a mark of renewed confidence from Goldsmith, which may 1773. also show the fitful despondency under which he was labouring Et.45. at this time. He asked Percy to be his biographer; told him he should leave him his papers; dictated several incidents of his life to him; and gave him a number of letters and manuscript materials, which were not afterwards so carefully preserved as they might have been.* There is no doubt that his spirits were now unusually depressed and uncertain, and that his health had become visibly impaired. Even his temper failed him with his servants; and bursts of passion, altogether strange in him, showed the disorder of his mind. These again he would repent and atone for on the instant; so that his laundress, Mary Ginger, used to contend with John Eyles which of them on such occasions should first fall in his way, knowing well the profitable kindness that would follow the intemperate reproval. From such as now visited him, even men he had formerly most distrusted, he made little concealment of his affairs. "I remember him when, in "his chambers in the Temple," says Cumberland, who had called upon him there, "he showed me the beginning of his "Animated Nature; it was with a sigh, such as genius draws, * See Appendix A to this volume. Either Edmond Malone was a sinner in the same way (though, as he would have us believe, through too much care), or the Bishop lost also some papers entrusted to him by Malone. "I have a strong "recollection," he writes to Percy (5th June, 1802) "of having got, I know not "how, some verses addressed by Goldsmith to a lady going to Ranelagh, or going "to a masquerade, and of having given them to you for insertion; but I do not "find them anywhere." (He is referring to the edition of the Miscellaneous Works just then published with the Percy Memoir prefixed). The Bishop appears in his answer to have convinced him that the missing verses had never reached him; and in a second letter (July 20, 1802) Malone adds, "I cannot recollect "what I have done with the unpublished verses of Goldsmith, nor from whom "I got them. They remained for a long while folded in the Irish edition of his "works, and are there no longer; so I suppose I have deposited them somewhere so safely that I shall never find them. One often loses things in this way, by "too much care." 1773. At. 45. 66 when hard necessity diverts it from its bent to drudge for bread, and talk of birds and beasts and creeping things, 66 I which Pidcock's showmen would have done as well. "Poor fellow, he hardly knew an ass from a mule, nor a turkey from a goose, but when he saw it on the table."* Cumberland had none of the necessities of the drudge, and his was not the life of the author militant. That he could eat his daily bread without performing some daily task to procure it, was a fact he made always very obvious, and was especially likely to impress on any drudge he was visiting. "You and I have very different motives for resorting to the stage. I write for money, and care little about fame," said Goldsmith sorrowfully. His own distress, too, had made even more acute, at this time, his sensibility to the distress. of others. He was playing whist one evening at Sir William Chambers's, when, at a critical point of the game, he flung down his cards, ran hastily from the room into the street, as hastily returned, resumed his cards, and went on with the game. He had heard an unfortunate woman attempting to sing in the street; and so did her half-singing, half-sobbing, 66 *Memoirs, i. p. 352-3. The reader has had the opportunity of appreciating the value of such remarks. + Ibid. p. 366. Many passages in the Animated Nature show this melancholy tone; and one fancies it might be with something of a lingering personal allusion he stopped amid the fables recorded by Aldrovandus (iv. 403), to apostrophise "that "great and good man as one who "was frequently imposed upon by the "designing and the needy;" whose unbounded curiosity drew round him people of every kind "and whose generosity was as ready to reward falsehood as truth." "Poor Aldrovandus! he little thought of being reduced at last to "want bread, to feel the ingratitude of his country, and to die a beggar in a "public hospital!" For another somewhat similar and very striking passage on Reaumur, see v. 213-4, "It was in vain," exclaims Goldsmith, "that this poor "man's father dissuaded him from what the world considered as a barren pursuit; "it was in vain that an habitual disorder, brought on by his application, inter"rupted his efforts; it was in vain that mankind treated him with ridicule while "living, as they suffered his works to remain long unprinted and neglected when "dead: still the Dutch philosopher went on, &c." pierce his heart, that he could not rest till he had relieved her, and sent her away. The other card-players had been conscious of the woman's voice, but not of the wretchedness in its tone which had so affected Goldsmith.