as to feel yet greater confidence in the same direction, and something of an understanding for a future dramatic venture at Drury-lane seems certainly to have been agreed to. A new and strong link between them was supplied by the family which Goldsmith is about to visit; for Garrick was Bunbury's most familiar friend, and a leader in all the sports at Barton.

What Goldsmith's ways and habits used to be there, a survivor of that happy circle lived to be still talking about not many years ago. "Come now let us play the fool a little," was his ordinary invitation to mirth; and he took part in every social game. Tricks were played upon his dress, upon his smart black silk coat and expensive pair of ruffles, above all upon his wig, which the valets as well as the guests at Barton appear to have thought a quizzical property; yet all this he suffered with imperturbable good humour. He sung comic songs with great taste and fun; he was inventive in garden buildings and operations, over which he blundered amazingly; and if there was a piece of water in any part of the grounds, he commonly managed to tumble into it. Such were the recollections of those days; with the not unimportant addition, that everybody in that circle respected, admired, and loved him. His fondness for flowers was a passion, which he was left to indulge without restraint; here, at Lord Clare's, at Bennet Langton's, and at Beauclerc's. Thus, when Beau has to tell Lord Charlemont a couple of years hence, that if he won't come to London the club shall be sent to Ireland to drive him out of that country in selfdefence, the terrors of his threat are, that Johnson shall spoil his books, Goldsmith pull his flowers, and (for a quite intolerable climax) Boswell talk to him! But most at the card-table does Goldsmith seem to have spread contagious mirth: affecting nothing of the rigour of the game (whether it was loo or any other), playing in wild defiance of the chances, laughing at all advice, staking preposterously, and losing always as much as the moderate pool could absorb. With fascinating pleasantry he has himself described all this, in answer to one of Mrs. Bunbury's invitations to Barton, wherein she had playfully counselled him to come to their Christmas party in his smart spring velvet coat, to bring a wig that he might dance with the haymakers in, and above all to follow her and her sister's advice in playing loo. His reply, perhaps the most amusing and characteristic of all his letters, was published ten years ago by Sir Henry Bunbury. Between the mock gravity of its beginning and the farcical broad mirth of its close, flash forth the finest humour, the nicest compliments, and the most sprightly touches of character.

MADAM, I read your letter with all that allowance which critical candour could require, but after all find so much to object to, and so much to raise my indignation, that I cannot help giving it a serious answer.

I am not so ignorant, Madam, as not to see there are many sarcasms contained in it, and solecisms also. (Solecisms is a word that comes from the town of Soleis in Attica, among the Greeks, built by Solon, and applied as we use the word Kidderminster for curtains from a town also of that name,— but this is learning you have no taste for !)-I say, Madam, there are many sarcasms in it, and solecisms also. But not to seem an ill-natured critic, I'll take leave to quote your own words, and give you my remarks upon them as they occur. You begin as follows:

'I hope my good Doctor, you soon will be here,

And your spring-velvet coat very smart will appear,

To open our ball the first day of the year.'

Pray, Madam, where did you ever find the epithet 'good,' applied to the title of Doctor? Had you called me 'learned Doctor,' or 'grave Doctor,' or 'noble Doctor,' it might be allowable, because they belong to the profession. But, not to cavil at trifles, you talk of my 'spring-velvet coat,' and advise me to wear it the first day in the year, that is, in the middle of winter !—a springvelvet coat in the middle of winter!!! That would be a solecism indeed! and yet to increase the inconsistence, in another part of your letter you call me a beau. Now, on one side or other, you must be wrong. If I am a beau, I can never think of wearing a spring-velvet in winter and if I am not a beau, why then, that explains itself. But let me go on to your two next strange lines:

'And bring with you a wig, that is modish and gay,
To dance with the girls that are makers of hay.'

The absurdity of making hay at Christmas you yourself seem sensible of: you say your sister will laugh; and so indeed she well may! The Latins have an expression for a contemptuous kind of laughter, naso contemnere adunco;' that is, to laugh with a crooked nose. She may laugh at you in the manner of the antients if she thinks fit. But now I come to the most extraordinary of all extraordinary propositions, which is, to take your and your sister's advice in playing at loo. The presumption of the offer raises my indignation beyond the bounds of prose; it inspires me at once with verse and resentment. I take advice and from whom? You shall hear.

