1768. Æt. 40. opinions were collected at the by allusion with Garrick; to end of the first act, "Very well, whom at the very time, as we “by—, very well!" was all that now know, the miserable culprit could be got from him. Alas for was writing from his hidwhat followed! "About the ing-place the most piteous "middle of the second act," says petitions for charity that the teller of the anecdote, "he one human being ever addressed "began to nod; and in a little to another. * An action was "time afterwards, to snore so *See Letter in Garrick Correspondence "loud that the author could (1.473), written in French, dated "St. "staff. I could not answer it." After an 66 "scarcely be heard. Bickerstaff Malo, Juin 24, 1772," and endorsed by "felt a little embarrassed; but Garrick, "From that poor wretch Bicker“raising his voice, went on. Hif-interval of nearly five years Bickerstaff "fernan's tones, however, also wrote again (11. 208): "I am in the "increased; till at last Goldsmith "greatest distress; so great that words "could hold out no longer, but cannot express it. I remember that 66 during the interval of my small pros"cried out, 'Never mind the "perity, I presented you at different ""brute, Bick! go on. So he "would have served Homer if "he was here, and reading his "❝own works.'"* "times, with some trifles; their value, I believe, might be about ten pounds: "these would now feed and clothe me." In the same letter he refers to Kenrick, justly enough, as "the vilest miscreant "that ever dishonoured a pretension to Nothing could be easier for "literature, and for whom there should Kenrick than to turn this into "be a whip in the hand of every honest a comparison of Bickerstaff to "man to lash him out of human society." Homer; and no laugh was hear- his own misconduct lashed out of human Yet to this wretched being, himself by tier than Garrick's at the new society, the stage was indebted for proof of Goldsmith's folly. But several very pure and pleasing enterfor his countenance of the libeller tainments, among them Love in a Village, The Maid of the Mill, Lionel and Clarissa, he was doomed to be severely The Spoiled Child, The Padlock, &c.; and punished, and in connection with we have seen in the course of this narthis very Bickerstaff. Some four rative that such men as Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick, Foote, Murphy, and years after the present date, that others, were indebted to him for occawretched man was driven from sional hospitality. "I closed with the society with an infamous stain, Murphy, persisting in one of his many "offer of Mr. Garrick's friendship," says and Kenrick grossly connected it querulous disputes with the manager of Drury-lane, and dined with him and *European Magazine, xxv. 184. Never-"Dr. Johnson at Bickerstaff's house. theless Hiffernan, according to Cooke, "After dinner the plays were mentioned. made his own best excuse next day, and "Prithee,' says Dr. Johnson, 'don't one which Goldsmith was ready enough "talk of plays; if you do, you will to admit as such; for when the latter" quarrel again.' He was a true proasked him how he could behave in that "phet." Murphy to Garrick, 13th Jan. manner, the other coolly replied, "It's 1773. Gar. Cor. 1. 520. I may add that 'my usual way-I never can resist sleep- this miserable Bickerstaff case called "ing at a pantomime." The close of his forth a celebrated and admirable saying life was of a piece with the rest of it. He of Johnson's. Mrs. Piozzi tells us that was found dead in his garret. "when Mr. Bickerstaff's flight confirmed 1768. 66. commenced against the libeller, always gave to Goldsmith, the and dropped upon ample apo- next most frequent object of his logy. * "I did not believe him attack. Nothing escaped this "guilty, but did it to Ishmael of criticism, not even the "plague the fellow," said Traveller. But "never mind, sir,” Et. 40. Kenrick to Thomas Evans. Johnson would say at some new The worthy bookseller never venom, as he said always of the spoke to him again. fellow's outrages on himself, "a Scoundrel as he was, it need man whose business it is to be not be denied that he had some "talked of, is much helped by cleverness. Johnson hit it off "being attacked." He explained exactly when he described it as the reason afterwards to Bosa faculty that made him public, well. "Fame, sir, is a shuttlewithout making him known. He "cock: if it be struck only at one used to lecture at the Devil and "end of the room, it will soon other taverns, on every con- "fall to the ground; to keep it ceivable subject from Shake-up, it must be struck at both speare to the perpetual motion, "ends." So too, on Boswell himwhich he thought he had dis- self remarking, four years after covered; having been, before he the present, that he thought got his Scotch doctorship and Goldsmith the better for the atbecame Griffiths's hack, a scale tacks so frequently made upon or rule maker. Hence Johnson's him, "Yes, sir," was the reply; quiet answer to the attack on his "but he does not think so yet. Shakespeare, that he could not "When Goldsmith and I pubconsider himself "bound by his "lished each of us something at "rules;" and similar advice he "the same time,* we were given "to understand that we might "the report of his guilt, and Mr. Thrale "review each other. Goldsmith "said, in answer to Johnson's astonish- "was for accepting the offer. I “ment, that he had long been a suspected "said, No, set reviewers at "'ground, dirt will be seen, sir,' was the "defiance."