1765.

meanwhile, had been suffered to "soon return to him. Mine repass by unheeded; and when his "turned to me, and I wrote in the poor struggling brother, for whom "Universal Visitor no longer."* he begged thus explicitly It was a sixpenny weekly pamthe earl's patronage, had phlet; the agreement was for Et. 37. also sunk unnoticed to ninety-nine years; and the terms the grave. The booksellers, on were that Smart was to write nothe other hand, were patrons thing else, and be rewarded with whom success at once estab-with one-sixth of the profits! It lished independent and incon- was undoubtedly a thing to retrovertible claims; and the Tra- member, this agreement of old veller, to a less sanguine heart Gardener's. The most thriving than its writer's, already seemed subject in the kingdom of the to separate with a broad white booksellers could hardly fail to line the past from that which recall it now and then; and the was to come. No Griffiths bond-very man to remind Goldsmith age could await him again. He of it, in goodnatured contrast to had no longer any personal bit- the opportunity he had lost, was terness, therefore, to oppose to the companion with whom he Johnson's general allegiance to left Northumberland-house that the "trade;" though, at the same day. Nevertheless he left with time, with Johnson, he made greater cheerfulness, and a betspecial and large reservations. ter-founded sense of indepenFor instance, there was_old dence, than if he had consented Gardener the bookseller. Even to substitute for his present Griffiths, by the side of Gardener, choice reliance a looked less ill-favoured. This "promises of great men." was he who had gone to Kit Smart in the depths of his poverty, and drawn him into the most astounding agreement on record. It was not discovered till poor Kit Smart went mad; and Goldsmith had but to remember how it was discovered, John Hawkins refers, at the close to forgive all the huffing speeches of his anecdote last related, as that Johnson might ever make to having vouchsafed to be Oliver him! "I wrote, sir," said the Goldsmith's solitary patron, was latter, "for some months in the not yet ennobled; nor could the "Universal Visitor for poor Smart, relation he had opened with the "not then knowing the terms on poet on the appearance of the "which he was engaged to write, Traveller be properly described "and thinking I was doing him as one of "patronage," though it "good. I hoped his wits would] * Boswell, v. 288.

on

CHAPTER XI.

"the

Goldsmith in Practice and Burke in]

Office.
1765.

THE "nobleman" to whom Sir

doubtless at times afforded him and was a great favourite with the delights of a splendid table women. "Some who knew him and a retreat for a few days from "well," said the late Lord Lans

the metropolis. Mr. Robert downe to the present 1765.

Æt. 37.

Nugent, the younger son of an writer, "told me he was a old and wealthy Westmeath". person of singular hufamily, was a jovial Irishman and "mour and talent for converman of wit who proffered hearty “sation,” and the portrait that and "unsolicited" friendship to used to be at Stowe shows this. Goldsmith at this time as a fel- His first wife, Lord Fingal's * low patriot and poet, * and main-daughter, brought him a good tained ever after an easy inter- fortune, and bore him a son; by course with him. In early life he his second wife, to whom he was had written an ode to Pulteney, ** the third husband, the sister and which contains the masterly heiress of Secretary Craggs verse introduced by Gibbon in his character of Brutus; ("What though the good, the brave, the

wise,

With adverse force undaunted rise,
To break the eternal doom!
Though Cato lived, though Tully
spoke,

Though Brutus dealt the god-like,
stroke,

Yet perished fated Rome!") and had attached himself to

(Pope's friend), and described as "a good-humoured, pleasant, fat "woman,"** he had no issue, but obtained large landed estates, a domain in Essex, and that mansion of Gosfield Hall in which: the exiled prince of France found afterwards a refuge; *** and from a third less lucky marriage,

*Plunket the attainted earl. **Gent. Mag. LIX. 406.

