66 66 66 Æt. 36. and, rather with regard to Gold-ment of his exile and poverty, smith's immediate want than to verged at last to fulfilment or any confident sense of the value extinction; and the hopes and of the copy, asked and obtained fears which centred in it, 1764. the sixty pounds. "And sir," mingled doubtless on that he said to Boswell afterwards, miserable day with the "a sufficient price too, when it fumes of the madeira! In the was sold; for then the fame excitement of putting it to press, "of Goldsmith had not been which followed immediately after, “elevated, as it afterwards was, the nameless novel recedes al"by his Traveller; and the book-together from the view; but will "seller had such faint hopes of reappear in due time. Johnson profit by his bargain that he approved the verses more than "kept the manuscript by him a the novel; read the proof-sheets "long time, and did not publish for his friend; substituted here "it till after the Traveller had ap- and there, in more emphatic "peared. Then, to be sure, it testimony of general approval, a was accidently worth more line of his own; prepared a brief 'money." but hearty notice for the Critical On the poem, meanwhile, which Review, which was to appear Reynolds had found him busy simultaneously with the poem; at, the elder Newbery had con- and, as the day of publication sented to speculate; and this cir- approached, bade Goldsmith be cumstance may have made it of good cheer. hopeless to appeal to him with a second work of fancy. For, on that very day of the arrest, the Traveller lay completed in the poet's desk. The dream of eight years, the solace and sustain- "THIS day is published," said “expectation had the bookseller from it. the Public Advertiser of the 19th "Had it been sold after The Traveller, he of December, 1764, "price one "might have had twice as much money "shilling and sixpence, The Tra"for it, though sixty guineas was noveller; or, a Prospect of Society, "vantage of Goldsmith's reputation from "a Poem. By Oliver Goldsmith, "The Traveller in the sale, though Gold-"M.B. Printed for J. Newbery "smith had it not in selling the copy." "in St. Paul's Church Yard." It SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS: "The Beggars' 66 "mean price. The bookseller had the ad CHAPTER X. The Traveller and what followed it. 1764-1765. "Opera affords a proof how strangely was the first time that Goldsmith "people will differ in opinion about a had announced his name in con"literary performance. Burke thinks it nection with anything he had "has no merit." All this should be re membered before harsh judgments are written; and with it he had repassed on the occasional querulous com- solved to associate his brother plaints that broke from Goldsmith as to Henry's name. To him he dedicated the poem. From the the reception given to his writings. * Boswell, II. 193. midst of the poverty which Henry that are differently governed could least alleviate, and turning from our own, that every state from the celebrated men with has a particular principle of hap 66 whose favour his own for-piness, and that this principle in 1764. tunes were bound up, he each may be carried to a misÆt. 36. addressed the friend and chievous excess: but he excompanion of his infancy, to pressed a strong doubt, since he whom, in all his sufferings and had not taken a political "side," wanderings, his heart, untra- whether its freedom from invelled and unsullied, had still dividual and party abuse would lovingly gone back. "The friend- not wholly bar its success. 'ship between us can acquire no While he wrote, he might have “new force from the ceremonies quieted that fear. As the poem “of a Dedication," he said; "but was passing through the press, 'as a part of this poem was Churchill died. It was he who "formerly written to you from had pressed poetry into the ser"Switzerland, the whole can now, vice of party, and for the last "with propriety, be only in- three years, to apparent exclu"scribed to you. It will also sion of every nobler theme, "throw light upon many parts of made harsh political satire the "it, when the reader under- favoured utterance of the Muse. "stands that it is addressed to a But his rude strong spirit had "man, who, despising fame and suddenly given way. Those un"fortune, has retired early to subdued passions; those prin"happiness and obscurity with ciples, unfettered rather than de"an income of forty pounds a praved; that real manliness of "year. I now perceive, my dear soul, scorn of convention, and un"brother," continued Goldsmith, questioned courage; that open with affecting significance, "the heart and liberal hand; that eager "wisdom of your humble