to have walked into his chambers as into a home. To this period belong two such new acquaintances, sufficiently famous to have survived for recollection. The one was a youth named Robert Day, afterwards one of the Irish judges and more famous for his amiability than his law, first made known to Goldsmith by his namesake John Day, afterwards an advocate in India; the other was this youth's friend and fellow-student, now ripening for a great career, and the achievement of an illustrious name. The first strong impression of Henry Grattan's accomplishments was made upon Goldsmith; and it need not be reckoned their least distinction. Judge Day lived to talk and write to a biographer of the poet about these early times; and described the "great delight" which the conversation and society of Grattan, then a youth of about nineteen, seemed to give to their more distinguished countryman. Again and again he would come to Grattan's room in Essex-court; till "his warm heart," Mr. Day modestly adds, "became naturally prepossessed towards the associate of one whom "he so much admired."

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Goldsmith's personal appearance and manners made a lively impression on the young Templar. He recalled them vividly after a lapse of near seventy years, and Day's description is one of the best we have. He was short, he says; about five feet five or six inches; strong, but not heavy in make, and rather fair in complexion; his hair, such at least as could be distinguished from his wig, was brown. "His features were plain, but not repulsive; certainly not so when lighted up by conversation." Though his complexion was pale, his face round and pitted with the small-pox, and a somewhat remarkable projection of his forehead and his upper lip suggested excellent sport for the caricaturists, the expression of intelligence, benevolence, and good humour, predominated over every disadvantage, and made the face extremely pleasing. This indeed is not more evident in Reynolds's paintings of it, than in Bunbury's whimsical drawings; though I fancy it with more of a simple, plaintive expression, than has been given to it by the president, who, with a natural and noble respect, was probably too anxious to put the author before the man. His manners were kindly, genial, and "perhaps on the whole, we may say not 66 polished:" at least, Mr. Day explains, without that refinement and good breeding which the exquisite polish of his compositions would lead us to expect. He was always cheerful and animated, "often indeed boisterous in his mirth;" entered with spirit into convivial society; contributed largely to its enjoyments by solidity of information, and by the naïveté and originality of his character; talked often without premeditation, and laughed loudly without restraint. It was a laugh ambitious to compete with even

Johnson's which Tom Davies, with an enviable knowledge of natural history, compared to the laugh of a rhinoceros; and which appeared to Boswell, in their midnight walkings, to resound from Temple-bar to Fleet-ditch. To such explosions of mirth from Goldsmith, it would seem, the Grecian coffee-house now oftenest echoed; for this had become the favourite resort of the Irish and Lancashire Templars, whom he delighted in collecting around him, in entertaining with a cordial and unostentatious hospitality, and in occasionally amusing with his flute or with whist, “neither of "which he played very well." Of his occupations and his dress at the time, Judge Day confirms and further illustrates what is already known to us. He was composing light and superficial works, he says, memoirs and histories; not for fame, but for the more urgent need of recruiting exhausted finances. To such labours he returned, and shut himself up to provide fresh matter for his bookseller, and fresh supplies for himself, whenever his funds were dissipated; "and they fled more rapidly from his being the dupe of many artful persons, male and female, who "practised upon his benevolence." With a purse replenished by labour of this kind, adds the worthy judge, the season of relaxation and pleasure took its turn in attending the theatres, Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and other scenes of gaiety and amusement; which he continued to frequent as long as his supply held out, and where he was fond of exhibiting his muscular little person in the gayest apparel of the day, to which was added a bag-wig and sword.