*** In his Historical Memoirs, (1. 126),

the party of the Prince of Wales, whom he largely assisted Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, who visited Lord with money. In the imaginary death, calls the "house and estate" at Nugent two years after Goldsmith's Leicester-house administrations Gosfield "one of the finest domains in commemorated by Bubb Doding-"Essex;" though the present condition ton he was always appointed to mansion would rather seem to confirm of the inclosure or paddock before the office; and had held appoint- the origin of the name (Goosefield). ments more substantial as comp- Wraxali's sketch is characteristic, but I troller of the prince's household, "When a bill was introduced into the can only give one of his a lord of the treasury, and vice- House of Commons for better watching treasurer of Ireland. He talked "the metropolis, in order to contribute well, though coarsely, "with a "the clauses went to propose that watch"towards effecting which object one of "vivacity of expression often "men should be compelled to sleep during "bordering on the Irish bull,"

แ

anecdotes.

"the day-time, Lord Nugent, with ad"mirable humour, got up and desired "that he might be personally included in "the provisions of the bill, being fre"quently so tormented with the gout, as "to be unable to sleep either by day or "by night." 1. 131-135.

with_Elizabeth Drax the Coun- gang)* was coming to a close at tess Dowager of Berkeley, sprang last, after a series of impolitic the daughter (its only issue he blunders without parallel in the consented to recognise) annals of statesmen. Early in 1765. who continued after the March of the previous year ('64), Æt. 37. separation to live with her after convulsing England from father and her aunt, Mrs. Peg end to end with the question of Nugent, until she married the general warrants and the ignoble Marquis of Buckingham in 1775, persecution of Wilkes, the first and united the names of Nugent attempt was made upon America and Grenville. Richard Glover, which roused her to rebellion. the epic and dramatic poet of In the autumn of that year, all Leicester-house, characterises her towns and cities were in loud him briefly as a jovial voluptuous and vehement protest; and beIrishman who had left popery for fore the year closed, Benjamin the protestant religion, money, Franklin had placed in Grenand widows: but Glover lived to ville's hands a solemn protest of see him surrender these fa-resistance on the part of his felvourites, and, not far from his low-colonists to any proposition eightieth year, go back to popery to tax them without their conagain. When his friendship with sent. But as yet, this met with Goldsmith began, he was a tall, little sympathy in England; and to stout, vigorous man of nearly Grenville's stubborn nature fear sixty, with a remarkably loud was as strange as wisdom. With voice and a broad Irish brogue; only one division in the Commons whose strong and ready wit, when the attendance was palcareless decision of manner, and try, and without a single negative reckless audacity of expression, in the Lords, he passed, at the obtained him always a hearing opening of the present year, the from the House of Commons, in act which created the Republic which he had sat for four-and- of America. Burke was in the twenty years. He was now gallery of the house during its watching, with more than ordi- progress (it had been his habit nary personal interest, the turn for some months to attend

of the political wheel. So, for almost every discussion), and the interest they took in the open- said, nine years afterwards, ing of Burke's great political life, that, far from anything inflamwere his new friend Goldsmith matory, he had never in his and every member of the Ger- life heard so languid a de

rard-street club.

So called because Bedford-house

The ministry which succeeded stood in Bloomsbury-square. Walpole's Bute's (that of George Gren-George III. n. 441. The Pitt and Temple ville and the Bedfords, or, as party were styled, happily enough, the whole cousin-[cozen]-hood. Waldegrave's they were called, the Bloomsbury Memoirs, 56,

bate. * Horace Walpole de- predominant old whig party had scribed it to Lord Hertford as a been lately rent asunder, and "slight day on the America which the present strange and "taxes." Barré, who had served sullen seclusion of Pitt ag

1765.

in America and knew the temper gravated and seemed to Æt. 37.