First let me suppose, what may shortly be true,
The company set, and the word to be, Loo:

All smirking, and pleasant, and big with adventure,

And ogling the stake which is fix'd in the centre.

Round and round go the cards, while I inwardly damn

At never once finding a visit from Pam.

I lay down my stake, apparently cool,

While the harpies about me all pocket the pool.

I fret in my gizzard, yet, cautious and sly,

I wish all my friends may be bolder than I :

Yet still they sit snugg, not a creature will aim
By losing their money to venture at fame.
'Tis in vain that at niggardly caution I scold,
'Tis in vain that I flatter the brave and the bold:
All play their own way, and they think me an ass,-
'What does Mrs. Bunbury?'-'I, Sir? I pass.'

'Pray what does Miss Horneck? take courage, come do,'-
'Who, I? let me see, Sir, why I must pass too.

Mr Bunbury frets, and I fret like the devil,

To see them so cowardly, lucky, and civil.

Yet still I sit snugg, and continue to sigh on,
'Till, made by my losses as bold as a lion,

I venture at all,-while my avarice regards

The whole pool as my own-'Come give me five cards.'
'Well done!' cry the ladies; 'Ah, Doctor, that's good!
"The pool's very rich, -ah! the Doctor is loo'd.'
Thus foil'd in my courage, on all sides perplext,

I ask for advice from the lady that's next:
'Pray, Ma'am, be so good as to give your advice;
'Don't you think the best way is to venture for 't twice?'
'I advise,' cries the lady, 'to try it, I own.—
"Ah! the Doctor is loo'd! Come, Doctor, put down.'
Thus, playing, and playing, I still grow more eager,
And so bold, and so bold, I'm at last a bold beggar.
Now, ladies, I ask, if law-matters you're skilled in,
Whether crimes such as yours should not come before Fielding:
For giving advice that is not worth a straw,
May well be call'd picking of pockets in law;
And picking of pockets, with which I now charge ye,
Is, by quinto Elizabeth, Death without Clergy.
What justice, when both to the Old Bailey brought!
By the gods, I'll enjoy it, tho' 'tis but in thought!
Both are plac'd at the bar, with all proper decorum,
With bunches of fennell, and nosegays before 'em ;
Both cover their faces with mobs and all that,
But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat.
When uncover'd, a buzz of inquiry runs round, -

'Pray what are their crimes?'-'They've been pilfering found.'
'But, pray, who have they pilfer'd?''A Doctor, I hear.'
'What, yon solemn-faced, odd-looking man that stands near !'
'The same.'-'What a pity! how does it surprise one,
'Two handsomer culprits I never set eyes on!'

Then their friends all come round me with cringing and leering,

To melt me to pity, and soften my swearing.

First Sir Charles advances with phrases well-strung,
'Consider, dear Doctor, the girls are but young.'
'The younger the worse,' I return him again,

It shews that their habits are all dyed in grain.'
'But then they're so handsome, one's bosom it grieves.'
'What signifies handsome, when people are thieves?'
'But where is your justice? their cases are hard.'
'What signifies justice? I want the reward.

"There's the parish of Edmonton offers forty pounds; there's the parish of St. Leonard Shoreditch offers forty pounds; there's the parish of Tyburn, 'from the Hog-in-the-pound to St. Giles's watch-house, offers forty pounds, I 'shall have all that if I convict them!'

'But consider their case,-it may yet be your own!
'And see how they kneel? Is your heart made of stone?'

This moves :-so at last I agree to relent,

For ten pounds in hand, and ten pounds to be spent.

I challenge you all to answer this: I tell you, you cannot. It cuts deep ;but now for the rest of the letter and next-but I want room-so I believe I ahall battle the rest out at Barton some day next week.

1772. Et. 44.

CHAPTER XII

FAME ACQUIRED AND TASKWORK RESUMED. 1772.