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This favourite costume, it appears, involved him one day in a short but comical dialogue with two coxcombs in the Strand, one of whom, pointing to Goldsmith, called to his companion "to look "at that fly with a long pin stuck through it :" whereupon, says Mr. Day, the sturdy little poet instantly called aloud to the passers-by to caution them against "that brace of disguised 'pickpockets;" and, to show that he wore a sword as well for defence from insolence as for ornament, retired from the footpath into the coach-way to give himself more space, “and half drawing, "beckoned to the witty gentleman armed in like manner to follow "him: but he and his companion thinking prudence the better "part of valour, declined the invitation, and sneaked away amid "the hootings of the spectators." The prudent example was followed not long afterwards by his old friend Kenrick, who,having grossly libelled him in some coarse lines on seeing his name "in the list of mummers at the late masquerade," and being, by Goldsmith himself at an accidental meeting in the Chapter coffeehouse, not only charged with the offence but with personal responsibility for it,-made shuffling and lame retreat from his previously avowed satire, and publicly declared his disbelief of the foul

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imputations contained in it. Yet an acquaintance of both entered the house soon after Goldsmith had quitted it, and relates that he found Kenrick publicly haranguing the coffee-room against the man to whom he had just apologised, and showing off both the ignorance of science (a great subject with the "rule maker") and the enormous conceit of Goldsmith, by an account of how he had on some occasion maintained that the sun was not eight days or so more in the northern than in the southern signs, and, on being referred to Maupertuis for a better opinion, had answered "Maupertuis! I know more of the matter than Maupertuis." The masquerade itself was a weakness to be confessed. among the temptations of the winter or town Ranelagh which was this year built in the Oxford-road, at an expense of several thousand pounds, and with such dazzling magnificence (it is now the poor faded Pantheon, of Oxford-street) that "Balbec in all its "glory" was the comparison it suggested to Horace Walpole. Here, and at Vauxhall, there is little doubt that Goldsmith was often to be seen; and even here his friend Reynolds good-naturedly kept him company. "Sir Joshua and Doctor Goldsmith at "Vauxhall" is a fact that now frequently meets us in the Garrick Correspondence. "Sir Joshua and Goldsmith," writes Beauclerc to Lord Charlemont, "have got into a round of pleasures." “Would you imagine," he adds in another letter, "that Sir Joshua "is extremely anxious to be a member of Almacks? You see "what noble ambition will make a man attempt." Whether the same noble ambition animated Goldsmith,—whether the friends ever appeared in red-heeled shoes to imitate the leading maccaronis, or, in rivalry of Charles Fox and Lord Carlisle, masqueraded at any time as exquisitely-dressed "running footmen,"-is not recorded; but such were the fashionable follies of the day, indulged now and then by the gravest people. "Johnson often went to Ranelagh," says Mr. Maxwell, "which he deemed a place of "innocent recreation." "I am a great friend to these public 66 amusements, sir," he said to Boswell; "they keep people from "vice." Poor Goldsmith had often to repent such pleasures, notwithstanding. Sir Joshua found him one morning, on entering his chambers unannounced, walking quickly about from room to rocm, making a football of a bundle which he deliberately kicked before him; and on enquiry found it was a masquerade dress, bought when he could ill afford it, and for which he was thus doing penance. He was too poor to have anything in his possession that was not useful to him, he said to Reynolds; and he was therefore taking out the value of his extravagance in exercise.

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He had sometimes to do penance, also, in other forms. peculiarities of person and manner would for the most part betray

him, whatever his disguise might be, and he was often singled out and played upon by men who could better sustain their disguises than himself. In this way he had generally to listen to gross abuse of his own writings, by the side of extravagant praise of those of others whom he most bitterly disliked. It was so managed, too, that he should overhear himself misquoted, and parodied; till at last, in the hopeless impossibility of retaliation, he had frequently been seen abruptly to quit the place amid the hardly disguised laughter of his persecutors. Among his acquaintance at this time was a Mr. James Brooke (related to the author of the Fool of Quality, and himself somewhat notorious for having conducted the North Briton for Wilkes), whose daughter became afterwards resident in the family of Mr. John Taylor; and from his letters we learn that "Miss Clara Brooke, being once annoyed at a "masquerade by the noisy gaiety of Goldsmith, who laughed “heartily at some of the jokes with which he assailed her, was “induced in answer to repeat his own line in the Deserted Village.

