and (as I have often heard you say) we have brought our own amusement with us, for the ladies do not seem to be very fond of what we have yet seen. 1770. "With regard to myself I find that travelling at twenty and at Æt. 42. forty are very different things. 1 set out with all my confirmed habits about me, and can find nothing on the Continent so good as when I formerly left it. One of our chief amusements here is scolding at every thing we meet with, and praising every thing and every person we left at home.* You may judge therefore whether your name is not frequently bandied at table among us. To tell you the truth I never thought I could regret your absence so much as our various mortifications on the road have often taught me to do. I could tell you of disasters and adventures without number, of our lying in barns, and of my being half-poisoned with a dish of green peas, of our quarrelling with postilions and being cheated by our landladies, but I reserve all this for an happy hour which I expect to share with you upon my return. "I have little to tell you more but that we are at present all well, and expect returning when we have staid out one month, which I should not care if it were over this very day. I long to hear from you all: how you yourself do, how Johnson, Burke, Dyer, Chamier, Colman, and every one of the club do. I wish I could send you some amusement in this letter, but I protest I am so stupified by the air of this country (for I am sure it can never be natural) that I have not a word to say. I have been thinking of the plot of a comedy which shall be entitled A Journey to Paris, in which a family shall be introduced with a full intention of going to France to save money. You know there is not a place in the world more promising for that purpose. As for the meat of this country I can scarce eat *The same opinion, more forcibly, he expressed later at Ridge's table (the 66 Anchovy" of Retaliation) when, being asked if he would recommend travel, he said yes, he would by all means recommend it, to the rich if they were without the sense of smelling, and to the poor if they were without the sense of feeling. it, and though we pay two good shillings an head for our dinner, I find it all so tough, that I have spent less time with my knife than my pick-tooth. I said this as a good thing at table, but it was not understood. I believe it to be a good thing. "As for our intended journey to Devonshire I find it out of my power to perform it, for, as soon as I arrive at Dover I intend to let the ladies go on, and I will take a country lodging somewhere near that place in order to do some business. I have so outrun the constable, that I must mortify a little to bring it up again. For God's sake the night you receive this take your pen in your hand and tell me something about yourself, and myself, if you know of any thing that has happened. About Miss Reynolds, about Mr. Bickerstaff, my nephew, or any body that you regard. I beg you will send to Griffin the bookseller to know if there be any letters left for me, and be so good as to send them to me at Paris. They may perhaps be left for me at the porter's lodge opposite the pump in Temple-lane. The same messenger will do. I expect one from Lord Clare from Ireland. As for others I am not much uneasy about [them].* The "Is there any thing I can do for you at Paris? I wish you would tell me. whole of my own purchases here, is one silk coat which I have put on, and which makes me look like a fool. But no more of that. I find that Colman has gained his lawsuit. I am glad of it. I suppose you often meet. I will soon be among you, better pleased with my situation at home than I ever was before. And yet I must say, that if anything could make France pleasant, the very good women with whom I am at present would certainly do it. I could say more about that, but I intend showing them this letter before I send it away. What signifies teazing you longer with moral observations when the business of my writing is over. I have one thing only more to say, and of that I think every hour in the day, namely, that I am your "Most sincere and most affectionate friend, "Direct to me at the Hôtel de Danemarc, "Rue Jacob, Fauxbourg St. Germains." "OLIVER GOLDSMITH. * Yet from one of them he was to learn his mother's death, Little more is to be added of them perfectly, whereas an Engthis excursion. It was not made lish parrot, talking his own namore agreeable to Goldsmith by tive Irish, was quite unintelan unexpected addition to the ligible to him.* It was 1770. party in the person of Mr. Hickey also told of him, in proof Æt. 42. (the "special attorney" who is of his oddity, that on niched into Retaliation),* who Mrs. Horneck desiring him more joined them at Paris, and whose than once, when they had no habit of somewhat coarse rail-place of Protestant worship to lery was apt to be indulged too attend, to read them the mornfreely at Goldsmith's expense. ing service, his uniform answer One of the stories Hickey told was, "I should be happy to on his return, however, seems to "oblige you, my dear madam, have been true enough. Gold-"but in truth I do not think mysmith sturdily maintained that a "self good enough." This, howcertain distance from one of the ever, we may presume to think fountains at Versailles was within perhaps less eccentric than his reach of a leap, and tumbled friends supposed it to be. into the water in his attempt to Goldsmith did not stay in establish that position. He also Dover as he had proposed. He made his friends smile by pro- brought the ladies to London. testing that all the French par- Among the letters forwarded to rots he had heard spoke such him in Paris had been an ancapital French