To battle it out on any kind of challenge at Barton was to Goldsmith always a pleasure; but it was a hard and difficult game to battle it out in London, and the stakes were growing somewhat desperate. Francis Newbery seems in some shape to have revived the question of their old accounts, on his return from the last visit at Mr. Bunbury's; and he appears in that publisher's books as having paid twenty pounds, a new and arduous character. But he wears a cheerful face still; has his grave kind word for the poor struggling adventurer, his gay sprightly prologue for the ambitious amateur author, and still, as of old, indiscriminate help for any one who presents himself with a plausible petition, all the surer of acceptance if graced with a brogue. A poor Irish youth afterwards known as a physician, Doctor M'Veagh M'Donnell, told in after life how he had flung himself in despair on a seat in the Temple-gardens, eyeing the water wistfully, when a kind, genial-faced countryman, whom he was soon to know as the famous Goldsmith, came up to him, talked him into good spirits, brought him into his chambers, told him that in London "nothing could be got for nothing but much "might be got for work," and set him afloat in the world by giving him chapters of Buffon to translate. This poor client used to grieve, when in the course of this daily labour he saw his patron subject to frequent fits of depression; when he saw printers and booksellers "hunting" him down; and tells us that he cried bitterly, and a blank came over his heart, when he afterwards heard of his death. Unluckily the patron was not always so fortunate in the objects of his bounty.

The anecdote now to be related was told soon after Goldsmith's death by one of his friends, who, while remarking that a great point of pride with him was to be liberal to his poor countrymen who applied to him in distress, interposes that the expression "pride" was not an improper one to use, because he did it with some degree of ostentation. The instance is then given of a highly ingenious youth who had preyed upon his celebrated countryman for some time in this way, representing his unappreciated abilities, which it never occurred to Goldsmith to doubt, and his sore necessities, which he was always willing to relieve. At last, however, this had been

repeated so often, that it occurred to Goldsmith to give his young friend the chance (he so ardently professed to desire) of making some return for what he received, by the exercise of those literary talents for which he had hitherto failed to get any direct outlet of his own. At the particular time a bookseller had asked Goldsmith to draw up, for some occasional purpose, "and at a price "he despised but had not rejected," a description of China; and on this description of China he set his pensioner to work. The original teller of the anecdote will relate, in simple but expressive language, the result and its catastrophe. "Such was the idle "carelessness of his temper that he never gave himself the trouble "to read the manuscript, but sent to the press an account which "made the Emperor of China a Mahometan, and which supposed "India to be between China and Japan. Two sheets were "cancelled at Goldsmith's expense, who kicked his newly created "author down stairs."

Another similar case had a graver issue. An Irish youth named Griffin, one of the many Roman Catholic lads of that day driven over to France for the education then denied them in their own land, and thus exposed to temptations at too early an age for effective resistance, had come back to London with the wants and resources of a desperate adventurer. He assailed at once both Garrick and Goldsmith, shrewdly sending the actor a poetical address of the most extravagant praise, while he wrote letters to the poet pointing out the most affecting distress, and implored his intercession with Garrick to obtain him relief. "The writer of "this," says the author of the first memoir, "who hath perused "both the verses and the letters, saw no attempt to flatter "Goldsmith, or to interest him otherwise than through his com"passion." No stronger motive could at any time be given. In this case it not only procured the applicant what he sought, but such recommendations also as obtained him the place of teacher in a school, where unhappily he had not remained long before he robbed the house and made his escape.

Yet the clients were not always of this class. A livelier petitioner, whose claim was for the less substantial and more poetical help of a prologue, and who is now duly to be presented, was a young man of fortune named Cradock, living in Leicestershire, who, bringing up with him his wife and a translation of one of Voltaire's tragedies, had come lately to London, very eager about plays and players,-being a clever amateur actor as well as writer, liking to be called little Cradock, and really fancying himself, one would say, quite a private little Garrick,-and with introductions to the celebrated people. Goldsmith met him at Yates the actor's house; their mutual knowledge of Lord Clare soon put them on