. But indeed it is of little
+consequence whether we say that Auburn is an English village, or
+insist that it is only Lissoy idealised, as long as the thing is true
+in itself. And we know that this is true: it is not that one sees the
+place as a picture, but that one seems to be breathing its very
+atmosphere, and listening to the various cries that thrill the "hollow
+silence."
+
+    "Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close
+    Up yonder hill the village murmur rose.
+    There, as I past with careless steps and slow,
+    The mingling notes came softened from below;
+    The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,
+    The sober herd that lowed to meet their young,
+    The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
+    The playful children just let loose from school,
+    The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
+    And the loud laugh that spake the vacant mind."
+
+Nor is it any romantic and impossible peasantry that is gradually
+brought before us. There are no Norvals in Lissoy. There is the old
+woman--Catherine Geraghty, they say, was her name--who gathered
+cresses in the ditches near her cabin. There is the village preacher
+whom Mrs. Hodson, Goldsmith's sister, took to be a portrait of their
+father; but whom others have identified as Henry Goldsmith, and even
+as the uncle Contarine: they may all have contributed. And then comes
+Paddy Byrne. Amid all the pensive tenderness of the poem this
+description of the schoolmaster, with its strokes of demure humour, is
+introduced with delightful effect.
+
+    "Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
+    With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay,
+    There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,
+    The village master taught his little school.
+    A man severe he was, and stern to view;
+    I knew him well, and every truant knew:
+    Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
+    The day's disasters in his morning face;
+    Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee
+    At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
+    Full well the busy whisper circling round
+    Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.
+    Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
+    The love he bore to learning was in fault;
+    The village all declared how much he knew:
+    'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too:
+    Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
+    And e'en the story ran that he could gauge:
+    In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill;
+    For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still;
+    While words of learned length and thundering sound
+    Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
+    And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
+    That one small head could carry all he knew."
+
+All this is so simple and natural that we cannot fail to believe in
+the reality of Auburn, or Lissoy, or whatever the village may be
+supposed to be. We visit the clergyman's cheerful fireside; and look
+in on the noisy school; and sit in the evening in the ale house to
+listen to the profound politics talked there. But the crisis comes.
+Auburn _delenda est_. Here, no doubt, occurs the least probable part
+of the poem. Poverty of soil is a common cause of emigration; land
+that produces oats (when it can produce oats at all) three-fourths
+mixed with weeds, and hay chiefly consisting of rushes, naturally
+discharges its surplus population as families increase; and though the
+wrench of parting is painful enough, the usual result is a change from
+starvation to competence. It more rarely happens that a district of
+peace and plenty, such as Auburn was supposed to see around it, is
+depopulated to add to a great man's estate.
+
+                  "The man of wealth and pride
+    Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
+    Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
+    Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds:
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
+    Indignant spurns the cottage from the green:"
+
+--and so forth. This seldom happens; but it does happen; and it has
+happened, in our own day, in England. It is within the last twenty
+years that an English landlord, having faith in his riches, bade a
+village be removed and cast elsewhere, so that it should no longer be
+visible from his windows: and it was forthwith removed. But any
+solitary instance like this is not sufficient to support the theory
+that wealth and luxury are inimical to the existence of a hardy
+peasantry; and so we must admit, after all, that it is poetical
+exigency rather than political economy that has decreed the
+destruction of the loveliest village of the plain. Where, asks the
+poet, are the driven poor to find refuge, when even the fenceless
+commons are seized upon and divided by the rich? In the great
+cities?--
+
+    "To see profusion that he must not share;
+    To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
+    To pamper luxury and thin mankind."
+
+It is in this description of a life in cities that there occurs an
+often-quoted passage, which has in it one of the most perfect lines in
+English poetry:--
+
+                                    "Ah, turn thine eyes
+    Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.
+    She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest,
+    Has wept at tales of innocence distrest;
+    Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
+    Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;
+    Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
+    Near her betrayer's door she lays her head.
+    And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the shower,
+    With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
+    When idly first, ambitious of the town,
+    She left her wheel and robes of country brown."
+
+Goldsmith wrote in a pre-Wordsworthian age, when, even in the realms
+of poetry, a primrose was not much more than a primrose; but it is
+doubtful whether, either before, during, or since Wordsworth's time
+the sentiment that the imagination can infuse into the common and
+familiar things around us ever received more happy expression than in
+the well-known line,
+
+    "_Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn._"
+
+No one has as yet succeeded in defining accurately and concisely what
+poetry is; but at all events this line is surcharged with a certain
+quality which is conspicuously absent in such a production as the
+_Essay on Man_. Another similar line is to be found further on in the
+description of the distant scenes to which the proscribed people are
+driven:
+
+    "Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
+    _Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe._"
+
+Indeed, the pathetic side of emigration has never been so powerfully
+presented to us as in this poem--
+
+    "When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
+    Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last,
+    And took a long farewell, and wished in vain
+    For seats like these beyond the western main,
+    And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
+    Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
+    I see the rural virtues leave the land.
+    Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail,
+    That idly waiting flaps with every gale,
+    Downward they move a melancholy band,
+    Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand.
+    Contented toil, and hospitable care,
+    And kind connubial tenderness are there;
+    And piety with wishes placed above,
+    And steady loyalty, and faithful love."
+
+And worst of all, in this imaginative departure, we find that Poetry
+herself is leaving our shores. She is now to try her voice
+
+    "On Torno's cliffs or Pambamarca's side;"
+
+and the poet, in the closing lines of the poem, bids her a passionate
+and tender farewell:--
+
+    "And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
+    Still first to fly where sensual joys invade;
+    Unfit in these degenerate times of shame
+    To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame;
+    Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
+    My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
+    Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe,
+    That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so;
+    Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,
+    Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!
+    Farewell, and O! where'er thy voice be tried,
+    On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side,
+    Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,
+    Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
+    Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
+    Redress the rigours of the inclement clime;
+    Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain;
+    Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain:
+    Teach him, that states of native strength possest,
+    Though very poor, may still be very blest;
+    That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
+    As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away;
+    While self-dependent power can time defy,
+    As rocks resist the billows and the sky."
+
+So ends this graceful, melodious, tender poem, the position of which
+in English literature, and in the estimation of all who love English
+literature, has not been disturbed by any fluctuations of literary
+fashion. We may give more attention at the moment to the new
+experiments of the poetic method; but we return only with renewed
+gratitude to the old familiar strain, not the least merit of which is
+that it has nothing about it of foreign tricks or graces. In English
+literature there is nothing more thoroughly English than these
+writings produced by an Irishman. And whether or not it was Paddy
+Byrne, and Catherine Geraghty, and the Lissoy ale-house that
+Goldsmith had in his mind when he was writing the poem, is not of much
+consequence: the manner and language and feeling are all essentially
+English; so that we never think of calling Goldsmith anything but an
+English poet.
+
+The poem met with great and immediate success. Of course everything
+that Dr. Goldsmith now wrote was read by the public; he had not to
+wait for the recommendation of the reviews; but, in this case, even
+the reviews had scarcely anything but praise in the welcome of his new
+book. It was dedicated, in graceful and ingenious terms, to Sir Joshua
+Reynolds, who returned the compliment by painting a picture and
+placing on the engraving of it this inscription: "This attempt to
+express a character in the _Deserted Village_ is dedicated to Dr.
+Goldsmith by his sincere friend and admirer, Sir Joshua Reynolds."
+What Goldsmith got from Griffin for the poem is not accurately known;
+and this is a misfortune, for the knowledge would have enabled us to
+judge whether at that time it was possible for a poet to court the
+draggle-tail muses without risk of starvation. But if fame were his
+chief object in the composition of the poem, he was sufficiently
+rewarded; and it is to be surmised that by this time the people in
+Ireland--no longer implored to get subscribers--had heard of the proud
+position won by the vagrant youth who had "taken the world for his
+pillow" some eighteen years before.
+
+That his own thoughts had sometimes wandered back to the scenes and
+friends of his youth during this labour of love, we know from his
+letters. In January of this year, while as yet the _Deserted Village_
+was not quite through the press, he wrote to his brother Maurice; and
+expressed himself as most anxious to hear all about the relatives from
+whom he had been so long parted. He has something to say about himself
+too; wishes it to be known that the King has lately been pleased to
+make him Professor of Ancient History "in a Royal Academy of Painting
+which he has just established;" but gives no very flourishing account
+of his circumstances. "Honours to one in my situation are something
+like ruffles to a man that wants a shirt." However, there is some
+small legacy of fourteen or fifteen pounds left him by his uncle
+Contarine, which he understands to be in the keeping of his cousin
+Lawder; and to this wealth he is desirous of foregoing all claim: his
+relations must settle how it may be best expended. But there is not a
+reference to his literary achievements, or the position won by them;
+not the slightest yielding to even a pardonable vanity; it is a
+modest, affectionate letter. The only hint that Maurice Goldsmith
+receives of the esteem in which his brother is held in London, is
+contained in a brief mention of Johnson, Burke, and others as his
+friends. "I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture of myself,
+as I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer. I have
+ordered it to be left for her at George Faulkenor's, folded in a
+letter. The face, you well know, is ugly enough; but it is finely
+painted. I will shortly also send my friends over the Shannon some
+mezzotinto prints of myself, and some more of my friends here, such as
+Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Colman. I believe I have written an
+hundred letters to different friends in your country, and never
+received an answer from any of them. I do not know how to account for
+this, or why they are unwilling to keep up for me those regards which
+I must ever retain for them." The letter winds up with an appeal for
+news, news, news.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+OCCASIONAL WRITINGS.
+
+
+Some two months after the publication of the _Deserted Village_, when
+its success had been well assured, Goldsmith proposed to himself the
+relaxation of a little Continental tour; and he was accompanied by
+three ladies, Mrs. Horneck and her two pretty daughters, who doubtless
+took more charge of him than he did of them. This Mrs. Horneck, the
+widow of a certain Captain Horneck, was connected with Reynolds, while
+Burke was the guardian of the two girls; so that it was natural that
+they should make the acquaintance of Dr. Goldsmith. A foolish attempt
+has been made to weave out of the relations supposed to exist between
+the younger of the girls and Goldsmith an imaginary romance; but there
+is not the slightest actual foundation for anything of the kind.
+Indeed the best guide we can have to the friendly and familiar terms
+on which he stood with regard to the Hornecks and their circle, is the
+following careless and jocular reply to a chance invitation sent him
+by the two sisters:--
+
+                "Your mandate I got,
+                You may all go to pot;
+                Had your senses been right,
+                You'd have sent before night;
+                As I hope to be saved,
+                I put off being shaved;
+                For I could not make bold,
+                While the matter was cold,
+                To meddle in suds,
+                Or to put on my duds;
+                So tell Horneck and Nesbitt
+                And Baker and his bit,
+                And Kauffman beside,
+                And the Jessamy bride;
+                With the rest of the crew,
+                The Reynoldses two,
+                Little Comedy's face
+                And the Captain in lace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                Yet how can I when vext
+                Thus stray from my text?
+                Tell each other to rue
+                Your Devonshire crew,
+                For sending so late
+                To one of my state.
+                But 'tis Reynolds's way
+                From wisdom to stray,
+                And Angelica's whim
+                To be frolic like him.
+    But, alas! your good worships, how could they be wiser,
+    When both have been spoiled in to-day's _Advertiser_?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The Jessamy Bride" was the pet nickname he had bestowed on the
+younger Miss Horneck--the heroine of the speculative romance just
+mentioned; "Little Comedy" was her sister; "the Captain in lace" their
+brother, who was in the Guards. No doubt Mrs. Horneck and her
+daughters were very pleased to have with them on this Continental
+trip so distinguished a person as Dr. Goldsmith; and he must have been
+very ungrateful if he was not glad to be provided with such charming
+companions. The story of the sudden envy he displayed of the
+admiration excited by the two handsome young Englishwomen as they
+stood at a hotel-window in Lille, is so incredibly foolish that it
+needs scarcely be repeated here; unless to repeat the warning that, if
+ever anybody was so dense as not to see the humour of that piece of
+acting, one had better look with grave suspicion on every one of the
+stories told about Goldsmith's vanities and absurdities.
+
+Even with such pleasant companions, the trip to Paris was not
+everything he had hoped. "I find," he wrote to Reynolds from Paris,
+"that travelling at twenty and at forty are very different things. I
+set out with all my confirmed habits about me, and can find nothing on
+the Continent so good as when I formerly left it. One of our chief
+amusements here is scolding at everything we meet with, and praising
+every thing and every person we left at home. You may judge therefore
+whether your name is not frequently bandied at table among us. To tell
+you the truth, I never thought I could regret your absence so much, as
+our various mortifications on the road have often taught me to do. I
+could tell you of disasters and adventures without number, of our
+lying in barns, and of my being half poisoned with a dish of green
+peas, of our quarrelling with postilions and being cheated by our
+landladies, but I reserve all this for a happy hour which I expect to
+share with you upon my return." The fact is that although Goldsmith
+had seen a good deal of foreign travel, the manner of his making the
+grand tour in his youth was not such as to fit him for acting as
+courier to a party of ladies. However, if they increased his troubles,
+they also shared them; and in this same letter he bears explicit
+testimony to the value of their companionship. "I will soon be among
+you, better pleased with my situation at home than I ever was before.
+And yet I must say, that if anything could make France pleasant, the
+very good women with whom I am at present would certainly do it. I
+could say more about that, but I intend showing them this letter
+before I send it away." Mrs. Horneck, Little Comedy, the Jessamy
+Bride, and the Professor of Ancient History at the Royal Academy, all
+returned to London; the last to resume his round of convivialities at
+taverns, excursions into regions of more fashionable amusement along
+with Reynolds, and task-work aimed at the pockets of the booksellers.
+
+It was a happy-go-lucky sort of life. We find him now showing off his
+fine clothes and his sword and wig at Ranelagh Gardens, and again shut
+up in his chambers compiling memoirs and histories in hot haste; now
+the guest of Lord Clare, and figuring at Bath, and again delighting
+some small domestic circle by his quips and cranks; playing jokes for
+the amusement of children, and writing comic letters in verse to their
+elders; everywhere and at all times merry, thoughtless, good-natured.
+And, of course, we find also his humorous pleasantries being mistaken
+for blundering stupidity. In perfect good faith Boswell describes how
+a number of people burst out laughing when Goldsmith publicly
+complained that he had met Lord Camden at Lord Clare's house in the
+country, "and he took no more notice of me than if I had been an
+ordinary man." Goldsmith's claiming to be a very extraordinary person
+was precisely a stroke of that humorous self-depreciation in which he
+was continually indulging; and the Jessamy Bride has left it on record
+that "on many occasions, from the peculiar manner of his humour, and
+assumed frown of countenance, what was often uttered in jest was
+mistaken by those who did not know him for earnest." This would appear
+to have been one of those occasions. The company burst out laughing at
+Goldsmith's having made a fool of himself; and Johnson was compelled
+to come to his rescue. "Nay, gentlemen, Dr. Goldsmith is in the right.
+A nobleman ought to have made up to such a man as Goldsmith; and I
+think it is much against Lord Camden that he neglected him."
+
+Mention of Lord Clare naturally recalls the _Haunch of Venison_.
+Goldsmith was particularly happy in writing bright and airy verses;
+the grace and lightness of his touch has rarely been approached. It
+must be confessed, however, that in this direction he was somewhat of
+an Autolycus; unconsidered trifles he freely appropriated; but he
+committed these thefts with scarcely any concealment, and with the
+most charming air in the world. In fact some of the snatches of verse
+which he contributed to the _Bee_ scarcely profess to be anything else
+than translations, though the originals are not given. But who is
+likely to complain when we get as the result such a delightful piece
+of nonsense as the famous Elegy on that Glory of her Sex, Mrs. Mary
+Blaize, which has been the parent of a vast progeny since Goldsmith's
+time?
+
+    "Good people all, with one accord
+      Lament for Madam Blaize,
+    Who never wanted a good word,
+      From those who spoke her praise.
+
+    "The needy seldom passed her door,
+      And always found her kind;
+    She freely lent to all the poor,--
+      Who left a pledge behind.
+
+    "She strove the neighbourhood to please,
+      With manners wondrous winning;
+    And never followed wicked ways,--
+      Unless when she was sinning.
+
+    "At church, in silks and satins new,
+      With hoop of monstrous size,
+    She never slumbered in her pew,--
+      But when she shut her eyes.
+
+    "Her love was sought, I do aver,
+      By twenty beaux and more;
+    The king himself has followed her,--
+      When she has walked before.
+
+    "But now her wealth and finery fled,
+      Her hangers-on cut short all;
+    The doctors found, when she was dead,--
+      Her last disorder mortal.
+
+    "Let us lament, in sorrow sore,
+      For Kent Street well may say,
+    That had she lived a twelvemonth more,--
+      She had not died to-day."
+
+The _Haunch of Venison_, on the other hand, is a poetical letter of
+thanks to Lord Clare--an easy, jocular epistle, in which the writer
+has a cut or two at certain of his literary brethren. Then, as he is
+looking at the venison, and determining not to send it to any such
+people as Hiffernan or Higgins, who should step in but our old friend
+Beau Tibbs, or some one remarkably like him in manner and speech?--
+
+    "While thus I debated, in reverie centred,
+    An acquaintance, a friend as he called himself, entered;
+    An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he,
+    And he smiled as he looked at the venison and me.
+    'What have we got here?--Why this is good eating!
+    Your own, I suppose--or is it in waiting?'
+    'Why, whose should it be?' cried I with a flounce;
+    'I get these things often'--but that was a bounce:
+    'Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation,
+    Are pleased to be kind--but I hate ostentation.'
+    'If that be the case then,' cried he, very gay,
+    'I'm glad I have taken this house in my way.
+    To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me;
+    No words--I insist on't--precisely at three;
+    We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits will be there;
+    My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my Lord Clare.
+    And now that I think on't, as I am a sinner!
+    We wanted this venison to make out the dinner.
+    What say you--a pasty? It shall, and it must,
+    And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust.
+    Here, porter! this venison with me to Mile End;
+    No stirring--I beg--my dear friend--my dear friend!'
+    Thus, snatching his hat, he brushed off like the wind,
+    And the porter and eatables followed behind."
+
+We need not follow the vanished venison--which did not make its
+appearance at the banquet any more than did Johnson or Burke--further
+than to say that if Lord Clare did not make it good to the poet he did
+not deserve to have his name associated with such a clever and
+careless _jeu d'esprit_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.
+
+
+But the writing of smart verses could not keep Dr. Goldsmith alive,
+more especially as dinner-parties, Ranelagh masquerades, and similar
+diversions pressed heavily on his finances. When his _History of
+England_ appeared, the literary cut-throats of the day accused him of
+having been bribed by the Government to betray the liberties of the
+people:[3] a foolish charge. What Goldsmith got for the _English
+History_ was the sum originally stipulated for, and now no doubt all
+spent; with a further sum of fifty guineas for an abridgment of the
+work. Then, by this time, he had persuaded Griffin to advance him the
+whole of the eight hundred guineas for the _Animated Nature_, though
+he had only done about a third part of the book. At the instigation of
+Newbery he had begun a story after the manner of the _Vicar of
+Wakefield_; but it appears that such chapters as he had written were
+not deemed to be promising; and the undertaking was abandoned. The
+fact is, Goldsmith was now thinking of another method of replenishing
+his purse. The _Vicar of Wakefield_ had brought him little but
+reputation; the _Good-natured Man_ had brought him £500. It was to the
+stage that he now looked for assistance out of the financial slough in
+which he was plunged. He was engaged in writing a comedy; and that
+comedy was _She Stoops to Conquer_.
+
+[Footnote 3: "God knows I had no thought for or against liberty in my
+head; my whole aim being to make up a book of a decent size that, as
+Squire Richard says, 'would do no harm to nobody.'"--Goldsmith to
+Langton, September, 1771.]
+
+In the Dedication to Johnson which was prefixed to this play on its
+appearance in type, Goldsmith hints that the attempt to write a comedy
+not of the sentimental order then in fashion, was a hazardous thing;
+and also that Colman, who saw the piece in its various stages, was of
+this opinion too. Colman threw cold water on the undertaking from the
+very beginning. It was only extreme pressure on the part of
+Goldsmith's friends that induced--or rather compelled--him to accept
+the comedy; and that, after he had kept the unfortunate author in the
+tortures of suspense for month after month. But although Goldsmith
+knew the danger, he was resolved to face it. He hated the
+sentimentalists and all their works; and determined to keep his new
+comedy faithful to nature, whether people called it low or not. His
+object was to raise a genuine, hearty laugh; not to write a piece for
+school declamation; and he had enough confidence in himself to do the
+work in his own way. Moreover he took the earliest possible
+opportunity, in writing this piece, of poking fun at the sensitive
+creatures who had been shocked by the "vulgarity" of _The Good-natured
+Man_. "Bravo! Bravo!" cry the jolly companions of Tony Lumpkin, when
+that promising buckeen has finished his song at the Three Pigeons;
+then follows criticism:--
+
+     "_First Fellow._ The squire has got spunk in him.
+
+     _Second Fel._ I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never
+     gives us nothing that's low.
+
+     _Third Fel._ O damn anything that's low, I cannot bear it.
+
+     _Fourth Fel._ The genteel thing is the genteel thing any
+     time: if so be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation
+     accordingly.
+
+     _Third Fel._ I likes the maxum of it, Master Muggins. What,
+     though I am obligated to dance a bear, a man may be a
+     gentleman for all that. May this be my poison, if my bear
+     ever dances but to the very genteelest of tunes; 'Water
+     Parted,' or the 'The Minuet in Ariadne.'"
+
+Indeed, Goldsmith, however he might figure in society, was always
+capable of holding his own when he had his pen in his hand. And even
+at the outset of this comedy one sees how much he has gained in
+literary confidence since the writing of the _Good-natured Man_. Here
+there is no anxious stiffness at all; but a brisk, free conversation,
+full of point that is not too formal, and yet conveying all the
+information that has usually to be crammed into a first scene. In
+taking as the groundwork of his plot that old adventure that had
+befallen himself--his mistaking a squire's house for an inn--he was
+hampering himself with something that was not the less improbable
+because it had actually happened; but we begin to forget all the
+improbabilities through the naturalness of the people to whom we are
+introduced, and the brisk movement and life of the piece.
+
+Fashions in dramatic literature may come and go; but the wholesome
+good-natured fun of _She Stoops to Conquer_ is as capable of
+producing a hearty laugh now, as it was when it first saw the light in
+Covent Garden. Tony Lumpkin is one of the especial favourites of the
+theatre-going public; and no wonder. With all the young cub's jibes
+and jeers, his impudence and grimaces, one has a sneaking love for the
+scapegrace; we laugh with him, rather than at him; how can we fail to
+enjoy those malevolent tricks of his when he so obviously enjoys them
+himself? And Diggory--do we not owe an eternal debt of gratitude to
+honest Diggory for telling us about Ould Grouse in the gunroom, that
+immortal joke at which thousands and thousands of people have roared
+with laughter, though they never any one of them could tell what the
+story was about? The scene in which the old squire lectures his
+faithful attendants on their manners and duties, is one of the truest
+bits of comedy on the English stage:
+
+     "_Mr. Hardcastle._ But you're not to stand so, with your
+     hands in your pockets. Take your hands from your pockets,
+     Roger; and from your head, you blockhead you. See how
+     Diggory carries his hands. They're a little too stiff,
+     indeed, but that's no great matter.
+
+     _Diggory._ Ay, mind how I hold them. I learned to hold my
+     hands this way when I was upon drill for the militia. And so
+     being upon drill--.
+
+     _Hard._ You must not be so talkative, Diggory. You must be
+     all attention to the guests. You must hear us talk, and not
+     think of talking; you must see us drink, and not think of
+     drinking; you must see us eat, and not think of eating.
+
+     _Dig._ By the laws, your worship, that's parfectly
+     unpossible. Whenever Diggory sees yeating going forward,
+     ecod, he's always wishing for a mouthful himself.
+
+     _Hard._ Blockhead! Is not a bellyfull in the kitchen as good
+     as a bellyfull in the parlour? Stay your stomach with that
+     reflection.
+
+     _Dig._ Ecod, I thank your worship, I'll make a shift to stay
+     my stomach with a slice of cold beef in the pantry.
+
+     _Hard._ Diggory, you are too talkative.--Then, if I happen
+     to say a good thing, or tell a good story at table, you must
+     not all burst out a-laughing, as if you made part of the
+     company.
+
+     _Dig._ Then ecod your worship must not tell the story of
+     Ould Grouse in the gunroom: I can't help laughing at
+     that--he! he! he!--for the soul of me. We have laughed at
+     that these twenty years--ha! ha! ha!
+
+     _Hard._ Ha! ha! ha! The story is a good one. Well, honest
+     Diggory, you may laugh at that--but still remember to be
+     attentive. Suppose one of the company should call for a
+     glass of wine, how will you behave? A glass of wine, sir,
+     if-you please (_to_ DIGGORY).--Eh, why don't you move?
+
+     _Dig._ Ecod, your worship, I never have courage till I see
+     the eatables and drinkables brought upo' the table, and then
+     I'm as bauld as a lion.
+
+     _Hard._ What, will nobody move?
+
+     _First Serv._ I'm not to leave this pleace.
+
+     _Second Serv._ I'm sure it's no pleace of mine.
+
+     _Third Serv._ Nor mine, for sartain.
+
+     _Dig._ Wauns, and I'm sure it canna be mine."
+
+No doubt all this is very "low" indeed; and perhaps Mr. Colman may be
+forgiven for suspecting that the refined wits of the day would be
+shocked by these rude humours of a parcel of servants. But all that
+can be said in this direction was said at the time by Horace Walpole,
+in a letter to a friend of his; and this criticism is so amusing in
+its pretence and imbecility that it is worth quoting at large. "Dr.
+Goldsmith has written a comedy," says this profound critic, "--no, it
+is the lowest of all farces; it is not the subject I condemn, though
+very vulgar, but the execution. The drift tends to no moral, no
+edification of any kind--the situations, however, are well imagined,
+and make one laugh in spite of the grossness of the dialogue, the
+forced witticisms, and total improbability of the whole plan and
+conduct. But what disgusts me most is, that though the characters are
+very low, and aim at low humour, not one of them says a sentence that
+is natural, or marks any character at all." Horace Walpole sighing for
+edification--from a Covent Garden comedy! Surely, if the old gods have
+any laughter left, and if they take any notice of what is done in the
+literary world here below, there must have rumbled through the courts
+of Olympus a guffaw of sardonic laughter, when that solemn criticism
+was put down on paper.
+
+Meanwhile Colman's original fears had developed into a sort of stupid
+obstinacy. He was so convinced that the play would not succeed, that
+he would spend no money in putting it on the stage; while far and wide
+he announced its failure as a foregone conclusion. Under this gloom of
+vaticination the rehearsals were nevertheless proceeded with--the
+brunt of the quarrels among the players falling wholly on Goldsmith,
+for the manager seems to have withdrawn in despair; while all the
+Johnson confraternity were determined to do what they could for
+Goldsmith on the opening night. That was the 15th of March, 1773. His
+friends invited the author to dinner as a prelude to the play; Dr.
+Johnson was in the chair; there was plenty of gaiety. But this means
+of keeping up the anxious author's spirits was not very successful.
+Goldsmith's mouth, we are told by Reynolds, became so parched "from
+the agitation of his mind, that he was unable to swallow a single
+mouthful." Moreover, he could not face the ordeal of sitting through
+the play; when his friends left the tavern and betook themselves to
+the theatre, he went away by himself; and was subsequently found
+walking in St. James's Park. The friend who discovered him there,
+persuaded him that his presence in the theatre might be useful in case
+of an emergency; and ultimately got him to accompany him to Covent
+Garden. When Goldsmith reached the theatre, the fifth act had been
+begun.
+
+Oddly enough, the first thing he heard on entering the stage-door was
+a hiss. The story goes that the poor author was dreadfully frightened;
+and that in answer to a hurried question, Colman exclaimed, "Psha!
+Doctor, don't be afraid of a squib, when we have been sitting these
+two hours on a barrel of gunpowder." If this was meant as a hoax, it
+was a cruel one; if meant seriously, it was untrue. For the piece had
+turned out a great hit. From beginning to end of the performance the
+audience were in a roar of laughter; and the single hiss that
+Goldsmith unluckily heard was so markedly exceptional, that it became
+the talk of the town, and was variously attributed to one or other of
+Goldsmith's rivals. Colman, too, suffered at the hands of the wits for
+his gloomy and falsified predictions; and had, indeed, to beg
+Goldsmith to intercede for him. It is a great pity that Boswell was
+not in London at this time; for then we might have had a description
+of the supper that naturally would follow the play, and of Goldsmith's
+demeanour under this new success. Besides the gratification, moreover,
+of his choice of materials being approved by the public, there was
+the material benefit accruing to him from the three "author's nights."
+These are supposed to have produced nearly five hundred pounds--a
+substantial sum in those days.
+
+Boswell did not come to London till the second of April following; and
+the first mention we find of Goldsmith is in connection with an
+incident which has its ludicrous as well as its regrettable aspect.
+The further success of _She Stoops to Conquer_ was not likely to
+propitiate the wretched hole-and-corner cut-throats that infested the
+journalism of that day. More especially was Kenrick driven mad with
+envy; and so, in a letter addressed to the _London Packet_, this poor
+creature determined once more to set aside the judgment of the public,
+and show Dr. Goldsmith in his true colours. The letter is a wretched
+production, full of personalities only fit for an angry washerwoman,
+and of rancour without point. But there was one passage in it that
+effectually roused Goldsmith's rage; for here the Jessamy Bride was
+introduced as "the lovely H----k." The letter was anonymous; but the
+publisher of the print, a man called Evans, was known; and so
+Goldsmith thought he would go and give Evans a beating. If he had
+asked Johnson's advice about the matter, he would no doubt have been
+told to pay no heed at all to anonymous scurrility--certainly not to
+attempt to reply to it with a cudgel. When Johnson heard that Foote
+meant to "take him off," he turned to Davies and asked him what was
+the common price of an oak stick; but an oak stick in Johnson's hands,
+and an oak stick in Goldsmith's Lands, were two different things.
+However, to the bookseller's shop the indignant poet proceeded, in
+company with a friend; got hold of Evans; accused him of having
+insulted a young lady by putting her name in his paper; and, when the
+publisher would fain have shifted the responsibility on to the editor,
+forthwith denounced him as a rascal, and hit him over the back with
+his cane. The publisher, however, was quite a match for Goldsmith; and
+there is no saying how the deadly combat might have ended, had not a
+lamp been broken overhead, the oil of which drenched both the
+warriors. This intervention of the superior gods was just as
+successful as a Homeric cloud; the fray ceased; Goldsmith and his
+friend withdrew; and ultimately an action for assault was compromised
+by Goldsmith's paying fifty pounds to a charity. Then the howl of the
+journals arose. Their prerogative had been assailed. "Attacks upon
+private character were the most liberal existing source of newspaper
+income," Mr. Forster writes; and so the pack turned with one cry on
+the unlucky poet. There was nothing of "the Monument" about poor
+Goldsmith; and at last he was worried into writing a letter of defence
+addressed to the public. "He has indeed done it very well," said
+Johnson to Boswell, "but it is a foolish thing well done." And further
+he remarked, "Why, sir, I believe it is the first time he has _beat_;
+he may have _been beaten_ before. This, sir, is a new plume to him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+INCREASING DIFFICULTIES.--THE END.
+
+
+The pecuniary success of _She Stoops to Conquer_ did but little to
+relieve Goldsmith from those financial embarrassments which were now
+weighing heavily on his mind. And now he had less of the old high
+spirits that had enabled him to laugh off the cares of debt. His
+health became disordered; an old disease renewed its attacks, and was
+grown more violent because of his long-continued sedentary habits.
+Indeed, from this point to the day of his death--not a long interval,
+either--we find little but a record of successive endeavours, some of
+them wild and hopeless enough, to obtain money anyhow. Of course he
+went to the Club, as usual; and gave dinner-parties; and had a laugh
+or a song ready for the occasion. It is possible, also, to trace a
+certain growth of confidence in himself, no doubt the result of the
+repeated proofs of his genius he had put before his friends. It was
+something more than mere personal intimacy that justified the rebuke
+he administered to Reynolds, when the latter painted an allegorical
+picture representing the triumph of Beattie and Truth over Voltaire
+and Scepticism. "It very ill becomes a man of your eminence and
+character," he said, "to debase so high a genius as Voltaire before so
+mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie and his book will be forgotten in
+ten years, while Voltaire's fame will last for ever. Take care it does
+not perpetuate this picture, to the shame of such a man as you." He
+was aware, too, of the position he had won for himself in English
+literature. He knew that people in after-days would ask about him; and
+it was with no sort of unwarrantable vainglory that he gave Percy
+certain materials for a biography which he wished him to undertake.
+Hence the _Percy Memoir_.
+
+He was only forty-five when he made this request; and he had not
+suffered much from illness during his life; so that there was
+apparently no grounds for imagining that the end was near. But at this
+time Goldsmith began to suffer severe fits of depression; and he grew
+irritable and capricious of temper--no doubt another result of failing
+health. He was embroiled in disputes with the booksellers; and, on one
+occasion, seems to have been much hurt because Johnson, who had been
+asked to step in as arbiter, decided against him. He was offended with
+Johnson on another occasion because of his sending away certain dishes
+at a dinner given to him by Goldsmith, as a hint that these
+entertainments were too luxurious for one in Goldsmith's position. It
+was probably owing to some temporary feeling of this sort--perhaps to
+some expression of it on Goldsmith's part--that Johnson spoke of
+Goldsmith's "malice" towards him. Mrs. Thrale had suggested that
+Goldsmith would be the best person to write Johnson's biography. "The
+dog would write it best, to be sure," said Johnson, "but his
+particular malice towards me, and general disregard of truth, would
+make the book useless to all and injurious to my character." Of course
+it is always impossible to say what measure of jocular exaggeration
+there may not be in a chance phrase such as this: of the fact that
+there was no serious or permanent quarrel between the two friends we
+have abundant proof in Boswell's faithful pages.
+
+To return to the various endeavours made by Goldsmith and his friends
+to meet the difficulties now closing in around him, we find, first of
+all, the familiar hack-work. For two volumes of a _History of Greece_
+he had received from Griffin £250. Then his friends tried to get him a
+pension from the Government; but this was definitely refused. An
+expedient of his own seemed to promise well at first. He thought of
+bringing out a _Popular Dictionary of Arts and Sciences_, a series of
+contributions mostly by his friends, with himself as editor; and among
+those who offered to assist him were Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, and Dr.
+Burney. But the booksellers were afraid. The project would involve a
+large expense; and they had no high opinion of Goldsmith's business
+habits. Then he offered to alter _The Good-natured Man_ for Garrick;
+but Garrick preferred to treat with him for a new comedy, and
+generously allowed him to draw on him for the money in advance. This
+last help enabled him to go to Barton for a brief holiday; but the
+relief was only temporary. On his return to London even his nearest
+friends began to observe the change in his manner. In the old days
+Goldsmith had faced pecuniary difficulties with a light heart; but
+now, his health broken, and every avenue of escape apparently closed,
+he was giving way to despair. His friend Cradock, coming up to town,
+found Goldsmith in a most despondent condition; and also hints that
+the unhappy author was trying to conceal the true state of affairs. "I
+believe," says Cradock, "he died miserable, and that his friends were
+not entirely aware of his distress."
+
+And yet it was during this closing period of anxiety, despondency, and
+gloomy foreboding, that the brilliant and humorous lines of
+_Retaliation_ were written--that last scintillation of the bright and
+happy genius that was soon to be extinguished for ever. The most
+varied accounts have been given of the origin of this _jeu d'esprit_;
+and even Garrick's, which was meant to supersede and correct all
+others, is self-contradictory. For according to this version of the
+story, which was found among the Garrick papers, and which is printed
+in Mr. Cunningham's edition of Goldsmith's works, the whole thing
+arose out of Goldsmith and Garrick resolving one evening at the St.
+James's Coffee House to write each other's epitaph. Garrick's
+well-known couplet was instantly produced:
+
+    "Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
+    Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll."
+
+Goldsmith, according to Garrick, either would not or could not retort
+at the moment; "but went to work, and some weeks after produced the
+following printed poem, called _Retaliation_." But Garrick himself
+goes on to say, "The following poems in manuscript were written by
+several of the gentlemen on purpose to provoke the Doctor to an
+answer, which came forth at last with great credit to him in
+_Retaliation_." The most probable version of the story, which may be
+pieced together from various sources, is that at the coffee-house
+named this business of writing comic epitaphs was started some evening
+or other by the whole company; that Goldsmith and Garrick pitted
+themselves against each other; that thereafter Goldsmith began as
+occasion served to write similar squibs about his friends, which were
+shown about as they were written; that thereupon those gentlemen, not
+to be behindhand, composed more elaborate pieces in proof of their
+wit; and that, finally, Goldsmith resolved to bind these fugitive
+lines of his together in a poem, which he left unfinished, and which,
+under the name of _Retaliation_, was published after his death. This
+hypothetical account receives some confirmation from the fact that the
+scheme of the poem and its component parts do not fit together well;
+the introduction looks like an after-thought; and has not the freedom
+and pungency of a piece of improvisation. An imaginary dinner is
+described, the guests being Garrick, Reynolds, Burke, Cumberland, and
+the rest of them, Goldsmith last of all. More wine is called for,
+until the whole of his companions have fallen beneath the table:
+
+    "Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head,
+    Let me ponder, and tell what I think of the _dead_."
+
+This is a somewhat clumsy excuse for introducing a series of epitaphs;
+but the epitaphs amply atone for it. That on Garrick is especially
+remarkable as a bit of character-sketching; its shrewd hints--all in
+perfect courtesy and good humour--going a little nearer to the truth
+than is common in epitaphs of any sort:--
+
+    "Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can;
+    An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.
+    As an actor, confessed without rival to shine:
+    As a wit, if not first, in the very first line:
+    Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart,
+    The man had his failings, a dupe to his art.
+    Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread,
+    And beplastered with rouge his own natural red.
+    On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
+    'Twas only that, when he was off, he was acting.
+    With no reason on earth to go out of his way,
+    He turned and he varied full ten times a day:
+    Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick
+    If they were not his own by finessing and trick;
+    He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack,
+    For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.
+    Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came;
+    And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame;
+    Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease,
+    Who peppered the highest was surest to please.
+    But let us be candid, and speak out our mind:
+    If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.
+    Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave,
+    What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave!
+    How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you raised,
+    While he was be-Rosciused, and you were bepraised.
+    But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies,
+    To act as an angel and mix with the skies:
+    Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill
+    Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will;
+    Old Shakespeare receive him with praise and with love,
+    And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above."
+
+The truth is that Goldsmith, though he was ready to bless his "honest
+little man" when he received from him sixty pounds in advance for a
+comedy not begun, never took quite so kindly to Garrick as to some of
+his other friends. There is no pretence of discrimination at all, for
+example, in the lines devoted in this poem to Reynolds. All the
+generous enthusiasm of Goldsmith's Irish nature appears here; he will
+admit of no possible rival to this especial friend of his:--
+
+    "Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind,
+    He has not left a wiser or better behind."
+
+There is a tradition that the epitaph on Reynolds, ending with the
+unfinished line
+
+    "By flattery unspoiled ..."
+
+was Goldsmith's last piece of writing. One would like to believe that,
+in any case.
+
+Goldsmith had returned to his Edgware lodgings, and had, indeed,
+formed some notion of selling his chambers in the Temple, and living
+in the country for at least ten months in the year, when a sudden
+attack of his old disorder drove him into town again for medical
+advice. He would appear to have received some relief; but a nervous
+fever followed; and on the night of the 25th March, 1774, when he was
+but forty-six years of age, he took to his bed for the last time. At
+first he refused to regard his illness as serious; and insisted on
+dosing himself with certain fever-powders from which he had received
+benefit on previous occasions; but by and by as his strength gave way,
+he submitted to the advice of the physicians who were in attendance on
+him. Day after day passed; his weakness visibly increasing, though,
+curiously enough, the symptoms of fever were gradually abating. At
+length one of the doctors, remarking to him that his pulse was in
+greater disorder than it should be from the degree of fever, asked him
+if his mind was at ease. "No, it is not," answered Goldsmith; and
+these were his last words. Early in the morning of Monday, April 4,
+convulsions set in; these continued for rather more than an hour; then
+the troubled brain and the sick heart found rest for ever.
+
+When the news was carried to his friends, Burke, it is said, burst
+into tears, and Reynolds put aside his work for the day. But it does
+not appear that they had visited him during his illness; and neither
+Johnson, nor Reynolds, nor Burke, nor Garrick followed his body to the
+grave. It is true, a public funeral was talked of; and, among others,
+Reynolds, Burke, and Garrick were to have carried the pall; but this
+was abandoned; and Goldsmith was privately buried in the ground of the
+Temple Church on the 9th of April, 1774. Strangely enough, too,
+Johnson seems to have omitted all mention of Goldsmith from his
+letters to Boswell. It was not until Boswell had written to him, on
+June 24th, "You have said nothing to me about poor Goldsmith," that
+Johnson, writing on July 4, answered as follows:--"Of poor dear Dr.
+Goldsmith there is little to be told, more than the papers have made
+public. He died of a fever, made, I am afraid, more violent by
+uneasiness of mind. His debts began to be heavy, and all his resources
+were exhausted. Sir Joshua is of opinion that he owed not less than
+two thousand pounds. Was ever poet so trusted before?"
+
+But if the greatest grief at the sudden and premature death of
+Goldsmith would seem to have been shown at the moment by certain
+wretched creatures who were found weeping on the stairs leading to his
+chambers, it must not be supposed that his fine friends either forgot
+him, or ceased to regard his memory with a great gentleness and
+kindness. Some two years after, when a monument was about to be
+erected to Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey, Johnson consented to write
+"the poor dear Doctor's epitaph;" and so anxious were the members of
+that famous circle in which Goldsmith had figured, that a just tribute
+should be paid to his genius, that they even ventured to send a round
+robin to the great Cham desiring him to amend his first draft. Now,
+perhaps, we have less interest in Johnson's estimate of Goldsmith's
+genius--though it contains the famous _Nullum quod tetigit non
+ornavit_--than in the phrases which tell of the honour paid to the
+memory of the dead poet by the love of his companions and the
+faithfulness of his friends. It may here be added that the precise
+spot where Goldsmith was buried in the Temple churchyard is unknown.
+So lived and so died Oliver Goldsmith.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the foregoing pages the writings of Goldsmith have been given so
+prominent a place in the history of his life that it is unnecessary to
+take them here collectively and endeavour to sum up their distinctive
+qualities. As much as could be said within the limited space has, it
+is hoped, been said about their genuine and tender pathos, that never
+at any time verges on the affected or theatrical; about their quaint
+delicate, delightful humour; about that broader humour that is not
+afraid to provoke the wholesome laughter of mankind by dealing with
+common and familiar ways, and manners, and men; about that choiceness
+of diction, that lightness and grace of touch, that lend a charm even
+to Goldsmith's ordinary hack-work.
+
+Still less necessary, perhaps, is it to review the facts and
+circumstances of Goldsmith's life; and to make of them an example, a
+warning, or an accusation. That has too often been done. His name has
+been used to glorify a sham Bohemianism--a Bohemianism that finds it
+easy to live in taverns, but does not find it easy, so far as one
+sees, to write poems like the _Deserted Village_. His experiences as
+an author have been brought forward to swell the cry about neglected
+genius--that is, by writers who assume their genius in order to prove
+the neglect. The misery that occasionally befell him during his
+wayward career has been made the basis of an accusation against
+society, the English constitution, Christianity--Heaven knows what. It
+is time to have done with all this nonsense. Goldsmith resorted to the
+hack-work of literature when everything else had failed him; and he
+was fairly paid for it. When he did better work, when he "struck for
+honest fame," the nation gave him all the honour that he could have
+desired. With an assured reputation, and with ample means of
+subsistence, he obtained entrance into the most distinguished society
+then in England--he was made the friend of England's greatest in the
+arts and literature--and could have confined himself to that society
+exclusively if he had chosen. His temperament, no doubt, exposed him
+to suffering; and the exquisite sensitiveness of a man of genius may
+demand our sympathy; but in far greater measure is our sympathy
+demanded for the thousands upon thousands of people who, from illness
+or nervous excitability, suffer from quite as keen a sensitiveness
+without the consolation of the fame that genius brings.
+
+In plain truth, Goldsmith himself would have been the last to put
+forward pleas humiliating alike to himself and to his calling. Instead
+of beseeching the State to look after authors; instead of imploring
+society to grant them "recognition;" instead of saying of himself "he
+wrote, and paid the penalty;" he would frankly have admitted that he
+chose to live his life his own way, and therefore paid the penalty.
+This is not written with any desire of upbraiding Goldsmith. He did
+choose to live his own life his own way, and we now have the splendid
+and beautiful results of his work; and the world--looking at these
+with a constant admiration, and with a great and lenient love for
+their author--is not anxious to know what he did with his guineas, or
+whether the milkman was ever paid. "He had raised money and squandered
+it, by every artifice of acquisition and folly of expense. BUT LET NOT
+HIS FRAILTIES BE REMEMBERED: HE WAS A VERY GREAT MAN." This is
+Johnson's wise summing up; and with it we may here take leave of
+gentle Goldsmith.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS.
+
+EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY.
+
+
+_These Short Books are addressed to the general public with a view
+both to stirring and satisfying an interest in literature and its
+great topics in the minds of those who have to run as they read. An
+immense class is growing up, and must every year increase, whose
+education will have made them alive to the importance of the masters
+of our literature, and capable of intelligent curiosity as to their
+performances. The Series is intended to give the means of nourishing
+this curiosity, to an extent that shall be copious enough to be
+profitable for knowledge and life, and yet be brief enough to serve
+those whose leisure is scanty._
+
+_The following are arranged for:--_
+
+
+_SPENSER The Dean of St. Paul's._
+
+_HUME Professor Huxley._ [_Ready._
+
+_BUNYAN James Anthony Froude._
+
+_JOHNSON Leslie Stephen._ [_Ready._
+
+_GOLDSMITH William Black._ [_Ready._
+
+_MILTON Mark Pattison._
+
+_WORDSWORTH Goldwin Smith._
+
+_SWIFT John Morley._
+
+_BURNS Principal Shairp._ [_Ready._
+
+_SCOTT Richard H. Hutton._ [_Ready._
+
+_SHELLEY J. A. Symonds._ [_Ready._
+
+_GIBBON J. C. Morison._ [_Ready._
+
+_BYRON Professor Nichol._
+
+_DEFOE W. Minto._ [_In the Press._
+
+_GRAY John Morley._
+
+_HAWTHORNE Henry James, Jnr._
+
+_CHAUCER A. W. Ward._
+
+[_OTHERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED._]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
+
+     "The new series opens well with Mr. Leslie Stephen's sketch
+     of Dr. Johnson. It could hardly have been done better; and
+     it will convey to the readers for whom it is intended a
+     juster estimate of Johnson that either of the two essays of
+     Lord Macaulay."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
+
+     "We have come across few writers who have had a clearer
+     insight into Johnson's character, or who have brought to the
+     study of it a better knowledge of the time in which Johnson
+     lived and the men whom he knew."--_Saturday Review._
+
+     "We could not wish for a more suggestive introduction to
+     Scott and his poems and novels."--_Examiner._
+
+     "The tone of the volume is excellent
+     throughout."--_Athenæum_ Review of "Scott."
+
+     "As a clear, thoughtful, and attractive record of the life
+     and works of the greatest among the world's historians, it
+     deserves the highest praise."--_Examiner_ Review of
+     "Gibbon."
+
+     "The lovers of this great poet (Shelley) are to be
+     congratulated at having at their command so fresh, clear,
+     and intelligent a presentment of the subject, written by a
+     man of adequate and wide culture."--_Athenæum._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MACMILLAN'S GLOBE LIBRARY.
+
+_Beautifully printed on toned paper, price_ 3_s_. 6_d_. _Also kept in a
+variety of calf and morocco bindings, at moderate prices._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_The _SATURDAY REVIEW_ says: "The Globe Editions are admirable for
+their scholarly editing, their typographical excellence, their
+compendious form, and their cheapness." The _BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW_
+says: "In compendiousness, elegance, and scholarliness the Globe
+Editions of Messrs. Macmillan surpass any popular series of our
+classics hitherto given to the public. As near an approach to
+miniature perfection as has ever been made."_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Shakespeare's Complete Works. Edited by W. G. CLARK, M. A., and W.
+ALDIS WRIGHT, M. A., Editors of the "Cambridge Shakespeare." With
+Glossary, pp. 1075.
+
+_The _ATHENÆUM_ says this edition is "a marvel of beauty, cheapness,
+and compactness.... For the busy man, above all for the working
+student, this is the best of all existing Shakespeares."_
+
+
+Spenser's Complete Works. Edited from the Original Editions and
+Manuscripts, by R. MORRIS, with a Memoir by J. W. HALES, M. A. With
+Glossary, pp. lv., 736.
+
+_"Worthy--and higher praise it needs not--of the beautiful 'Globe
+Series.'"_--DAILY NEWS.
+
+
+Sir Walter Scott's Poetical Works. Edited, with a Biographical and
+Critical Memoir, by FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE, and Copious Notes, pp.
+xliii., 559.
+
+_"We can almost sympathise with a middle-aged grumbler, who, after
+reading Mr. Palgrave's Memoir and Introduction, should exclaim, 'Why was
+there not such an edition of Scott when I was a schoolboy?'"_--GUARDIAN.
+
+
+Complete Works of Robert Burns. Edited from the best Printed and
+Manuscript authorities, with Glossarial Index, Notes, and a
+Biographical Memoir by ALEXANDER SMITH, pp. lxii., 636.
+
+_"Admirable in all respects."_--SPECTATOR.
+
+
+Robinson Crusoe. Edited after the Original Editions, with a
+Biographical Introduction by HENRY KINGSLEY. pp. xxxi., 607.
+
+_"A most excellent and in every way desirable edition."_--COURT
+CIRCULAR.
+
+
+Goldsmith's Miscellaneous Works. Edited with Biographical
+Introduction, by Professor MASSON. pp. lx., 695.
+
+_"Such an admirable compendium of the facts of Goldsmith's life, and
+so careful and minute a delineation of the mixed traits of his
+peculiar character as to be a very model of a literary biography in
+little."_--SCOTSMAN.
+
+
+Pope's Poetical Works. Edited, with Notes, and Introductory Memoir by
+A. W. WARD, M. A., Professor of History in Owens College Manchester,
+pp. lii., 508.
+
+_The _LITERARY CHURCHMAN_ remarks: "The Editor's own notes and
+introductory memoir are excellent, the memoir alone would be cheap and
+well worth buying at the price of the whole volume."_
+
+
+Dryden's Poetical Works. Edited, with a Memoir, Revised Text, and
+Notes, by W. D. CHRISTIE, M. A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, pp.
+lxxxvii., 662.
+
+_"An admirable edition, the result of great research and of a careful
+revision of the text."_--PALL MALL GAZETTE.
+
+
+Cowper's Poetical Works. Edited, with Notes and Biographical
+Introduction, by WILLIAM BENHAM, Vicar of Margate, pp. lxxiii., 536.
+
+_"Mr. Benham's edition of Cowper is one of permanent
+value."_--SATURDAY REVIEW.
+
+
+Morte d'Arthur.--SIR THOMAS MALORY'S BOOK OF KING ARTHUR AND OF HIS
+NOBLE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE. The original Edition of CAXTON,
+revised for Modern Use. With an Introduction by Sir EDWARD STRACHEY,
+Bart. pp. xxxvii., 509.
+
+_"It is with perfect confidence that we recommend this edition of the
+old romance to every class of readers."_--PALL MALL GAZETTE.
+
+
+The Works of Virgil. Rendered into English Prose, with Introductions,
+Notes, Running Analysis, and an Index. By JAMES LONSDALE, M. A., and
+SAMUEL LEE, M. A. pp. 228.
+
+_"A more complete Edition of Virgil in English it is scarcely possible
+to conceive than the scholarly work before us."_--GLOBE.
+
+
+The Works of Horace. Rendered into English Prose, with Introductions,
+Running Analysis, Notes, and Index. By JOHN LONSDALE, M. A., and
+SAMUEL LEE, M. A.
+
+_The _STANDARD_ says, "To classical and non-classical readers it will
+be invaluable."_
+
+
+Milton's Poetical Works.--Edited, with Introductions, by Professor
+MASSON.
+
+_"In every way an admirable book."_--PALL MALL GAZETTE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+MACMILLAN & CO., LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Goldsmith, by William Black
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDSMITH ***
+
+***** This file should be named 18917-8.txt or 18917-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/9/1/18917/
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Sankar Viswanathan,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/18917-8.zip b/18917-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3884339
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18917-8.zip
diff --git a/18917-h.zip b/18917-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b9a4391
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18917-h.zip
diff --git a/18917-h/18917-h.htm b/18917-h/18917-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8bf6fff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18917-h/18917-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,6166 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Goldsmith, by William Black
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+<!--
+    p {  margin-top: .75em;
+         text-align: justify;
+         margin-bottom: .75em;
+         }
+    h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
+         text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+         clear: both;
+         }
+    hr { width: 33%;
+	 margin-top: 2em;
+	 margin-bottom: 2em;
+         margin-left: auto;
+         margin-right: auto;
+         clear: both;
+       }
+	   hr.hr1 { width: 25%;
+	 margin-top: 0em;
+	 margin-bottom: 0em;
+         margin-left: auto;
+         margin-right: auto;
+         clear: both;
+       }
+     a[name] { position:absolute; }
+     a:link {color:#0000ff; background-color:#FFFFFF;
+                              text-decoration:none; }
+     link {color:#0000ff; background-color:#FFFFFF;
+                                text-decoration:none; }
+     a:visited {color:#0000ff; background-color:#FFFFFF;
+                              text-decoration:none; }
+     a:hover { color:#ff0000; background-color:#FFFFFF; }
+
+    table { width:80%; padding: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}
+.tb1 { font-style:italic; width:80%; padding: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}
+    .tocch    { text-align: center; vertical-align: top;}
+    .tocpg   {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;}
+
+	td.td1 { font-size: 85%; }
+
+    body{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+
+    .pagenum  { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+            /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+                position: absolute;
+                left: 92%;
+                font-size: smaller;
+				font-style:normal;
+
+                text-align: right;
+              } /* page numbers */
+
+
+    .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;}
+
+
+
+    .center   {text-align: center;}
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+   .f1 { font-size:smaller; }
+
+
+    .footnotes        {border: solid 1px;}
+    .footnote         {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
+    .footnote .label  {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;}
+    .fnanchor         {vertical-align: text-bottom; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;}
+
+    .poem             {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;}
+    .poem br          {display: none;}
+    .poem .stanza     {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
+    .poem span.i0     {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i2     {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i4     {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i8     {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+	.poem span.i10     {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+	.poem span.i16     {display: block; margin-left: 16em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    // -->
+    /* XML end  ]]>*/
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Goldsmith, by William Black
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Goldsmith
+       English Men of Letters Series
+
+Author: William Black
+
+Editor: John Morley
+
+Release Date: July 27, 2006 [EBook #18917]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDSMITH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Sankar Viswanathan,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h2>English Men of Letters</h2>
+<h3>EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h1>GOLDSMITH</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+
+
+<h2>WILLIAM BLACK</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/image_01.jpg" alt="Seal" width="200" height="69" /></p>
+
+
+<h4>London</h4>
+<h3>MACMILLAN AND CO</h3>
+<h3>1878</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<table summary="Contents">
+<tr><td></td><td class="tocpg f1">PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">INTRODUCTORY</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">SCHOOL AND COLLEGE</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">IDLENESS, AND FOREIGN TRAVEL</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">EARLY STRUGGLES.&mdash;HACK-WRITING</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">BEGINNING OF AUTHORSHIP.&mdash;THE BEE</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">PERSONAL TRAITS</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD.&mdash;BEAU NASH</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">THE ARREST</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">THE TRAVELLER</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">MISCELLANEOUS WRITING</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">THE GOOD-NATURED MAN</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">GOLDSMITH IN SOCIETY</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">THE DESERTED VILLAGE</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">OCCASIONAL WRITINGS</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tocch">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="tocch"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a></td><td>&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td class="td1"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">INCREASING DIFFICULTIES.&mdash;THE END</a></td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_150">150</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>GOLDSMITH</h2>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+<h3>INTRODUCTORY.</h3>
+<p>"Innocently to amuse the imagination in this dream
+of life is wisdom." So wrote Oliver Goldsmith; and
+surely among those who have earned the world's gratitude
+by this ministration he must be accorded a conspicuous
+place. If, in these delightful writings of his,
+he mostly avoids the darker problems of existence&mdash;if
+the mystery of the tragic and apparently unmerited
+and unrequited suffering in the world is rarely touched
+upon&mdash;we can pardon the omission for the sake of the
+gentle optimism that would rather look on the kindly
+side of life. "You come hot and tired from the day's
+battle, and this sweet minstrel sings to you," says
+Mr. Thackeray. "Who could harm the kind vagrant
+harper? Whom did he ever hurt? He carries no
+weapon save the harp on which he plays to you; and
+with which he delights great and humble, young and
+old, the captains in the tents, or the soldiers round the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+fire, or the women and children in the villages, at whose
+porches he stops and sings his simple songs of love and
+beauty." And it is to be suspected&mdash;it is to be hoped,
+at least&mdash;that the cheerfulness which shines like sunlight
+through Goldsmith's writings, did not altogether
+desert himself even in the most trying hours of his
+wayward and troubled career. He had, with all his
+sensitiveness, a fine happy-go-lucky disposition; was
+ready for a frolic when he had a guinea, and, when he
+had none, could turn a sentence on the humorous side
+of starvation; and certainly never attributed to the
+injustice or neglect of society misfortunes the origin
+of which lay nearer home.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, a very dark picture might be drawn of
+Goldsmith's life; and the sufferings that he undoubtedly
+endured have been made a whip with which to lash the
+ingratitude of a world not too quick to recognise the
+claims of genius. He has been put before us, without
+any brighter lights to the picture, as the most unfortunate
+of poor devils; the heart-broken usher; the
+hack ground down by sordid booksellers; the starving
+occupant of successive garrets. This is the aspect of
+Goldsmith's career which naturally attracts Mr. Forster.
+Mr. Forster seems to have been haunted throughout his
+life by the idea that Providence had some especial spite
+against literary persons; and that, in a measure to compensate
+them for their sad lot, society should be very kind
+to them, while the Government of the day might make
+them Companions of the Bath or give them posts in the
+Civil Service. In the otherwise copious, thorough, and
+valuable <i>Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith</i>, we find an
+almost humiliating insistance on the complaint that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
+Oliver Goldsmith did not receive greater recognition
+and larger sums of money from his contemporaries.
+Goldsmith is here "the poor neglected sizar"; his
+"marked ill-fortune" attends him constantly; he shares
+"the evil destinies of men of letters"; he was one of
+those who "struggled into fame without the aid of
+English institutions"; in short, "he wrote, and paid the
+penalty." Nay, even Christianity itself is impeached
+on account of the persecution suffered by poor Goldsmith.
+"There had been a Christian religion extant
+for seventeen-hundred and fifty-seven years," writes Mr.
+Forster, "the world having been acquainted, for even so
+long, with its spiritual necessities and responsibilities;
+yet here, in the middle of the eighteenth century, was
+the eminence ordinarily conceded to a spiritual teacher,
+to one of those men who come upon the earth to lift
+their fellow-men above its miry ways. He is up in a
+garret, writing for bread he cannot get, and dunned for
+a milkscore he cannot pay." That Christianity might
+have been worse employed than in paying the milkman's
+score is true enough, for then the milkman would have
+come by his own; but that Christianity, or the state, or
+society should be scolded because an author suffers the
+natural consequences of his allowing his expenditure
+to exceed his income, seems a little hard. And this is
+a sort of writing that is peculiarly inappropriate in
+the case of Goldsmith, who, if ever any man was author
+of his own misfortunes, may fairly have the charge
+brought against him. "Men of genius," says Mr.
