make fight; so with that heedlessness which characterised him in everything else, he dashed on at a venture, trusting to chance in this as in other things, and hoping occasionally to make a lucky hit. Johnson perceived his hap-hazard temerity, but gave him no credit for the real diffidence that lay at bottom. The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation," said he, "is this-he goes on without knowing how he is to get off. His genius is great, but his knowledge is small. As they say of a generous man, it is a pity he is not rich, we may say of Goldsmith, it is a pity he is not knowing. He would not keep his knowledge to himself." And, on another occasion, he observes, "Goldsmith, rather than not talk, will talk of what he knows himself to be ignorant, which can only end in exposing him. If in company with two founders, he would fall a talking on the method of making cannon, though both of them would soon see that he did not know what metal a cannon is made of." And again"Goldsmith should not be for ever attempting to shine in conversation; he has not a temper for it, he is so much mortified when he falls. Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of chance; a man may be beat at times by one who has not the tenth part of his wit. Now Goldsmith, putting himself against another, is like a man laying a hundred to one who cannot spare the hundred. It is not worth a man's while. A man should not lay a hundred to one unless he can easily spare it, though he has a hundred chances for him; he can get but a guinea, and he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this state. When he contends, if he gets the better, it is a very little addition to a man of his literary reputation; if he does not get the better, he is miserably vexed." Johnson was not aware how much he was himself to blame in producing this vexation. "Goldsmith," said Miss Reynolds, "always appeared to be overawed by Johnson, particularly when in company with people of any consequence-always as if impressed with fear of disgrace; and, indeed, well he might. I have been witness to many mortifications he has suffered in Dr. Johnson's company." It may not have been disgrace that he feared, but rudeness. The great lexicographer, spoiled by the homage of society, was still more prone than himself to lose temper when the argument went against him. He could not brook appearing to be worsted, but would attempt to bear down his adversary by the rolling thunder of his periods; and when that failed would become downright insulting. Boswell called it "having recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry;" but Goldsmith designated it much more happily. "There is no arguing with Johnson," said he, "for, when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt-end of it." In several of the intellectual collisions recorded by Boswell as triumphs of Dr. Johnson, it really appears to us that Goldsmith had the best, both of the wit and the argument, and especially of the courtesy and good nature. On one occasion he certainly gave Johnson a capital reproof as to his own colloquial peculiarities. Talking of fables, Goldsmith observed that the anima's introduced in them seldom talked in character. "For instance," said he," the fable of the little fishes who saw birds fly over their heads, and, envying them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The skill consists in making them talk like little fishes." Just then, observing that Dr. Johnson was shaking his sides and laughing, he immediately added, "why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for, if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales." The following is given by Boswell, as an instance of robust sophistry: Once, when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus- My dear Boswell, let's have no more of this; you'll make nothing of it. I'd rather hear you whistle a Scotch tune.'" But though Goldsmith suffered frequent mortifications iu society from the overbearing, and sometimes harsh, conduct of Johnson, he always did justice to his benevolence. When royal pensions were granted to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Shebbeare, a punster remarked that the king had pensioned a she-bear and a he-bear; to which Goldsmith replied, "Johnson, to be sure, has a rough. ness in his manner, but no man alive has a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear but the skin." Goldsmith, in conversation, shone most when he least thought of shining-when he gave up all effort to appear wise and learned, or to cope with the oracular sententiousness of Johnson, and gave way to his natural impulses. Even Boswell could perceive his merits on these occasions. "For my part," said he, condescendingly, "I like very well to hear honest Goldsmith talk away carelessly;" and many a much wiser man than Boswell delighted in those outpourings of a fertile fancy and a generous heart. In his happy moods Goldsmith had an artless simplicity and buoyant goodhumour that led to a thousand amusing blunders and whimsical confessions, much to the entertainment of his intimates; yet, in his most thoughtless garrulity, there was occasionally the gleam of the gold and the flash of the