1765. to withdraw his claim. But he could not conceal his uneasi"He would often stop at my gate," says his good- Et. 37. natured friend Hawkins, who lived at Twickenham, “in his ness. 66 66 6 way to and from Hampton, with messages from Johnson relating to his Shakspeare, then in the press, and ask "such questions as these: Were you at the club on Monday night? What did you talk of? Was Johnson "there? I suppose he said something of Davy?-that Davy was a clever fellow in his way, full of convivial pleasantry, but no poet, no writer, ha!'"* Hawkins might hear all this, however, with better grace than any one else; for that worthy magistrate took little interest in the club. In a letter to Langton, written shortly after, Johnson specially mentions him as remiss in attendance, while he 66 6 "the happiest man upon earth with a small addition to his present income. . . He is 1765. Æt. 37. admits that he is himself not over diligent. "Dyer, Doctor "Nugent, Doctor Goldsmith, and Mr. Reynolds," he adds, 66 are very constant."* Without its dignified doctorial prefix, Goldsmith's name is now seldom mentioned; even Newbery is careful to preserve it in his memoranda of books lent for the purposes of compilation; and he does not seem, himself, to have again laid it wholly aside. Indeed he now made a brief effort, at the suggestion of Reynolds, to make positive professional use of it. It was much to have a regular calling, said the successful painter; it gave a man social rank, and consideration in the world. Advantage should be taken of the growing popularity of the Traveller. To be at once physician and man of letters, was the most natural thing possible: there were the Arbuthnots and Garths, to say nothing of Cowley himself, among the dead; there were the Akensides, Graingers, Armstrongs, and Smolletts, still among the living; and where was the degree in medicine belonging to any of them, to which the degree in poetry or wit had not given more glad acceptance? Out came Goldsmith accordingly (in the June of this year, according to the account books of Mr. William Filby the tailor), in purple silk small-clothes, a handsome scarlet roquelaure buttoned close under the chin, and with all the additional importance derivable from a full dress professional wig, a sword, and a gold-headed cane. The style of the coat and small-clothes may be presumed from the "four guineas "and a half" paid for them; and, as a child with its toy *Boswell, ii. 321. In the same letter he writes "Mr. Lye is printing his Saxon "and Gothic dictionary: all The Club subscribes." These account books were communicated to Mr. Prior by the son of William Filby (miscalled John in Boswell), Mr. John Filby, "a respectable member of the "Corporation of London," and will hereafter be quoted in detail. They complete the picture of which I furnish the beginning on a previous page (53-4), in the extracts there first printed from the Edinburgh tailor's ledger. 1765. is uneasy without swift renewal of the pleasurable excitement, with no less than three similar suits, not less expensive, Et. 37. Goldsmith amazed his friends in the next six months. The dignity he was obliged to put on with these fine clothes, indeed, left him this as their only enjoyment; for he had found it much harder to give up the actual reality of his old humble haunts, of his tea at the White-conduit, of his alehouse club at Islington, of his nights at the Wrekin or St Giles's, than to blot their innocent but vulgar names from his now genteeler page. In truth, he would say (in truth was a favourite phrase of his, interposes Cooke, who relates the anecdote), one has to make vast sacrifices for good company's sake; "for here am I shut out of several places "where I used to play the fool very agreeably."* Nor is it quite clear that the most moderate accession of good company, professionally speaking, rewarded this reluctant gravity. The only instance remembered of his practice, was in the case of a Mrs. Sidebotham, described as one of his recent acquaintance of the better sort; whose waiting-woman was often afterwards known to relate with what a ludicrous assumption of dignity he would show off his cloak and his cane, as he strutted with his queer little figure, stuck through as with a huge pin by his wandering sword, into the sickroom of her mistress. At last it one day happened, that, his opinion differing somewhat from the apothecary's in attendance, the lady thought her apothecary the safer counsellor and Goldsmith quitted the house in high indignation. He would leave off prescribing for his friends, he said. "Do so, "my dear Doctor," observed Beauclerc. "Whenever you "undertake to kill, let it only be your enemies." Upon the whole this seems to have been the close of Doctor Goldsmith's professional practice. CHAPTER XII. 1765. Æt. 37. NEWS FOR THE CLUB OF VARIOUS KINDS AND FROM VARIOUS PLACES. 