that he understood nouncement of his mother's death. Dead to any conscious "He cherish'd his friend, and he re-ness or enjoyment of life, she lish'd a bumper; He was, could he help it? a special attorney." had for some time been; blind, and otherwise infirm; and hardly could the event have been unexpected by him, or by any one. Yet are there few, however early tumbled out upon the world, to whom the world has been able 66 The profession in those days failed to enjoy the esteem which its worthier members have since attracted to it.. "Much inquiry having been made con- For grave reasoning in support of "cerning a gentleman who had quitted a this proposition, see Animated Nature, IV. 66 company where Johnson was, and no 217. "I was at first for ascribing it to "information being obtained, at last "the different qualities of the two lan"Johnson observed that he did not care guages, and was for entering into an "to speak ill of any man behind his "elaborate discussion on the vowels and "back, but he believed the gentleman "consonants; but a friend that was with "was an attorney." Maxwell's Collec-"me solved the difficulty at once, by astanea, in Boswell, III. 141. Mrs. Piozzi relates the same incident (Anecdotes, 272), and adds that though Johnson did not encourage general satire, he was not at all displeased to be reminded of this instance of indulgence in it, "suring me that the French women "scarcely did anything else the whole "day than sit and instruct their feathered "pupils; and that the birds were thus "distinct in their lessons in consequence "of continual schooling." to give any substitute for that plaining it as for a "distant reearliest friend. Not less true lation, would not be credible of than affecting is the saying in one any man of common sensibility; of Gray's letters: "I have far less of him.* Mr. William "discovered a thing very Filby's bills enable us to speak Æt. 42. “little known, which is, with greater accuracy. As in 1770. "that in one's whole life one the instance of his brother's "never can have any more than death, they contain an entry of a "a single mother." The story “suit of mourning,” sent home (which Northcote tells) that would on the 8th of September. ** attribute to Goldsmith the silly But indulgence of sorrow is slight of appearing in half- one of the luxuries of the idle; mourning at this time, and ex- and whatever the loss or grief that might afflict him, the work *It touches a deeper sentiment than that waited Goldsmith must be the same thought in Herodotus, which prompts the choice of the brother before done. even husband or children, the parents being dead. Ω βασιλεῦ, ἀνὴρ μέν μοι ἂν ἄλλος γένοιτω, εἰ δαίμων ἐθέλοι, καὶ τέκνα ἄλλα, εἰ ταῦτα ἀποβάλοιμι πατρὸς CHAPTER IX. 1770-1771. δὲ καὶ μητρὸς οὐκ ἔτι μεν ζωόντων, The Haunch of Venison and Game of Chess. ἀδελφὸς ἐν ἄλλος οὐδενὶ τρόπῳ γένοιτο· ταύτῃ τῇ γνώμῃ χρεωμένη, ἔλεξα ταῦτα. Herodoti Thalia, cxIx. (Ed. Schweig- EIGHT days after he put on hæuser, I. 261.) So, too, our First Edmourning for his mother's death, ward, when he grieved less for his son's than for his father's death. (Hume, on the 16th of September, 1770, chap. XIII.) Lord Lyttelton writes to me Goldsmith was signing a fresh upon this: "There is a passage in "Sophocles which I have long known by agreement with Davies for an "heart, evidently copied from this of Abridgment of his Roman History "Herodotus. It is odd that though I read in a duodecimo volume; for mak"Herodotus through not long ago, I do ing which, "and for putting his "not remember observing this resem"blance till now. They are fine lines, "name thereto," Davies under"and may be worth referring to in a "future edition." The lines are 900-904 "About the year 1770, Dr. Goldof Antigone: Ed. Hermanni. 1825: where "smith lost his mother, who died in IreAntigone says that there might be an-land. On this occasion he immediately other husband for her if the first died, "dressed himself in a suit of clothes of and, if her child were lost, another from gray cloth, trimmed with black, such another man: but, her father and her mother being laid in the grave, it was impossible that a brother should ever be born to her. "as commonly is worn for second "mourning. When he appeared the first "time after this at Sir Joshua Reynolds's "house, Miss F. Reynolds, the sister of “Sir Joshua, asked him whom he had "lost, as she saw he wore mourning, “when he answered, a distant relation "only; being shy, as I conjecture, to own “that he wore such slight mourning for "so near a relative." Northcote's Life of Reynolds, I. 212. **See ante, 125. "The curfew tolls the knell of day, And-" took to pay fifty guineas.* The faults in the Parnell-memoir Tom same worthy bibliopole had pub- Davies of course tested by the lished in the summer his Life of sale; and with result so satisParnell, to which I formerly referred. It was lightly and plea-smith saying, "to Hurd, Gray, Et. 42. "tached," ," he represents Gold- 1770. santly written; had some really "and Mason, that you think nogood remarks on the defects as "thing good can proceed but out of that well as merits of Parnell's trans-"Elegy, by leaving out an idle word in "formal school; now, I'll mend Gray's lations; and contained that pretty" every line!" "And for me, Doctor, illustration (whereof all who have "completely spoil it." written biography know the truth as well as beauty), of the difficulty of obtaining, when fame has set its seal on any celebrated man, those personal details of "Enough, enough, I have no ear for his obscurer days which his con"more." Cradock's Memoirs, 1. 