diamond. CHAP. XIX. Social resorts-The shilling whist-club-A practical joke-The Wednesday club-The "tun-man"-The pig-butcher-Ton King-Hugh Kelly-Glover and his characteristics. Though Goldsmith's pride and ambition led him to mingle occasionally with high society, and to engage in the colloquial conflicts of the learned circle, in both of which he was ill at ease and conscious of being undervalued, yet he had some social resorts in which he indemnified himself for their restraints by indulging his humour without control. One of them was a shilling whist-club, which held its meeting at the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, a place rendered classic, we are told, by a club held there in old times, to which "Rare Ben Jonson" had furnished the rules. The company was of a familiar, unceremonious kind, delighting in that very questionable wit which consists in playing off prac tical jokes upon each other. Of one of these Goldsmith was made the butt. Coming to the club one night in a hackney coach, he gave the coachman by mistake a guinea instead of a shilling, which he set down as a dead loss, for there was no likelihood, he said, that a fellow of this class would have the honesty to return the money. On the next club evening he was toid a person at the street door wished to speak with him. He went forth, but soon returned with a radiant countenance. To his surprise and delight the coachman had actually brought back the guinea. launched forth in praise of this unlooked for piece of honesty, he declared it ought not to go unrewarded. Collecting a small sum from the club, and no doubt increasing it largely from his own purse, he dismissed the Jehu with many encomiums on his good conduct. He was still chanting his praises, when one of the club requested a sight of the guinea thus honestly returned. To Goldsmith's confusion, it proved to be a counterfeit. The universal burst of laughter which succeeded, and the jokes by which he was assailed on every side, showed him that the whole was a hoax, and the pretended coachman as much a counterfeit as the guinea. He was so disconcerted, it is said, that he soon beat a retreat for the evening. While he It Another of these free-and-easy clubs met on Wednesday evenings at the Globe Tavern, in Fleet street. was somewhat in the style of the Three Jolly Pigeons; songs, jokes, dramatic imitations, burlesque parodies, and broad sallies of humour, formed a contrast to the sententious morality, pedantic casuistry, and polished surcasm of the learned circle. Here a huge "tun of man," by the name of Gordon, used to delight Goldsmith by singing the jovial song of Nottingham Ale," and looking like a butt of it. Here, too, a wealthy pigbutcher, charmed, no doubt, by the mild philanthropy of "The Traveller," aspired to be on the most social footing with the author; and here was Tom King, the comedian. recently risen in consequence by his perform ance of Lord Ogleby, in the new comedy of "The Clandestine Marriage." A member of more note was one Hugh Kelly, a secondrate author, who, as he became a kind of competitor of Goldsmith's, deserves particular mention. He was an Irishman about twenty-eight years of age, originally apprenticed to a staymaker in Dublin; then writer to a London attorney; then a Grubb-street hack, scribbling for magazines and newspapers. At length he had set up for theatrical censor and satirist; and in a paper called "Thespis," in emulation of Churchill's “Rosciad." had harassed many of the poor actors without mercy, and often without wit; but had lavished his incense on Garrick, who, in consequence, took him into favour. He was the author of several works of superficial merit, but which had sufficient vogue to inflate his vanity. This, however, must have been mortified on his first introduction to Johnson; after sitting a short time he got up to take leave, expressing a fear that a longer visit might be troublesome. Not in the least, sir," said the surly moralist; I had forgotten you were in the room." Johnson used to speak of him as a man who had written more than he had read. A prime wag of this club was one of Goldsmith's poor countrymen and hangers-on, by the name of Glover. He had originally been educated for the medical profession, but had taken in early life to the stage, though apparently without much success. While performing at Cork, he undertook, partly in jest, to restore life to the body of a malefactor who had just been executed. To the astonishment of every one, himself among the number, he succeeded. The miracle took wind. He abandoned the stage, resumed his wig and cane, and considered his fortune as secure. Unluckily, there were not many people to be restored to life in Ireland; his practice did not equal his expectation, so he came to London, where he continued to dabble indifferently, and rather unprofitably, in physic and literature He was a great frequenter of the Globe and Devil taverns, where he used to amuse the company by his talent at story-telling and his powers of mimicry, giving capital imitations of Garrick, Foote, Colman, Sterne, and other public characters of the day. He seldom happened to have money enough to pay his reckoning, but was always sure to find some ready purse among those