'And a loud laugh which spoke the vacant mind.'

“Goldsmith was quite abashed at the application, and retired; as "if by the word vacant he rather meant barren, than free from "care." This last remark, the reader will observe, pleasantly suggests a new reading for the celebrated line which would make it much more true than the ordinary reading does. Some of the best of our now living writers are as famous for the loud laugh as for the well-stored mind, and Johnson, we have just heard, had a laugh like a rhinoceros, though what particular form of laugh that may be Tom Davies does not explain.

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Other allusions to a habit of Goldsmith's, however, which did not admit of even so much practical repentance as that of frequenting masquerades, are incidentally made in the letters of the time. Judge Day has mentioned that he was fond of whist, and adds that he played it particularly ill; but in losing his money he never lost his temper. In a run of bad luck and worse play, he would fling his cards upon the floor, and exclaim "Byefore George! I 'ought for ever to renounce thee, fickle, faithless fortune!" I have traced the origin of this card-playing to the idle days of Ballymahon; and that the love of it continued to beset him, there is no ground for questioning. But it may well be doubted if anything like a grave imputation of gambling could with fairness be raised upon it. Mr. Cradock, who made his acquaintance at the close of this year, tells us "his greatest real fault was, that if he "had thirty pounds in his pocket, he would go into certain com“panies in the country, and in hopes of doubling the sum, would "generally return to town without any part of it:" and another

acquaintance tells us that the "certain companies" were supposed to be Beauclerc and men of that stamp. But this only provokes a smile. The class to which Beauclerc belonged, were the men like Charles Fox or Lord Stavordale, Lord March or Lord Carlisle, whose nightly gains and losses at Almacks, which had now taken precedence of White's, were at this time the town talk; and though Goldsmith could as little afford his thirty pounds lost in as many nights at loo, as Lord Stavordale or Charles Fox his eleven thousand lost by one hand at hazard, the reproach of putting it in risk with as much recklessness does not seem really chargeable to him. When Garrick accused him of it, he was smarting under an attack upon himself, and avowedly retaliating. The extent of the folly is great enough, when merely described as the indulgence among private friends, at an utterly thoughtless cost, of a real love of card-playing. Such it appears to have been; and as such it will shortly meet us at the Bunburys', the Chambers's, and other houses he visited; where, poorer than any one he was in the habit of meeting, he invariably played worse than any one, generally lost, and always more than he could afford to lose. Let no reproach really merited be withheld, in yet connecting the habit with a worthier inducement than the love of mad excitement or of miserable gain. "I am sorry," said Johnson, "I have not learned to "play at cards. It is very useful in life. It generates kindness, "and consolidates society. If that innocent design was ever the inducement of any man, it may fairly be assumed for Goldsmith. His part in his English History completed, there was nothing to prevent his betaking himself to the country; but it was not for amusement he now went there. He was resolved again to write for the theatre. His necessities were the first motive; but the determination to try another fall with sentimental comedy, no doubt very strongly influenced him. Poor Kelly's splendid career had come to a somewhat ignominious close. No sooner had his sudden success given promise of a rising man, than the hacks of the ministry laid hold of him, using him as the newspaper tool they had attempted to make of Goldsmith; and when Garrick announced his next comedy, A Word to the Wise, a word to a much wider audience, exasperated by its author's servile support of their feeble and profligate rulers, went rapidly round the town, and sealed poor Kelly's fate. His play was hardly listened to. His melancholy satisfaction was that he had fallen before liberty and Wilkes, not before laughter and wit; but the sentence was a decisive one. Passed at Drury-lane in 1770, he had, with a new play, attempted its reversal at Covent-garden in the present year; but to little better purpose, though his name had been carefully concealed, and " a young American clergyman not yet arrived in

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