Lawder, and you ask me what I would have done with them. My dear brother, I would by no means give any directions to my dear worthy relations at Kilmore, how to dispose of money, which is, properly speaking, more theirs than mine. All that I can say is, that I entirely, and this letter will serve to witness, give up any right and title to it; and I am sure they will dispose of it to the best advantage. To them I entirely leave it, whether they or you may think the whole necessary to fit you out, or whether our poor sister Johnson may not want the half, I leave entirely to their and your discretion. The kindness of that good couple to our poor shattered family, demands our sincerest gratitude, and though they have almost forgot me, yet, if good things at last arrive, I hope one day to return, and encrease their good humour by adding to my own. I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture of myself, as I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer. I have ordered it to be left for her at George Faulkener's, folded in a letter. The face, you well know, is ugly enough, but it is finely painted. I will shortly also send my friends over the Shannon some mezzotinto prints of myself, and some more of my friends here, such as Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Colman. I believe I have written an hundred letters to different friends in your country, and never received an answer from any of them. I do not know how to account for this, or why they are unwilling to keep up for me those regards, which I must ever retain for them. If then you have a mind to oblige me, you will write often whether I answer you or not. Let me particularly have the news of our family and old acquaintances. For instance, you may begin by telling me about the family where you reside, how they spend their time, and whether they ever make mention of me. Tell me about my mother, my brother Hodson, and his son; my brother Harry's son and daughter, my sister Johnson, the family of Ballyoughter, what is become of them, where they live, and how they do. You talked of being my only brother, I don't understand you-Where is Charles? A sheet of paper occasionally filled with news of this kind, would make me very happy, and would keep you nearer my mind. As it is, my dear brother, believe me to be yours, most affectionately, OLIVER GOLDSMITH."

The writer's weakness is here, too, as of old. He believes he could get, for his poor, idle, thriftless petitioners, exactly. what they want; though ruffles, minus the shirt, are the sum of his own acquisitions. But he will wait; and they must wait; and good things are sure to arrive; and they will one day be all in good humour again. The old, hopeful, sanguine, unreflecting story! Nevertheless, Maurice soon tired of waiting, as his wealthier relatives tired of helping him to wait; and he is shortly afterwards discovered again complaining to his brother, that really he finds it difficult to live like a gentleman. Oliver replies upon this in somewhat plainer fashion, recommending him by all means to quit the unprofitable calling, and betake himself to some handicraft employment, if no better can be found: whereupon Maurice bound himself to a cabinet-maker in Drumsna, in the county of Leitrim, in which calling, several years after his brother's death, he kept a shop in Dublin. Meanwhile Oliver's inquiry after brother-in-law Hodson's son, had the effect, soon after his letter reached Athlone, of bringing back to London a very unsettled, and somewhat

eccentric youth who had formerly visited Goldsmith, after abruptly quitting Dublin University, leaving at that time obscure traces of the extent to which his celebrated relative had befriended him; and who now, having chiefly occupied the interval in foreign travel, during which he had turned to account certain half-finished medical studies, lived for the most part in London, until his uncle Oliver's death, as a pensioner on his scanty resources. He resembled Oliver in some thoughtless peculiarities of character, and in his odd vicissitudes of good and evil fortune, for he once paid a small debt with an undrawn lottery ticket which turned out a prize of 20,000l. During his residence in London, he practised occasionally, without any regular qualification, as an apothecary in Newman-street, but he ultimately ended his days as a prosperous Irish gentleman, farming a patrimonial estate. When Goldsmith died, half the unpaid bill he owed to Mr. William Filby, and which amounted in all to only 791., was for clothes supplied to this nephew Hodson. Yet it does not appear that the bill was paid by this very genuine young branch of the old careless, idle, improvident Goldsmith stock.

CHAPTER VI.

DINNERS AND TALK. 1770.