who had been amused by his humours. Goldsmith, of course, was one of the readiest. It was through him that Glover was admitted to the Wednesday Club, of which his theatrical imitations became the delight. Glover, however, was a little anxious for the dignity of his patron, which appeared to him to suffer from the over-familiarity of some of the members of the club. He was especially shocked by the free-and-easy tone in which Goldsmith was addressed by the pig-butcher. "Come, Noll," would he say, as he pledged him, "here's my service to you, old boy!" Glover whispered to Goldsmith that he "should not allow such liberties." "Let him alone," was the reply, "you'll see how civilly I'll let him down." After a time he called out, with marked ceremony and politeness, "Mr. B., I have the honour of drinking your good health." Alas! dignity was not poor Goldsmith's forte: he could keep no one at a distance. Thank'ee, thank'ee, Noll," nodded the pig-butcher, scarce taking the pipe out of his mouth. "I don't see the effect of your reproof," whispered Glover. "I give it up," replied Goldsmith, with a good-humoured shrug; "I ought to have known before now there is no putting a pig in the right way." Johnson used to be severe upon Goldsmith for mingling in these motley circles, observing, that having been originally poor, he had contracted a love for low company. Goldsmith, however, was guided, not by a taste for what was low, but for what was comic and characteristic. It was the feeling of the artist-the feeling which furnished out some of his best scenes in familiar lifethe feeling with which "Rare Ben Jonson" sought these very haunts and circles in days of yore, to study “Every Man in his Humour." It was not always, however, that the humour of these associates was to his taste; as they became boisterous in their merriment, he was apt to become depressed. "The company of fools," says he, in one of his essays, "may at first make us smile; but at last never fails of making us melancholy."-" Often he would become moody," says Glover, “and would leave the party abruptly, to go home and brood over his misfortune." It is possible, however, that he went home for quite a different purpose-to commit to paper some scene or passage suggested for his comedy of "The Good-natured Man." The elaboration of humour is often a most serious task; and we have never witnessed a more perfect picture of mental misery than was once presented to us by a popular dramatic writer-still, we hope, living-whom we found in the agonies of producing a farce, which subsequently set the theatres in a roar CHAP. XX. The great Cham of literature and the King-Scene at Sir Joshua Reynolds's---Goldsmith accused of jealousy---Negotiations with Garrick-The author and the actor-Their correspondence. The comedy of "The Good-natured Man" was completed by Goldsmith early in 1767, and submitted to the perusal of Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, and others of the literary club, by whom it was heartily approved. Johnson, who was seldom half way, either in censure or applause, pronounced it the best comedy that had been written since The Provoked Husband," and promised to furnish the prologue. This immediately became an object of great solicitude with Goldsmith, knowing the weight an introduction from the Great Cham of literature would have with the public; but circumstances occured which he feared might drive the comedy and the prologue from Johuson's thoughts. The latter was in the habit of visiting the royal library at the Queen's (Buckingham) House-a noble collection of books, in the formation of which he had assisted the librarian, Mr. Bernard, with his advice. One evening, as he was seated there by the fire reading, he was surprised by the entrance of the King (George III.), then a young man, who sought this occasion to have a conversation with him. The conservation was varied and discursive, the King shifting from subject to subject according to his wont. "During the whole interview," says Boswell, "Johnson talked to his majesty with profound respect, but still in his open, manly manner, with a sonorous voice, and never in that subdued tone. which is commonly used at the levee and in the drawing-room. found his majesty wished I should talk,' said he, and I made it my business to talk. I find it does a man good to be talked to by his sovereign. In the first place, a man cannot be in a passion."" It would have been as well for Johnson's colloquial disputants could he have often been under such decorous restraint. Profoundly monarchical in his principles, he retired from the interview highly gratified with the conversation of the King, I and with his gracious behaviour." Sir," said he to the librarian, "they may talk of the King as they will, but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen.' "Sir," said he, subsequently, to Bennet Langton, “ his manners are those of as fine a gentleman as we may suppose Louis the Fourteenth or Charles the Second." While Johnson's face was still radient with the reflex of royalty, he was holding forth one day to a listening group a Sir Joshua Reynolds's, who were anxious to hear every particular of this memorable conversation. Among other questions, the King had asked him whether he was writing anything. His reply was, that he thought he had already done his part as a writer. "I should have thought so too," said the King, "if you had not written so well.' No man," said Johnson, comment ing on this speech, "could have made a handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a king to pay. It was decisive."