+Forster, "can more easily starve, than the world, with
+safety to itself, can continue to neglect and starve
+them." Perhaps so; but the English nation, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+has always had a regard and even love for Oliver Goldsmith,
+that is quite peculiar in the history of literature,
+and which has been glad to overlook his faults and
+follies, and eager to sympathise with him in the many
+miseries of his career, will be slow to believe that it
+is responsible for any starvation that Goldsmith may
+have endured.</p>
+
+<p>However, the key-note has been firmly struck, and it
+still vibrates. Goldsmith was the unluckiest of mortals,
+the hapless victim of circumstances. "Yielding to that
+united pressure of labour, penury, and sorrow, with
+a frame exhausted by unremitting and ill-rewarded
+drudgery, Goldsmith was indebted to the forbearance
+of creditors for a peaceful burial." But what, now,
+if some foreigner strange to the traditions of English
+literature&mdash;some Japanese student, for example, or the
+New Zealander come before his time&mdash;were to go over
+the ascertained facts of Goldsmith's life, and were
+suddenly to announce to us, with the happy audacity
+of ignorance, that he, Goldsmith, was a quite exceptionally
+fortunate person? "Why," he might say, "I
+find that in a country where the vast majority of people
+are born to labour, Oliver Goldsmith was never asked
+to do a stroke of work towards the earning of his own
+living until he had arrived at man's estate. All that
+was expected of him, as a youth and as a young man,
+was that he should equip himself fully for the battle of
+life. He was maintained at college until he had taken
+his degree. Again and again he was furnished with
+funds for further study and foreign travel; and again
+and again he gambled his opportunities away. The
+constant kindness of his uncle only made him the best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+begging-letter-writer the world has seen. In the midst
+of his debt and distress as a bookseller's drudge, he
+receives &pound;400 for three nights' performance of <i>The
+Good-Natured Man</i>; he immediately purchases chambers
+in Brick Court for &pound;400; and forthwith begins to
+borrow as before. It is true that he died owing &pound;2000,
+and was indebted to the forbearance of creditors for a
+peaceful burial; but it appears that during the last
+seven years of his life he had been earning an annual
+income equivalent to &pound;800 of English currency.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> He
+was a man liberally and affectionately brought up, who
+had many relatives and many friends, and who had the
+proud satisfaction&mdash;which has been denied to many men
+of genius&mdash;of knowing for years before he died that his
+merits as a writer had been recognised by the great
+bulk of his countrymen. And yet this strange English
+nation is inclined to suspect that it treated him rather
+badly; and Christianity is attacked because it did not
+pay Goldsmith's milkscore."</p>
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The calculation is Lord Macaulay's: see his <i>Biographical</i>
+<i>Essays</i>.</p></div></div>
+
+<p>Our Japanese friend may be exaggerating; but his
+position is after all fairly tenable. It may at least
+be looked at, before entering on the following brief
+<i>r&eacute;sum&eacute;</i> of the leading facts in Goldsmith's life, if only
+to restore our equanimity. For, naturally, it is not
+pleasant to think that any previous generation, however
+neglectful of the claims of literary persons (as compared
+with the claims of such wretched creatures as
+physicians, men of science, artists, engineers, and so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+forth) should so cruelly have ill-treated one whom we
+all love now. This inheritance of ingratitude is more
+than we can bear. Is it true that Goldsmith was so
+harshly dealt with by those barbarian ancestors of
+ours?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<h3>SCHOOL AND COLLEGE.</h3>
+<p>The Goldsmiths were of English descent; Goldsmith's
+father was a Protestant clergyman in a poor little village
+in the county of Longford; and when Oliver, one
+of several children, was born in this village of Pallas,
+or Pallasmore, on the 10th November, 1728, the Rev.
+Charles Goldsmith was passing rich on &pound;40 a year. But
+a couple of years later Mr. Goldsmith succeeded to a
+more lucrative living; and forthwith removed his family
+to the village of Lissoy, in the county of Westmeath.</p>
+
+<p>Here at once our interest in the story begins: is this
+Lissoy the sweet Auburn that we have known and loved
+since our childhood? Lord Macaulay, with a great
+deal of vehemence, avers that it is not; that there
+never was any such hamlet as Auburn in Ireland;
+that <i>The Deserted Village</i> is a hopelessly incongruous
+poem; and that Goldsmith, in combining a description
+of a probably Kentish village with a description
+of an Irish ejectment, "has produced something which
+never was, and never will be, seen in any part of the
+world." This criticism is ingenious and plausible,
+but it is unsound, for it happens to overlook one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+the radical facts of human nature&mdash;the magnifying
+delight of the mind in what is long remembered and
+remote. What was it that the imagination of Goldsmith,
+in his life-long banishment, could not see when he
+looked back to the home of his childhood, and his early
+friends, and the sports and occupations of his youth?
+Lissoy was no doubt a poor enough Irish village; and
+perhaps the farms were not too well cultivated; and
+perhaps the village preacher, who was so dear to all
+the country round, had to administer many a thrashing
+to a certain graceless son of his; and perhaps Paddy
+Byrne was something of a pedant; and no doubt pigs
+ran over the "nicely sanded floor" of the inn; and no
+doubt the village statesmen occasionally indulged in
+a free fight. But do you think that was the Lissoy that
+Goldsmith thought of in his dreary lodgings in Fleet-Street
+courts? No. It was the Lissoy where the
+vagrant lad had first seen the "primrose peep beneath
+the thorn"; where he had listened to the mysterious
+call of the bittern by the unfrequented river; it was
+a Lissoy still ringing with the glad laughter of young
+people in the twilight hours; it was a Lissoy for ever
+beautiful, and tender, and far away. The grown-up
+Goldsmith had not to go to any Kentish village for a
+model; the familiar scenes of his youth, regarded with
+all the wistfulness and longing of an exile, became
+glorified enough. "If I go to the opera where Signora
+Colomba pours out all the mazes of melody," he writes
+to Mr. Hodson, "I sit and sigh for Lissoy's fireside,
+and <i>Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night</i> from Peggy
+Golden."</p>
+
+<p>There was but little in the circumstances of Gold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>smith's
+early life likely to fit him for, or to lead him
+into, a literary career; in fact, he did not take to
+literature until he had tried pretty nearly everything
+else as a method of earning a living. If he was intended
+for anything, it was no doubt his father's
+wish that he should enter the Church; and he got
+such education as the poor Irish clergyman&mdash;who was
+not a very provident person&mdash;could afford. The child
+Goldsmith was first of all taught his alphabet at home,
+by a maid-servant, who was also a relation of the family;
+then, at the age of six, he was sent to that village school
+which, with its profound and learned master, he has
+made familiar to all of us; and after that he was sent
+further a-field for his learning, being moved from this to
+the other boarding-school as the occasion demanded.
+Goldsmith's school-life could not have been altogether a
+pleasant time for him. We hear, indeed, of his being
+concerned in a good many frolics&mdash;robbing orchards,
+and the like; and it is said that he attained proficiency
+in the game of fives. But a shy and sensitive lad
+like Goldsmith, who was eagerly desirous of being
+thought well of, and whose appearance only invited the
+thoughtless but cruel ridicule of his schoolmates, must
+have suffered a good deal. He was little, pitted with
+the small-pox, and awkward; and schoolboys are
+amazingly frank. He was not strong enough to thrash
+them into respect of him; he had no big brother to
+become his champion; his pocket-money was not lavish
+enough to enable him to buy over enemies or subsidise
+allies.</p>
+
+<p>In similar circumstances it has sometimes happened
+that a boy physically inferior to his companions has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+consoled himself by proving his mental prowess&mdash;has
+scored off his failure at cricket by the taking of prizes, and
+has revenged himself for a drubbing by writing a lampoon.
+But even this last resource was not open to Goldsmith.
+He was a dull boy; "a stupid, heavy blockhead," is
+Dr. Strean's phrase in summing up the estimate formed
+of young Goldsmith by his contemporaries at school.
+Of course, as soon as he became famous, everybody
+began to hunt up recollections of his having said or
+done this or that, in order to prove that there were
+signs of the coming greatness. People began to remember
+that he had been suspected of scribbling
+verses, which he burned. What schoolboy has not
+done the like? We know how the biographers of
+great painters point out to us that their hero early
+showed the bent of his mind by drawing the figures
+of animals on doors and walls with a piece of chalk;
+as to which it may be observed that, if every schoolboy
+who scribbled verses and sketched in chalk on a brick
+wall, were to grow up a genius, poems and pictures
+would be plentiful enough. However, there is the
+apparently authenticated anecdote of young Goldsmith's
+turning the tables on the fiddler at his uncle's dancing-party.
+The fiddler, struck by the odd look of the boy
+who was capering about the room, called out "&AElig;sop!"
+whereupon Goldsmith is said to have instantly replied,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Our herald hath proclaimed this saying,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">See &AElig;sop dancing and his monkey playing!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But even if this story be true, it is worth nothing as an
+augury; for quickness of repartee was precisely the accomplishment
+which the adult Goldsmith conspicuously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
+lacked. Put a pen into his hand, and shut him up
+in a room: then he was master of the situation&mdash;nothing
+could be more incisive, polished, and easy than
+his playful sarcasm. But in society any fool could get
+the better of him by a sudden question followed by a
+horse-laugh. All through his life&mdash;even after he had
+become one of the most famous of living writers&mdash;Goldsmith
+suffered from want of self-confidence. He
+was too anxious to please. In his eager acquiescence,
+he would blunder into any trap that was laid for him.
+A grain or two of the stolid self-sufficiency of the
+blockheads who laughed at him would not only have
+improved his character, but would have considerably
+added to the happiness of his life.</p>
+
+<p>As a natural consequence of this timidity, Goldsmith,
+when opportunity served, assumed airs of magnificent
+importance. Every one knows the story of the mistake
+on which <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i> is founded. Getting
+free at last from all the turmoil, and anxieties, and
+mortifications of school-life, and returning home on a
+lent hack, the released schoolboy is feeling very grand
+indeed. He is now sixteen, would fain pass for a man,
+and has a whole golden guinea in his pocket. And so
+he takes the journey very leisurely until, getting benighted
+in a certain village, he asks the way to the
+"best house," and is directed by a facetious person to
+the house of the squire. The squire by good luck falls
+in with the joke; and then we have a very pretty
+comedy indeed&mdash;the impecunious schoolboy playing the
+part of a fine gentleman on the strength of his solitary
+guinea, ordering a bottle of wine after his supper, and
+inviting his landlord and his landlord's wife and daughter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+to join him in the supper-room. The contrast, in <i>She
+Stoops to Conquer</i>, between Marlow's embarrassed diffidence
+on certain occasions and his audacious effrontery
+on others, found many a parallel in the incidents of
+Goldsmith's own life; and it is not improbable that
+the writer of the comedy was thinking of some of his
+own experiences, when he made Miss Hardcastle say
+to her timid suitor: "A want of courage upon some
+occasions assumes the appearance of ignorance, and
+betrays us when we most want to excel."</p>
+
+<p>It was, perhaps, just as well that the supper, and
+bottle of wine, and lodging at Squire Featherston's had
+not to be paid for out of the schoolboy's guinea; for
+young Goldsmith was now on his way to college, and
+the funds at the disposal of the Goldsmith family
+were not over abundant. Goldsmith's sister having
+married the son of a well-to do man, her father considered
+it a point of honour that she should have a
+dowry: and in giving her a sum of &pound;400 he so crippled
+the means of the family, that Goldsmith had to be sent
+to college not as a pensioner but as a sizar. It appears
+that the young gentleman's pride revolted against this
+proposal; and that he was won over to consent only by
+the persuasions of his uncle Contarine, who himself had
+been a sizar. So Goldsmith, now in his eighteenth year,
+went to Dublin; managed somehow or other&mdash;though
+he was the last in the list&mdash;to pass the necessary examination;
+and entered upon his college career (1745.)</p>
+
+<p>How he lived, and what he learned, at Trinity College,
+are both largely matters of conjecture; the chief
+features of such record as we have are the various
+means of raising a little money to which the poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+sizar had to resort; a continual quarrelling with his
+tutor, an ill-conditioned brute, who baited Goldsmith
+and occasionally beat him; and a chance frolic when
+funds were forthcoming. It was while he was at
+Trinity College that his father died; so that Goldsmith
+was rendered more than ever dependent on the
+kindness of his uncle Contarine, who throughout seems
+to have taken much interest in his odd, ungainly
+nephew. A loan from a friend or a visit to the
+pawnbroker tided over the severer difficulties; and
+then from time to time the writing of street-ballads,
+for which he got five shillings a-piece at a certain
+repository, came in to help. It was a happy-go-lucky,
+hand-to-mouth sort of existence, involving a good deal
+of hardship and humiliation, but having its frolics and
+gaieties notwithstanding. One of these was pretty near
+to putting an end to his collegiate career altogether.
+He had, smarting under a public admonition for having
+been concerned in a riot, taken seriously to his studies
+and had competed for a scholarship. He missed the
+scholarship, but gained an exhibition of the value of
+thirty shillings; whereupon he collected a number of
+friends of both sexes in his rooms, and proceeded to
+have high jinks there. In the midst of the dancing
+and uproar, in comes his tutor, in such a passion that
+he knocks Goldsmith down. This insult, received
+before his friends, was too much for the unlucky sizar,
+who, the very next day, sold his books, ran away from
+college, and ultimately, after having been on the verge
+of starvation once or twice, made his way to Lissoy.
+Here his brother got hold of him; persuaded him to
+go back; and the escapade was condoned somehow.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+Goldsmith remained at Trinity College until he took his
+degree (1749.) He was again lowest in the list; but
+still he had passed; and he must have learned something.
+He was now twenty-one, with all the world
+before him; and the question was as to how he was
+to employ such knowledge as he had acquired.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h3>IDLENESS, AND FOREIGN TRAVEL.</h3>
+<p>But Goldsmith was not in any hurry to acquire either
+wealth or fame. He had a happy knack of enjoying
+the present hour&mdash;especially when there were one or
+two boon companions with him, and a pack of cards
+to be found; and, after his return to his mother's
+house, he appears to have entered upon the business of
+idleness with much philosophical satisfaction. If he
+was not quite such an unlettered clown as he has
+described in Tony Lumpkin, he had at least all Tony
+Lumpkin's high spirits and love of joking and idling;
+and he was surrounded at the ale-house by just such a
+company of admirers as used to meet at the famous
+Three Pigeons. Sometimes he helped in his brother's
+school; sometimes he went errands for his mother;
+occasionally he would sit and meditatively play the
+flute&mdash;for the day was to be passed somehow; then in
+the evening came the assemblage in Conway's inn, with
+the glass, and the pipe, and the cards, and the uproarious
+jest or song. "But Scripture saith an ending to all
+fine things must be," and the friends of this jovial
+young "buckeen" began to tire of his idleness and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+recurrent visits. They gave him hints that he might set
+about doing something to provide himself with a living;
+and the first thing they thought of was that he should
+go into the Church&mdash;perhaps as a sort of purification-house
+after George Conway's inn. Accordingly Goldsmith,
+who appears to have been a most good-natured
+and compliant youth, did make application to the
+Bishop of Elphin. There is some doubt about the
+precise reasons which induced the Bishop to decline
+Goldsmith's application, but at any rate the Church
+was denied the aid of the young man's eloquence and
+erudition. Then he tried teaching, and through the
+good offices of his uncle he obtained a tutorship which
+he held for a considerable time&mdash;long enough, indeed, to
+enable him to amass a sum of thirty pounds. When he
+quarrelled with his patron, and once more "took the
+world for his pillow," as the Gaelic stories say, he had
+this sum in his pocket and was possessed of a good
+horse.</p>
+
+<p>He started away from Ballymahon, where his
+mother was now living, with some vague notion of
+making his fortune as casual circumstance might
+direct. The expedition came to a premature end;
+and he returned without the money, and on the back of
+a wretched animal, telling his mother a cock-and-bull
+story of the most amusing simplicity. "If Uncle
+Contarine believed those letters," says Mr. Thackeray,
+"&mdash;&mdash; if Oliver's mother believed that story which the
+youth related of his going to Cork, with the purpose of
+embarking for America; of his having paid his passage-money,
+and having sent his kit on board; of the anonymous
+captain sailing away with Oliver's valuable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+luggage, in a nameless ship, never to return; if Uncle
+Contarine and the mother at Ballymahon believed his
+stories, they must have been a very simple pair; as it
+was a very simple rogue indeed who cheated them."
+Indeed, if any one is anxious to fill up this hiatus in
+Goldsmith's life, the best thing he can do is to discard
+Goldsmith's suspicious record of his adventures, and
+put in its place the faithful record of the adventures
+of Mr. Barry Lyndon, when that modest youth left his
+mother's house and rode to Dublin, with a certain
+number of guineas in his pocket. But whether Uncle
+Contarine believed the story or no, he was ready to give
+the young gentleman another chance; and this time it
+was the legal profession that was chosen. Goldsmith got
+fifty pounds from his uncle, and reached Dublin. In a
+remarkably brief space of time he had gambled away the
+fifty pounds, and was on his way back to Ballymahon,
+where his mother's reception of him was not very
+cordial, though his uncle forgave him, and was once
+more ready to start him in life. But in what direction?
+Teaching, the Church, and the law had lost their attractions
+for him. Well, this time it was medicine. In
+fact, any sort of project was capable of drawing forth
+the good old uncle's bounty. The funds were again
+forthcoming; Goldsmith started for Edinburgh, and
+now (1752) saw Ireland for the last time.</p>
+
+<p>He lived, and he informed his uncle that he studied,
+in Edinburgh for a year and a half; at the end of
+which time it appeared to him that his knowledge of
+medicine would be much improved by foreign travel.
+There was Albinus, for example, "the great professor
+of Leyden," as he wrote to the credulous uncle, from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+whom he would doubtless learn much. When, having
+got another twenty pounds for travelling expenses, he did
+reach Leyden (1754), he mentioned Gaubius, the chemical
+professor. Gaubius is also a good name. That his intercourse
+with these learned persons, and the serious nature
+of his studies, were not incompatible with a little light
+relaxation in the way of gambling is not impossible.
+On one occasion, it is said, he was so lucky that he
+came to a fellow student with his pockets full of money;
+and was induced to resolve never to play again&mdash;a
+resolution broken about as soon as made. Of course
+he lost all his winnings, and more; and had to borrow
+a trifling sum to get himself out of the place. Then
+an incident occurs which is highly characteristic of the
+better side of Goldsmith's nature. He had just got
+this money, and was about to leave Leyden, when, as
+Mr. Forster writes, "he passed a florist's garden on his
+return, and seeing some rare and high-priced flower,
+which his uncle Contarine, an enthusiast in such things,
+had often spoken and been in search of, he ran in without
+other thought than of immediate pleasure to his
+kindest friend, bought a parcel of the roots, and sent
+them off to Ireland." He had a guinea in his pocket
+when he started on the grand tour.</p>
+
+<p>Of this notable period in Goldsmith's life (1755-6) very
+little is known, though a good deal has been guessed. A
+minute record of all the personal adventures that befell
+the wayfarer as he trudged from country to country, a
+diary of the odd humours and fancies that must have
+occurred to him in his solitary pilgrimages, would be of
+quite inestimable value; but even the letters that Goldsmith
+wrote home from time to time are lost; while <i>The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+Traveller</i> consists chiefly of a series of philosophical
+reflections on the government of various states, more
+likely to have engaged the attention of a Fleet-Street
+author, living in an atmosphere of books, than to have
+occupied the mind of a tramp anxious about his supper
+and his night's lodging. Boswell says he "disputed"
+his way through Europe. It is much more probable
+that he begged his way through Europe. The romantic
+version, which has been made the subject of many a
+charming picture, is that he was entertained by the
+peasantry whom he had delighted with his playing on
+the flute. It is quite probable that Goldsmith, whose
+imagination had been captivated by the story of how
+Baron von Holberg had as a young man really passed
+through France, Germany, and Holland in this Orpheus-like
+manner, may have put a flute in his pocket when he
+left Leyden; but it is far from safe to assume, as is
+generally done, that Goldsmith was himself the hero of
+the adventures described in Chapter <span class="smcap">XX</span>. of the <i>Vicar of
+Wakefield</i>. It is the more to be regretted that we have
+no authentic record of these devious wanderings, that
+by this time Goldsmith had acquired, as is shown in
+other letters, a polished, easy, and graceful style, with
+a very considerable faculty of humorous observation.
+Those ingenious letters to his uncle (they usually
+included a little hint about money) were, in fact, a
+trifle too literary both in substance and in form; we
+could even now, looking at them with a pardonable
+curiosity, have spared a little of their formal antithesis
+for some more precise information about the writer and
+his surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>The strangest thing about this strange journey all over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+Europe was the failure of Goldsmith to pick up even a
+common and ordinary acquaintance with the familiar facts
+of natural history. The ignorance on this point of the
+author of the <i>Animated Nature</i> was a constant subject of
+jest among Goldsmith's friends. They declared he could
+not tell the difference between any two sorts of barndoor
+fowl until he saw them cooked and on the table. But it
+may be said prematurely here that, even when he is
+wrong as to his facts or his sweeping generalisations,
+one is inclined to forgive him on account of the quaint
+gracefulness and point of his style. When Mr. Burchell
+says, "This rule seems to extend even to other animals:
+the little vermin race are ever treacherous, cruel, and
+cowardly, whilst those endowed with strength and
+power are generous, brave, and gentle," we scarcely
+stop to reflect that the merlin, which is not much bigger
+than a thrush, has an extraordinary courage and spirit,
+while the lion, if all stories be true, is, unless when
+goaded by hunger, an abject skulker. Elsewhere, indeed,
+in the <i>Animated Nature</i>, Goldsmith gives credit to the
+smaller birds for a good deal of valour, and then
+goes on to say, with a charming freedom,&mdash;"But their
+contentions are sometimes of a gentler nature. Two
+male birds shall strive in song till, after a long
+struggle, the loudest shall entirely silence the other.
+During these contentions the female sits an attentive
+silent auditor, and often rewards the loudest songster
+with her company during the season." Yet even this
+description of the battle of the bards, with the queen of
+love as arbiter, is scarcely so amusing as his happy-go-lucky
+notions with regard to the variability of
+species. The philosopher, flute in hand, who went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+wandering from the canals of Holland to the ice-ribbed
+falls of the Rhine, may have heard from time to time
+that contest between singing-birds which he so imaginatively
+describes; but it was clearly the Fleet-Street
+author, living among books, who arrived at the conclusion
+that intermarriage of species is common among
+small birds and rare among big birds. Quoting some
+lines of Addison's which express the belief that birds
+are a virtuous race&mdash;that the nightingale, for example,
+does not covet the wife of his neighbour, the blackbird&mdash;Goldsmith
+goes on to observe,&mdash;"But whatever may
+be the poet's opinion, the probability is against this
+fidelity among the smaller tenants of the grove. The
+great birds are much more true to their species than
+these; and, of consequence, the varieties among them
+are more few. Of the ostrich, the cassowary, and the
+eagle, there are but few species; and no arts that man
+can use could probably induce them to mix with each
+other."</p>
+
+<p>What he did bring back from his foreign travels
+was a medical degree. Where he got it, and how
+he got it, are alike matters of pure conjecture; but
+it is extremely improbable that&mdash;whatever he might
+have been willing to write home from Padua or
+Louvain, in order to coax another remittance from his
+Irish friends&mdash;he would afterwards, in the presence of
+such men as Johnson, Burke, and Reynolds, wear sham
+honours. It is much more probable that, on his finding
+those supplies from Ireland running ominously short,
+the philosophic vagabond determined to prove to his
+correspondents that he was really at work somewhere,
+instead of merely idling away his time, begging or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+borrowing the wherewithal to pass him from town to
+town. That he did see something of the foreign universities
+is evident from his own writings; there are touches
+of description here and there which he could not well have
+got from books. With this degree, and with such book-learning
+and such knowledge of nature and human
+nature as he had chosen or managed to pick up during
+all those years, he was now called upon to begin life
+for himself. The Irish supplies stopped altogether.
+His letters were left unanswered. And so Goldsmith
+somehow or other got back to London (February 1, 1756),
+and had to cast about for some way of earning his
+daily bread.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<h3>Early Struggles.&mdash;Hack-writing.</h3>
+<p>Here ensued a very dark period in his life. He was
+alone in London, without friends, without money, without
+introductions; his appearance was the reverse of prepossessing;
+and, even despite that medical degree and
+his acquaintance with the learned Albinus and the
+learned Gaubius, he had practically nothing of any
+value to offer for sale in the great labour-market of the
+world. How he managed to live at all is a mystery: it
+is certain that he must have endured a great deal of
+want; and one may well sympathise with so gentle and
+sensitive a creature reduced to such straits, without inquiring
+too curiously into the causes of his misfortunes.
+If, on the one hand, we cannot accuse society, or
+Christianity, or the English government of injustice and
+cruelty because Goldsmith had gambled away his chances
+and was now called on to pay the penalty, on the other
+hand, we had better, before blaming Goldsmith himself,
+inquire into the origin of those defects of character which
+produced such results. As this would involve an <i>excursus</i>
+into the controversy between Necessity and Free-will,
+probably most people would rather leave it alone. It may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+safely be said in any case that, while Goldsmith's faults
+and follies, of which he himself had to suffer the consequences,
+are patent enough, his character on the whole
+was distinctly a lovable one. Goldsmith was his own
+enemy, and everybody else's friend: that is not a
+serious indictment, as things go. He was quite well
+aware of his weaknesses; and he was also&mdash;it may be
+hinted&mdash;aware of the good-nature which he put forward
+as condonation. If some foreigner were to ask how it
+is that so thoroughly a commercial people as the English
+are&mdash;strict in the acknowledgment and payment of debt&mdash;should
+have always betrayed a sneaking fondness for
+the character of the good-humoured scapegrace whose
+hand is in everybody's pocket, and who throws away other
+people's money with the most charming air in the world,
+Goldsmith might be pointed to as one of many literary
+teachers whose own circumstances were not likely to
+make them severe censors of the Charles Surfaces, or
+lenient judges of the Joseph Surfaces of the world.
+Be merry while you may; let to-morrow take care
+of itself; share your last guinea with any one, even
+if the poor drones of society&mdash;the butcher, and baker,
+and milkman with his score&mdash;have to suffer; do anything
+you like, so long as you keep the heart warm.
+All this is a delightful philosophy. It has its moments
+of misery&mdash;its periods of reaction&mdash;but it has its
+moments of high delight. When we are invited to
+contemplate the "evil destinies of men of letters,"
+we ought to be shown the flood-tides as well as the
+ebb-tides. The tavern gaiety; the brand new coat
+and lace and sword; the midnight frolics, with jolly
+companions every one&mdash;these, however brief and inter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>mittent,
+should not be wholly left out of the picture.
+Of course it is very dreadful to hear of poor Boyse
+lying in bed with nothing but a blanket over him, and
+with his arms thrust through two holes in the blanket,
+so that he could write&mdash;perhaps a continuation of his poem
+on the <i>Deity</i>. But then we should be shown Boyse when
+he was spending the money collected by Dr. Johnson
+to get the poor scribbler's clothes out of pawn; and we
+should also be shown him, with his hands through the
+holes in the blanket, enjoying the mushrooms and
+truffles on which, as a little garniture for "his last scrap
+of beef," he had just laid out his last half-guinea.</p>
+
+<p>There were but few truffles&mdash;probably there was but
+little beef&mdash;for Goldsmith during this sombre period.
+"His threadbare coat, his uncouth figure, and Hibernian
+dialect caused him to meet with repeated refusals."
+But at length he got some employment in a chemist's
+shop, and this was a start. Then he tried practising in
+a small way on his own account in Southwark. Here he
+made the acquaintance of a printer's workman; and
+through him he was engaged as corrector of the press in
+the establishment of Mr. Samuel Richardson. Being so
+near to literature, he caught the infection; and naturally
+began with a tragedy. This tragedy was shown to the
+author of <i>Clarissa Harlowe</i>; but it only went the way of
+many similar first inspiritings of the Muse. Then Goldsmith
+drifted to Peckham, where we find him (1757)
+installed as usher at Dr. Milner's school. Goldsmith
+as usher has been the object of much sympathy; and
+he would certainly deserve it, if we are to assume that
+his description of an usher's position in the <i>Bee</i>, and in
+George Primrose's advice to his cousin, was a full and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+accurate description of his life at Peckham. "Browbeat
+by the master, hated for my ugly face by the mistress,
+worried by the boys"&mdash;if that was his life, he was much
+to be pitied. But we cannot believe it. The Milners
+were exceedingly kind to Goldsmith. It was at the
+intercession of young Milner, who had been his fellow-student
+at Edinburgh, that Goldsmith got the situation,
+which at all events kept him out of the reach of immediate
+want. It was through the Milners that he
+was introduced to Griffiths, who gave him a chance of
+trying a literary career&mdash;as a hack-writer of reviews and
+so forth. When, having got tired of that, Goldsmith
+was again floating vaguely on the waves of chance,
+where did he find a harbour but in that very school at
+Peckham? And we have the direct testimony of the
+youngest of Dr. Milner's daughters, that this Irish
+usher of theirs was a remarkably cheerful, and even
+facetious person, constantly playing tricks and practical
+jokes, amusing the boys by telling stories and by performances
+on the flute, living a careless life, and
+always in advance of his salary. Any beggars, or group
+of children, even the very boys who played back practical
+jokes on him, were welcome to a share of what small
+funds he had; and we all know how Mrs. Milner good-naturedly
+said one day, "You had better, Mr. Goldsmith,
+let me keep your money for you, as I do for some
+of the young gentlemen;" and how he answered with
+much simplicity, "In truth, Madam, there is equal
+need." With Goldsmith's love of approbation and
+extreme sensitiveness he no doubt suffered deeply from
+many slights, now as at other times; but what we know
+of his life in the Peckham school does not incline us to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+believe that it was an especially miserable period of his
+existence. His abundant cheerfulness does not seem to
+have at any time deserted him; and what with tricks,
+and jokes, and playing of the flute, the dull routine of
+instructing the unruly young gentlemen at Dr. Milner's
+was got through somehow.</p>
+
+<p>When Goldsmith left the Peckham school to try
+hack-writing in Paternoster Row, he was going further
+to fare worse. Griffiths the bookseller, when he met
+Goldsmith at Dr. Milner's dinner-table and invited him
+to become a reviewer, was doing a service to the English
+nation&mdash;for it was in this period of machine-work that
+Goldsmith discovered that happy faculty of literary expression
+that led to the composition of his masterpieces&mdash;but
+he was doing little immediate service to Goldsmith.</p>
+
+<p>The newly-captured hack was boarded and lodged at
+Griffiths' house in Paternoster Row (1757); he was to
+have a small salary in consideration of remorselessly
+constant work; and&mdash;what was the hardest condition of
+all&mdash;he was to have his writings revised by Mrs. Griffiths.
+Mr. Forster justly remarks that though at last Goldsmith
+had thus become a man-of-letters, he "had gratified no
+passion and attained no object of ambition." He had
+taken to literature, as so many others have done, merely
+as a last resource. And if it is true that literature at
+first treated Goldsmith harshly, made him work hard,
+and gave him comparatively little for what he did, at
+least it must be said that his experience was not a
+singular one. Mr. Forster says that literature was at
+that time in a transition state: "The patron was gone,
+and the public had not come." But when Goldsmith
+began to do better than hack-work, he found a public<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+speedily enough. If, as Lord Macaulay computes, Goldsmith
+received in the last seven years of his life what
+was equivalent to &pound;5,600 of our money, even the villain
+booksellers cannot be accused of having starved him.
+At the outset of his literary career he received no large
+sums, for he had achieved no reputation; but he got
+the market-rate for his work. We have around us at this
+moment plenty of hacks who do not earn much more
+than their board and lodging with a small salary.</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, we have no means of knowing whether
+Goldsmith got through his work with ease or with difficulty;
+but it is obvious, looking over the reviews which
+he is believed to have written for Griffiths' magazine,
+that he readily acquired the professional critic's airs
+of superiority, along with a few tricks of the trade, no
+doubt taught him by Griffiths. Several of these reviews,
+for example, are merely epitomes of the contents of the
+books reviewed, with some vague suggestion that the
+writer might, if he had been less careful, have done
+worse, and, if he had been more careful, might have
+done better. Who does not remember how the philosophic
+vagabond was taught to become a cognoscento?
+"The whole secret consisted in a strict adherence to
+two rules: the one always to observe that the picture
+might have been better if the painter had taken more
+pains; and the other to praise the works of Pietro
+Perugino." It is amusing to observe the different
+estimates formed of the function of criticism by Goldsmith
+the critic, and by Goldsmith the author. Goldsmith,
+sitting at Griffiths' desk, naturally magnifies his
+office, and announces his opinion that "to direct our
+taste, and conduct the poet up to perfection, has ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+been the true critic's province." But Goldsmith the
+author, when he comes to inquire into the existing state
+of Polite Learning in Europe, finds in criticism not a
+help but a danger. It is "the natural destroyer of
+polite learning." And again, in the <i>Citizen of the World</i>,
+he exclaims against the pretensions of the critic. "If
+any choose to be critics, it is but saying they are critics;
+and from that time forward they become invested with
+full power and authority over every caitiff who aims at
+their instruction or entertainment."</p>
+
+<p>This at least may be said, that in these early essays
+contributed to the <i>Monthly Review</i> there is much more of
+Goldsmith the critic than of Goldsmith the author. They
+are somewhat laboured performances. They are almost
+devoid of the sly and delicate humour that afterwards
+marked Goldsmith's best prose work. We find throughout
+his trick of antithesis; but here it is forced and formal,
+whereas afterwards he lent to this habit of writing
+the subtle surprise of epigram. They have the true
+manner of authority, nevertheless. He says of Home's
+<i>Douglas</i>&mdash;"Those parts of nature, and that rural simplicity
+with which the author was, perhaps, best acquainted,
+are not unhappily described; and hence we
+are led to conjecture, that a more universal knowledge
+of nature will probably increase his powers of description."
+If the author had written otherwise, he
+would have written differently; had he known more, he
+would not have been so ignorant; the tragedy is a
+tragedy, but why did not the author make it a comedy?&mdash;this
+sort of criticism has been heard of even in our
+own day. However, Goldsmith pounded away at his
+newly-found work, under the eye of the exacting book<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>seller
+and his learned wife. We find him dealing with
+Scandinavian (here called Celtic) mythology, though he
+does not adventure on much comment of his own; then
+he engages Smollett's <i>History of England</i>, but mostly in
+the way of extract; anon we find him reviewing <i>A Journal
+of Eight Days' Journey</i>, by Jonas Hanway, of whom
+Johnson said that he made some reputation by travelling
+abroad, and lost it all by travelling at home. Then again
+we find him writing a disquisition on <i>Some Enquiries
+concerning the First Inhabitants, Language, Religion,
+Learning, and Letters of Europe</i>, by a Mr. Wise, who,
+along with his critic, appears to have got into hopeless
+confusion in believing Basque and Armorican to be the
+remains of the same ancient language. The last phrase
+of a note appended to this review by Goldsmith probably
+indicates his own humble estimate of his work at this
+time. "It is more our business," he says, "to exhibit
+the opinions of the learned than to controvert them."
+In fact he was employed to boil down books for
+people who did not wish to spend more on literature
+than the price of a magazine. Though he was new to
+the trade, it is probable he did it as well as any other.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of five months, Goldsmith and Griffiths
+quarrelled and separated. Griffiths said Goldsmith was
+idle; Goldsmith said Griffiths was impertinent; probably
+the editorial supervision exercised by Mrs. Griffiths had
+something to do with the dire contention. From Paternoster
+Row Goldsmith removed to a garret in Fleet
+Street; had his letters addressed to a coffee-house; and
+apparently supported himself by further hack-work, his
+connection with Griffiths not being quite severed. Then
+he drifted back to Peckham again; and was once more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+installed as usher, Dr. Milner being in especial want of
+an assistant at this time. Goldsmith's lingering about
+the gates of literature had not inspired him with any
+great ambition to enter the enchanted land. But at the
+same time he thought he saw in literature a means by
+which a little ready money might be made, in order to
+help him on to something more definite and substantial;
+and this goal was now put before him by Dr. Milner, in
+the shape of a medical appointment on the Coromandel
+coast. It was in the hope of obtaining this appointment,
+that he set about composing that <i>Enquiry into the
+Present State of Polite Learning in Europe</i>, which is now
+interesting to us as the first of his more ambitious works.
+As the book grew under his hands, he began to cast
+about for subscribers; and from the Fleet-Street coffee-house&mdash;he
+had again left the Peckham school&mdash;he
+addressed to his friends and relatives a series of letters
+of the most charming humour, which might have drawn
+subscriptions from a millstone. To his brother-in-law,
+Mr. Hodson, he sent a glowing account of the great
+fortune in store for him on the Coromandel coast. "The
+salary is but trifling," he writes, "namely &pound;100 per
+annum, but the other advantages, if a person be prudent,
+are considerable. The practice of the place, if I am
+rightly informed, generally amounts to not less than
+&pound;1,000 per annum, for which the appointed physician
+has an exclusive privilege. This, with the advantages
+resulting from trade, and the high interest which money
+bears, viz. 20 per cent., are the inducements which
+persuade me to undergo the fatigues of sea, the dangers
+of war, and the still greater dangers of the climate;
+which induce me to leave a place where I am every day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+gaining friends and esteem, and where I might enjoy all
+the conveniences of life."</p>
+
+<p>The surprising part of this episode in Goldsmith's
+life is that he did really receive the appointment; in
+fact he was called upon to pay &pound;10 for the appointment-warrant.
+In this emergency he went to the
+proprietor of the <i>Critical Review</i>, the rival of the
+<i>Monthly</i>, and obtained some money for certain anonymous
+work which need not be mentioned in detail
+here. He also moved into another garret, this time
+in Green-Arbour Court, Fleet Street, in a wilderness
+of slums. The Coromandel project, however, on which
+so many hopes had been built, fell through. No explanation
+of the collapse could be got from either Goldsmith
+himself, or from Dr. Milner. Mr. Forster suggests
+that Goldsmith's inability to raise money for his outfit
+may have been made the excuse for transferring the
+appointment to another; and that is probable enough;
+but it is also probable that the need for such an excuse
+was based on the discovery that Goldsmith was not
+properly qualified for the post. And this seems the more
+likely, that Goldsmith immediately afterwards resolved
+to challenge examination at Surgeons' Hall. He undertook
+to write four articles for the <i>Monthly Review</i>;
+Griffiths became surety to a tailor for a fine suit of
+clothes; and thus equipped, Goldsmith presented himself
+at Surgeons' Hall. He only wanted to be passed as
+hospital mate; but even that modest ambition was unfulfilled.
+He was found not qualified; and returned,
+with his fine clothes, to his Fleet-Street den. He was
+now thirty years of age (1758); and had found no definite
+occupation in the world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<h3>BEGINNING OF AUTHORSHIP.&mdash;THE BEE.</h3>
+<p>During the period that now ensued, and amid much
+quarrelling with Griffiths and hack-writing for the
+<i>Critical Review</i>, Goldsmith managed to get his <i>Enquiry
+into the Present State of Polite Learning in
+Europe</i> completed; and it is from the publication of
+that work, on the 2nd of April, 1759, that we may date
+the beginning of Goldsmith's career as an author. The
+book was published anonymously; but Goldsmith was
+not at all anxious to disclaim the parentage of his first-born;
+and in Grub Street and its environs, at least, the
+authorship of the book was no secret. Moreover there
+was that in it which was likely to provoke the literary
+tribe to plenty of fierce talking. The <i>Enquiry</i> is neither
+more nor less than an endeavour to prove that criticism
+has in all ages been the deadly enemy of art and literature;
+coupled with an appeal to authors to draw their
+inspiration from nature rather than from books, and
+varied here and there by a gentle sigh over the loss of
+that patronage, in the sunshine of which men of genius
+were wont to bask. Goldsmith, not having been an
+author himself, could not have suffered much at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+hands of the critics; so that it is not to be supposed that
+personal feeling dictated this fierce onslaught on the
+whole tribe of critics, compilers, and commentators.
+They are represented to us as rank weeds, growing up
+to choke all manifestations of true art. "Ancient
+learning," we are told at the outset, "may be distinguished
+into three periods: its commencement, or
+the age of poets; its maturity, or the age of philosophers;
+and its decline, or the age of critics." Then
+our guide carries us into the dark ages; and, with
+lantern in hand, shows us the creatures swarming
+there in the sluggish pools&mdash;"commentators, compilers,
+polemic divines, and intricate metaphysicians." We
+come to Italy: look at the affectations with which the
+Virtuosi and Filosofi have enchained the free spirit of
+poetry. "Poetry is no longer among them an imitation
+of what we see, but of what a visionary might wish.
+The zephyr breathes the most exquisite perfume; the
+trees wear eternal verdure; fawns, and dryads, and
+hamadryads, stand ready to fan the sultry shepherdess,
+who has forgot, indeed, the prettiness with which
+Guarini's shepherdesses have been reproached, but is
+so simple and innocent as often to have no meaning.
+Happy country, where the pastoral age begins to revive!&mdash;where
+the wits even of Rome are united into a
+rural group of nymphs and swains, under the appellation
+of modern Arcadians!&mdash;where in the midst of porticoes,
+processions, and cavalcades, abb&eacute;s turned shepherds
+and shepherdesses without sheep indulge their innocent
+<i>divertimenti</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>In Germany the ponderous volumes of the commentators
+next come in for animadversion; and here we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+find an epigram, the quaint simplicity of which is
+peculiarly characteristic of Goldsmith. "Were angels
+to write books," he remarks, "they never would write
+folios." But Germany gets credit for the money spent
+by her potentates on learned institutions; and it is
+perhaps England that is delicately hinted at in these
+words: "Had the fourth part of the immense sum
+above-mentioned been given in proper rewards to
+genius, in some neighbouring countries, it would have
+rendered the name of the donor immortal, and added
+to the real interests of society." Indeed, when we
+come to England, we find that men of letters are in
+a bad way, owing to the prevalence of critics, the
+tyranny of booksellers, and the absence of patrons.
+"The author, when 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 of the other to write
+as much as possible. Accordingly, tedious compilations
+and periodical magazines are the result of their joint
+endeavours. 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. His reputation
+never spreads in a wider circle than that of the
+trade, who generally value him, not for the fineness
+of his compositions, but the quantity he works off in
+a given time.</p>
+
+<p>"A long habit of writing for bread thus turns the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+ambition of every author at last into avarice. He finds
+that he has written many years, that the public are
+scarcely acquainted even with his name; he despairs of
+applause, and turns to profit, which invites him. He
+finds that money procures all those advantages, that
+respect, and that ease which he vainly expected from
+fame. Thus the man who, under the protection of the
+great, might have done honour to humanity, when only
+patronized by the bookseller, becomes a thing little
+superior to the fellow who works at the press."</p>
+
+<p>Nor was he afraid to attack the critics of his own
+day, though he knew that the two Reviews for which he
+had recently been writing would have something to say
+about his own <i>Enquiry</i>. This is how he disposes of
+the <i>Critical</i> and the <i>Monthly</i>: "We have two literary
+Reviews in London, with critical newspapers and magazines
+without number. The compilers of these resemble
+the commoners of Rome; they are all for levelling
+property, not by increasing their own, but by diminishing
+that of others. The man who has any good-nature
+in his disposition must, however, be somewhat
+displeased to see distinguished reputations often the
+sport of ignorance,&mdash;to see, by one false pleasantry,
+the future peace of a worthy man's life disturbed, and
+this only because he has unsuccessfully attempted to
+instruct or amuse us. Though ill-nature is far from
+being wit, yet it is generally laughed at as such. The
+critic enjoys the triumph, and ascribes to his parts what
+is only due to his effrontery. I fire with indignation,
+when I see persons wholly destitute of education and
+genius indent to the press, and thus turn book-makers,
+adding to the sin of criticism the sin of ignorance also;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+whose trade is a bad one, and who are bad workmen in
+the trade." Indeed there was a good deal of random
+hitting in the <i>Enquiry</i>, which was sure to provoke
+resentment. Why, for example, should he have gone
+out of his way to insult the highly respectable class
+of people who excel in mathematical studies? "This
+seems a science," he observes, "to which the meanest
+intellects are equal. I forget who it is that says 'All
+men might understand mathematics if they would.'"
+There was also in the first edition of the <i>Enquiry</i> a
+somewhat ungenerous attack on stage-managers, actors,
+actresses, and theatrical things in general; but this was
+afterwards wisely excised. It is not to be wondered
+at that, on the whole, the <i>Enquiry</i> should have been
+severely handled in certain quarters. Smollett, who
+reviewed it in the <i>Critical Review</i>, appears to have kept
+his temper pretty well for a Scotchman; but Kenrick,
+a hack employed by Griffiths to maltreat the book in
+the <i>Monthly Review</i>, flourished his bludgeon in a brave
+manner. The coarse personalities and malevolent insinuations
+of this bully no doubt hurt Goldsmith
+considerably; but, as we look at them now, they
+are only remarkable for their dulness. If Griffiths
+had had another Goldsmith to reply to Goldsmith,
+the retort would have been better worth reading: one
+can imagine the playful sarcasm that would have been
+dealt out to this new writer, who, in the very act of
+protesting against criticism, proclaimed himself a critic.
+But Goldsmiths are not always to be had when
+wanted; while Kenricks can be bought at any moment
+for a guinea or two a head.</p>
+
+<p>Goldsmith had not chosen literature as the occupation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+of his life; he had only fallen back on it, when other
+projects failed. But it is quite possible that now, as
+he began to take up some slight position as an author,
+the old ambition of distinguishing himself&mdash;which had
+flickered before his imagination from time to time&mdash;began
+to enter into his calculations along with the more
+pressing business of earning a livelihood. And he was
+soon to have an opportunity of appealing to a wider
+public than could have been expected for that erudite
+treatise on the arts of Europe. Mr. Wilkie, a bookseller
+in St. Paul's Churchyard, proposed to start a
+weekly magazine, price threepence, to contain essays,
+short stories, letters on the topics of the day, and so
+forth, more or less after the manner of the <i>Spectator</i>.
+He asked Goldsmith to become sole contributor. Here,
+indeed, was a very good opening; for, although there
+were many magazines in the field, the public had just
+then a fancy for literature in small doses; while Goldsmith,
+in entering into the competition, would not be
+hampered by the dulness of collaborateurs. He closed
+with Wilkie's offer; and on the 6th of October, 1759,
+appeared the first number of the <i>Bee</i>.</p>
+
+<p>For us now there is a curious autobiographical interest
+in the opening sentences of the first number; but surely
+even the public of the day must have imagined that the
+new writer who was now addressing them, was not to be
+confounded with the common herd of magazine-hacks.
+What could be more delightful than this odd mixture of
+modesty, humour, and an anxious desire to please?&mdash;"There
+is not, perhaps, a more whimsically dismal figure
+in nature than a man of real modesty, who assumes
+an air of impudence&mdash;who, while his heart beats with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+anxiety, studies ease and affects good-humour. In this
+situation, however, a periodical writer often finds himself
+upon his first attempt to address the public in form.
+All his power of pleasing is damped by solicitude, and
+his cheerfulness dashed with apprehension. Impressed
+with the terrors of the tribunal before which he is going
+to appear, his natural humour turns to pertness, and for
+real wit he is obliged to substitute vivacity. His first
+publication draws a crowd; they part dissatisfied; and
+the author, never more to be indulged with a favourable
+hearing, is left to condemn the indelicacy of his own
+address or their want of discernment. For my part, as I
+was never distinguished for address, and have often even
+blundered in making my bow, such bodings as these had
+like to have totally repressed my ambition. I was at a
+loss whether to give the public specious promises, or give
+none; whether to be merry or sad on this solemn occasion.
+If I should decline all merit, it was too probable
+the hasty reader might have taken me at my word. If,
+on the other hand, like labourers in the magazine trade,
+I had, with modest impudence, humbly presumed to
+promise an epitome of all the good things that ever were
+said or written, this might have disgusted those readers
+I most desire to please. Had I been merry, I might
+have been censured as vastly low; and had I been
+sorrowful, I might have been left to mourn in solitude
+and silence; in short, whichever way I turned, nothing
+presented but prospects of terror, despair, chandlers'
+shops, and waste paper."</p>
+
+<p>And it is just possible that if Goldsmith had kept to
+this vein of familiar <i>causerie</i>, the public might in time
+have been attracted by its quaintness. But no doubt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+Mr. Wilkie would have stared aghast; and so we find
+Goldsmith, as soon as his introductory bow is made,
+setting seriously about the business of magazine-making.
+Very soon, however, both Mr. Wilkie and his editor
+perceived that the public had not been taken by their
+venture. The chief cause of the failure, as it appears
+to any one who looks over the magazine now, would
+seem to be the lack of any definite purpose. There was
+no marked feature to arrest public attention, while
+many things were discarded on which the popularity
+of other periodicals had been based. There was no
+scandal to appeal to the key-hole and back-door
+element in human nature; there were no libels and
+gross personalities to delight the mean and envious;
+there were no fine airs of fashion to charm milliners
+anxious to know how the great talked, and posed, and
+dressed; and there was no solemn and pompous erudition
+to impress the minds of those serious and sensible
+people who buy literature as they buy butter, by its
+weight. At the beginning of No. IV. he admits that
+the new magazine has not been a success; and, in doing
+so, returns to that vein of whimsical, personal humour
+with which he had started: "Were I to measure the
+merit of my present undertaking by its success or the
+rapidity of its sale, I might be led to form conclusions
+by no means favourable to the pride of an author.
+Should I estimate my fame by its extent, every newspaper
+and magazine would leave me far behind. Their
+fame is diffused in a very wide circle&mdash;that of some as
+far as Islington, and some yet farther still; while mine,
+I sincerely believe, has hardly travelled beyond the
+sound of Bow Bell; and, while the works of others fly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+like unpinioned swans, I find my own move as heavily
+as a new-plucked goose. Still, however, I have as much
+pride as they who have ten times as many readers. It
+is impossible to repeat all the agreeable delusions in
+which a disappointed author is apt to find comfort. I
+conclude, that what my reputation wants in extent is
+made up by its solidity. <i>Minus juvat gloria lata quam
+magna.</i> I have great satisfaction in considering the
+delicacy and discernment of those readers I have, and in
+ascribing my want of popularity to the ignorance or
+inattention of those I have not. All the world may
+forsake an author, but vanity will never forsake him.
+Yet, notwithstanding so sincere a confession, I was once
+induced to show my indignation against the public, by
+discontinuing my endeavours to please; and was bravely
+resolved, like Raleigh, to vex them by burning my manuscript
+in a passion. Upon recollection, 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."</p>
+
+<p>Goldsmith was certainly more at home in this sort of
+writing, than in gravely lecturing people against the
+vice of gambling; in warning tradesmen how ill it
+became them to be seen at races; in demonstrating
+that justice is a higher virtue than generosity; and
+in proving that the avaricious are the true benefactors
+of society. But even as he confesses the failure
+of his new magazine, he seems determined to show the
+public what sort of writer this is, whom as yet they have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+not regarded too favourably. It is in No. IV. of the <i>Bee</i>
+that the famous <i>City Night Piece</i> occurs. No doubt
+that strange little fragment of description was the
+result of some sudden and aimless fancy, striking the
+occupant of the lonely garret in the middle of the
+night. The present tense, which he seldom used&mdash;and
+the abuse of which is one of the detestable vices of
+modern literature&mdash;adds to the mysterious solemnity of
+the recital:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The clock has just struck two, the expiring taper
+rises and sinks in the socket, the watchman forgets the
+hour in slumber, the laborious and the happy are at rest,
+and nothing wakes but meditation, guilt, revelry, and
+despair. The drunkard once more fills the destroying
+bowl, the robber walks his midnight round, and the
+suicide lifts his guilty arm against his own sacred
+person.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me no longer waste the night over the page of
+antiquity or the sallies of contemporary genius, but
+pursue the solitary walk, where Vanity, ever changing,
+but a few hours past walked before me&mdash;where she kept
+up the pageant, and now, like a froward child, seems
+hushed with her own importunities.</p>
+
+<p>"What a gloom hangs all around! The dying lamp
+feebly emits a yellow gleam; no sound is heard but of
+the chiming clock, or the distant watch-dog. All the
+bustle of human pride is forgotten; an hour like this
+may well display the emptiness of human vanity.</p>
+
+<p>"There will come a time, when this temporary solitude
+may be made continual, and the city itself, like its inhabitants,
+fade away, and leave a desert in its room.</p>
+
+<p>"What cities, as great as this, have once triumphed in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+existence, had their victories as great, joy as just and as
+unbounded; and, with short-sighted presumption, promised
+themselves immortality! Posterity can hardly
+trace the situation of some; the sorrowful traveller
+wanders over the awful ruins of others; and, as he
+beholds, he learns wisdom, and feels the transience of
+every sublunary possession.</p>
+
+<p>"'Here,' he cries, 'stood their citadel, now grown
+over with weeds; there their senate-house, but now the
+haunt of every noxious reptile; temples and theatres
+stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of ruin.
+They are fallen, for luxury and avarice first made them
+feeble. The rewards of the state were conferred on
+amusing, and not on useful, members of society. Their
+riches and opulence invited the invaders, who, though at
+first repulsed, returned again, conquered by perseverance,
+and at last swept the defendants into undistinguished
+destruction.'"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<h3>PERSONAL TRAITS.</h3>
+<p>The foregoing extracts will sufficiently show what
+were the chief characteristics of Goldsmith's writing
+at this time&mdash;the grace and ease of style, a gentle
+and sometimes pathetic thoughtfulness, and, above all,
+when he speaks in the first person, a delightful vein
+of humorous self-disclosure. Moreover, these qualities,
+if they were not immediately profitable to the
+booksellers, were beginning to gain for him the recognition
+of some of the well-known men of the day.
+Percy, afterwards Bishop of Dromore, had made his way
+to the miserable garret of the poor author. Smollett,
+whose novels Goldsmith preferred to his History, was
+anxious to secure his services as a contributor to the
+forthcoming <i>British Magazine</i>. Burke had spoken of
+the pleasure given him by Goldsmith's review of the
+<i>Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and
+Beautiful</i>. But, to crown all, the great Cham himself
+sought out this obscure author, who had on several
+occasions spoken with reverence and admiration of his
+works; and so began what is perhaps the most interesting
+literary friendship on record. At what precise
+date Johnson first made Goldsmith's acquaintance, is not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+known; Mr. Forster is right in assuming that they
+had met before the supper in Wine-Office Court, at
+which Mr. Percy was present. It is a thousand pities
+that Boswell had not by this time made his appearance
+in London. Johnson, Goldsmith, and all the rest of
+them are only ghosts until the pertinacious young laird
+of Auchinleck comes on the scene to give them colour,
+and life, and form. It is odd enough that the very first
+remarks of Goldsmith's which Boswell jotted down in
+his notebook, should refer to Johnson's systematic
+kindness towards the poor and wretched. "He had
+increased my admiration of the goodness of Johnson's
+heart by incidental remarks in the course of conversation,
+such as, when I mentioned Mr. Levett, whom
+he entertained under his roof, 'He is poor and honest,
+which is recommendation enough to Johnson'; and
+when I wondered that he was very kind to a man of
+whom I had heard a very bad character, 'He is now
+become miserable, and that ensures the protection of
+Johnson.'"</p>
+
+<p>For the rest, Boswell was not well-disposed towards
+Goldsmith, whom he regarded with a jealousy equal to
+his admiration of Johnson; but it is probable that his
+description of the personal appearance of the awkward
+and ungainly Irishman is in the main correct. And
+here also it may be said that Boswell's love of truth
+and accuracy compelled him to make this admission:
+"It has been generally circulated and believed that he
+(Goldsmith) was a mere fool in conversation; but, in
+truth, this has been greatly exaggerated." On this exaggeration&mdash;seeing
+that the contributor to the <i>British
+Magazine</i> and the <i>Public Ledger</i> was now becoming better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+known among his fellow authors&mdash;a word or two may
+fitly be said here. It pleased Goldsmith's contemporaries,
+who were not all of them celebrated for their
+ready wit, to regard him as a hopeless and incurable
+fool, who by some strange chance could produce literature,
+the merits of which he could not himself understand.
+To Horace Walpole we owe the phrase which
+describes Goldsmith as an "inspired idiot." Innumerable
+stories are told of Goldsmith's blunders; of his
+forced attempts to shine in conversation; of poor Poll
+talking nonsense, when all the world was wondering
+at the beauty of his writing. In one case we are told he
+was content to admit, when dictated to, that this, and
+not that, was what he really had meant in a particular
+phrase. Now there can be no question that Goldsmith,
+conscious of his pitted face, his brogue, and his
+ungainly figure, was exceedingly nervous and sensitive
+in society, and was anxious, as such people mostly are,
+to cover his shyness by an appearance of ease, if
+not even of swagger; and there can be as little question
+that he occasionally did and said very awkward and
+blundering things. But our Japanese friend, whom we
+mentioned in our opening pages, looking through the
+record that is preserved to us of those blunders
+which are supposed to be most conclusive as to
+this aspect of Goldsmith's character, would certainly
+stare. "Good heavens," he would cry, "did men ever
+live who were so thick-headed as not to see the humour
+of this or that 'blunder'; or were they so beset with
+the notion that Goldsmith was only a fool, that they
+must needs be blind?" Take one well-known instance.
+He goes to France with Mrs. Horneck and her two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+daughters, the latter very handsome young ladies. At
+Lille the two girls and Goldsmith are standing at
+the window of the hotel, overlooking the square in
+which are some soldiers; and naturally the beautiful
+young Englishwomen attract some attention. Thereupon
+Goldsmith turns indignantly away, remarking that
+elsewhere he also has his admirers. Now what surgical
+instrument was needed to get this harmless little joke
+into any sane person's head? Boswell may perhaps be
+pardoned for pretending to take the incident <i>au s&eacute;rieux</i>;
+for as has just been said, in his profound adoration of
+Johnson, he was devoured by jealousy of Goldsmith;
+but that any other mortal should have failed to see
+what was meant by this little bit of humorous flattery
+is almost incredible. No wonder that one of the sisters
+afterwards referring to this "playful jest," should have
+expressed her astonishment at finding it put down as a
+proof of Goldsmith's envious disposition. But even after
+that disclaimer, we find Mr. Croker, as quoted by Mr.
+Forster, solemnly doubting "whether the vexation so
+seriously exhibited by Goldsmith was real or assumed"!</p>
+
+<p>Of course this is an extreme case; but there are others
+very similar. "He affected," says Hawkins, "Johnson's
+style and manner of conversation, and, when he had
+uttered, as he often would, a laboured sentence, so
+tumid as to be scarce intelligible, would ask if that was
+not truly Johnsonian?" Is it not truly dismal to find
+such an utterance coming from a presumably reasonable
+human being? It is not to be wondered at that Goldsmith
+grew shy&mdash;and in some cases had to ward off the
+acquaintance of certain of his neighbours as being too
+intrusive&mdash;if he ran the risk of having his odd and grave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+humours so densely mistranslated. The fact is this,
+that Goldsmith was possessed of a very subtle quality
+of humour, which is at all times rare, but which is
+perhaps more frequently to be found in Irishmen
+than among other folks. It consists in the satire of the
+pretence and pomposities of others by means of a sort
+of exaggerated and playful self-depreciation. It is a
+most delicate and most delightful form of humour; but
+it is very apt to be misconstrued by the dull. Who
+can doubt that Goldsmith was good-naturedly laughing
+at himself, his own plain face, his vanity, and
+his blunders, when he professed to be jealous of the
+admiration excited by the Miss Hornecks; when he
+gravely drew attention to the splendid colours of his
+coat; or when he no less gravely informed a company of
+his friends that he had heard a very good story, but
+would not repeat it, because they would be sure to miss
+the point of it?</p>
+
+<p>This vein of playful and sarcastic self-depreciation is
+continually cropping up in his essay writing, as, for
+example, in the passage already quoted from No. IV.
+of the <i>Bee</i>: "I conclude, that what my reputation
+wants in extent, is made up by its solidity. <i>Minus
+juvat gloria lata quam magna</i>. I have great satisfaction
+in considering the delicacy and discernment
+of those readers I have, and in ascribing my want of
+popularity to the ignorance or inattention of those I
+have not." But here, no doubt, he remembers that he
+is addressing the world at large, which contains many
+foolish persons; and so, that the delicate raillery may
+not be mistaken, he immediately adds, "All the world
+may forsake an author, but vanity will never forsake<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+him." That he expected a quicker apprehension on the
+part of his intimates and acquaintances, and that he
+was frequently disappointed, seems pretty clear from
+those very stories of his "blunders." We may reasonably
+suspect, at all events, that Goldsmith was not quite so
+much of a fool as he looked; and it is far from improbable
+that when the ungainly Irishman was called in to make
+sport for the Philistines&mdash;and there were a good many
+Philistines in those days, if all stories be true&mdash;and
+when they imagined they had put him out of
+countenance, he was really standing aghast, and
+wondering how it could have pleased Providence to
+create such helpless stupidity.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Citizen of the World.&mdash;Beau Nash.</h3>
+<p>Meanwhile, to return to his literary work, the <i>Citizen
+of the World</i> had grown out of his contributions to the
+<i>Public Ledger</i>, a daily newspaper started by Mr. Newbery,
+another bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard.
+Goldsmith was engaged to write for this paper two
+letters a week at a guinea a-piece; and these letters
+were, after a short time (1760), written in the character of
+a Chinese who had come to study European civilisation.
+It may be noted that Goldsmith had in the <i>Monthly
+Review</i>, in mentioning Voltaire's memoirs of French
+writers, quoted a passage about Montesquieu's <i>Lettres
+Persanes</i> as follows: "It is written in imitation of
+the <i>Siamese Letters</i> of Du Freny and of the <i>Turkish
+Spy</i>; but it is an imitation which shows what the
+originals should have been. The success their works
+met with was, for the most part, owing to the foreign
+air of their performances; the success of the <i>Persian
+Letters</i> arose from the delicacy of their satire. That
+satire which in the mouth of an Asiatic is poignant,
+would lose all its force when coming from an European."
+And it must certainly be said that the charm of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+strictures of the <i>Citizen of the World</i> lies wholly in their
+delicate satire, and not at all in any foreign air which
+the author may have tried to lend to these performances.
+The disguise is very apparent. In those garrulous,
+vivacious, whimsical, and sometimes serious
+papers, Lien Chi Altangi, writing to Fum Hoam in
+Pekin, does not so much describe the aspects of European
+civilisation which would naturally surprise a Chinese,
+as he expresses the dissatisfaction of a European with
+certain phases of the civilisation visible everywhere
+around him. It is not a Chinaman, but a Fleet-Street
+author by profession, who resents the competition of
+noble amateurs whose works&mdash;otherwise bitter pills
+enough&mdash;are gilded by their titles:&mdash;"A nobleman has
+but to take a pen, ink, and paper, write away through
+three large volumes, and then sign his name to the title-page;
+though the whole might have been before more
+disgusting than his own rent-roll, yet signing his name
+and title gives value to the deed, title being alone equivalent
+to taste, imagination, and genius. As soon as a
+piece, therefore, is published, the first questions are&mdash;Who
+is the author? Does he keep a coach? Where
+lies his estate? What sort of a table does he keep?