66 1765-1766. THE literary engagements of Doctor Oliver Goldsmith were meanwhile going on with Newbery; and towards the close of the year he appears to have completed a compilation of a kind somewhat novel to him, induced in all probability by his concurrent professional attempts. It was "A Survey of Experimental Philosophy, considered in its present state of improvement ;" and Newbery paid him sixty guineas for it. He also took great interest at this time in the proceedings of the Society of Arts; and is supposed, from the many small advances entered in Newbery's memoranda as made in connection with that Society, to have contributed sundry reports and disquisitions on its proceedings and affairs, to a 66 * I give the memorandum (Newbery MSS. Prior, ii. 102-3) of books lent to Goldsmith for the purpose of this compilation. "Sent to Dr. Goldsmith, Sept. 11th, "1765, from Canbery (Canonbury) House the copy of the Philosophy to be revised, "with the Abbé Nollet's Philosophy, and to have an account added of Hale's "Ventilation, together with the following books. 1. Pemberton's Newton, 4to. "2. Two pamphlets of Mr. Franklin's on Electricity. 3. 1 of Ferguson's Astro66 nomy, 4to. 4. D'Alembert's Treatise of Fluids, 4to. 5. Martin's Philosophy, "3 vols. 8vo. 6. Ferguson's Lectures, ditto. 7. Helsham's ditto. 8. Kiel's Introduction, ditto. 9. Kiel's Astronomy, ditto. 10. Nature Displayed, 7 vols. 11. Nollet's Philosophy, 3 vols. 12mo." 66 "12mo. + See ante, 302, note. Besides the entries there given, others exist having reference to 1765, as for example: "Lent Dr. Goldsmith, at the Society of Arts, "and to pay arrears, 37 38." 66 new commercial and agricultural magazine in which the busy 1765. publisher had engaged. It was certainly not an idle year with Et.37. him; though what remains in proof of his employment may be scant and indifferent enough. Johnson's blind pensioner, Miss Williams, had for several months been getting together a subscription volume of Miscellanies, to which Goldsmith had promised a poem; and she complains that she found him always too busy to redeem his promise, and was continually put off with a "Leave it to me." Nor was Johnson, who had made like promises, much better. "Well, we'll think about it," was his form of excuse.* With Johnson, in truth, a year of most unusual exertion had succeeded his year of visitings, and he had at last completed, nine years later than he promised it, his edition of Shakspeare. It came out in October, in eight octavo volumes; and was bitterly assailed (nor, it may be admitted, without a certain coarse smartness) by Kenrick, who, in one of the notes to his attack, coupling "learned doctors of Dublin," with "doctorial dignities of "Rheims and Louvain," may have meant a sarcasm at Goldsmith. I have indicated the latter place as the probable source of his medical degree; and, three months before, Dublin University had conferred a doctorship on Johnson, though not until ten years later, when Oxford did him similar honour, did he consent to acknowledge the title. He had now, I may add, left his Temple chambers, and become * The poor old lady was more nervous about having received and spent her subscription halfcrowns than Johnson felt about his subscription guineas (ante, 219); "but," she said to Lady Knight, "what can I do? the Doctor [Johnson] always 66 puts me off with 'Well, we'll think about it;' and Goldsmith says, 'Leave it "to me."" Boswell, iii. 9. He never, himself, actually assumed it. It was in recognition of the completion of his Shakspeare that Dublin University did itself the honour to send him the doctor's diploma, which Oxford (his own University) had not the grace to do till ten years later, on the nomination of Lord North. It is certain, however, and not a little curious, remembering how world-famous this dignity became in his person, that he never called himself anything but "Mr. Johnson" to the close of his life. |