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reports. Statements of numerous conversations, we are aware, cannot be always either accurate or full: the omission of an extenuating word or circumstance, or the introduction of a different term from that used at the moment, may impart a colouring to a discussion or story which the original circumstances did not warrant. In the dialogues with Johnson, some of the speakers probably have not had justice, or but imperfect justice, done them. Many omissions must necessarily have occurred under the circumstances in which the notes were taken; and he avows suppressions, the publication of which would have given offence, some of which it is believed bore as hardly upon himself as upon others. But on the whole, he may be considered as giving us the purport, if not words, as nearly as circumstances permitted, and therefore what he represents as coming under his own observation we may believe.

We are not required to place similar confidence in what he gleans from others, or to allow much weight to his mere opinions. To Goldsmith he is, as we see, unjust; to Sir John Hawkins, though not an amiable man, and to Mrs. Piozzi he is almost hostile; to a few others likewise, less liberal than might be wished. Yet as his representations are sometimes quoted in estimating characters of the past age, we have an exemplification of what every one must have found in their experience of the world, the different degrees of deference paid to dead and to living testimony. Many a statesman who has declaimed in Parliament for years without carrying a motion, or almost winning a vote, is often quoted after death as an authority even by surviving opponents, on points of political faith and practice. So the notions of Boswell upon literary men and merit, which would have commanded little attention from his contemporaries, receive by being disseminated in a popular book, a degree of attention denied personally to the writer.*

London was now exchanged by Goldsmith for a country residence.

* The correspondence of Hannah More furnishes a few characteristic notices of Boswell. At a dinner at Bishop Shipley's in 1781, where were Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Gibbon, Langton, Lords Spencer and Althorp, one of his infirmities is alluded to, and in terms that render it almost doubtful whether the subject of his address to her on the occasion was not amatory.

"I was heartily disgusted with Mr. Boswell, who came up stairs after dinner much disordered with wine, and addressed me in a manner which drew from me a sharp rebuke, for which I fancy he will not easily forgive me."

It appears likewise that besides being a habitual imitator of the manner of Johnson sometimes perhaps unconsciously, he could play the amusing mimic by design. At a party at Mrs. Vesey's she writes-"Boswell brought to my mind the whole of a very mirthful conversation at dear Mrs. Garrick's, and my being made by Sir William Forbes the umpire in a trial of skill between Garrick and Boswell which could most nearly imitate Dr. Johnson's manner. I remember I gave it for Boswell in familiar conversation, and for Garrick in reciting poetry."

In 1785 she writes-the book alluded to being no doubt the Tour to the Hebrides:-"Boswell tells me he is printing anecdotes of Johnson; not his life, but as he has the vanity to call it, his pyramid. I besought his tenderness for our virtuous and most revered departed friend, and begged he would mitigate some of his asperities. He said roughly 'He would not cut off his claws, nor make a tiger a cat to please any one.' It will I doubt not, be a very amusing book; but I hope not an indiscreet one: he has great enthusiasm, and some fire."

With a view to health, and perhaps to be near Newbery, for whom his pen was chiefly employed and who resided at Canonbury House, Islington, he removed to that neighbourhood to board and lodge in the house of a Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming, at the conclusion of the year 1762.

The sum stipulated for this accommodation was fifty pounds per annum, at that period equal to double the amount now, which the publisher as his usual cash-bearer paid quarterly, taking credit for such payments in the settlement of their accounts. This arrangement, dictated probably as much by his late illness alluded to in the note respecting Plutarch, as present convenience, Sir John Hawkins in his usual spirit attributes to a different cause. "Of the booksellers," writes that gentleman, "whom he styled his friends, Mr. Newbery was one. This person had apartments at Canonbury House, where Goldsmith often lay concealed from his creditors. Under a pressing necessity, he there wrote his Vicar of Wakefield, and for it received of Newbery forty pounds."

His removal thither took place probably about Christmas; for by the following account rendered in the course of the year it appears that the first quarterly payment was made on the 24th of March. In a rough copy of this account still preserved, the payments to Mrs. Fleming are specifically noted to be for "a quarter's board," the difference between the sum due (127. 10s.) and that which was paid in March, June, and October, as seen subjoined, being incidental expenses. Several books supplied to him are likewise set down; as "Three sets of Chinese Letters," "Annual Register," 4 vols., "the same half bound," "Smollett's Continuation," &c., "Reading's Life of Christ," and Nollett's Physics." The account is otherwise of some interest, as disclosing the extent and frequency of his obligations to Newbery.

"Doctor Goldsmith Dr. to John Newbery.
1 set of the Idler

£0 5

1761. October 14. 1762.

Nov. 9.

