said Gray, as in walking this derneath theirs) was afterwards year with a friend through a introduced to Johnson. Chambers crowded street of the city he saw had lately been admitted a mema large uncouth figure ber of the Gerrard-street club. 66 * 1769. "rolling" before them: His election, with those of Et. 41. "look, look, Bonstetten! Percy and George Colman, took "the Great Bear! There goes place on the resignation of Haw"Ursa Major!" It was John-kins. The records of the early son. "Ah!" said Goldsmith, years of the club are really so when such expressions were re-scanty and imperfect, that it is peated to him, "they may say difficult to ascertain the simplest "that. Johnson, to be sure, has fact in connection with it: but it a roughness of manner, but no appears certain, as I formerly 'man alive has a more tender stated, that on the occasion of "heart. He has nothing of the this second ballot for members "bear but his skin." Their en- it was resolved to enlarge the tertainer at Oxford was the ac-original number to twelve; when, complished lawyer, Chambers, at as a result of the resignation of this time Vinerian Professor, and Hawkins, and of Beauclerc's forfive years later a judge in India; feiture by continued non-attenin whose rooms his more cele- dance, four vacancies had to be brated townsman Scott (both filled. To the first, Percy was were Newcastle men, and on the elected; the second was reold panel of the grammar-school claimed by Beauclerc, whose reto which I went in my boyhood cent marriage with Lady Di I remember cutting my name un- Spencer on her divorce from Lord Bolingbroke sufficiently *Sir Egerton Brydges's Autobiography, II. 111. For an interesting account of explained his temporary withBonstetten, who died in Geneva little drawal;* and the third and more than forty years ago at the age of fourth were filled by Chambers 87, and whom Brydges knew in that city and George Colman. ** It was as "a lively little man, with smooth, "round, blooming cheeks," see the same volume, 378-399. If the anecdote related "There is an affair broke out," in the text be true, Boswell is wrong in writes Hume to the Countess de Boufflers, supposing that his father, old Auchinlech, on the 27th November, 1767, "which first applied the phrase to Johnson in "makes a great noise, between Lady 1773, "in a sly abrupt expression to one "Bolingbroke and your friend Beau"of his brethren on the bench of the "clerc. This lady was separated from "Court of Session in which Johnson was "her husband some time ago; but 'tis "then standing" (v. 132-3), after that "pretended bore a child lately to Mr. ever famous discussion about the merits "Beauclerc; and it is certain her husof Cromwell, which ended with the "band has begun a process for her startling and unexpected exclamation" divorce, in which nobody doubts of his that left the old judge decidedly vic-"success. It is a great pity: she is handtorious over Ursa Major: "God, doctor! "some, and agreeable, and ingenious, far "he gart kings ken that they had a lith "beyond the ordinary rate." Private Cor"in their necks"-he taught kings they respondence, 251-2. had a joint in their necks, **"I was received therein," says دو 1769. Æt. 41. on the occasion of this slight in-canvases did; and immediately crease that Goldsmith seems to before Goldsmith died, the numhave urged the expediency of aber was increased to twenty. larger infusion of new men. "It But from that time John"would give the club an agree- son took little interest in "able variety, he thought; the meetings. Almost all "there could now be nothing new the rising men of the day were "among the members, for they whigs, cursed whigs, bottomless "had travelled over each other's whigs, as he prematurely called "minds." This nettled John- Burke; and the spectacle of son, being too much in his own Charles Fox in the chair quoting way. “Sir,” he said, “you have Homer and Fielding to the as"not travelled over my mind, I tonishment of Joe Warton, was "promise you." Nevertheless, one he could not get reconciled Reynolds agreed with Goldsmith, to.* Within three years, he was thinking that life wanted colour himself the advocate of a yet and diversity as much as his own further increase to thirty; and the form the club then assumed Percy (Nichols's Illustrations, VII. 311), was precisely what he wished to "on Monday evening, 15th February, "1768: for at that time, and for several bring it to: "a mere miscellayears, the club always met to sup and 'neous collection of conspicuous "spend the evening every Monday dur- "men, without any determinate "ing the winter and spring months." "character." So, to the present But for this decisive intimation, I should have been disposed to think that the day, it has continued. It may change had certainly been made before be said to have ceased to be the the first performance of the Good-natured Literary club as soon as it became necessary for outsiders to call it so: and, though still stat magni nominis umbra, no effort has been made to revive its great, indeed its sole distinction. ** Man. 66 66 Letters of Boswell to Malone in appendix to Croker's Boswell, 839; and see ante, I. 233-4. * Mrs. Piozzi gives the remark in her own way. "No man," she says, speak ing of Johnson, "loved laughing better, and his vein of humour was rich, and 66 apparently inexhaustible; though