* It occurred to some friends to agitate the question of a pension for him. Wedderburne had talked somewhat largely, in his recent defence of Johnson's pension, of the resolve of the ministry no longer to restrict the bounty of the crown by political considerations, provided there was "distinction in the literary world, and the prospect of "approaching distress." No living writer now answered these conditions better than Goldsmith; yet application on his behalf was met by firm refusal. His talent was not a marketable one. A late nobleman who had been a member 66 66 " of several administrations," says poor Smollett, "observed to me that one good writer was of more importance to "the Government than twenty placemen in the House of "Commons: " but the good writer must have the qualities of the placeman, to enable them to recognise his importance, or induce him to accept their livery. They had lately managed to pension Arthur Murphy, and Hugh Kelly had been some years in their pay: but Goldsmith had declined 66 * I quote the version of this touching anecdote exactly as it appeared in the periodicals of the time: "This truly eccentric, yet amiable, character, was one " evening at a card party in the house of the late Sir William Chambers, Berners"street. The game, at the table to which he sat down, was whist: the set was, "Lady Chambers, Baretti, Sir William, and the Doctor. In a very important "period of this contemplative game, when the fate of the rubber depended upon a single point, Goldsmith, to the astonishment of every one, gave a sudden start, "threw down his hand of cards, flew out of the room, and into the street. He was "back again almost in an instant. Sir William, fearful that he had been ill, said, Where the deuce, have you been in such a hurry, Goldsmith?' 'I'll tell you,' "he replied; as I was deeply engaged, and pondering over my cards, my attention was attracted from them by the voice of a female in the street, who was singing "and sobbing at the same time: so I flew down to relieve her distress; for I "could not be quiet myself until I had quieted her.'" 666 666 1773. Æt. 45. 1773. the overtures which these men accepted. Such political Et. 45. feeling as he had shown in his English History, it is true, was decidedly anti-aristocratic: but though, with this, he may have exhibited a strong leaning to the monarchy, he had yet neither the merit, which with the King was still a substitute for most other merit, of being a Scotchman; nor even the merit, which might have done something to supply that defect, of concealing his general contempt for the ministers and politicians of the day.* While the matter was still in discussion, there had come up to London the Scotch professor, Beattie, who had written the somewhat trumpery Essay on Truth to which I formerly adverted; and which had eagerly been caught at, with avowed exaggeration of praise, as a mere battery of assault against the Voltaire and Hume philosophy. The object, such as it was, was a good one; and though it could not make Beattie a tolerable philosopher, it made him, for the time, a very perfect social idol. He was supposed to have "avenged" insulted Christianity. "He is so caressed, and invited, and treated, and liked, "and flattered by the great, that I can see nothing of him," says Johnson. "Every one," says Mrs. Thrale, "loves * May not we suppose, without any great stretch of fancy, that such a passage as this of Jack Lofty's (Goodnatured Man, Act ii.) would not be extremely pleasant in great places? "Sincerely, don't you pity us poor creatures in affairs? "Thus it is eternally solicited for places here, teazed for pensions there, and "courted everywhere. I know you pity me. Yes, I see you do. . . . Waller, "Waller, is he of the house?. . . . Oh, a modern poet! We men of business 66 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; and yet, I believe, upon a 66 land-carriage fishery, a stamp-act, or a jaghire, I can talk by two hours without feeling the want of them." Goldsmith could not have drawn a more exact portrait of the official celebrities, the ministers of state, of that day! And they rewarded him as he probably expected. In his enthusiasm he forgot for the time the rule he repeats so often. "You "know, sir, that no Scotchman publishes a book, or has a play brought upon the "Doctor Beattie but Goldsmith, who says he cannot bear "the sight of so much applause as we all bestow upon "him. Did he not tell us so himself, who could believe "he was so amazingly ill-natured?" Telling it, one half called him ill-natured; and the other half, absurd. He certainly had the objection all to himself. "I have been "but once at the club since you left England," writes Beauclerc to Lord Charlemont; we were entertained as "usual by Doctor Goldsmith's absurdity. Mr. V[esey] 66 can give you an account of it."* Some harangue against Beattie, very probably; for even the sarcastic Beau went with the rest of the "ale-house in Gerrard-street," in support of the anti-infidel philosopher. What most vexed Goldsmith, however, was the adhesion of Reynolds. It was the only grave difference that had ever been between them; and it is honourable to the poet that it should have arisen on the only incident in the painter's life which has somewhat tarnished his fame. Reynolds accompanied Beattie to Oxford, partook with him in an honorary doctorship of civil law, and on his return painted his fellow doctor in Oxonian robes, with the Essay on Truth under his arm, and at his side the angel of Truth overpowering and chasing away the demons of Infidelity, Sophistry, and Falsehood; the last represented by the plump and broad-backed figure of Hume, the second by the lean and piercing face of Voltaire, and the "stage, but there are five hundred people ready to applaud him." Boswell, viii, 177. * Letter dated from Muswell Hill, 5th July, 1773. Charlemont, 163. It is pleasant to find, from this and 66 Hardy's Life of Lord other letters, bow such "Mr. Vesey will tell men as Beauclerc continued to enjoy the society of the club. 1773. Æt. 45. |