choice. readiness to love or to hate, to "You have entered upon a sacred strike or to embrace; had passed "office, where the harvest is away for ever. Nine days earlier, "great, and the labourers are his antagonist Hogarth had gone "but few; while you have left the same dark journey; and the "the field of ambition, where the reconciliation that would surely, "labourers are many, and the even here, have sooner or later "harvest not worth carrying vindicated their common genius, "away." Such as the harvest the hearty English feeling which was, however, he was at last they shared, and their common himself about to gather it in. He cordial hatred of the false preproceeded to describe to his tences of the world, was left to brother the object of his poem, be accomplished in the grave. as an attempt to show that there may be equal happiness in states 66 * In a paper on Churchill in the Edinburgh Review (LXXXI. 46-88), printed in my 1764. Æt. 36. Be it not the least shame of the denounced in the person of profligate politics of these three Wilkes their own old profligate disgraceful years, that, arraying associate, and took the public in bitter hostility one section of morality into keeping. the kingdom against the other, Never, that he might they turned into unscrupulous merely fawn upon power personal enemies such men as or trample upon weakness, had these; made a patriot of Wilkes; Churchill let loose his pen. statesmen of Sir Francis Dash- There was not a form of mean wood, Lord Sandwich, and Bubb pretence or servile assumption Dodington; and, of the free and which he did not use it to devigorous verse of Churchill, a nounce. Low, pimping politics mere instrument of perishable he abhorred; and that their faction. Not without reason on worthless abettors, to whose exthat ground did Goldsmith con-posure his works are so incesdemn and scorn it. It was that santly devoted, have not carried which had made it the rare mix-him into oblivion with themture it so frequently is, of the selves, argues something for the artificial with the natural and im- sound morality and permanent pulsive; which so fitfully blended truth expressed in his manly in its author the wholly and the verse. By these the new poet partly true; which impaired his was to profit, as much as by the force of style with prosaical faults which perished with the weakness; and controlled, by the satirist, and left the lesson of necessities of partisan satire, his avoidance to his successors. In feeling for nature and truth. the interval since Pope's and Yet should his critic and fellow-Thomson's death, since Collins's poet have paused before, in this faint sweet song, since the dedication to the Traveller, he silence of Young, of Akenside, branded him as a writer of and of Gray, no such easy, lampoons. To Charles Hanbury familiar, and vigorous verse as Williams, but not to Charles Churchill's had dwelt in the Churchill, such epithets belong. public ear. The less likely was The senators who met to decide it now to turn away, impatient the fate of turbots were not or intolerant of the Traveller. worthier of the scourge of Juve- Johnson pronounced it a poem nal, than the men who, reeking to which it would not be easy to from the gross indulgences of find anything equal since the Medmenham-abbey, drove out death of Pope. Though coverWilliam Pitt from the cabinet, ing but the space of twenty years sat down by the side of Bute, Biographical Essays (Third Edition, pp: 255-328), I have expressed this view in more detail, (Pope died in 1744), this was praise worth coveting, and was honestly deserved. The elaborate skill of the verse, the ex quisite selectness of the diction, versions of language, and patchat once recalled to others, as to ing it out with affectations of Johnson, the master so lately bygone vivacity: "as if the more absolute in the realms of "it was unlike prose, the more 1764. verse; and with these "it would resemble poetry." Et. 36. there was a harmony of Making allowance for a brief extone, a softness of touch, a play-pletive rarely scattered here and ful tenderness, which belonged there, his poetical language is unpeculiarly to the later poet. adorned yet rich, select yet exWith a less pointed and prac-quisitely plain, condensed yet tised force of understanding than home-felt and familiar. He has Pope's, and altogether less re- considered, as he says himself of fined and subtle, the appeal to Parnell, "the language of poetry the heart in Goldsmith is more "as the language of life, and gentle, direct, and pure. The "conveys the warmest thoughts predominant impression received "in the simplest expression." from the Traveller is of its na- In what way the Traveller