Dr. "Goldsmith said once to him, 'We "should change companions oftener; 66 we exhaust one another, and shall "soon be both of us worn out. Poor "Goldsmith was to him indeed like the "earthen pot to the iron one in Fon**"Some slight curiosities of literature "taine's fables; it had been better for "may be gleaned from the records of "him perhaps that they had changed "the club. Since 1832, all the members "companions oftener; yet no experience "present are wont, before they separate, "of his antagonist's strength hindered "to subscribe their names, but in pre"him from continuing the contest. Hevious years it was the presiding mem"used to remind me always of that verse "ber only; and on one occasion, the "in Berni: "23rd of April, 1793, when Boswell filled "the chair, his signature appears most "unlike his usual one, sprawling in "blotted zigzags across the page, and "clearly denoting one of those Bac"chanalian excesses (confined, let us "Il pover uomo che non sen' èra Andava combattendo ed Anecdotes, 178-9. era Colman's election seemed a scribes a club incident soon after studied slight to Garrick, but Colman's admission. He says his claim was not inconsiderable. that Goldsmith, on the occasion It was a choice between of a play brought out by Mrs. 1769. rival managers and rival Lennox (a very ingenious, deEt. 41. wits; eager little figures serving, and not very fortunate both; both social and most woman, who wrote the clever agreeable men;* and the scale novel of the Female Quixote, and was easily turned. Langton de- a somewhat silly book about Shakespeare, to which Johnson, "hope, to him singly) such as he relates a great friend of hers, was sus"of himself in the isle of Skye. In con"trast with this too convivial scene, may pected to have contributed), told “be mentioned one of solitary grandeur. Johnson at the club that a per"On December 13th, 1825, the Earl of son had advised him to go and hiss "Liverpool, being then Prime Minister, it, because she had attacked the "resolved to dine at the club. By a "singular chance, no other member hap- great poet in her book called Shake"pened to form the same purpose for speare Illustrated. "And did you "that day, and thus Lord Liverpool not tell him," returned Johnson "passed the evening entirely alone. It appears from the books that the Prime sharply, "that he was a rascal?”" "Minister summoned to his aid one "No, sir," said Goldsmith, "I "bottle of Madeira, of which however did not. Perhaps he might not "we may be sure that, according to his "usual custom, he took but a very 'mean what he said." "Nay, "moderate share. This,' as a veteran "sir," was the reply, "if he lied, "and much-respected member writes to "it is a different thing." Colman 'was the day of the great run on "the London bankers, when Mr. Hus- was sitting by, while this passed; "kisson said that the whole financial and, dropping his voice out of "transactions of England were within Johnson's hearing, slily remarked ""barter; and the Prime Minister of to Langton, "Then the proper "England being the only man who "expression should have been, "'dined at the club on that day, is one of "Sir, if you don't lie, you're a "the most singular events that I know of "'in personal history." " "rascal."* Lord Mahon's The play was proHistory, vi. 330-1 (Tauchn. ed.). A complete duced at Colman's theatre with list of all the members, from its founda- the title of the Sister, and ention up to the year 1835 (by no means 66 "me, ""half-an-hour of being reduced to 66. correct, however, as to the dates of the countered so strong an opposirespective elections), will be found in tion that it was never repeated: Appendix to Boswell, 11. 326-9. but that the audience was not *The persons of both are thus hit off by Garrick, in a letter written when both impartial may be suspected from were thoroughly pleased and satisfied Langton's anecdote, and it is with each other. "But humour, my dear borne out by a reading of the "Coly, and scenes that shall be all alive "alive ho, only proceed from men of small comedy itself. Though with too "stature, whose eyes are either quite much sentiment, it is both amus"asleep or quite awake, in short, from ing and interesting; and the "men who laugh heartily, and have "small scars at the ends of their noses." Strawberry-hill critics who abused George Colman's Posthumous Letters, 256. *Boswell, VII. 358. it, and afterwards pronounced only practised cultivators. GoldBurgoyne's Heiress "the finest smith's genius for it will never"comedy in the English lan- theless bear comparison with "guage," might have had the even theirs. He could be 1769. justice to discover that three of playful without childish- Æt. the characters of the fashionableness, humorous without 41. General* were stolen from this coarseness, and sharply satirical very Sister of poor Mrs. Lennox. without a particle of anger. Goldsmith, however, had nothing Enough remains, for proof, in to reproach himself with. He his collected verse; but in prinot only refrained from joining vate letters that have perished, the dissentients, but assisted the many most charming specimens comedy (perhaps first disposed have undoubtedly been lost. For to sympathise with it because with such enchanting facility it Garrick had rejected it) by an flowed from him, that with epilogue written in his liveliest hardly any