knighted as the President of the Royal Academy), Goldsmith, Garrick, Murphy, Bickerstaff, and Tom Davies. 66 Some days before it took place, however, an incident occurred of no small interest to that circle. One of Johnson's early acquaintance was Baretti, the Italian, a man of cynical temper and overbearing manners, but also of undoubted ability, who had been useful to him at the time of the Dictionary, and whose services had never been forgotten. To Goldsmith, on the other hand, this man had made himself peculiarly hateful, by all that malice in little, which on a larger field he subsequently practised against poor Mrs. Piozzi; and they seem never to have met but to quarrel. Their mutual dislike is described by Davies. "He (Goldsmith), least of all mankind, approved Baretti's conver"sation; he considered him as an insolent overbearing foreigner: as Baretti, in his turn, thought him an unpolished man, and an "absurd companion." It now unhappily fell out, however, that in a street scuffle Baretti drew out a fruit knife which he always carried, and killed a man (one of three who had grossly insulted him, on his somewhat rudely repulsing the overtures of a woman with whom they were proved to be connected); and it further happened that Goldsmith was among the first to hear of the incident next morning, when Baretti was under examination before Sir John Fielding. The good-natured man forgot all his wrongs instant, thought only of his enemy's evil plight, and hurried off to render him assistance. "When this unhappy Italian," says Davies, 66 was charged with murder and sent by Sir John Fielding to Newgate, Goldsmith opened his purse, and would have given "him every shilling it contained he at the same time insisted upon going in the coach with him to the place of his confine"ment." Bail was given before Lord Mansfield a few days later ; and never were such names, before or since, proffered in connection with such a charge. They were Reynolds, Fitzherbert, Burke, and Garrick. All the friends met to arrange the defence; and it was at one of the consultations, on a hot dispute arising between Burke and Johnson, that the latter is reported to have frankly admitted afterwards, "Burke and I should have been of one "opinion if we had had no audience." Baretti was acquitted, though not without merited rebuke; and Johnson subsequently obtainedfor him the post of tutor in the family of the Thrales (which Mrs. Thrale lived to have reason bitterly to repent), and Reynolds that of honorary foreign secretary to the new Academy. 66 66 in an But Mr. Boswell's dinner is waiting us. On that very day (as Mr. William Filby's bills enable us with commendable correctness to state), Goldsmith's tailor took him home "a half-dress suit of "ratteen lined with satin, a pair of silk stocking breeches, and a "pair of bloom-coloured ditto " (for which the entire charge was about sixteen pounds); and to Old Bond-street the poet would seem to have proceeded in "silk attire." Though he is said to have been last at every dinner party, arriving always, according to Sir George Beaumont, in a violent bustle just as the rest were siting down,-when he arrived on this occasion, there was still a laggard: but Garrick and Johnson were come, and Boswell pleasantly relates with what good humour they had met; how Garrick played round Johnson with a fond vivacity, taking hold of the breasts of his coat, and, as he looked up in his face with a lively archness, complimenting him on the good health which he seemed then to enjoy, while the sage, shaking his head, beheld him with a gentle complacency. Dinner continued to be kept waiting, however, Reynolds not yet arriving; and, says Boswell, "Goldsmith, to "divert the tedious minutes, strutted about bragging of his dress, "and I believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was wonder"fully prone to such impressions." Of course Boswell had no such weakness, any more than Horace Walpole, also a great laugher on the same score. Though the one had so lately figured in Corsican costume, and was so proud of his ordinary dress that he would show off, to the smallest of printers' devils, his new ruffles and sword, though the other had just received a party of French visitors at Strawberry-hill in elaborate state, presenting himself at 66 the gate in a cravat of Gibbons's carving" and a pair of Jamesthe-First gloves embroidered up to the elbows, - both thought themselves entitled to make the most of poor Goldsmith's "brag"ging;" and Garrick, however good the humour he might be in, had always his laugh in equal readiness. Come, come," he said, "talk no more of that. You are perhaps the worst. . . eh, eh!" Goldsmith eagerly attempted to interrupt him. "Nay," continued Garrick, laughing ironically, "nay, you will always look like a "gentleman; but I am talking of being well or ill drest." "Well,” answered Goldsmith, with an amusing simplicity which makes the anecdote very pleasant to us, "let me tell you, when my tailor “brought home my bloom-coloured coat, he said, 'Sir, I have a "favour to beg of you. When anybody asks you who made "your clothes, be pleased to mention John Filby, at the Harrow "'in Water-lane." " 66 Why, sir," remarked Johnson, "that was "because he knew the strange colour would attract crowds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of him, and see how well he could "make a coat, even of so absurd a colour." Crowds have been attracted to gaze at it, and Mr. Filby's bloom-coloured coat defies the ravages of time ! 