-"But did you make no reply to this high compliment?" asked one of the company. 'No, sir," replied the profoundly deferential Johnson, "when the King had said it, it was to be so. It was not for me to bandy civilities with my sovereign." 66 During all the time that Johnson was thus holding forth, Goldsmith, who was present, appeared to take no interest in the royal theme, but remained seated on a sofa at a distance, in a moody fit of abstraction; at length, recollecting himself, he sprang up, and advancing, exclaimed, with what Boswell calls his usual " frankness and simplicity," "Well, you acquitted yourself in this conversation better than I should have done, for I should have bowed and stammered through the whole of it." He afterwards explained his seeming inattention, by saying that his mind was completely occupied about his play, and by fears lest Johnson, in his present state of royal excitement, would fail to furnish the muchdesired prologue. 46 How natural and truthful is this explanation! Yet Boswell presumes to pronounce Goldsmith's inattention affected; and attributes it to jealousy. "It was strongly suspected," says he, that he was fretting with chagrin and envy at the singular honour Dr. Johnson had lately enjoyed." It needed the littleness of mind of Boswell to ascribe such pitiful motives to Goldsmith, and to entertain such exaggerated notions of the honour paid to Dr. Johnson. 64 The Good-natured Man" was now ready for perform ance, but the question was, how to get it on the stage. The affairs of Covent Garden, for which it had been intended, were thrown into confusion by the recent death of Rich, the manager. Drury Lane was under the management of Garrick, but a feud, it will be recollected, existed between him and the poet, from the animadversions of the latter on the mismanagement of theatrical affairs, and the refusal of the former to give the poet his vote for the secretaryship of the Society of Arts. Times, however, were changed. Goldsmith, when that feud took place, was an anonymous writer, almost unknown to fame, and of no circulation in society. Now he had become a literary lion; he was a member of the Literary Club; he was the associate of Johnson, Burke, Topham Beauclerc, and other magnates-in a word, he had risen to consequence in the public eye, and of course was of consequence in the eye of David Garrick. Sir Joshua Reynolds saw the lurking scruples of pride existing between the author and the actor, and thinking it a pity that two men of such congenial talents, and who might be so serviceable to each other, should be kept asunder by a worn-out pique, exerted his friendly offices to bring them together. The meeting took place in Reynolds's house in Leicester-square. Garrick, how ever, could not entirely put off the mock-majesty of the stage; he meant to be civil, but he was rather too gracious and condescending. Tom Davies, in his "Life of Garrick," gives an amusing picture of the coming together of these punctilious parties. "The manager," 66 says he, was fully conscious of his (Goldsmith's) merit, and perhaps more ostentatious of his abilities to serve a dramatic author than became a man of his prudence; Goldsmith was, on his side, as fully persuaded of his own importance and independent greatness. Mr. Garrick, who had so long been treated with the complimentary language paid to a successful patentee and admired actor, expected that the writer would esteem the patronage of his play a favour; Goldsmith rejected all idea of kindness in a bargain that was intended to be of mutual advantage to both parties-and in this he was certainly justifiable; Mr. Garrick could reasonably expect no thanks for the acting a new play, which he would have rejected if he had not been convinced it would have amply rewarded his pains and expense. I believe the manager was willing to accept the play, but he wished to be courted to it; and the doctor was not disposed to purchase his friendship by the resignation of his sincerity." They separated, however, with an understanding on the part of Goldsmith that his play would be acted. The conduct of Garrick subsequently proved evasive, not through any lingering of past hostility, but from habitual indecision in matters of the kind, and from real scruples and delicacy. He did not think the piece likely to succeed on the stage, and avowed that opinion to Reynolds and Johnson; but hesitated to say as much to Goldsmith, through fear of wounding his feelings. A further misunderstanding was the result of this want of decision and frankness; repeated interviews and some correspondence took place without bringing matters to a point, and in the meantime the theatrical season passed away. Goldsmith's pocket, never well supplied, suffered grievously by this delay, and he considered himself entitled to call upon the manager, who still talked of acting the play, to advance