IN Goldsmith's letter to his brother Maurice, it will have been observed that the writer's friends over the Shannon were

"In

1770. told shortly to expect some mezzotinto prints of himself, Æt. 42. and of such friends of his as Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Colman. The fact thus indicated has its proper biographical significance. The head of the author of the Traveller now figured in the print-shops. Reynolds had painted his portrait. "poetry we may be said to have nothing new," says a letter-writer of the day; " but we have the mezzotinto print of the new poet, "Doctor Goldsmith, in the print-shop windows. It is in profile "from a painting of Reynolds, and resembles him greatly." engraving was an admirable one, having been executed, under the eye of the great painter himself, by Guiseppe Marchi, his first pupil. The original, which Reynolds intended for himself, passed into the possession of the Duke of Dorset, and remains still at Knowle; but a copy also painted by Reynolds, and the only other portrait of Goldsmith known to have been touched by his pencil, was taken afterwards for Thrale, and ultimately placed in the

The

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dining-room at Streatham, by the side of Johnson, Burke, Garrick, and others of his famous friends. The life of his celebrity is thus, as it were, beginning; and from no kinder, no worthier hand than that of Reynolds, could it receive inauguration. The great painter's restless and fidgetty sister,-who used herself to paint portraits, with such exact imitation of her brother's defects and avoidance of his beauties, that, according to Northcote, they made himself cry and everybody else laugh,-thought it marvellous that so much dignity could have been given to the poet's face, and yet so strong a likeness be conveyed for "Dr. Goldsmith's cast of countenance," she proceeds to inform us, "and indeed his whole figure from head to foot, impressed every one at first sight with an idea of his being a low mechanic; particularly, I believe, a "journeyman tailor:" and in proof the lively lady relates that Goldsmith came in one day, at a party at her brother's, very indignant at an insult he had received from some one in a coffee-house; and, on explaining it as "the fellow took me for a tailor," all the party present either laughed aloud, or showed they suppressed a laugh. It is a pity they were not more polite, if only for their host's sake; since it is certain that these jibes were never countenanced by Reynolds. He knew Goldsmith better; and as he knew, he had painted him. A great artist does not measure a face, tailor-fashion; it is by seizing and showing the higher aspects of character, that he puts upon his work the stamp of history. No man had seen earlier than Reynolds into Goldsmith's better qualities; no man so loved and honoured him to the last; and no man so steadily protected him, with calm, equable, kindly temper, against Johnson's careless sallies. "It is amazing," said the latter more than once, with that too emphatic habit of overcharging the characteristics of his friends which all agreed in attributing to him, "it is amazing how little Goldsmith knows, he "seldom comes where he is not more ignorant that any one else;" and on Reynolds quietly interposing "yet there is no man whose 66 company is more liked," the other, fully conceding this, would explain it by the gratification people felt, to find a man of "the "most distinguished abilities as a writer" inferior in other respects to themselves. But Reynolds had another explanation. He thought that much of Goldsmith's nonsense, as the nonsense of a man of undoubted wit and understanding, had the essence of conviviality in it. He fancied it not seldom put on for that reason, and for no other. "One should take care," says Addison, "not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter;" and some such maxim, Reynolds seems to have thought, was put in practice by Goldsmith. It was not a little, at any rate, to have given that impression to so wise as well as kind an observer;

Ꮓ

to one of whom Johnson said to Boswell that he had known no one who had passed through life with more observation; and the confidence between the friends, which was probably thus established, remained unbroken to the end. I can only discover one disagreement that ever came between them; and the famous dinner parties in Leicester-square were now seldom unenlivened by the good humour and gaiety of Goldsmith.