turalness and ease. The sur-originated, the reader has seen. passing charm with which its It does not seem necessary to every-day genial fancies encircle discuss in what precise proporhigh thoughts of human happi- tions its plan may have risen out ness, arrests the attention later. of Addison's Letter from Italy. The serene graces of its style, Shaped in any respect by Thomand the mellow flow of its verse, son's remark, in one of his lettake us captive, before we feel ters to Bubb Dodington, “that a the enchantment of its lovely "poetical landscape of countries, images of various life reflected "mixed with moral observations from its calm still depths of philo-"on their characters and people, sophic contemplation. Above "would not be an ill-judged all, however, we perceive that it "undertaking," it certainly could is a poem built upon nature; not have been; ** for that letter that it rests upon honest truth; was not made public till many not crying to either moon or years after Goldsmith's death, stars for impossible sympathy, when it appeared in Seward's and not dealing with other Anecdotes. The poem had been, worlds, in fact or imagination, eminently and in a peculiar dethan the writer has himself lived in and known. Wisely had Gold- ** Sir Egerton Brydges has pointed smith avoided, what in the false-out some resemblance of topics, and a heroic versifiers of his day he similar union of contemplation and description, in a now forgotten poem of had wittily condemned, the prac- the hardly-treated Blackmore; but there tice, even commoner since, of is nothing in the latter (the Nature of building up poetry on fantastic Man) to suggest anything like imitation. The only couplet quoted having unreality, clothing it in harsh in- any resemblance to the turns of Gold *Miscell. Works, III. 374. 1764. gree, written from personal feel-been. But "Garth did not write ing and observation; and the "his own Dispensary," and Goldcourse of its composition has smith had still less chance of been traced with the course of obtaining credit for his. its author's life.* When Bos-The rumour that Johnson well came back to London some had given great assistance t. 36. year or so after its appearance, is nevertheless contradicted by he tells us with what amazement even Hawkins; where he prohe had heard Johnson say that fesses to relate the extreme "there had not been so fine a astonishment of the club, that a "poem since Pope's time;"** newspaper essayist and bookand then amusingly explains the seller's drudge should have writphenomenon by remarking, that ten such a poem. Undoubtedly "much, no doubt, both of the that was his own feeling; and "sentiments and expression were others of the members shared it, "derived from conversation" though it is to be hoped in a with the great lexicographer. less degree. "Well," exclaimed What the great lexicographer Chamier, "I do believe he wrote really suggested was a title, The "this poem himself; and let me Philosophic Wanderer, rejected for "tell you, that is believing a something simpler; as, if offered, "great deal." Goldsmith had the Johnsonian sentiment and left the club early that night, expression would, I suspect, have after "rattling away as usual." smith's verse is where Blackmore says of the French, "Still in extremes their passions they Abject their grief, and insolent their He took in truth little pains himself, in the thoughtless simplicity of those social hours, to fence round his own property and claim. "Mr. Goldsmith," asked Chamier, at the next meeting of the club, "what do you mean by the last word in the first line of "your Traveller? I have spoken in a former passage of the plan of the poem, to which Macaulay has since paid splendid tribute. "No 66 philosophical poem, ancient or modern, 66 has a plan so noble, and at the same 'Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow.' "time so simple. An English wanderer, 66 "seated on a crag among the Alps, near "Do you mean tardiness of locothe point where three great countries "motion?" Johnson, who was meet, looks down on the boundless pro- near them, took part in what 66 spect, reviews his long pilgrimage, re 66 calls the varieties of scenery, of climate, followed, and has related it. of government, of religion, of national "Goldsmith, who would say "character, which he has observed, and "something without considera66 comes to the conclusion, just or unjust, "that our happiness depends little on "tion, answered 'Yes.' I was "political institutions, and much on the "sitting by, and said, 'No, sir, temper and regulation of our own you did not mean tardiness of ""locomotion: you mean that "minds." Biog. Ess. 61-2. ** Life, II. 308. |