+If he happens to be poor and unqualified for such a
+scrutiny, he and his works sink into irremediable
+obscurity, and too late he finds, that having fed upon
+turtle is a more ready way to fame than having digested
+Tully. The poor devil against whom fashion has set its
+face vainly alleges that he has been bred in every part
+of Europe where knowledge was to be sold; that he has
+grown pale in the study of nature and himself. His
+works may please upon the perusal, but his pretensions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+to fame are entirely disregarded. He is treated like a
+fiddler, whose music, though liked, is not much praised,
+because he lives by it; while a gentleman performer,
+though the most wretched scraper alive, throws the
+audience into raptures. The fiddler, indeed, may in
+such a case console himself by thinking, that while the
+other goes off with all the praise, he runs away with all
+the money. But here the parallel drops; for while the
+nobleman triumphs in unmerited applause, the author
+by profession steals off with&mdash;nothing."</p>
+
+<p>At the same time it must be allowed that the utterance
+of these strictures through the mouth of a Chinese admits
+of a certain <i>na&iuml;vet&eacute;</i>, which on occasion heightens the sarcasm.
+Lien Chi accompanies the Man in Black to a
+theatre to see an English play. Here is part of the
+performance:&mdash;"I was going to second his remarks,
+when my attention was engrossed by a new object; a
+man came in balancing a straw upon his nose, and the
+audience were clapping their hands in all the raptures of
+applause. 'To what purpose,' cried I, 'does this unmeaning
+figure make his appearance? is he a part of
+the plot?'&mdash;'Unmeaning do you call him?' replied my
+friend in black; 'this is one of the most important
+characters of the whole play; nothing pleases the
+people more than seeing a straw balanced: there is a
+great deal of meaning in a straw: there is something
+suited to every apprehension in the sight; and a fellow
+possessed of talents like these is sure of making his
+fortune.' The third act now began with an actor who
+came to inform us that he was the villain of the play,
+and intended to show strange things before all was
+over. He was joined by another who seemed as much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+disposed for mischief as he; their intrigues continued
+through this whole division. 'If that be a villain,'
+said I, 'he must be a very stupid one to tell his secrets
+without being asked; such soliloquies of late are never
+admitted in China.' The noise of clapping interrupted
+me once more; a child six years old was learning to
+dance on the stage, which gave the ladies and mandarins
+infinite satisfaction. 'I am sorry,' said I, 'to see the
+pretty creature so early learning so bad a trade; dancing
+being, I presume, as contemptible here as in China.'&mdash;'Quite
+the reverse,' interrupted my companion; 'dancing
+is a very reputable and genteel employment here; men
+have a greater chance for encouragement from the merit
+of their heels than their heads. One who jumps up and
+nourishes his toes three times before he comes to the
+ground may have three hundred a year: he who
+flourishes them four times, gets four hundred; but he
+who arrives at five is inestimable, and may demand
+what salary he thinks proper. The female dancers,
+too, are valued for this sort of jumping and crossing;
+and it is a cant word amongst them, that she deserves
+most who shows highest. But the fourth act is begun;
+let us be attentive.'"</p>
+
+<p>The Man in Black here mentioned is one of the
+notable features of this series of papers. The mysterious
+person whose acquaintance the Chinaman made
+in Westminster Abbey, and who concealed such a
+wonderful goodness of heart under a rough and forbidding
+exterior, is a charming character indeed; and
+it is impossible to praise too highly the vein of subtle
+sarcasm in which he preaches worldly wisdom. But to
+assume that any part of his history which he disclosed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+to the Chinaman was a piece of autobiographical
+writing on the part of Goldsmith, is a very hazardous
+thing. A writer of fiction must necessarily use such
+materials as have come within his own experience; and
+Goldsmith's experience&mdash;or his use of those materials&mdash;was
+extremely limited: witness how often a pet fancy,
+like his remembrance of <i>Johnny Armstrong's Last Good
+Night</i>, is repeated. "That of these simple elements,"
+writes Professor Masson, in his <i>Memoir of Goldsmith</i>,
+prefixed to an edition of his works, "he made so many
+charming combinations, really differing from each other,
+and all, though suggested by fact, yet hung so sweetly
+in an ideal air, proved what an artist he was, and was
+better than much that is commonly called invention.
+In short, if there is a sameness of effect in Goldsmith's
+writings, it is because they consist of poetry and truth,
+humour and pathos, from his own life, and the supply
+from such a life as his was not inexhaustible."</p>
+
+<p>The question of invention is easily disposed of. Any
+child can invent a world transcending human experience
+by the simple combination of ideas which are in themselves
+incongruous&mdash;a world in which the horses have
+each five feet, in which the grass is blue and the sky
+green, in which seas are balanced on the peaks of
+mountains. The result is unbelievable and worthless.
+But the writer of imaginative literature uses his own
+experiences and the experiences of others, so that his
+combination of ideas in themselves compatible shall
+appear so natural and believable that the reader&mdash;although
+these incidents and characters never did
+actually exist&mdash;is as much interested in them as if they
+had existed. The mischief of it is that the reader<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+sometimes thinks himself very clever, and, recognising
+a little bit of the story as having happened to the
+author, jumps to the conclusion that such and such a
+passage is necessarily autobiographical. Hence it is
+that Goldsmith has been hastily identified with the
+Philosophic Vagabond in the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>, and
+with the Man in Black in the <i>Citizen of the World</i>.
+That he may have used certain experiences in the one,
+and that he may perhaps have given in the other a sort
+of fancy sketch of a person suggested by some trait in
+his own character, is possible enough; but further
+assertion of likeness is impossible. That the Man in
+Black had one of Goldsmith's little weaknesses is
+obvious enough: we find him just a trifle too conscious
+of his own kindliness and generosity. The Vicar
+of Wakefield himself is not without a spice of this
+amiable vanity. As for Goldsmith, every one must
+remember his reply to Griffiths' accusation: "No, sir,
+had I been a sharper, <i>had I been possessed of less good
+nature and native generosity</i>, I might surely now have
+been in better circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>The Man in Black, in any case, is a delightful character.
+We detect the warm and generous nature even in his pretence
+of having acquired worldly wisdom: "I now therefore
+pursued a course of uninterrupted frugality, seldom
+wanted a dinner, and was consequently invited to
+twenty. I soon began to get the character of a saving
+hunks that had money, and insensibly grew into esteem.
+Neighbours have asked my advice in the disposal of
+their daughters; and I have always taken care not to
+give any. I have contracted a friendship with an
+alderman, only by observing, that if we take a farthing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+from a thousand pounds it will be a thousand pounds
+no longer. I have been invited to a pawnbroker's
+table, by pretending to hate gravy; and am now
+actually upon treaty of marriage with a rich widow,
+for only having observed that the bread was rising.
+If ever I am asked a question, whether I know
+it or not, instead of answering, I only smile and look
+wise. If a charity is proposed I go about with the
+hat, but put nothing in myself. If a wretch solicits my
+pity, I observe that the world is filled with impostors,
+and take a certain method of not being deceived by
+never relieving. In short, I now find the truest way
+of finding esteem, even from the indigent, is to give
+away nothing, and thus have much in our power to
+give." This is a very clever piece of writing, whether
+it is in strict accordance with the character of the Man
+in Black, or not. But there is in these <i>Public Ledger</i>
+papers another sketch of character, which is not only
+consistent in itself, and in every way admirable, but is
+of still further interest to us when we remember that
+at this time the various personages in the <i>Vicar of
+Wakefield</i> were no doubt gradually assuming definite
+form in Goldsmith's mind. It is in the figure of Mr.
+Tibbs, introduced apparently at haphazard, but at once
+taking possession of us by its quaint relief, that we
+find Goldsmith showing a firmer hand in character-drawing.
+With a few happy dramatic touches Mr.
+Tibbs starts into life; he speaks for himself; he becomes
+one of the people whom we know. And yet,
+with this concise and sharp portraiture of a human
+being, look at the graceful, almost garrulous, ease of the
+style:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Our pursuer soon came up and joined us with all
+the familiarity of an old acquaintance. 'My dear
+Drybone,' cries he, shaking my friend's hand, 'where
+have you been hiding this half a century? Positively
+I had fancied you were gone to cultivate matrimony
+and your estate in the country.' During the reply I
+had an opportunity of surveying the appearance of our
+new companion: his hat was pinched up with peculiar
+smartness; his looks were pale, thin, and sharp; round
+his neck he wore a broad black riband, and in his
+bosom a buckle studded with glass; his coat was
+trimmed with tarnished twist; he wore by his side a
+sword with a black hilt; and his stockings of silk,
+though newly washed, were grown yellow by long
+service. I was so much engaged with the peculiarity
+of his dress, that I attended only to the latter part of
+my friend's reply, in which he complimented Mr. Tibbs
+on the taste of his clothes and the bloom in his countenance.
+'Pshaw, pshaw, Will,' cried the figure, 'no
+more of that, if you love me: you know I hate flattery,&mdash;on
+my soul I do; and yet, to be sure, an intimacy
+with the great will improve one's appearance, and a
+course of venison will fatten; and yet, faith, I despise
+the great as much as you do; but there are a great
+many damn'd honest fellows among them, and we must
+not quarrel with one half, because the other wants
+weeding. If they were all such as my Lord Mudler, one
+of the most good-natured creatures that ever squeezed
+a lemon, I should myself be among the number of their
+admirers. I was yesterday to dine at the Duchess
+of Piccadilly's. My lord was there. "Ned," says
+he to me, "Ned," says he, "I'll hold gold to silver,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+I can tell you where you were poaching last night."
+"Poaching, my lord?" says I: "faith, you have
+missed already; for I staid at home and let the girls
+poach for me. That's my way: I take a fine woman
+as some animals do their prey&mdash;stand still, and, swoop,
+they fall into my mouth."' 'Ah, Tibbs, thou art a
+happy fellow,' cried my companion, with looks of
+infinite pity; 'I hope your fortune is as much improved
+as your understanding, in such company?'
+'Improved!' replied the other: 'you shall know,&mdash;but
+let it go no farther&mdash;a great secret&mdash;five hundred
+a year to begin with&mdash;my lord's word of honour for it.
+His lordship took me down in his own chariot yesterday,
+and we had a <i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</i> dinner in the country, where
+we talked of nothing else.'&mdash;'I fancy you forget, sir,'
+cried I; 'you told us but this moment of your dining
+yesterday in town.'&mdash;'Did I say so?' replied he,
+coolly; 'to be sure, if I said so, it was so. Dined in
+town! egad, now I do remember, I did dine in town;
+but I dined in the country too; for you must know,
+my boys, I ate two dinners. By the bye, I am grown
+as nice as the devil in my eating. I'll tell you a
+pleasant affair about that: we were a select party of
+us to dine at Lady Grogram's,&mdash;an affected piece, but
+let it go no farther&mdash;a secret.&mdash;Well, there happened
+to be no asaf&oelig;tida in the sauce to a turkey, upon which,
+says I, I'll hold a thousand guineas, and say done, first,
+that&mdash;But, dear Drybone, you are an honest creature;
+lend me half-a-crown for a minute or two, or so, just
+till &mdash;&mdash;; but hearkee, ask me for it the next time
+we meet, or it may be twenty to one but I forget to
+pay you.'"</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Returning from those performances to the author of
+them, we find him a busy man of letters, becoming more
+and more in request among the booksellers, and obtaining
+recognition among his fellow-writers. He had moved
+into better lodgings in Wine Office Court (1760-2); and it
+was here that he entertained at supper, as has already
+been mentioned, no less distinguished guests than
+Bishop, then Mr., Percy, and Dr., then Mr., Johnson.
+Every one has heard of the surprise of Percy, on calling
+for Johnson, to find the great Cham dressed with quite
+unusual smartness. On asking the cause of this
+"singular transformation," Johnson replied, "Why,
+sir, I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven,
+justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by
+quoting my practice; and I am desirous this night to
+show him a better example." That Goldsmith profited
+by this example&mdash;though the tailors did not&mdash;is clear
+enough. At times, indeed, he blossomed out into the
+splendours of a dandy; and laughed at himself for
+doing so. But whether he was in gorgeous or in mean
+attire, he remained the same sort of happy-go-lucky
+creature; working hard by fits and starts; continually
+getting money in advance from the booksellers; enjoying
+the present hour; and apparently happy enough when
+not pressed by debt. That he should have been thus
+pressed was no necessity of the case; at all events we
+need not on this score begin now to abuse the booksellers
+or the public of that day. We may dismiss once
+for all the oft-repeated charges of ingratitude and neglect.</p>
+
+<p>When Goldsmith was writing those letters in the <i>Public
+Ledger</i>&mdash;with "pleasure and instruction for others,"
+Mr. Forster says, "though at the cost of suffering to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+himself"&mdash;he was receiving for them alone what would
+be equivalent in our day to &pound;200 a year. No man can
+affirm that &pound;200 a year is not amply sufficient for all the
+material wants of life. Of course there are fine things in
+the world that that amount of annual wage cannot purchase.
+It is a fine thing to sit on the deck of a yacht on
+a summer's day, and watch the far islands shining over the
+blue; it is a fine thing to drive four-in-hand to Ascot&mdash;if
+you can do it; it is a fine thing to cower breathless
+behind a rock and find a splendid stag coming slowly
+within sure range. But these things are not necessary
+to human happiness: it is possible to do without them
+and yet not "suffer." Even if Goldsmith had given
+half of his substance away to the poor, there was enough
+left to cover all the necessary wants of a human being;
+and if he chose so to order his affairs as to incur the
+suffering of debt, why, that was his own business,
+about which nothing further needs be said. It is to be
+suspected, indeed, that he did not care to practise those
+excellent maxims of prudence and frugality which he
+frequently preached; but the world is not much concerned
+about that now. If Goldsmith had received ten
+times as much money as the booksellers gave him, he
+would still have died in debt. And it is just possible
+that we may exaggerate Goldsmith's sensitiveness on
+this score. He had had a life-long familiarity with
+duns and borrowing; and seemed very contented when
+the exigency of the hour was tided over. An angry
+landlady is unpleasant, and an arrest is awkward; but
+in comes an opportune guinea, and the bottle of Madeira
+is opened forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>In these rooms in Wine Office Court, and at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+suggestion or entreaty of Newbery, Goldsmith produced
+a good deal of miscellaneous writing&mdash;pamphlets, tracts,
+compilations, and what not&mdash;of a more or less marketable
+kind. It can only be surmised that by this time
+he may have formed some idea of producing a book not
+solely meant for the market, and that the characters in
+the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i> were already engaging his attention;
+but the surmise becomes probable enough when
+we remember that his project of writing the <i>Traveller</i>,
+which was not published till 1764, had been formed as
+far back as 1755, while he was wandering aimlessly
+about Europe, and that a sketch of the poem was actually
+forwarded by him then to his brother Henry in Ireland.
+But in the meantime this hack-work, and the habits of
+life connected with it, began to tell on Goldsmith's
+health; and so, for a time, he left London (1762), and
+went to Tunbridge and then to Bath. It is scarcely
+possible that his modest fame had preceded him to the
+latter place of fashion; but it may be that the distinguished
+folk of the town received this friend of the great
+Dr. Johnson with some small measure of distinction;
+for we find that his next published work, <i>The Life of
+Richard Nash, Esq.</i>, is respectfully dedicated to the
+Right Worshipful the Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen, and
+Common Council of the City of Bath. The Life of the
+recently deceased Master of Ceremonies was published
+anonymously (1762); but it was generally understood to
+be Goldsmith's; and indeed the secret of the authorship
+is revealed in every successive line. Among the
+minor writings of Goldsmith there is none more delightful
+than this: the mock-heroic gravity, the half-familiar
+contemptuous good-nature with which he composes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+this Funeral March of a Marionette, are extremely
+whimsical and amusing. And then what an admirable
+picture we get of fashionable English society in the
+beginning of the eighteenth century, when Bath and
+Nash were alike in the heyday of their glory&mdash;the fine
+ladies with their snuff-boxes, and their passion for play,
+and their extremely effective language when they got
+angry; young bucks come to flourish away their money,
+and gain by their losses the sympathy of the fair;
+sharpers on the look-out for guineas, and adventurers
+on the look-out for weak-minded heiresses; duchesses
+writing letters in the most doubtful English, and chair-men
+swearing at any one who dared to walk home on
+foot at night.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt the <i>Life of Beau Nash</i> was a bookseller's
+book; and it was made as attractive as possible by the
+recapitulation of all sorts of romantic stories about
+Miss S&mdash;&mdash;n, and Mr. C&mdash;&mdash;e, and Captain K&mdash;&mdash;g;
+but throughout we find the historian very much inclined
+to laugh at his hero, and only refraining now and
+again in order to record in serious language traits
+indicative of the real goodness of disposition of that fop
+and gambler. And the fine ladies and gentlemen, who
+lived in that atmosphere of scandal, and intrigue, and
+gambling, are also from time to time treated to a little
+decorous and respectful raillery. Who does not remember
+the famous laws of polite breeding written out
+by Mr. Nash&mdash;Goldsmith hints that neither Mr. Nash
+nor his fair correspondent at Blenheim, the Duchess of
+Marlborough, excelled in English composition&mdash;for the
+guidance of the ladies and gentlemen who were under
+the sway of the King of Bath? "But were we to give<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+laws to a nursery, we should make them childish laws,"
+Goldsmith writes gravely. "His statutes, though stupid,
+were addressed to fine gentlemen and ladies, and were
+probably received with sympathetic approbation. It is
+certain they were in general religiously observed by his
+subjects, and executed by him with impartiality; neither
+rank nor fortune shielded the refractory from his resentment."
+Nash, however, was not content with prose
+in enforcing good manners. Having waged deadly war
+against the custom of wearing boots, and having found
+his ordinary armoury of no avail against the obduracy
+of the country squires, he assailed them in the impassioned
+language of poetry, and produced the following
+"Invitation to the Assembly," which, as Goldsmith
+remarks, was highly relished by the nobility at Bath on
+account of its keenness, severity, and particularly its
+good rhymes.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"Come, one and all, to Hoyden Hall,<br />
+</span>
+<span class="i0">For there's the assembly this night;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">None but prude fools<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Mind manners and rules;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We Hoydens do decency slight.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Come, trollops and slatterns,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cocked hats and white aprons,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This best our modesty suits;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For why should not we<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In dress be as free<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As Hogs-Norton squires in boots?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The sarcasm was too much for the squires, who yielded
+in a body; and when any stranger through inadvertence
+presented himself in the assembly-rooms in boots, Nash
+was so completely master of the situation that he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+politely step up to the intruder and suggest that he had
+forgotten his horse.</p>
+
+<p>Goldsmith does not magnify the intellectual capacity
+of his hero; but he gives him credit for a sort of
+rude wit that was sometimes effective enough. His
+physician, for example, having called on him to see
+whether he had followed a prescription that had been
+sent him the previous day, was greeted in this fashion:
+"Followed your prescription? No. Egad, if I had,
+I should have broken my neck, for I flung it out
+of the two pair of stairs window." For the rest, this
+diverting biography contains some excellent warnings
+against the vice of gambling; with a particular account
+of the manner in which the Government of the day tried
+by statute after statute to suppress the tables at Tunbridge
+and Bath, thereby only driving the sharpers to
+new subterfuges. That the Beau was in alliance with
+sharpers, or, at least, that he was a sleeping partner in
+the firm, his biographer admits; but it is urged on his
+behalf that he was the most generous of winners, and
+again and again interfered to prevent the ruin of some
+gambler by whose folly he would himself have profited.
+His constant charity was well known; the money so
+lightly come by was at the disposal of any one who
+could prefer a piteous tale. Moreover he made no
+scruple about exacting from others that charity which
+they could well afford. One may easily guess who was
+the duchess mentioned in the following story of Goldsmith's
+narration:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The sums he gave and collected for the Hospital were
+great, and his manner of doing it was no less admirable.
+I am told that he was once collecting money in Wilt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>shire's
+room for that purpose, when a lady entered, who
+is more remarkable for her wit than her charity, and
+not being able to pass by him unobserved, she gave him
+a pat with her fan, and said, 'You must put down a
+trifle for me, Nash, for I have no money in my pocket.'
+'Yes, madam,' says he, 'that I will with pleasure, if
+your grace will tell me when to stop;' then taking an
+handful of guineas out of his pocket, he began to tell
+them into his white hat&mdash;' One, two, three, four,
+five &mdash;&mdash;' 'Hold, hold!' says the duchess, 'consider
+what you are about.' 'Consider your rank and fortune,
+madam,' says Nash, and continues telling&mdash;'six, seven,
+eight, nine, ten.' Here the duchess called again, and
+seemed angry. 'Pray compose yourself, madam,' cried
+Nash, 'and don't interrupt the work of charity,&mdash;eleven,
+twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.' Here the duchess
+stormed, and caught hold of his hand. 'Peace, madam,'
+says Nash, 'you shall have your name written in letters
+of gold, madam, and upon the front of the building,
+madam,&mdash;sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty.'
+'I won't pay a farthing more,' says the duchess.
+'Charity hides a multitude of sins,' replies Nash,&mdash;'twenty-one,
+twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four,
+twenty-five.' 'Nash,' says she, 'I protest you frighten
+me out of my wits. L&mdash;d, I shall die!' 'Madam,
+you will never die with doing good; and if you do, it
+will be the better for you,' answered Nash, and was
+about to proceed; but perceiving her grace had lost all
+patience, a parley ensued, when he, after much altercation,
+agreed to stop his hand and compound with her
+grace for thirty guineas. The duchess, however, seemed
+displeased the whole evening, and when he came to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+table where she was playing, bid him, 'Stand farther,
+an ugly devil, for she hated the sight of him.' But her
+grace afterwards having a run of good luck, called Nash
+to her. 'Come,' says she, 'I will be friends with you,
+though you are a fool; and to let you see I am not
+angry, there is ten guineas more for your charity. But
+this I insist on, that neither my name nor the sum shall
+be mentioned.'"</p></div>
+
+<p>At the ripe age of eighty-seven the "beau of three
+generations" breathed his last (1761); and, though he
+had fallen into poor ways, there were those alive who
+remembered his former greatness, and who chronicled
+it in a series of epitaphs and poetical lamentations.
+"One thing is common almost with all of them," says
+Goldsmith, "and that is that Venus, Cupid, and the
+Graces are commanded to weep, and that Bath shall
+never find such another." These effusions are forgotten
+now; and so would Beau Nash be also, but for this
+biography, which, no doubt meant merely for the book-market
+of the day, lives and is of permanent value by
+reason of the charm of its style, its pervading humour,
+and the vivacity of its descriptions of the fashionable
+follies of the eighteenth century. <i>Nullum fere genus
+scribendi non tetigit. Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.</i>
+Who but Goldsmith could have written so delightful
+a book about such a poor creature as Beau Nash?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Arrest.</h3>
+<p>It was no doubt owing to Newbery that Goldsmith,
+after his return to London, was induced to abandon,
+temporarily or altogether, his apartments in Wine Office
+Court, and take lodgings in the house of a Mrs. Fleming,
+who lived somewhere or other in Islington. Newbery
+had rooms in Canonbury House, a curious old building
+that still exists; and it may have occurred to the
+publisher that Goldsmith, in this suburban district,
+would not only be nearer him for consultation and so
+forth, but also might pay more attention to his duties
+than when he was among the temptations of Fleet Street.
+Goldsmith was working industriously in the service of
+Newbery at this time (1763-4); in fact, so completely was
+the bookseller in possession of the hack, that Goldsmith's
+board and lodging in Mrs. Fleming's house, arranged for
+at &pound;50 a year, was paid by Newbery himself. Writing
+prefaces, revising new editions, contributing reviews&mdash;this
+was the sort of work he undertook, with more or
+less content, as the equivalent of the modest sums Mr.
+Newbery disbursed for him or handed over as pocket-money.
+In the midst of all this drudgery he was
+now secretly engaged on work that aimed at something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+higher than mere payment of bed and board. The
+smooth lines of the <i>Traveller</i> were receiving further
+polish; the gentle-natured <i>Vicar</i> was writing his simple,
+quaint, tender story. And no doubt Goldsmith was
+spurred to try something better than hack-work by the
+associations that he was now forming, chiefly under the
+wise and benevolent friendship of Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>Anxious always to be thought well of, he was now beginning
+to meet people whose approval was worthy of being
+sought. He had been introduced to Reynolds. He had
+become the friend of Hogarth. He had even made the
+acquaintance of Mr. Boswell, from Scotland. Moreover,
+he had been invited to become one of the original members
+of the famous Club of which so much has been written;
+his fellow-members being Reynolds, Johnson, Burke,
+Hawkins, Beauclerk, Bennet Langton, and Dr. Nugent.
+It is almost certain that it was at Johnson's instigation
+that he had been admitted into this choice fellowship.
+Long before either the <i>Traveller</i> or the <i>Vicar</i> had
+been heard of, Johnson had perceived the literary genius
+that obscurely burned in the uncouth figure of this
+Irishman; and was anxious to impress on others Goldsmith's
+claims to respect and consideration. In the
+minute record kept by Boswell of his first evening with
+Johnson at the Mitre Tavern, we find Johnson saying,
+"Dr. Goldsmith is one of the first men we now have as
+an author, and he is a very worthy man too. He has
+been loose in his principles, but he is coming right."
+Johnson took walks with Goldsmith; did him the honour
+of disputing with him on all occasions; bought a copy of
+the <i>Life of Nash</i> when it appeared&mdash;an unusual compliment
+for one author to pay another, in their day or in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+ours; allowed him to call on Miss Williams, the blind old
+lady in Bolt Court; and generally was his friend, counsellor,
+and champion. Accordingly, when Mr. Boswell
+entertained the great Cham to supper at the Mitre&mdash;a
+sudden quarrel with his landlord having made it impossible
+for him to order the banquet at his own house&mdash;he
+was careful to have Dr. Goldsmith of the company.
+His guests that evening were Johnson, Goldsmith, Davies
+(the actor and bookseller who had conferred on Boswell
+the invaluable favour of an introduction to Johnson),
+Mr. Eccles, and the Rev. Mr. Ogilvie, a Scotch poet
+who deserves our gratitude because it was his inopportune
+patriotism that provoked, on this very evening,
+the memorable epigram about the high-road leading to
+England. "Goldsmith," says Boswell, who had not
+got over his envy at Goldsmith's being allowed to visit
+the blind old pensioner in Bolt-court, "as usual, endeavoured
+with too much eagerness to <i>shine</i>, and disputed
+very warmly with Johnson against the well-known
+maxim of the British constitution, 'The king can do no
+wrong.'" It was a dispute not so much about facts as
+about phraseology; and, indeed, there seems to be no
+great warmth in the expressions used on either side.
+Goldsmith affirmed that "what was morally false could
+not be politically true;" and that, in short, the king
+could by the misuse of his regal power do wrong.
+Johnson replied, that, in such a case, the immediate
+agents of the king were the persons to be tried and
+punished for the offence. "The king, though he should
+command, cannot force a judge to condemn a man
+unjustly; therefore it is the judge whom we prosecute
+and punish." But when he stated that the king "is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+above everything, and there is no power by which he can
+be tried," he was surely forgetting an important chapter
+in English history. "What did Cromwell do for his
+country?" he himself asked, during his subsequent visit
+to Scotland, of old Auchinleck, Boswell's father. "God,
+Doctor," replied the vile Whig, "<i>he garred kings ken
+they had a lith in their necks</i>."</p>
+
+<p>For some time after this evening Goldsmith drops
+out of Boswell's famous memoir; perhaps the compiler
+was not anxious to give him too much prominence.
+They had not liked each other from the outset.
+Boswell, vexed by the greater intimacy of Goldsmith
+with Johnson, called him a blunderer, a feather-brained
+person; and described his appearance in no flattering
+terms. Goldsmith, on the other hand, on being asked
+who was this Scotch cur that followed Johnson's heels,
+answered, "He is not a cur: you are too severe&mdash;he is
+only a bur. Tom Davies flung him at Johnson in sport,
+and he has the faculty of sticking." Boswell would
+probably have been more tolerant of Goldsmith as a
+rival, if he could have known that on a future day he
+was to have Johnson all to himself&mdash;to carry him to
+remote wilds and exhibit him as a portentous literary
+phenomenon to Highland lairds. It is true that
+Johnson, at an early period of his acquaintance with
+Boswell, did talk vaguely about a trip to the Hebrides;
+but the young Scotch idolater thought it was all too
+good to be true. The mention of Sir James Macdonald,
+says Boswell, "led us to talk of the Western Islands
+of Scotland, to visit which he expressed a wish that
+then appeared to me a very romantic fancy, which I
+little thought would be afterwards realised. He told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+me that his father had put Martin's account of those
+islands into his hands when he was very young, and
+that he was highly pleased with it; that he was particularly
+struck with the St. Kilda man's notion that
+the high church of Glasgow had been hollowed out of
+a rock; a circumstance to which old Mr. Johnson had
+directed his attention." Unfortunately Goldsmith not
+only disappears from the pages of Boswell's biography
+at this time, but also in great measure from the ken
+of his companions. He was deeply in debt; no doubt
+the fine clothes he had been ordering from Mr. Filby
+in order that he might "shine" among those notable
+persons, had something to do with it; he had tried the
+patience of the booksellers; and he had been devoting
+a good deal of time to work not intended to elicit
+immediate payment. The most patient endeavours to
+trace out his changes of lodgings, and the fugitive
+writings that kept him in daily bread, have not been
+very successful. It is to be presumed that Goldsmith
+had occasionally to go into hiding to escape from his
+creditors; and so was missed from his familiar haunts.
+We only reach daylight again, to find Goldsmith being
+under threat of arrest from his landlady; and for the
+particulars of this famous affair it is necessary to return
+to Boswell.</p>
+
+<p>Boswell was not in London at that time; but his
+account was taken down subsequently from Johnson's
+narration; and his accuracy in other matters, his extraordinary
+memory, and scrupulous care, leave no doubt
+in the mind that his version of the story is to be preferred
+to those of Mrs. Piozzi and Sir John Hawkins.
+We may take it that these are Johnson's own words:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>&mdash; "I
+received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith
+that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his
+power to come to me, begging that I would come to him
+as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised
+to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon
+as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had
+arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent
+passion. I perceived that he had already changed my
+guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass
+before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he
+would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by
+which he might be extricated. He then told me that
+he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced
+to me. I looked into it, and saw its merit; told the
+landlady I should soon return; and, having gone to a
+bookseller, sold it for &pound;60. I brought Goldsmith the
+money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating
+his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill."</p>
+
+<p>We do not know who this landlady was&mdash;it cannot
+now be made out whether the incident occurred at Islington,
+or in the rooms that Goldsmith partially occupied in
+the Temple; but even if Mrs. Fleming be the landlady
+in question, she was deserving neither of Goldsmith's
+rating nor of the reprimands that have been bestowed
+upon her by later writers. Mrs. Fleming had been
+exceedingly kind to Goldsmith. Again and again in
+her bills we find items significantly marked &pound;0 0<i>s.</i> 0<i>d.</i>
+And if her accounts with her lodger did get hopelessly
+into arrear; and if she was annoyed by seeing him go
+out in fine clothes to sup at the Mitre; and if, at
+length, her patience gave way, and she determined to
+have her rights in one way or another, she was no worse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+than landladies&mdash;who are only human beings, and not
+divinely appointed protectresses of genius&mdash;ordinarily
+are. Mrs. Piozzi says that when Johnson came back
+with the money, Goldsmith "called the woman of the
+house directly to partake of punch, and pass their time
+in merriment." This would be a dramatic touch; but,
+after Johnson's quietly corking the bottle of Madeira,
+it is more likely that no such thing occurred; especially
+as Boswell quotes the statement as an "extreme inaccuracy."</p>
+
+<p>The novel which Johnson had taken away and sold
+to Francis Newbery, a nephew of the elder bookseller,
+was, as every one knows, the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>. That
+Goldsmith, amidst all his pecuniary distresses, should
+have retained this piece in his desk, instead of pawning
+or promising it to one of his bookselling patrons, points
+to but one conclusion&mdash;that he was building high hopes
+on it, and was determined to make it as good as lay
+within his power. Goldsmith put an anxious finish into
+all his better work; perhaps that is the secret of the
+graceful ease that is now apparent in every line. Any
+young writer who may imagine that the power of clear
+and concise literary expression comes by nature, cannot
+do better than study, in Mr. Cunningham's big collection
+of Goldsmith's writings, the continual and minute
+alterations which the author considered necessary even
+after the first edition&mdash;sometimes when the second and
+third editions&mdash;had been published. Many of these,
+especially in the poetical works, were merely improvements
+in sound as suggested by a singularly sensitive
+ear, as when he altered the line</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Amidst the ruin, heedless of the dead,"<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>which had appeared in the first three editions of the
+<i>Traveller</i>, into</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>which appeared in the fourth. But the majority of the
+omissions and corrections were prompted by a careful
+taste, that abhorred everything redundant or slovenly.
+It has been suggested that when Johnson carried off the
+<i>Vicar of Wakefield</i> to Francis Newbery, the manuscript
+was not quite finished, but had to be completed afterwards.
+There was at least plenty of time for that.
+Newbery does not appear to have imagined that he
+had obtained a prize in the lottery of literature. He
+paid the &pound;60 for it&mdash;clearly on the assurance of the
+great father of learning of the day, that there was
+merit in the little story&mdash;somewhere about the end
+of 1764; but the tale was not issued to the public
+until March, 1766. "And, sir," remarked Johnson to
+Boswell, with regard to the sixty pounds, "a sufficient
+price too, when it was sold; for then the fame of
+Goldsmith had not been elevated, as it afterwards was,
+by his <i>Traveller</i>; and the bookseller had such faint
+hopes of profit by his bargain, that he kept the
+manuscript by him a long time, and did not publish it
+till after the <i>Traveller</i> had appeared. Then, to be sure,
+it was accidentally worth more money."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TRAVELLER.</h3>
+<p>This poem of the <i>Traveller</i>, the fruit of much secret
+labour and the consummation of the hopes of many
+years, was lying completed in Goldsmith's desk when
+the incident of the arrest occurred; and the elder
+Newbery had undertaken to publish it. Then, as at
+other times, Johnson lent this wayward child of genius
+a friendly hand. He read over the proof-sheets for
+Goldsmith; was so kind as to put in a line here or
+there where he thought fit; and prepared a notice of the
+poem for the <i>Critical Review</i>. The time for the appearance
+of this new claimant for poetical honours was
+propitious. "There was perhaps no point in the
+century," says Professor Masson, "when the British
+Muse, such as she had come to be, was doing less, or
+had so nearly ceased to do anything, or to have any
+good opinion of herself, as precisely about the year
+1764. Young was dying; Gray was recluse and indolent;
+Johnson had long given over his metrical
+experimentations on any except the most inconsiderable
+scale; Akenside, Armstrong, Smollett, and others less
+known, had pretty well revealed the amount of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+worth in poetry; and Churchill, after his ferocious blaze
+of what was really rage and declamation in metre,
+though conventionally it was called poetry, was prematurely
+defunct. Into this lull came Goldsmith's
+short but carefully finished poem." "There has not
+been so fine a poem since Pope's time," remarked
+Johnson to Boswell, on the very first evening after the
+return of young Auchinleck to London. It would have
+been no matter for surprise had Goldsmith dedicated this
+first work that he published under his own name to
+Johnson, who had for so long been his constant friend
+and adviser; and such a dedication would have carried
+weight in certain quarters. But there was a finer touch
+in Goldsmith's thought of inscribing the book to his
+brother Henry; and no doubt the public were surprised
+and pleased to find a poor devil of an author dedicating
+a work to an Irish parson with &pound;40 a year, from whom
+he could not well expect any return. It will be
+remembered that it was to this brother Henry that
+Goldsmith, ten years before, had sent the first sketch
+of the poem; and now the wanderer,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>declares how his heart untravelled</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And drags at each remove a lengthening chain."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The very first line of the poem strikes a key-note&mdash;there
+is in it a pathetic thrill of distance, and regret, and
+longing; and it has the soft musical sound that pervades
+the whole composition. It is exceedingly interesting to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
+note, as has already been mentioned, how Goldsmith
+altered and altered these lines until he had got them
+full of gentle vowel sounds. Where, indeed, in the
+English language could one find more graceful melody
+than this?&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The naked negro, panting at the line,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And thanks his gods for all the good they gave."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It has been observed also that Goldsmith was the first
+to introduce into English poetry sonorous American&mdash;or
+rather Indian&mdash;names, as when he writes in this
+poem,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Niagara stuns with thundering sound,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&mdash;and if it be charged against him that he ought to
+have known the proper accentuation of Niagara, it may
+be mentioned as a set-off that Sir Walter Scott, in
+dealing with his own country, mis-accentuated "Glenal&aacute;dale,"
+to say nothing of his having made of Roseneath
+an island. Another characteristic of the <i>Traveller</i> is
+the extraordinary choiceness and conciseness of the
+diction, which, instead of suggesting pedantry or affectation,
+betrays on the contrary nothing but a delightful
+ease and grace.</p>
+
+<p>The English people are very fond of good English;
+and thus it is that couplets from the <i>Traveller</i> and the
+<i>Deserted Village</i> have come into the common stock of
+our language, and that sometimes not so much on
+account of the ideas they convey, as through their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+singular precision of epithet and musical sound. It is
+enough to make the angels weep, to find such a couplet
+as this&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>murdered in several editions of Goldsmith's works by
+the substitution of the commonplace "breathes" for
+"breasts"&mdash;and that, after Johnson had drawn particular
+attention to the line by quoting it in his Dictionary.
+Perhaps, indeed, it may be admitted that the literary
+charm of the <i>Traveller</i> is more apparent than the value
+of any doctrine, however profound or ingenious, which
+the poem was supposed to inculcate. We forget all about
+the "particular principle of happiness" possessed by
+each European state, in listening to the melody of the
+singer, and in watching the successive and delightful
+pictures that he calls up before the imagination.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"As in those domes where C&aelig;sars once bore sway,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Defaced by time, and tottering in decay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, wondering man could want the larger pile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Then notice the blaze of patriotic idealism that bursts
+forth when he comes to talk of England. What sort of
+England had he been familiar with when he was consorting
+with the meanest wretches&mdash;the poverty stricken,
+the sick, and squalid&mdash;in those Fleet-Street dens? But
+it is an England of bright streams and spacious lawns<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+of which he writes; and as for the people who inhabit
+the favoured land&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With daring aims irregularly great;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I see the lords of human kind pass by."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Whenever I write anything," Goldsmith had said,
+with a humorous exaggeration which Boswell, as usual,
+takes <i>au s&eacute;rieux</i>, "the public <i>make a point</i> to know
+nothing about it." But we have Johnson's testimony
+to the fact that the <i>Traveller</i> "brought him into high
+reputation." No wonder. When the great Cham declares
+it to be the finest poem published since the time
+of Pope, we are irresistibly forced to think of the
+<i>Essay on Man</i>. What a contrast there is between that
+tedious and stilted effort, and this clear burst of bird-song!
+The <i>Traveller</i>, however, did not immediately
+become popular. It was largely talked about, naturally,
+among Goldsmith's friends; and Johnson would scarcely
+suffer any criticism of it. At a dinner given long afterwards
+at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, and fully reported by the
+invaluable Boswell, Reynolds remarked, "I was glad
+to hear Charles Fox say it was one of the finest poems
+in the English language." "Why were you glad?"
+said Langton. "You surely had no doubt of this
+before?" Hereupon Johnson struck in: "No; the
+merit of the <i>Traveller</i> is so well established, that
+Mr. Fox's praise cannot augment it, nor his censure
+diminish it." And he went on to say&mdash;Goldsmith
+having died and got beyond the reach of all critics and
+creditors some three or four years before this time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> "Goldsmith
+was a man who, whatever he wrote, did it
+better than any other man could do. He deserved
+a place in Westminster Abbey; and every year he
+lived would have deserved it better."</p>
+
+<p>Presently people began to talk about the new poem. A
+second edition was issued; a third; a fourth. It is not
+probable that Goldsmith gained any pecuniary benefit
+from the growing popularity of the little book; but he
+had "struck for honest fame," and that was now coming
+to him. He even made some slight acquaintance with
+"the great;" and here occurs an incident which is one
+of many that account for the love that the English people
+have for Goldsmith. It appears that Hawkins, calling
+one day on the Earl of Northumberland, found the
+author of the <i>Traveller</i> waiting in the outer room, in
+response to an invitation. Hawkins, having finished
+his own business, retired, but lingered about until the
+interview between Goldsmith and his lordship was over,
+having some curiosity about the result. Here follows
+Goldsmith's report to Hawkins. "His lordship told
+me he had read my poem, and was much delighted with
+it; that he was going to be Lord-lieutenant of Ireland;
+and that, hearing that I was a native of that country,
+he should be glad to do me any kindness." "What did
+you answer?" says Hawkins, no doubt expecting to
+hear of some application for pension or post. "Why,"
+said Goldsmith, "I could say nothing but that I had a
+brother there, a clergyman, that stood in need of help,"&mdash;and
+then he explained to Hawkins that he looked to
+the booksellers for support, and was not inclined to
+place dependence on the promises of great men. "Thus
+did this idiot in the affairs of the world," adds Hawkins,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+with a fatuity that is quite remarkable in its way, "trifle
+with his fortunes, and put back the hand that was held
+out to assist him! Other offers of a like kind he either
+rejected or failed to improve, contenting himself with
+the patronage of one nobleman, whose mansion afforded
+him the delights of a splendid table and a retreat for
+a few days from the metropolis." It is a great pity we
+have not a description from the same pen of Johnson's
+insolent ingratitude in flinging the pair of boots down
+stairs.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<h3>MISCELLANEOUS WRITING.</h3>
+<p>But one pecuniary result of this growing fame was a
+joint offer on the part of Griffin and Newbery of &pound;20
+for a selection from his printed essays; and this selection
+was forthwith made and published, with a preface
+written for the occasion. Here at once we can see that
+Goldsmith takes firmer ground. There is an air of
+confidence&mdash;of gaiety, even&mdash;in his address to the
+public; although, as usual, accompanied by a whimsical
+mock-modesty that is extremely odd and effective.
+"Whatever right I have to complain of the public," he
+says, "they can, as yet, have no just reason to complain
+of me. If I have written dull Essays, they have
+hitherto treated them as dull Essays. Thus far we are
+at least upon par, and until they think fit to make me
+their humble debtor by praise, I am resolved not to lose
+a single inch of my self-importance. Instead, therefore,
+of attempting to establish a credit amongst them,
+it will perhaps be wiser to apply to some more distant
+correspondent; and as my drafts are in some danger of
+being protested at home, it may not be imprudent, upon
+this occasion, to draw my bills upon Posterity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Mr. Posterity</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,&mdash;Nine hundred and ninety-nine years after sight
+hereof pay the bearer, or order, a thousand pounds worth
+of praise, free from all deductions whatsoever, it being
+a commodity that will then be very serviceable to him,
+and place it to the account of, &amp;c."</p></div>
+
+<p>The bill is not yet due; but there can in the meantime
+be no harm in discounting it so far as to say that these
+Essays deserve very decided praise. They deal with all
+manner of topics, matters of fact, matters of imagination,
+humorous descriptions, learned criticisms; and then,
+whenever the entertainer thinks he is becoming dull, he
+suddenly tells a quaint little story and walks off amidst
+the laughter he knows he has produced. It is not a very
+ambitious or sonorous sort of literature; but it was
+admirably fitted for its aim&mdash;the passing of the
+immediate hour in an agreeable and fairly intellectual
+way. One can often see, no doubt, that these Essays
+are occasionally written in a more or less perfunctory
+fashion, the writer not being moved by much enthusiasm
+in his subject; but even then a quaint literary
+grace seldom fails to atone, as when, writing about the
+English clergy, and complaining that they do not
+sufficiently in their addresses stoop to mean capacities,
+he says&mdash;"Whatever may become of the higher orders
+of mankind, who are generally possessed of collateral
+motives to virtue, the vulgar should be particularly
+regarded, whose behaviour in civil life is totally hinged
+upon their hopes and fears. Those who constitute the
+basis of the great fabric of society should be particularly
+regarded; for in policy, as in architecture, ruin is most
+fatal when it begins from the bottom." There was,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+indeed, throughout Goldsmith's miscellaneous writing
+much more common sense than might have been expected
+from a writer who was supposed to have none.</p>
+
+<p>As regards his chance criticisms on dramatic and
+poetical literature, these are generally found to be incisive
+and just; while sometimes they exhibit a wholesome
+disregard of mere tradition and authority. "Milton's
+translation of Horace's Ode to Pyrrha," he says, for
+example, "is universally known and generally admired,
+in our opinion much above its merit." If the present
+writer might for a moment venture into such an arena,
+he would express the honest belief that that translation
+is the very worst translation that was ever made of
+anything. But there is the happy rendering of <i>simplex
+munditiis</i>, which counts for much.</p>
+
+<p>By this time Goldsmith had also written his charming
+ballad of <i>Edwin and Angelina</i>, which was privately
+"printed for the amusement of the Countess of Northumberland,"
+and which afterwards appeared in the
+<i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>. It seems clear enough that this
+quaint and pathetic piece was suggested by an old ballad
+beginning,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Gentle heardsman, tell to me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of curtesy I thee pray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Unto the towne of Walsingham<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which is the right and ready way,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>which Percy had shown to Goldsmith, and which, patched
+up, subsequently appeared in the <i>Reliques</i>. But Goldsmith's
+ballad is original enough to put aside all the
+discussion about plagiarism which was afterwards started.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+In the old fragment the weeping pilgrim receives directions
+from the herdsman, and goes on her way, and we
+hear of her no more; in <i>Edwin and Angelina</i> the
+forlorn and despairing maiden suddenly finds herself
+confronted by the long-lost lover whom she had so
+cruelly used. This is the dramatic touch that reveals
+the hand of the artist. And here again it is curious to
+note the care with which Goldsmith repeatedly revised
+his writings. The ballad originally ended with these
+two stanzas:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Here amidst sylvan bowers we'll rove,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From lawn to woodland stray;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blest as the songsters of the grove,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And innocent as they.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"To all that want, and all that wail,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our pity shall be given,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And when this life of love shall fail,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We'll love again in heaven."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But subsequently it must have occurred to the author
+that, the dramatic disclosure once made, and the lovers
+restored to each other, any lingering over the scene only
+weakened the force of the climax; hence these stanzas
+were judiciously excised. It may be doubted, however,
+whether the original version of the last couplet:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And the last sigh that rends the heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall break thy Edwin's too,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>was improved by being altered into</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The sigh that rends thy constant heart<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall break thy Edwin's too."<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Goldsmith had resorted to hack-work
+again; nothing being expected from the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>,
+now lying in Newbery's shop, for that had been
+paid for, and his expenses were increasing, as became
+his greater station. In the interval between the
+publication of the <i>Traveller</i> and of the <i>Vicar</i>, he moved
+into better chambers in Garden Court; he hired a man-servant,
+he blossomed out into very fine clothes. Indeed,
+so effective did his first suit seem to be&mdash;the
+purple silk small-clothes, the scarlet roquelaure, the
+wig, sword, and gold-headed cane&mdash;that, as Mr. Forster
+says, he "amazed his friends with no less than three
+similar suits, not less expensive, in the next six months."
+Part of this display was no doubt owing to a suggestion
+from Reynolds that Goldsmith, having a medical degree,
+might just as well add the practice of a physician to
+his literary work, to magnify his social position. Goldsmith,
+always willing to please his friends, acceded;
+but his practice does not appear to have been either
+extensive or long-continued. It is said that he drew
+out a prescription for a certain Mrs. Sidebotham which
+so appalled the apothecary that he refused to make it
+up; and that, as the lady sided with the apothecary, he
+threw up the case and his profession at the same time. If
+it was money Goldsmith wanted, he was not likely to get
+it in that way; he had neither the appearance nor the
+manner fitted to humour the sick and transform healthy
+people into valetudinarians. If it was the esteem of his
+friends and popularity outside that circle, he was soon
+to acquire enough of both. On the 27th March, 1766,
+fifteen months after the appearance of the <i>Traveller</i>,
+the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i> was published.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.</h3>
+<p>The <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>, considered structurally, follows
+the lines of the Book of Job. You take a good man,
+overwhelm him with successive misfortunes, show the
+pure flame of his soul burning in the midst of the
+darkness, and then, as the reward of his patience and
+fortitude and submission, restore him gradually to
+happiness, with even larger flocks and herds than
+before. The machinery by which all this is brought
+about is, in the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>, the weak part of the
+story. The plot is full of wild improbabilities; in fact,
+the expedients by which all the members of the family
+are brought together and made happy at the same time,
+are nothing short of desperate. It is quite clear, too,
+that the author does not know what to make of the
+episode of Olivia and her husband; they are allowed to
+drop through; we leave him playing the French horn
+at a relation's house; while she, in her father's home, is
+supposed to be unnoticed, so much are they all taken up
+with the rejoicings over the double wedding. It is very
+probable that when Goldsmith began the story he had
+no very definite plot concocted; and that it was only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+when the much-persecuted Vicar had to be restored to
+happiness, that he found the entanglements surrounding
+him, and had to make frantic efforts to break through
+them. But, be that as it may, it is not for the plot
+that people now read the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>; it is not
+the intricacies of the story that have made it the
+delight of the world. Surely human nature must be
+very much the same when this simple description of a
+quiet English home went straight to the heart of nations
+in both hemispheres.</p>
+
+<p>And the wonder is that Goldsmith of all men should
+have produced such a perfect picture of domestic life.
+What had his own life been but a moving about
+between garret and tavern, between bachelor's lodgings
+and clubs? Where had he seen&mdash;unless, indeed, he
+looked back through the mist of years to the scenes
+of his childhood&mdash;all this gentle government, and
+wise blindness; all this affection, and consideration,
+and respect? There is as much human nature in
+the character of the Vicar alone as would have furnished
+any fifty of the novels of that day, or of this.
+Who has not been charmed by his sly and quaint
+humour, by his moral dignity and simple vanities, even
+by the little secrets he reveals to us of his paternal
+rule. "'Ay,' returned I, not knowing well what to
+think of the matter, 'heaven grant they may be both
+the better for it this day three months!' This was one
+of those observations I usually made to impress my
+wife with an opinion of my sagacity; for if the girls
+succeeded, then it was a pious wish fulfilled; but if
+anything unfortunate ensued, then it might be looked
+on as a prophecy." We know how Miss Olivia was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
+answered, when, at her mother's prompting, she set up
+for being well skilled in controversy:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, my dear, what controversy can she have
+read?' cried I. 'It does not occur to me that I ever
+put such books into her hands: you certainly overrate
+her merit.'&mdash;'Indeed, papa,' replied Olivia, 'she does
+not; I have read a great deal of controversy. I have
+read the disputes between Thwackum and Square; the
+controversy between Robinson Crusoe and Friday, the
+savage; and I am now employed in reading the controversy
+in Religious Courtship.'&mdash;'Very well,' cried
+I, 'that's a good girl; I find you are perfectly qualified
+for making converts, and so go help your mother to
+make the gooseberry pie.'"</p>
+
+<p>It is with a great gentleness that the good man
+reminds his wife and daughters that, after their sudden
+loss of fortune, it does not become them to wear much
+finery. "The first Sunday, in particular, their behaviour
+served to mortify me. I had desired my girls the preceding
+night to be dressed early the next day; for I
+always loved to be at church a good while before the
+rest of the congregation. They punctually obeyed my
+directions; but when we were to assemble in the
+morning at breakfast, down came my wife and daughters,
+dressed out in all their former splendour; their hair
+plastered up with pomatum, their faces patched to taste,
+their trains bundled up in a heap behind, and rustling
+at every motion. I could not help smiling at their
+vanity, particularly that of my wife, from whom I
+expected more discretion. In this exigence, therefore,
+my only resource was to order my son, with an important
+air, to call our coach. The girls were amazed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+at the command; but I repeated it with more solemnity
+than before. 'Surely, my dear, you jest,' cried my
+wife; 'we can walk it perfectly well: we want no
+coach to carry us now.'&mdash;'You mistake, child,' returned
+I, 'we do want a coach; for if we walk to church in
+this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after
+us.'&mdash;'Indeed,' replied my wife, 'I always imagined
+that my Charles was fond of seeing his children neat
+and handsome about him.'&mdash;'You may be as neat as
+you please,' interrupted I, 'and I shall love you the
+better for it; but all this is not neatness, but frippery.
+These rufflings, and pinkings, and patchings will only
+make us hated by all the wives of our neighbours. No,
+my children,' continued I, more gravely, 'those gowns
+may be altered into something of a plainer cut; for finery
+is very unbecoming in us, who want the means of
+decency. I do not know whether such flouncing and
+shredding is becoming even in the rich, if we consider,
+upon a moderate calculation, that the nakedness of the
+indigent world might be clothed from the trimmings of
+the vain.'</p>
+
+<p>"This remonstrance had the proper effect: they went
+with great composure, that very instant, to change their
+dress; and the next day I had the satisfaction of finding
+my daughters, at their own request, employed in cutting
+up their trains into Sunday waistcoats for Dick and
+Bill, the two little ones; and, what was still more
+satisfactory, the gowns seemed improved by this curtailing."
+And again when he discovered the two girls
+making a wash for their faces:&mdash;"My daughters seemed
+equally busy with the rest; and I observed them for a
+good while cooking something over the fire. I at first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+supposed they were assisting their mother, but little
+Dick informed me, in a whisper, that they were making
+a wash for the face. Washes of all kinds I had a
+natural antipathy to; for I knew that, instead of
+mending the complexion, they spoil it. I therefore
+approached my chair by sly degrees to the fire, and
+grasping the poker, as if it wanted mending, seemingly
+by accident overturned the whole composition, and it
+was too late to begin another."</p>
+
+<p>All this is done with such a light, homely touch,
+that one gets familiarly to know these people without
+being aware of it. There is no insistance. There is no
+dragging you along by the collar; confronting you with
+certain figures; and compelling you to look at this and
+study that. The artist stands by you, and laughs in
+his quiet way; and you are laughing too, when suddenly
+you find that human beings have silently come into the
+void before you; and you know them for friends; and
+even after the vision has faded away, and the beautiful
+light and colour and glory of romance-land have
+vanished, you cannot forget them. They have become
+part of your life; you will take them to the grave
+with you.</p>
+
+<p>The story, as every one perceives, has its obvious
+blemishes. "There are an hundred faults in this Thing,"
+says Goldsmith himself, in the prefixed Advertisement.
+But more particularly, in the midst of all the impossibilities
+taking place in and around the jail, when that
+chameleon-like <i>deus ex machin&acirc;</i>, Mr. Jenkinson, winds
+up the tale in hot haste, Goldsmith pauses to put in a
+sort of apology. "Nor can I go on without a reflection,"
+he says gravely, "on those accidental meetings, which,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+though they happen every day, seldom excite our
+surprise but upon some extraordinary occasion. To
+what a fortuitous concurrence do we not owe every
+pleasure and convenience of our lives! How many
+seeming accidents must unite before we can be clothed
+or fed! The peasant must be disposed to labour, the
+shower must fall, the wind fill the merchant's sail, or
+numbers must want the usual supply." This is Mr.
+Thackeray's "simple rogue" appearing again in adult
+life. Certainly, if our supply of food and clothing
+depended on such accidents as happened to make the
+Vicar's family happy all at once, there would be a good
+deal of shivering and starvation in the world. Moreover
+it may be admitted that on occasion Goldsmith's
+fine instinct deserts him; and even in describing those
+domestic relations which are the charm of the novel, he
+blunders into the unnatural. When Mr. Burchell, for
+example, leaves the house in consequence of a quarrel
+with Mrs. Primrose, the Vicar questions his daughter as
+to whether she had received from that poor gentleman
+any testimony of his affection for her. She replies No;
+but remembers to have heard him remark that he never
+knew a woman who could find merit in a man that was
+poor. "Such, my dear," continued the Vicar, "is the
+common cant of all the unfortunate or idle. But I
+hope you have been taught to judge properly of such
+men, and that it would be even madness to expect
+happiness from one who has been so very bad an
+economist of his own. Your mother and I have now
+better prospects for you. The next winter, which you
+will probably spend in town, will give you opportunities
+of making a more prudent choice." Now it is not at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+all likely that a father, however anxious to have his
+daughter well married and settled, would ask her so
+delicate a question in open domestic circle, and would
+then publicly inform her that she was expected to choose
+a husband on her forthcoming visit to town.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be said about any particular incident
+like this, the atmosphere of the book is true. Goethe, to
+whom a German translation of the <i>Vicar</i> was read by
+Herder some four years after the publication in England,
+not only declared it at the time to be one of the best
+novels ever written, but again and again throughout his
+life reverted to the charm and delight with which he
+had made the acquaintance of the English "prose-idyll,"
+and took it for granted that it was a real picture of
+English life. Despite all the machinery of Mr. Jenkinson's
+schemes, who could doubt it? Again and again
+there are recurrent strokes of such vividness and naturalness
+that we yield altogether to the necromancer. Look
+at this perfect picture&mdash;of human emotion and outside
+nature&mdash;put in in a few sentences. The old clergyman,
+after being in search of his daughter, has found her,
+and is now&mdash;having left her in an inn&mdash;returning to his
+family and his home. "And now my heart caught new
+sensations of pleasure, the nearer I approached that
+peaceful mansion. As a bird that had been frighted
+from its nest, my affections outwent my haste, and
+hovered round my little fireside with all the rapture of
+expectation. I called up the many fond things I had to
+say, and anticipated the welcome I was to receive. I
+already felt my wife's tender embrace, and smiled at
+the joy of my little ones. As I walked but slowly, the
+night waned apace. The labourers of the day were all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
+retired to rest; the lights were out in every cottage; no
+sounds were heard but of the shrilling cock, and the
+deep-mouthed watch-dog at hollow distance. I approached
+my little abode of pleasure, and, before I was
+within a furlong of the place, our honest mastiff came
+running to welcome me." "<i>The deep-mouthed watch-dog
+at hollow distance</i>;"&mdash;what more perfect description of
+the stillness of night was ever given?</p>
+
+<p>And then there are other qualities in this delightful
+<i>Vicar of Wakefield</i> than merely idyllic tenderness, and
+pathos, and sly humour. There is a firm presentation of
+the crimes and brutalities of the world. The pure light
+that shines within that domestic circle is all the brighter
+because of the black outer ring that is here and there
+indicated rather than described. How could we appreciate
+all the simplicities of the good man's household,
+but for the rogueries with which they are brought in
+contact? And although we laugh at Moses and his gross
+of green spectacles, and the manner in which the Vicar's
+wife and daughter are imposed on by Miss Wilhelmina
+Skeggs and Lady Blarney, with their lords and ladies
+and their tributes to virtue, there is no laughter demanded
+of us when we find the simplicity and moral
+dignity of the Vicar meeting and beating the jeers and
+taunts of the abandoned wretches in the prison. This
+is really a remarkable episode. The author was under
+the obvious temptation to make much comic material
+out of the situation; while another temptation, towards
+the goody-goody side, was not far off. But the Vicar
+undertakes the duty of reclaiming these castaways
+with a modest patience and earnestness in every way in
+keeping with his character; while they, on the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+hand, are not too easily moved to tears of repentance.
+His first efforts, it will be remembered, were not too
+successful. "Their insensibility excited my highest compassion,
+and blotted my own uneasiness from my mind.
+It even appeared a duty incumbent upon me to attempt
+to reclaim them. I resolved, therefore, once more to
+return, and, in spite of their contempt, to give them my
+advice, and conquer them by my perseverance. Going,
+therefore, among them again, I informed Mr. Jenkinson
+of my design, at which he laughed heartily, but communicated
+it to the rest. The proposal was received
+with the greatest good humour, as it promised to afford
+a new fund of entertainment to persons who had now
+no other resource for mirth but what could be derived
+from ridicule or debauchery.</p>
+
+<p>"I therefore read them a portion of the service with a
+loud, unaffected voice, and found my audience perfectly
+merry upon the occasion. Lewd whispers, groans of
+contrition burlesqued, winking and coughing, alternately
+excited laughter. However, I continued with my natural
+solemnity to read on, sensible that what I did might
+mend some, but could itself receive no contamination
+from any.</p>
+
+<p>"After reading, I entered upon my exhortation, which
+was rather calculated at first to amuse them than to reprove.
+I previously observed, that no other motive but
+their welfare could induce me to this; that I was their
+fellow-prisoner, and now got nothing by preaching. I
+was sorry, I said, to hear them so very profane; because
+they got nothing by it, but might lose a great deal:
+'For be assured, my friends,' cried I,&mdash;'for you are my
+friends, however the world may disclaim your friendship,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>&mdash;though you swore twelve thousand oaths in a day, it
+would not put one penny in your purse. Then what
+signifies calling every moment upon the devil, and courting
+his friendship, since you find how scurvily he uses
+you? He has given you nothing here, you find, but a
+mouthful of oaths and an empty belly; and, by the best
+accounts I have of him, he will give you nothing that's
+good hereafter.</p>
+
+<p>"'If used ill in our dealings with one man, we naturally
+go elsewhere. Were it not worth your while, then, just
+to try how you may like the usage of another master,
+who gives you fair promises at least to come to him?