** Unhappily, his "man: "By those who look close to the "lofty reply; 'I hope I see things from "a greater distance." " Mrs. Piozzi's * Johnson's allusion to his own writAnecdotes, 168. I quote a letter from Mr. ing must here mean the edition of Macready on this passage: "The Spoiled Shakespeare, the False Alarm, or the Falk"Child was (I am pretty certain) not land Islands pamphlet; but as the two "written by Bickerstaff. It was (the latter were very recent, it is most pro"skeleton of it) drawn out by Ford, I bable that the Shakespeare was meant; "think he was called Dr. Ford, with especially as Goldsmith, within a few "whom Mrs. Jordan first lived in Lon- months of its appearance, was also bring"don, and whom she left, on his declining "to marry her, for the Duke of Clarence "saying, 'If lam to be a, it will be "better to be a prince's than a private 'person's.' Mrs. Jordan made up the "fun of the piece, such as it is." * See Gar. Cor. 1. 477. ing out the Traveller, the Essays, and the Vicar of Wakefield, and we know moreover that Johnson was writing reviews at this particular time for both the Critical Review and the London Chronicle. ** Boswell, iv. 306-7. v. 153. Johnson clinched his argument by a capital 1768. Æt. 40. friend never could do this; and inconveniences sometimes uneven the lesson of "retaliation" dergone from his Grub-street was learnt by him too late. Ken- protégés and pensioners, will rick remained, to the last, his properly dismiss for the evil genius; and it seems to have present this worshipful been with a sort of uneasy desire company of Kenricks and to propitiate him that Goldsmith Hiffernans. The hero of the yielded to Griffin's solicitation at anecdote had all the worst qualithe close of the present year, ties of the tribe; and "how do and consented to take part in "you think he served me?" said the editing of a new Gentleman's Goldsmith, relating the incident Journal in which Kenrick was a to a friend. "Why, sir, after leading writer, and for which "staying away two years, he Hiffernan, Kelly, and some others "came one evening into my were engaged. It died soon after "chambers, half drunk, as I was it was born; and, on some one "taking a glass of wine with remarking to Goldsmith what an "Topham Beauclerc and General extraordinary thing so sudden a "Oglethorpe; and, sitting himdeath was, "Not at all, sir," "self down, with most intolerhe answered: "a very common "able assurance inquired after "case; it died of too many Doc-"my health and literary pursuits, "tors."* "as if we were upon the most An amusing illustration, which "friendly footing. I was at first belongs nearly to this time, of "so much ashamed of ever havanecdote of old Bentley. "Why, they'll "ing known such a fellow, that I "stifled my resentment, and "drew him into a conversation "on such topics as I knew he "could talk upon; in which, to "do him justice, he acquitted himself very reputably: when all of a sudden, as if recollect"ing something, he pulled two papers out of his pocket, which "he presented to me with great dear friend, is a quarter of a ceremony, saying, 'Here, my "pound of tea, and a half pound "of sugar, I have brought you; for though it is not in my "power at present to pay you "vective make much noise, but by the "the two guineas you so gener"help of those they provoke." Piozziously lent me, you, nor any "man else, shall ever have it to "write you down," said somebody to the is also much to the purpose. "Of the "not hunt him out; I know little of it, . "in such an account to the publick there 66 may "heard it, and am inclined to believe Letters, 11. 289. * Europ. Mag. XXIV, 492, 66 ""say that I want gratitude.' served, not only that love of "This," added Goldsmith, "was literature and genius which made "too much. I could no longer him the first active patron of 1768. "keep in my feelings, but Johnson's London while yet the "desired him to turn out author was quite unknown, but Et. 40. "of my chambers directly, that "strong benevolence of soul" "which he very coolly did, tak- which connects his memory with ❝ing up his tea and sugar; and I the colonisation of Georgia, as "never saw him afterwards."