him forty pounds upon a note of the younger Newbery. Garrick readily complied, but subsequently suggested certain important alterations in the comedy as indispensable to its success; these were indignantly rejected by the author, but pertinaciously insisted on by the manager. Garrick proposed to leave the matter to the arbitration of Whitehead, the laureate, who officiated as his "reader" and elbow-critic. Goldsmith was more indignant than ever, and a violent dispute ensued, which was only calmed by the interference of Burke and Reynolds. Just at this time order came out of confusion in the affairs of Covent Garden. A pique having arisen between Colman and Garrick, in the course of their joint authorship of The Clandestine Marriage," the former had become manager and part-proprietor of Covent Garden, and was preparing to open a powerful competition with his former colleague. On hearing of this, Goldsmith made overtures to Colman, who, without waiting to consult his fellow-proprietors, who were absent, gave instantly a favourable reply. Goldsmith felt the contrast of this warm, encouraging conduct, to the chilling delays and objections of Garrick. He at once abandoned his piece to the discretion of Colman. Dear sir," says he, in a letter dated Temple-garden-court, July 9th, "I am very much obliged to you for your kind partiality in my favour, and your tenderness in shortening the interval of my expectation. That the play is liable to many objections I well know, but I am happy that it is in hands the most capable in the world of removing them. If, then, dear sir, you will complete your favour by put ting the piece into such a state as it may be acted, or of directing me how to do it, I shall ever retain a sense of your goodness to me. And indeed, though most probably this may be the last I shall ever write, yet I can't help feeling a secret satisfaction that poets for the future are likely to have a protector who declines taking advantage of their dreadful situation, and scorns that importance which may be acquired by trifling with their anxieties." In his reply Garrick observed, "I was, indeed, much hurt that your warmth at our last meeting mistook my sincere and friendly attention to your play for the remains of a former misunderstanding, which I had as much forgot as if it had never existed. What I said to you at your own house I now repeat, that I felt more pain in giving my sentiments than you possibly would in receiving them. It has been the business, and ever will be, of my life to live on the best terms with men of genius; and I know that Dr. Goldsmith will have no reuson to change his previous friendly disposition towards me, as I shall be glad of every future opportunity to convince him how much I am his obedient servant and well-wisher. D. GARRICK." CHAP. XXI. More hack anthorship-Tom Davies and the Roman HistoryCanonbury Castle-Political authorship-Pecuniary tempta tion-Death of Newbery the elder. Though Goldsmith's comedy was now in train to be performed, it could not be brought out before Christmas; in the meantime, he must live. Again, therefore, he had to resort to literary jobs for his daily support. These obtained for him petty occasional sums, the largest of which was ten pounds, from the elder Newbery, for an historical compilation; but this scanty rill of quasi patronage, so sterile in its products, was likely soon to cease -Newbery being too ill to attend to business, and having to transfer the whole management of it to his nephew. At this time Tom Davies, the sometime Roscius, sometime bibliopole, stepped forward to Goldsmith's relief, and proposed that he should undertake an easy popular history of Rome in two volumes. An arrange ment was soon made. Goldsmith undertook to complete it in two years, if possible, for two hundred and fifty guineas, and forthwith set about his task with cheerful alacrity. As usual, he sought a rural retreat during the summer mouths, where he might alternate his literary labours with strolls about the green fields. "Merry Islington" was again his resort; but he now aspired to better quarters than formerly, and engaged the chambers occupied occasionally by Mr. Newbery, in Canonbury House, or Castle, as it is popularly called. This had been a hunting-lodge of Queen Elizabeth, in whose time it was surrounded by parks and forests. In Goldsmith's day nothing remained of it but an old brick tower; it was still in the country, amid rural scenery, and was a favourite nestling-place of authors, publishers, and others of the literary order. A number of these he had for See on the distant slope, majestic shows To various fates assigned; and where by turns fellow-occupants of the castle, and they formed a temporary club, which held its meetings at the Crown Tavern, on the Islington lower road; and here he presided in his own genial style, and was the life and delight of the company. The writer of these pages visited old Canonbury Castle some years since, out of regard to the memory of Goldsmith. The apartment was still shown which the poet had inhabited, consisting of a sitting-room and small bedroom, with panneled wainscots and Gothic windows. The quaintness and quietude of the place were still attractive. It was one of