+Surely, my friends, of all stupidity in the world, his
+must be the greatest, who, after robbing a house, runs
+to the thief-takers for protection. And yet, how are you
+more wise? You are all seeking comfort from one that
+has already betrayed you, applying to a more malicious
+being than any thief-taker of them all; for they only
+decoy and then hang you; but he decoys and hangs, and,
+what is worst of all, will not let you loose after the
+hangman has done.'</p>
+
+<p>"When I had concluded, I received the compliments of
+my audience, some of whom came and shook me by the
+hand, swearing that I was a very honest fellow, and that
+they desired my further acquaintance. I therefore promised
+to repeat my lecture next day, and actually conceived
+some hopes of making a reformation here; for it
+had ever been my opinion, that no man was past the
+hour of amendment, every heart lying open to the shafts
+of reproof, if the archer could but take a proper aim."</p>
+
+<p>His wife and children, naturally dissuading him from
+an effort which seemed to them only to bring ridicule<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+upon him, are met by a grave rebuke; and on the next
+morning he descends to the common prison, where, he
+says, he found the prisoners very merry, expecting his
+arrival, and each prepared to play some gaol-trick on
+the Doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"There was one whose trick gave more universal
+pleasure than all the rest; for, observing the manner in
+which I had disposed my books on the table before me,
+he very dexterously displaced one of them, and put an
+obscene jest-book of his own in the place. However, I
+took no notice of all that this mischievous group of little
+beings could do, but went on, perfectly sensible that what
+was ridiculous in my attempt would excite mirth only
+the first or second time, while what was serious would
+be permanent. My design succeeded, and in less than
+six days some were penitent, and all attentive.</p>
+
+<p>"It was now that I applauded my perseverance and
+address, at thus giving sensibility to wretches divested
+of every moral feeling, and now began to think of doing
+them temporal services also, by rendering their situation
+somewhat more comfortable. Their time had hitherto
+been divided between famine and excess, tumultuous riot
+and bitter repining. Their only employment was quarrelling
+among each other, playing at cribbage, and
+cutting tobacco-stoppers. From this last mode of idle
+industry I took the hint of setting such as choose to
+work at cutting pegs for tobacconists and shoemakers,
+the proper wood being bought by a general subscription,
+and, when manufactured, sold by my appointment; so
+that each earned something every day&mdash;a trifle indeed,
+but sufficient to maintain him.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not stop here, but instituted fines for the punish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>ment
+of immorality, and rewards for peculiar industry.
+Thus, in less than a fortnight I had formed them into
+something social and humane, and had the pleasure of
+regarding myself as a legislator who had brought men
+from their native ferocity into friendship and obedience."</p>
+
+<p>Of course, all this about gaols and thieves was calculated
+to shock the nerves of those who liked their
+literature perfumed with rose-water. Madame Riccoboni,
+to whom Burke had sent the book, wrote to
+Garrick, "Le plaidoyer en faveur des voleurs, des
+petits larrons, des gens de mauvaises m&oelig;urs, est fort
+&eacute;loign&eacute; de me plaire." Others, no doubt, considered
+the introduction of Miss Skeggs and Lady Blarney as
+"vastly low." But the curious thing is that the literary
+critics of the day seem to have been altogether silent
+about the book&mdash;perhaps they were "puzzled" by it,
+as Southey has suggested. Mr. Forster, who took the
+trouble to search the periodical literature of the time,
+says that, "apart from bald recitals of the plot, not a
+word was said in the way of criticism about the book,
+either in praise or blame." The <i>St. James's Chronicle</i> did
+not condescend to notice its appearance, and the <i>Monthly
+Review</i> confessed frankly that nothing was to be made
+of it. The better sort of newspapers, as well as the
+more dignified reviews, contemptuously left it to the
+patronage of <i>Lloyd's Evening Post</i>, the <i>London Chronicle</i>,
+and journals of that class; which simply informed their
+readers that a new novel, called the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>,
+had been published, that "the editor is Doctor
+Goldsmith, who has affixed his name to an introductory
+Advertisement, and that such and such were the incidents
+of the story." Even his friends, with the excep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>tion
+of Burke, did not seem to consider that any remarkable
+new birth in literature had occurred; and it
+is probable that this was a still greater disappointment
+to Goldsmith, who was so anxious to be thought well of
+at the Club. However, the public took to the story.
+A second edition was published in May; a third in
+August. Goldsmith, it is true, received no pecuniary
+gain from this success, for, as we have seen, Johnson
+had sold the novel outright to Francis Newbery; but
+his name was growing in importance with the booksellers.</p>
+
+<p>There was need that it should, for his increasing
+expenses&mdash;his fine clothes, his suppers, his whist at
+the Devil Tavern&mdash;were involving him in deeper
+and deeper difficulties. How was he to extricate himself?&mdash;or
+rather the question that would naturally
+occur to Goldsmith was how was he to continue that
+hand-to-mouth existence that had its compensations
+along with its troubles? Novels like the <i>Vicar of
+Wakefield</i> are not written at a moment's notice, even
+though any Newbery, judging by results, is willing to
+double that &pound;60 which Johnson considered to be a fair
+price for the story at the time. There was the usual
+resource of hack-writing; and, no doubt, Goldsmith was
+compelled to fall back on that, if only to keep the elder
+Newbery, in whose debt he was, in a good humour. But
+the author of the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i> may be excused if
+he looked round to see if there was not some more
+profitable work for him to turn his hand to. It was at
+this time that he began to think of writing a comedy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<h3>THE GOOD-NATURED MAN.</h3>
+<p>Amid much miscellaneous work, mostly of the compilation
+order, the play of the <i>Good-natured Man</i> began to
+assume concrete form; insomuch that Johnson, always
+the friend of this erratic Irishman, had promised to
+write a Prologue for it. It is with regard to this Prologue
+that Boswell tells a foolish and untrustworthy
+story about Goldsmith. Dr. Johnson had recently been
+honoured by an interview with his Sovereign; and the
+members of the Club were in the habit of flattering him
+by begging for a repetition of his account of that famous
+event. On one occasion, during this recital, Boswell
+relates, Goldsmith "remained unmoved upon a sofa at
+some distance, affecting not to join in the least in the
+eager curiosity of the company. He assigned as a
+reason for his gloom and seeming inattention that he
+apprehended Johnson had relinquished his purpose of
+furnishing him with a Prologue to his play, with the
+hopes of which he had been flattered; but it was
+strongly suspected that he was fretting with chagrin
+and envy at the singular honour Doctor Johnson had
+lately enjoyed. At length the frankness and simplicity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+of his natural character prevailed. He sprang from
+the sofa, advanced to Johnson, and, in a kind of flutter,
+from imagining himself in the situation which he had
+just been hearing described, exclaimed, '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.'" It is obvious enough
+that the only part of this anecdote which is quite
+worthy of credence is the actual phrase used by
+Goldsmith, which is full of his customary generosity
+and self-depreciation. All those "suspicions" of his
+envy of his friend may safely be discarded, for they
+are mere guesswork; even though it might have been
+natural enough for a man like Goldsmith, conscious of
+his singular and original genius, to measure himself
+against Johnson, who was merely a man of keen perception
+and shrewd reasoning, and to compare the deference
+paid to Johnson with the scant courtesy shown to
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, the Prologue was written by
+Dr. Johnson; and the now complete comedy was, after
+some little arrangement of personal differences between
+Goldsmith and Garrick, very kindly undertaken by
+Reynolds, submitted for Garrick's approval. But
+nothing came of Reynolds's intervention. Perhaps
+Goldsmith resented Garrick's airs of patronage towards
+a poor devil of an author; perhaps Garrick was surprised
+by the manner in which well-intentioned criticisms
+were taken; at all events, after a good deal of
+shilly-shallying, the play was taken out of Garrick's
+hands. Fortunately, a project was just at this moment
+on foot for starting the rival theatre in Covent Garden,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+under the management of George Colman; and to
+Colman Goldsmith's play was forthwith consigned.
+The play was accepted; but it was a long time before
+it was produced; and in that interval it may fairly
+be presumed the <i>res angusta domi</i> of Goldsmith did not
+become any more free and generous than before. It
+was in this interval that the elder Newbery died;
+Goldsmith had one patron the less. Another patron
+who offered himself was civilly bowed to the door.
+This is an incident in Goldsmith's career which, like his
+interview with the Earl of Northumberland, should
+ever be remembered in his honour. The Government
+of the day were desirous of enlisting on their behalf
+the services of writers of somewhat better position than
+the mere libellers whose pens were the slaves of anybody's
+purse; and a Mr. Scott, a chaplain of Lord
+Sandwich, appears to have imagined that it would be
+worth while to buy Goldsmith. He applied to
+Goldsmith in due course; and this is an account of the
+interview. "I found him in a miserable set of chambers
+in the Temple. I told him my authority; I told him
+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 I left him in his garret."
+Needy as he was, Goldsmith had too much self-respect
+to become a paid libeller and cutthroat of public
+reputations.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of Friday, the 29th of January, 1768,
+when Goldsmith had now reached the age of forty, the
+comedy of <i>The Good-natured Man</i> was produced at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+Covent Garden Theatre. The Prologue had, according
+to promise, been written by Johnson; and a very
+singular prologue it was. Even Boswell was struck by
+the odd contrast between this sonorous piece of melancholy
+and the fun that was to follow. "The first lines
+of this Prologue," he conscientiously remarks, "are
+strongly characteristical of the dismal gloom of his
+mind; which, in his case, as in the case of all who are
+distressed with the same malady of imagination, transfers
+to others its own feelings. Who could suppose it was
+to introduce a comedy, when Mr. Bensley solemnly
+began&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Pressed with the load of life, the weary mind<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Surveys the general toil of humankind'?<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But this dark ground might make Goldsmith's humour
+shine the more." When we come to the comedy itself,
+we find but little bright humour in the opening passages.
+The author is obviously timid, anxious, and constrained.
+There is nothing of the brisk, confident vivacity with
+which <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i> opens. The novice does
+not yet understand the art of making his characters
+explain themselves; and accordingly the benevolent
+uncle and honest Jarvis indulge in a conversation which,
+laboriously descriptive of the character of young
+Honeywood, is spoken "at" the audience. With the
+entrance of young Honeywood himself, Goldsmith
+endeavours to become a little more sprightly; but there
+is still anxiety hanging over him, and the epigrams are
+little more than merely formal antitheses.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>Jarvis.</i> This bill from your tailor; this from your mercer;
+and this from the little broker in Crooked Lane. He says he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+has been at a great deal of trouble to get back the money
+you borrowed.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hon.</i> That I don't know; but I'm sure we were at a great
+deal of trouble in getting him to lend it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Jar.</i> He has lost all patience.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hon.</i> Then he has lost a very good thing.</p>
+
+<p><i>Jar.</i> There's that ten guineas you were sending to the poor
+gentleman and his children in the Fleet. I believe that would
+stop his mouth for a while at least.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hon.</i> Ay, Jarvis, but what will fill their mouths in the
+mean time?"</p></div>
+
+<p>This young Honeywood, the hero of the play, is, and
+remains throughout, a somewhat ghostly personage. He
+has attributes; but no flesh or blood. There is much
+more substance in the next character introduced&mdash;the
+inimitable Croaker, who revels in evil forebodings and
+drinks deep of the luxury of woe. These are the two
+chief characters; but then a play must have a plot.
+And perhaps it would not be fair, so far as the plot is
+concerned, to judge of <i>The Good-natured Man</i> merely
+as a literary production. Intricacies that seem tedious
+and puzzling on paper appear to be clear enough on the
+stage: it is much more easy to remember the history
+and circumstances of a person whom we see before us,
+than to attach these to a mere name&mdash;especially as the
+name is sure to be clipped down from <i>Honeywood</i> to
+<i>Hon.</i> and from <i>Leontine</i> to <i>Leon.</i> However, it is in the
+midst of all the cross-purposes of the lovers that we
+once more come upon our old friend Beau Tibbs&mdash;though
+Mr. Tibbs is now in much better circumstances, and
+has been re-named by his creator Jack Lofty. Garrick
+had objected to the introduction of Jack, on the ground
+that he was only a distraction. But Goldsmith, whether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
+in writing a novel or a play, was more anxious to represent
+human nature than to prune a plot, and paid
+but little respect to the unities, if only he could
+arouse our interest. And who is not delighted with
+this Jack Lofty and his "duchessy" talk&mdash;his airs of
+patronage, his mysterious hints, his gay familiarity with
+the great, his audacious lying?</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>Lofty.</i> Waller? Waller? Is he of the house?</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Croaker.</i> The modern poet of that name, sir.</p>
+
+<p><i>Lof.</i> Oh, a modern! We men of business despise the
+moderns; and as for the ancients, we have no time to read
+them. Poetry is a pretty thing enough for our wives and
+daughters; but not for us. Why now, here I stand that
+know nothing of books. I say, madam, I know nothing of
+books; and yet, I believe, upon a land-carriage fishery, a
+stamp act, or a jag-hire, I can talk my two hours without
+feeling the want of them.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Cro.</i> The world is no stranger to Mr. Lofty's eminence
+in every capacity.</p>
+
+<p><i>Lof.</i> I vow to gad, madam, you make me blush. I'm
+nothing, nothing, nothing in the world; a mere obscure
+gentleman. To be sure, indeed, one or two of the present
+ministers are pleased to represent me as a formidable man.
+I know they are pleased to bespatter me at all their little
+dirty levees. Yet, upon my soul, I wonder what they see
+in me to treat me so! Measures, not men, have always been
+my mark; and I vow, by all that's honourable, my resentment
+has never done the men, as mere men, any manner of
+harm&mdash;that is, as mere men.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Cro.</i> What importance, and yet what modesty!</p>
+
+<p><i>Lof.</i> Oh, if you talk of modesty, madam, there, I own, I'm
+accessible to praise: modesty is my foible: it was so the
+Duke of Brentford used to say of me. 'I love Jack Lofty,'
+he used to say: 'no man has a finer knowledge of things;
+quite a man of information; and when he speaks upon his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+legs, by the Lord he's prodigious, he scouts them; and yet all
+men have their faults; too much modesty is his,' says his
+grace.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Cro.</i> And yet, I dare say, you don't want assurance
+when you come to solicit for your friends.</p>
+
+<p><i>Lof.</i> Oh, there indeed I'm in bronze. Apropos! I have
+just been mentioning Miss Richland's case to a certain personage;
+we must name no names. When I ask, I am not to
+be put off, madam. No, no, I take my friend by the button.
+A fine girl, sir; great justice in her case. A friend of mine&mdash;borough
+interest&mdash;business must be done, Mr. Secretary.&mdash;I
+say, Mr. Secretary, her business must be done, sir. That's
+my way, madam.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mrs. Cro.</i> Bless me! you said all this to the Secretary of
+State, did you?</p>
+
+<p><i>Lof.</i> I did not say the Secretary, did I? Well, curse it,
+since you have found me out, I will not deny it. It was to
+the Secretary."</p></div>
+
+<p>Strangely enough, what may now seem to some of us
+the very best scene in the <i>Good-natured Man</i>&mdash;the scene,
+that is, in which young Honeywood, suddenly finding
+Miss Richland without, is compelled to dress up the two
+bailiffs in possession of his house and introduce them to
+her as gentlemen friends&mdash;was very nearly damning the
+play on the first night of its production. The pit was
+of opinion that it was "low;" and subsequently the
+critics took up the cry, and professed themselves to be
+so deeply shocked by the vulgar humours of the bailiffs
+that Goldsmith had to cut them out. But on the opening
+night the anxious author, who had been rendered
+nearly distracted by the cries and hisses produced by
+this scene, was somewhat reassured when the audience
+began to laugh again over the tribulations of Mr.
+Croaker. To the actor who played the part he expressed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+his warm gratitude when the piece was over; assuring
+him that he had exceeded his own conception of the
+character, and that "the fine comic richness of his
+colouring made it almost appear as new to him as to
+any other person in the house."</p>
+
+<p>The new play had been on the whole favourably
+received; and, when Goldsmith went along afterwards
+to the Club, his companions were doubtless not at all
+surprised to find him in good spirits. He was even
+merrier than usual; and consented to sing his favourite
+ballad about the Old Woman tossed in a Blanket. But
+those hisses and cries were still rankling in his memory;
+and he himself subsequently confessed that he was
+"suffering horrid tortures." Nay, when the other members
+of the Club had gone, leaving him and Johnson
+together, he "burst out a-crying, and even swore by &mdash;&mdash; that
+he would never write again." When Goldsmith
+told this story in after-days, Johnson was naturally
+astonished; perhaps&mdash;himself not suffering much from
+an excessive sensitiveness&mdash;he may have attributed that
+little burst of hysterical emotion to the excitement of
+the evening increased by a glass or two of punch, and
+determined therefore never to mention it. "All which,
+Doctor," he said, "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." Indeed there was little
+to cry over, either in the first reception of the piece or
+in its subsequent fate. With the offending bailiffs cut
+out, the comedy would seem to have been very fairly
+successful. The proceeds of three of the evenings were
+Goldsmith's payment; and in this manner he received
+&pound;400. Then Griffin published the play; and from this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+source Goldsmith received an additional &pound;100; so that
+altogether he was very well paid for his work. Moreover
+he had appealed against the judgment of the pit and
+the dramatic critics, by printing in the published edition
+the bailiff scene which had been removed from the stage;
+and the <i>Monthly Review</i> was so extremely kind as to say
+that "the bailiff and his blackguard follower appeared
+intolerable on the stage, yet we are not disgusted with
+them in the perusal." Perhaps we have grown less
+scrupulous since then; but at all events it would be
+difficult for anybody nowadays to find anything but good-natured
+fun in that famous scene. There is an occasional
+"damn," it is true; but then English officers have
+always been permitted that little playfulness, and these
+two gentlemen were supposed to "serve in the Fleet;"
+while if they had been particularly refined in their
+speech and manner, how could the author have aroused
+Miss Richland's suspicions? It is possible that the two
+actors who played the bailiff and his follower may have
+introduced some vulgar "gag" into their parts; but
+there is no warranty for anything of the kind in the
+play as we now read it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<h3>GOLDSMITH IN SOCIETY.</h3>
+<p>The appearance of the <i>Good-natured Man</i> ushered in
+a halcyon period in Goldsmith's life. The <i>Traveller</i> and
+the <i>Vicar</i> had gained for him only reputation: this new
+comedy put &pound;500 in his pocket. Of course that was
+too big a sum for Goldsmith to have about him long.
+Four-fifths of it he immediately expended on the purchase
+and decoration of a set of chambers in Brick Court,
+Middle Temple; with the remainder he appears to have
+begun a series of entertainments in this new abode,
+which were perhaps more remarkable for their mirth
+than their decorum. There was no sort of frolic in
+which Goldsmith would not indulge for the amusement
+of his guests; he would sing them songs; he would
+throw his wig to the ceiling; he would dance a minuet.
+And then they had cards, forfeits, blind-man's-buff,
+until Mr. Blackstone, then engaged on his <i>Commentaries</i>
+in the rooms below, was driven nearly mad by the
+uproar. These parties would seem to have been of a
+most nondescript character&mdash;chance gatherings of any
+obscure authors or actors whom he happened to meet;
+but from time to time there were more formal enter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>tainments,
+at which Johnson, Percy, and similar distinguished
+persons were present. Moreover, Dr. Goldsmith
+himself was much asked out to dinner too; and so, not
+content with the "Tyrian bloom, satin grain and garter,
+blue-silk breeches," which Mr. Filby had provided for
+the evening of the production of the comedy, he now
+had another suit "lined with silk, and gold buttons,"
+that he might appear in proper guise. Then he had his
+airs of consequence too. This was his answer to an
+invitation from Kelly, who was his rival of the hour:
+"I would with pleasure accept your kind invitation, but
+to tell you the truth, my dear boy, my <i>Traveller</i> has
+found me a home in so many places, that I am engaged,
+I believe, three days. Let me see. To-day I dine with
+Edmund Burke, to-morrow with Dr. Nugent, and the
+next day with Topham Beauclerc; but I'll tell you
+what I'll do for you, I'll dine with you on Saturday."
+Kelly told this story as against Goldsmith; but surely
+there is not so much ostentation in the reply. Directly
+after <i>Tristram Shandy</i> was published, Sterne found
+himself fourteen deep in dinner engagements: why
+should not the author of the <i>Traveller</i> and the <i>Vicar</i>
+and the <i>Good-natured Man</i> have his engagements also?
+And perhaps it was but right that Mr. Kelly, who was
+after all only a critic and scribbler, though he had
+written a play which was for the moment enjoying an
+undeserved popularity, should be given to understand
+that Dr. Goldsmith was not to be asked to a hole-and-corner
+chop at a moment's notice. To-day he dines
+with Mr. Burke; to-morrow with Dr. Nugent; the
+day after with Mr. Beauclerc. If you wish to have the
+honour of his company, you may choose a day after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+that; and then, with his new wig, with his coat of
+Tyrian bloom and blue silk breeches, with a smart
+sword at his side, his gold-headed cane in his hand,
+and his hat under his elbow, he will present himself
+in due course. Dr. Goldsmith is announced, and
+makes his grave bow; this is the man of genius about
+whom all the town is talking; the friend of Burke, of
+Reynolds, of Johnson, of Hogarth; this is not the ragged
+Irishman who was some time ago earning a crust by
+running errands for an apothecary.</p>
+
+<p>Goldsmith's grand airs, however, were assumed but
+seldom; and they never imposed on anybody. His
+acquaintances treated him with a familiarity which
+testified rather to his good-nature than to their good
+taste. Now and again, indeed, he was prompted to
+resent this familiarity; but the effort was not successful.
+In the "high jinks" to which he good-humouredly resorted
+for the entertainment of his guests he permitted
+a freedom which it was afterwards not very easy to
+discard; and as he was always ready to make a butt of
+himself for the amusement of his friends and acquaintances,
+it came to be recognised that anybody was allowed
+to play off a joke on "Goldy." The jokes, such of them
+as have been put on record, are of the poorest sort. The
+horse-collar is never far off. One gladly turns from
+these dismal humours of the tavern and the club to the
+picture of Goldsmith's enjoying what he called a "Shoemaker's
+Holiday" in the company of one or two chosen
+intimates. Goldsmith, baited and bothered by the wits
+of a public-house, became a different being when he had
+assumed the guidance of a small party of chosen friends
+bent on having a day's frugal pleasure. We are indebted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+to one Cooke, a neighbour of Goldsmith's in the Temple,
+not only for a most interesting description of one of
+those shoemaker's holidays, but also for the knowledge
+that Goldsmith had even now begun writing the <i>Deserted
+Village</i>, which was not published till 1770, two years
+later. Goldsmith, though he could turn out plenty of
+manufactured stuff for the booksellers, worked slowly
+at the special story or poem with which he meant to
+"strike for honest fame." This Mr. Cooke, calling on
+him one morning, discovered that Goldsmith had that
+day written these ten lines of the <i>Deserted Village</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How often have I loitered o'er thy green,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where humble happiness endeared each scene!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How often have I paused on every charm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The never-failing brook, the busy mill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The decent church, that topt the neighbouring hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For talking age and whispering lovers made!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Come," said he, "let me tell you this is no bad
+morning's work; and now, my dear boy, if you are
+not better engaged, I should be glad to enjoy a shoemaker's
+holiday with you." "A shoemaker's holiday,"
+continues the writer of these reminiscences, "was a
+day of great festivity to poor Goldsmith, and was spent
+in the following innocent manner. Three or four of
+his intimate friends rendezvoused at his chambers to
+breakfast about ten o'clock in the morning; at eleven
+they proceeded by the City Road and through the fields<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+to Highbury Barn to dinner; about six o'clock in the
+evening they adjourned to White Conduit House to drink
+tea; and concluded by supping at the Grecian or Temple
+Exchange coffee-house or at the Globe in Fleet Street.
+There was a very good ordinary of two dishes and pastry
+kept at Highbury Barn about this time at tenpence per
+head, including a penny to the waiter; and the company
+generally consisted of literary characters, a few Templars,
+and some citizens who had left off trade. The whole
+expenses of the day's fete never exceeded a crown, and
+oftener were from three-and-sixpence to four shillings;
+for which the party obtained good air and exercise,
+good living, the example of simple manners, and good
+conversation."</p>
+
+<p>It would have been well indeed for Goldsmith had he
+been possessed of sufficient strength of character to
+remain satisfied with these simple pleasures, and to
+have lived the quiet and modest life of a man of letters
+on such income as he could derive from the best work
+he could produce. But it is this same Mr. Cooke who
+gives decisive testimony as to Goldsmith's increasing
+desire to "shine" by imitating the expenditure of the
+great; the natural consequence of which was that he
+only plunged himself into a morass of debt, advances,
+contracts for hack-work, and misery. "His debts rendered
+him at times so melancholy and dejected, that I
+am sure he felt himself a very unhappy man." Perhaps
+it was with some sudden resolve to flee from temptation,
+and grapple with the difficulties that beset him, that he,
+in conjunction with another Temple neighbour, Mr.
+Bott, rented a cottage some eight miles down the Edgware
+Road; and here he set to work on the <i>History of Rome</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+which he was writing for Davies. Apart from this
+hack-work, now rendered necessary by his debt, it is
+probable that one strong inducement leading him to
+this occasional seclusion was the progress he might be
+able to make with the <i>Deserted Village</i>. Amid all his
+town gaieties and country excursions, amid his dinners
+and suppers and dances, his borrowings, and contracts,
+and the hurried literary produce of the moment, he
+never forgot what was due to his reputation as an English
+poet. The journalistic bullies of the day might vent
+their spleen and envy on him; his best friends might
+smile at his conversational failures; the wits of the
+tavern might put up the horse-collar as before; but at
+least he had the consolation of his art. No one better
+knew than himself the value of those finished and musical
+lines he was gradually adding to the beautiful poem,
+the grace, and sweetness, and tender, pathetic charm of
+which make it one of the literary treasures of the English
+people.</p>
+
+<p>The sorrows of debt were not Goldsmith's only
+trouble at this time. For some reason or other he seems
+to have become the especial object of spiteful attack on
+the part of the literary cut-throats of the day. And
+Goldsmith, though he might listen with respect to the
+wise advice of Johnson on such matters, was never able
+to cultivate Johnson's habit of absolute indifference to
+anything that might be said or sung of him. "The
+Kenricks, Campbells, MacNicols, and Hendersons,"
+says Lord Macaulay&mdash;speaking of Johnson, "did their
+best to annoy him, in the hope that he would give them
+importance by answering them." But the reader will in
+vain search his works for any allusion to Kenrick or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
+Campbell, to MacNicol or Henderson. One Scotchman,
+bent on vindicating the fame of Scotch learning,
+defied him to the combat in a detestable Latin hexameter&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Maxime, si tu vis, cupio contendere tecum.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But Johnson took no notice of the challenge. He had
+learned, both from his own observation and from literary
+history, in which he was deeply read, that the place of
+books in the public estimation is fixed, not by what is
+written about them, but by what is written in them;
+and that an author whose works are likely to live, is
+very unwise if he stoops to wrangle with detractors
+whose works are certain to die. He always maintained
+that fame was a shuttlecock which could be kept up only
+by being beaten back, as well as beaten forward, and
+which would soon fall if there were only one battledore.
+No saying was oftener in his mouth than that fine
+apophthegm of Bentley, that no man was ever written
+down but by himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was not given to Goldsmith to feel "like the
+Monument" on any occasion whatsoever. He was
+anxious to have the esteem of his friends; he was
+sensitive to a degree; denunciation or malice, begotten
+of envy that Johnson would have passed unheeded,
+wounded him to the quick. "The insults to
+which he had to submit," Thackeray wrote with a quick
+and warm sympathy, "are shocking to read of&mdash;slander,
+contumely, vulgar satire, brutal malignity perverting
+his commonest motives and actions: he had his share
+of these, and one's anger is roused at reading of them,
+as it is at seeing a woman insulted or a child assaulted,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+at the notion that a creature so very gentle, and weak,
+and full of love should have had to suffer so." Goldsmith's
+revenge, his defence of himself, his appeal to the
+public, were the <i>Traveller</i>, the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>, the
+<i>Deserted Village</i>; but these came at long intervals; and
+in the meantime he had to bear with the anonymous
+malignity that pursued him as best he might. No
+doubt, when Burke was entertaining him at dinner; and
+when Johnson was openly deferring to him in conversation
+at the Club; and when Reynolds was painting his
+portrait, he could afford to forget Mr. Kenrick and the
+rest of the libelling clan.</p>
+
+<p>The occasions on which Johnson deferred to Goldsmith
+in conversation were no doubt few; but at all events
+the bludgeon of the great Cham would appear to have
+come down less frequently on "honest Goldy" than on
+the other members of that famous coterie. It could
+come down heavily enough. "Sir," said an incautious
+person, "drinking drives away care, and makes us forget
+whatever is disagreeable. Would not you allow a man to
+drink for that reason?" "Yes, sir," was the reply, "if
+he sat next <i>you</i>." Johnson, however, was considerate
+towards Goldsmith, partly because of his affection for
+him, and partly because he saw under what disadvantages
+Goldsmith entered the lists. For one thing, the conversation
+of those evenings would seem to have drifted continually
+into the mere definition of phrases. Now
+Johnson had spent years of his life, during the compilation
+of his Dictionary, in doing nothing else but
+defining; and, whenever the dispute took a phraseological
+turn, he had it all his own way. Goldsmith, on the
+other hand, was apt to become confused in his eager<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+self-consciousness. "Goldsmith," said Johnson to Boswell,
+"should not be for ever attempting to shine in
+conversation; he has not temper for it, he is so much
+mortified when he fails.... 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." Boswell, nevertheless, admits that
+Goldsmith was "often very fortunate in his witty contests,
+even when he entered the lists with Johnson
+himself," and goes on to tell how Goldsmith, relating
+the fable of the little fishes who petitioned Jupiter, and
+perceiving that Johnson was laughing at him, immediately
+said, "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 <span class="smcap">whales</span>." Who but Goldsmith
+would have dared to play jokes on the sage? At supper
+they have rumps and kidneys. The sage expresses his
+approval of "the pretty little things;" but profoundly
+observes that one must eat a good many of them before
+being satisfied. "Ay, but how many of them," asks
+Goldsmith, "would reach to the moon?" The sage
+professes his ignorance; and, indeed, remarks that that
+would exceed even Goldsmith's calculations; when the
+practical joker observes, "Why, <i>one</i>, sir, if it were
+long enough." Johnson was completely beaten on this
+occasion. "Well, sir, I have deserved it. I should
+not have provoked so foolish an answer by so foolish a
+question."</p>
+
+<p>It was Johnson himself, moreover, who told the story
+of Goldsmith and himself being in Poets' Corner; of his
+saying to Goldsmith</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis,"<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>and of Goldsmith subsequently repeating the quotation
+when, having walked towards Fleet Street, they were
+confronted by the heads on Temple Bar. Even when
+Goldsmith was opinionated and wrong, Johnson's contradiction
+was in a manner gentle. "If you put a tub
+full of blood into a stable, the horses are like to go
+mad," observed Goldsmith. "I doubt that," was Johnson's
+reply. "Nay, sir, it is a fact well authenticated."
+Here Thrale interposed to suggest that Goldsmith should
+have the experiment tried in the stable; but Johnson
+merely said that, if Goldsmith began making these experiments,
+he would never get his book written at all.
+Occasionally, of course, Goldsmith was tossed and gored
+just like another. "But, sir," he had ventured to say,
+in opposition to Johnson, "when people live together
+who have something as to which they disagree, and
+which they want to shun, they will be in the situation
+mentioned in the story of Bluebeard, 'You may look
+into all the chambers but one.' But we should have the
+greatest inclination to look into that chamber, to talk
+of that subject." Here, according to Boswell, Johnson
+answered in a loud voice, "Sir, I am not saying that <i>you</i>
+could live in friendship with a man from whom you differ
+as to one point; I am only saying that <i>I</i> could do it."
+But then again he could easily obtain pardon from the
+gentle Goldsmith for any occasional rudeness. One
+evening they had a sharp passage of arms at dinner;
+and thereafter the company adjourned to the Club, where
+Goldsmith sate silent and depressed. "Johnson perceived
+this," says Boswell, "and said aside to some of
+us, 'I'll make Goldsmith forgive me'; and then called to
+him in a loud voice, 'Dr. Goldsmith, something passed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+to-day where you and I dined: I ask your pardon.'
+Goldsmith answered placidly, 'It must be much from
+you, sir, that I take ill.' And so at once the difference
+was over, and they were on as easy terms as ever, and
+Goldsmith rattled away as usual." For the rest, Johnson
+was the constant and doughty champion of Goldsmith
+as a man of letters. He would suffer no one to doubt
+the power and versatility of that genius which he had
+been amongst the first to recognise and encourage.
+"Whether, indeed, we take him as a poet, as a comic
+writer, or as an historian," he announced to an assemblage
+of distinguished persons met together at dinner at
+Mr. Beauclerc's, "<i>he stands in the first class</i>." And there
+was no one living who dared dispute the verdict&mdash;at
+least in Johnson's hearing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<h3>The Deserted Village.</h3>
+<p>But it is time to return to the literary performances
+that gained for this uncouth Irishman so great an
+amount of consideration from the first men of his time.
+The engagement with Griffin about the <i>History of
+Animated Nature</i> was made at the beginning of 1769.
+The work was to occupy eight volumes; and Dr.
+Goldsmith was to receive eight hundred guineas for the
+complete copyright. Whether the undertaking was
+originally a suggestion of Griffin's, or of Goldsmith's own,
+does not appear. If it was the author's, it was probably
+only the first means that occurred to him of getting
+another advance; and that advance&mdash;&pound;500 on account&mdash;he
+did actually get. But if it was the suggestion of
+the publisher, Griffin must have been a bold man. A
+writer whose acquaintance with animated nature was
+such as to allow him to make the "insidious tiger" a
+denizen of the backwoods of Canada,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> was not a very
+safe authority. But perhaps Griffin had consulted
+Johnson before making this bargain; and we know that
+Johnson, though continually remarking on Goldsmith's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+extraordinary ignorance of facts, was of opinion that
+the <i>History of Animated Nature</i> would be "as entertaining
+as a Persian tale." However, Goldsmith&mdash;no doubt
+after he had spent the five hundred guineas&mdash;tackled the
+work in earnest. When Boswell subsequently went out
+to call on him at another rural retreat he had taken on
+the Edgware Road, Boswell and Mickle, the translator
+of the <i>Lusiad</i>, found Goldsmith from home; "but,
+having a curiosity to see his apartment, we went in and
+found curious scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled
+upon the wall with a black-lead pencil." Meanwhile,
+this <i>Animated Nature</i> being in hand, the <i>Roman History</i>
+was published, and was very well received by the critics
+and by the public. "Goldsmith's abridgment," Johnson
+declared, "is better than that of Lucius Florus or
+Eutropius; and I will venture to say that if you
+compare him with Vertot, in the same places of the
+<i>Roman History</i>, you will find that he excels Vertot.
+Sir, he has the art of compiling, and of saying everything
+he has to say in a pleasing manner."</p>
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> See <i>Citizen of the World</i>, Letter XVII.</p></div></div>
+
+<p>So thought the booksellers too; and the success of the
+<i>Roman History</i> only involved him in fresh projects of
+compilation. By an offer of &pound;500 Davies induced him to
+lay aside for the moment the <i>Animated Nature</i> and begin
+"An History of England, from the Birth of the British
+Empire to the death of George the Second, in four
+volumes octavo." He also about this time undertook to
+write a Life of Thomas Parnell. Here, indeed, was
+plenty of work, and work promising good pay; but the
+depressing thing is that Goldsmith should have been the
+man who had to do it. He may have done it better
+than any one else could have done&mdash;indeed, looking over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+the results of all that drudgery, we recognise now the
+happy turns of expression which were never long absent
+from Goldsmith's prose-writing&mdash;but the world could
+well afford to sacrifice all the task-work thus got through
+for another poem like the <i>Deserted Village</i> or the <i>Traveller</i>.
+Perhaps Goldsmith considered he was making a fair compromise
+when, for the sake of his reputation, he devoted
+a certain portion of his time to his poetical work, and
+then, to have money for fine clothes and high jinks, gave
+the rest to the booksellers. One critic, on the appearance
+of the <i>Roman History</i>, referred to the <i>Traveller</i>,
+and remarked that it was a pity that the "author of one
+of the best poems that has appeared since those of Mr.
+Pope, should not apply wholly to works of imagination."
+We may echo that regret now; but Goldsmith would at
+the time have no doubt replied that, if he had trusted to
+his poems, he would never have been able to pay &pound;400
+for chambers in the Temple. In fact he said as much
+to Lord Lisburn at one of the Academy dinners: "I
+cannot afford to court the draggle-tail muses, my Lord;
+they would let me starve; but by my other labours I
+can make shift to eat, and drink, and have good clothes."
+And there is little use in our regretting now that Goldsmith
+was not cast in a more heroic mould; we have to
+take him as he is; and be grateful for what he has
+left us.</p>
+
+<p>It is a grateful relief to turn from these booksellers'
+contracts and forced labours to the sweet clear note
+of singing that one finds in the <i>Deserted Village</i>.
+This poem, after having been repeatedly announced and
+as often withdrawn for further revision, was at last
+published on the 26th of May, 1770, when Goldsmith<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+was in his forty-second year. The leading idea of it
+he had already thrown out in certain lines in the
+<i>Traveller</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her useful sons exchanged for useless ore?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lead stern depopulation in her train,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And over fields where scattered hamlets rose<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In barren solitary pomp repose?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have we not seen at pleasure's lordly call<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The smiling long-frequented village fall?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beheld the duteous son, the sire decayed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The modest matron, and the blushing maid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Forced from their homes, a melancholy train,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To traverse climes beyond the western main;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Niagara stuns with thundering sound?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&mdash;and elsewhere, in recorded conversations of his, we
+find that he had somehow got it into his head that the
+accumulation of wealth in a country was the parent of
+all evils, including depopulation. We need not stay
+here to discuss Goldsmith's position as a political economist;
+even although Johnson seems to sanction his
+theory in the four lines he contributed to the end of the
+poem. Nor is it worth while returning to that objection
+of Lord Macaulay's which has already been mentioned
+in these pages, further than to repeat that the poor Irish
+village in which Goldsmith was brought up, no doubt
+looked to him as charming as any Auburn, when he
+regarded it through the softening and beautifying mist<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+of years. It is enough that the abandonment by a
+number of poor people of the homes in which they and
+theirs have lived their lives, is one of the most pathetic
+facts in our civilisation; and that out of the various
+circumstances surrounding this forced migration Goldsmith
+has made one of the most graceful and touching
+poems in the English language. It is clear bird-singing;
+but there is a pathetic note in it. That imaginary
+ramble through the Lissoy that is far away has recalled
+more than his boyish sports; it has made him look back
+over his own life&mdash;the life of an exile.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To husband out life's taper at the close,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And keep the flame from wasting by repose:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Around my fire an evening group to draw,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I still had hopes, my long vexations past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here to return&mdash;and die at home at last."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Who can doubt that it was of Lissoy he was thinking?
+Sir Walter Scott, writing a generation ago, said that
+"the church which tops the neighbouring hill," the
+mill and the brook were still to be seen in the Irish
+village; and that even</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For talking age and whispering lovers made,"<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>had been identified by the indefatigable tourist, and
+was of course being cut to pieces to make souvenirs.
+But indeed it is of little consequence whether we say
+that Auburn is an English village, or insist that it is
+only Lissoy idealised, as long as the thing is true in
+itself. And we know that this is true: it is not that
+one sees the place as a picture, but that one seems to
+be breathing its very atmosphere, and listening to
+the various cries that thrill the "hollow silence."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Up yonder hill the village murmur rose.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There, as I past with careless steps and slow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mingling notes came softened from below;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sober herd that lowed to meet their young,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The playful children just let loose from school,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the loud laugh that spake the vacant mind."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Nor is it any romantic and impossible peasantry that
+is gradually brought before us. There are no Norvals in
+Lissoy. There is the old woman&mdash;Catherine Geraghty,
+they say, was her name&mdash;who gathered cresses in the
+ditches near her cabin. There is the village preacher
+whom Mrs. Hodson, Goldsmith's sister, took to be a
+portrait of their father; but whom others have identified
+as Henry Goldsmith, and even as the uncle Contarine:
+they may all have contributed. And then comes Paddy
+Byrne. Amid all the pensive tenderness of the poem
+this description of the schoolmaster, with its strokes of
+demure humour, is introduced with delightful effect.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The village master taught his little school.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A man severe he was, and stern to view;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I knew him well, and every truant knew:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The day's disasters in his morning face;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Full well the busy whisper circling round<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The love he bore to learning was in fault;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The village all declared how much he knew:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And e'en the story ran that he could gauge:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While words of learned length and thundering sound<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That one small head could carry all he knew."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>All this is so simple and natural that we cannot fail to
+believe in the reality of Auburn, or Lissoy, or whatever
+the village may be supposed to be. We visit the clergyman's
+cheerful fireside; and look in on the noisy school;
+and sit in the evening in the ale house to listen to the
+profound politics talked there. But the crisis comes.
+Auburn <i>delenda est</i>. Here, no doubt, occurs the least
+probable part of the poem. Poverty of soil is a common
+cause of emigration; land that produces oats (when
+it can produce oats at all) three-fourths mixed with
+weeds, and hay chiefly consisting of rushes, naturally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+discharges its surplus population as families increase;
+and though the wrench of parting is painful enough,
+the usual result is a change from starvation to competence.
+It more rarely happens that a district of
+peace and plenty, such as Auburn was supposed to see
+around it, is depopulated to add to a great man's estate.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">"The man of wealth and pride<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Takes up a space that many poor supplied;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds:<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<hr class="hr1"  />
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">His seat, where solitary sports are seen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Indignant spurns the cottage from the green:"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&mdash;and so forth. This seldom happens; but it does
+happen; and it has happened, in our own day, in
+England. It is within the last twenty years that an
+English landlord, having faith in his riches, bade a
+village be removed and cast elsewhere, so that it should
+no longer be visible from his windows: and it was forthwith
+removed. But any solitary instance like this is
+not sufficient to support the theory that wealth and
+luxury are inimical to the existence of a hardy peasantry;
+and so we must admit, after all, that it is poetical
+exigency rather than political economy that has decreed
+the destruction of the loveliest village of the plain.
+Where, asks the poet, are the driven poor to find refuge,
+when even the fenceless commons are seized upon and
+divided by the rich? In the great cities?&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"To see profusion that he must not share;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To see ten thousand baneful arts combined<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To pamper luxury and thin mankind."<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>It is in this description of a life in cities that there
+occurs an often-quoted passage, which has in it one of
+the most perfect lines in English poetry:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i16">"Ah, turn thine eyes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Has wept at tales of innocence distrest;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Near her betrayer's door she lays her head.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the shower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When idly first, ambitious of the town,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She left her wheel and robes of country brown."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Goldsmith wrote in a pre-Wordsworthian age, when,
+even in the realms of poetry, a primrose was not much
+more than a primrose; but it is doubtful whether, either
+before, during, or since Wordsworth's time the sentiment
+that the imagination can infuse into the common
+and familiar things around us ever received more happy
+expression than in the well-known line,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"<i>Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>No one has as yet succeeded in defining accurately and
+concisely what poetry is; but at all events this line is
+surcharged with a certain quality which is conspicuously
+absent in such a production as the <i>Essay on Man</i>.
+Another similar line is to be found further on in the
+description of the distant scenes to which the proscribed
+people are driven:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.</i>"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Indeed, the pathetic side of emigration has never been
+so powerfully presented to us as in this poem&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And took a long farewell, and wished in vain<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For seats like these beyond the western main,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shuddering still to face the distant deep,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<hr class="hr1" />
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I see the rural virtues leave the land.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That idly waiting flaps with every gale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Downward they move a melancholy band,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Contented toil, and hospitable care,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And kind connubial tenderness are there;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And piety with wishes placed above,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And steady loyalty, and faithful love."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And worst of all, in this imaginative departure, we find
+that Poetry herself is leaving our shores. She is now to
+try her voice</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"On Torno's cliffs or Pambamarca's side;"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and the poet, in the closing lines of the poem, bids her
+a passionate and tender farewell:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still first to fly where sensual joys invade;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span><span class="i0">Unfit in these degenerate times of shame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Farewell, and O! where'er thy voice be tried,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Redress the rigours of the inclement clime;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Teach him, that states of native strength possest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though very poor, may still be very blest;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While self-dependent power can time defy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As rocks resist the billows and the sky."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>So ends this graceful, melodious, tender poem, the position
+of which in English literature, and in the estimation
+of all who love English literature, has not been disturbed
+by any fluctuations of literary fashion. We may give more
+attention at the moment to the new experiments of the
+poetic method; but we return only with renewed gratitude
+to the old familiar strain, not the least merit of
+which is that it has nothing about it of foreign tricks or
+graces. In English literature there is nothing more
+thoroughly English than these writings produced by an
+Irishman. And whether or not it was Paddy Byrne,
+and Catherine Geraghty, and the Lissoy ale-house that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+Goldsmith had in his mind when he was writing the
+poem, is not of much consequence: the manner and
+language and feeling are all essentially English; so that
+we never think of calling Goldsmith anything but an
+English poet.</p>
+
+<p>The poem met with great and immediate success. Of
+course everything that Dr. Goldsmith now wrote
+was read by the public; he had not to wait for the
+recommendation of the reviews; but, in this case, even
+the reviews had scarcely anything but praise in the
+welcome of his new book. It was dedicated, in graceful
+and ingenious terms, to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who
+returned the compliment by painting a picture and
+placing on the engraving of it this inscription: "This
+attempt to express a character in the <i>Deserted Village</i> is
+dedicated to Dr. Goldsmith by his sincere friend and
+admirer, Sir Joshua Reynolds." What Goldsmith got
+from Griffin for the poem is not accurately known; and
+this is a misfortune, for the knowledge would have
+enabled us to judge whether at that time it was possible
+for a poet to court the draggle-tail muses without risk
+of starvation. But if fame were his chief object in the
+composition of the poem, he was sufficiently rewarded;
+and it is to be surmised that by this time the people in
+Ireland&mdash;no longer implored to get subscribers&mdash;had
+heard of the proud position won by the vagrant youth
+who had "taken the world for his pillow" some eighteen
+years before.</p>
+
+<p>That his own thoughts had sometimes wandered
+back to the scenes and friends of his youth during
+this labour of love, we know from his letters. In
+January of this year, while as yet the <i>Deserted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+Village</i> was not quite through the press, he wrote
+to his brother Maurice; and expressed himself as most
+anxious to hear all about the relatives from whom he
+had been so long parted. He has something to say
+about himself too; wishes it to be known that the King
+has lately been pleased to make him Professor of Ancient
+History "in a Royal Academy of Painting which he has
+just established;" but gives no very flourishing account
+of his circumstances. "Honours to one in my situation
+are something like ruffles to a man that wants a shirt."
+However, there is some small legacy of fourteen or
+fifteen pounds left him by his uncle Contarine, which
+he understands to be in the keeping of his cousin
+Lawder; and to this wealth he is desirous of foregoing
+all claim: his relations must settle how it may be best
+expended. But there is not a reference to his literary
+achievements, or the position won by them; not the
+slightest yielding to even a pardonable vanity; it is a
+modest, affectionate letter. The only hint that Maurice
+Goldsmith receives of the esteem in which his brother
+is held in London, is contained in a brief mention of
+Johnson, Burke, and others as his friends. "I have
+sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture of myself,
+as I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer.
+I have ordered it to be left for her at George Faulkenor's,
+folded in a letter. The face, you well know, is ugly
+enough; but it is finely painted. I will shortly also
+send my friends over the Shannon some mezzotinto
+prints of myself, and some more of my friends here,
+such as Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Colman. I
+believe I have written an hundred letters to different
+friends in your country, and never received an answer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+from any of them. I do not know how to account for
+this, or why they are unwilling to keep up for me those
+regards which I must ever retain for them." The
+letter winds up with an appeal for news, news,
+news.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<h3>OCCASIONAL WRITINGS.</h3>
+<p>Some two months after the publication of the <i>Deserted
+Village</i>, when its success had been well assured,
+Goldsmith proposed to himself the relaxation of a little
+Continental tour; and he was accompanied by three
+ladies, Mrs. Horneck and her two pretty daughters,
+who doubtless took more charge of him than he did
+of them. This Mrs. Horneck, the widow of a certain
+Captain Horneck, was connected with Reynolds, while
+Burke was the guardian of the two girls; so that it
+was natural that they should make the acquaintance
+of Dr. Goldsmith. A foolish attempt has been made
+to weave out of the relations supposed to exist between
+the younger of the girls and Goldsmith an imaginary
+romance; but there is not the slightest actual foundation
+for anything of the kind. Indeed the best guide
+we can have to the friendly and familiar terms on which
+he stood with regard to the Hornecks and their circle,
+is the following careless and jocular reply to a chance
+invitation sent him by the two sisters:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">"Your mandate I got,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">You may all go to pot;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span><span class="i8">Had your senses been right,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">You'd have sent before night;<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">As I hope to be saved,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">I put off being shaved;<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">For I could not make bold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">While the matter was cold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">To meddle in suds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Or to put on my duds;<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">So tell Horneck and Nesbitt<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">And Baker and his bit,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">And Kauffman beside,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">And the Jessamy bride;<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">With the rest of the crew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">The Reynoldses two,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Little Comedy's face<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">And the Captain in lace.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<hr class="hr1" />
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">Yet how can I when vext<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Thus stray from my text?<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Tell each other to rue<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">Your Devonshire crew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">For sending so late<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">To one of my state.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">But 'tis Reynolds's way<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">From wisdom to stray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">And Angelica's whim<br /></span>
+<span class="i8">To be frolic like him.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But, alas! your good worships, how could they be wiser,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When both have been spoiled in to-day's <i>Advertiser</i>?"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"The Jessamy Bride" was the pet nickname he had
+bestowed on the younger Miss Horneck&mdash;the heroine of
+the speculative romance just mentioned; "Little
+Comedy" was her sister; "the Captain in lace" their
+brother, who was in the Guards. No doubt Mrs.
+Horneck and her daughters were very pleased to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+with them on this Continental trip so distinguished a
+person as Dr. Goldsmith; and he must have been
+very ungrateful if he was not glad to be provided with
+such charming companions. The story of the sudden
+envy he displayed of the admiration excited by the two
+handsome young Englishwomen as they stood at a
+hotel-window in Lille, is so incredibly foolish that it
+needs scarcely be repeated here; unless to repeat the
+warning that, if ever anybody was so dense as not to
+see the humour of that piece of acting, one had better
+look with grave suspicion on every one of the stories
+told about Goldsmith's vanities and absurdities.</p>
+
+<p>Even with such pleasant companions, the trip to Paris
+was not everything he had hoped. "I find," he wrote
+to Reynolds from Paris, "that travelling at twenty and
+at forty are very different things. I set out with all
+my confirmed habits about me, and can find nothing
+on the Continent so good as when I formerly left it.
+One of our chief amusements here is scolding at everything
+we meet with, and praising every thing and every
+person we left at home. You may judge therefore
+whether your name is not frequently bandied at table
+among us. To tell you the truth, I never thought I
+could regret your absence so much, as our various
+mortifications on the road have often taught me to do.
+I could tell you of disasters and adventures without
+number, of our lying in barns, and of my being half
+poisoned with a dish of green peas, of our quarrelling
+with postilions and being cheated by our landladies, but
+I reserve all this for a happy hour which I expect to
+share with you upon my return." The fact is that
+although Goldsmith had seen a good deal of foreign<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+travel, the manner of his making the grand tour in his
+youth was not such as to fit him for acting as courier to
+a party of ladies. However, if they increased his
+troubles, they also shared them; and in this same letter
+he bears explicit testimony to the value of their companionship.
+"I will soon be among you, better pleased
+with my situation at home than I ever was before. And
+yet I must say, that if anything could make France
+pleasant, the very good women with whom I am at
+present would certainly do it. I could say more about
+that, but I intend showing them this letter before I
+send it away." Mrs. Horneck, Little Comedy, the
+Jessamy Bride, and the Professor of Ancient History at
+the Royal Academy, all returned to London; the last to
+resume his round of convivialities at taverns, excursions
+into regions of more fashionable amusement along
+with Reynolds, and task-work aimed at the pockets of
+the booksellers.</p>
+
+<p>It was a happy-go-lucky sort of life. We find him
+now showing off his fine clothes and his sword and wig
+at Ranelagh Gardens, and again shut up in his chambers
+compiling memoirs and histories in hot haste; now the
+guest of Lord Clare, and figuring at Bath, and again
+delighting some small domestic circle by his quips and
+cranks; playing jokes for the amusement of children,
+and writing comic letters in verse to their elders;
+everywhere and at all times merry, thoughtless, good-natured.
+And, of course, we find also his humorous
+pleasantries being mistaken for blundering stupidity.
+In perfect good faith Boswell describes how a number
+of people burst out laughing when Goldsmith publicly
+complained that he had met Lord Camden at Lord<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+Clare's house in the country, "and he took no more
+notice of me than if I had been an ordinary man."
+Goldsmith's claiming to be a very extraordinary person
+was precisely a stroke of that humorous self-depreciation
+in which he was continually indulging; and the
+Jessamy Bride has left it on record that "on many
+occasions, from the peculiar manner of his humour, and
+assumed frown of countenance, what was often uttered
+in jest was mistaken by those who did not know him
+for earnest." This would appear to have been one of
+those occasions. The company burst out laughing at
+Goldsmith's having made a fool of himself; and Johnson
+was compelled to come to his rescue. "Nay, gentlemen,
+Dr. Goldsmith is in the right. A nobleman ought
+to have made up to such a man as Goldsmith; and I
+think it is much against Lord Camden that he neglected
+him."</p>
+
+<p>Mention of Lord Clare naturally recalls the <i>Haunch
+of Venison</i>. Goldsmith was particularly happy in writing
+bright and airy verses; the grace and lightness of his
+touch has rarely been approached. It must be confessed,
+however, that in this direction he was somewhat of an
+Autolycus; unconsidered trifles he freely appropriated;
+but he committed these thefts with scarcely any concealment,
+and with the most charming air in the world.
+In fact some of the snatches of verse which he contributed
+to the <i>Bee</i> scarcely profess to be anything else
+than translations, though the originals are not given.
+But who is likely to complain when we get as the result
+such a delightful piece of nonsense as the famous Elegy
+on that Glory of her Sex, Mrs. Mary Blaize, which has
+been the parent of a vast progeny since Goldsmith's time?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Good people all, with one accord<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lament for Madam Blaize,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who never wanted a good word,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From those who spoke her praise.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The needy seldom passed her door,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And always found her kind;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She freely lent to all the poor,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who left a pledge behind.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"She strove the neighbourhood to please,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With manners wondrous winning;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And never followed wicked ways,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Unless when she was sinning.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"At church, in silks and satins new,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With hoop of monstrous size,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She never slumbered in her pew,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But when she shut her eyes.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Her love was sought, I do aver,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">By twenty beaux and more;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The king himself has followed her,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When she has walked before.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But now her wealth and finery fled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her hangers-on cut short all;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The doctors found, when she was dead,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Her last disorder mortal.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Let us lament, in sorrow sore,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For Kent Street well may say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That had she lived a twelvemonth more,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She had not died to-day."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The <i>Haunch of Venison</i>, on the other hand, is a poetical
+letter of thanks to Lord Clare&mdash;an easy, jocular epistle,
+in which the writer has a cut or two at certain of his
+literary brethren. Then, as he is looking at the venison,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+and determining not to send it to any such people as
+Hiffernan or Higgins, who should step in but our old
+friend Beau Tibbs, or some one remarkably like him in
+manner and speech?&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"While thus I debated, in reverie centred,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An acquaintance, a friend as he called himself, entered;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And he smiled as he looked at the venison and me.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'What have we got here?&mdash;Why this is good eating!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your own, I suppose&mdash;or is it in waiting?'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Why, whose should it be?' cried I with a flounce;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'I get these things often'&mdash;but that was a bounce:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are pleased to be kind&mdash;but I hate ostentation.'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'If that be the case then,' cried he, very gay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'I'm glad I have taken this house in my way.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No words&mdash;I insist on't&mdash;precisely at three;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits will be there;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my Lord Clare.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now that I think on't, as I am a sinner!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We wanted this venison to make out the dinner.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What say you&mdash;a pasty? It shall, and it must,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here, porter! this venison with me to Mile End;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No stirring&mdash;I beg&mdash;my dear friend&mdash;my dear friend!'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus, snatching his hat, he brushed off like the wind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the porter and eatables followed behind."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>We need not follow the vanished venison&mdash;which did
+not make its appearance at the banquet any more than
+did Johnson or Burke&mdash;further than to say that if Lord
+Clare did not make it good to the poet he did not deserve
+to have his name associated with such a clever and
+careless <i>jeu d'esprit</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<h3>SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.</h3>
+<p>But the writing of smart verses could not keep
+Dr. Goldsmith alive, more especially as dinner-parties,
+Ranelagh masquerades, and similar diversions
+pressed heavily on his finances. When his <i>History of
+England</i> appeared, the literary cut-throats of the day
+accused him of having been bribed by the Government
+to betray the liberties of the people:<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> a foolish charge.
+What Goldsmith got for the <i>English History</i> was the
+sum originally stipulated for, and now no doubt all
+spent; with a further sum of fifty guineas for an
+abridgment of the work. Then, by this time, he had
+persuaded Griffin to advance him the whole of the
+eight hundred guineas for the <i>Animated Nature</i>, though
+he had only done about a third part of the book. At
+the instigation of Newbery he had begun a story after
+the manner of the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>; but it appears
+that such chapters as he had written were not deemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+to be promising; and the undertaking was abandoned.
+The fact is, Goldsmith was now thinking of another
+method of replenishing his purse. The <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>
+had brought him little but reputation; the <i>Good-natured
+Man</i> had brought him &pound;500. It was to the stage that
+he now looked for assistance out of the financial slough
+in which he was plunged. He was engaged in writing a
+comedy; and that comedy was <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>.</p>
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> "God knows I had no thought for or against liberty in my head;
+my whole aim being to make up a book of a decent size that, as
+Squire Richard says, 'would do no harm to nobody.'"&mdash;Goldsmith
+to Langton, September, 1771.</p></div></div>
+
+<p>In the Dedication to Johnson which was prefixed to
+this play on its appearance in type, Goldsmith hints
+that the attempt to write a comedy not of the sentimental
+order then in fashion, was a hazardous thing;
+and also that Colman, who saw the piece in its various
+stages, was of this opinion too. Colman threw cold
+water on the undertaking from the very beginning.
+It was only extreme pressure on the part of Goldsmith's
+friends that induced&mdash;or rather compelled&mdash;him
+to accept the comedy; and that, after he had
+kept the unfortunate author in the tortures of suspense
+for month after month. But although Goldsmith
+knew the danger, he was resolved to face it. He
+hated the sentimentalists and all their works; and
+determined to keep his new comedy faithful to nature,
+whether people called it low or not. His object
+was to raise a genuine, hearty laugh; not to write a
+piece for school declamation; and he had enough confidence
+in himself to do the work in his own way. Moreover
+he took the earliest possible opportunity, in writing
+this piece, of poking fun at the sensitive creatures who
+had been shocked by the "vulgarity" of <i>The Good-natured
+Man</i>. "Bravo! Bravo!" cry the jolly companions
+of Tony Lumpkin, when that promising buckeen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+has finished his song at the Three Pigeons; then follows
+criticism:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>First Fellow.</i> The squire has got spunk in him.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second Fel.</i> I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never gives
+us nothing that's low.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third Fel.</i> O damn anything that's low, I cannot bear it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Fourth Fel.</i> The genteel thing is the genteel thing any
+time: if so be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation
+accordingly.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third Fel.</i> I likes the maxum of it, Master Muggins.
+What, though I am obligated to dance a bear, a man may be
+a gentleman for all that. May this be my poison, if my bear
+ever dances but to the very genteelest of tunes; 'Water
+Parted,' or the 'The Minuet in Ariadne.'"</p></div>
+
+<p>Indeed, Goldsmith, however he might figure in society,
+was always capable of holding his own when he had his
+pen in his hand. And even at the outset of this comedy
+one sees how much he has gained in literary confidence
+since the writing of the <i>Good-natured Man</i>. Here
+there is no anxious stiffness at all; but a brisk, free
+conversation, full of point that is not too formal, and
+yet conveying all the information that has usually to be
+crammed into a first scene. In taking as the groundwork
+of his plot that old adventure that had befallen
+himself&mdash;his mistaking a squire's house for an inn&mdash;he
+was hampering himself with something that was not the
+less improbable because it had actually happened; but
+we begin to forget all the improbabilities through the
+naturalness of the people to whom we are introduced,
+and the brisk movement and life of the piece.</p>
+
+<p>Fashions in dramatic literature may come and go; but
+the wholesome good-natured fun of <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+is as capable of producing a hearty laugh now, as it was
+when it first saw the light in Covent Garden. Tony
+Lumpkin is one of the especial favourites of the theatre-going
+public; and no wonder. With all the young cub's
+jibes and jeers, his impudence and grimaces, one has a
+sneaking love for the scapegrace; we laugh with him,
+rather than at him; how can we fail to enjoy those
+malevolent tricks of his when he so obviously enjoys
+them himself? And Diggory&mdash;do we not owe an eternal
+debt of gratitude to honest Diggory for telling us about
+Ould Grouse in the gunroom, that immortal joke at
+which thousands and thousands of people have roared
+with laughter, though they never any one of them could
+tell what the story was about? The scene in which
+the old squire lectures his faithful attendants on their
+manners and duties, is one of the truest bits of comedy
+on the English stage:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>Mr. Hardcastle.</i> But you're not to stand so, with your
+hands in your pockets. Take your hands from your pockets,
+Roger; and from your head, you blockhead you. See how
+Diggory carries his hands. They're a little too stiff, indeed,
+but that's no great matter.</p>
+
+<p><i>Diggory.</i> Ay, mind how I hold them. I learned to hold
+my hands this way when I was upon drill for the militia.