of his friends in the strain, and spoken by pretty Mrs. higher social circles which he Bulkley. now began to enter, did it fail to Goldsmith has had few com- help him to a more gracious acpetitors in that style of writing. ceptance, to warmer and more His prologues and epilogues are cordial intimacy. It takes but the perfection of the vers de the touch of nature to please société. Formality and ill-humour highest and lowest alike; and, are exorcised by their cordial whether he thanked Lord Clare wit, which transforms the theatre or the manager of Ranelagh, anto a drawing-room, and the swered an invitation to the audience into friendly guests. charming Miss Hornecks or supThere is a playful touch, an easy, plied author or actor with an airy elegance, which, when joined epilogue, the same exquisite tact, to terseness of expression, sets the same natural art, the same it off with a finished beauty and finished beauty of humour and incomparable grace; but few of refinement, recommended themour English poets have written selves to all. this style successfully. The The Miss Hornecks, girls of French, who invented the name nineteen and seventeen, were acfor it, have been almost its quaintances made during this * In this remark I do not desire to year; and they soon ripened into detract from the real merit of a very friends. They were the daughters pleasant comedy by an agreeable man, of Mrs. Horneck, Captain Kane though I cannot quite agree in what is Horneck's widow; whose Devonsaid of it either by Walpole or Horne Tooke, who in his Diversions of Purley shire family had connected her calls it (412), "one little morsel of false with Reynolds, and so introduced "moral excepted, the most perfect and her to Goldsmith. Her only son "meritorious comedy, without exception, "of any on our stage." Charles, the "Captain in Lace" as they now fondly called him, whether at any time aspiring to had entered the Guards in the other regard than his genius and preceding year, and seems to his simplicity might claim, at 1769. as to 'win favour in the eyes of the Jessamy Bride" (228); if there is an additional extravagance of wardrobe, "the "bright eyes of the Jessamy Bride" are made responsible for it (255); if he cannot resist an invitation of Mr. Bunbury's, sudden appearance in Mr. Filby's bills, "again we hold the Jessamy Bride re"sponsible for this splendour of ward"robe" (304); if she attends a rehearsal have been as cordial and least for these the sisters heartily goodnatured as her daugh- liked him; and perhaps the hapÆt. 41. ters were handsome and piest hours of the later years of young. The eldest, Catherine, his life were passed in their "Little Comedy" she was called, society. Burke, who was their was already engaged to Henry guardian, tenderly remembered William Bunbury (second son of in his premature old age the dea baronet of old family in Suffolk, light they had given him from whose elder son Charles had their childhood; their social as lately succeeded to the title); who is still remembered "Geoffrey Gambado," and one of the cleverest amateur artists and social caricaturists of his day. The youngest, Mary, had it is "especially as the Jessamy Bride no declared lover until a year "would of course be among the guests' after Goldsmith's death, nor was (275); if "a blue velvet suit" makes married until three years after that engagement to Colonel Gwyn; but already she had the loving nickname of the "Jes"samy Bride," and exerted "tributed to flutter the anxious heart of strange fascination over Gold-"the author" (312); as death approaches, smith. Heaven knows what im"the Jessamy Bride has beamed her last "smiles upon the poor poet" (360); and when all is over, a simple request of Mrs. Bunbury and her sister for a memorial of their pleasant friend hereafter to be reBut, corded, is turned into "the enthusiam" *This hint was first thrown out by of "one mourner" for his memory, "Jessamy Bride's," which "might have but Mr. Washington Irving, who has me; done me the honour to copy it and "soothed the bitterness of death" (369). many other things from the first edition of this This is running down a suggestion inbiography, goes somewhat too far in ac- deed!-and, with whatever success for cepting the suggestion as if it were an romance-loving readers, less pleasantly, ascertained fact, and proceeding to install it must be admitted, for sober seekers the "Jessamy Bride" in all the honours after truth. of a complete conquest of Goldsmith, *From Beaconsfield on the 1st of Feb. which, as he tells his readers (Life of 1792, we thus find Burke writing to Mrs. Goldsmith, 370), "has hung a poetical Gwyn: "Your approbation of anything I "wreath above her grave." In Mr."do is a satisfaction I feel very sensibly. Irving's little book, the "Jessamy Bride" "From your childhood I have admired becomes the very centre of all Gold-[“; your heart, and had a very good smith's hopes and thoughts in latter life."opinion of your judgment; and wished If there is a dance, the Jessamy Bride": you all manner of happiness with an must of course be his "partner" (308); if "affection which might without violence there is an expensive suit of clothes, it is "be called paternal." In the same letter possible dreams may at have visited the awkward, tractive man of letters!* times unat Bride's presence that" may have con "the |