the resorts of citizens on their Sunday walks, who would ascend to the top of the tower and amuse themselves with reconnoitring the city through a telescope. Not far from this tower were the gardens of the White Conduit House, a Cockney elysium, where Goldsmith used to figure in the humbler days of his fortune. In the first edition of his Essays he speaks of a stroll in these gardens, where he at that time, no doubt, thought himself in perfect genteel society. After his rise in the world, however, he became too knowing to speak of such plebeian haunts. In a new edition of his Essays, therefore, the White Conduit House and its garden disappear, and he speaks of "a stroll in the Park." While Goldsmith was literally living from hand to mouth by the forced drudgery of the pen, his independence of spirit was subjected to a sore pecuniary trial. It was the opening of Lord North's administration, a time of great political excitement. The public mind was agitated by the question of American taxation, and other questions of like irritating tendency. Junius and Wilkes and other powerful writers were attacking the administration with all their force; Grubb-street was stirred up to its lowest depths; inflammatory talent of all kinds was in full activity, and the kingdom was deluged with pamphlets, lampoons, and libels of the grossest kinds. The ministry were looking anxiously round for literary support. It was thought that the pen of Goldsmith might be readily enlisted. His hospitable friend and countryman, Lord Nugent, politically known as Squire Gawky, had come out strenuously for local taxation; had been selected for a lordship of the board of trade, and raised to the rank of Baron Nugent and Viscount Clare. His example, it was thought, would be enough of itself to bring Goldsmith into the ministerial rauks; and then what writer of the day was proof against a full purse or a pension? Accordingly, one Parson Scott, chaplain to Lord Sandwich, and author of "Anti-Sejanus Panurge," and other political libels in support of the administration, was sent to negotiate with the poet, who at this time was returned to town. Dr. Scott, in after years, when his political subserviency had been rewarded by two fat crown livings, used to make what he considered a good story out of this embassy to the poet. "I found him," said he, in a mise rable suite of chambers in the Temple. I told him my authority. I told how I was empowered to pay most liberally for his exertions; and, would you believe it! he was so absurd as to say I can earn as much as will supply my wants without writing for any party; the assistance you offer is therefore unnecessary to me'and so I left him in his garret!" Who does not admire the sturdy independence of poor Goldsmith, toiling in his garret for nine guineas the job, and smile with contempt at the indignant wonder of the political divine, albeit his subserviency was repaid by two fat crown livings. Not long after this occurrence, Goldsmith's old friend, though frugal-handed employer, Newbery, of picturebook renown, closed his mortal career. The poet has celebrated him as the friend of all mankind; he certainly lost nothing by his friendship. He coined the brains of his authors in the times of their exigency, and made them pay dear for the plank put out to keep them 64 The comedy of "The Good-natured Man" was doomed to experience delays and difficulties to the very last. Garrick, notwithstanding his professions, had still a lurk ing grudge against the author, and tasked his managerial arts to thwart him in his theatrical enterprise. For this purpose he undertook to build up Hugh Kelly, Goldsmith's boon companion of the Wednesday club, as a kind of rival. Kelly had written a comedy called "False Delicacy," in which were embodied all the meretricious qualities of the sentimental school. Garrick, though he had decried that school, and had brought out his comedy of the Clandestine Marriage" in opposition to it, now lauded False_Delicacy" to the skies, and prepared to bring it out at Drury Lane with all possible stage effect. He even went so far as to write a prologue and epilogue for it, and to touch up some parts of the dialogue. He had become reconciled to his former colleague, Colman, and it is intimated one condition in the treaty of peace between these potentates in the realms of pasteboard (equally prone to play into each other's hands with the confederate potentates on the great theatre of life) was, that Goldsmith's play should be kept back until Kelly's had been brought forward. 