+And so being upon drill&mdash;.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hard.</i> You must not be so talkative, Diggory. You
+must be all attention to the guests. You must hear us talk,
+and not think of talking; you must see us drink, and not
+think of drinking; you must see us eat, and not think of
+eating.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dig.</i> By the laws, your worship, that's parfectly unpossible.
+Whenever Diggory sees yeating going forward, ecod, he's
+always wishing for a mouthful himself.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p>
+<p><i>Hard.</i> Blockhead! Is not a bellyfull in the kitchen as
+good as a bellyfull in the parlour? Stay your stomach with
+that reflection.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dig.</i> Ecod, I thank your worship, I'll make a shift to stay
+my stomach with a slice of cold beef in the pantry.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hard.</i> Diggory, you are too talkative.&mdash;Then, if I happen
+to say a good thing, or tell a good story at table, you must
+not all burst out a-laughing, as if you made part of the
+company.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dig.</i> Then ecod your worship must not tell the story of
+Ould Grouse in the gunroom: I can't help laughing at that&mdash;he!
+he! he!&mdash;for the soul of me. We have laughed at
+that these twenty years&mdash;ha! ha! ha!</p>
+
+<p><i>Hard.</i> Ha! ha! ha! The story is a good one. Well,
+honest Diggory, you may laugh at that&mdash;but still remember
+to be attentive. Suppose one of the company should call for
+a glass of wine, how will you behave? A glass of wine, sir,
+if-you please (<i>to</i> <span class="smcap">Diggory</span>).&mdash;Eh, why don't you move?</p>
+
+<p><i>Dig.</i> Ecod, your worship, I never have courage till I see
+the eatables and drinkables brought upo' the table, and then
+I'm as bauld as a lion.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hard.</i> What, will nobody move?</p>
+
+<p><i>First Serv.</i> I'm not to leave this pleace.</p>
+
+<p><i>Second Serv.</i> I'm sure it's no pleace of mine.</p>
+
+<p><i>Third Serv.</i> Nor mine, for sartain.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dig.</i> Wauns, and I'm sure it canna be mine."</p></div>
+
+<p>No doubt all this is very "low" indeed; and perhaps
+Mr. Colman may be forgiven for suspecting that
+the refined wits of the day would be shocked by these
+rude humours of a parcel of servants. But all that can
+be said in this direction was said at the time by Horace
+Walpole, in a letter to a friend of his; and this criticism
+is so amusing in its pretence and imbecility that it
+is worth quoting at large. "Dr. Goldsmith has written
+a comedy," says this profound critic, "&mdash;no, it is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+lowest of all farces; it is not the subject I condemn,
+though very vulgar, but the execution. The drift tends
+to no moral, no edification of any kind&mdash;the situations,
+however, are well imagined, and make one laugh in spite
+of the grossness of the dialogue, the forced witticisms,
+and total improbability of the whole plan and conduct.
+But what disgusts me most is, that though the characters
+are very low, and aim at low humour, not one of them
+says a sentence that is natural, or marks any character
+at all." Horace Walpole sighing for edification&mdash;from a
+Covent Garden comedy! Surely, if the old gods have
+any laughter left, and if they take any notice of what
+is done in the literary world here below, there must
+have rumbled through the courts of Olympus a guffaw of
+sardonic laughter, when that solemn criticism was put
+down on paper.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Colman's original fears had developed into
+a sort of stupid obstinacy. He was so convinced that
+the play would not succeed, that he would spend no
+money in putting it on the stage; while far and wide he
+announced its failure as a foregone conclusion. Under
+this gloom of vaticination the rehearsals were nevertheless
+proceeded with&mdash;the brunt of the quarrels among
+the players falling wholly on Goldsmith, for the manager
+seems to have withdrawn in despair; while all the
+Johnson confraternity were determined to do what they
+could for Goldsmith on the opening night. That was the
+15th of March, 1773. His friends invited the author to
+dinner as a prelude to the play; Dr. Johnson was in the
+chair; there was plenty of gaiety. But this means of
+keeping up the anxious author's spirits was not very successful.
+Goldsmith's mouth, we are told by Reynolds,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+became so parched "from the agitation of his mind,
+that he was unable to swallow a single mouthful."
+Moreover, he could not face the ordeal of sitting through
+the play; when his friends left the tavern and betook
+themselves to the theatre, he went away by himself;
+and was subsequently found walking in St. James's Park.
+The friend who discovered him there, persuaded him that
+his presence in the theatre might be useful in case of
+an emergency; and ultimately got him to accompany
+him to Covent Garden. When Goldsmith reached the
+theatre, the fifth act had been begun.</p>
+
+<p>Oddly enough, the first thing he heard on entering the
+stage-door was a hiss. The story goes that the poor
+author was dreadfully frightened; and that in answer to
+a hurried question, Colman exclaimed, "Psha! Doctor,
+don't be afraid of a squib, when we have been sitting
+these two hours on a barrel of gunpowder." If this
+was meant as a hoax, it was a cruel one; if meant
+seriously, it was untrue. For the piece had turned out
+a great hit. From beginning to end of the performance
+the audience were in a roar of laughter; and the single
+hiss that Goldsmith unluckily heard was so markedly
+exceptional, that it became the talk of the town, and
+was variously attributed to one or other of Goldsmith's
+rivals. Colman, too, suffered at the hands of the wits
+for his gloomy and falsified predictions; and had, indeed,
+to beg Goldsmith to intercede for him. It is a great pity
+that Boswell was not in London at this time; for then
+we might have had a description of the supper that
+naturally would follow the play, and of Goldsmith's
+demeanour under this new success. Besides the gratification,
+moreover, of his choice of materials being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+approved by the public, there was the material benefit
+accruing to him from the three "author's nights."
+These are supposed to have produced nearly five hundred
+pounds&mdash;a substantial sum in those days.</p>
+
+<p>Boswell did not come to London till the second of
+April following; and the first mention we find of Goldsmith
+is in connection with an incident which has its
+ludicrous as well as its regrettable aspect. The further
+success of <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i> was not likely to propitiate
+the wretched hole-and-corner cut-throats that infested
+the journalism of that day. More especially was
+Kenrick driven mad with envy; and so, in a letter addressed
+to the <i>London Packet</i>, this poor creature determined
+once more to set aside the judgment of the public,
+and show Dr. Goldsmith in his true colours. The
+letter is a wretched production, full of personalities
+only fit for an angry washerwoman, and of rancour
+without point. But there was one passage in it that
+effectually roused Goldsmith's rage; for here the Jessamy
+Bride was introduced as "the lovely H&mdash;&mdash;k." The letter
+was anonymous; but the publisher of the print, a man
+called Evans, was known; and so Goldsmith thought
+he would go and give Evans a beating. If he had
+asked Johnson's advice about the matter, he would no
+doubt have been told to pay no heed at all to anonymous
+scurrility&mdash;certainly not to attempt to reply to it with
+a cudgel. When Johnson heard that Foote meant to
+"take him off," he turned to Davies and asked him what
+was the common price of an oak stick; but an oak stick
+in Johnson's hands, and an oak stick in Goldsmith's
+Lands, were two different things. However, to the bookseller's
+shop the indignant poet proceeded, in company<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+with a friend; got hold of Evans; accused him of having
+insulted a young lady by putting her name in his
+paper; and, when the publisher would fain have shifted
+the responsibility on to the editor, forthwith denounced
+him as a rascal, and hit him over the back with his cane.
+The publisher, however, was quite a match for Goldsmith;
+and there is no saying how the deadly combat
+might have ended, had not a lamp been broken overhead,
+the oil of which drenched both the warriors. This intervention
+of the superior gods was just as successful as
+a Homeric cloud; the fray ceased; Goldsmith and his
+friend withdrew; and ultimately an action for assault
+was compromised by Goldsmith's paying fifty pounds to
+a charity. Then the howl of the journals arose. Their
+prerogative had been assailed. "Attacks upon private
+character were the most liberal existing source of newspaper
+income," Mr. Forster writes; and so the pack
+turned with one cry on the unlucky poet. There was
+nothing of "the Monument" about poor Goldsmith;
+and at last he was worried into writing a letter of defence
+addressed to the public. "He has indeed done it
+very well," said Johnson to Boswell, "but it is a foolish
+thing well done." And further he remarked, "Why,
+sir, I believe it is the first time he has <i>beat</i>; he may have
+<i>been beaten</i> before. This, sir, is a new plume to him."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<h3>INCREASING DIFFICULTIES.&mdash;THE END.</h3>
+<p>The pecuniary success of <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i> did
+but little to relieve Goldsmith from those financial
+embarrassments which were now weighing heavily on his
+mind. And now he had less of the old high spirits that
+had enabled him to laugh off the cares of debt. His
+health became disordered; an old disease renewed its
+attacks, and was grown more violent because of his
+long-continued sedentary habits. Indeed, from this
+point to the day of his death&mdash;not a long interval,
+either&mdash;we find little but a record of successive endeavours,
+some of them wild and hopeless enough, to
+obtain money anyhow. Of course he went to the Club,
+as usual; and gave dinner-parties; and had a laugh or
+a song ready for the occasion. It is possible, also, to
+trace a certain growth of confidence in himself, no
+doubt the result of the repeated proofs of his genius
+he had put before his friends. It was something more
+than mere personal intimacy that justified the rebuke
+he administered to Reynolds, when the latter painted an
+allegorical picture representing the triumph of Beattie
+and Truth over Voltaire and Scepticism. "It very ill<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+becomes a man of your eminence and character," he
+said, "to debase so high a genius as Voltaire before so
+mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie and his book will be
+forgotten in ten years, while Voltaire's fame will last
+for ever. Take care it does not perpetuate this picture,
+to the shame of such a man as you." He was aware,
+too, of the position he had won for himself in English
+literature. He knew that people in after-days would
+ask about him; and it was with no sort of unwarrantable
+vainglory that he gave Percy certain materials for
+a biography which he wished him to undertake. Hence
+the <i>Percy Memoir</i>.</p>
+
+<p>He was only forty-five when he made this request;
+and he had not suffered much from illness during his
+life; so that there was apparently no grounds for
+imagining that the end was near. But at this time
+Goldsmith began to suffer severe fits of depression; and
+he grew irritable and capricious of temper&mdash;no doubt
+another result of failing health. He was embroiled in
+disputes with the booksellers; and, on one occasion,
+seems to have been much hurt because Johnson, who
+had been asked to step in as arbiter, decided against
+him. He was offended with Johnson on another occasion
+because of his sending away certain dishes at a
+dinner given to him by Goldsmith, as a hint that these
+entertainments were too luxurious for one in Goldsmith's
+position. It was probably owing to some temporary
+feeling of this sort&mdash;perhaps to some expression of it on
+Goldsmith's part&mdash;that Johnson spoke of Goldsmith's
+"malice" towards him. Mrs. Thrale had suggested that
+Goldsmith would be the best person to write Johnson's
+biography. "The dog would write it best, to be sure,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+said Johnson, "but his particular malice towards me,
+and general disregard of truth, would make the book
+useless to all and injurious to my character." Of course
+it is always impossible to say what measure of jocular
+exaggeration there may not be in a chance phrase such
+as this: of the fact that there was no serious or permanent
+quarrel between the two friends we have abundant
+proof in Boswell's faithful pages.</p>
+
+<p>To return to the various endeavours made by Goldsmith
+and his friends to meet the difficulties now
+closing in around him, we find, first of all, the familiar
+hack-work. For two volumes of a <i>History of Greece</i>
+he had received from Griffin &pound;250. Then his friends
+tried to get him a pension from the Government; but
+this was definitely refused. An expedient of his own
+seemed to promise well at first. He thought of bringing
+out a <i>Popular Dictionary of Arts and Sciences</i>, a series
+of contributions mostly by his friends, with himself as
+editor; and among those who offered to assist him were
+Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, and Dr. Burney. But the
+booksellers were afraid. The project would involve a
+large expense; and they had no high opinion of Goldsmith's
+business habits. Then he offered to alter <i>The
+Good-natured Man</i> for Garrick; but Garrick preferred
+to treat with him for a new comedy, and generously
+allowed him to draw on him for the money in advance.
+This last help enabled him to go to Barton for a brief
+holiday; but the relief was only temporary. On his
+return to London even his nearest friends began to
+observe the change in his manner. In the old days
+Goldsmith had faced pecuniary difficulties with a light
+heart; but now, his health broken, and every avenue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
+of escape apparently closed, he was giving way to despair.
+His friend Cradock, coming up to town, found Goldsmith
+in a most despondent condition; and also hints that
+the unhappy author was trying to conceal the true state
+of affairs. "I believe," says Cradock, "he died miserable,
+and that his friends were not entirely aware of
+his distress."</p>
+
+<p>And yet it was during this closing period of anxiety,
+despondency, and gloomy foreboding, that the brilliant
+and humorous lines of <i>Retaliation</i> were written&mdash;that
+last scintillation of the bright and happy genius that
+was soon to be extinguished for ever. The most varied
+accounts have been given of the origin of this <i>jeu
+d'esprit</i>; and even Garrick's, which was meant to supersede
+and correct all others, is self-contradictory. For
+according to this version of the story, which was found
+among the Garrick papers, and which is printed in
+Mr. Cunningham's edition of Goldsmith's works, the
+whole thing arose out of Goldsmith and Garrick resolving
+one evening at the St. James's Coffee House to write
+each other's epitaph. Garrick's well-known couplet was
+instantly produced:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Goldsmith, according to Garrick, either would not or
+could not retort at the moment; "but went to work,
+and some weeks after produced the following printed
+poem, called <i>Retaliation</i>." But Garrick himself goes on
+to say, "The following poems in manuscript were written
+by several of the gentlemen on purpose to provoke the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
+Doctor to an answer, which came forth at last with great
+credit to him in <i>Retaliation</i>." The most probable
+version of the story, which may be pieced together from
+various sources, is that at the coffee-house named this
+business of writing comic epitaphs was started some
+evening or other by the whole company; that Goldsmith
+and Garrick pitted themselves against each other; that
+thereafter Goldsmith began as occasion served to write
+similar squibs about his friends, which were shown
+about as they were written; that thereupon those
+gentlemen, not to be behindhand, composed more
+elaborate pieces in proof of their wit; and that, finally,
+Goldsmith resolved to bind these fugitive lines of his
+together in a poem, which he left unfinished, and which,
+under the name of <i>Retaliation</i>, was published after his
+death. This hypothetical account receives some confirmation
+from the fact that the scheme of the poem and
+its component parts do not fit together well; the introduction
+looks like an after-thought; and has not the
+freedom and pungency of a piece of improvisation. An
+imaginary dinner is described, the guests being Garrick,
+Reynolds, Burke, Cumberland, and the rest of them,
+Goldsmith last of all. More wine is called for, until
+the whole of his companions have fallen beneath the
+table:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let me ponder, and tell what I think of the <i>dead</i>."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This is a somewhat clumsy excuse for introducing a
+series of epitaphs; but the epitaphs amply atone for it.
+That on Garrick is especially remarkable as a bit of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+character-sketching; its shrewd hints&mdash;all in perfect
+courtesy and good humour&mdash;going a little nearer to the
+truth than is common in epitaphs of any sort:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As an actor, confessed without rival to shine:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As a wit, if not first, in the very first line:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The man had his failings, a dupe to his art.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And beplastered with rouge his own natural red.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Twas only that, when he was off, he was acting.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With no reason on earth to go out of his way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He turned and he varied full ten times a day:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If they were not his own by finessing and trick;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Who peppered the highest was surest to please.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But let us be candid, and speak out our mind:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you raised,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While he was be-Rosciused, and you were bepraised.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To act as an angel and mix with the skies:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Old Shakespeare receive him with praise and with love,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above."<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>The truth is that Goldsmith, though he was ready to
+bless his "honest little man" when he received from
+him sixty pounds in advance for a comedy not begun,
+never took quite so kindly to Garrick as to some of his
+other friends. There is no pretence of discrimination
+at all, for example, in the lines devoted in this poem to
+Reynolds. All the generous enthusiasm of Goldsmith's
+Irish nature appears here; he will admit of no possible
+rival to this especial friend of his:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He has not left a wiser or better behind."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There is a tradition that the epitaph on Reynolds,
+ending with the unfinished line</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"By flattery unspoiled ..."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>was Goldsmith's last piece of writing. One would like
+to believe that, in any case.</p>
+
+<p>Goldsmith had returned to his Edgware lodgings, and
+had, indeed, formed some notion of selling his chambers
+in the Temple, and living in the country for at least ten
+months in the year, when a sudden attack of his old
+disorder drove him into town again for medical advice.
+He would appear to have received some relief; but a
+nervous fever followed; and on the night of the 25th
+March, 1774, when he was but forty-six years of age,
+he took to his bed for the last time. At first he refused
+to regard his illness as serious; and insisted on dosing
+himself with certain fever-powders from which he had
+received benefit on previous occasions; but by and by
+as his strength gave way, he submitted to the advice of
+the physicians who were in attendance on him. Day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+after day passed; his weakness visibly increasing,
+though, curiously enough, the symptoms of fever were
+gradually abating. At length one of the doctors, remarking
+to him that his pulse was in greater disorder
+than it should be from the degree of fever, asked him
+if his mind was at ease. "No, it is not," answered
+Goldsmith; and these were his last words. Early in
+the morning of Monday, April 4, convulsions set in;
+these continued for rather more than an hour; then the
+troubled brain and the sick heart found rest for ever.</p>
+
+<p>When the news was carried to his friends, Burke, it
+is said, burst into tears, and Reynolds put aside his
+work for the day. But it does not appear that they
+had visited him during his illness; and neither Johnson,
+nor Reynolds, nor Burke, nor Garrick followed his body
+to the grave. It is true, a public funeral was talked of;
+and, among others, Reynolds, Burke, and Garrick were
+to have carried the pall; but this was abandoned; and
+Goldsmith was privately buried in the ground of the
+Temple Church on the 9th of April, 1774. Strangely
+enough, too, Johnson seems to have omitted all mention
+of Goldsmith from his letters to Boswell. It was not
+until Boswell had written to him, on June 24th, "You
+have said nothing to me about poor Goldsmith," that
+Johnson, writing on July 4, answered as follows:&mdash;"Of
+poor dear Dr. Goldsmith there is little to be
+told, more than the papers have made public. He died
+of a fever, made, I am afraid, more violent by uneasiness
+of mind. His debts began to be heavy, and all
+his resources were exhausted. Sir Joshua is of opinion
+that he owed not less than two thousand pounds. Was
+ever poet so trusted before?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But if the greatest grief at the sudden and premature
+death of Goldsmith would seem to have been shown
+at the moment by certain wretched creatures who were
+found weeping on the stairs leading to his chambers, it
+must not be supposed that his fine friends either forgot
+him, or ceased to regard his memory with a great
+gentleness and kindness. Some two years after, when
+a monument was about to be erected to Goldsmith in
+Westminster Abbey, Johnson consented to write "the
+poor dear Doctor's epitaph;" and so anxious were the
+members of that famous circle in which Goldsmith
+had figured, that a just tribute should be paid to his
+genius, that they even ventured to send a round robin
+to the great Cham desiring him to amend his first
+draft. Now, perhaps, we have less interest in Johnson's
+estimate of Goldsmith's genius&mdash;though it contains
+the famous <i>Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit</i>&mdash;than
+in the phrases which tell of the honour paid to
+the memory of the dead poet by the love of his companions
+and the faithfulness of his friends. It may
+here be added that the precise spot where Goldsmith was
+buried in the Temple churchyard is unknown. So lived
+and so died Oliver Goldsmith.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In the foregoing pages the writings of Goldsmith
+have been given so prominent a place in the history
+of his life that it is unnecessary to take them here
+collectively and endeavour to sum up their distinctive
+qualities. As much as could be said within the
+limited space has, it is hoped, been said about their
+genuine and tender pathos, that never at any time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+verges on the affected or theatrical; about their quaint
+delicate, delightful humour; about that broader humour
+that is not afraid to provoke the wholesome laughter of
+mankind by dealing with common and familiar ways,
+and manners, and men; about that choiceness of diction,
+that lightness and grace of touch, that lend a charm
+even to Goldsmith's ordinary hack-work.</p>
+
+<p>Still less necessary, perhaps, is it to review the facts
+and circumstances of Goldsmith's life; and to make of
+them an example, a warning, or an accusation. That has
+too often been done. His name has been used to glorify
+a sham Bohemianism&mdash;a Bohemianism that finds it easy
+to live in taverns, but does not find it easy, so far as
+one sees, to write poems like the <i>Deserted Village</i>. His
+experiences as an author have been brought forward to
+swell the cry about neglected genius&mdash;that is, by writers
+who assume their genius in order to prove the neglect.
+The misery that occasionally befell him during his wayward
+career has been made the basis of an accusation
+against society, the English constitution, Christianity&mdash;Heaven
+knows what. It is time to have done with all
+this nonsense. Goldsmith resorted to the hack-work of
+literature when everything else had failed him; and he
+was fairly paid for it. When he did better work, when
+he "struck for honest fame," the nation gave him all
+the honour that he could have desired. With an assured
+reputation, and with ample means of subsistence, he
+obtained entrance into the most distinguished society
+then in England&mdash;he was made the friend of England's
+greatest in the arts and literature&mdash;and could have
+confined himself to that society exclusively if he had
+chosen. His temperament, no doubt, exposed him to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
+suffering; and the exquisite sensitiveness of a man of
+genius may demand our sympathy; but in far greater
+measure is our sympathy demanded for the thousands
+upon thousands of people who, from illness or nervous
+excitability, suffer from quite as keen a sensitiveness
+without the consolation of the fame that genius brings.</p>
+
+<p>In plain truth, Goldsmith himself would have been
+the last to put forward pleas humiliating alike to himself
+and to his calling. Instead of beseeching the State to
+look after authors; instead of imploring society to grant
+them "recognition;" instead of saying of himself "he
+wrote, and paid the penalty;" he would frankly have
+admitted that he chose to live his life his own way, and
+therefore paid the penalty. This is not written with
+any desire of upbraiding Goldsmith. He did choose to
+live his own life his own way, and we now have the
+splendid and beautiful results of his work; and the
+world&mdash;looking at these with a constant admiration, and
+with a great and lenient love for their author&mdash;is not
+anxious to know what he did with his guineas, or
+whether the milkman was ever paid. "He had raised
+money and squandered it, by every artifice of acquisition
+and folly of expense. <span class="smcap">But let not his frailties be
+remembered: he was a very great man.</span>" This is
+Johnson's wise summing up; and with it we may here
+take leave of gentle Goldsmith.</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE END.</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS.</h2>
+
+<h3>EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY.</h3>
+<p><i>These Short Books are addressed to the general public
+with a view both to stirring and satisfying an interest in
+literature and its great topics in the minds of those who
+have to run as they read. An immense class is growing
+up, and must every year increase, whose education will
+have made them alive to the importance of the masters of
+our literature, and capable of intelligent curiosity as to their
+performances. The Series is intended to give the means of
+nourishing this curiosity, to an extent that shall be copious
+enough to be profitable for knowledge and life, and yet be brief
+enough to serve those whose leisure is scanty.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>The following are arranged for:&mdash;</i></p>
+
+
+
+<table class="tb1" summary="List of Books">
+  <tr>
+    <td>SPENSER</td>
+    <td>The Dean of St. Paul's.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>HUME</td>
+    <td>Professor Huxley.</td>
+    <td style="font-style:normal">[<i>Ready</i>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>BUNYAN</td>
+    <td>James Anthony Froude.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>JOHNSON</td>
+    <td>Leslie Stephen.</td>
+    <td style="font-style:normal">[<i>Ready</i>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>GOLDSMITH</td>
+    <td>William Black.</td>
+    <td style="font-style:normal">[<i>Ready</i>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>MILTON</td>
+    <td>Mark Pattison.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>WORDSWORTH</td>
+    <td>Goldwin Smith.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>SWIFT</td>
+    <td>John Morley.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>BURNS</td>
+    <td>Principal Shairp.</td>
+    <td style="font-style:normal">[<i>Ready</i>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>SCOTT</td>
+    <td>Richard H. Hutton.</td>
+    <td style="font-style:normal">[<i>Ready</i>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>SHELLEY</td>
+    <td>J. A. Symonds.</td>
+    <td style="font-style:normal">[<i>Ready</i>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>GIBBON</td>
+    <td>J. C. Morison.</td>
+    <td style="font-style:normal">[<i>Ready</i>.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>BYRON</td>
+    <td>Professor Nichol.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>DEFOE</td>
+    <td>W. Minto.</td>
+	<td style="font-style:normal">[<i>In the Press.</i></td>
+
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>GRAY</td>
+    <td>John Morley.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>HAWTHORNE</td>
+    <td>Henry James, Jnr.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>CHAUCER</td>
+    <td>A. W. Ward.</td>
+    <td>&nbsp;</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<p class="center">[<i>OTHERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED.</i>]</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h3>OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.</h3>
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The new series opens well with Mr. Leslie Stephen's sketch of Dr. Johnson. It
+could hardly have been done better; and it will convey to the readers for whom it
+is intended a juster estimate of Johnson that either of the two essays of Lord
+Macaulay."&mdash;<i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i></p>
+
+<p>"We have come across few writers who have had a clearer insight into Johnson's
+character, or who have brought to the study of it a better knowledge of the time in
+which Johnson lived and the men whom he knew."&mdash;<i>Saturday Review.</i></p>
+
+<p>"We could not wish for a more suggestive introduction to Scott and his poems and
+novels."&mdash;<i>Examiner.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The tone of the volume is excellent throughout."&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um</i> Review of
+"Scott."</p>
+
+<p>"As a clear, thoughtful, and attractive record of the life and works of the greatest
+among the world's historians, it deserves the highest praise."&mdash;<i>Examiner</i> Review of
+"Gibbon."</p>
+
+<p>"The lovers of this great poet (Shelley) are to be congratulated at having at their
+command so fresh, clear, and intelligent a presentment of the subject, written by a
+man of adequate and wide culture."&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um.</i></p></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="MACMILLANS_GLOBE_LIBRARY" id="MACMILLANS_GLOBE_LIBRARY"></a>MACMILLAN'S GLOBE LIBRARY.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Beautifully printed on toned paper, price </i>3<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>. <i>Also kept in a variety
+of calf and morocco bindings, at moderate prices.</i></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>The </i><span class="smcap">Saturday Review</span><i> says: "The Globe Editions are admirable
+for their scholarly editing, their typographical excellence, their compendious
+form, and their cheapness." The </i><span class="smcap">British Quarterly
+Review</span><i> says: "In compendiousness, elegance, and scholarliness
+the Globe Editions of Messrs. Macmillan surpass any popular
+series of our classics hitherto given to the public. As near an
+approach to miniature perfection as has ever been made."</i></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><b>Shakespeare's Complete Works.</b> Edited by <span class="smcap">W. G.
+Clark</span>, M. A., and <span class="smcap">W. Aldis Wright</span>, M. A., Editors of the
+"Cambridge Shakespeare." With Glossary, pp. 1075.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>The </i><span class="smcap">Athen&aelig;um</span><i> says this edition is "a marvel of beauty, cheapness,
+and compactness.... For the busy man, above all for the working
+student, this is the best of all existing Shakespeares."</i></p>
+
+
+<p><b>Spenser's Complete Works.</b> Edited from the Original
+Editions and Manuscripts, by <span class="smcap">R. Morris</span>, with a Memoir by
+<span class="smcap">J. W. Hales</span>, M. A. With Glossary, pp. lv., 736.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>"Worthy&mdash;and higher praise it needs not&mdash;of the beautiful 'Globe
+Series.'"</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Daily News</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>Sir Walter Scott's Poetical Works.</b> Edited, with
+a Biographical and Critical Memoir, by <span class="smcap">Francis Turner
+Palgrave</span>, and Copious Notes, pp. xliii., 559.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>"We can almost sympathise with a middle-aged grumbler, who, after
+reading Mr. Palgrave's Memoir and Introduction, should exclaim,
+'Why was there not such an edition of Scott when I was a schoolboy?'"</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Guardian</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>Complete Works of Robert Burns.</b> Edited from
+the best Printed and Manuscript authorities, with Glossarial Index,
+Notes, and a Biographical Memoir by <span class="smcap">Alexander Smith</span>, pp.
+lxii., 636.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>"Admirable in all respects."</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Spectator</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>Robinson Crusoe.</b> Edited after the Original Editions,
+with a Biographical Introduction by <span class="smcap">Henry Kingsley</span>. pp.
+xxxi., 607.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>"A most excellent and in every way desirable edition."</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Court
+Circular</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>Goldsmith's Miscellaneous Works.</b> Edited with
+Biographical Introduction, by Professor <span class="smcap">Masson</span>. pp. lx., 695.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>"Such an admirable compendium of the facts of Goldsmith's life,
+and so careful and minute a delineation of the mixed traits of his
+peculiar character as to be a very model of a literary biography in
+little."</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Scotsman</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>Pope's Poetical Works.</b> Edited, with Notes, and Introductory
+Memoir by <span class="smcap">A. W. Ward</span>, M. A., Professor of History
+in Owens College Manchester, pp. lii., 508.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>The </i><span class="smcap">Literary Churchman</span><i> remarks: "The Editor's own notes
+and introductory memoir are excellent, the memoir alone would be
+cheap and well worth buying at the price of the whole volume."</i></p>
+
+
+<p><b>Dryden's Poetical Works.</b> Edited, with a Memoir,
+Revised Text, and Notes, by <span class="smcap">W. D. Christie</span>, M. A., of Trinity
+College, Cambridge, pp. lxxxvii., 662.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>"An admirable edition, the result of great research and of a careful
+revision of the text."</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Pall Mall Gazette</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>Cowper's Poetical Works.</b> Edited, with Notes and
+Biographical Introduction, by <span class="smcap">William Benham</span>, Vicar of
+Margate, pp. lxxiii., 536.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>"Mr. Benham's edition of Cowper is one of permanent value."</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Saturday
+Review</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>Morte d'Arthur.</b>&mdash;SIR THOMAS MALORY'S BOOK
+OF KING ARTHUR AND OF HIS NOBLE KNIGHTS
+OF THE ROUND TABLE. The original Edition of <span class="smcap">Caxton</span>,
+revised for Modern Use. With an Introduction by Sir <span class="smcap">Edward
+Strachey</span>, Bart. pp. xxxvii., 509.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>"It is with perfect confidence that we recommend this edition of the
+old romance to every class of readers."</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Pall Mall Gazette</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>The Works of Virgil.</b> Rendered into English Prose,
+with Introductions, Notes, Running Analysis, and an Index. By
+<span class="smcap">James Lonsdale</span>, M. A., and <span class="smcap">Samuel Lee</span>, M. A. pp. 228.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>"A more complete Edition of Virgil in English it is scarcely possible
+to conceive than the scholarly work before us."</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Globe</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p><b>The Works of Horace.</b> Rendered into English Prose,
+with Introductions, Running Analysis, Notes, and Index. By
+<span class="smcap">John Lonsdale</span>, M. A., and <span class="smcap">Samuel Lee</span>, M. A.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>The </i><span class="smcap">Standard</span><i> says, "To classical and non-classical readers it
+will be invaluable."</i></p>
+
+
+<p><b>Milton's Poetical Works.</b>&mdash;Edited, with Introductions,
+by Professor <span class="smcap">Masson</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot"><i>"In every way an admirable book."</i>&mdash;<span class="smcap">Pall Mall Gazette</span>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3>MACMILLAN &amp; CO., LONDON.</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Goldsmith, by William Black
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDSMITH ***
+
+***** This file should be named 18917-h.htm or 18917-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/9/1/18917/
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Sankar Viswanathan,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/18917-h/images/image_01.jpg b/18917-h/images/image_01.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e807d37
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18917-h/images/image_01.jpg
diff --git a/18917.txt b/18917.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d410888
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18917.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4959 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Goldsmith, by William Black
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Goldsmith
+       English Men of Letters Series
+
+Author: William Black
+
+Editor: John Morley
+
+Release Date: July 27, 2006 [EBook #18917]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDSMITH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Sankar Viswanathan,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        English Men of Letters
+
+                        EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY
+
+
+
+
+                              GOLDSMITH
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+
+                            WILLIAM BLACK
+
+
+
+                                London
+
+                           MACMILLAN AND CO
+
+                                 1878
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SCHOOL AND COLLEGE
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+IDLENESS, AND FOREIGN TRAVEL
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+EARLY STRUGGLES.--HACK-WRITING
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+BEGINNING OF AUTHORSHIP.--THE BEE
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+PERSONAL TRAITS
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD.--BEAU NASH
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE ARREST
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE TRAVELLER
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+MISCELLANEOUS WRITING
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE GOOD-NATURED MAN
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+GOLDSMITH IN SOCIETY
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE DESERTED VILLAGE
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+OCCASIONAL WRITINGS
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+INCREASING DIFFICULTIES.--THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+GOLDSMITH
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+"Innocently to amuse the imagination in this dream of life is wisdom."
+So wrote Oliver Goldsmith; and surely among those who have earned the
+world's gratitude by this ministration he must be accorded a
+conspicuous place. If, in these delightful writings of his, he mostly
+avoids the darker problems of existence--if the mystery of the tragic
+and apparently unmerited and unrequited suffering in the world is
+rarely touched upon--we can pardon the omission for the sake of the
+gentle optimism that would rather look on the kindly side of life.
+"You come hot and tired from the day's battle, and this sweet minstrel
+sings to you," says Mr. Thackeray. "Who could harm the kind vagrant
+harper? Whom did he ever hurt? He carries no weapon save the harp on
+which he plays to you; and with which he delights great and humble,
+young and old, the captains in the tents, or the soldiers round the
+fire, or the women and children in the villages, at whose porches he
+stops and sings his simple songs of love and beauty." And it is to be
+suspected--it is to be hoped, at least--that the cheerfulness which
+shines like sunlight through Goldsmith's writings, did not altogether
+desert himself even in the most trying hours of his wayward and
+troubled career. He had, with all his sensitiveness, a fine
+happy-go-lucky disposition; was ready for a frolic when he had a
+guinea, and, when he had none, could turn a sentence on the humorous
+side of starvation; and certainly never attributed to the injustice or
+neglect of society misfortunes the origin of which lay nearer home.
+
+Of course, a very dark picture might be drawn of Goldsmith's life; and
+the sufferings that he undoubtedly endured have been made a whip with
+which to lash the ingratitude of a world not too quick to recognise
+the claims of genius. He has been put before us, without any brighter
+lights to the picture, as the most unfortunate of poor devils; the
+heart-broken usher; the hack ground down by sordid booksellers; the
+starving occupant of successive garrets. This is the aspect of
+Goldsmith's career which naturally attracts Mr. Forster. Mr. Forster
+seems to have been haunted throughout his life by the idea that
+Providence had some especial spite against literary persons; and that,
+in a measure to compensate them for their sad lot, society should be
+very kind to them, while the Government of the day might make them
+Companions of the Bath or give them posts in the Civil Service. In the
+otherwise copious, thorough, and valuable _Life and Times of Oliver
+Goldsmith_, we find an almost humiliating insistance on the complaint
+that Oliver Goldsmith did not receive greater recognition and larger
+sums of money from his contemporaries. Goldsmith is here "the poor
+neglected sizar"; his "marked ill-fortune" attends him constantly; he
+shares "the evil destinies of men of letters"; he was one of those who
+"struggled into fame without the aid of English institutions"; in
+short, "he wrote, and paid the penalty." Nay, even Christianity itself
+is impeached on account of the persecution suffered by poor Goldsmith.
+"There had been a Christian religion extant for seventeen-hundred and
+fifty-seven years," writes Mr. Forster, "the world having been
+acquainted, for even so long, with its spiritual necessities and
+responsibilities; yet here, in the middle of the eighteenth century,
+was the eminence ordinarily conceded to a spiritual teacher, to one of
+those men who come upon the earth to lift their fellow-men above its
+miry ways. He is up in a garret, writing for bread he cannot get, and
+dunned for a milkscore he cannot pay." That Christianity might have
+been worse employed than in paying the milkman's score is true enough,
+for then the milkman would have come by his own; but that
+Christianity, or the state, or society should be scolded because an
+author suffers the natural consequences of his allowing his
+expenditure to exceed his income, seems a little hard. And this is a
+sort of writing that is peculiarly inappropriate in the case of
+Goldsmith, who, if ever any man was author of his own misfortunes, may
+fairly have the charge brought against him. "Men of genius," says Mr.
+Forster, "can more easily starve, than the world, with safety to
+itself, can continue to neglect and starve them." Perhaps so; but the
+English nation, which has always had a regard and even love for
+Oliver Goldsmith, that is quite peculiar in the history of literature,
+and which has been glad to overlook his faults and follies, and eager
+to sympathise with him in the many miseries of his career, will be
+slow to believe that it is responsible for any starvation that
+Goldsmith may have endured.
+
+However, the key-note has been firmly struck, and it still vibrates.
+Goldsmith was the unluckiest of mortals, the hapless victim of
+circumstances. "Yielding to that united pressure of labour, penury,
+and sorrow, with a frame exhausted by unremitting and ill-rewarded
+drudgery, Goldsmith was indebted to the forbearance of creditors for a
+peaceful burial." But what, now, if some foreigner strange to the
+traditions of English literature--some Japanese student, for example,
+or the New Zealander come before his time--were to go over the
+ascertained facts of Goldsmith's life, and were suddenly to announce
+to us, with the happy audacity of ignorance, that he, Goldsmith, was a
+quite exceptionally fortunate person? "Why," he might say, "I find
+that in a country where the vast majority of people are born to
+labour, Oliver Goldsmith was never asked to do a stroke of work
+towards the earning of his own living until he had arrived at man's
+estate. All that was expected of him, as a youth and as a young man,
+was that he should equip himself fully for the battle of life. He was
+maintained at college until he had taken his degree. Again and again
+he was furnished with funds for further study and foreign travel; and
+again and again he gambled his opportunities away. The constant
+kindness of his uncle only made him the best begging-letter-writer
+the world has seen. In the midst of his debt and distress as a
+bookseller's drudge, he receives L400 for three nights' performance of
+_The Good-Natured Man_; he immediately purchases chambers in Brick
+Court for L400; and forthwith begins to borrow as before. It is true
+that he died owing L2000, and was indebted to the forbearance of
+creditors for a peaceful burial; but it appears that during the last
+seven years of his life he had been earning an annual income
+equivalent to L800 of English currency.[1] He was a man liberally and
+affectionately brought up, who had many relatives and many friends,
+and who had the proud satisfaction--which has been denied to many men
+of genius--of knowing for years before he died that his merits as a
+writer had been recognised by the great bulk of his countrymen. And
+yet this strange English nation is inclined to suspect that it treated
+him rather badly; and Christianity is attacked because it did not pay
+Goldsmith's milkscore."
+
+[Footnote 1: The calculation is Lord Macaulay's: see his _Biographical_
+_Essays_.]
+
+Our Japanese friend may be exaggerating; but his position is after all
+fairly tenable. It may at least be looked at, before entering on the
+following brief _resume_ of the leading facts in Goldsmith's life, if
+only to restore our equanimity. For, naturally, it is not pleasant to
+think that any previous generation, however neglectful of the claims
+of literary persons (as compared with the claims of such wretched
+creatures as physicians, men of science, artists, engineers, and so
+forth) should so cruelly have ill-treated one whom we all love now.
+This inheritance of ingratitude is more than we can bear. Is it true
+that Goldsmith was so harshly dealt with by those barbarian ancestors
+of ours?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+SCHOOL AND COLLEGE.
+
+
+The Goldsmiths were of English descent; Goldsmith's father was a
+Protestant clergyman in a poor little village in the county of
+Longford; and when Oliver, one of several children, was born in this
+village of Pallas, or Pallasmore, on the 10th November, 1728, the Rev.
+Charles Goldsmith was passing rich on L40 a year. But a couple of
+years later Mr. Goldsmith succeeded to a more lucrative living; and
+forthwith removed his family to the village of Lissoy, in the county
+of Westmeath.
+
+Here at once our interest in the story begins: is this Lissoy the
+sweet Auburn that we have known and loved since our childhood? Lord
+Macaulay, with a great deal of vehemence, avers that it is not; that
+there never was any such hamlet as Auburn in Ireland; that _The
+Deserted Village_ is a hopelessly incongruous poem; and that
+Goldsmith, in combining a description of a probably Kentish village
+with a description of an Irish ejectment, "has produced something
+which never was, and never will be, seen in any part of the world."
+This criticism is ingenious and plausible, but it is unsound, for it
+happens to overlook one of the radical facts of human nature--the
+magnifying delight of the mind in what is long remembered and remote.
+What was it that the imagination of Goldsmith, in his life-long
+banishment, could not see when he looked back to the home of his
+childhood, and his early friends, and the sports and occupations of
+his youth? Lissoy was no doubt a poor enough Irish village; and
+perhaps the farms were not too well cultivated; and perhaps the
+village preacher, who was so dear to all the country round, had to
+administer many a thrashing to a certain graceless son of his; and
+perhaps Paddy Byrne was something of a pedant; and no doubt pigs ran
+over the "nicely sanded floor" of the inn; and no doubt the village
+statesmen occasionally indulged in a free fight. But do you think that
+was the Lissoy that Goldsmith thought of in his dreary lodgings in
+Fleet-Street courts? No. It was the Lissoy where the vagrant lad had
+first seen the "primrose peep beneath the thorn"; where he had
+listened to the mysterious call of the bittern by the unfrequented
+river; it was a Lissoy still ringing with the glad laughter of young
+people in the twilight hours; it was a Lissoy for ever beautiful, and
+tender, and far away. The grown-up Goldsmith had not to go to any
+Kentish village for a model; the familiar scenes of his youth,
+regarded with all the wistfulness and longing of an exile, became
+glorified enough. "If I go to the opera where Signora Colomba pours
+out all the mazes of melody," he writes to Mr. Hodson, "I sit and sigh
+for Lissoy's fireside, and _Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night_ from
+Peggy Golden."
+
+There was but little in the circumstances of Goldsmith's early life
+likely to fit him for, or to lead him into, a literary career; in
+fact, he did not take to literature until he had tried pretty nearly
+everything else as a method of earning a living. If he was intended
+for anything, it was no doubt his father's wish that he should enter
+the Church; and he got such education as the poor Irish clergyman--who
+was not a very provident person--could afford. The child Goldsmith was
+first of all taught his alphabet at home, by a maid-servant, who was
+also a relation of the family; then, at the age of six, he was sent to
+that village school which, with its profound and learned master, he
+has made familiar to all of us; and after that he was sent further
+a-field for his learning, being moved from this to the other
+boarding-school as the occasion demanded. Goldsmith's school-life
+could not have been altogether a pleasant time for him. We hear,
+indeed, of his being concerned in a good many frolics--robbing
+orchards, and the like; and it is said that he attained proficiency in
+the game of fives. But a shy and sensitive lad like Goldsmith, who was
+eagerly desirous of being thought well of, and whose appearance only
+invited the thoughtless but cruel ridicule of his schoolmates, must
+have suffered a good deal. He was little, pitted with the small-pox,
+and awkward; and schoolboys are amazingly frank. He was not strong
+enough to thrash them into respect of him; he had no big brother to
+become his champion; his pocket-money was not lavish enough to enable
+him to buy over enemies or subsidise allies.
+
+In similar circumstances it has sometimes happened that a boy
+physically inferior to his companions has consoled himself by proving
+his mental prowess--has scored off his failure at cricket by the
+taking of prizes, and has revenged himself for a drubbing by writing a
+lampoon. But even this last resource was not open to Goldsmith. He was
+a dull boy; "a stupid, heavy blockhead," is Dr. Strean's phrase in
+summing up the estimate formed of young Goldsmith by his
+contemporaries at school. Of course, as soon as he became famous,
+everybody began to hunt up recollections of his having said or done
+this or that, in order to prove that there were signs of the coming
+greatness. People began to remember that he had been suspected of
+scribbling verses, which he burned. What schoolboy has not done the
+like? We know how the biographers of great painters point out to us
+that their hero early showed the bent of his mind by drawing the
+figures of animals on doors and walls with a piece of chalk; as to
+which it may be observed that, if every schoolboy who scribbled verses
+and sketched in chalk on a brick wall, were to grow up a genius, poems
+and pictures would be plentiful enough. However, there is the
+apparently authenticated anecdote of young Goldsmith's turning the
+tables on the fiddler at his uncle's dancing-party. The fiddler,
+struck by the odd look of the boy who was capering about the room,
+called out "AEsop!" whereupon Goldsmith is said to have instantly
+replied,
+
+    "Our herald hath proclaimed this saying,
+    See AEsop dancing and his monkey playing!"
+
+But even if this story be true, it is worth nothing as an augury; for
+quickness of repartee was precisely the accomplishment which the adult
+Goldsmith conspicuously lacked. Put a pen into his hand, and shut him
+up in a room: then he was master of the situation--nothing could be
+more incisive, polished, and easy than his playful sarcasm. But in
+society any fool could get the better of him by a sudden question
+followed by a horse-laugh. All through his life--even after he had
+become one of the most famous of living writers--Goldsmith suffered
+from want of self-confidence. He was too anxious to please. In his
+eager acquiescence, he would blunder into any trap that was laid for
+him. A grain or two of the stolid self-sufficiency of the blockheads
+who laughed at him would not only have improved his character, but
+would have considerably added to the happiness of his life.
+
+As a natural consequence of this timidity, Goldsmith, when opportunity
+served, assumed airs of magnificent importance. Every one knows the
+story of the mistake on which _She Stoops to Conquer_ is founded.
+Getting free at last from all the turmoil, and anxieties, and
+mortifications of school-life, and returning home on a lent hack, the
+released schoolboy is feeling very grand indeed. He is now sixteen,
+would fain pass for a man, and has a whole golden guinea in his
+pocket. And so he takes the journey very leisurely until, getting
+benighted in a certain village, he asks the way to the "best house,"
+and is directed by a facetious person to the house of the squire. The
+squire by good luck falls in with the joke; and then we have a very
+pretty comedy indeed--the impecunious schoolboy playing the part of a
+fine gentleman on the strength of his solitary guinea, ordering a
+bottle of wine after his supper, and inviting his landlord and his
+landlord's wife and daughter to join him in the supper-room. The
+contrast, in _She Stoops to Conquer_, between Marlow's embarrassed
+diffidence on certain occasions and his audacious effrontery on
+others, found many a parallel in the incidents of Goldsmith's own
+life; and it is not improbable that the writer of the comedy was
+thinking of some of his own experiences, when he made Miss Hardcastle
+say to her timid suitor: "A want of courage upon some occasions
+assumes the appearance of ignorance, and betrays us when we most want
+to excel."
+
+It was, perhaps, just as well that the supper, and bottle of wine, and
+lodging at Squire Featherston's had not to be paid for out of the
+schoolboy's guinea; for young Goldsmith was now on his way to college,
+and the funds at the disposal of the Goldsmith family were not over
+abundant. Goldsmith's sister having married the son of a well-to do
+man, her father considered it a point of honour that she should have a
+dowry: and in giving her a sum of L400 he so crippled the means of the
+family, that Goldsmith had to be sent to college not as a pensioner
+but as a sizar. It appears that the young gentleman's pride revolted
+against this proposal; and that he was won over to consent only by the
+persuasions of his uncle Contarine, who himself had been a sizar. So
+Goldsmith, now in his eighteenth year, went to Dublin; managed somehow
+or other--though he was the last in the list--to pass the necessary
+examination; and entered upon his college career (1745.)
+
+How he lived, and what he learned, at Trinity College, are both
+largely matters of conjecture; the chief features of such record as we
+have are the various means of raising a little money to which the
+poor sizar had to resort; a continual quarrelling with his tutor, an
+ill-conditioned brute, who baited Goldsmith and occasionally beat him;
+and a chance frolic when funds were forthcoming. It was while he was
+at Trinity College that his father died; so that Goldsmith was
+rendered more than ever dependent on the kindness of his uncle
+Contarine, who throughout seems to have taken much interest in his
+odd, ungainly nephew. A loan from a friend or a visit to the
+pawnbroker tided over the severer difficulties; and then from time to
+time the writing of street-ballads, for which he got five shillings
+a-piece at a certain repository, came in to help. It was a
+happy-go-lucky, hand-to-mouth sort of existence, involving a good deal
+of hardship and humiliation, but having its frolics and gaieties
+notwithstanding. One of these was pretty near to putting an end to his
+collegiate career altogether. He had, smarting under a public
+admonition for having been concerned in a riot, taken seriously to his
+studies and had competed for a scholarship. He missed the scholarship,
+but gained an exhibition of the value of thirty shillings; whereupon
+he collected a number of friends of both sexes in his rooms, and
+proceeded to have high jinks there. In the midst of the dancing and
+uproar, in comes his tutor, in such a passion that he knocks Goldsmith
+down. This insult, received before his friends, was too much for the
+unlucky sizar, who, the very next day, sold his books, ran away from
+college, and ultimately, after having been on the verge of starvation
+once or twice, made his way to Lissoy. Here his brother got hold of
+him; persuaded him to go back; and the escapade was condoned somehow.
+Goldsmith remained at Trinity College until he took his degree (1749.)
+He was again lowest in the list; but still he had passed; and he must
+have learned something. He was now twenty-one, with all the world
+before him; and the question was as to how he was to employ such
+knowledge as he had acquired.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+IDLENESS, AND FOREIGN TRAVEL.
+
+
+But Goldsmith was not in any hurry to acquire either wealth or fame.
+He had a happy knack of enjoying the present hour--especially when
+there were one or two boon companions with him, and a pack of cards to
+be found; and, after his return to his mother's house, he appears to
+have entered upon the business of idleness with much philosophical
+satisfaction. If he was not quite such an unlettered clown as he has
+described in Tony Lumpkin, he had at least all Tony Lumpkin's high
+spirits and love of joking and idling; and he was surrounded at the
+ale-house by just such a company of admirers as used to meet at the
+famous Three Pigeons. Sometimes he helped in his brother's school;
+sometimes he went errands for his mother; occasionally he would sit
+and meditatively play the flute--for the day was to be passed somehow;
+then in the evening came the assemblage in Conway's inn, with the
+glass, and the pipe, and the cards, and the uproarious jest or song.
+"But Scripture saith an ending to all fine things must be," and the
+friends of this jovial young "buckeen" began to tire of his idleness
+and his recurrent visits. They gave him hints that he might set about
+doing something to provide himself with a living; and the first thing
+they thought of was that he should go into the Church--perhaps as a
+sort of purification-house after George Conway's inn. Accordingly
+Goldsmith, who appears to have been a most good-natured and compliant
+youth, did make application to the Bishop of Elphin. There is some
+doubt about the precise reasons which induced the Bishop to decline
+Goldsmith's application, but at any rate the Church was denied the aid
+of the young man's eloquence and erudition. Then he tried teaching,
+and through the good offices of his uncle he obtained a tutorship
+which he held for a considerable time--long enough, indeed, to enable
+him to amass a sum of thirty pounds. When he quarrelled with his
+patron, and once more "took the world for his pillow," as the Gaelic
+stories say, he had this sum in his pocket and was possessed of a good
+horse.
+
+He started away from Ballymahon, where his mother was now living, with
+some vague notion of making his fortune as casual circumstance might
+direct. The expedition came to a premature end; and he returned
+without the money, and on the back of a wretched animal, telling his
+mother a cock-and-bull story of the most amusing simplicity. "If Uncle
+Contarine believed those letters," says Mr. Thackeray, "---- if
+Oliver's mother believed that story which the youth related of his
+going to Cork, with the purpose of embarking for America; of his
+having paid his passage-money, and having sent his kit on board; of
+the anonymous captain sailing away with Oliver's valuable luggage, in
+a nameless ship, never to return; if Uncle Contarine and the mother at
+Ballymahon believed his stories, they must have been a very simple
+pair; as it was a very simple rogue indeed who cheated them." Indeed,
+if any one is anxious to fill up this hiatus in Goldsmith's life, the
+best thing he can do is to discard Goldsmith's suspicious record of
+his adventures, and put in its place the faithful record of the
+adventures of Mr. Barry Lyndon, when that modest youth left his
+mother's house and rode to Dublin, with a certain number of guineas in
+his pocket. But whether Uncle Contarine believed the story or no, he
+was ready to give the young gentleman another chance; and this time it
+was the legal profession that was chosen. Goldsmith got fifty pounds
+from his uncle, and reached Dublin. In a remarkably brief space of
+time he had gambled away the fifty pounds, and was on his way back to
+Ballymahon, where his mother's reception of him was not very cordial,
+though his uncle forgave him, and was once more ready to start him in
+life. But in what direction? Teaching, the Church, and the law had
+lost their attractions for him. Well, this time it was medicine. In
+fact, any sort of project was capable of drawing forth the good old
+uncle's bounty. The funds were again forthcoming; Goldsmith started
+for Edinburgh, and now (1752) saw Ireland for the last time.
+
+He lived, and he informed his uncle that he studied, in Edinburgh for
+a year and a half; at the end of which time it appeared to him that
+his knowledge of medicine would be much improved by foreign travel.
+There was Albinus, for example, "the great professor of Leyden," as he
+wrote to the credulous uncle, from whom he would doubtless learn
+much. When, having got another twenty pounds for travelling expenses,
+he did reach Leyden (1754), he mentioned Gaubius, the chemical
+professor. Gaubius is also a good name. That his intercourse with
+these learned persons, and the serious nature of his studies, were not
+incompatible with a little light relaxation in the way of gambling is
+not impossible. On one occasion, it is said, he was so lucky that he
+came to a fellow student with his pockets full of money; and was
+induced to resolve never to play again--a resolution broken about as
+soon as made. Of course he lost all his winnings, and more; and had to
+borrow a trifling sum to get himself out of the place. Then an
+incident occurs which is highly characteristic of the better side of
+Goldsmith's nature. He had just got this money, and was about to leave
+Leyden, when, as Mr. Forster writes, "he passed a florist's garden on
+his return, and seeing some rare and high-priced flower, which his
+uncle Contarine, an enthusiast in such things, had often spoken and
+been in search of, he ran in without other thought than of immediate
+pleasure to his kindest friend, bought a parcel of the roots, and sent
+them off to Ireland." He had a guinea in his pocket when he started on
+the grand tour.
+
+Of this notable period in Goldsmith's life (1755-6) very little is
+known, though a good deal has been guessed. A minute record of all the
+personal adventures that befell the wayfarer as he trudged from
+country to country, a diary of the odd humours and fancies that must
+have occurred to him in his solitary pilgrimages, would be of quite
+inestimable value; but even the letters that Goldsmith wrote home from
+time to time are lost; while _The Traveller_ consists chiefly of a
+series of philosophical reflections on the government of various
+states, more likely to have engaged the attention of a Fleet-Street
+author, living in an atmosphere of books, than to have occupied the
+mind of a tramp anxious about his supper and his night's lodging.
+Boswell says he "disputed" his way through Europe. It is much more
+probable that he begged his way through Europe. The romantic version,
+which has been made the subject of many a charming picture, is that he
+was entertained by the peasantry whom he had delighted with his
+playing on the flute. It is quite probable that Goldsmith, whose
+imagination had been captivated by the story of how Baron von Holberg
+had as a young man really passed through France, Germany, and Holland
+in this Orpheus-like manner, may have put a flute in his pocket when
+he left Leyden; but it is far from safe to assume, as is generally
+done, that Goldsmith was himself the hero of the adventures described
+in Chapter XX. of the _Vicar of Wakefield_. It is the more to be
+regretted that we have no authentic record of these devious
+wanderings, that by this time Goldsmith had acquired, as is shown in
+other letters, a polished, easy, and graceful style, with a very
+considerable faculty of humorous observation. Those ingenious letters
+to his uncle (they usually included a little hint about money) were,
+in fact, a trifle too literary both in substance and in form; we could
+even now, looking at them with a pardonable curiosity, have spared a
+little of their formal antithesis for some more precise information
+about the writer and his surroundings.
+
+The strangest thing about this strange journey all over Europe was
+the failure of Goldsmith to pick up even a common and ordinary
+acquaintance with the familiar facts of natural history. The ignorance
+on this point of the author of the _Animated Nature_ was a constant
+subject of jest among Goldsmith's friends. They declared he could not
+tell the difference between any two sorts of barndoor fowl until he
+saw them cooked and on the table. But it may be said prematurely here
+that, even when he is wrong as to his facts or his sweeping
+generalisations, one is inclined to forgive him on account of the
+quaint gracefulness and point of his style. When Mr. Burchell says,
+"This rule seems to extend even to other animals: the little vermin
+race are ever treacherous, cruel, and cowardly, whilst those endowed
+with strength and power are generous, brave, and gentle," we scarcely
+stop to reflect that the merlin, which is not much bigger than a
+thrush, has an extraordinary courage and spirit, while the lion, if
+all stories be true, is, unless when goaded by hunger, an abject
+skulker. Elsewhere, indeed, in the _Animated Nature_, Goldsmith gives
+credit to the smaller birds for a good deal of valour, and then goes
+on to say, with a charming freedom,--"But their contentions are
+sometimes of a gentler nature. Two male birds shall strive in song
+till, after a long struggle, the loudest shall entirely silence the
+other. During these contentions the female sits an attentive silent
+auditor, and often rewards the loudest songster with her company
+during the season." Yet even this description of the battle of the
+bards, with the queen of love as arbiter, is scarcely so amusing as
+his happy-go-lucky notions with regard to the variability of species.
+The philosopher, flute in hand, who went wandering from the canals of
+Holland to the ice-ribbed falls of the Rhine, may have heard from time
+to time that contest between singing-birds which he so imaginatively
+describes; but it was clearly the Fleet-Street author, living among
+books, who arrived at the conclusion that intermarriage of species is
+common among small birds and rare among big birds. Quoting some lines
+of Addison's which express the belief that birds are a virtuous
+race--that the nightingale, for example, does not covet the wife of
+his neighbour, the blackbird--Goldsmith goes on to observe,--"But
+whatever may be the poet's opinion, the probability is against this
+fidelity among the smaller tenants of the grove. The great birds are
+much more true to their species than these; and, of consequence, the
+varieties among them are more few. Of the ostrich, the cassowary, and
+the eagle, there are but few species; and no arts that man can use
+could probably induce them to mix with each other."
+
+What he did bring back from his foreign travels was a medical degree.
+Where he got it, and how he got it, are alike matters of pure
+conjecture; but it is extremely improbable that--whatever he might
+have been willing to write home from Padua or Louvain, in order to
+coax another remittance from his Irish friends--he would afterwards,
+in the presence of such men as Johnson, Burke, and Reynolds, wear sham
+honours. It is much more probable that, on his finding those supplies
+from Ireland running ominously short, the philosophic vagabond
+determined to prove to his correspondents that he was really at work
+somewhere, instead of merely idling away his time, begging or
+borrowing the wherewithal to pass him from town to town. That he did
+see something of the foreign universities is evident from his own
+writings; there are touches of description here and there which he
+could not well have got from books. With this degree, and with such
+book-learning and such knowledge of nature and human nature as he had
+chosen or managed to pick up during all those years, he was now called
+upon to begin life for himself. The Irish supplies stopped altogether.
+His letters were left unanswered. And so Goldsmith somehow or other
+got back to London (February 1, 1756), and had to cast about for some
+way of earning his daily bread.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Early Struggles.--Hack-writing.
+
+
+Here ensued a very dark period in his life. He was alone in London,
+without friends, without money, without introductions; his appearance
+was the reverse of prepossessing; and, even despite that medical
+degree and his acquaintance with the learned Albinus and the learned
+Gaubius, he had practically nothing of any value to offer for sale in
+the great labour-market of the world. How he managed to live at all is
+a mystery: it is certain that he must have endured a great deal of
+want; and one may well sympathise with so gentle and sensitive a
+creature reduced to such straits, without inquiring too curiously into
+the causes of his misfortunes. If, on the one hand, we cannot accuse
+society, or Christianity, or the English government of injustice and
+cruelty because Goldsmith had gambled away his chances and was now
+called on to pay the penalty, on the other hand, we had better, before
+blaming Goldsmith himself, inquire into the origin of those defects of
+character which produced such results. As this would involve an
+_excursus_ into the controversy between Necessity and Free-will,
+probably most people would rather leave it alone. It may safely be
+said in any case that, while Goldsmith's faults and follies, of which
+he himself had to suffer the consequences, are patent enough, his
+character on the whole was distinctly a lovable one. Goldsmith was his
+own enemy, and everybody else's friend: that is not a serious
+indictment, as things go. He was quite well aware of his weaknesses;
+and he was also--it may be hinted--aware of the good-nature which he
+put forward as condonation. If some foreigner were to ask how it is
+that so thoroughly a commercial people as the English are--strict in
+the acknowledgment and payment of debt--should have always betrayed a
+sneaking fondness for the character of the good-humoured scapegrace
+whose hand is in everybody's pocket, and who throws away other
+people's money with the most charming air in the world, Goldsmith
+might be pointed to as one of many literary teachers whose own
+circumstances were not likely to make them severe censors of the
+Charles Surfaces, or lenient judges of the Joseph Surfaces of the
+world. Be merry while you may; let to-morrow take care of itself;
+share your last guinea with any one, even if the poor drones of
+society--the butcher, and baker, and milkman with his score--have to
+suffer; do anything you like, so long as you keep the heart warm. All
+this is a delightful philosophy. It has its moments of misery--its
+periods of reaction--but it has its moments of high delight. When we
+are invited to contemplate the "evil destinies of men of letters," we
+ought to be shown the flood-tides as well as the ebb-tides. The tavern
+gaiety; the brand new coat and lace and sword; the midnight frolics,
+with jolly companions every one--these, however brief and
+intermittent, should not be wholly left out of the picture. Of course
+it is very dreadful to hear of poor Boyse lying in bed with nothing
+but a blanket over him, and with his arms thrust through two holes in
+the blanket, so that he could write--perhaps a continuation of his
+poem on the _Deity_. But then we should be shown Boyse when he was
+spending the money collected by Dr. Johnson to get the poor
+scribbler's clothes out of pawn; and we should also be shown him, with
+his hands through the holes in the blanket, enjoying the mushrooms and
+truffles on which, as a little garniture for "his last scrap of beef,"
+he had just laid out his last half-guinea.