* well as those Jacobite leanings Certainly Hogarth should have which involved him in a courtsurvived to depict this scene. martial after the affair of '45, No less a pencil could have given and subsequently shelved him as us the fastidious face of Beau- a soldier. He became a member clerc, than whom no man ever of the House of Commons, sat in showed a more uniform and even several Parliaments, compelled a painful sense of the ridiculous, reluctant inquiry into prisons and when the screws of tea and sugar punishments, and distinguished were produced! himself as much by humane as The Oglethorpe was a recent ac- by high-tory crotchets. quaintance, and has become, by sympathies which attracted him the compliment of Pope and in to Goldsmith, and continued the page of Boswell, an his- their intimacy, appear in the torical name. Now thirty years commencement of the only letter older than Goldsmith, he sur- that survives of their corresponvived him upwards of eleven dence. "How just, sir," writes years:** and to the last pre- Oglethorpe, "were your observations, that the poorest objects *Europ. Mag. XXIV. 260. Cooke says. were by extreme poverty deanecdote, which Goldsmith always told "prived of the benefit of hospitals with extraordinary humour; but I doubt "erected for the relief of the if Pilkington reappeared after the white "poorest." And he encloses five pounds for his friend to distribute as he may think proper. * Nor were they without the other that Pilkington was the hero of this mice. Ante, 1. 197. 66 ** Though he served under Prince Eugene against the Turks, he only obtained his full rank as General a year or two before the present date (in 1765). In April 1785 Walpole thus describes him: "General Oglethorpe, who sometimes Mann, Iv. 218. On the other hand, see "visits me, and who is ninety-five, has Madame D'Arblay's Memoirs of Dr. Bur"the activity of youth when compared ney, II. 274. Let me add that he read "with me. His eyes, ears, articulation, without spectacles to the last, and re"limbs, and memory would suit a boy, if tained the use of his senses and his limbs, "a boy could recollect a century back- thus commemorated by Walpole, till he "wards. His teeth are gone; he is a died. He had shot snipes in Conduit"shadow, and a wrinkled one; but his mead, where Conduit-street and Bond"spirits and his spirit are in full bloom: street now stand. See an agreeable notwo years and a half ago, he chal- tice of him in Lord Mahon's History, v. "lenged a neighbouring gentleman for 76-8 (Tauchn. ed.). "trespassing on his manor." Letters to 66 * Percy Memoir, 95-6, point of agreement which had "halfpenny a look." Here Goldattracted Oglethorpe to Johnson. smith stopped Johnson, pointSuch associations as Goldsmith ing up, and slily returned his had brought from Ireland had whisper, ISTIS."* CHAPTER IV. miscebitur Labours and Enjoyments, Public and Æt. 41. disposed him less to the domi- "Forsitan et nostrum nant race, of which by birth and breeding he was part, than to the cause of the native population. Thus, though the social bearing of politics always interested him most, and he cared little at any time for its party questions, he had something of WITH the opening of 1769. a half-fanciful Jacobite leaning; 1769, we find Goldsmith dabbled now and then in Ja- busily engaged upon new cobite opinions; and was as projects, his Roman History being ready for a hit at the Hanoverian- completed; and it was now, rat as Johnson himself. An anec- Percy tells us, that Johnson took dote of their stroll one day into him to Oxford, and obtained for Westminster Abbey has pre-him the degree ad eundem of served for us pleasant record of M.B.** The fact must rest on this. They stood together in the bishop's authority; for the Poets' Corner; surveyed the present Oxford registrar, though dead but sceptred sovereigns "he inclines to believe that the that there, from storied urn and "Bishop of Dromore's impresmonumental bust, still rule and "sion was correct," finds a chasm glorify the world; and the na- in the University register, which tural thought rose probably to leaves it without positive corthe minds of both, "Perhaps our roboration. They were at this "names, too, will one day be time much together, it is certain; "mingled with theirs." John- and if Johnson's opinion of the son broke the silence, and whis-genius of Goldsmith was now at pered the hope in a Latin its highest, it was repaid with very hearty affection. "Look,” verse, "Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis." *Boswell, III. 282. **Memoir, 36 (note). The wording of the passage might imply that Goldsmith himself was the authority. "In February, "1769, Dr. Goldsmith made an excursion They walked away from the Abbey together, and arrived at Temple-bar; where the ghastly remains of the last Jacobite exe-"admitted in that celebrated university "to Oxford with Dr. Johnson, and was cution were still rotting on the "ad eundem gradum, which he said was spikes above; and where, till not "that of M.B." Yet in the text of the Memoir, the writer had just expressed it long before, people had made a as doubtful whether he ever took any trade of letting spy-glasses at "a medical degree in a foreign university. |