exclaimed Goldsmith, horror-struck, "I did not say so?" "Nay," returned Burke, "if you had not said so, how should I have known " it?" "That's true," answered Goldsmith, with great humility : "I am very sorry; it was very foolish. I do recollect that something "of the kind passed through my mind, but I did not think I had "uttered it." The anecdote is more creditable to Goldsmith, notwithstanding the weakness in his character it unquestionably reveals, than to Burke, to whose disadvantage it was probably afterwards remembered. It should be added that Burke had a turn for ridicule of that kind; and got up a more good-humoured trick against Goldsmith at his own house, not long after this, in which a lively kinswoman was played off as a raw Irish authoress, arrived expressly to see "the great Goldsmith," to praise him, and get his subscription to her poems, which, with liberal return of the praise (for several she had read out aloud), the simple poet gave, abusing them heartily the instant she was gone. Garrick founded a farce upon the incident, which with the title of the Irish Widow was played in 1772. Not always at a disadvantage, however, was Goldsmith in these social meetings. At times he took the lead, and kept it, to even Johnson's annoyance. "The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversa"tion," he would say on such occasions, "is this: he goes on "without knowing how he is to get off. His genius is great, but "his knowledge is small. As they say of a generous man, it is a "pity he is not rich, we may say of Goldsmith, it is a pity he is "not knowing. He would not keep his knowledge to himself." This is not the way to characterise the talk of an "idiot." Indeed sometimes, when the humour suited him, he would put even Burke's talk at the same disadvantage as Goldsmith's. Mentioning the latter as not agreeable, because it was always for fame," and "the man who does so never can be pleasing; the man who talks "to unburden his mind is the man to delight you," he would add that "an eminent friend of ours" (so Boswell generally introduces Burke) was not so agreeable as the variety of his knowledge would otherwise make him, because he talked partly from ostentation; and, before the words were forgotten (the next day, if in better humour), would not hesitate to put forth Burke's talk as emphatically the ebullition of his mind, as in no way connected with the desire of distinction, and indulged only because his mind was full. Such remarks and comparisons at the least make it manifest that Goldsmith's conversation was not the folly which it is too often assumed to have been; though doubtless it was sometimes too ambitious, and fell short of the effort implied in it. He did not keep sufficiently in mind that precious maxim for which Lady Pomfret was so grateful to the good old lady who gave it to her, "I fired at that when she had nothing to say, to say nothing. "them all, and did not make a hit; I angled all night, but I "caught nothing!" was his own candid remark to Cradock on one occasion. With a greater show of justice than he cared generally to afford him in this matter, Johnson laid his failure, on other occasions, rather to the want of temper than the want of power. "Goldsmith should not," he said, "be for ever attempting to "shine in conversation; he has not temper for it, he is so much "mortified when he fails. Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly "of skill, partly of chance; a man may be beat at times by one "who has not the tenth part of his wit. Now, Goldsmith putting "himself against another, is like a man laying a hundred to one, "who cannot spare the hundred. It is not worth a man's while . . . "When Goldsmith 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." It should be added that there were other causes than these for Goldsmith's frequent vexation. Miss Reynolds relates that she overheard a gentleman at her brother's table, to whom he was talking his best, suddenly stop him in the middle of a sentence with "Hush! Hush! Doctor Johnson is going to say something." The like was overheard-unless this be the original story adapted to her purpose by Miss Reynolds-at the first Academy dinner; when a Swiss named Moser, the first keeper appointed, interrupted him "when talking with fluent vivacity," to claim silence for Doctor Johnson on seeing the latter roll himself as if about to speak ("Stay, "stay, Toctor Shonson is going to zay zomething "), and was paid back for his zeal by Goldsmith's retort, "And are you sure you'll "comprehend what he says?" His happy rebuke of a similar subserviency of Boswell's, that he was for turning into a monarchy what ought to be a republic, is recorded by Boswell himself, who adds, with that air of patronage which is now so exquisitely ludicrous, " for my "part I like very well to hear honest Goldsmith talk away carelessly;" and upon the whole evidence it seems clear enough, that, much as his talk suffered from his mal-address, in substance it was not in general below the average of that of other celebrated men. Certainly, therefore, if we concede some truth to the Johnsonian antithesis which even good-humoured Langton repeats so complacently, 66 man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had," we must yet admit it with due allowance. Walpole said much the same thing of Hume, whose writings he thought so superior to his conversation that he protested the historian understood nothing till he had written upon it; and even of his friend Gray he said he was the worst company in the world, for he never talked easily yet in the sense of professed talk, the 66 no 66 same might be said of the best company in the world, for in the mere cunning" of retort Walpole himself talked ill, and so did Gay; and so did Dryden, Pope, and Swift; and so did Hogarth and Addison. Nothing is recorded of those men, or of others as famous, so clever as the specimens of the talk of Goldsmith which Boswell himself has not cared to forget. Nay, even he goes so far as to admit, that "he was often very fortunate in his witty contests, even when "he entered the lists with Johnson himself." An immortal instance was remembered by Reynolds. He, Johnson, and Goldsmith, were together one day, when the latter said that he thought he could write a good fable; mentioned the simplicity which that kind of composition requires; and observed that in most fables the animals introduced seldom talk in character. "For instance," said he, "the fable of the little fishes who saw birds fly over their heads, "and, envying them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. "The skill," he continued, "consists in making them talk like little "fishes." At this point he observed Johnson shaking his sides and laughing, whereupon he made this home thrust. Why, Mr. 