+
+There were but few truffles--probably there was but little beef--for
+Goldsmith during this sombre period. "His threadbare coat, his uncouth
+figure, and Hibernian dialect caused him to meet with repeated
+refusals." But at length he got some employment in a chemist's shop,
+and this was a start. Then he tried practising in a small way on his
+own account in Southwark. Here he made the acquaintance of a printer's
+workman; and through him he was engaged as corrector of the press in
+the establishment of Mr. Samuel Richardson. Being so near to
+literature, he caught the infection; and naturally began with a
+tragedy. This tragedy was shown to the author of _Clarissa Harlowe_;
+but it only went the way of many similar first inspiritings of the
+Muse. Then Goldsmith drifted to Peckham, where we find him (1757)
+installed as usher at Dr. Milner's school. Goldsmith as usher has been
+the object of much sympathy; and he would certainly deserve it, if we
+are to assume that his description of an usher's position in the
+_Bee_, and in George Primrose's advice to his cousin, was a full and
+accurate description of his life at Peckham. "Browbeat by the master,
+hated for my ugly face by the mistress, worried by the boys"--if that
+was his life, he was much to be pitied. But we cannot believe it. The
+Milners were exceedingly kind to Goldsmith. It was at the intercession
+of young Milner, who had been his fellow-student at Edinburgh, that
+Goldsmith got the situation, which at all events kept him out of the
+reach of immediate want. It was through the Milners that he was
+introduced to Griffiths, who gave him a chance of trying a literary
+career--as a hack-writer of reviews and so forth. When, having got
+tired of that, Goldsmith was again floating vaguely on the waves of
+chance, where did he find a harbour but in that very school at
+Peckham? And we have the direct testimony of the youngest of Dr.
+Milner's daughters, that this Irish usher of theirs was a remarkably
+cheerful, and even facetious person, constantly playing tricks and
+practical jokes, amusing the boys by telling stories and by
+performances on the flute, living a careless life, and always in
+advance of his salary. Any beggars, or group of children, even the
+very boys who played back practical jokes on him, were welcome to a
+share of what small funds he had; and we all know how Mrs. Milner
+good-naturedly said one day, "You had better, Mr. Goldsmith, let me
+keep your money for you, as I do for some of the young gentlemen;" and
+how he answered with much simplicity, "In truth, Madam, there is equal
+need." With Goldsmith's love of approbation and extreme sensitiveness
+he no doubt suffered deeply from many slights, now as at other times;
+but what we know of his life in the Peckham school does not incline us
+to believe that it was an especially miserable period of his
+existence. His abundant cheerfulness does not seem to have at any time
+deserted him; and what with tricks, and jokes, and playing of the
+flute, the dull routine of instructing the unruly young gentlemen at
+Dr. Milner's was got through somehow.
+
+When Goldsmith left the Peckham school to try hack-writing in
+Paternoster Row, he was going further to fare worse. Griffiths the
+bookseller, when he met Goldsmith at Dr. Milner's dinner-table and
+invited him to become a reviewer, was doing a service to the English
+nation--for it was in this period of machine-work that Goldsmith
+discovered that happy faculty of literary expression that led to the
+composition of his masterpieces--but he was doing little immediate
+service to Goldsmith.
+
+The newly-captured hack was boarded and lodged at Griffiths' house in
+Paternoster Row (1757); he was to have a small salary in consideration
+of remorselessly constant work; and--what was the hardest condition of
+all--he was to have his writings revised by Mrs. Griffiths. Mr.
+Forster justly remarks that though at last Goldsmith had thus become a
+man-of-letters, he "had gratified no passion and attained no object of
+ambition." He had taken to literature, as so many others have done,
+merely as a last resource. And if it is true that literature at first
+treated Goldsmith harshly, made him work hard, and gave him
+comparatively little for what he did, at least it must be said that
+his experience was not a singular one. Mr. Forster says that
+literature was at that time in a transition state: "The patron was
+gone, and the public had not come." But when Goldsmith began to do
+better than hack-work, he found a public speedily enough. If, as Lord
+Macaulay computes, Goldsmith received in the last seven years of his
+life what was equivalent to L5,600 of our money, even the villain
+booksellers cannot be accused of having starved him. At the outset of
+his literary career he received no large sums, for he had achieved no
+reputation; but he got the market-rate for his work. We have around us
+at this moment plenty of hacks who do not earn much more than their
+board and lodging with a small salary.
+
+For the rest, we have no means of knowing whether Goldsmith got
+through his work with ease or with difficulty; but it is obvious,
+looking over the reviews which he is believed to have written for
+Griffiths' magazine, that he readily acquired the professional
+critic's airs of superiority, along with a few tricks of the trade, no
+doubt taught him by Griffiths. Several of these reviews, for example,
+are merely epitomes of the contents of the books reviewed, with some
+vague suggestion that the writer might, if he had been less careful,
+have done worse, and, if he had been more careful, might have done
+better. Who does not remember how the philosophic vagabond was taught
+to become a cognoscento? "The whole secret consisted in a strict
+adherence to two rules: the one always to observe that the picture
+might have been better if the painter had taken more pains; and the
+other to praise the works of Pietro Perugino." It is amusing to
+observe the different estimates formed of the function of criticism by
+Goldsmith the critic, and by Goldsmith the author. Goldsmith, sitting
+at Griffiths' desk, naturally magnifies his office, and announces his
+opinion that "to direct our taste, and conduct the poet up to
+perfection, has ever been the true critic's province." But Goldsmith
+the author, when he comes to inquire into the existing state of Polite
+Learning in Europe, finds in criticism not a help but a danger. It is
+"the natural destroyer of polite learning." And again, in the _Citizen
+of the World_, he exclaims against the pretensions of the critic. "If
+any choose to be critics, it is but saying they are critics; and from
+that time forward they become invested with full power and authority
+over every caitiff who aims at their instruction or entertainment."
+
+This at least may be said, that in these early essays contributed to
+the _Monthly Review_ there is much more of Goldsmith the critic than
+of Goldsmith the author. They are somewhat laboured performances. They
+are almost devoid of the sly and delicate humour that afterwards
+marked Goldsmith's best prose work. We find throughout his trick of
+antithesis; but here it is forced and formal, whereas afterwards he
+lent to this habit of writing the subtle surprise of epigram. They
+have the true manner of authority, nevertheless. He says of Home's
+_Douglas_--"Those parts of nature, and that rural simplicity with
+which the author was, perhaps, best acquainted, are not unhappily
+described; and hence we are led to conjecture, that a more universal
+knowledge of nature will probably increase his powers of description."
+If the author had written otherwise, he would have written
+differently; had he known more, he would not have been so ignorant;
+the tragedy is a tragedy, but why did not the author make it a
+comedy?--this sort of criticism has been heard of even in our own day.
+However, Goldsmith pounded away at his newly-found work, under the eye
+of the exacting bookseller and his learned wife. We find him dealing
+with Scandinavian (here called Celtic) mythology, though he does not
+adventure on much comment of his own; then he engages Smollett's
+_History of England_, but mostly in the way of extract; anon we find
+him reviewing _A Journal of Eight Days' Journey_, by Jonas Hanway, of
+whom Johnson said that he made some reputation by travelling abroad,
+and lost it all by travelling at home. Then again we find him writing
+a disquisition on _Some Enquiries concerning the First Inhabitants,
+Language, Religion, Learning, and Letters of Europe_, by a Mr. Wise,
+who, along with his critic, appears to have got into hopeless
+confusion in believing Basque and Armorican to be the remains of the
+same ancient language. The last phrase of a note appended to this
+review by Goldsmith probably indicates his own humble estimate of his
+work at this time. "It is more our business," he says, "to exhibit the
+opinions of the learned than to controvert them." In fact he was
+employed to boil down books for people who did not wish to spend more
+on literature than the price of a magazine. Though he was new to the
+trade, it is probable he did it as well as any other.
+
+At the end of five months, Goldsmith and Griffiths quarrelled and
+separated. Griffiths said Goldsmith was idle; Goldsmith said Griffiths
+was impertinent; probably the editorial supervision exercised by Mrs.
+Griffiths had something to do with the dire contention. From
+Paternoster Row Goldsmith removed to a garret in Fleet Street; had his
+letters addressed to a coffee-house; and apparently supported himself
+by further hack-work, his connection with Griffiths not being quite
+severed. Then he drifted back to Peckham again; and was once more
+installed as usher, Dr. Milner being in especial want of an assistant
+at this time. Goldsmith's lingering about the gates of literature had
+not inspired him with any great ambition to enter the enchanted land.
+But at the same time he thought he saw in literature a means by which
+a little ready money might be made, in order to help him on to
+something more definite and substantial; and this goal was now put
+before him by Dr. Milner, in the shape of a medical appointment on the
+Coromandel coast. It was in the hope of obtaining this appointment,
+that he set about composing that _Enquiry into the Present State of
+Polite Learning in Europe_, which is now interesting to us as the
+first of his more ambitious works. As the book grew under his hands,
+he began to cast about for subscribers; and from the Fleet-Street
+coffee-house--he had again left the Peckham school--he addressed to
+his friends and relatives a series of letters of the most charming
+humour, which might have drawn subscriptions from a millstone. To his
+brother-in-law, Mr. Hodson, he sent a glowing account of the great
+fortune in store for him on the Coromandel coast. "The salary is but
+trifling," he writes, "namely L100 per annum, but the other
+advantages, if a person be prudent, are considerable. The practice of
+the place, if I am rightly informed, generally amounts to not less
+than L1,000 per annum, for which the appointed physician has an
+exclusive privilege. This, with the advantages resulting from trade,
+and the high interest which money bears, viz. 20 per cent., are the
+inducements which persuade me to undergo the fatigues of sea, the
+dangers of war, and the still greater dangers of the climate; which
+induce me to leave a place where I am every day gaining friends and
+esteem, and where I might enjoy all the conveniences of life."
+
+The surprising part of this episode in Goldsmith's life is that he did
+really receive the appointment; in fact he was called upon to pay L10
+for the appointment-warrant. In this emergency he went to the
+proprietor of the _Critical Review_, the rival of the _Monthly_, and
+obtained some money for certain anonymous work which need not be
+mentioned in detail here. He also moved into another garret, this time
+in Green-Arbour Court, Fleet Street, in a wilderness of slums. The
+Coromandel project, however, on which so many hopes had been built,
+fell through. No explanation of the collapse could be got from either
+Goldsmith himself, or from Dr. Milner. Mr. Forster suggests that
+Goldsmith's inability to raise money for his outfit may have been made
+the excuse for transferring the appointment to another; and that is
+probable enough; but it is also probable that the need for such an
+excuse was based on the discovery that Goldsmith was not properly
+qualified for the post. And this seems the more likely, that Goldsmith
+immediately afterwards resolved to challenge examination at Surgeons'
+Hall. He undertook to write four articles for the _Monthly Review_;
+Griffiths became surety to a tailor for a fine suit of clothes; and
+thus equipped, Goldsmith presented himself at Surgeons' Hall. He only
+wanted to be passed as hospital mate; but even that modest ambition
+was unfulfilled. He was found not qualified; and returned, with his
+fine clothes, to his Fleet-Street den. He was now thirty years of age
+(1758); and had found no definite occupation in the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+BEGINNING OF AUTHORSHIP.--THE BEE.
+
+
+During the period that now ensued, and amid much quarrelling with
+Griffiths and hack-writing for the _Critical Review_, Goldsmith
+managed to get his _Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning
+in Europe_ completed; and it is from the publication of that work, on
+the 2nd of April, 1759, that we may date the beginning of Goldsmith's
+career as an author. The book was published anonymously; but Goldsmith
+was not at all anxious to disclaim the parentage of his first-born;
+and in Grub Street and its environs, at least, the authorship of the
+book was no secret. Moreover there was that in it which was likely to
+provoke the literary tribe to plenty of fierce talking. The _Enquiry_
+is neither more nor less than an endeavour to prove that criticism has
+in all ages been the deadly enemy of art and literature; coupled with
+an appeal to authors to draw their inspiration from nature rather than
+from books, and varied here and there by a gentle sigh over the loss
+of that patronage, in the sunshine of which men of genius were wont to
+bask. Goldsmith, not having been an author himself, could not have
+suffered much at the hands of the critics; so that it is not to be
+supposed that personal feeling dictated this fierce onslaught on the
+whole tribe of critics, compilers, and commentators. They are
+represented to us as rank weeds, growing up to choke all
+manifestations of true art. "Ancient learning," we are told at the
+outset, "may be distinguished into three periods: its commencement, or
+the age of poets; its maturity, or the age of philosophers; and its
+decline, or the age of critics." Then our guide carries us into the
+dark ages; and, with lantern in hand, shows us the creatures swarming
+there in the sluggish pools--"commentators, compilers, polemic
+divines, and intricate metaphysicians." We come to Italy: look at the
+affectations with which the Virtuosi and Filosofi have enchained the
+free spirit of poetry. "Poetry is no longer among them an imitation of
+what we see, but of what a visionary might wish. The zephyr breathes
+the most exquisite perfume; the trees wear eternal verdure; fawns, and
+dryads, and hamadryads, stand ready to fan the sultry shepherdess, who
+has forgot, indeed, the prettiness with which Guarini's shepherdesses
+have been reproached, but is so simple and innocent as often to have
+no meaning. Happy country, where the pastoral age begins to
+revive!--where the wits even of Rome are united into a rural group of
+nymphs and swains, under the appellation of modern Arcadians!--where
+in the midst of porticoes, processions, and cavalcades, abbes turned
+shepherds and shepherdesses without sheep indulge their innocent
+_divertimenti_!"
+
+In Germany the ponderous volumes of the commentators next come in for
+animadversion; and here we find an epigram, the quaint simplicity of
+which is peculiarly characteristic of Goldsmith. "Were angels to write
+books," he remarks, "they never would write folios." But Germany gets
+credit for the money spent by her potentates on learned institutions;
+and it is perhaps England that is delicately hinted at in these words:
+"Had the fourth part of the immense sum above-mentioned been given in
+proper rewards to genius, in some neighbouring countries, it would
+have rendered the name of the donor immortal, and added to the real
+interests of society." Indeed, when we come to England, we find that
+men of letters are in a bad way, owing to the prevalence of critics,
+the tyranny of booksellers, and the absence of patrons. "The author,
+when 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 of the other to write as much as possible.
+Accordingly, tedious compilations and periodical magazines are the
+result of their joint endeavours. 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. His reputation never spreads in
+a wider circle than that of the trade, who generally value him, not
+for the fineness of his compositions, but the quantity he works off in
+a given time.
+
+"A long habit of writing for bread thus turns the ambition of every
+author at last into avarice. He finds that he has written many years,
+that the public are scarcely acquainted even with his name; he
+despairs of applause, and turns to profit, which invites him. He finds
+that money procures all those advantages, that respect, and that ease
+which he vainly expected from fame. Thus the man who, under the
+protection of the great, might have done honour to humanity, when only
+patronized by the bookseller, becomes a thing little superior to the
+fellow who works at the press."
+
+Nor was he afraid to attack the critics of his own day, though he knew
+that the two Reviews for which he had recently been writing would have
+something to say about his own _Enquiry_. This is how he disposes of
+the _Critical_ and the _Monthly_: "We have two literary Reviews in
+London, with critical newspapers and magazines without number. The
+compilers of these resemble the commoners of Rome; they are all for
+levelling property, not by increasing their own, but by diminishing
+that of others. The man who has any good-nature in his disposition
+must, however, be somewhat displeased to see distinguished reputations
+often the sport of ignorance,--to see, by one false pleasantry, the
+future peace of a worthy man's life disturbed, and this only because
+he has unsuccessfully attempted to instruct or amuse us. Though
+ill-nature is far from being wit, yet it is generally laughed at as
+such. The critic enjoys the triumph, and ascribes to his parts what is
+only due to his effrontery. I fire with indignation, when I see
+persons wholly destitute of education and genius indent to the press,
+and thus turn book-makers, adding to the sin of criticism the sin of
+ignorance also; whose trade is a bad one, and who are bad workmen in
+the trade." Indeed there was a good deal of random hitting in the
+_Enquiry_, which was sure to provoke resentment. Why, for example,
+should he have gone out of his way to insult the highly respectable
+class of people who excel in mathematical studies? "This seems a
+science," he observes, "to which the meanest intellects are equal. I
+forget who it is that says 'All men might understand mathematics if
+they would.'" There was also in the first edition of the _Enquiry_ a
+somewhat ungenerous attack on stage-managers, actors, actresses, and
+theatrical things in general; but this was afterwards wisely excised.
+It is not to be wondered at that, on the whole, the _Enquiry_ should
+have been severely handled in certain quarters. Smollett, who reviewed
+it in the _Critical Review_, appears to have kept his temper pretty
+well for a Scotchman; but Kenrick, a hack employed by Griffiths to
+maltreat the book in the _Monthly Review_, flourished his bludgeon in
+a brave manner. The coarse personalities and malevolent insinuations
+of this bully no doubt hurt Goldsmith considerably; but, as we look at
+them now, they are only remarkable for their dulness. If Griffiths had
+had another Goldsmith to reply to Goldsmith, the retort would have
+been better worth reading: one can imagine the playful sarcasm that
+would have been dealt out to this new writer, who, in the very act of
+protesting against criticism, proclaimed himself a critic. But
+Goldsmiths are not always to be had when wanted; while Kenricks can be
+bought at any moment for a guinea or two a head.
+
+Goldsmith had not chosen literature as the occupation of his life; he
+had only fallen back on it, when other projects failed. But it is
+quite possible that now, as he began to take up some slight position
+as an author, the old ambition of distinguishing himself--which had
+flickered before his imagination from time to time--began to enter
+into his calculations along with the more pressing business of earning
+a livelihood. And he was soon to have an opportunity of appealing to a
+wider public than could have been expected for that erudite treatise
+on the arts of Europe. Mr. Wilkie, a bookseller in St. Paul's
+Churchyard, proposed to start a weekly magazine, price threepence, to
+contain essays, short stories, letters on the topics of the day, and
+so forth, more or less after the manner of the _Spectator_. He asked
+Goldsmith to become sole contributor. Here, indeed, was a very good
+opening; for, although there were many magazines in the field, the
+public had just then a fancy for literature in small doses; while
+Goldsmith, in entering into the competition, would not be hampered by
+the dulness of collaborateurs. He closed with Wilkie's offer; and on
+the 6th of October, 1759, appeared the first number of the _Bee_.
+
+For us now there is a curious autobiographical interest in the opening
+sentences of the first number; but surely even the public of the day
+must have imagined that the new writer who was now addressing them,
+was not to be confounded with the common herd of magazine-hacks. What
+could be more delightful than this odd mixture of modesty, humour, and
+an anxious desire to please?--"There is not, perhaps, a more
+whimsically dismal figure in nature than a man of real modesty, who
+assumes an air of impudence--who, while his heart beats with anxiety,
+studies ease and affects good-humour. In this situation, however, a
+periodical writer often finds himself upon his first attempt to
+address the public in form. All his power of pleasing is damped by
+solicitude, and his cheerfulness dashed with apprehension. Impressed
+with the terrors of the tribunal before which he is going to appear,
+his natural humour turns to pertness, and for real wit he is obliged
+to substitute vivacity. His first publication draws a crowd; they part
+dissatisfied; and the author, never more to be indulged with a
+favourable hearing, is left to condemn the indelicacy of his own
+address or their want of discernment. For my part, as I was never
+distinguished for address, and have often even blundered in making my
+bow, such bodings as these had like to have totally repressed my
+ambition. I was at a loss whether to give the public specious
+promises, or give none; whether to be merry or sad on this solemn
+occasion. If I should decline all merit, it was too probable the hasty
+reader might have taken me at my word. If, on the other hand, like
+labourers in the magazine trade, I had, with modest impudence, humbly
+presumed to promise an epitome of all the good things that ever were
+said or written, this might have disgusted those readers I most desire
+to please. Had I been merry, I might have been censured as vastly low;
+and had I been sorrowful, I might have been left to mourn in solitude
+and silence; in short, whichever way I turned, nothing presented but
+prospects of terror, despair, chandlers' shops, and waste paper."
+
+And it is just possible that if Goldsmith had kept to this vein of
+familiar _causerie_, the public might in time have been attracted by
+its quaintness. But no doubt Mr. Wilkie would have stared aghast; and
+so we find Goldsmith, as soon as his introductory bow is made, setting
+seriously about the business of magazine-making. Very soon, however,
+both Mr. Wilkie and his editor perceived that the public had not been
+taken by their venture. The chief cause of the failure, as it appears
+to any one who looks over the magazine now, would seem to be the lack
+of any definite purpose. There was no marked feature to arrest public
+attention, while many things were discarded on which the popularity of
+other periodicals had been based. There was no scandal to appeal to
+the key-hole and back-door element in human nature; there were no
+libels and gross personalities to delight the mean and envious; there
+were no fine airs of fashion to charm milliners anxious to know how
+the great talked, and posed, and dressed; and there was no solemn and
+pompous erudition to impress the minds of those serious and sensible
+people who buy literature as they buy butter, by its weight. At the
+beginning of No. IV. he admits that the new magazine has not been a
+success; and, in doing so, returns to that vein of whimsical, personal
+humour with which he had started: "Were I to measure the merit of my
+present undertaking by its success or the rapidity of its sale, I
+might be led to form conclusions by no means favourable to the pride
+of an author. Should I estimate my fame by its extent, every newspaper
+and magazine would leave me far behind. Their fame is diffused in a
+very wide circle--that of some as far as Islington, and some yet
+farther still; while mine, I sincerely believe, has hardly travelled
+beyond the sound of Bow Bell; and, while the works of others fly like
+unpinioned swans, I find my own move as heavily as a new-plucked
+goose. Still, however, I have as much pride as they who have ten times
+as many readers. It is impossible to repeat all the agreeable
+delusions in which a disappointed author is apt to find comfort. I
+conclude, that what my reputation wants in extent is made up by its
+solidity. _Minus juvat gloria lata quam magna._ I have great
+satisfaction in considering the delicacy and discernment of those
+readers I have, and in ascribing my want of popularity to the
+ignorance or inattention of those I have not. All the world may
+forsake an author, but vanity will never forsake him. Yet,
+notwithstanding so sincere a confession, I was once induced to show my
+indignation against the public, by discontinuing my endeavours to
+please; and was bravely resolved, like Raleigh, to vex them by burning
+my manuscript in a passion. Upon recollection, 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."
+
+Goldsmith was certainly more at home in this sort of writing, than in
+gravely lecturing people against the vice of gambling; in warning
+tradesmen how ill it became them to be seen at races; in demonstrating
+that justice is a higher virtue than generosity; and in proving that
+the avaricious are the true benefactors of society. But even as he
+confesses the failure of his new magazine, he seems determined to show
+the public what sort of writer this is, whom as yet they have not
+regarded too favourably. It is in No. IV. of the _Bee_ that the famous
+_City Night Piece_ occurs. No doubt that strange little fragment of
+description was the result of some sudden and aimless fancy, striking
+the occupant of the lonely garret in the middle of the night. The
+present tense, which he seldom used--and the abuse of which is one of
+the detestable vices of modern literature--adds to the mysterious
+solemnity of the recital:--
+
+"The clock has just struck two, the expiring taper rises and sinks in
+the socket, the watchman forgets the hour in slumber, the laborious
+and the happy are at rest, and nothing wakes but meditation, guilt,
+revelry, and despair. The drunkard once more fills the destroying
+bowl, the robber walks his midnight round, and the suicide lifts his
+guilty arm against his own sacred person.
+
+"Let me no longer waste the night over the page of antiquity or the
+sallies of contemporary genius, but pursue the solitary walk, where
+Vanity, ever changing, but a few hours past walked before me--where
+she kept up the pageant, and now, like a froward child, seems hushed
+with her own importunities.
+
+"What a gloom hangs all around! The dying lamp feebly emits a yellow
+gleam; no sound is heard but of the chiming clock, or the distant
+watch-dog. All the bustle of human pride is forgotten; an hour like
+this may well display the emptiness of human vanity.
+
+"There will come a time, when this temporary solitude may be made
+continual, and the city itself, like its inhabitants, fade away, and
+leave a desert in its room.
+
+"What cities, as great as this, have once triumphed in existence, had
+their victories as great, joy as just and as unbounded; and, with
+short-sighted presumption, promised themselves immortality! Posterity
+can hardly trace the situation of some; the sorrowful traveller
+wanders over the awful ruins of others; and, as he beholds, he learns
+wisdom, and feels the transience of every sublunary possession.
+
+"'Here,' he cries, 'stood their citadel, now grown over with weeds;
+there their senate-house, but now the haunt of every noxious reptile;
+temples and theatres stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of
+ruin. They are fallen, for luxury and avarice first made them feeble.
+The rewards of the state were conferred on amusing, and not on useful,
+members of society. Their riches and opulence invited the invaders,
+who, though at first repulsed, returned again, conquered by
+perseverance, and at last swept the defendants into undistinguished
+destruction.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+PERSONAL TRAITS.
+
+
+The foregoing extracts will sufficiently show what were the chief
+characteristics of Goldsmith's writing at this time--the grace and
+ease of style, a gentle and sometimes pathetic thoughtfulness, and,
+above all, when he speaks in the first person, a delightful vein of
+humorous self-disclosure. Moreover, these qualities, if they were not
+immediately profitable to the booksellers, were beginning to gain for
+him the recognition of some of the well-known men of the day. Percy,
+afterwards Bishop of Dromore, had made his way to the miserable garret
+of the poor author. Smollett, whose novels Goldsmith preferred to his
+History, was anxious to secure his services as a contributor to the
+forthcoming _British Magazine_. Burke had spoken of the pleasure given
+him by Goldsmith's review of the _Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas
+of the Sublime and Beautiful_. But, to crown all, the great Cham
+himself sought out this obscure author, who had on several occasions
+spoken with reverence and admiration of his works; and so began what
+is perhaps the most interesting literary friendship on record. At what
+precise date Johnson first made Goldsmith's acquaintance, is not
+known; Mr. Forster is right in assuming that they had met before the
+supper in Wine-Office Court, at which Mr. Percy was present. It is a
+thousand pities that Boswell had not by this time made his appearance
+in London. Johnson, Goldsmith, and all the rest of them are only
+ghosts until the pertinacious young laird of Auchinleck comes on the
+scene to give them colour, and life, and form. It is odd enough that
+the very first remarks of Goldsmith's which Boswell jotted down in his
+notebook, should refer to Johnson's systematic kindness towards the
+poor and wretched. "He had increased my admiration of the goodness of
+Johnson's heart by incidental remarks in the course of conversation,
+such as, when I mentioned Mr. Levett, whom he entertained under his
+roof, 'He is poor and honest, which is recommendation enough to
+Johnson'; and when I wondered that he was very kind to a man of whom I
+had heard a very bad character, 'He is now become miserable, and that
+ensures the protection of Johnson.'"
+
+For the rest, Boswell was not well-disposed towards Goldsmith, whom he
+regarded with a jealousy equal to his admiration of Johnson; but it is
+probable that his description of the personal appearance of the
+awkward and ungainly Irishman is in the main correct. And here also it
+may be said that Boswell's love of truth and accuracy compelled him to
+make this admission: "It has been generally circulated and believed
+that he (Goldsmith) was a mere fool in conversation; but, in truth,
+this has been greatly exaggerated." On this exaggeration--seeing that
+the contributor to the _British Magazine_ and the _Public Ledger_ was
+now becoming better known among his fellow authors--a word or two may
+fitly be said here. It pleased Goldsmith's contemporaries, who were
+not all of them celebrated for their ready wit, to regard him as a
+hopeless and incurable fool, who by some strange chance could produce
+literature, the merits of which he could not himself understand. To
+Horace Walpole we owe the phrase which describes Goldsmith as an
+"inspired idiot." Innumerable stories are told of Goldsmith's
+blunders; of his forced attempts to shine in conversation; of poor
+Poll talking nonsense, when all the world was wondering at the beauty
+of his writing. In one case we are told he was content to admit, when
+dictated to, that this, and not that, was what he really had meant in
+a particular phrase. Now there can be no question that Goldsmith,
+conscious of his pitted face, his brogue, and his ungainly figure, was
+exceedingly nervous and sensitive in society, and was anxious, as such
+people mostly are, to cover his shyness by an appearance of ease, if
+not even of swagger; and there can be as little question that he
+occasionally did and said very awkward and blundering things. But our
+Japanese friend, whom we mentioned in our opening pages, looking
+through the record that is preserved to us of those blunders which are
+supposed to be most conclusive as to this aspect of Goldsmith's
+character, would certainly stare. "Good heavens," he would cry, "did
+men ever live who were so thick-headed as not to see the humour of
+this or that 'blunder'; or were they so beset with the notion that
+Goldsmith was only a fool, that they must needs be blind?" Take one
+well-known instance. He goes to France with Mrs. Horneck and her two
+daughters, the latter very handsome young ladies. At Lille the two
+girls and Goldsmith are standing at the window of the hotel,
+overlooking the square in which are some soldiers; and naturally the
+beautiful young Englishwomen attract some attention. Thereupon
+Goldsmith turns indignantly away, remarking that elsewhere he also has
+his admirers. Now what surgical instrument was needed to get this
+harmless little joke into any sane person's head? Boswell may perhaps
+be pardoned for pretending to take the incident _au serieux_; for as
+has just been said, in his profound adoration of Johnson, he was
+devoured by jealousy of Goldsmith; but that any other mortal should
+have failed to see what was meant by this little bit of humorous
+flattery is almost incredible. No wonder that one of the sisters
+afterwards referring to this "playful jest," should have expressed her
+astonishment at finding it put down as a proof of Goldsmith's envious
+disposition. But even after that disclaimer, we find Mr. Croker, as
+quoted by Mr. Forster, solemnly doubting "whether the vexation so
+seriously exhibited by Goldsmith was real or assumed"!
+
+Of course this is an extreme case; but there are others very similar.
+"He affected," says Hawkins, "Johnson's style and manner of
+conversation, and, when he had uttered, as he often would, a laboured
+sentence, so tumid as to be scarce intelligible, would ask if that was
+not truly Johnsonian?" Is it not truly dismal to find such an
+utterance coming from a presumably reasonable human being? It is not
+to be wondered at that Goldsmith grew shy--and in some cases had to
+ward off the acquaintance of certain of his neighbours as being too
+intrusive--if he ran the risk of having his odd and grave humours so
+densely mistranslated. The fact is this, that Goldsmith was possessed
+of a very subtle quality of humour, which is at all times rare, but
+which is perhaps more frequently to be found in Irishmen than among
+other folks. It consists in the satire of the pretence and pomposities
+of others by means of a sort of exaggerated and playful
+self-depreciation. It is a most delicate and most delightful form of
+humour; but it is very apt to be misconstrued by the dull. Who can
+doubt that Goldsmith was good-naturedly laughing at himself, his own
+plain face, his vanity, and his blunders, when he professed to be
+jealous of the admiration excited by the Miss Hornecks; when he
+gravely drew attention to the splendid colours of his coat; or when he
+no less gravely informed a company of his friends that he had heard a
+very good story, but would not repeat it, because they would be sure
+to miss the point of it?
+
+This vein of playful and sarcastic self-depreciation is continually
+cropping up in his essay writing, as, for example, in the passage
+already quoted from No. IV. of the _Bee_: "I conclude, that what my
+reputation wants in extent, is made up by its solidity. _Minus juvat
+gloria lata quam magna_. I have great satisfaction in considering the
+delicacy and discernment of those readers I have, and in ascribing my
+want of popularity to the ignorance or inattention of those I have
+not." But here, no doubt, he remembers that he is addressing the world
+at large, which contains many foolish persons; and so, that the
+delicate raillery may not be mistaken, he immediately adds, "All the
+world may forsake an author, but vanity will never forsake him." That
+he expected a quicker apprehension on the part of his intimates and
+acquaintances, and that he was frequently disappointed, seems pretty
+clear from those very stories of his "blunders." We may reasonably
+suspect, at all events, that Goldsmith was not quite so much of a fool
+as he looked; and it is far from improbable that when the ungainly
+Irishman was called in to make sport for the Philistines--and there
+were a good many Philistines in those days, if all stories be
+true--and when they imagined they had put him out of countenance, he
+was really standing aghast, and wondering how it could have pleased
+Providence to create such helpless stupidity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+The Citizen of the World.--Beau Nash.
+
+
+Meanwhile, to return to his literary work, the _Citizen of the World_
+had grown out of his contributions to the _Public Ledger_, a daily
+newspaper started by Mr. Newbery, another bookseller in St. Paul's
+Churchyard. Goldsmith was engaged to write for this paper two letters
+a week at a guinea a-piece; and these letters were, after a short time
+(1760), written in the character of a Chinese who had come to study
+European civilisation. It may be noted that Goldsmith had in the
+_Monthly Review_, in mentioning Voltaire's memoirs of French writers,
+quoted a passage about Montesquieu's _Lettres Persanes_ as follows:
+"It is written in imitation of the _Siamese Letters_ of Du Freny and
+of the _Turkish Spy_; but it is an imitation which shows what the
+originals should have been. The success their works met with was, for
+the most part, owing to the foreign air of their performances; the
+success of the _Persian Letters_ arose from the delicacy of their
+satire. That satire which in the mouth of an Asiatic is poignant,
+would lose all its force when coming from an European." And it must
+certainly be said that the charm of the strictures of the _Citizen of
+the World_ lies wholly in their delicate satire, and not at all in any
+foreign air which the author may have tried to lend to these
+performances. The disguise is very apparent. In those garrulous,
+vivacious, whimsical, and sometimes serious papers, Lien Chi Altangi,
+writing to Fum Hoam in Pekin, does not so much describe the aspects of
+European civilisation which would naturally surprise a Chinese, as he
+expresses the dissatisfaction of a European with certain phases of the
+civilisation visible everywhere around him. It is not a Chinaman, but
+a Fleet-Street author by profession, who resents the competition of
+noble amateurs whose works--otherwise bitter pills enough--are gilded
+by their titles:--"A nobleman has but to take a pen, ink, and paper,
+write away through three large volumes, and then sign his name to the
+title-page; though the whole might have been before more disgusting
+than his own rent-roll, yet signing his name and title gives value to
+the deed, title being alone equivalent to taste, imagination, and
+genius. As soon as a piece, therefore, is published, the first
+questions are--Who is the author? Does he keep a coach? Where lies his
+estate? What sort of a table does he keep? If he happens to be poor
+and unqualified for such a scrutiny, he and his works sink into
+irremediable obscurity, and too late he finds, that having fed upon
+turtle is a more ready way to fame than having digested Tully. The
+poor devil against whom fashion has set its face vainly alleges that
+he has been bred in every part of Europe where knowledge was to be
+sold; that he has grown pale in the study of nature and himself. His
+works may please upon the perusal, but his pretensions to fame are
+entirely disregarded. He is treated like a fiddler, whose music,
+though liked, is not much praised, because he lives by it; while a
+gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws
+the audience into raptures. The fiddler, indeed, may in such a case
+console himself by thinking, that while the other goes off with all
+the praise, he runs away with all the money. But here the parallel
+drops; for while the nobleman triumphs in unmerited applause, the
+author by profession steals off with--nothing."
+
+At the same time it must be allowed that the utterance of these
+strictures through the mouth of a Chinese admits of a certain
+_naivete_, which on occasion heightens the sarcasm. Lien Chi
+accompanies the Man in Black to a theatre to see an English play. Here
+is part of the performance:--"I was going to second his remarks, when
+my attention was engrossed by a new object; a man came in balancing a
+straw upon his nose, and the audience were clapping their hands in all
+the raptures of applause. 'To what purpose,' cried I, 'does this
+unmeaning figure make his appearance? is he a part of the
+plot?'--'Unmeaning do you call him?' replied my friend in black; 'this
+is one of the most important characters of the whole play; nothing
+pleases the people more than seeing a straw balanced: there is a great
+deal of meaning in a straw: there is something suited to every
+apprehension in the sight; and a fellow possessed of talents like
+these is sure of making his fortune.' The third act now began with an
+actor who came to inform us that he was the villain of the play, and
+intended to show strange things before all was over. He was joined by
+another who seemed as much disposed for mischief as he; their
+intrigues continued through this whole division. 'If that be a
+villain,' said I, 'he must be a very stupid one to tell his secrets
+without being asked; such soliloquies of late are never admitted in
+China.' The noise of clapping interrupted me once more; a child six
+years old was learning to dance on the stage, which gave the ladies
+and mandarins infinite satisfaction. 'I am sorry,' said I, 'to see the
+pretty creature so early learning so bad a trade; dancing being, I
+presume, as contemptible here as in China.'--'Quite the reverse,'
+interrupted my companion; 'dancing is a very reputable and genteel
+employment here; men have a greater chance for encouragement from the
+merit of their heels than their heads. One who jumps up and nourishes
+his toes three times before he comes to the ground may have three
+hundred a year: he who flourishes them four times, gets four hundred;
+but he who arrives at five is inestimable, and may demand what salary
+he thinks proper. The female dancers, too, are valued for this sort of
+jumping and crossing; and it is a cant word amongst them, that she
+deserves most who shows highest. But the fourth act is begun; let us
+be attentive.'"
+
+The Man in Black here mentioned is one of the notable features of this
+series of papers. The mysterious person whose acquaintance the
+Chinaman made in Westminster Abbey, and who concealed such a wonderful
+goodness of heart under a rough and forbidding exterior, is a charming
+character indeed; and it is impossible to praise too highly the vein
+of subtle sarcasm in which he preaches worldly wisdom. But to assume
+that any part of his history which he disclosed to the Chinaman was a
+piece of autobiographical writing on the part of Goldsmith, is a very
+hazardous thing. A writer of fiction must necessarily use such
+materials as have come within his own experience; and Goldsmith's
+experience--or his use of those materials--was extremely limited:
+witness how often a pet fancy, like his remembrance of _Johnny
+Armstrong's Last Good Night_, is repeated. "That of these simple
+elements," writes Professor Masson, in his _Memoir of Goldsmith_,
+prefixed to an edition of his works, "he made so many charming
+combinations, really differing from each other, and all, though
+suggested by fact, yet hung so sweetly in an ideal air, proved what an
+artist he was, and was better than much that is commonly called
+invention. In short, if there is a sameness of effect in Goldsmith's
+writings, it is because they consist of poetry and truth, humour and
+pathos, from his own life, and the supply from such a life as his was
+not inexhaustible."
+
+The question of invention is easily disposed of. Any child can invent
+a world transcending human experience by the simple combination of
+ideas which are in themselves incongruous--a world in which the horses
+have each five feet, in which the grass is blue and the sky green, in
+which seas are balanced on the peaks of mountains. The result is
+unbelievable and worthless. But the writer of imaginative literature
+uses his own experiences and the experiences of others, so that his
+combination of ideas in themselves compatible shall appear so natural
+and believable that the reader--although these incidents and
+characters never did actually exist--is as much interested in them as
+if they had existed. The mischief of it is that the reader sometimes
+thinks himself very clever, and, recognising a little bit of the story
+as having happened to the author, jumps to the conclusion that such
+and such a passage is necessarily autobiographical. Hence it is that
+Goldsmith has been hastily identified with the Philosophic Vagabond in
+the _Vicar of Wakefield_, and with the Man in Black in the _Citizen of
+the World_. That he may have used certain experiences in the one, and
+that he may perhaps have given in the other a sort of fancy sketch of
+a person suggested by some trait in his own character, is possible
+enough; but further assertion of likeness is impossible. That the Man
+in Black had one of Goldsmith's little weaknesses is obvious enough:
+we find him just a trifle too conscious of his own kindliness and
+generosity. The Vicar of Wakefield himself is not without a spice of
+this amiable vanity. As for Goldsmith, every one must remember his
+reply to Griffiths' accusation: "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."
+
+The Man in Black, in any case, is a delightful character. We detect
+the warm and generous nature even in his pretence of having acquired
+worldly wisdom: "I now therefore pursued a course of uninterrupted
+frugality, seldom wanted a dinner, and was consequently invited to
+twenty. I soon began to get the character of a saving hunks that had
+money, and insensibly grew into esteem. Neighbours have asked my
+advice in the disposal of their daughters; and I have always taken
+care not to give any. I have contracted a friendship with an alderman,
+only by observing, that if we take a farthing from a thousand pounds
+it will be a thousand pounds no longer. I have been invited to a
+pawnbroker's table, by pretending to hate gravy; and am now actually
+upon treaty of marriage with a rich widow, for only having observed
+that the bread was rising. If ever I am asked a question, whether I
+know it or not, instead of answering, I only smile and look wise. If a
+charity is proposed I go about with the hat, but put nothing in
+myself. If a wretch solicits my pity, I observe that the world is
+filled with impostors, and take a certain method of not being deceived
+by never relieving. In short, I now find the truest way of finding
+esteem, even from the indigent, is to give away nothing, and thus have
+much in our power to give." This is a very clever piece of writing,
+whether it is in strict accordance with the character of the Man in
+Black, or not. But there is in these _Public Ledger_ papers another
+sketch of character, which is not only consistent in itself, and in
+every way admirable, but is of still further interest to us when we
+remember that at this time the various personages in the _Vicar of
+Wakefield_ were no doubt gradually assuming definite form in
+Goldsmith's mind. It is in the figure of Mr. Tibbs, introduced
+apparently at haphazard, but at once taking possession of us by its
+quaint relief, that we find Goldsmith showing a firmer hand in
+character-drawing. With a few happy dramatic touches Mr. Tibbs starts
+into life; he speaks for himself; he becomes one of the people whom we
+know. And yet, with this concise and sharp portraiture of a human
+being, look at the graceful, almost garrulous, ease of the style:--
+
+     "Our pursuer soon came up and joined us with all the
+     familiarity of an old acquaintance. 'My dear Drybone,' cries
+     he, shaking my friend's hand, 'where have you been hiding
+     this half a century? Positively I had fancied you were gone
+     to cultivate matrimony and your estate in the country.'
+     During the reply I had an opportunity of surveying the
+     appearance of our new companion: his hat was pinched up with
+     peculiar smartness; his looks were pale, thin, and sharp;
+     round his neck he wore a broad black riband, and in his
+     bosom a buckle studded with glass; his coat was trimmed with
+     tarnished twist; he wore by his side a sword with a black
+     hilt; and his stockings of silk, though newly washed, were
+     grown yellow by long service. I was so much engaged with the
+     peculiarity of his dress, that I attended only to the latter
+     part of my friend's reply, in which he complimented Mr.
+     Tibbs on the taste of his clothes and the bloom in his
+     countenance. 'Pshaw, pshaw, Will,' cried the figure, 'no
+     more of that, if you love me: you know I hate flattery,--on
+     my soul I do; and yet, to be sure, an intimacy with the
+     great will improve one's appearance, and a course of venison
+     will fatten; and yet, faith, I despise the great as much as
+     you do; but there are a great many damn'd honest fellows
+     among them, and we must not quarrel with one half, because
+     the other wants weeding. If they were all such as my Lord
+     Mudler, one of the most good-natured creatures that ever
+     squeezed a lemon, I should myself be among the number of
+     their admirers. I was yesterday to dine at the Duchess of
+     Piccadilly's. My lord was there. "Ned," says he to me,
+     "Ned," says he, "I'll hold gold to silver, I can tell you
+     where you were poaching last night." "Poaching, my lord?"
+     says I: "faith, you have missed already; for I staid at home
+     and let the girls poach for me. That's my way: I take a fine
+     woman as some animals do their prey--stand still, and,
+     swoop, they fall into my mouth."' 'Ah, Tibbs, thou art a
+     happy fellow,' cried my companion, with looks of infinite
+     pity; 'I hope your fortune is as much improved as your
+     understanding, in such company?' 'Improved!' replied the
+     other: 'you shall know,--but let it go no farther--a great
+     secret--five hundred a year to begin with--my lord's word of
+     honour for it. His lordship took me down in his own chariot
+     yesterday, and we had a _tete-a-tete_ dinner in the country,
+     where we talked of nothing else.'--'I fancy you forget,
+     sir,' cried I; 'you told us but this moment of your dining
+     yesterday in town.'--'Did I say so?' replied he, coolly; 'to
+     be sure, if I said so, it was so. Dined in town! egad, now I
+     do remember, I did dine in town; but I dined in the country
+     too; for you must know, my boys, I ate two dinners. By the
+     bye, I am grown as nice as the devil in my eating. I'll tell
+     you a pleasant affair about that: we were a select party of
+     us to dine at Lady Grogram's,--an affected piece, but let it
+     go no farther--a secret.--Well, there happened to be no
+     asafoetida in the sauce to a turkey, upon which, says I,
+     I'll hold a thousand guineas, and say done, first,
+     that--But, dear Drybone, you are an honest creature; lend me
+     half-a-crown for a minute or two, or so, just till ----; but
+     hearkee, ask me for it the next time we meet, or it may be
+     twenty to one but I forget to pay you.'"
+
+Returning from those performances to the author of them, we find him a
+busy man of letters, becoming more and more in request among the
+booksellers, and obtaining recognition among his fellow-writers. He
+had moved into better lodgings in Wine Office Court (1760-2); and it
+was here that he entertained at supper, as has already been mentioned,
+no less distinguished guests than Bishop, then Mr., Percy, and Dr.,
+then Mr., Johnson. Every one has heard of the surprise of Percy, on
+calling for Johnson, to find the great Cham dressed with quite unusual
+smartness. On asking the cause of this "singular transformation,"
+Johnson replied, "Why, sir, I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great
+sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting
+my practice; and I am desirous this night to show him a better
+example." That Goldsmith profited by this example--though the tailors
+did not--is clear enough. At times, indeed, he blossomed out into the
+splendours of a dandy; and laughed at himself for doing so. But
+whether he was in gorgeous or in mean attire, he remained the same
+sort of happy-go-lucky creature; working hard by fits and starts;
+continually getting money in advance from the booksellers; enjoying
+the present hour; and apparently happy enough when not pressed by
+debt. That he should have been thus pressed was no necessity of the
+case; at all events we need not on this score begin now to abuse the
+booksellers or the public of that day. We may dismiss once for all the
+oft-repeated charges of ingratitude and neglect.
+
+When Goldsmith was writing those letters in the _Public Ledger_--with
+"pleasure and instruction for others," Mr. Forster says, "though at
+the cost of suffering to himself"--he was receiving for them alone
+what would be equivalent in our day to L200 a year. No man can affirm
+that L200 a year is not amply sufficient for all the material wants of
+life. Of course there are fine things in the world that that amount of
+annual wage cannot purchase. It is a fine thing to sit on the deck of
+a yacht on a summer's day, and watch the far islands shining over the
+blue; it is a fine thing to drive four-in-hand to Ascot--if you can do
+it; it is a fine thing to cower breathless behind a rock and find a
+splendid stag coming slowly within sure range. But these things are
+not necessary to human happiness: it is possible to do without them
+and yet not "suffer." Even if Goldsmith had given half of his
+substance away to the poor, there was enough left to cover all the
+necessary wants of a human being; and if he chose so to order his
+affairs as to incur the suffering of debt, why, that was his own
+business, about which nothing further needs be said. It is to be
+suspected, indeed, that he did not care to practise those excellent
+maxims of prudence and frugality which he frequently preached; but the
+world is not much concerned about that now. If Goldsmith had received
+ten times as much money as the booksellers gave him, he would still
+have died in debt. And it is just possible that we may exaggerate
+Goldsmith's sensitiveness on this score. He had had a life-long
+familiarity with duns and borrowing; and seemed very contented when
+the exigency of the hour was tided over. An angry landlady is
+unpleasant, and an arrest is awkward; but in comes an opportune
+guinea, and the bottle of Madeira is opened forthwith.
+
+In these rooms in Wine Office Court, and at the suggestion or
+entreaty of Newbery, Goldsmith produced a good deal of miscellaneous
+writing--pamphlets, tracts, compilations, and what not--of a more or
+less marketable kind. It can only be surmised that by this time he may
+have formed some idea of producing a book not solely meant for the
+market, and that the characters in the _Vicar of Wakefield_ were
+already engaging his attention; but the surmise becomes probable
+enough when we remember that his project of writing the _Traveller_,
+which was not published till 1764, had been formed as far back as
+1755, while he was wandering aimlessly about Europe, and that a sketch
+of the poem was actually forwarded by him then to his brother Henry in
+Ireland. But in the meantime this hack-work, and the habits of life
+connected with it, began to tell on Goldsmith's health; and so, for a
+time, he left London (1762), and went to Tunbridge and then to Bath.
+It is scarcely possible that his modest fame had preceded him to the
+latter place of fashion; but it may be that the distinguished folk of
+the town received this friend of the great Dr. Johnson with some small
+measure of distinction; for we find that his next published work, _The
+Life of Richard Nash, Esq._, is respectfully dedicated to the Right
+Worshipful the Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen, and Common Council of the
+City of Bath. The Life of the recently deceased Master of Ceremonies
+was published anonymously (1762); but it was generally understood to
+be Goldsmith's; and indeed the secret of the authorship is revealed in
+every successive line. Among the minor writings of Goldsmith there is
+none more delightful than this: the mock-heroic gravity, the
+half-familiar contemptuous good-nature with which he composes this
+Funeral March of a Marionette, are extremely whimsical and amusing.
+And then what an admirable picture we get of fashionable English
+society in the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Bath and Nash
+were alike in the heyday of their glory--the fine ladies with their
+snuff-boxes, and their passion for play, and their extremely effective
+language when they got angry; young bucks come to flourish away their
+money, and gain by their losses the sympathy of the fair; sharpers on
+the look-out for guineas, and adventurers on the look-out for
+weak-minded heiresses; duchesses writing letters in the most doubtful
+English, and chair-men swearing at any one who dared to walk home on
+foot at night.
+
+No doubt the _Life of Beau Nash_ was a bookseller's book; and it was
+made as attractive as possible by the recapitulation of all sorts of
+romantic stories about Miss S----n, and Mr. C----e, and Captain
+K----g; but throughout we find the historian very much inclined to
+laugh at his hero, and only refraining now and again in order to
+record in serious language traits indicative of the real goodness of
+disposition of that fop and gambler. And the fine ladies and
+gentlemen, who lived in that atmosphere of scandal, and intrigue, and
+gambling, are also from time to time treated to a little decorous and
+respectful raillery. Who does not remember the famous laws of polite
+breeding written out by Mr. Nash--Goldsmith hints that neither Mr.
+Nash nor his fair correspondent at Blenheim, the Duchess of
+Marlborough, excelled in English composition--for the guidance of the
+ladies and gentlemen who were under the sway of the King of Bath? "But
+were we to give laws to a nursery, we should make them childish
+laws," Goldsmith writes gravely. "His statutes, though stupid, were
+addressed to fine gentlemen and ladies, and were probably received
+with sympathetic approbation. It is certain they were in general
+religiously observed by his subjects, and executed by him with
+impartiality; neither rank nor fortune shielded the refractory from
+his resentment." Nash, however, was not content with prose in
+enforcing good manners. Having waged deadly war against the custom of
+wearing boots, and having found his ordinary armoury of no avail
+against the obduracy of the country squires, he assailed them in the
+impassioned language of poetry, and produced the following "Invitation
+to the Assembly," which, as Goldsmith remarks, was highly relished by
+the nobility at Bath on account of its keenness, severity, and
+particularly its good rhymes.
+
+      "Come, one and all, to Hoyden Hall,
+    For there's the assembly this night;
+      None but prude fools
+      Mind manners and rules;
+    We Hoydens do decency slight.
+      Come, trollops and slatterns,
+      Cocked hats and white aprons,
+    This best our modesty suits;
+      For why should not we
+      In dress be as free
+    As Hogs-Norton squires in boots?"
+
+The sarcasm was too much for the squires, who yielded in a body; and
+when any stranger through inadvertence presented himself in the
+assembly-rooms in boots, Nash was so completely master of the
+situation that he would politely step up to the intruder and suggest
+that he had forgotten his horse.
+
+Goldsmith does not magnify the intellectual capacity of his hero; but
+he gives him credit for a sort of rude wit that was sometimes
+effective enough. His physician, for example, having called on him to
+see whether he had followed a prescription that had been sent him the
+previous day, was greeted in this fashion: "Followed your
+prescription? No. Egad, if I had, I should have broken my neck, for I
+flung it out of the two pair of stairs window." For the rest, this
+diverting biography contains some excellent warnings against the vice
+of gambling; with a particular account of the manner in which the
+Government of the day tried by statute after statute to suppress the
+tables at Tunbridge and Bath, thereby only driving the sharpers to new
+subterfuges. That the Beau was in alliance with sharpers, or, at
+least, that he was a sleeping partner in the firm, his biographer
+admits; but it is urged on his behalf that he was the most generous of
+winners, and again and again interfered to prevent the ruin of some
+gambler by whose folly he would himself have profited. His constant
+charity was well known; the money so lightly come by was at the
+disposal of any one who could prefer a piteous tale. Moreover he made
+no scruple about exacting from others that charity which they could
+well afford. One may easily guess who was the duchess mentioned in the
+following story of Goldsmith's narration:--
+
+     "The sums he gave and collected for the Hospital were great,
+     and his manner of doing it was no less admirable. I am told
+     that he was once collecting money in Wiltshire's room for
+     that purpose, when a lady entered, who is more remarkable
+     for her wit than her charity, and not being able to pass by
+     him unobserved, she gave him a pat with her fan, and said,
+     'You must put down a trifle for me, Nash, for I have no
+     money in my pocket.' 'Yes, madam,' says he, 'that I will
+     with pleasure, if your grace will tell me when to stop;'
+     then taking an handful of guineas out of his pocket, he
+     began to tell them into his white hat--' One, two, three,
+     four, five ----' 'Hold, hold!' says the duchess, 'consider
+     what you are about.' 'Consider your rank and fortune,
+     madam,' says Nash, and continues telling--'six, seven,
+     eight, nine, ten.' Here the duchess called again, and seemed
+     angry. 'Pray compose yourself, madam,' cried Nash, 'and
+     don't interrupt the work of charity,--eleven, twelve,
+     thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.' Here the duchess stormed, and
+     caught hold of his hand. 'Peace, madam,' says Nash, 'you
+     shall have your name written in letters of gold, madam, and
+     upon the front of the building, madam,--sixteen, seventeen,
+     eighteen, nineteen, twenty.' 'I won't pay a farthing more,'
+     says the duchess. 'Charity hides a multitude of sins,'
+     replies Nash,--'twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three,
+     twenty-four, twenty-five.' 'Nash,' says she, 'I protest you
+     frighten me out of my wits. L--d, I shall die!' 'Madam, you
+     will never die with doing good; and if you do, it will be
+     the better for you,' answered Nash, and was about to
+     proceed; but perceiving her grace had lost all patience, a
+     parley ensued, when he, after much altercation, agreed to
+     stop his hand and compound with her grace for thirty
+     guineas. The duchess, however, seemed displeased the whole
+     evening, and when he came to the table where she was
+     playing, bid him, 'Stand farther, an ugly devil, for she
+     hated the sight of him.' But her grace afterwards having a
+     run of good luck, called Nash to her. 'Come,' says she, 'I
+     will be friends with you, though you are a fool; and to let
+     you see I am not angry, there is ten guineas more for your
+     charity. But this I insist on, that neither my name nor the
+     sum shall be mentioned.'"
+
+At the ripe age of eighty-seven the "beau of three generations"
+breathed his last (1761); and, though he had fallen into poor ways,
+there were those alive who remembered his former greatness, and who
+chronicled it in a series of epitaphs and poetical lamentations. "One
+thing is common almost with all of them," says Goldsmith, "and that is
+that Venus, Cupid, and the Graces are commanded to weep, and that Bath
+shall never find such another." These effusions are forgotten now; and
+so would Beau Nash be also, but for this biography, which, no doubt
+meant merely for the book-market of the day, lives and is of permanent
+value by reason of the charm of its style, its pervading humour, and
+the vivacity of its descriptions of the fashionable follies of the
+eighteenth century. _Nullum fere genus scribendi non tetigit. Nullum
+quod tetigit non ornavit._ Who but Goldsmith could have written so
+delightful a book about such a poor creature as Beau Nash?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+The Arrest.
+
+
+It was no doubt owing to Newbery that Goldsmith, after his return to
+London, was induced to abandon, temporarily or altogether, his
+apartments in Wine Office Court, and take lodgings in the house of a
+Mrs. Fleming, who lived somewhere or other in Islington. Newbery had
+rooms in Canonbury House, a curious old building that still exists;
+and it may have occurred to the publisher that Goldsmith, in this
+suburban district, would not only be nearer him for consultation and
+so forth, but also might pay more attention to his duties than when he
+was among the temptations of Fleet Street. Goldsmith was working
+industriously in the service of Newbery at this time (1763-4); in
+fact, so completely was the bookseller in possession of the hack, that
+Goldsmith's board and lodging in Mrs. Fleming's house, arranged for at
+L50 a year, was paid by Newbery himself. Writing prefaces, revising
+new editions, contributing reviews--this was the sort of work he
+undertook, with more or less content, as the equivalent of the modest
+sums Mr. Newbery disbursed for him or handed over as pocket-money. In
+the midst of all this drudgery he was now secretly engaged on work
+that aimed at something higher than mere payment of bed and board.
+The smooth lines of the _Traveller_ were receiving further polish; the
+gentle-natured _Vicar_ was writing his simple, quaint, tender story.
+And no doubt Goldsmith was spurred to try something better than
+hack-work by the associations that he was now forming, chiefly under
+the wise and benevolent friendship of Johnson.
+
+Anxious always to be thought well of, he was now beginning to meet
+people whose approval was worthy of being sought. He had been
+introduced to Reynolds. He had become the friend of Hogarth. He had
+even made the acquaintance of Mr. Boswell, from Scotland. Moreover, he
+had been invited to become one of the original members of the famous
+Club of which so much has been written; his fellow-members being
+Reynolds, Johnson, Burke, Hawkins, Beauclerk, Bennet Langton, and Dr.
+Nugent. It is almost certain that it was at Johnson's instigation that
+he had been admitted into this choice fellowship. Long before either
+the _Traveller_ or the _Vicar_ had been heard of, Johnson had
+perceived the literary genius that obscurely burned in the uncouth
+figure of this Irishman; and was anxious to impress on others
+Goldsmith's claims to respect and consideration. In the minute record
+kept by Boswell of his first evening with Johnson at the Mitre Tavern,
+we find Johnson saying, "Dr. Goldsmith is one of the first men we now
+have as an author, and he is a very worthy man too. He has been loose
+in his principles, but he is coming right." Johnson took walks with
+Goldsmith; did him the honour of disputing with him on all occasions;
+bought a copy of the _Life of Nash_ when it appeared--an unusual
+compliment for one author to pay another, in their day or in ours;
+allowed him to call on Miss Williams, the blind old lady in Bolt
+Court; and generally was his friend, counsellor, and champion.
+Accordingly, when Mr. Boswell entertained the great Cham to supper at
+the Mitre--a sudden quarrel with his landlord having made it
+impossible for him to order the banquet at his own house--he was
+careful to have Dr. Goldsmith of the company. His guests that evening
+were Johnson, Goldsmith, Davies (the actor and bookseller who had
+conferred on Boswell the invaluable favour of an introduction to
+Johnson), Mr. Eccles, and the Rev. Mr. Ogilvie, a Scotch poet who
+deserves our gratitude because it was his inopportune patriotism that
+provoked, on this very evening, the memorable epigram about the
+high-road leading to England. "Goldsmith," says Boswell, who had not
+got over his envy at Goldsmith's being allowed to visit the blind old
+pensioner in Bolt-court, "as usual, endeavoured with too much
+eagerness to _shine_, and disputed very warmly with Johnson against
+the well-known maxim of the British constitution, 'The king can do no
+wrong.'" It was a dispute not so much about facts as about
+phraseology; and, indeed, there seems to be no great warmth in the
+expressions used on either side. Goldsmith affirmed that "what was
+morally false could not be politically true;" and that, in short, the
+king could by the misuse of his regal power do wrong. Johnson replied,
+that, in such a case, the immediate agents of the king were the
+persons to be tried and punished for the offence. "The king, though he
+should command, cannot force a judge to condemn a man unjustly;
+therefore it is the judge whom we prosecute and punish." But when he
+stated that the king "is above everything, and there is no power by
+which he can be tried," he was surely forgetting an important chapter
+in English history. "What did Cromwell do for his country?" he himself
+asked, during his subsequent visit to Scotland, of old Auchinleck,
+Boswell's father. "God, Doctor," replied the vile Whig, "_he garred
+kings ken they had a lith in their necks_."
+
+For some time after this evening Goldsmith drops out of Boswell's
+famous memoir; perhaps the compiler was not anxious to give him too
+much prominence. They had not liked each other from the outset.