230. This was certainly carrying out to its most temporaries have not cared to alarming practical extent Voltaire's obgive: "The dews of the morning jection to epithets. "If certain authors "could only understand," exclaimed the are past, and we vainly try to great Frenchman, "that adjectives are "continue the chase by the me-the greatest enemies of substantives, "ridian splendour." It also con- "although they agree in gender, number, tained remarks on the orna- Edinburgh Review (LXXXVIII. 205: Lord "and case!" A subtle critic in the mented schools of poetry, in Lytton has since avowed himself the which allusions, not in the best writer) has on the other hand pointed taste, were levelled against Gray, poet more than Gray, precisely that word out that the epithet is often, and in no and less specifically against his in a verse which addresses itself most to old favourite Collins; yet re- the imagination of the reader, and tests marks, I must add, of which the good epithet is always an image; which most severely that of the author. principle was sound enough, the critic proceeds to illustrate by a line, though pushed, as good prin- which, as Shakespeare wrote it, would ciples are apt to be, to an absurd stand extreme. For, of styles all 66 A The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day; bristling with epithets, Voltaire until a process such as that which Goldhimself was not less tolerant than smith applies to the later poet, should Goldsmith; nor ever with greater amend it into the faultless simplicity of zest denounced the adjective, as the substantive's greatest enemy. ** But merits as well as *Percy Memoir, 79, note. The day! I am afraid that some meddler had been putting Goldsmith out of humour with the poet of Pembroke-hall, by telling him how meanly Parnell himself was thought of there. He had a sort of family as well ** I fear there is no reasonable ground as national liking for Parnell, and would for doubting that Goldsmith was guilty be sadly disposed to resent, with even of the egregious bad taste, which Cra-greater injustice in the other extreme, dock has recorded, of proposing to im- Gray's characterisation of him as "the prove Gray's Elegy by cutting the imagina-"dunghill of Irish Grub-street." See tion boldly out of it. "You are so at-Correspondence of Gray and Mason, 153. factory that another memoir "Goldsmith is gone with Lord had at once been engaged for, “Clare into the country," writes and now occupied Goldsmith on Davies to Granger, "and I am his return. Bolingbroke "plagued to get the proofs from 1770. was the subject selected, "him of his Life of Lord BolingÆt. 42. for its hot party-interest "broke."* However, he did get of course; indeed, the life was to them; and the book was pubbe prefixed to a republication of lished in December. It must be the Dissertation on Parties: but it admitted, I fear, that it is but a was not the writer's mode, what- slovenly piece of writing. The ever the bookseller may have two closing paragraphs, summing wished, to turn a literary memoir up Bolingbroke's character, alone into a political pamphlet; and have any pretension to strength what was written proved very or merit of style; and these were harmless that way, with as little so marked an imitation of that in it to concern Lord North as Johnsonian manner in which Mr. Wilkes, and of as small in- Goldsmith's writing for the most terest, it would seem, to the part is singularly deficient, whatwriter as to either. "Doctor ever his conversation at times *Nor should I omit to add that other may have been, that the resemsatisfactory result to his own fame which blance did not escape his friends arose from the famous eulogy of John- of the Monthly Review. They "The Life of Dr. Parnell is a task closed their bitter onslaught ** "which I should very willingly decline, "since it has been lately written by "Goldsmith, a man of such variety of powers, and such felicity of per"formance, that he always seemed to do The amiable Griffiths begins his attack "best that which he was doing; a man by candidly confessing his gratification "who had the art of being minute with- at the opportunity afforded him by Goldout tediousness, and general without smith's book, "of indulging a desire we confusion; whose language was copious "false, futile, and slovenly style, which, "have long had at heart, of exposing that "without exuberance, exact without con- to the utter neglect of grammatical pre"straint, and easy without weakness. "What such an author has told, who cision and purity, disgraces, &c. &c. &c., "would tell again? I have made an ab"and no author ever gave a fairer op"stract from his larger narrative; and "portunity of discharging it, than the "author of this Life of Bolingbroke." "have this gratification from my at"tempt, that it gives me an opportunity To show the delicacy of personal re"of paying due tribute to the memory of ference with which the so grateful office "Goldsmith. was discharged, I shall quote, with its comment, one out of the eighteen ex“ Τὸ γὰρ γέρας ἐστί θανόντων.” amples of "false language" laughed at Lives of the Poets. (Works, III. 522.) On by the critical and tasteful Griffiths. the other hand, he remarked to Boswell, "10. 'Bolingbroke and his wife parted on its first appearance: "Goldsmith's Life" by mutual consent, both equally dis"of Parnell is poor; not that it is poorly" pleased?' Arrah!" The reader will written, but that he had poor materials; perhaps thank me for closing this note "for nobody can write the life of a man, with a specimen of the imitation of John"but those who have eat and drunk and son to which I advert in the text. "lived in social intercourse with him." "this manner lived and died Lord BolingLife, III. 197-8. "broke, ever active, never depressed, son. 66 66 Granger's Letters, 48. **Monthly Review, Feb. 1771, XLIV. 108. "In |