46 In the meantime the poor author, little dreaming of the deleterious influence at work behind the scenes, saw the appointed time arrive and pass by without the performance of his play; while "False Delicacy" was brought out at Drury Lane (January 23, 1768) with all the trickery of managerial management. Houses were packed to applaud it to the echo; the newspapers vied with each other in their venal praises, and night after night seemed to give it a fresh triumph. While "False Delicacy" was thus borne on the full tide of fictitious prosperity, The Good-natured Man" was creeping through the last rehearsals at Covent Garden. The success of the rival piece threw a damp upon author, manager, and actors. Goldsmith went about with a face full of anxiety; Colman's hopes in the piece declined at each rehearsal; as to his fellowproprietors, they declared they had never entertained any. All the actors were discontented with their parts, excepting Ned Shuter, an excellent low-comedian, and a pretty actress named Miss Walford; both of whom the poor author ever afterward held in grateful recollection. Johnson, Goldsmith's growling monitor and unsparing castigator in times of heedless levity, stood by him at present with that protecting kindness with which he ever befriended him in time of need. He attended the rehearsals; he furnished the prologue according to promise; he pish'd and pshaw'd at any doubts and fears on the part of the author, but gave him sound counsel, and helped him up with a steadfast and manly hand. Inspirited by his sympathy, Goldsmith plucked up new heart, and arrayed himself for the grand trial with unEver since his elevation into the polite world, he had improved in his wardrobe and toilet. Johnson could no longer accuse him of being shabby in his appearance; he rather went to the other extreme. On the present occasion there is an entry in the books of his tailor, Mr. William Filby, of a suit of "Tyrian bloom, satin grain, and garter blue silk breeches, usual care. £8 28. 7d." Thus magnificently attired he attended the theatre, and watched the reception of the play and the effect of each individual scene with that vicissitude of feeling incident to his mercurial nature." Johnson's prologue was solemn in itself, and being delivered by Brinsley in lugubrious tones, suited to the Ghost in "Hamlet," seemed to throw a portentous gloom on the audience. Some of the scenes met with great applause, and at such times Goldsmith was highly elated; others went off coldly, or there were slight tokens of disapprobation, and then his spirits would sink. The fourth act saved the piece; for Shuter, who had the main comic character of Croaker, was so varied and ludicrous in his execution of the scene in which he reads an incendiary letter, that he drew down thunders of applause. On his coming behind the scenes, Goldsmith greeted him with an overflowing heart; declaring that he exceeded his own idea of the character, and made it almost as new to him as to any of the audience. On the whole, however, both the author and his friends were disappointed at the reception of the piece, and considered it a failure. Poor Goldsmith left the theatre with his towering hopes completely cut down. He endeavoured to hide his mortification, and even to assume an air of unconcern while among his associates; but the moment he was alone with Dr. Johnson, in whose rough and magnanimous nature he reposed unlimited confidence, he threw off all restraint, and gave way to an almost child-like burst of grief. Johnson, who had shown no want of sympathy at the proper time, saw nothing in the partial disappointment of overrated expectations to warrant such ungoverned emotions, and rebuked him sternly for what he termed a silly affectation, saying that "no man should be expected to sympathise with the sorrows of vanity." When Goldsmith had recovered from the blow, he, with his usual unreserve, made his past distress a subject of amusement to his friends. Dining one day, in company with Dr. Johnson, at the chaplain's table at St. James's Palace, he entertained the company with a particular and comic account of all his feelings on the night of representation, and his despair when the piece was hissed. How he went, he said, to the Literary Club; chatted gaily, as if nothing had gone amiss; and to give a greater idea of his unconcern, sang his favourite song about an old woman tossed in a blanket seventeen times as high as the moon. "All this while," added he, "I was suffering horrid tortures, and, had I put a bit in my mouth, I verily believe it would have strangled me on the spot, I was so excessively ill; but I made more noise than usual to cover all that; so they never perceived my not eating, nor suspected the anguish of my heart; but when all were gone except Johnson here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore that I would never write again." 66 Dr. Johnson sat in a maze at the old frankness and childlike self-accusation of poor Goldsmith. When the latter came to a pause, All this, doctor," said he, drily, "I thought had been a secret between you and me, and I am sure I would not have said anything about it for the world." But Goldsmith had no secrets: his follies, his weaknesses, his errors, were all thrown to the surface; his heart was really too guileless and innocent to seek mystery and concealment. It is too often the false, designing man that is guarded in his conduct, and never offends proprieties. It is singular, however, that Goldsmith, who thus in conversation could keep nothing to himself, should be the author of a maxim which would inculcate the most thorough dissimulation. Men of the world," says he, in one of the papers of the "Bee," "maintain that the true end of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them." How often is this quoted as one of the subtle remarks of the fine-witted Talleyrand! "The Good-natured Man" was performed for ten |