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Nor is it improbable that, occasionally, those festive meetings were a little in need of both. "Well, Sir Joshua," said lawyer Dunning on arriving first at one of them, "and who have you got to "dine with you to-day? The last time I dined in your house, the company was of such a sort, that by I believe all the rest "of the world enjoyed peace for that afternoon." But though vehemence and disputation will at times usurp quieter enjoyments, where men of genius and strong character are assembled, the evidence that has survived of these celebrated dinners in no respect impairs their indestructible interest. They were the first great example that had been given in this country, of a cordial intercourse between persons of distinguished pretensions of all kinds, poets, physicians, lawyers, deans, historians, actors, temporal and spiritual peers, house of commons men, men of science, men of letters, painters, philosophers, musicians, and lovers of the arts,— meeting on a ground of hearty ease, good humour, and pleasantry, which exalts my respect for the memory of Reynolds. It was no prim fine table he set them down to. There was little order or arrangement; there was more abundance than elegance; and a happy freedom thrust conventionalism aside. Often was the dinner board, prepared for seven or eight, required to accommodate itself to fifteen or sixteen; for often, on the very eve of dinner, would Sir Joshua tempt afternoon visitors with intimation that Johnson, or Garrick, or Goldsmith was to dine there. Nor was the want of seats the only difficulty. A want of knives and forks, of plates and glasses, as often succeeded. In something of the same style, too, was the attendance; the "two or three occasional domestics" were undisciplined; the kitchen had to keep pace with the visitors; and it was easy to know the guests best acquainted with the house, by their never failing to call instantly for beer, bread, or wine, that they might get them before the first course was over, and the worst confusion began. Once Sir Joshua was prevailed upon to furnish his table more amply with dinner glasses and decanters, and some saving of time they effected; yet, as these " accelerating "utensils " were demolished in the course of service, he could never be persuaded to replace them. "But such trifling embar"rassments,” added Mr. Courtenay, describing them to Sir James Mackintosh, "only served to enhance the hilarity and singular

66 pleasure of the entertainment." It was not the wine, dishes, and cookery, it was not the fish and venison, that were talked of or recommended; those social hours, that irregular convivial talk, had matter of higher relish, and fare more eagerly enjoyed. And amid all the animated bustle of his guests, the host sat perfectly composed; always attentive to what was said, never minding what was eat or drank, and leaving every one at perfect liberty to scramble for himself. Though so severe a deafness had resulted from cold caught on the continent in early life, as to compel the use of a trumpet, Reynolds profited by its use to hear or not to hear, or as he pleased to enjoy the privileges of both, and keep his own equanimity undisturbed. "He is the same all the year "round," exclaimed Johnson, with honest envy.

"In illness and

"in pain, he is still the same. Sir, he is the most invulnerable man "I know; the man with whom, if you should quarrel, you will "find the most difficulty how to abuse." Nor was this praise obtained by preference of any, but by cordial respect to all; for in Reynolds there was as little of the sycophant as of the tyrant. However high the rank of the guests invited, he waited for none. His dinners were served always precisely at five o'clock. His was not the fashionable ill breeding, says Mr. Courtenay, "" which "could wait an hour for two or three persons of title," and put the rest of the company out of humour by the invidious distinction. Such were the memorable meetings, less frequent at first than they afterwards became, from which Goldsmith was now rarely absent. Here appeared the dish of peas one day that were anything but their natural colour, and which one of Beauclerc's waggish friends recommended should be sent to Hammersmith, because "that was the way to Turnham Green [turn 'em green]." It was said in a whisper to Goldsmith; and so tickled and delighted him that he resolved to pass it off for his own at the house of Burke, who had a mighty relish for a bad pun. But when the time came for repeating it, he had unluckily forgotten the point, and fell into hapless confusion. "That is the way to make 'em green," he said: but no one laughed. "I mean that is the road to turn 'em 66 green; "he blundered out but still no one laughed; and as Beauclerc tells the story, he started up disconcerted, and abruptly quitted the table. A tavern he would often quit, Hawkins tells us, if his jokes were unsuccessful; though at the same time he would generally preface them, as with an instinctive distrust of their effect, 66 now I'll tell you a story of myself, which some "people laugh at and some do not." The worthy knight adds a story something like Beauclerc's, which he says occurred at the breaking up of one of those tavern evenings, when he entreated the company to sit down, and told them if they would call for another