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." This was giving Johnson what Garrick called a forcible hug, and it shook laughter out of the big man in his own despite. But in truth no one, as Boswell has admitted, could take such "adventurous "liberties" with the great social despot, "and escape unpunished." Beauclerc tells us that on Goldsmith originating, one day, a project for a third theatre in London solely for the exhibition of new plays, in order to deliver authors from the supposed tyranny of managers (a project often renewed since, and always sure to fail, for the simple reason that authors themselves become managers, and all authors cannot be heard), Johnson treated it slightingly upon which the other retorted "Ay, ay, this may be nothing to you, who can now "shelter yourself behind the corner of a pension ;" and Johnson bore it with perfect good humour. But the most amusing instance connected with the pension occurred a year or two afterwards, when, on the appearance of Mason's exquisite Heroic Epistle, Goldsmith, delighted with it himself, carried it off to his friend, and was allowed to read it out to him from beginning to end with a running accompaniment of laughter, in which Johnson as heartily joined at the invocation to George the Third's selected, and in part pilloried, pensioners, as at the encounter of Charles Fox with the Jews. Does Envy doubt! Witness, ye chosen train! When one of the most active of the second-rate politicians, and the great go-between of the attempted alliance between the Chatham and Rockingham whigs, Tommy Townshend, so called not satirically, but to distinguish him from his father, -anticipated in the present year that connection of Johnson's and Shebbeare's names (I formerly described them pensioned together, "the He-Bear and "the She-Bear" as some one humorously said), he did not get off so easily. But Johnson had brought these allusions on himself by plunging into party-war, at the opening of the year, with a pamphlet on the False Alarm, as he called the excitement on Wilkes's expulsion, in which he did not spare the opposition; and which, written in two nights at Thrale's, continued to attract attention. Boswell tells us that when Townshend made the attack, Burke, though of Townshend's party, stood warmly forth in defence of his friend; but the recent publication of the Cavendish Debates corrects this curious error. Burke spoke after Townshend, and complained of the infamous private libels of the Town and Country Magazine against members of the opposition, but he did not refer to Townshend's attack; he left the vindication of Johnson to their common friend Fitzherbert, who rose with an emphatic eulogy at the close of the debate, and called him "a pattern of morality." In truth Burke had this year committed himself too fiercely to the stormy side of opposition, to be able to stretch his hand across even to his old friend Johnson. His friend had cast himself with the enemies of freedom, and was left to fare with them. The excitement was unexampled. There were yet dissensions between the rival parties of opposition, but not such as withheld them from concentrating, for this one while at least, the hate and bitterness of both on the government. Language, unheard till now, was launched against it from both houses. Lord Shelburne dared the Premier to find "a wretch so base and mean-spirited," as to take the seals Lord Camden had flung down. In evil hour, poor Charles Yorke, Lord Rockingham's attorney-general, and sensitive as he was accomplished, accepted the challenge; and then, maddened by his own reproaches, perished within two days, his patent of peerage lying incomplete before him. Chatham rose to a height of daring which even he had never reached, and, resolving to be " a scarecrow "of violence to the gentle warblers of the grove, the moderate whigs "and temperate statesmen," prayed that rather than any compromise should now be made, or the people should vail their representative rights to their governors, either the question might be brought to practical issue, or Discord prevail for Ever! Grafton sank beneath the storm, even bodily disabled for his office by the attacks of Junius; and his place was filled by Lord North. But Junius gathered strength, the stronger the opponent that faced him; and his terrors increased as preparation was made to cope with them. His libels conquered the law. Language which Burke told the House he had read with chilled blood, juries sent away unconvicted. In vain were printers hunted down, and small booksellers, and even humble milkmen. In vain did "the whole French court with "their gaudy coaches and jack boots," go out to hunt the little hare. The great boar of the forest, as Burke called the libeller, still, and always, broke through the toils; and sorry was the sport of following after vermin. North could not visit the palace, without seeing the Letter to the King posted up against the wall; the Chief Justice could not enter his court, without seeing the Letter to Lord Mansfield impudently facing him. There was no safety in sending poor milkmen to prison. There was no protection. The thrust was mortal; but a rapier and a ruffle alone were visible, in the dark alley from which it came. CHAPTER VII. 1770. Et. 42. THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 1770. BENEATH these dark and desperate struggles of party profligacy, the more peaceful current of life meanwhile flowed on, and had its graces and enjoyments; not the least of them from Goldsmith's hand. "This day at 12," said the Public Advertiser of the 26th of May, "will be published, price two "shillings, The Deserted Village, a Poem. By Doctor Goldsmith. "Printed for W. Griffin, at Garrick's Head in Catherine Street, "Strand." Its success was instant and decisive. A second edition was called for on the seventh of June, a third on the fourteenth, a fourth (carefully revised) on the twenty-eighth, and on the sixteenth of August a fifth edition appeared. Even Goldsmith's enemies in the press were silent, and nothing interrupted the praise which greeted him on all sides. One tribute he did not hear, and was never conscious of; yet from truer heart or finer genius he had none, and none that should have given him greater pride. Gray was passing the summer at Malvern, the last summer of his life, with his friend Nicholls, when the poem came out and he desired Nicholls to read it aloud to him. He listened to it with fixed attention, and soon exclaimed "This man is a poet." The judgment has since been affirmed by hundreds of thousands of readers, and any adverse appeal is little likely now to be lodged against it. Within the circle of its claims and pretensions, |