moment, Toplady being about to speak, and Johnson uttering some sound which led Goldsmith to think he was again beginning, and was taking the words from Toplady, "Sir," he exclaimed, venting his own envy and spleen, according to Boswell, under the pretext of supporting another person, "the gentleman has heard you patiently for an hour; pray allow us now to hear him." "Sir," replied Johnson sternly, "I was not interrupting the "gentleman. I was only giving him a signal of my attention. Sir, you are impertinent.” Goldsmith made no reply, but continued in the company for some time. He then left for the club.

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But it is very possible he had to call at Covent-garden on his way, and that for this, and not for Boswell's reason, he had taken his hat early. The actor who so served him in Young Marlow, Lee Lewes, was taking his benefit this seventh of May; and, for an additional attraction, Goldsmith had written him the " осса“sional" epilogue I formerly mentioned, which Lewes spoke in the character of Harlequin, and which was repeated (for the interest then awakened by the writer's recent death) at his benefit in the following year. But if he called at the theatre, his stay was brief; for when Johnson, Langton, and Boswell appeared in Gerrard-street, they found him sitting with Burke, Garrick, and other members, "silently brooding," says Boswell, "over Johnson's "reprimand to him after dinner.' Johnson saw how matters stood, and saying aside to Langton, "I'll make Goldsmith forgive 66 me," ," called to him in a loud voice, "Doctor Goldsmith ! some66 thing passed to-day where you and I dined: I ask your pardon." To which Goldsmith at once "placidly" answered, "It must be "much from you, sir, that I take ill." And so at once, Boswell adds, the difference was over, and they were on as easy terms as ever, and Goldy rattled away as usual.

Not so did the

The whole story is to Goldsmith's honour. reverend Percy or the reverend Warton show Christian temper, when the one was called insolent and the other uncivil; not so could the courtly-bred Beauclerc or the country-bred Doctor Taylor restrain themselves, when Johnson roared them down; not so the gentle Langton and unruffled Reynolds, when even they were called intemperate; not so the historic Robertson, though comparing such rebukes of the righteous to excellent oil which breaks not the head, nor the philosophic Burke, drily correcting the historian with a suggestion of "oil of vitriol; "—not so, in short, with one single submissive exception, any one of the constant victims to that forcible spirit and impetuosity of manner, which, as the submissive victim admits, spared neither sex nor age.

But Boswell was not content that the scene should have passed as it did. Two days after, he called to take leave of Goldsmith

before returning to Scotland, and seems to have chafed, with his meddling loquacity, what remained of a natural soreness of feeling. He dwells accordingly with great unction, in his book, on the "jealousy and envy" which broke out at this interview, from a man who otherwise possessed so many "most amiable qualities;" and yet, in the same passage, is led to make the avowal that he does not think Goldsmith had more envy in him than other people. "In my opinion, however, Goldsmith had not more of it than "other people have, but only talked of it freely." He pursues

us:

the same subject later, where, in answer to a remark from Johnson about the envy of their friend, he defends him by observing that he owned it frankly on all occasions; and is thus met by Johnson. "Sir, you are enforcing the charge. He had so much envy that "he could not conceal it." Dr. Beattie in like manner informs "He was the only person I ever knew who acknowledged "himself to be envious;" to which let me add that Tom Davies makes a similar remark for himself, when he says, in a passage of his Life of Garrick which Johnson saw and approved before publication, that he never knew any man but one who had the honesty and courage to confess he had envy in him, and that man was Doctor Johnson. Such are the inconsistencies in which we find ourselves on this subject, and which really reach their height, when, in reply to some pestering of Boswell's on the same eternal theme, Johnson goes so far as to say that vanity was so much the motive of Goldsmith's virtues as well as vices that it prevented his being a social man, so that "he never exchanged mind with you.” As I have repeatedly illustrated in the course of this book, Goldsmith's faults lay on the ultra-social and communicative side. He was but too ready on all occasions to pour out whatever his mind contained, nor does it seem, as far as we may judge, that he was impatient of receiving like confidences from others.

But his last interview with Boswell remains to be described. As the latter enlarged on his having secured Johnson for a visit to the Hebrides in the autumn,—an achievement which elsewhere he compared to that of a dog who had got hold of a large piece of meat, and run away with it to a corner where he might devour it in peace, without any fear of others taking it from him,—Goldsmith interrupted him with the impatient remark that "he would “be a dead weight for me to carry, and that I should never be "able to lug him along through the Highlands and Hebrides.” Nor, Boswell continues, was he patiently allowed to enlarge upon Johnson's wonderful abilities; for here Goldsmith broke in with that exclamation, "Is he like Burke, who winds into his subject "like a serpent," which drew forth the triumphant answer, “But "Johnson is the Hercules who strangled serpents in his cradle,"

seldom equalled for its ludicrous inaptness by even Bozzy himself. All which would be amusing enough, if it had rested there; but, straight from the Temple, Boswell took himself to Fleet-street, and, with repetition of what had passed, his common habit, no doubt revived Johnson's bitterness. For this had not wholly subsided even a week or two later, when, on Mrs. Thrale alluding to his future biographer, he asked, "And who will be my biographer, do you "think?" "Goldsmith, no doubt," replied Mrs. Thrale; "and he will "do it the best among us.' "The dog would write it best, to be sure," was Johnson's half-jesting half-bitter rejoinder, “but his "particular malice towards me, and general disregard of truth, would "make the book useless to all, and injurious to my character."