of the people, was the only man make hopeless. In vain whose language approached to he was appealed to; in vain the the occasion; and as he had poor King made piteous sublately lost his regiment for his missions to him. Fortunate in vote against general warrants, it legacies, a Somersetshire baronet was laughed at as the language whom he had never seen had of a disappointed man. Pitt, on just left him three thousand a occasions less momentous, had year; and it was whispered come to the house on crutches, about that he would never take swathed in flannel; yet now he office again. The opposition lost was absent. He afterwards prayed ground, which the ministry did that some friendly hand could not gain; the coercion of the have laid him prostrate on the King became notorious; the city floor of the house to bear his was shaken with riots, which in testimony against the bill; but it the general disorganisation rose is doubtful if the desire to see almost to rebellion; and while, Grenville more completely pros-on the one hand, a new adtrate had not had more to do ministration seemed impossible with his non-appearance than without Pitt, on the other it was either gout or fever. plain that Grenville and the Bed

The minister's triumph in his fords were tottering to their final Stamp Act', however, was brief. fall. The King was intensely The King had hardly given it his grateful for their invasion of the glad assent, when the first slight public liberties, and had joyfully seizure of the terrible målady co-operated in their taxation of which in later days more sorely America: but he hated them for afflicted him, necessitated an act hating Bute, who had placed of regency; and the mismanage-them in power, and for insulting ment of the provisions of that his mother the Princess Dowager, act hopelessly embroiled the whose intrigues had sustained minister with his master. Then them in power; while they had came the clash and confusion of preferred to allow his the parties into which the once Buckingham-gardens to be overlooked, rather than vote him a * Works, (ed. 1845), 1. 477. In the same speech Grenville made his ill-con- somewhat paltry grant which sidered attack on Dean Tucker, the only would have secured to the crown man of that day who thoroughly anti- a property now of almost incipated the judgment and experience of credible value.* It was his own our own on the great question of the American Colonies,

* Walpole's George III. 11. 160,

Own

chosen system of government to a young nobleman of princely rule without party, and solely by fortune and fascinating manners, the favour of the crown; and who made up for powers of here were its four years' oratory, in which he was wholly 1765. fruits. Ministers had be- deficient, by an inestimable art of Et. 37. come his tyrants, and attracting and securing friends;

statesmen held aloof from his whose character was unstained service. When his uncle Cum- by any of the recent intrigues; berland came back from Hayes and who had selected for his with Pitt's formal refusal, he associates men like himself, less thought in his despair of even noted for brilliant talents than the old Duke of Newcastle; be- for sense and honour. The great gan to make atonement for re- landed influence of the old Yorkcent insults to the house of shire family of Savile was Devonshire; and threw out baits worthily represented in their for those old pure whigs up to ranks by the present county this time the objects of his most member, Sir George: and with concentrated hatred. Doubts him were associated the financial and distrust shook the Princess ability of Dowdeswell, a country Dowager's friends, in which gentleman of Worcestershire, Nugent of course largely shared; and the many rare virtues of the and expectation stood on tip-toe Duke of Devonshire's youngest in Gerrard-street, where his uncle, Lord John Cavendish, who, friends of the club could hardly not more remarkable for his fair avoid taking interest in what little clownish person than for affected the fortunes of Edmund his princely soul, carried out in Burke. politics the principles of private For Burke, not unreasonably, honour with what Walpole sneerlooked to obtain employment in ingly calls "the tyranny of a the scramble. Hawkins said he "moral philosopher."* had always meant to offer himself Lord Albemarle has published, as Memoirs to the highest bidder;* but the of the Marquis of Rockingham and his calumny is hardly worth refuting. Contemporaries, a scries of letters relating He had honourably disengaged chiefly to the public affairs of this period, from the collections of his family, with himself from Hamilton, and an intelligent and well-informed comscornfully given back his pen- ment. At the close of the book (II. 486-8) sion; nor were his friends kept in the reader will find Burke's celebrated character of Lord Rockingham, written ignorance that he had since at- for the mausoleum in Wentworth-park, tached himself to the party of printed more correctly than he will find whigs the most pure and least it in any other place. Memoirs of George III. 11. 25. George powerful in the state. Lord Selwyn called him, says Walpole, as well Rockingham was at their head:** for his small stature and light complexion as for the quaintness with which *Miss Hawkins's Memoirs, I. 101. he untreasured, as by rote, the stores of **Since my first edition appeared, his memory, the learned canary bird."

With