+Boswell, vexed by the greater intimacy of Goldsmith with Johnson,
+called him a blunderer, a feather-brained person; and described his
+appearance in no flattering terms. Goldsmith, on the other hand, on
+being asked who was this Scotch cur that followed Johnson's heels,
+answered, "He is not a cur: you are too severe--he is only a bur. Tom
+Davies flung him at Johnson in sport, and he has the faculty of
+sticking." Boswell would probably have been more tolerant of Goldsmith
+as a rival, if he could have known that on a future day he was to have
+Johnson all to himself--to carry him to remote wilds and exhibit him
+as a portentous literary phenomenon to Highland lairds. It is true
+that Johnson, at an early period of his acquaintance with Boswell, did
+talk vaguely about a trip to the Hebrides; but the young Scotch
+idolater thought it was all too good to be true. The mention of Sir
+James Macdonald, says Boswell, "led us to talk of the Western Islands
+of Scotland, to visit which he expressed a wish that then appeared to
+me a very romantic fancy, which I little thought would be afterwards
+realised. He told me that his father had put Martin's account of
+those islands into his hands when he was very young, and that he was
+highly pleased with it; that he was particularly struck with the St.
+Kilda man's notion that the high church of Glasgow had been hollowed
+out of a rock; a circumstance to which old Mr. Johnson had directed
+his attention." Unfortunately Goldsmith not only disappears from the
+pages of Boswell's biography at this time, but also in great measure
+from the ken of his companions. He was deeply in debt; no doubt the
+fine clothes he had been ordering from Mr. Filby in order that he
+might "shine" among those notable persons, had something to do with
+it; he had tried the patience of the booksellers; and he had been
+devoting a good deal of time to work not intended to elicit immediate
+payment. The most patient endeavours to trace out his changes of
+lodgings, and the fugitive writings that kept him in daily bread, have
+not been very successful. It is to be presumed that Goldsmith had
+occasionally to go into hiding to escape from his creditors; and so
+was missed from his familiar haunts. We only reach daylight again, to
+find Goldsmith being under threat of arrest from his landlady; and for
+the particulars of this famous affair it is necessary to return to
+Boswell.
+
+Boswell was not in London at that time; but his account was taken down
+subsequently from Johnson's narration; and his accuracy in other
+matters, his extraordinary memory, and scrupulous care, leave no doubt
+in the mind that his version of the story is to be preferred to those
+of Mrs. Piozzi and Sir John Hawkins. We may take it that these are
+Johnson's own words:-- "I received one morning a message from poor
+Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his
+power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as
+possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I
+accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady
+had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I
+perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle
+of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle,
+desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by
+which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a novel
+ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it, and
+saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon return; and, having
+gone to a bookseller, sold it for L60. I brought Goldsmith the money,
+and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high
+tone for having used him so ill."
+
+We do not know who this landlady was--it cannot now be made out
+whether the incident occurred at Islington, or in the rooms that
+Goldsmith partially occupied in the Temple; but even if Mrs. Fleming
+be the landlady in question, she was deserving neither of Goldsmith's
+rating nor of the reprimands that have been bestowed upon her by later
+writers. Mrs. Fleming had been exceedingly kind to Goldsmith. Again
+and again in her bills we find items significantly marked L0 0_s._
+0_d._ And if her accounts with her lodger did get hopelessly into
+arrear; and if she was annoyed by seeing him go out in fine clothes to
+sup at the Mitre; and if, at length, her patience gave way, and she
+determined to have her rights in one way or another, she was no worse
+than landladies--who are only human beings, and not divinely appointed
+protectresses of genius--ordinarily are. Mrs. Piozzi says that when
+Johnson came back with the money, Goldsmith "called the woman of the
+house directly to partake of punch, and pass their time in merriment."
+This would be a dramatic touch; but, after Johnson's quietly corking
+the bottle of Madeira, it is more likely that no such thing occurred;
+especially as Boswell quotes the statement as an "extreme inaccuracy."
+
+The novel which Johnson had taken away and sold to Francis Newbery, a
+nephew of the elder bookseller, was, as every one knows, the _Vicar of
+Wakefield_. That Goldsmith, amidst all his pecuniary distresses,
+should have retained this piece in his desk, instead of pawning or
+promising it to one of his bookselling patrons, points to but one
+conclusion--that he was building high hopes on it, and was determined
+to make it as good as lay within his power. Goldsmith put an anxious
+finish into all his better work; perhaps that is the secret of the
+graceful ease that is now apparent in every line. Any young writer who
+may imagine that the power of clear and concise literary expression
+comes by nature, cannot do better than study, in Mr. Cunningham's big
+collection of Goldsmith's writings, the continual and minute
+alterations which the author considered necessary even after the first
+edition--sometimes when the second and third editions--had been
+published. Many of these, especially in the poetical works, were
+merely improvements in sound as suggested by a singularly sensitive
+ear, as when he altered the line
+
+    "Amidst the ruin, heedless of the dead,"
+
+which had appeared in the first three editions of the _Traveller_,
+into
+
+    "There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,"
+
+which appeared in the fourth. But the majority of the omissions and
+corrections were prompted by a careful taste, that abhorred everything
+redundant or slovenly. It has been suggested that when Johnson carried
+off the _Vicar of Wakefield_ to Francis Newbery, the manuscript was
+not quite finished, but had to be completed afterwards. There was at
+least plenty of time for that. Newbery does not appear to have
+imagined that he had obtained a prize in the lottery of literature. He
+paid the L60 for it--clearly on the assurance of the great father of
+learning of the day, that there was merit in the little
+story--somewhere about the end of 1764; but the tale was not issued to
+the public until March, 1766. "And, sir," remarked Johnson to Boswell,
+with regard to the sixty pounds, "a sufficient price too, when it was
+sold; for then the fame of Goldsmith had not been elevated, as it
+afterwards was, by his _Traveller_; and the bookseller had such faint
+hopes of profit by his bargain, that he kept the manuscript by him a
+long time, and did not publish it till after the _Traveller_ had
+appeared. Then, to be sure, it was accidentally worth more money."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE TRAVELLER.
+
+
+This poem of the _Traveller_, the fruit of much secret labour and the
+consummation of the hopes of many years, was lying completed in
+Goldsmith's desk when the incident of the arrest occurred; and the
+elder Newbery had undertaken to publish it. Then, as at other times,
+Johnson lent this wayward child of genius a friendly hand. He read
+over the proof-sheets for Goldsmith; was so kind as to put in a line
+here or there where he thought fit; and prepared a notice of the poem
+for the _Critical Review_. The time for the appearance of this new
+claimant for poetical honours was propitious. "There was perhaps no
+point in the century," says Professor Masson, "when the British Muse,
+such as she had come to be, was doing less, or had so nearly ceased to
+do anything, or to have any good opinion of herself, as precisely
+about the year 1764. Young was dying; Gray was recluse and indolent;
+Johnson had long given over his metrical experimentations on any
+except the most inconsiderable scale; Akenside, Armstrong, Smollett,
+and others less known, had pretty well revealed the amount of their
+worth in poetry; and Churchill, after his ferocious blaze of what was
+really rage and declamation in metre, though conventionally it was
+called poetry, was prematurely defunct. Into this lull came
+Goldsmith's short but carefully finished poem." "There has not been so
+fine a poem since Pope's time," remarked Johnson to Boswell, on the
+very first evening after the return of young Auchinleck to London. It
+would have been no matter for surprise had Goldsmith dedicated this
+first work that he published under his own name to Johnson, who had
+for so long been his constant friend and adviser; and such a
+dedication would have carried weight in certain quarters. But there
+was a finer touch in Goldsmith's thought of inscribing the book to his
+brother Henry; and no doubt the public were surprised and pleased to
+find a poor devil of an author dedicating a work to an Irish parson
+with L40 a year, from whom he could not well expect any return. It
+will be remembered that it was to this brother Henry that Goldsmith,
+ten years before, had sent the first sketch of the poem; and now the
+wanderer,
+
+    "Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow."
+
+declares how his heart untravelled
+
+    "Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
+    And drags at each remove a lengthening chain."
+
+The very first line of the poem strikes a key-note--there is in it a
+pathetic thrill of distance, and regret, and longing; and it has the
+soft musical sound that pervades the whole composition. It is
+exceedingly interesting to note, as has already been mentioned, how
+Goldsmith altered and altered these lines until he had got them full
+of gentle vowel sounds. Where, indeed, in the English language could
+one find more graceful melody than this?--
+
+    "The naked negro, panting at the line,
+    Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,
+    Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
+    And thanks his gods for all the good they gave."
+
+It has been observed also that Goldsmith was the first to introduce
+into English poetry sonorous American--or rather Indian--names, as
+when he writes in this poem,
+
+    "Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
+    And Niagara stuns with thundering sound,"
+
+--and if it be charged against him that he ought to have known the
+proper accentuation of Niagara, it may be mentioned as a set-off that
+Sir Walter Scott, in dealing with his own country, mis-accentuated
+"Glenaladale," to say nothing of his having made of Roseneath an
+island. Another characteristic of the _Traveller_ is the extraordinary
+choiceness and conciseness of the diction, which, instead of
+suggesting pedantry or affectation, betrays on the contrary nothing
+but a delightful ease and grace.
+
+The English people are very fond of good English; and thus it is that
+couplets from the _Traveller_ and the _Deserted Village_ have come
+into the common stock of our language, and that sometimes not so much
+on account of the ideas they convey, as through their singular
+precision of epithet and musical sound. It is enough to make the
+angels weep, to find such a couplet as this--
+
+    "Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
+    Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes,"
+
+murdered in several editions of Goldsmith's works by the substitution
+of the commonplace "breathes" for "breasts"--and that, after Johnson
+had drawn particular attention to the line by quoting it in his
+Dictionary. Perhaps, indeed, it may be admitted that the literary
+charm of the _Traveller_ is more apparent than the value of any
+doctrine, however profound or ingenious, which the poem was supposed
+to inculcate. We forget all about the "particular principle of
+happiness" possessed by each European state, in listening to the
+melody of the singer, and in watching the successive and delightful
+pictures that he calls up before the imagination.
+
+    "As in those domes where Caesars once bore sway,
+    Defaced by time, and tottering in decay,
+    There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
+    The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed;
+    And, wondering man could want the larger pile,
+    Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile."
+
+Then notice the blaze of patriotic idealism that bursts forth when he
+comes to talk of England. What sort of England had he been familiar
+with when he was consorting with the meanest wretches--the poverty
+stricken, the sick, and squalid--in those Fleet-Street dens? But it is
+an England of bright streams and spacious lawns of which he writes;
+and as for the people who inhabit the favoured land--
+
+    "Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state,
+    With daring aims irregularly great;
+    Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
+    I see the lords of human kind pass by."
+
+"Whenever I write anything," Goldsmith had said, with a humorous
+exaggeration which Boswell, as usual, takes _au serieux_, "the public
+_make a point_ to know nothing about it." But we have Johnson's
+testimony to the fact that the _Traveller_ "brought him into high
+reputation." No wonder. When the great Cham declares it to be the
+finest poem published since the time of Pope, we are irresistibly
+forced to think of the _Essay on Man_. What a contrast there is
+between that tedious and stilted effort, and this clear burst of
+bird-song! The _Traveller_, however, did not immediately become
+popular. It was largely talked about, naturally, among Goldsmith's
+friends; and Johnson would scarcely suffer any criticism of it. At a
+dinner given long afterwards at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, and fully
+reported by the invaluable Boswell, Reynolds remarked, "I was glad to
+hear Charles Fox say it was one of the finest poems in the English
+language." "Why were you glad?" said Langton. "You surely had no doubt
+of this before?" Hereupon Johnson struck in: "No; the merit of the
+_Traveller_ is so well established, that Mr. Fox's praise cannot
+augment it, nor his censure diminish it." And he went on to
+say--Goldsmith having died and got beyond the reach of all critics and
+creditors some three or four years before this time "Goldsmith was a
+man who, whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do.
+He deserved a place in Westminster Abbey; and every year he lived
+would have deserved it better."
+
+Presently people began to talk about the new poem. A second edition
+was issued; a third; a fourth. It is not probable that Goldsmith
+gained any pecuniary benefit from the growing popularity of the little
+book; but he had "struck for honest fame," and that was now coming to
+him. He even made some slight acquaintance with "the great;" and here
+occurs an incident which is one of many that account for the love that
+the English people have for Goldsmith. It appears that Hawkins,
+calling one day on the Earl of Northumberland, found the author of the
+_Traveller_ waiting in the outer room, in response to an invitation.
+Hawkins, having finished his own business, retired, but lingered about
+until the interview between Goldsmith and his lordship was over,
+having some curiosity about the result. Here follows Goldsmith's
+report to Hawkins. "His lordship told me he had read my poem, and was
+much delighted with it; that he was going to be Lord-lieutenant of
+Ireland; and that, hearing that I was a native of that country, he
+should be glad to do me any kindness." "What did you answer?" says
+Hawkins, no doubt expecting to hear of some application for pension or
+post. "Why," said Goldsmith, "I could say nothing but that I had a
+brother there, a clergyman, that stood in need of help,"--and then he
+explained to Hawkins that he looked to the booksellers for support,
+and was not inclined to place dependence on the promises of great men.
+"Thus did this idiot in the affairs of the world," adds Hawkins, with
+a fatuity that is quite remarkable in its way, "trifle with his
+fortunes, and put back the hand that was held out to assist him! Other
+offers of a like kind he either rejected or failed to improve,
+contenting himself with the patronage of one nobleman, whose mansion
+afforded him the delights of a splendid table and a retreat for a few
+days from the metropolis." It is a great pity we have not a
+description from the same pen of Johnson's insolent ingratitude in
+flinging the pair of boots down stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+MISCELLANEOUS WRITING.
+
+
+But one pecuniary result of this growing fame was a joint offer on the
+part of Griffin and Newbery of L20 for a selection from his printed
+essays; and this selection was forthwith made and published, with a
+preface written for the occasion. Here at once we can see that
+Goldsmith takes firmer ground. There is an air of confidence--of
+gaiety, even--in his address to the public; although, as usual,
+accompanied by a whimsical mock-modesty that is extremely odd and
+effective. "Whatever right I have to complain of the public," he says,
+"they can, as yet, have no just reason to complain of me. If I have
+written dull Essays, they have hitherto treated them as dull Essays.
+Thus far we are at least upon par, and until they think fit to make me
+their humble debtor by praise, I am resolved not to lose a single inch
+of my self-importance. Instead, therefore, of attempting to establish
+a credit amongst them, it will perhaps be wiser to apply to some more
+distant correspondent; and as my drafts are in some danger of being
+protested at home, it may not be imprudent, upon this occasion, to
+draw my bills upon Posterity.
+
+     "MR. POSTERITY,
+
+     "SIR,--Nine hundred and ninety-nine years after sight hereof
+     pay the bearer, or order, a thousand pounds worth of praise,
+     free from all deductions whatsoever, it being a commodity
+     that will then be very serviceable to him, and place it to
+     the account of, &c."
+
+The bill is not yet due; but there can in the meantime be no harm in
+discounting it so far as to say that these Essays deserve very decided
+praise. They deal with all manner of topics, matters of fact, matters
+of imagination, humorous descriptions, learned criticisms; and then,
+whenever the entertainer thinks he is becoming dull, he suddenly tells
+a quaint little story and walks off amidst the laughter he knows he
+has produced. It is not a very ambitious or sonorous sort of
+literature; but it was admirably fitted for its aim--the passing of
+the immediate hour in an agreeable and fairly intellectual way. One
+can often see, no doubt, that these Essays are occasionally written in
+a more or less perfunctory fashion, the writer not being moved by much
+enthusiasm in his subject; but even then a quaint literary grace
+seldom fails to atone, as when, writing about the English clergy, and
+complaining that they do not sufficiently in their addresses stoop to
+mean capacities, he says--"Whatever may become of the higher orders of
+mankind, who are generally possessed of collateral motives to virtue,
+the vulgar should be particularly regarded, whose behaviour in civil
+life is totally hinged upon their hopes and fears. Those who
+constitute the basis of the great fabric of society should be
+particularly regarded; for in policy, as in architecture, ruin is most
+fatal when it begins from the bottom." There was, indeed, throughout
+Goldsmith's miscellaneous writing much more common sense than might
+have been expected from a writer who was supposed to have none.
+
+As regards his chance criticisms on dramatic and poetical literature,
+these are generally found to be incisive and just; while sometimes
+they exhibit a wholesome disregard of mere tradition and authority.
+"Milton's translation of Horace's Ode to Pyrrha," he says, for
+example, "is universally known and generally admired, in our opinion
+much above its merit." If the present writer might for a moment
+venture into such an arena, he would express the honest belief that
+that translation is the very worst translation that was ever made of
+anything. But there is the happy rendering of _simplex munditiis_,
+which counts for much.
+
+By this time Goldsmith had also written his charming ballad of _Edwin
+and Angelina_, which was privately "printed for the amusement of the
+Countess of Northumberland," and which afterwards appeared in the
+_Vicar of Wakefield_. It seems clear enough that this quaint and
+pathetic piece was suggested by an old ballad beginning,
+
+    "Gentle heardsman, tell to me,
+    Of curtesy I thee pray,
+    Unto the towne of Walsingham
+    Which is the right and ready way,"
+
+which Percy had shown to Goldsmith, and which, patched up,
+subsequently appeared in the _Reliques_. But Goldsmith's ballad is
+original enough to put aside all the discussion about plagiarism which
+was afterwards started. In the old fragment the weeping pilgrim
+receives directions from the herdsman, and goes on her way, and we
+hear of her no more; in _Edwin and Angelina_ the forlorn and
+despairing maiden suddenly finds herself confronted by the long-lost
+lover whom she had so cruelly used. This is the dramatic touch that
+reveals the hand of the artist. And here again it is curious to note
+the care with which Goldsmith repeatedly revised his writings. The
+ballad originally ended with these two stanzas:--
+
+    "Here amidst sylvan bowers we'll rove,
+    From lawn to woodland stray;
+    Blest as the songsters of the grove,
+    And innocent as they.
+
+    "To all that want, and all that wail,
+    Our pity shall be given,
+    And when this life of love shall fail,
+    We'll love again in heaven."
+
+But subsequently it must have occurred to the author that, the
+dramatic disclosure once made, and the lovers restored to each other,
+any lingering over the scene only weakened the force of the climax;
+hence these stanzas were judiciously excised. It may be doubted,
+however, whether the original version of the last couplet:
+
+    "And the last sigh that rends the heart
+    Shall break thy Edwin's too,"
+
+was improved by being altered into
+
+    "The sigh that rends thy constant heart
+    Shall break thy Edwin's too."
+
+Meanwhile Goldsmith had resorted to hack-work again; nothing being
+expected from the _Vicar of Wakefield_, now lying in Newbery's shop,
+for that had been paid for, and his expenses were increasing, as
+became his greater station. In the interval between the publication of
+the _Traveller_ and of the _Vicar_, he moved into better chambers in
+Garden Court; he hired a man-servant, he blossomed out into very fine
+clothes. Indeed, so effective did his first suit seem to be--the
+purple silk small-clothes, the scarlet roquelaure, the wig, sword, and
+gold-headed cane--that, as Mr. Forster says, he "amazed his friends
+with no less than three similar suits, not less expensive, in the next
+six months." Part of this display was no doubt owing to a suggestion
+from Reynolds that Goldsmith, having a medical degree, might just as
+well add the practice of a physician to his literary work, to magnify
+his social position. Goldsmith, always willing to please his friends,
+acceded; but his practice does not appear to have been either
+extensive or long-continued. It is said that he drew out a
+prescription for a certain Mrs. Sidebotham which so appalled the
+apothecary that he refused to make it up; and that, as the lady sided
+with the apothecary, he threw up the case and his profession at the
+same time. If it was money Goldsmith wanted, he was not likely to get
+it in that way; he had neither the appearance nor the manner fitted to
+humour the sick and transform healthy people into valetudinarians. If
+it was the esteem of his friends and popularity outside that circle,
+he was soon to acquire enough of both. On the 27th March, 1766,
+fifteen months after the appearance of the _Traveller_, the _Vicar of
+Wakefield_ was published.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.
+
+
+The _Vicar of Wakefield_, considered structurally, follows the lines
+of the Book of Job. You take a good man, overwhelm him with successive
+misfortunes, show the pure flame of his soul burning in the midst of
+the darkness, and then, as the reward of his patience and fortitude
+and submission, restore him gradually to happiness, with even larger
+flocks and herds than before. The machinery by which all this is
+brought about is, in the _Vicar of Wakefield_, the weak part of the
+story. The plot is full of wild improbabilities; in fact, the
+expedients by which all the members of the family are brought together
+and made happy at the same time, are nothing short of desperate. It is
+quite clear, too, that the author does not know what to make of the
+episode of Olivia and her husband; they are allowed to drop through;
+we leave him playing the French horn at a relation's house; while she,
+in her father's home, is supposed to be unnoticed, so much are they
+all taken up with the rejoicings over the double wedding. It is very
+probable that when Goldsmith began the story he had no very definite
+plot concocted; and that it was only when the much-persecuted Vicar
+had to be restored to happiness, that he found the entanglements
+surrounding him, and had to make frantic efforts to break through
+them. But, be that as it may, it is not for the plot that people now
+read the _Vicar of Wakefield_; it is not the intricacies of the story
+that have made it the delight of the world. Surely human nature must
+be very much the same when this simple description of a quiet English
+home went straight to the heart of nations in both hemispheres.
+
+And the wonder is that Goldsmith of all men should have produced such
+a perfect picture of domestic life. What had his own life been but a
+moving about between garret and tavern, between bachelor's lodgings
+and clubs? Where had he seen--unless, indeed, he looked back through
+the mist of years to the scenes of his childhood--all this gentle
+government, and wise blindness; all this affection, and consideration,
+and respect? There is as much human nature in the character of the
+Vicar alone as would have furnished any fifty of the novels of that
+day, or of this. Who has not been charmed by his sly and quaint
+humour, by his moral dignity and simple vanities, even by the little
+secrets he reveals to us of his paternal rule. "'Ay,' returned I, not
+knowing well what to think of the matter, 'heaven grant they may be
+both the better for it this day three months!' This was one of those
+observations I usually made to impress my wife with an opinion of my
+sagacity; for if the girls succeeded, then it was a pious wish
+fulfilled; but if anything unfortunate ensued, then it might be looked
+on as a prophecy." We know how Miss Olivia was answered, when, at her
+mother's prompting, she set up for being well skilled in
+controversy:--
+
+"'Why, my dear, what controversy can she have read?' cried I. 'It does
+not occur to me that I ever put such books into her hands: you
+certainly overrate her merit.'--'Indeed, papa,' replied Olivia, 'she
+does not; I have read a great deal of controversy. I have read the
+disputes between Thwackum and Square; the controversy between Robinson
+Crusoe and Friday, the savage; and I am now employed in reading the
+controversy in Religious Courtship.'--'Very well,' cried I, 'that's a
+good girl; I find you are perfectly qualified for making converts, and
+so go help your mother to make the gooseberry pie.'"
+
+It is with a great gentleness that the good man reminds his wife and
+daughters that, after their sudden loss of fortune, it does not become
+them to wear much finery. "The first Sunday, in particular, their
+behaviour served to mortify me. I had desired my girls the preceding
+night to be dressed early the next day; for I always loved to be at
+church a good while before the rest of the congregation. They
+punctually obeyed my directions; but when we were to assemble in the
+morning at breakfast, down came my wife and daughters, dressed out in
+all their former splendour; their hair plastered up with pomatum,
+their faces patched to taste, their trains bundled up in a heap
+behind, and rustling at every motion. I could not help smiling at
+their vanity, particularly that of my wife, from whom I expected more
+discretion. In this exigence, therefore, my only resource was to order
+my son, with an important air, to call our coach. The girls were
+amazed at the command; but I repeated it with more solemnity than
+before. 'Surely, my dear, you jest,' cried my wife; 'we can walk it
+perfectly well: we want no coach to carry us now.'--'You mistake,
+child,' returned I, 'we do want a coach; for if we walk to church in
+this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after
+us.'--'Indeed,' replied my wife, 'I always imagined that my Charles
+was fond of seeing his children neat and handsome about him.'--'You
+may be as neat as you please,' interrupted I, 'and I shall love you
+the better for it; but all this is not neatness, but frippery. These
+rufflings, and pinkings, and patchings will only make us hated by all
+the wives of our neighbours. No, my children,' continued I, more
+gravely, 'those gowns may be altered into something of a plainer cut;
+for finery is very unbecoming in us, who want the means of decency. I
+do not know whether such flouncing and shredding is becoming even in
+the rich, if we consider, upon a moderate calculation, that the
+nakedness of the indigent world might be clothed from the trimmings of
+the vain.'
+
+"This remonstrance had the proper effect: they went with great
+composure, that very instant, to change their dress; and the next day
+I had the satisfaction of finding my daughters, at their own request,
+employed in cutting up their trains into Sunday waistcoats for Dick
+and Bill, the two little ones; and, what was still more satisfactory,
+the gowns seemed improved by this curtailing." And again when he
+discovered the two girls making a wash for their faces:--"My daughters
+seemed equally busy with the rest; and I observed them for a good
+while cooking something over the fire. I at first supposed they were
+assisting their mother, but little Dick informed me, in a whisper,
+that they were making a wash for the face. Washes of all kinds I had a
+natural antipathy to; for I knew that, instead of mending the
+complexion, they spoil it. I therefore approached my chair by sly
+degrees to the fire, and grasping the poker, as if it wanted mending,
+seemingly by accident overturned the whole composition, and it was too
+late to begin another."
+
+All this is done with such a light, homely touch, that one gets
+familiarly to know these people without being aware of it. There is no
+insistance. There is no dragging you along by the collar; confronting
+you with certain figures; and compelling you to look at this and study
+that. The artist stands by you, and laughs in his quiet way; and you
+are laughing too, when suddenly you find that human beings have
+silently come into the void before you; and you know them for friends;
+and even after the vision has faded away, and the beautiful light and
+colour and glory of romance-land have vanished, you cannot forget
+them. They have become part of your life; you will take them to the
+grave with you.
+
+The story, as every one perceives, has its obvious blemishes. "There
+are an hundred faults in this Thing," says Goldsmith himself, in the
+prefixed Advertisement. But more particularly, in the midst of all the
+impossibilities taking place in and around the jail, when that
+chameleon-like _deus ex machina_, Mr. Jenkinson, winds up the tale in
+hot haste, Goldsmith pauses to put in a sort of apology. "Nor can I go
+on without a reflection," he says gravely, "on those accidental
+meetings, which, though they happen every day, seldom excite our
+surprise but upon some extraordinary occasion. To what a fortuitous
+concurrence do we not owe every pleasure and convenience of our lives!
+How many seeming accidents must unite before we can be clothed or fed!
+The peasant must be disposed to labour, the shower must fall, the wind
+fill the merchant's sail, or numbers must want the usual supply." This
+is Mr. Thackeray's "simple rogue" appearing again in adult life.
+Certainly, if our supply of food and clothing depended on such
+accidents as happened to make the Vicar's family happy all at once,
+there would be a good deal of shivering and starvation in the world.
+Moreover it may be admitted that on occasion Goldsmith's fine instinct
+deserts him; and even in describing those domestic relations which are
+the charm of the novel, he blunders into the unnatural. When Mr.
+Burchell, for example, leaves the house in consequence of a quarrel
+with Mrs. Primrose, the Vicar questions his daughter as to whether she
+had received from that poor gentleman any testimony of his affection
+for her. She replies No; but remembers to have heard him remark that
+he never knew a woman who could find merit in a man that was poor.
+"Such, my dear," continued the Vicar, "is the common cant of all the
+unfortunate or idle. But I hope you have been taught to judge properly
+of such men, and that it would be even madness to expect happiness
+from one who has been so very bad an economist of his own. Your mother
+and I have now better prospects for you. The next winter, which you
+will probably spend in town, will give you opportunities of making a
+more prudent choice." Now it is not at all likely that a father,
+however anxious to have his daughter well married and settled, would
+ask her so delicate a question in open domestic circle, and would then
+publicly inform her that she was expected to choose a husband on her
+forthcoming visit to town.
+
+Whatever may be said about any particular incident like this, the
+atmosphere of the book is true. Goethe, to whom a German translation
+of the _Vicar_ was read by Herder some four years after the
+publication in England, not only declared it at the time to be one of
+the best novels ever written, but again and again throughout his life
+reverted to the charm and delight with which he had made the
+acquaintance of the English "prose-idyll," and took it for granted
+that it was a real picture of English life. Despite all the machinery
+of Mr. Jenkinson's schemes, who could doubt it? Again and again there
+are recurrent strokes of such vividness and naturalness that we yield
+altogether to the necromancer. Look at this perfect picture--of human
+emotion and outside nature--put in in a few sentences. The old
+clergyman, after being in search of his daughter, has found her, and
+is now--having left her in an inn--returning to his family and his
+home. "And now my heart caught new sensations of pleasure, the nearer
+I approached that peaceful mansion. As a bird that had been frighted
+from its nest, my affections outwent my haste, and hovered round my
+little fireside with all the rapture of expectation. I called up the
+many fond things I had to say, and anticipated the welcome I was to
+receive. I already felt my wife's tender embrace, and smiled at the
+joy of my little ones. As I walked but slowly, the night waned apace.
+The labourers of the day were all retired to rest; the lights were
+out in every cottage; no sounds were heard but of the shrilling cock,
+and the deep-mouthed watch-dog at hollow distance. I approached my
+little abode of pleasure, and, before I was within a furlong of the
+place, our honest mastiff came running to welcome me." "_The
+deep-mouthed watch-dog at hollow distance_;"--what more perfect
+description of the stillness of night was ever given?
+
+And then there are other qualities in this delightful _Vicar of
+Wakefield_ than merely idyllic tenderness, and pathos, and sly humour.
+There is a firm presentation of the crimes and brutalities of the
+world. The pure light that shines within that domestic circle is all
+the brighter because of the black outer ring that is here and there
+indicated rather than described. How could we appreciate all the
+simplicities of the good man's household, but for the rogueries with
+which they are brought in contact? And although we laugh at Moses and
+his gross of green spectacles, and the manner in which the Vicar's
+wife and daughter are imposed on by Miss Wilhelmina Skeggs and Lady
+Blarney, with their lords and ladies and their tributes to virtue,
+there is no laughter demanded of us when we find the simplicity and
+moral dignity of the Vicar meeting and beating the jeers and taunts of
+the abandoned wretches in the prison. This is really a remarkable
+episode. The author was under the obvious temptation to make much
+comic material out of the situation; while another temptation, towards
+the goody-goody side, was not far off. But the Vicar undertakes the
+duty of reclaiming these castaways with a modest patience and
+earnestness in every way in keeping with his character; while they, on
+the other hand, are not too easily moved to tears of repentance. His
+first efforts, it will be remembered, were not too successful. "Their
+insensibility excited my highest compassion, and blotted my own
+uneasiness from my mind. It even appeared a duty incumbent upon me to
+attempt to reclaim them. I resolved, therefore, once more to return,
+and, in spite of their contempt, to give them my advice, and conquer
+them by my perseverance. Going, therefore, among them again, I
+informed Mr. Jenkinson of my design, at which he laughed heartily, but
+communicated it to the rest. The proposal was received with the
+greatest good humour, as it promised to afford a new fund of
+entertainment to persons who had now no other resource for mirth but
+what could be derived from ridicule or debauchery.
+
+"I therefore read them a portion of the service with a loud,
+unaffected voice, and found my audience perfectly merry upon the
+occasion. Lewd whispers, groans of contrition burlesqued, winking and
+coughing, alternately excited laughter. However, I continued with my
+natural solemnity to read on, sensible that what I did might mend
+some, but could itself receive no contamination from any.
+
+"After reading, I entered upon my exhortation, which was rather
+calculated at first to amuse them than to reprove. I previously
+observed, that no other motive but their welfare could induce me to
+this; that I was their fellow-prisoner, and now got nothing by
+preaching. I was sorry, I said, to hear them so very profane; because
+they got nothing by it, but might lose a great deal: 'For be assured,
+my friends,' cried I,--'for you are my friends, however the world may
+disclaim your friendship,--though you swore twelve thousand oaths in
+a day, it would not put one penny in your purse. Then what signifies
+calling every moment upon the devil, and courting his friendship,
+since you find how scurvily he uses you? He has given you nothing
+here, you find, but a mouthful of oaths and an empty belly; and, by
+the best accounts I have of him, he will give you nothing that's good
+hereafter.
+
+"'If used ill in our dealings with one man, we naturally go elsewhere.
+Were it not worth your while, then, just to try how you may like the
+usage of another master, who gives you fair promises at least to come
+to him? Surely, my friends, of all stupidity in the world, his must be
+the greatest, who, after robbing a house, runs to the thief-takers for
+protection. And yet, how are you more wise? You are all seeking
+comfort from one that has already betrayed you, applying to a more
+malicious being than any thief-taker of them all; for they only decoy
+and then hang you; but he decoys and hangs, and, what is worst of all,
+will not let you loose after the hangman has done.'
+
+"When I had concluded, I received the compliments of my audience, some
+of whom came and shook me by the hand, swearing that I was a very
+honest fellow, and that they desired my further acquaintance. I
+therefore promised to repeat my lecture next day, and actually
+conceived some hopes of making a reformation here; for it had ever
+been my opinion, that no man was past the hour of amendment, every
+heart lying open to the shafts of reproof, if the archer could but
+take a proper aim."
+
+His wife and children, naturally dissuading him from an effort which
+seemed to them only to bring ridicule upon him, are met by a grave
+rebuke; and on the next morning he descends to the common prison,
+where, he says, he found the prisoners very merry, expecting his
+arrival, and each prepared to play some gaol-trick on the Doctor.
+
+"There was one whose trick gave more universal pleasure than all the
+rest; for, observing the manner in which I had disposed my books on
+the table before me, he very dexterously displaced one of them, and
+put an obscene jest-book of his own in the place. However, I took no
+notice of all that this mischievous group of little beings could do,
+but went on, perfectly sensible that what was ridiculous in my attempt
+would excite mirth only the first or second time, while what was
+serious would be permanent. My design succeeded, and in less than six
+days some were penitent, and all attentive.
+
+"It was now that I applauded my perseverance and address, at thus
+giving sensibility to wretches divested of every moral feeling, and
+now began to think of doing them temporal services also, by rendering
+their situation somewhat more comfortable. Their time had hitherto
+been divided between famine and excess, tumultuous riot and bitter
+repining. Their only employment was quarrelling among each other,
+playing at cribbage, and cutting tobacco-stoppers. From this last mode
+of idle industry I took the hint of setting such as choose to work at
+cutting pegs for tobacconists and shoemakers, the proper wood being
+bought by a general subscription, and, when manufactured, sold by my
+appointment; so that each earned something every day--a trifle indeed,
+but sufficient to maintain him.
+
+"I did not stop here, but instituted fines for the punishment of
+immorality, and rewards for peculiar industry. Thus, in less than a
+fortnight I had formed them into something social and humane, and had
+the pleasure of regarding myself as a legislator who had brought men
+from their native ferocity into friendship and obedience."
+
+Of course, all this about gaols and thieves was calculated to shock
+the nerves of those who liked their literature perfumed with
+rose-water. Madame Riccoboni, to whom Burke had sent the book, wrote
+to Garrick, "Le plaidoyer en faveur des voleurs, des petits larrons,
+des gens de mauvaises moeurs, est fort eloigne de me plaire."
+Others, no doubt, considered the introduction of Miss Skeggs and Lady
+Blarney as "vastly low." But the curious thing is that the literary
+critics of the day seem to have been altogether silent about the
+book--perhaps they were "puzzled" by it, as Southey has suggested. Mr.
+Forster, who took the trouble to search the periodical literature of
+the time, says that, "apart from bald recitals of the plot, not a word
+was said in the way of criticism about the book, either in praise or
+blame." The _St. James's Chronicle_ did not condescend to notice its
+appearance, and the _Monthly Review_ confessed frankly that nothing
+was to be made of it. The better sort of newspapers, as well as the
+more dignified reviews, contemptuously left it to the patronage of
+_Lloyd's Evening Post_, the _London Chronicle_, and journals of that
+class; which simply informed their readers that a new novel, called
+the _Vicar of Wakefield_, had been published, that "the editor is
+Doctor Goldsmith, who has affixed his name to an introductory
+Advertisement, and that such and such were the incidents of the
+story." Even his friends, with the exception of Burke, did not seem
+to consider that any remarkable new birth in literature had occurred;
+and it is probable that this was a still greater disappointment to
+Goldsmith, who was so anxious to be thought well of at the Club.
+However, the public took to the story. A second edition was published
+in May; a third in August. Goldsmith, it is true, received no
+pecuniary gain from this success, for, as we have seen, Johnson had
+sold the novel outright to Francis Newbery; but his name was growing
+in importance with the booksellers.
+
+There was need that it should, for his increasing expenses--his fine
+clothes, his suppers, his whist at the Devil Tavern--were involving
+him in deeper and deeper difficulties. How was he to extricate
+himself?--or rather the question that would naturally occur to
+Goldsmith was how was he to continue that hand-to-mouth existence that
+had its compensations along with its troubles? Novels like the _Vicar
+of Wakefield_ are not written at a moment's notice, even though any
+Newbery, judging by results, is willing to double that L60 which
+Johnson considered to be a fair price for the story at the time. There
+was the usual resource of hack-writing; and, no doubt, Goldsmith was
+compelled to fall back on that, if only to keep the elder Newbery, in
+whose debt he was, in a good humour. But the author of the _Vicar of
+Wakefield_ may be excused if he looked round to see if there was not
+some more profitable work for him to turn his hand to. It was at this
+time that he began to think of writing a comedy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE GOOD-NATURED MAN.
+
+
+Amid much miscellaneous work, mostly of the compilation order, the
+play of the _Good-natured Man_ began to assume concrete form; insomuch
+that Johnson, always the friend of this erratic Irishman, had promised
+to write a Prologue for it. It is with regard to this Prologue that
+Boswell tells a foolish and untrustworthy story about Goldsmith. Dr.
+Johnson had recently been honoured by an interview with his Sovereign;
+and the members of the Club were in the habit of flattering him by
+begging for a repetition of his account of that famous event. On one
+occasion, during this recital, Boswell relates, Goldsmith "remained
+unmoved upon a sofa at some distance, affecting not to join in the
+least in the eager curiosity of the company. He assigned as a reason
+for his gloom and seeming inattention that he apprehended Johnson had
+relinquished his purpose of furnishing him with a Prologue to his
+play, with the hopes of which he had been flattered; but it was
+strongly suspected that he was fretting with chagrin and envy at the
+singular honour Doctor Johnson had lately enjoyed. At length the
+frankness and simplicity of his natural character prevailed. He
+sprang from the sofa, advanced to Johnson, and, in a kind of flutter,
+from imagining himself in the situation which he had just been hearing
+described, exclaimed, '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.'" It is obvious enough that the
+only part of this anecdote which is quite worthy of credence is the
+actual phrase used by Goldsmith, which is full of his customary
+generosity and self-depreciation. All those "suspicions" of his envy
+of his friend may safely be discarded, for they are mere guesswork;
+even though it might have been natural enough for a man like
+Goldsmith, conscious of his singular and original genius, to measure
+himself against Johnson, who was merely a man of keen perception and
+shrewd reasoning, and to compare the deference paid to Johnson with
+the scant courtesy shown to himself.
+
+As a matter of fact, the Prologue was written by Dr. Johnson; and the
+now complete comedy was, after some little arrangement of personal
+differences between Goldsmith and Garrick, very kindly undertaken by
+Reynolds, submitted for Garrick's approval. But nothing came of
+Reynolds's intervention. Perhaps Goldsmith resented Garrick's airs of
+patronage towards a poor devil of an author; perhaps Garrick was
+surprised by the manner in which well-intentioned criticisms were
+taken; at all events, after a good deal of shilly-shallying, the play
+was taken out of Garrick's hands. Fortunately, a project was just at
+this moment on foot for starting the rival theatre in Covent Garden,
+under the management of George Colman; and to Colman Goldsmith's play
+was forthwith consigned. The play was accepted; but it was a long time
+before it was produced; and in that interval it may fairly be presumed
+the _res angusta domi_ of Goldsmith did not become any more free and
+generous than before. It was in this interval that the elder Newbery
+died; Goldsmith had one patron the less. Another patron who offered
+himself was civilly bowed to the door. This is an incident in
+Goldsmith's career which, like his interview with the Earl of
+Northumberland, should ever be remembered in his honour. The
+Government of the day were desirous of enlisting on their behalf the
+services of writers of somewhat better position than the mere
+libellers whose pens were the slaves of anybody's purse; and a Mr.
+Scott, a chaplain of Lord Sandwich, appears to have imagined that it
+would be worth while to buy Goldsmith. He applied to Goldsmith in due
+course; and this is an account of the interview. "I found him in a
+miserable set of chambers in the Temple. I told him my authority; I
+told him 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 I left him in his
+garret." Needy as he was, Goldsmith had too much self-respect to
+become a paid libeller and cutthroat of public reputations.
+
+On the evening of Friday, the 29th of January, 1768, when Goldsmith
+had now reached the age of forty, the comedy of _The Good-natured Man_
+was produced at Covent Garden Theatre. The Prologue had, according to
+promise, been written by Johnson; and a very singular prologue it was.
+Even Boswell was struck by the odd contrast between this sonorous
+piece of melancholy and the fun that was to follow. "The first lines
+of this Prologue," he conscientiously remarks, "are strongly
+characteristical of the dismal gloom of his mind; which, in his case,
+as in the case of all who are distressed with the same malady of
+imagination, transfers to others its own feelings. Who could suppose
+it was to introduce a comedy, when Mr. Bensley solemnly began--
+
+    "'Pressed with the load of life, the weary mind
+    Surveys the general toil of humankind'?
+
+But this dark ground might make Goldsmith's humour shine the more."
+When we come to the comedy itself, we find but little bright humour in
+the opening passages. The author is obviously timid, anxious, and
+constrained. There is nothing of the brisk, confident vivacity with
+which _She Stoops to Conquer_ opens. The novice does not yet
+understand the art of making his characters explain themselves; and
+accordingly the benevolent uncle and honest Jarvis indulge in a
+conversation which, laboriously descriptive of the character of young
+Honeywood, is spoken "at" the audience. With the entrance of young
+Honeywood himself, Goldsmith endeavours to become a little more
+sprightly; but there is still anxiety hanging over him, and the
+epigrams are little more than merely formal antitheses.
+
+     "_Jarvis._ This bill from your tailor; this from your
+     mercer; and this from the little broker in Crooked Lane. He
+     says he has been at a great deal of trouble to get back the
+     money you borrowed.
+
+     _Hon._ That I don't know; but I'm sure we were at a great
+     deal of trouble in getting him to lend it.
+
+     _Jar._ He has lost all patience.
+
+     _Hon._ Then he has lost a very good thing.
+
+     _Jar._ There's that ten guineas you were sending to the poor
+     gentleman and his children in the Fleet. I believe that
+     would stop his mouth for a while at least.
+
+     _Hon._ Ay, Jarvis, but what will fill their mouths in the
+     mean time?"
+
+This young Honeywood, the hero of the play, is, and remains
+throughout, a somewhat ghostly personage. He has attributes; but no
+flesh or blood. There is much more substance in the next character
+introduced--the inimitable Croaker, who revels in evil forebodings and
+drinks deep of the luxury of woe. These are the two chief characters;
+but then a play must have a plot. And perhaps it would not be fair, so
+far as the plot is concerned, to judge of _The Good-natured Man_
+merely as a literary production. Intricacies that seem tedious and
+puzzling on paper appear to be clear enough on the stage: it is much
+more easy to remember the history and circumstances of a person whom
+we see before us, than to attach these to a mere name--especially as
+the name is sure to be clipped down from _Honeywood_ to _Hon._ and
+from _Leontine_ to _Leon._ However, it is in the midst of all the
+cross-purposes of the lovers that we once more come upon our old
+friend Beau Tibbs--though Mr. Tibbs is now in much better
+circumstances, and has been re-named by his creator Jack Lofty.
+Garrick had objected to the introduction of Jack, on the ground that
+he was only a distraction. But Goldsmith, whether in writing a novel
+or a play, was more anxious to represent human nature than to prune a
+plot, and paid but little respect to the unities, if only he could
+arouse our interest. And who is not delighted with this Jack Lofty and
+his "duchessy" talk--his airs of patronage, his mysterious hints, his
+gay familiarity with the great, his audacious lying?
+
+     "_Lofty._ Waller? Waller? Is he of the house?
+
+     _Mrs. Croaker._ The modern poet of that name, sir.
+
+     _Lof._ Oh, a modern! We men of business despise the moderns;
+     and as for the ancients, we have no time to read them.
+     Poetry is a pretty thing enough for our wives and daughters;
+     but not for us. Why now, here I stand that know nothing of
+     books. I say, madam, I know nothing of books; and yet, I
+     believe, upon a land-carriage fishery, a stamp act, or a
+     jag-hire, I can talk my two hours without feeling the want
+     of them.
+
+     _Mrs. Cro._ The world is no stranger to Mr. Lofty's eminence
+     in every capacity.
+
+     _Lof._ I vow to gad, madam, you make me blush. I'm nothing,
+     nothing, nothing in the world; a mere obscure gentleman. To
+     be sure, indeed, one or two of the present ministers are
+     pleased to represent me as a formidable man. I know they are
+     pleased to bespatter me at all their little dirty levees.
+     Yet, upon my soul, I wonder what they see in me to treat me
+     so! Measures, not men, have always been my mark; and I vow,
+     by all that's honourable, my resentment has never done the
+     men, as mere men, any manner of harm--that is, as mere men.
+
+     _Mrs. Cro._ What importance, and yet what modesty!
+
+     _Lof._ Oh, if you talk of modesty, madam, there, I own, I'm
+     accessible to praise: modesty is my foible: it was so the
+     Duke of Brentford used to say of me. 'I love Jack Lofty,' he
+     used to say: 'no man has a finer knowledge of things; quite
+     a man of information; and when he speaks upon his legs, by
+     the Lord he's prodigious, he scouts them; and yet all men
+     have their faults; too much modesty is his,' says his grace.
+
+     _Mrs. Cro._ And yet, I dare say, you don't want assurance
+     when you come to solicit for your friends.
+
+     _Lof._ Oh, there indeed I'm in bronze. Apropos! I have just
+     been mentioning Miss Richland's case to a certain personage;
+     we must name no names. When I ask, I am not to be put off,
+     madam. No, no, I take my friend by the button. A fine girl,
+     sir; great justice in her case. A friend of mine--borough
+     interest--business must be done, Mr. Secretary.--I say, Mr.
+     Secretary, her business must be done, sir. That's my way,
+     madam.
+
+     _Mrs. Cro._ Bless me! you said all this to the Secretary of
+     State, did you?
+
+     _Lof._ I did not say the Secretary, did I? Well, curse it,
+     since you have found me out, I will not deny it. It was to
+     the Secretary."
+
+Strangely enough, what may now seem to some of us the very best scene
+in the _Good-natured Man_--the scene, that is, in which young
+Honeywood, suddenly finding Miss Richland without, is compelled to
+dress up the two bailiffs in possession of his house and introduce
+them to her as gentlemen friends--was very nearly damning the play on
+the first night of its production. The pit was of opinion that it was
+"low;" and subsequently the critics took up the cry, and professed
+themselves to be so deeply shocked by the vulgar humours of the
+bailiffs that Goldsmith had to cut them out. But on the opening night
+the anxious author, who had been rendered nearly distracted by the
+cries and hisses produced by this scene, was somewhat reassured when
+the audience began to laugh again over the tribulations of Mr.
+Croaker. To the actor who played the part he expressed his warm
+gratitude when the piece was over; assuring him that he had exceeded
+his own conception of the character, and that "the fine comic richness
+of his colouring made it almost appear as new to him as to any other
+person in the house."
+
+The new play had been on the whole favourably received; and, when
+Goldsmith went along afterwards to the Club, his companions were
+doubtless not at all surprised to find him in good spirits. He was
+even merrier than usual; and consented to sing his favourite ballad
+about the Old Woman tossed in a Blanket. But those hisses and cries
+were still rankling in his memory; and he himself subsequently
+confessed that he was "suffering horrid tortures." Nay, when the other
+members of the Club had gone, leaving him and Johnson together, he
+"burst out a-crying, and even swore by ---- that he would never write
+again." When Goldsmith told this story in after-days, Johnson was
+naturally astonished; perhaps--himself not suffering much from an
+excessive sensitiveness--he may have attributed that little burst of
+hysterical emotion to the excitement of the evening increased by a
+glass or two of punch, and determined therefore never to mention it.
+"All which, Doctor," he said, "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." Indeed there was little to cry over, either in the first
+reception of the piece or in its subsequent fate. With the offending
+bailiffs cut out, the comedy would seem to have been very fairly
+successful. The proceeds of three of the evenings were Goldsmith's
+payment; and in this manner he received L400. Then Griffin published
+the play; and from this source Goldsmith received an additional L100;
+so that altogether he was very well paid for his work. Moreover he had
+appealed against the judgment of the pit and the dramatic critics, by
+printing in the published edition the bailiff scene which had been
+removed from the stage; and the _Monthly Review_ was so extremely kind
+as to say that "the bailiff and his blackguard follower appeared
+intolerable on the stage, yet we are not disgusted with them in the
+perusal." Perhaps we have grown less scrupulous since then; but at all
+events it would be difficult for anybody nowadays to find anything but
+good-natured fun in that famous scene. There is an occasional "damn,"
+it is true; but then English officers have always been permitted that
+little playfulness, and these two gentlemen were supposed to "serve in
+the Fleet;" while if they had been particularly refined in their
+speech and manner, how could the author have aroused Miss Richland's
+suspicions? It is possible that the two actors who played the bailiff
+and his follower may have introduced some vulgar "gag" into their
+parts; but there is no warranty for anything of the kind in the play
+as we now read it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+GOLDSMITH IN SOCIETY.
+
+
+The appearance of the _Good-natured Man_ ushered in a halcyon period
+in Goldsmith's life. The _Traveller_ and the _Vicar_ had gained for
+him only reputation: this new comedy put L500 in his pocket. Of course
+that was too big a sum for Goldsmith to have about him long.
+Four-fifths of it he immediately expended on the purchase and
+decoration of a set of chambers in Brick Court, Middle Temple; with
+the remainder he appears to have begun a series of entertainments in
+this new abode, which were perhaps more remarkable for their mirth
+than their decorum. There was no sort of frolic in which Goldsmith
+would not indulge for the amusement of his guests; he would sing them
+songs; he would throw his wig to the ceiling; he would dance a minuet.
+And then they had cards, forfeits, blind-man's-buff, until Mr.
+Blackstone, then engaged on his _Commentaries_ in the rooms below, was
+driven nearly mad by the uproar. These parties would seem to have been
+of a most nondescript character--chance gatherings of any obscure
+authors or actors whom he happened to meet; but from time to time
+there were more formal entertainments, at which Johnson, Percy, and
+similar distinguished persons were present. Moreover, Dr. Goldsmith
+himself was much asked out to dinner too; and so, not content with the
+"Tyrian bloom, satin grain and garter, blue-silk breeches," which Mr.
+Filby had provided for the evening of the production of the comedy, he
+now had another suit "lined with silk, and gold buttons," that he
+might appear in proper guise. Then he had his airs of consequence too.
+This was his answer to an invitation from Kelly, who was his rival of
+the hour: "I would with pleasure accept your kind invitation, but to
+tell you the truth, my dear boy, my _Traveller_ has found me a home in
+so many places, that I am engaged, I believe, three days. Let me see.
+To-day I dine with Edmund Burke, to-morrow with Dr. Nugent, and the
+next day with Topham Beauclerc; but I'll tell you what I'll do for
+you, I'll dine with you on Saturday." Kelly told this story as against
+Goldsmith; but surely there is not so much ostentation in the reply.
+Directly after _Tristram Shandy_ was published, Sterne found himself
+fourteen deep in dinner engagements: why should not the author of the
+_Traveller_ and the _Vicar_ and the _Good-natured Man_ have his
+engagements also? And perhaps it was but right that Mr. Kelly, who was
+after all only a critic and scribbler, though he had written a play
+which was for the moment enjoying an undeserved popularity, should be
+given to understand that Dr. Goldsmith was not to be asked to a
+hole-and-corner chop at a moment's notice. To-day he dines with Mr.
+Burke; to-morrow with Dr. Nugent; the day after with Mr. Beauclerc. If
+you wish to have the honour of his company, you may choose a day
+after that; and then, with his new wig, with his coat of Tyrian bloom
+and blue silk breeches, with a smart sword at his side, his
+gold-headed cane in his hand, and his hat under his elbow, he will
+present himself in due course. Dr. Goldsmith is announced, and makes
+his grave bow; this is the man of genius about whom all the town is
+talking; the friend of Burke, of Reynolds, of Johnson, of Hogarth;
+this is not the ragged Irishman who was some time ago earning a crust
+by running errands for an apothecary.
+
+Goldsmith's grand airs, however, were assumed but seldom; and they
+never imposed on anybody. His acquaintances treated him with a
+familiarity which testified rather to his good-nature than to their
+good taste. Now and again, indeed, he was prompted to resent this
+familiarity; but the effort was not successful. In the "high jinks" to
+which he good-humouredly resorted for the entertainment of his guests
+he permitted a freedom which it was afterwards not very easy to
+discard; and as he was always ready to make a butt of himself for the
+amusement of his friends and acquaintances, it came to be recognised
+that anybody was allowed to play off a joke on "Goldy." The jokes,
+such of them as have been put on record, are of the poorest sort. The
+horse-collar is never far off. One gladly turns from these dismal
+humours of the tavern and the club to the picture of Goldsmith's
+enjoying what he called a "Shoemaker's Holiday" in the company of one
+or two chosen intimates. Goldsmith, baited and bothered by the wits of
+a public-house, became a different being when he had assumed the
+guidance of a small party of chosen friends bent on having a day's
+frugal pleasure. We are indebted to one Cooke, a neighbour of
+Goldsmith's in the Temple, not only for a most interesting description
+of one of those shoemaker's holidays, but also for the knowledge that
+Goldsmith had even now begun writing the _Deserted Village_, which was
+not published till 1770, two years later. Goldsmith, though he could
+turn out plenty of manufactured stuff for the booksellers, worked
+slowly at the special story or poem with which he meant to "strike for
+honest fame." This Mr. Cooke, calling on him one morning, discovered
+that Goldsmith had that day written these ten lines of the _Deserted
+Village_:--
+
+    "Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
+    Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
+    How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
+    Where humble happiness endeared each scene!
+    How often have I paused on every charm,
+    The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,
+    The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
+    The decent church, that topt the neighbouring hill,
+    The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
+    For talking age and whispering lovers made!"
+
+"Come," said he, "let me tell you this is no bad morning's work; and
+now, my dear boy, if you are not better engaged, I should be glad to
+enjoy a shoemaker's holiday with you." "A shoemaker's holiday,"
+continues the writer of these reminiscences, "was a day of great
+festivity to poor Goldsmith, and was spent in the following innocent
+manner. Three or four of his intimate friends rendezvoused at his
+chambers to breakfast about ten o'clock in the morning; at eleven they
+proceeded by the City Road and through the fields to Highbury Barn to
+dinner; about six o'clock in the evening they adjourned to White
+Conduit House to drink tea; and concluded by supping at the Grecian or
+Temple Exchange coffee-house or at the Globe in Fleet Street. There
+was a very good ordinary of two dishes and pastry kept at Highbury
+Barn about this time at tenpence per head, including a penny to the
+waiter; and the company generally consisted of literary characters, a
+few Templars, and some citizens who had left off trade. The whole
+expenses of the day's fete never exceeded a crown, and oftener were
+from three-and-sixpence to four shillings; for which the party
+obtained good air and exercise, good living, the example of simple
+manners, and good conversation."
+
+It would have been well indeed for Goldsmith had he been possessed of
+sufficient strength of character to remain satisfied with these simple
+pleasures, and to have lived the quiet and modest life of a man of
+letters on such income as he could derive from the best work he could
+produce. But it is this same Mr. Cooke who gives decisive testimony as
+to Goldsmith's increasing desire to "shine" by imitating the
+expenditure of the great; the natural consequence of which was that he
+only plunged himself into a morass of debt, advances, contracts for
+hack-work, and misery. "His debts rendered him at times so melancholy
+and dejected, that I am sure he felt himself a very unhappy man."
+Perhaps it was with some sudden resolve to flee from temptation, and
+grapple with the difficulties that beset him, that he, in conjunction
+with another Temple neighbour, Mr. Bott, rented a cottage some eight
+miles down the Edgware Road; and here he set to work on the _History
+of Rome_, which he was writing for Davies. Apart from this hack-work,
+now rendered necessary by his debt, it is probable that one strong
+inducement leading him to this occasional seclusion was the progress
+he might be able to make with the _Deserted Village_. Amid all his
+town gaieties and country excursions, amid his dinners and suppers and
+dances, his borrowings, and contracts, and the hurried literary
+produce of the moment, he never forgot what was due to his reputation
+as an English poet. The journalistic bullies of the day might vent
+their spleen and envy on him; his best friends might smile at his
+conversational failures; the wits of the tavern might put up the
+horse-collar as before; but at least he had the consolation of his
+art. No one better knew than himself the value of those finished and
+musical lines he was gradually adding to the beautiful poem, the
+grace, and sweetness, and tender, pathetic charm of which make it one
+of the literary treasures of the English people.
+
+The sorrows of debt were not Goldsmith's only trouble at this time.
+For some reason or other he seems to have become the especial object
+of spiteful attack on the part of the literary cut-throats of the day.
+And Goldsmith, though he might listen with respect to the wise advice
+of Johnson on such matters, was never able to cultivate Johnson's
+habit of absolute indifference to anything that might be said or sung
+of him. "The Kenricks, Campbells, MacNicols, and Hendersons," says
+Lord Macaulay--speaking of Johnson, "did their best to annoy him, in
+the hope that he would give them importance by answering them." But
+the reader will in vain search his works for any allusion to Kenrick
+or Campbell, to MacNicol or Henderson. One Scotchman, bent on
+vindicating the fame of Scotch learning, defied him to the combat in a
+detestable Latin hexameter--
+
+    'Maxime, si tu vis, cupio contendere tecum.'
+
+But Johnson took no notice of the challenge. He had learned, both from
+his own observation and from literary history, in which he was deeply
+read, that the place of books in the public estimation is fixed, not
+by what is written about them, but by what is written in them; and
+that an author whose works are likely to live, is very unwise if he
+stoops to wrangle with detractors whose works are certain to die. He
+always maintained that fame was a shuttlecock which could be kept up
+only by being beaten back, as well as beaten forward, and which would
+soon fall if there were only one battledore. No saying was oftener in
+his mouth than that fine apophthegm of Bentley, that no man was ever
+written down but by himself.
+
+It was not given to Goldsmith to feel "like the Monument" on any
+occasion whatsoever. He was anxious to have the esteem of his friends;
+he was sensitive to a degree; denunciation or malice, begotten of envy
+that Johnson would have passed unheeded, wounded him to the quick.
+"The insults to which he had to submit," Thackeray wrote with a quick
+and warm sympathy, "are shocking to read of--slander, contumely,
+vulgar satire, brutal malignity perverting his commonest motives and
+actions: he had his share of these, and one's anger is roused at
+reading of them, as it is at seeing a woman insulted or a child
+assaulted, at the notion that a creature so very gentle, and weak,
+and full of love should have had to suffer so." Goldsmith's revenge,
+his defence of himself, his appeal to the public, were the
+_Traveller_, the _Vicar of Wakefield_, the _Deserted Village_; but
+these came at long intervals; and in the meantime he had to bear with
+the anonymous malignity that pursued him as best he might. No doubt,
+when Burke was entertaining him at dinner; and when Johnson was openly
+deferring to him in conversation at the Club; and when Reynolds was
+painting his portrait, he could afford to forget Mr. Kenrick and the
+rest of the libelling clan.
+
+The occasions on which Johnson deferred to Goldsmith in conversation
+were no doubt few; but at all events the bludgeon of the great Cham
+would appear to have come down less frequently on "honest Goldy" than on
+the other members of that famous coterie. It could come down heavily
+enough. "Sir," said an incautious person, "drinking drives away care,
+and makes us forget whatever is disagreeable. Would not you allow a man
+to drink for that reason?" "Yes, sir," was the reply, "if he sat next
+_you_." Johnson, however, was considerate towards Goldsmith, partly
+because of his affection for him, and partly because he saw under what
+disadvantages Goldsmith entered the lists. For one thing, the
+conversation of those evenings would seem to have drifted continually
+into the mere definition of phrases. Now Johnson had spent years of his
+life, during the compilation of his Dictionary, in doing nothing else
+but defining; and, whenever the dispute took a phraseological turn, he
+had it all his own way. Goldsmith, on the other hand, was apt to become
+confused in his eager self-consciousness. "Goldsmith," said Johnson to
+Boswell, "should not be for ever attempting to shine in conversation; he
+has not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails.... 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." Boswell, nevertheless, admits that Goldsmith was
+"often very fortunate in his witty contests, even when he entered the
+lists with Johnson himself," and goes on to tell how Goldsmith, relating
+the fable of the little fishes who petitioned Jupiter, and perceiving
+that Johnson was laughing at him, immediately said, "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." Who but Goldsmith would have
+dared to play jokes on the sage? At supper they have rumps and kidneys.
+The sage expresses his approval of "the pretty little things;" but
+profoundly observes that one must eat a good many of them before being
+satisfied. "Ay, but how many of them," asks Goldsmith, "would reach to
+the moon?" The sage professes his ignorance; and, indeed, remarks that
+that would exceed even Goldsmith's calculations; when the practical
+joker observes, "Why, _one_, sir, if it were long enough." Johnson was
+completely beaten on this occasion. "Well, sir, I have deserved it. I
+should not have provoked so foolish an answer by so foolish a question."