66 How the party talked after dinner may be read in Boswell; in all whose reports, however, the confessed object is to give merely the talk of one speaker, with only such limited fragments of remark from others as may be necessary in elucidation of the one. Thus, there are but two sentences preserved of Goldsmith's; both sensible enough, though both of them indicating that he was not disposed to accept all Johnson's criticism for gospel. He put in a word for Pope's character of Addison, as showing a deep "knowledge of the human heart," while Johnson was declaring (quite justly) that in Dryden's poetry were passages drawn from a profundity which Pope could never reach; and he quietly interposed, when Johnson took to praising Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism, that it must have been easier to write that book "than it 66 was to read it." Yet a very interesting dinner to have been present at, one feels on the whole this must have been. Goldsmith's new coat one would like to have seen, with the first freshness of its bloom upon it. Something it must have been to hear Johnson repeat, "in his forcible melodious manner," those famous closing lines of the Dunciad which Pope himself could not repeat without a voice that faltered with emotion. Nor could the eager encounter of Garrick with Johnson on the respective merits of Shakespeare and Congreve fail to have had its entertainment for us; and, beyond and before all, who would not have laughed to see the very giver as well as describer of the feast plucking up courage to "venture" a remark at it, and bluntly called a dunce for his pains! Poor Boswell appears to have been the only one who came off ill at this dinner, as he did at several other meetings before he returned to Scotland,-being compared to Pope's dunces, having his head called his peccant part, and receiving other as unequivocal compliments, -so that he was fain to console himself with what he now heard Goldsmith, happily adapting an expression in one of Cibber's comedies, say of his hero's conversation. "There is no arguing with Johnson; for when his pistol "misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt-end of it." The nature of Goldsmith's employments at the close of 1769, are indicated in the advertising columns of the papers of the day. His English History occupied him chiefly, his History of Animated Nature occasionally; he had undertaken to write a life of his countryman, Parnell, for a new edition of his poems, this being a subject in which, as he remarks in the biography itself, what he remembered having collected in boyhood "from my father and "uncle, who knew him," had doubtless given him a personal interest; and the speedy publication of the Deserted Village was twice announced in the Public Advertiser. But it was not published speedily. Still it was paused over, altered, polished, and refined. Bishop Percy has mentioned the delightful facility with which his prose flowed forth unblotted with erasure, as a contrast to the labour and pains of his verse interlined with countless alterations; but in prose, as in poetry, he aimed at the like effects, and obtained them. He knew that no picture will stand, if the colours are bad, ill-chosen, or indiscreetly combined; and that not chaos, but order, is creation. It is a pity that men, though of perhaps greater genius, who have lived since his time, should not more carefully have pondered such lessons as his writings bequeath to us. It is a pity that the disposition to rush into print should be so general; for few men have ever repented of publishing too late. Goldsmith, alas! never found himself without the excuse which the successful poet, supreme in his power and mastery over the town, threw out for the instant needs and pressing necessities of less fortunate men. "Keep your piece nine years." "Nine years!" cries he, who, high in Drury-lane, Yet neither at the request of friends, nor at the more urgent call of hunger, did Goldsmith peril his chances of being cherished as a poet by future generations. Pope's own method of sending forth a part of a poem one winter, and promising its completion for the winter following, would be laughed at now-a-days: yet extremely few are the thoughts "conceived with rapture and with fire "begot," compared with those that may be carefully brought forth, becomingly and charmingly habited, and introduced by the Graces. Men of the more brilliant order of fancy and imagination should be always distrustful of their powers. Spar and stalactite are bad materials for the foundation of solid edifices. The year 1770 opens with a glimpse into the old fireside at Kilmore. The Lawders do not seem to have communica Æt. 42. 1770. ted with him since his uncle Contarine's death; and a legacy of 151. left him by that generous friend, remained unappropriated in their hands. His brother Maurice, still without calling or employment, and apparently living on such of his relatives as from time to time were willing to afford him a home, probably heard this legacy mentioned while he made one of his self-supporting visits, for he straightway wrote to Oliver. The money would help him to an outfit, if his famous brother could help him to an appointment; and to express his earnest hopes in this direction, was the drift of the letter. His sister Johnson wrote soon after, for her husband, in a precisely similar strain ; and to these letters Goldsmith's reply has been kept. It shows little change since earlier days. His Irish friends and family are as they then were. They do not seem to have answered many recent communications sent to them; he now learns for the first time that Charles is no longer in Ireland; his brother-in-law, Hodson, has been as silent as the rest; his sister Hodson he never mentions, some early disagreement remaining still unsettled; and he sends cousin Jenny his portrait, in memory of an original "almost forgot." The latter is directed to "Mr. Maurice "Goldsmith, at James Lawder's, Esq. at Kilmore, near Carrick-on"Shannon," and bears the date of "January, 1770.” "DEAR BROTHER, I should have answered your letter sooner, but in truth I am not fond of thinking of the necessities of those I love, when it is so very little in my power to help them. I am sorry to find you are still every way unprovided for ; and what adds to my uneasiness is, that I have received a letter from my sister Johnson, by which I learn that she is pretty much in the same circumstances. As to myself, I believe I could get both you and my poor brother-in-law something like that which you desire, but I am determined never to ask for little things, nor exhaust any little interest I may have until I can serve you, him, and myself more effectually. As yet no opportunity has offered, but I believe you are pretty well convinced, that I will not be remiss when it arrives. The king has lately been pleased to make me Professor of Ancient History in a royal Academy of Painting, which he has just established, but there is no salary annexed; and I took it rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit to myself. Honours to one in my situation are something like ruffles to a man that wants a shirt. You tell me that there are fourteen or fifteen pounds left me in the hands of my cousin |