To Cash

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Oct. 11. By note of hand sent and delivered up the

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The lady whose inmate he became, is supposed to be represented in a picture which appeared in the winter exhibition of the works of deceased British artists in 1832. It was named "Goldsmith's Hostess" in the catalogue, and represents an elderly lady in a satin dress, with a Bible open before her: the painter is said to be Hogarth; and the inference thence drawn is, that he was a familiar visiter of the Poet previous to his death in 1764. The history of the painting is unknown, excepting that it has been forty years in the family of the present proprietor,* has always been designated among its members by the title it now bears, and was purchased by his father out of, as is believed, the Hyde collection. An etching, supposed to be from the same picture, is said to have been published some years ago.

Here he continued a resident during the whole of 1763 and part of 1764; and as illustrative of his private habits, the following bill of his landlady for the items of expense during a quarter will gratify curiosity. By this he appears to have been fond of sassafras, a decoction of which was then in vogue as an innocent and wholesome beverage, though now chiefly confined to medical purposes. The dinners mentioned without any price affixed were given to visiters of her lodger, and seem introduced in order that the generosity of his hostess towards him and them should not be forgotten. One of these, Dr. Reman as he is called here, was a Dr. Wm. Redmond, an Irish physician, who having resided several years in France where he had been acquainted with the Poet, had come to try his success in England; and professing to have made discoveries in the properties, or what he chose to term the "principles of antimony," had become involved in a dispute with some members of the Society of Arts, on which a year or two afterward he published a pamphlet in French. To the bill is appended the particulars of the account of his laundress, which it is scarcely necessary to transcribe: the items sufficiently prove that if formerly open to the

* Mr. R. Graves.

"Imported by T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, near Surrey Street, in the Strand. Price 18. 6d. Essai sur les Principes de l'Antimoine, par le Dr. Remond; avec une suite de Lettres intéressantes relatives à sa dispute avec la Société des Arts et des Sciences de Londres.'"-Public Advertiser. Some other notices of him occur in the newspapers of the day.

charge of neglecting his linen, it could not now justly be brought against him.

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Received, Dec. 9, 1763, by the hands of Mr. Newbery, the contents in full.

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ELIZ. FLEMING."

About the period of his removal thither, he was solicited to join in the "Poetical Calendar," a publication undertaken by the Reverend Mr. Fawkes, translator of several of the Greek minor poets, and Vicar of Orpington, and Mr. Woty, both his acquaintance: the invitation was declined, as is said, from a poor opinion of the poetical powers of his colleagues. The first volume came out in February, 1763, and met with only tolerable success.

CHAPTER XIII

Literary Projects.-Brooke's Natural History -Martial Review.-Literary Club.— Prefaces and Translations.-Letters from a Nobleman to his Son.

IT was probably about this period he projected an edition of Pope's works, with a life and notes, containing such illustrative matter as time had made public since the death of that distinguished poet. With this view he addressed a letter, which was known to be in existence a few years afterwards, to Tonson the bookseller in the Strand, detailing the design. But his name being unknown for poetry, and the publisher doubting either his weight in public opinion, his ability, or his diligence, did not deign to return a written answer, but desired a printer to call upon the gentleman in his name and give a verbal negative.

This was at least discourteous; but as Tonson is represented to have been a good-natured man, we may attribute it rather to inadvertency than intentional insult, and at least believe he would not send an impertinent message whatever he may have thought of the supposed presumption of the proposal: an offensive reply however was delivered; and the messenger exhibiting other proofs of impertinence, Goldsmith attempted to chastise him; nor was it till after some violence had taken place that the combatants were separated. This story first transpired at the period of his assaulting Evans the bookseller, but with aggravations, such as that his adversary being the stronger, succeeded in rolling him in the kennel; the object being to fix upon him the charge of being prone to affrays arising from extreme irritability of temper.

In the spring of the year 1763, about the period of ceasing to write the articles on Belles Lettres formerly mentioned in the British Magazine, he projected a work on biography, for which the cessation of Newbery's compendium on that subject presented, as he believed, an opening. The plan and probably part of the materials provided for the former work were submitted to Dodsley, who acceded to the proposal, and the following agreement was drawn up: it is transcribed from the original in the handwriting of Goldsmith, formerly in the possession of Mr. Nicol of Pall Mall, and now the property of Samuel Rogers, Esq., whose politeness in offering the use of it deserves acknowledgment:

"It is agreed between Oliver Goldsmith, M. B. on one hand, and James Dodsley on the other, that Oliver Goldsmith shall write for James Dodsley a book called a Chronological History of the Lives of Eminent Persons of Great Britain and Ireland, or to that effect, consisting of about two volumes 8vo., about the same size and letter with the Universal History published in 8vo.; for the writing of which and compiling the same, James Dodsley shall pay Oliver

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