Uttered carelessly enough, no doubt ("nobody, at times, talks 66 more laxly than I do," he said candidly to Boswell), and with small thought that his gay little mistress would turn authoress, and put it in a book! What Mrs. Thrale herself adds, indeed, would hardly have been said, if Johnson had spoken at all seriously. "Oh! as to that," said I, ". we should all fasten upon “him, and force him to do you justice; but the worst is, the "doctor does not know your life." Let such things, in short, be taken always with the wise comment which Johnson himself supplied to them, in an invaluable remark of his ten years later. "I am not an uncandid nor am I a severe man. I sometimes say

66 more than I mean, in jest; and people are apt to believe me "serious. However, I am more candid than I was when I was 66 younger. As I know more of mankind, I expect less of them; "and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms "than I was formerly." He loved Goldsmith when he so spoke of him, and had no doubt of Goldsmith's affection ;-but he spoke with momentary bitterness; of the "something after death," whether a biography or matter more serious, he never spoke patiently; and no man's quarrels, at all times, had in them so much of lovers' quarrels. "Sir," he said to Boswell, with a faltering voice, when Beauclerc was in his last illness, "I would walk 66 'to the extremity of the diameter of the earth to save Beauclerc :" yet with no one more bitterly than Beauclerc, did he altercate in moments of difference. Nor was his fervent tribute, "The earth, 66 sir, does not bear a worthier man than Bennet Langton," less sincere, because one of his most favourite topics of talk to Boswell was the little weaknesses of their worthy friend.

And now, approaching as I am to the conclusion of my book, let me take the opportunity of saying, that, with an admiration for Boswell's biography confirmed and extended by my late repeated study of it, I am more than ever convinced that not a few of those opinions of Johnson's put forth in it which appear

most repulsive or extravagant, would for the most part lose that character if Boswell had accompanied them always with the provocation or incitement under which they were delivered. But certainly he does not invariably do this, any more than he is at all times careful to distinguish when things are said in irony or jest. To illustrate my meaning, I quote a short passage from a conversation in which Boswell appears to have been boring Johnson by trying to prove that the highest sort of praise might yet, in particular circumstances, be resorted to without the suspicion of exaggeration. "Thus," he continues, "one might 'say of Mr. Edmund Burke, he is a very wonderful man ; " to which Johnson retorted, "No, sir, you would not be safe, if "another man had a mind perversely to contradict. He might

666

66 answer, 'Where is all the wonder? Burke is, to be sure, a man of uncommon abilities; with a great quantity of matter ""in his mind, and a great fluency of language in his mouth. "But we are not to be stunned and astonished by him.' So you

see, sir, even Burke would suffer, not from any fault of his own, "but from your folly." I cannot help regarding this last remark as the real clue to a great deal that offends against good taste in Boswell's extraordinary book. Men and things, and poor Goldsmith and his affairs very prominently among both, -over and over again "suffer not from any fault of their own," but from Boswell's teasing, pertinacious, harassing, and foolish way of dragging them forward. He was always disregarding that excellent saying of Mrs. Thrale's, formerly quoted, in which she tells us that to praise anything, even what he liked, extravagantly, was generally displeasing to Johnson. Boswell himself was continually falling into this scrape; and hence his own frequent confession that "it is not improbable that, if one had taken the other side, "he might have reasoned differently." The real truth was that, so long as, by any sort or kind of pestering or of excitement, he elicited one of Johnson's peculiarities, the more harsh or decisive the better, he did not care what or who might be sacrificed in the process. If he could ever discover a tender place, on that he was sure to fix himself; and any hesitation or misgiving about a particular subject, was pretty sure to be turned the wrong way if he proceeded to meddle with it. In regard to Goldsmith, too, the mere prevalence of a suspicion that he would be Johnson's biographer was of course discomforting; and there is doubtless some truth in Sir Walter Scott's suggestion, that "rivalry for Johnson's good "graces" in regard to this possible point of contention, might account for many of the impressions which Boswell, who naturally was neither an ill-natured nor an unjust man, received from such intercourse as he had with Johnson's earlier and older friend.

CHAPTER XVII.

DRUDGERY AND DEPRESSION. 1773.

1773.

Et. 45.

THE first volume of the Grecian History appears to have been finished by Goldsmith soon after Boswell left London, and Griffin, on behalf of the "trade," was then induced to make further advances. An agreement dated on the 22nd of June, states 250l. as the sum agreed and paid for the two volumes; but from this payment had doubtless been deducted some part of the heavy debt for which the author was already in arrear. The rest of that debt it seemed hopeless to satisfy by mere drudgery of his own, never more than doubtfully rewarded at best; and the idea now first occurred to poor Goldsmith of a work that he might edit, for which he might procure contributions from his friends, and in which, without any great labour of the pen, the mere influence of his name and repute might suffice to bring a liberal return. It is pleasant to find Garrick helping him in this, and the other acknowledging that service in most affectionate terms. Garrick had induced Doctor Burney to promise a paper on Music for the scheme, which was that of a Popular Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.

In exertions with a view to this project, and in other persevering labours of the desk, the autumn came on. "Here," he said exultingly to Cradock, on the latter entering his chambers one morning, are some of my best prose writings. I have been hard "at work ever since midnight, and I desire you to examine them. ઃઃ They are intended for an introduction to a body of arts and "sciences." Cradock thought them excellent indeed, but for other

admiration they have unluckily not survived. With these proofs of application, anecdotes of carelessness, of the disposition which makes so much of the shadow as well as sunshine of the Irish character, as usual alternate; and Cradock relates that, on one occasion, he and Percy met by appointment in the Temple, at Goldsmith's special request, and found him gone away to Windsor, after leaving an earnest entreaty (with which they complied) that they would complete for him a half-finished proof of his Animated Nature, which lay upon his desk. His once trim chambers had then fallen into grievous disorder. Expensive volumes, which, as he says in his preface to the book just named, had sorely taxed his scanty resources, lay scattered about the tables, and tossing on the