+
+It was Johnson himself, moreover, who told the story of Goldsmith and
+himself being in Poets' Corner; of his saying to Goldsmith
+
+    "Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis,"
+
+and of Goldsmith subsequently repeating the quotation when, having
+walked towards Fleet Street, they were confronted by the heads on
+Temple Bar. Even when Goldsmith was opinionated and wrong, Johnson's
+contradiction was in a manner gentle. "If you put a tub full of blood
+into a stable, the horses are like to go mad," observed Goldsmith. "I
+doubt that," was Johnson's reply. "Nay, sir, it is a fact well
+authenticated." Here Thrale interposed to suggest that Goldsmith
+should have the experiment tried in the stable; but Johnson merely
+said that, if Goldsmith began making these experiments, he would never
+get his book written at all. Occasionally, of course, Goldsmith was
+tossed and gored just like another. "But, sir," he had ventured to
+say, in opposition to Johnson, "when people live together who have
+something as to which they disagree, and which they want to shun, they
+will be in the situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard, 'You may
+look into all the chambers but one.' But we should have the greatest
+inclination to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject." Here,
+according to Boswell, Johnson answered in a loud voice, "Sir, I am not
+saying that _you_ could live in friendship with a man from whom you
+differ as to one point; I am only saying that _I_ could do it." But
+then again he could easily obtain pardon from the gentle Goldsmith for
+any occasional rudeness. One evening they had a sharp passage of arms
+at dinner; and thereafter the company adjourned to the Club, where
+Goldsmith sate silent and depressed. "Johnson perceived this," says
+Boswell, "and said aside to some of us, 'I'll make Goldsmith forgive
+me'; and then called to him in a loud voice, 'Dr. Goldsmith, something
+passed to-day where you and I dined: I ask your pardon.' Goldsmith
+answered placidly, 'It must be much from you, sir, that I take ill.'
+And so at once the difference was over, and they were on as easy terms
+as ever, and Goldsmith rattled away as usual." For the rest, Johnson
+was the constant and doughty champion of Goldsmith as a man of
+letters. He would suffer no one to doubt the power and versatility of
+that genius which he had been amongst the first to recognise and
+encourage. "Whether, indeed, we take him as a poet, as a comic writer,
+or as an historian," he announced to an assemblage of distinguished
+persons met together at dinner at Mr. Beauclerc's, "_he stands in the
+first class_." And there was no one living who dared dispute the
+verdict--at least in Johnson's hearing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+The Deserted Village.
+
+
+But it is time to return to the literary performances that gained for
+this uncouth Irishman so great an amount of consideration from the
+first men of his time. The engagement with Griffin about the _History
+of Animated Nature_ was made at the beginning of 1769. The work was to
+occupy eight volumes; and Dr. Goldsmith was to receive eight hundred
+guineas for the complete copyright. Whether the undertaking was
+originally a suggestion of Griffin's, or of Goldsmith's own, does not
+appear. If it was the author's, it was probably only the first means
+that occurred to him of getting another advance; and that
+advance--L500 on account--he did actually get. But if it was the
+suggestion of the publisher, Griffin must have been a bold man. A
+writer whose acquaintance with animated nature was such as to allow
+him to make the "insidious tiger" a denizen of the backwoods of
+Canada,[2] was not a very safe authority. But perhaps Griffin had
+consulted Johnson before making this bargain; and we know that
+Johnson, though continually remarking on Goldsmith's extraordinary
+ignorance of facts, was of opinion that the _History of Animated
+Nature_ would be "as entertaining as a Persian tale." However,
+Goldsmith--no doubt after he had spent the five hundred
+guineas--tackled the work in earnest. When Boswell subsequently went
+out to call on him at another rural retreat he had taken on the
+Edgware Road, Boswell and Mickle, the translator of the _Lusiad_,
+found Goldsmith from home; "but, having a curiosity to see his
+apartment, we went in and found curious scraps of descriptions of
+animals scrawled upon the wall with a black-lead pencil." Meanwhile,
+this _Animated Nature_ being in hand, the _Roman History_ was
+published, and was very well received by the critics and by the
+public. "Goldsmith's abridgment," Johnson declared, "is better than
+that of Lucius Florus or Eutropius; and I will venture to say that if
+you compare him with Vertot, in the same places of the _Roman
+History_, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the art of
+compiling, and of saying everything he has to say in a pleasing
+manner."
+
+[Footnote 2: See _Citizen of the World_, Letter XVII.]
+
+So thought the booksellers too; and the success of the _Roman History_
+only involved him in fresh projects of compilation. By an offer of
+L500 Davies induced him to lay aside for the moment the _Animated
+Nature_ and begin "An History of England, from the Birth of the
+British Empire to the death of George the Second, in four volumes
+octavo." He also about this time undertook to write a Life of Thomas
+Parnell. Here, indeed, was plenty of work, and work promising good
+pay; but the depressing thing is that Goldsmith should have been the
+man who had to do it. He may have done it better than any one else
+could have done--indeed, looking over the results of all that
+drudgery, we recognise now the happy turns of expression which were
+never long absent from Goldsmith's prose-writing--but the world could
+well afford to sacrifice all the task-work thus got through for
+another poem like the _Deserted Village_ or the _Traveller_. Perhaps
+Goldsmith considered he was making a fair compromise when, for the
+sake of his reputation, he devoted a certain portion of his time to
+his poetical work, and then, to have money for fine clothes and high
+jinks, gave the rest to the booksellers. One critic, on the appearance
+of the _Roman History_, referred to the _Traveller_, and remarked that
+it was a pity that the "author of one of the best poems that has
+appeared since those of Mr. Pope, should not apply wholly to works of
+imagination." We may echo that regret now; but Goldsmith would at the
+time have no doubt replied that, if he had trusted to his poems, he
+would never have been able to pay L400 for chambers in the Temple. In
+fact he said as much to Lord Lisburn at one of the Academy dinners: "I
+cannot afford to court the draggle-tail muses, my Lord; they would let
+me starve; but by my other labours I can make shift to eat, and drink,
+and have good clothes." And there is little use in our regretting now
+that Goldsmith was not cast in a more heroic mould; we have to take
+him as he is; and be grateful for what he has left us.
+
+It is a grateful relief to turn from these booksellers' contracts and
+forced labours to the sweet clear note of singing that one finds in
+the _Deserted Village_. This poem, after having been repeatedly
+announced and as often withdrawn for further revision, was at last
+published on the 26th of May, 1770, when Goldsmith was in his
+forty-second year. The leading idea of it he had already thrown out in
+certain lines in the _Traveller_:--
+
+    "Have we not seen, round Britain's peopled shore,
+    Her useful sons exchanged for useless ore?
+    Seen all her triumphs but destruction haste,
+    Like flaring tapers brightening as they waste?
+    Seen opulence, her grandeur to maintain,
+    Lead stern depopulation in her train,
+    And over fields where scattered hamlets rose
+    In barren solitary pomp repose?
+    Have we not seen at pleasure's lordly call
+    The smiling long-frequented village fall?
+    Beheld the duteous son, the sire decayed,
+    The modest matron, and the blushing maid,
+    Forced from their homes, a melancholy train,
+    To traverse climes beyond the western main;
+    Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
+    And Niagara stuns with thundering sound?"
+
+--and elsewhere, in recorded conversations of his, we find that he had
+somehow got it into his head that the accumulation of wealth in a
+country was the parent of all evils, including depopulation. We need
+not stay here to discuss Goldsmith's position as a political
+economist; even although Johnson seems to sanction his theory in the
+four lines he contributed to the end of the poem. Nor is it worth
+while returning to that objection of Lord Macaulay's which has already
+been mentioned in these pages, further than to repeat that the poor
+Irish village in which Goldsmith was brought up, no doubt looked to
+him as charming as any Auburn, when he regarded it through the
+softening and beautifying mist of years. It is enough that the
+abandonment by a number of poor people of the homes in which they and
+theirs have lived their lives, is one of the most pathetic facts in
+our civilisation; and that out of the various circumstances
+surrounding this forced migration Goldsmith has made one of the most
+graceful and touching poems in the English language. It is clear
+bird-singing; but there is a pathetic note in it. That imaginary
+ramble through the Lissoy that is far away has recalled more than his
+boyish sports; it has made him look back over his own life--the life
+of an exile.
+
+    "I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown,
+    Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
+    To husband out life's taper at the close,
+    And keep the flame from wasting by repose:
+    I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
+    Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill,
+    Around my fire an evening group to draw,
+    And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;
+    And, as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue
+    Pants to the place from whence at first he flew,
+    I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
+    Here to return--and die at home at last."
+
+Who can doubt that it was of Lissoy he was thinking? Sir Walter Scott,
+writing a generation ago, said that "the church which tops the
+neighbouring hill," the mill and the brook were still to be seen in
+the Irish village; and that even
+
+    "The hawthorn bush with seats beneath the shade
+    For talking age and whispering lovers made,"
+
+had been identified by the indefatigable tourist, and was of course
+being cut to pieces to make souvenirs. But indeed it is of little
+consequence whether we say that Auburn is an English village, or
+insist that it is only Lissoy idealised, as long as the thing is true
+in itself. And we know that this is true: it is not that one sees the
+place as a picture, but that one seems to be breathing its very
+atmosphere, and listening to the various cries that thrill the "hollow
+silence."
+
+    "Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close
+    Up yonder hill the village murmur rose.
+    There, as I past with careless steps and slow,
+    The mingling notes came softened from below;
+    The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,
+    The sober herd that lowed to meet their young,
+    The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
+    The playful children just let loose from school,
+    The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
+    And the loud laugh that spake the vacant mind."
+
+Nor is it any romantic and impossible peasantry that is gradually
+brought before us. There are no Norvals in Lissoy. There is the old
+woman--Catherine Geraghty, they say, was her name--who gathered
+cresses in the ditches near her cabin. There is the village preacher
+whom Mrs. Hodson, Goldsmith's sister, took to be a portrait of their
+father; but whom others have identified as Henry Goldsmith, and even
+as the uncle Contarine: they may all have contributed. And then comes
+Paddy Byrne. Amid all the pensive tenderness of the poem this
+description of the schoolmaster, with its strokes of demure humour, is
+introduced with delightful effect.
+
+    "Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
+    With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay,
+    There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,
+    The village master taught his little school.
+    A man severe he was, and stern to view;
+    I knew him well, and every truant knew:
+    Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
+    The day's disasters in his morning face;
+    Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee
+    At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
+    Full well the busy whisper circling round
+    Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned.
+    Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
+    The love he bore to learning was in fault;
+    The village all declared how much he knew:
+    'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too:
+    Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage,
+    And e'en the story ran that he could gauge:
+    In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill;
+    For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still;
+    While words of learned length and thundering sound
+    Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
+    And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew
+    That one small head could carry all he knew."
+
+All this is so simple and natural that we cannot fail to believe in
+the reality of Auburn, or Lissoy, or whatever the village may be
+supposed to be. We visit the clergyman's cheerful fireside; and look
+in on the noisy school; and sit in the evening in the ale house to
+listen to the profound politics talked there. But the crisis comes.
+Auburn _delenda est_. Here, no doubt, occurs the least probable part
+of the poem. Poverty of soil is a common cause of emigration; land
+that produces oats (when it can produce oats at all) three-fourths
+mixed with weeds, and hay chiefly consisting of rushes, naturally
+discharges its surplus population as families increase; and though the
+wrench of parting is painful enough, the usual result is a change from
+starvation to competence. It more rarely happens that a district of
+peace and plenty, such as Auburn was supposed to see around it, is
+depopulated to add to a great man's estate.
+
+                  "The man of wealth and pride
+    Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
+    Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
+    Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds:
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
+    Indignant spurns the cottage from the green:"
+
+--and so forth. This seldom happens; but it does happen; and it has
+happened, in our own day, in England. It is within the last twenty
+years that an English landlord, having faith in his riches, bade a
+village be removed and cast elsewhere, so that it should no longer be
+visible from his windows: and it was forthwith removed. But any
+solitary instance like this is not sufficient to support the theory
+that wealth and luxury are inimical to the existence of a hardy
+peasantry; and so we must admit, after all, that it is poetical
+exigency rather than political economy that has decreed the
+destruction of the loveliest village of the plain. Where, asks the
+poet, are the driven poor to find refuge, when even the fenceless
+commons are seized upon and divided by the rich? In the great
+cities?--
+
+    "To see profusion that he must not share;
+    To see ten thousand baneful arts combined
+    To pamper luxury and thin mankind."
+
+It is in this description of a life in cities that there occurs an
+often-quoted passage, which has in it one of the most perfect lines in
+English poetry:--
+
+                                    "Ah, turn thine eyes
+    Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.
+    She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest,
+    Has wept at tales of innocence distrest;
+    Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
+    Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;
+    Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
+    Near her betrayer's door she lays her head.
+    And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the shower,
+    With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
+    When idly first, ambitious of the town,
+    She left her wheel and robes of country brown."
+
+Goldsmith wrote in a pre-Wordsworthian age, when, even in the realms
+of poetry, a primrose was not much more than a primrose; but it is
+doubtful whether, either before, during, or since Wordsworth's time
+the sentiment that the imagination can infuse into the common and
+familiar things around us ever received more happy expression than in
+the well-known line,
+
+    "_Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn._"
+
+No one has as yet succeeded in defining accurately and concisely what
+poetry is; but at all events this line is surcharged with a certain
+quality which is conspicuously absent in such a production as the
+_Essay on Man_. Another similar line is to be found further on in the
+description of the distant scenes to which the proscribed people are
+driven:
+
+    "Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
+    _Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe._"
+
+Indeed, the pathetic side of emigration has never been so powerfully
+presented to us as in this poem--
+
+    "When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,
+    Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last,
+    And took a long farewell, and wished in vain
+    For seats like these beyond the western main,
+    And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
+    Returned and wept, and still returned to weep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
+    I see the rural virtues leave the land.
+    Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail,
+    That idly waiting flaps with every gale,
+    Downward they move a melancholy band,
+    Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand.
+    Contented toil, and hospitable care,
+    And kind connubial tenderness are there;
+    And piety with wishes placed above,
+    And steady loyalty, and faithful love."
+
+And worst of all, in this imaginative departure, we find that Poetry
+herself is leaving our shores. She is now to try her voice
+
+    "On Torno's cliffs or Pambamarca's side;"
+
+and the poet, in the closing lines of the poem, bids her a passionate
+and tender farewell:--
+
+    "And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
+    Still first to fly where sensual joys invade;
+    Unfit in these degenerate times of shame
+    To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame;
+    Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
+    My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
+    Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe,
+    That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so;
+    Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,
+    Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!
+    Farewell, and O! where'er thy voice be tried,
+    On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side,
+    Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,
+    Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
+    Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
+    Redress the rigours of the inclement clime;
+    Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain;
+    Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain:
+    Teach him, that states of native strength possest,
+    Though very poor, may still be very blest;
+    That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
+    As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away;
+    While self-dependent power can time defy,
+    As rocks resist the billows and the sky."
+
+So ends this graceful, melodious, tender poem, the position of which
+in English literature, and in the estimation of all who love English
+literature, has not been disturbed by any fluctuations of literary
+fashion. We may give more attention at the moment to the new
+experiments of the poetic method; but we return only with renewed
+gratitude to the old familiar strain, not the least merit of which is
+that it has nothing about it of foreign tricks or graces. In English
+literature there is nothing more thoroughly English than these
+writings produced by an Irishman. And whether or not it was Paddy
+Byrne, and Catherine Geraghty, and the Lissoy ale-house that
+Goldsmith had in his mind when he was writing the poem, is not of much
+consequence: the manner and language and feeling are all essentially
+English; so that we never think of calling Goldsmith anything but an
+English poet.
+
+The poem met with great and immediate success. Of course everything
+that Dr. Goldsmith now wrote was read by the public; he had not to
+wait for the recommendation of the reviews; but, in this case, even
+the reviews had scarcely anything but praise in the welcome of his new
+book. It was dedicated, in graceful and ingenious terms, to Sir Joshua
+Reynolds, who returned the compliment by painting a picture and
+placing on the engraving of it this inscription: "This attempt to
+express a character in the _Deserted Village_ is dedicated to Dr.
+Goldsmith by his sincere friend and admirer, Sir Joshua Reynolds."
+What Goldsmith got from Griffin for the poem is not accurately known;
+and this is a misfortune, for the knowledge would have enabled us to
+judge whether at that time it was possible for a poet to court the
+draggle-tail muses without risk of starvation. But if fame were his
+chief object in the composition of the poem, he was sufficiently
+rewarded; and it is to be surmised that by this time the people in
+Ireland--no longer implored to get subscribers--had heard of the proud
+position won by the vagrant youth who had "taken the world for his
+pillow" some eighteen years before.
+
+That his own thoughts had sometimes wandered back to the scenes and
+friends of his youth during this labour of love, we know from his
+letters. In January of this year, while as yet the _Deserted Village_
+was not quite through the press, he wrote to his brother Maurice; and
+expressed himself as most anxious to hear all about the relatives from
+whom he had been so long parted. He has something to say about himself
+too; wishes it to be known that the King has lately been pleased to
+make him Professor of Ancient History "in a Royal Academy of Painting
+which he has just established;" but gives no very flourishing account
+of his circumstances. "Honours to one in my situation are something
+like ruffles to a man that wants a shirt." However, there is some
+small legacy of fourteen or fifteen pounds left him by his uncle
+Contarine, which he understands to be in the keeping of his cousin
+Lawder; and to this wealth he is desirous of foregoing all claim: his
+relations must settle how it may be best expended. But there is not a
+reference to his literary achievements, or the position won by them;
+not the slightest yielding to even a pardonable vanity; it is a
+modest, affectionate letter. The only hint that Maurice Goldsmith
+receives of the esteem in which his brother is held in London, is
+contained in a brief mention of Johnson, Burke, and others as his
+friends. "I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture of myself,
+as I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer. I have
+ordered it to be left for her at George Faulkenor's, folded in a
+letter. The face, you well know, is ugly enough; but it is finely
+painted. I will shortly also send my friends over the Shannon some
+mezzotinto prints of myself, and some more of my friends here, such as
+Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Colman. I believe I have written an
+hundred letters to different friends in your country, and never
+received an answer from any of them. I do not know how to account for
+this, or why they are unwilling to keep up for me those regards which
+I must ever retain for them." The letter winds up with an appeal for
+news, news, news.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+OCCASIONAL WRITINGS.
+
+
+Some two months after the publication of the _Deserted Village_, when
+its success had been well assured, Goldsmith proposed to himself the
+relaxation of a little Continental tour; and he was accompanied by
+three ladies, Mrs. Horneck and her two pretty daughters, who doubtless
+took more charge of him than he did of them. This Mrs. Horneck, the
+widow of a certain Captain Horneck, was connected with Reynolds, while
+Burke was the guardian of the two girls; so that it was natural that
+they should make the acquaintance of Dr. Goldsmith. A foolish attempt
+has been made to weave out of the relations supposed to exist between
+the younger of the girls and Goldsmith an imaginary romance; but there
+is not the slightest actual foundation for anything of the kind.
+Indeed the best guide we can have to the friendly and familiar terms
+on which he stood with regard to the Hornecks and their circle, is the
+following careless and jocular reply to a chance invitation sent him
+by the two sisters:--
+
+                "Your mandate I got,
+                You may all go to pot;
+                Had your senses been right,
+                You'd have sent before night;
+                As I hope to be saved,
+                I put off being shaved;
+                For I could not make bold,
+                While the matter was cold,
+                To meddle in suds,
+                Or to put on my duds;
+                So tell Horneck and Nesbitt
+                And Baker and his bit,
+                And Kauffman beside,
+                And the Jessamy bride;
+                With the rest of the crew,
+                The Reynoldses two,
+                Little Comedy's face
+                And the Captain in lace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                Yet how can I when vext
+                Thus stray from my text?
+                Tell each other to rue
+                Your Devonshire crew,
+                For sending so late
+                To one of my state.
+                But 'tis Reynolds's way
+                From wisdom to stray,
+                And Angelica's whim
+                To be frolic like him.
+    But, alas! your good worships, how could they be wiser,
+    When both have been spoiled in to-day's _Advertiser_?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The Jessamy Bride" was the pet nickname he had bestowed on the
+younger Miss Horneck--the heroine of the speculative romance just
+mentioned; "Little Comedy" was her sister; "the Captain in lace" their
+brother, who was in the Guards. No doubt Mrs. Horneck and her
+daughters were very pleased to have with them on this Continental
+trip so distinguished a person as Dr. Goldsmith; and he must have been
+very ungrateful if he was not glad to be provided with such charming
+companions. The story of the sudden envy he displayed of the
+admiration excited by the two handsome young Englishwomen as they
+stood at a hotel-window in Lille, is so incredibly foolish that it
+needs scarcely be repeated here; unless to repeat the warning that, if
+ever anybody was so dense as not to see the humour of that piece of
+acting, one had better look with grave suspicion on every one of the
+stories told about Goldsmith's vanities and absurdities.
+
+Even with such pleasant companions, the trip to Paris was not
+everything he had hoped. "I find," he wrote to Reynolds from Paris,
+"that travelling at twenty and at forty are very different things. I
+set out with all my confirmed habits about me, and can find nothing on
+the Continent so good as when I formerly left it. One of our chief
+amusements here is scolding at everything we meet with, and praising
+every thing and every person we left at home. You may judge therefore
+whether your name is not frequently bandied at table among us. To tell
+you the truth, I never thought I could regret your absence so much, as
+our various mortifications on the road have often taught me to do. I
+could tell you of disasters and adventures without number, of our
+lying in barns, and of my being half poisoned with a dish of green
+peas, of our quarrelling with postilions and being cheated by our
+landladies, but I reserve all this for a happy hour which I expect to
+share with you upon my return." The fact is that although Goldsmith
+had seen a good deal of foreign travel, the manner of his making the
+grand tour in his youth was not such as to fit him for acting as
+courier to a party of ladies. However, if they increased his troubles,
+they also shared them; and in this same letter he bears explicit
+testimony to the value of their companionship. "I will soon be among
+you, better pleased with my situation at home than I ever was before.
+And yet I must say, that if anything could make France pleasant, the
+very good women with whom I am at present would certainly do it. I
+could say more about that, but I intend showing them this letter
+before I send it away." Mrs. Horneck, Little Comedy, the Jessamy
+Bride, and the Professor of Ancient History at the Royal Academy, all
+returned to London; the last to resume his round of convivialities at
+taverns, excursions into regions of more fashionable amusement along
+with Reynolds, and task-work aimed at the pockets of the booksellers.
+
+It was a happy-go-lucky sort of life. We find him now showing off his
+fine clothes and his sword and wig at Ranelagh Gardens, and again shut
+up in his chambers compiling memoirs and histories in hot haste; now
+the guest of Lord Clare, and figuring at Bath, and again delighting
+some small domestic circle by his quips and cranks; playing jokes for
+the amusement of children, and writing comic letters in verse to their
+elders; everywhere and at all times merry, thoughtless, good-natured.
+And, of course, we find also his humorous pleasantries being mistaken
+for blundering stupidity. In perfect good faith Boswell describes how
+a number of people burst out laughing when Goldsmith publicly
+complained that he had met Lord Camden at Lord Clare's house in the
+country, "and he took no more notice of me than if I had been an
+ordinary man." Goldsmith's claiming to be a very extraordinary person
+was precisely a stroke of that humorous self-depreciation in which he
+was continually indulging; and the Jessamy Bride has left it on record
+that "on many occasions, from the peculiar manner of his humour, and
+assumed frown of countenance, what was often uttered in jest was
+mistaken by those who did not know him for earnest." This would appear
+to have been one of those occasions. The company burst out laughing at
+Goldsmith's having made a fool of himself; and Johnson was compelled
+to come to his rescue. "Nay, gentlemen, Dr. Goldsmith is in the right.
+A nobleman ought to have made up to such a man as Goldsmith; and I
+think it is much against Lord Camden that he neglected him."
+
+Mention of Lord Clare naturally recalls the _Haunch of Venison_.
+Goldsmith was particularly happy in writing bright and airy verses;
+the grace and lightness of his touch has rarely been approached. It
+must be confessed, however, that in this direction he was somewhat of
+an Autolycus; unconsidered trifles he freely appropriated; but he
+committed these thefts with scarcely any concealment, and with the
+most charming air in the world. In fact some of the snatches of verse
+which he contributed to the _Bee_ scarcely profess to be anything else
+than translations, though the originals are not given. But who is
+likely to complain when we get as the result such a delightful piece
+of nonsense as the famous Elegy on that Glory of her Sex, Mrs. Mary
+Blaize, which has been the parent of a vast progeny since Goldsmith's
+time?
+
+    "Good people all, with one accord
+      Lament for Madam Blaize,
+    Who never wanted a good word,
+      From those who spoke her praise.
+
+    "The needy seldom passed her door,
+      And always found her kind;
+    She freely lent to all the poor,--
+      Who left a pledge behind.
+
+    "She strove the neighbourhood to please,
+      With manners wondrous winning;
+    And never followed wicked ways,--
+      Unless when she was sinning.
+
+    "At church, in silks and satins new,
+      With hoop of monstrous size,
+    She never slumbered in her pew,--
+      But when she shut her eyes.
+
+    "Her love was sought, I do aver,
+      By twenty beaux and more;
+    The king himself has followed her,--
+      When she has walked before.
+
+    "But now her wealth and finery fled,
+      Her hangers-on cut short all;
+    The doctors found, when she was dead,--
+      Her last disorder mortal.
+
+    "Let us lament, in sorrow sore,
+      For Kent Street well may say,
+    That had she lived a twelvemonth more,--
+      She had not died to-day."
+
+The _Haunch of Venison_, on the other hand, is a poetical letter of
+thanks to Lord Clare--an easy, jocular epistle, in which the writer
+has a cut or two at certain of his literary brethren. Then, as he is
+looking at the venison, and determining not to send it to any such
+people as Hiffernan or Higgins, who should step in but our old friend
+Beau Tibbs, or some one remarkably like him in manner and speech?--
+
+    "While thus I debated, in reverie centred,
+    An acquaintance, a friend as he called himself, entered;
+    An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he,
+    And he smiled as he looked at the venison and me.
+    'What have we got here?--Why this is good eating!
+    Your own, I suppose--or is it in waiting?'
+    'Why, whose should it be?' cried I with a flounce;
+    'I get these things often'--but that was a bounce:
+    'Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation,
+    Are pleased to be kind--but I hate ostentation.'
+    'If that be the case then,' cried he, very gay,
+    'I'm glad I have taken this house in my way.
+    To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me;
+    No words--I insist on't--precisely at three;
+    We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits will be there;
+    My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my Lord Clare.
+    And now that I think on't, as I am a sinner!
+    We wanted this venison to make out the dinner.
+    What say you--a pasty? It shall, and it must,
+    And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust.
+    Here, porter! this venison with me to Mile End;
+    No stirring--I beg--my dear friend--my dear friend!'
+    Thus, snatching his hat, he brushed off like the wind,
+    And the porter and eatables followed behind."
+
+We need not follow the vanished venison--which did not make its
+appearance at the banquet any more than did Johnson or Burke--further
+than to say that if Lord Clare did not make it good to the poet he did
+not deserve to have his name associated with such a clever and
+careless _jeu d'esprit_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.
+
+
+But the writing of smart verses could not keep Dr. Goldsmith alive,
+more especially as dinner-parties, Ranelagh masquerades, and similar
+diversions pressed heavily on his finances. When his _History of
+England_ appeared, the literary cut-throats of the day accused him of
+having been bribed by the Government to betray the liberties of the
+people:[3] a foolish charge. What Goldsmith got for the _English
+History_ was the sum originally stipulated for, and now no doubt all
+spent; with a further sum of fifty guineas for an abridgment of the
+work. Then, by this time, he had persuaded Griffin to advance him the
+whole of the eight hundred guineas for the _Animated Nature_, though
+he had only done about a third part of the book. At the instigation of
+Newbery he had begun a story after the manner of the _Vicar of
+Wakefield_; but it appears that such chapters as he had written were
+not deemed to be promising; and the undertaking was abandoned. The
+fact is, Goldsmith was now thinking of another method of replenishing
+his purse. The _Vicar of Wakefield_ had brought him little but
+reputation; the _Good-natured Man_ had brought him L500. It was to the
+stage that he now looked for assistance out of the financial slough in
+which he was plunged. He was engaged in writing a comedy; and that
+comedy was _She Stoops to Conquer_.
+
+[Footnote 3: "God knows I had no thought for or against liberty in my
+head; my whole aim being to make up a book of a decent size that, as
+Squire Richard says, 'would do no harm to nobody.'"--Goldsmith to
+Langton, September, 1771.]
+
+In the Dedication to Johnson which was prefixed to this play on its
+appearance in type, Goldsmith hints that the attempt to write a comedy
+not of the sentimental order then in fashion, was a hazardous thing;
+and also that Colman, who saw the piece in its various stages, was of
+this opinion too. Colman threw cold water on the undertaking from the
+very beginning. It was only extreme pressure on the part of
+Goldsmith's friends that induced--or rather compelled--him to accept
+the comedy; and that, after he had kept the unfortunate author in the
+tortures of suspense for month after month. But although Goldsmith
+knew the danger, he was resolved to face it. He hated the
+sentimentalists and all their works; and determined to keep his new
+comedy faithful to nature, whether people called it low or not. His
+object was to raise a genuine, hearty laugh; not to write a piece for
+school declamation; and he had enough confidence in himself to do the
+work in his own way. Moreover he took the earliest possible
+opportunity, in writing this piece, of poking fun at the sensitive
+creatures who had been shocked by the "vulgarity" of _The Good-natured
+Man_. "Bravo! Bravo!" cry the jolly companions of Tony Lumpkin, when
+that promising buckeen has finished his song at the Three Pigeons;
+then follows criticism:--
+
+     "_First Fellow._ The squire has got spunk in him.
+
+     _Second Fel._ I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never
+     gives us nothing that's low.
+
+     _Third Fel._ O damn anything that's low, I cannot bear it.
+
+     _Fourth Fel._ The genteel thing is the genteel thing any
+     time: if so be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation
+     accordingly.
+
+     _Third Fel._ I likes the maxum of it, Master Muggins. What,
+     though I am obligated to dance a bear, a man may be a
+     gentleman for all that. May this be my poison, if my bear
+     ever dances but to the very genteelest of tunes; 'Water
+     Parted,' or the 'The Minuet in Ariadne.'"
+
+Indeed, Goldsmith, however he might figure in society, was always
+capable of holding his own when he had his pen in his hand. And even
+at the outset of this comedy one sees how much he has gained in
+literary confidence since the writing of the _Good-natured Man_. Here
+there is no anxious stiffness at all; but a brisk, free conversation,
+full of point that is not too formal, and yet conveying all the
+information that has usually to be crammed into a first scene. In
+taking as the groundwork of his plot that old adventure that had
+befallen himself--his mistaking a squire's house for an inn--he was
+hampering himself with something that was not the less improbable
+because it had actually happened; but we begin to forget all the
+improbabilities through the naturalness of the people to whom we are
+introduced, and the brisk movement and life of the piece.
+
+Fashions in dramatic literature may come and go; but the wholesome
+good-natured fun of _She Stoops to Conquer_ is as capable of
+producing a hearty laugh now, as it was when it first saw the light in
+Covent Garden. Tony Lumpkin is one of the especial favourites of the
+theatre-going public; and no wonder. With all the young cub's jibes
+and jeers, his impudence and grimaces, one has a sneaking love for the
+scapegrace; we laugh with him, rather than at him; how can we fail to
+enjoy those malevolent tricks of his when he so obviously enjoys them
+himself? And Diggory--do we not owe an eternal debt of gratitude to
+honest Diggory for telling us about Ould Grouse in the gunroom, that
+immortal joke at which thousands and thousands of people have roared
+with laughter, though they never any one of them could tell what the
+story was about? The scene in which the old squire lectures his
+faithful attendants on their manners and duties, is one of the truest
+bits of comedy on the English stage:
+
+     "_Mr. Hardcastle._ But you're not to stand so, with your
+     hands in your pockets. Take your hands from your pockets,
+     Roger; and from your head, you blockhead you. See how
+     Diggory carries his hands. They're a little too stiff,
+     indeed, but that's no great matter.
+
+     _Diggory._ Ay, mind how I hold them. I learned to hold my
+     hands this way when I was upon drill for the militia. And so
+     being upon drill--.
+
+     _Hard._ You must not be so talkative, Diggory. You must be
+     all attention to the guests. You must hear us talk, and not
+     think of talking; you must see us drink, and not think of
+     drinking; you must see us eat, and not think of eating.
+
+     _Dig._ By the laws, your worship, that's parfectly
+     unpossible. Whenever Diggory sees yeating going forward,
+     ecod, he's always wishing for a mouthful himself.
+
+     _Hard._ Blockhead! Is not a bellyfull in the kitchen as good
+     as a bellyfull in the parlour? Stay your stomach with that
+     reflection.
+
+     _Dig._ Ecod, I thank your worship, I'll make a shift to stay
+     my stomach with a slice of cold beef in the pantry.
+
+     _Hard._ Diggory, you are too talkative.--Then, if I happen
+     to say a good thing, or tell a good story at table, you must
+     not all burst out a-laughing, as if you made part of the
+     company.
+
+     _Dig._ Then ecod your worship must not tell the story of
+     Ould Grouse in the gunroom: I can't help laughing at
+     that--he! he! he!--for the soul of me. We have laughed at
+     that these twenty years--ha! ha! ha!
+
+     _Hard._ Ha! ha! ha! The story is a good one. Well, honest
+     Diggory, you may laugh at that--but still remember to be
+     attentive. Suppose one of the company should call for a
+     glass of wine, how will you behave? A glass of wine, sir,
+     if-you please (_to_ DIGGORY).--Eh, why don't you move?
+
+     _Dig._ Ecod, your worship, I never have courage till I see
+     the eatables and drinkables brought upo' the table, and then
+     I'm as bauld as a lion.
+
+     _Hard._ What, will nobody move?
+
+     _First Serv._ I'm not to leave this pleace.
+
+     _Second Serv._ I'm sure it's no pleace of mine.
+
+     _Third Serv._ Nor mine, for sartain.
+
+     _Dig._ Wauns, and I'm sure it canna be mine."
+
+No doubt all this is very "low" indeed; and perhaps Mr. Colman may be
+forgiven for suspecting that the refined wits of the day would be
+shocked by these rude humours of a parcel of servants. But all that
+can be said in this direction was said at the time by Horace Walpole,
+in a letter to a friend of his; and this criticism is so amusing in
+its pretence and imbecility that it is worth quoting at large. "Dr.
+Goldsmith has written a comedy," says this profound critic, "--no, it
+is the lowest of all farces; it is not the subject I condemn, though
+very vulgar, but the execution. The drift tends to no moral, no
+edification of any kind--the situations, however, are well imagined,
+and make one laugh in spite of the grossness of the dialogue, the
+forced witticisms, and total improbability of the whole plan and
+conduct. But what disgusts me most is, that though the characters are
+very low, and aim at low humour, not one of them says a sentence that
+is natural, or marks any character at all." Horace Walpole sighing for
+edification--from a Covent Garden comedy! Surely, if the old gods have
+any laughter left, and if they take any notice of what is done in the
+literary world here below, there must have rumbled through the courts
+of Olympus a guffaw of sardonic laughter, when that solemn criticism
+was put down on paper.
+
+Meanwhile Colman's original fears had developed into a sort of stupid
+obstinacy. He was so convinced that the play would not succeed, that
+he would spend no money in putting it on the stage; while far and wide
+he announced its failure as a foregone conclusion. Under this gloom of
+vaticination the rehearsals were nevertheless proceeded with--the
+brunt of the quarrels among the players falling wholly on Goldsmith,
+for the manager seems to have withdrawn in despair; while all the
+Johnson confraternity were determined to do what they could for
+Goldsmith on the opening night. That was the 15th of March, 1773. His
+friends invited the author to dinner as a prelude to the play; Dr.
+Johnson was in the chair; there was plenty of gaiety. But this means
+of keeping up the anxious author's spirits was not very successful.
+Goldsmith's mouth, we are told by Reynolds, became so parched "from
+the agitation of his mind, that he was unable to swallow a single
+mouthful." Moreover, he could not face the ordeal of sitting through
+the play; when his friends left the tavern and betook themselves to
+the theatre, he went away by himself; and was subsequently found
+walking in St. James's Park. The friend who discovered him there,
+persuaded him that his presence in the theatre might be useful in case
+of an emergency; and ultimately got him to accompany him to Covent
+Garden. When Goldsmith reached the theatre, the fifth act had been
+begun.
+
+Oddly enough, the first thing he heard on entering the stage-door was
+a hiss. The story goes that the poor author was dreadfully frightened;
+and that in answer to a hurried question, Colman exclaimed, "Psha!
+Doctor, don't be afraid of a squib, when we have been sitting these
+two hours on a barrel of gunpowder." If this was meant as a hoax, it
+was a cruel one; if meant seriously, it was untrue. For the piece had
+turned out a great hit. From beginning to end of the performance the
+audience were in a roar of laughter; and the single hiss that
+Goldsmith unluckily heard was so markedly exceptional, that it became
+the talk of the town, and was variously attributed to one or other of
+Goldsmith's rivals. Colman, too, suffered at the hands of the wits for
+his gloomy and falsified predictions; and had, indeed, to beg
+Goldsmith to intercede for him. It is a great pity that Boswell was
+not in London at this time; for then we might have had a description
+of the supper that naturally would follow the play, and of Goldsmith's
+demeanour under this new success. Besides the gratification, moreover,
+of his choice of materials being approved by the public, there was
+the material benefit accruing to him from the three "author's nights."
+These are supposed to have produced nearly five hundred pounds--a
+substantial sum in those days.
+
+Boswell did not come to London till the second of April following; and
+the first mention we find of Goldsmith is in connection with an
+incident which has its ludicrous as well as its regrettable aspect.
+The further success of _She Stoops to Conquer_ was not likely to
+propitiate the wretched hole-and-corner cut-throats that infested the
+journalism of that day. More especially was Kenrick driven mad with
+envy; and so, in a letter addressed to the _London Packet_, this poor
+creature determined once more to set aside the judgment of the public,
+and show Dr. Goldsmith in his true colours. The letter is a wretched
+production, full of personalities only fit for an angry washerwoman,
+and of rancour without point. But there was one passage in it that
+effectually roused Goldsmith's rage; for here the Jessamy Bride was
+introduced as "the lovely H----k." The letter was anonymous; but the
+publisher of the print, a man called Evans, was known; and so
+Goldsmith thought he would go and give Evans a beating. If he had
+asked Johnson's advice about the matter, he would no doubt have been
+told to pay no heed at all to anonymous scurrility--certainly not to
+attempt to reply to it with a cudgel. When Johnson heard that Foote
+meant to "take him off," he turned to Davies and asked him what was
+the common price of an oak stick; but an oak stick in Johnson's hands,
+and an oak stick in Goldsmith's Lands, were two different things.
+However, to the bookseller's shop the indignant poet proceeded, in
+company with a friend; got hold of Evans; accused him of having
+insulted a young lady by putting her name in his paper; and, when the
+publisher would fain have shifted the responsibility on to the editor,
+forthwith denounced him as a rascal, and hit him over the back with
+his cane. The publisher, however, was quite a match for Goldsmith; and
+there is no saying how the deadly combat might have ended, had not a
+lamp been broken overhead, the oil of which drenched both the
+warriors. This intervention of the superior gods was just as
+successful as a Homeric cloud; the fray ceased; Goldsmith and his
+friend withdrew; and ultimately an action for assault was compromised
+by Goldsmith's paying fifty pounds to a charity. Then the howl of the
+journals arose. Their prerogative had been assailed. "Attacks upon
+private character were the most liberal existing source of newspaper
+income," Mr. Forster writes; and so the pack turned with one cry on
+the unlucky poet. There was nothing of "the Monument" about poor
+Goldsmith; and at last he was worried into writing a letter of defence
+addressed to the public. "He has indeed done it very well," said
+Johnson to Boswell, "but it is a foolish thing well done." And further
+he remarked, "Why, sir, I believe it is the first time he has _beat_;
+he may have _been beaten_ before. This, sir, is a new plume to him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+INCREASING DIFFICULTIES.--THE END.
+
+
+The pecuniary success of _She Stoops to Conquer_ did but little to
+relieve Goldsmith from those financial embarrassments which were now
+weighing heavily on his mind. And now he had less of the old high
+spirits that had enabled him to laugh off the cares of debt. His
+health became disordered; an old disease renewed its attacks, and was
+grown more violent because of his long-continued sedentary habits.
+Indeed, from this point to the day of his death--not a long interval,
+either--we find little but a record of successive endeavours, some of
+them wild and hopeless enough, to obtain money anyhow. Of course he
+went to the Club, as usual; and gave dinner-parties; and had a laugh
+or a song ready for the occasion. It is possible, also, to trace a
+certain growth of confidence in himself, no doubt the result of the
+repeated proofs of his genius he had put before his friends. It was
+something more than mere personal intimacy that justified the rebuke
+he administered to Reynolds, when the latter painted an allegorical
+picture representing the triumph of Beattie and Truth over Voltaire
+and Scepticism. "It very ill becomes a man of your eminence and
+character," he said, "to debase so high a genius as Voltaire before so
+mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie and his book will be forgotten in
+ten years, while Voltaire's fame will last for ever. Take care it does
+not perpetuate this picture, to the shame of such a man as you." He
+was aware, too, of the position he had won for himself in English
+literature. He knew that people in after-days would ask about him; and
+it was with no sort of unwarrantable vainglory that he gave Percy
+certain materials for a biography which he wished him to undertake.
+Hence the _Percy Memoir_.
+
+He was only forty-five when he made this request; and he had not
+suffered much from illness during his life; so that there was
+apparently no grounds for imagining that the end was near. But at this
+time Goldsmith began to suffer severe fits of depression; and he grew
+irritable and capricious of temper--no doubt another result of failing
+health. He was embroiled in disputes with the booksellers; and, on one
+occasion, seems to have been much hurt because Johnson, who had been
+asked to step in as arbiter, decided against him. He was offended with
+Johnson on another occasion because of his sending away certain dishes
+at a dinner given to him by Goldsmith, as a hint that these
+entertainments were too luxurious for one in Goldsmith's position. It
+was probably owing to some temporary feeling of this sort--perhaps to
+some expression of it on Goldsmith's part--that Johnson spoke of
+Goldsmith's "malice" towards him. Mrs. Thrale had suggested that
+Goldsmith would be the best person to write Johnson's biography. "The
+dog would write it best, to be sure," said Johnson, "but his
+particular malice towards me, and general disregard of truth, would
+make the book useless to all and injurious to my character." Of course
+it is always impossible to say what measure of jocular exaggeration
+there may not be in a chance phrase such as this: of the fact that
+there was no serious or permanent quarrel between the two friends we
+have abundant proof in Boswell's faithful pages.
+
+To return to the various endeavours made by Goldsmith and his friends
+to meet the difficulties now closing in around him, we find, first of
+all, the familiar hack-work. For two volumes of a _History of Greece_
+he had received from Griffin L250. Then his friends tried to get him a
+pension from the Government; but this was definitely refused. An
+expedient of his own seemed to promise well at first. He thought of
+bringing out a _Popular Dictionary of Arts and Sciences_, a series of
+contributions mostly by his friends, with himself as editor; and among
+those who offered to assist him were Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, and Dr.
+Burney. But the booksellers were afraid. The project would involve a
+large expense; and they had no high opinion of Goldsmith's business
+habits. Then he offered to alter _The Good-natured Man_ for Garrick;
+but Garrick preferred to treat with him for a new comedy, and
+generously allowed him to draw on him for the money in advance. This
+last help enabled him to go to Barton for a brief holiday; but the
+relief was only temporary. On his return to London even his nearest
+friends began to observe the change in his manner. In the old days
+Goldsmith had faced pecuniary difficulties with a light heart; but
+now, his health broken, and every avenue of escape apparently closed,
+he was giving way to despair. His friend Cradock, coming up to town,
+found Goldsmith in a most despondent condition; and also hints that
+the unhappy author was trying to conceal the true state of affairs. "I
+believe," says Cradock, "he died miserable, and that his friends were
+not entirely aware of his distress."
+
+And yet it was during this closing period of anxiety, despondency, and
+gloomy foreboding, that the brilliant and humorous lines of
+_Retaliation_ were written--that last scintillation of the bright and
+happy genius that was soon to be extinguished for ever. The most
+varied accounts have been given of the origin of this _jeu d'esprit_;
+and even Garrick's, which was meant to supersede and correct all
+others, is self-contradictory. For according to this version of the
+story, which was found among the Garrick papers, and which is printed
+in Mr. Cunningham's edition of Goldsmith's works, the whole thing
+arose out of Goldsmith and Garrick resolving one evening at the St.
+James's Coffee House to write each other's epitaph. Garrick's
+well-known couplet was instantly produced:
+
+    "Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
+    Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll."
+
+Goldsmith, according to Garrick, either would not or could not retort
+at the moment; "but went to work, and some weeks after produced the
+following printed poem, called _Retaliation_." But Garrick himself
+goes on to say, "The following poems in manuscript were written by
+several of the gentlemen on purpose to provoke the Doctor to an
+answer, which came forth at last with great credit to him in
+_Retaliation_." The most probable version of the story, which may be
+pieced together from various sources, is that at the coffee-house
+named this business of writing comic epitaphs was started some evening
+or other by the whole company; that Goldsmith and Garrick pitted
+themselves against each other; that thereafter Goldsmith began as
+occasion served to write similar squibs about his friends, which were
+shown about as they were written; that thereupon those gentlemen, not
+to be behindhand, composed more elaborate pieces in proof of their
+wit; and that, finally, Goldsmith resolved to bind these fugitive
+lines of his together in a poem, which he left unfinished, and which,
+under the name of _Retaliation_, was published after his death. This
+hypothetical account receives some confirmation from the fact that the
+scheme of the poem and its component parts do not fit together well;
+the introduction looks like an after-thought; and has not the freedom
+and pungency of a piece of improvisation. An imaginary dinner is
+described, the guests being Garrick, Reynolds, Burke, Cumberland, and
+the rest of them, Goldsmith last of all. More wine is called for,
+until the whole of his companions have fallen beneath the table:
+
+    "Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head,
+    Let me ponder, and tell what I think of the _dead_."
+
+This is a somewhat clumsy excuse for introducing a series of epitaphs;
+but the epitaphs amply atone for it. That on Garrick is especially
+remarkable as a bit of character-sketching; its shrewd hints--all in
+perfect courtesy and good humour--going a little nearer to the truth
+than is common in epitaphs of any sort:--
+
+    "Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can;
+    An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.
+    As an actor, confessed without rival to shine:
+    As a wit, if not first, in the very first line:
+    Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart,
+    The man had his failings, a dupe to his art.
+    Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread,
+    And beplastered with rouge his own natural red.
+    On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
+    'Twas only that, when he was off, he was acting.
+    With no reason on earth to go out of his way,
+    He turned and he varied full ten times a day:
+    Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick
+    If they were not his own by finessing and trick;
+    He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack,
+    For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.
+    Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came;
+    And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame;
+    Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease,
+    Who peppered the highest was surest to please.
+    But let us be candid, and speak out our mind:
+    If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.
+    Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave,
+    What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave!
+    How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you raised,
+    While he was be-Rosciused, and you were bepraised.
+    But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies,
+    To act as an angel and mix with the skies:
+    Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill
+    Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will;
+    Old Shakespeare receive him with praise and with love,
+    And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above."
+
+The truth is that Goldsmith, though he was ready to bless his "honest
+little man" when he received from him sixty pounds in advance for a
+comedy not begun, never took quite so kindly to Garrick as to some of
+his other friends. There is no pretence of discrimination at all, for
+example, in the lines devoted in this poem to Reynolds. All the
+generous enthusiasm of Goldsmith's Irish nature appears here; he will
+admit of no possible rival to this especial friend of his:--
+
+    "Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind,
+    He has not left a wiser or better behind."
+
+There is a tradition that the epitaph on Reynolds, ending with the
+unfinished line
+
+    "By flattery unspoiled ..."
+
+was Goldsmith's last piece of writing. One would like to believe that,
+in any case.
+
+Goldsmith had returned to his Edgware lodgings, and had, indeed,
+formed some notion of selling his chambers in the Temple, and living
+in the country for at least ten months in the year, when a sudden
+attack of his old disorder drove him into town again for medical
+advice. He would appear to have received some relief; but a nervous
+fever followed; and on the night of the 25th March, 1774, when he was
+but forty-six years of age, he took to his bed for the last time. At
+first he refused to regard his illness as serious; and insisted on
+dosing himself with certain fever-powders from which he had received
+benefit on previous occasions; but by and by as his strength gave way,
+he submitted to the advice of the physicians who were in attendance on
+him. Day after day passed; his weakness visibly increasing, though,
+curiously enough, the symptoms of fever were gradually abating. At
+length one of the doctors, remarking to him that his pulse was in
+greater disorder than it should be from the degree of fever, asked him
+if his mind was at ease. "No, it is not," answered Goldsmith; and
+these were his last words. Early in the morning of Monday, April 4,
+convulsions set in; these continued for rather more than an hour; then
+the troubled brain and the sick heart found rest for ever.
+
+When the news was carried to his friends, Burke, it is said, burst
+into tears, and Reynolds put aside his work for the day. But it does
+not appear that they had visited him during his illness; and neither
+Johnson, nor Reynolds, nor Burke, nor Garrick followed his body to the
+grave. It is true, a public funeral was talked of; and, among others,
+Reynolds, Burke, and Garrick were to have carried the pall; but this
+was abandoned; and Goldsmith was privately buried in the ground of the
+Temple Church on the 9th of April, 1774. Strangely enough, too,
+Johnson seems to have omitted all mention of Goldsmith from his
+letters to Boswell. It was not until Boswell had written to him, on
+June 24th, "You have said nothing to me about poor Goldsmith," that
+Johnson, writing on July 4, answered as follows:--"Of poor dear Dr.
+Goldsmith there is little to be told, more than the papers have made
+public. He died of a fever, made, I am afraid, more violent by
+uneasiness of mind. His debts began to be heavy, and all his resources
+were exhausted. Sir Joshua is of opinion that he owed not less than
+two thousand pounds. Was ever poet so trusted before?"
+
+But if the greatest grief at the sudden and premature death of
+Goldsmith would seem to have been shown at the moment by certain
+wretched creatures who were found weeping on the stairs leading to his
+chambers, it must not be supposed that his fine friends either forgot
+him, or ceased to regard his memory with a great gentleness and
+kindness. Some two years after, when a monument was about to be
+erected to Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey, Johnson consented to write
+"the poor dear Doctor's epitaph;" and so anxious were the members of
+that famous circle in which Goldsmith had figured, that a just tribute
+should be paid to his genius, that they even ventured to send a round
+robin to the great Cham desiring him to amend his first draft. Now,
+perhaps, we have less interest in Johnson's estimate of Goldsmith's
+genius--though it contains the famous _Nullum quod tetigit non
+ornavit_--than in the phrases which tell of the honour paid to the
+memory of the dead poet by the love of his companions and the
+faithfulness of his friends. It may here be added that the precise
+spot where Goldsmith was buried in the Temple churchyard is unknown.
+So lived and so died Oliver Goldsmith.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the foregoing pages the writings of Goldsmith have been given so
+prominent a place in the history of his life that it is unnecessary to
+take them here collectively and endeavour to sum up their distinctive
+qualities. As much as could be said within the limited space has, it
+is hoped, been said about their genuine and tender pathos, that never
+at any time verges on the affected or theatrical; about their quaint
+delicate, delightful humour; about that broader humour that is not
+afraid to provoke the wholesome laughter of mankind by dealing with
+common and familiar ways, and manners, and men; about that choiceness
+of diction, that lightness and grace of touch, that lend a charm even
+to Goldsmith's ordinary hack-work.
+
+Still less necessary, perhaps, is it to review the facts and
+circumstances of Goldsmith's life; and to make of them an example, a
+warning, or an accusation. That has too often been done. His name has
+been used to glorify a sham Bohemianism--a Bohemianism that finds it
+easy to live in taverns, but does not find it easy, so far as one
+sees, to write poems like the _Deserted Village_. His experiences as
+an author have been brought forward to swell the cry about neglected
+genius--that is, by writers who assume their genius in order to prove
+the neglect. The misery that occasionally befell him during his
+wayward career has been made the basis of an accusation against
+society, the English constitution, Christianity--Heaven knows what. It
+is time to have done with all this nonsense. Goldsmith resorted to the
+hack-work of literature when everything else had failed him; and he
+was fairly paid for it. When he did better work, when he "struck for
+honest fame," the nation gave him all the honour that he could have
+desired. With an assured reputation, and with ample means of
+subsistence, he obtained entrance into the most distinguished society
+then in England--he was made the friend of England's greatest in the
+arts and literature--and could have confined himself to that society
+exclusively if he had chosen. His temperament, no doubt, exposed him
+to suffering; and the exquisite sensitiveness of a man of genius may
+demand our sympathy; but in far greater measure is our sympathy
+demanded for the thousands upon thousands of people who, from illness
+or nervous excitability, suffer from quite as keen a sensitiveness
+without the consolation of the fame that genius brings.
+
+In plain truth, Goldsmith himself would have been the last to put
+forward pleas humiliating alike to himself and to his calling. Instead
+of beseeching the State to look after authors; instead of imploring
+society to grant them "recognition;" instead of saying of himself "he
+wrote, and paid the penalty;" he would frankly have admitted that he
+chose to live his life his own way, and therefore paid the penalty.
+This is not written with any desire of upbraiding Goldsmith. He did
+choose to live his own life his own way, and we now have the splendid
+and beautiful results of his work; and the world--looking at these
+with a constant admiration, and with a great and lenient love for
+their author--is not anxious to know what he did with his guineas, or
+whether the milkman was ever paid. "He had raised money and squandered
+it, by every artifice of acquisition and folly of expense. BUT LET NOT
+HIS FRAILTIES BE REMEMBERED: HE WAS A VERY GREAT MAN." This is
+Johnson's wise summing up; and with it we may here take leave of
+gentle Goldsmith.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS.
+
+EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY.
+
+
+_These Short Books are addressed to the general public with a view
+both to stirring and satisfying an interest in literature and its
+great topics in the minds of those who have to run as they read. An
+immense class is growing up, and must every year increase, whose
+education will have made them alive to the importance of the masters
+of our literature, and capable of intelligent curiosity as to their
+performances. The Series is intended to give the means of nourishing
+this curiosity, to an extent that shall be copious enough to be
+profitable for knowledge and life, and yet be brief enough to serve
+those whose leisure is scanty._
+
+_The following are arranged for:--_
+
+
+_SPENSER The Dean of St. Paul's._
+
+_HUME Professor Huxley._ [_Ready._
+
+_BUNYAN James Anthony Froude._
+
+_JOHNSON Leslie Stephen._ [_Ready._
+
+_GOLDSMITH William Black._ [_Ready._
+
+_MILTON Mark Pattison._
+
+_WORDSWORTH Goldwin Smith._
+
+_SWIFT John Morley._
+
+_BURNS Principal Shairp._ [_Ready._
+
+_SCOTT Richard H. Hutton._ [_Ready._
+
+_SHELLEY J. A. Symonds._ [_Ready._
+
+_GIBBON J. C. Morison._ [_Ready._
+
+_BYRON Professor Nichol._
+
+_DEFOE W. Minto._ [_In the Press._
+
+_GRAY John Morley._
+
+_HAWTHORNE Henry James, Jnr._
+
+_CHAUCER A. W. Ward._
+
+[_OTHERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED._]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
+
+     "The new series opens well with Mr. Leslie Stephen's sketch
+     of Dr. Johnson. It could hardly have been done better; and
+     it will convey to the readers for whom it is intended a
+     juster estimate of Johnson that either of the two essays of
+     Lord Macaulay."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
+
+     "We have come across few writers who have had a clearer
+     insight into Johnson's character, or who have brought to the
+     study of it a better knowledge of the time in which Johnson
+     lived and the men whom he knew."--_Saturday Review._
+
+     "We could not wish for a more suggestive introduction to
+     Scott and his poems and novels."--_Examiner._
+
+     "The tone of the volume is excellent
+     throughout."--_Athenaeum_ Review of "Scott."
+
+     "As a clear, thoughtful, and attractive record of the life
+     and works of the greatest among the world's historians, it
+     deserves the highest praise."--_Examiner_ Review of
+     "Gibbon."
+
+     "The lovers of this great poet (Shelley) are to be
+     congratulated at having at their command so fresh, clear,
+     and intelligent a presentment of the subject, written by a
+     man of adequate and wide culture."--_Athenaeum._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MACMILLAN'S GLOBE LIBRARY.
+
+_Beautifully printed on toned paper, price_ 3_s_. 6_d_. _Also kept in a
+variety of calf and morocco bindings, at moderate prices._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_The _SATURDAY REVIEW_ says: "The Globe Editions are admirable for
+their scholarly editing, their typographical excellence, their
+compendious form, and their cheapness." The _BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW_
+says: "In compendiousness, elegance, and scholarliness the Globe
+Editions of Messrs. Macmillan surpass any popular series of our
+classics hitherto given to the public. As near an approach to
+miniature perfection as has ever been made."_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Shakespeare's Complete Works. Edited by W. G. CLARK, M. A., and W.
+ALDIS WRIGHT, M. A., Editors of the "Cambridge Shakespeare." With
+Glossary, pp. 1075.
+
+_The _ATHENAEUM_ says this edition is "a marvel of beauty, cheapness,
+and compactness.... For the busy man, above all for the working
+student, this is the best of all existing Shakespeares."_
+
+
+Spenser's Complete Works. Edited from the Original Editions and
+Manuscripts, by R. MORRIS, with a Memoir by J. W. HALES, M. A. With
+Glossary, pp. lv., 736.
+
+_"Worthy--and higher praise it needs not--of the beautiful 'Globe
+Series.'"_--DAILY NEWS.
+
+
+Sir Walter Scott's Poetical Works. Edited, with a Biographical and
+Critical Memoir, by FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE, and Copious Notes, pp.
+xliii., 559.
+
+_"We can almost sympathise with a middle-aged grumbler, who, after
+reading Mr. Palgrave's Memoir and Introduction, should exclaim, 'Why was
+there not such an edition of Scott when I was a schoolboy?'"_--GUARDIAN.
+
+
+Complete Works of Robert Burns. Edited from the best Printed and
+Manuscript authorities, with Glossarial Index, Notes, and a
+Biographical Memoir by ALEXANDER SMITH, pp. lxii., 636.
+
+_"Admirable in all respects."_--SPECTATOR.
+
+
+Robinson Crusoe. Edited after the Original Editions, with a
+Biographical Introduction by HENRY KINGSLEY. pp. xxxi., 607.
+
+_"A most excellent and in every way desirable edition."_--COURT
+CIRCULAR.
+
+
+Goldsmith's Miscellaneous Works. Edited with Biographical
+Introduction, by Professor MASSON. pp. lx., 695.
+
+_"Such an admirable compendium of the facts of Goldsmith's life, and
+so careful and minute a delineation of the mixed traits of his
+peculiar character as to be a very model of a literary biography in
+little."_--SCOTSMAN.
+
+
+Pope's Poetical Works. Edited, with Notes, and Introductory Memoir by
+A. W. WARD, M. A., Professor of History in Owens College Manchester,
+pp. lii., 508.
+
+_The _LITERARY CHURCHMAN_ remarks: "The Editor's own notes and
+introductory memoir are excellent, the memoir alone would be cheap and
+well worth buying at the price of the whole volume."_
+
+
+Dryden's Poetical Works. Edited, with a Memoir, Revised Text, and
+Notes, by W. D. CHRISTIE, M. A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, pp.
+lxxxvii., 662.
+
+_"An admirable edition, the result of great research and of a careful
+revision of the text."_--PALL MALL GAZETTE.
+
+
+Cowper's Poetical Works. Edited, with Notes and Biographical
+Introduction, by WILLIAM BENHAM, Vicar of Margate, pp. lxxiii., 536.
+
+_"Mr. Benham's edition of Cowper is one of permanent
+value."_--SATURDAY REVIEW.
+
+
+Morte d'Arthur.--SIR THOMAS MALORY'S BOOK OF KING ARTHUR AND OF HIS
+NOBLE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE. The original Edition of CAXTON,
+revised for Modern Use. With an Introduction by Sir EDWARD STRACHEY,
+Bart. pp. xxxvii., 509.
+
+_"It is with perfect confidence that we recommend this edition of the
+old romance to every class of readers."_--PALL MALL GAZETTE.
+
+
+The Works of Virgil. Rendered into English Prose, with Introductions,
+Notes, Running Analysis, and an Index. By JAMES LONSDALE, M. A., and
+SAMUEL LEE, M. A. pp. 228.
+
+_"A more complete Edition of Virgil in English it is scarcely possible
+to conceive than the scholarly work before us."_--GLOBE.
+
+
+The Works of Horace. Rendered into English Prose, with Introductions,
+Running Analysis, Notes, and Index. By JOHN LONSDALE, M. A., and
+SAMUEL LEE, M. A.
+
+_The _STANDARD_ says, "To classical and non-classical readers it will
+be invaluable."_
+
+
+Milton's Poetical Works.--Edited, with Introductions, by Professor
+MASSON.
+
+_"In every way an admirable book."_--PALL MALL GAZETTE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+MACMILLAN & CO., LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Goldsmith, by William Black
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDSMITH ***
+
+***** This file should be named 18917.txt or 18917.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/9/1/18917/
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Sankar Viswanathan,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/18917.zip b/18917.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d675315
--- /dev/null
+++ b/18917.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8f0dbb0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #18917 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18917)