1768. Æt. 40. as False Delicacy continued to at- comedies they had not met; tract audiences,--Kelly resolved when, abruptly encountering each to resent the unfriendliness. other one night in the CoventWhat the exact character of their garden green-room, Goldfriendship had been, I cannot smith stammered out awkprecisely ascertain; but though ward congratulations to recent, it had probably for a time Kelly on his recent success, to been intimate. Kelly succeeded which the other, prepared for Jones as editor of the Public war, promptly replied that he Ledger, and the common connec- could not thank him because he tion with Newbery must have could not believe him. "From brought them much together; "that hour they never spoke to we find Kelly, as the world and "one another:"* and Kelly, reits prospects became brighter luctant that Goldsmith should be with him, moving into chambers troubled to "do anything more in the Temple, near Goldsmith's; "for him," resigned the club. nor is it difficult to believe the The latter allusion was (by way report of which I have found of satire) to a story he used to several traces, that but for his tell of the terms of Goldsmith's sensible remonstrance on the answer to a dinner invitation prudential score, his wife's sister, which he had given him. who lived in his house, and was "would with pleasure accept pretty and poor as his wife, being "your kind invitation," so ran the simply, as she had been, an whimsical and very pardonable expert and industrious needle- speech, "but to tell you the truth, woman, would have been car- "my dear boy, my Traveller has ried off and wedded by Gold-"found me a home in so many smith. Since their respective "places, that I am engaged, I be"lieve, three days. Let me see. ager the needlewoman proved, goes on to "I *Cooke, after mentioning Kelly's "To-day I dine with Edmund marriage, and what an excellent man- "Burke, to-morrow with Doctor say expressly: "Doctor Goldsmith, who "Nugent, ** and the next day "visited Kelly some years after, con"fessed this, and was so struck with the "comforts and conveniences of matrimony, that he proposed for the other 66 sister; but Kelly resisted this upon very "honourable grounds. He knew his "sister-in-law to be the very reverse of "his wife in temper and economy; he "likewise knew Goldsmith to be very "thoughtless in respect to worldly affairs, and not very industrious; he therefore "remonstrated with him on the great "impropriety of such a match, till with 'some difficulty and address, he weaned "him from the pursuit." Europ. Mag. XXIV. 339. The same writer seems to me 66 to put very sensibly the art or tact by which a writer so inferior to Goldsmith as Kelly had for the moment raised himself to the same level of stage success: "Goldsmith had the superiority of genius "and education, but would not bend "either beneath the level of his own "understanding; whilst Kelly, who un"derstood little more than the surface "of things, better accommodated his "knowledge to all the vicissitudes of 'public opinion." Europ. Mag. XXIV. 170. ** Again with Burke, that would be; for he and his father-in-law lived together "with Topham Beauclerc; but plate he possessed, that he added "I'll tell you what I'll do for you, to it his silver spurs; ** and who, "I'll dine with you on Satur-even as he laughed at his more day."* Now Kelly, though famous countryman's Tyrian 1768. conceited and not very bloom and satin, was displaying Et. 40. scrupulous, was not an ill-his own corpulent little person at natured man, on the whole; he all public places in "a flaming wrote a novel called Louisa Mild-"broad silver-laced waistcoat, may, which, with some scenes of "bag-wig, and sword.”*** a questionable kind of warmth, Mr. William Filby's bill marks an ill-natured man could not have the 21st of January as the day written; but he was not justified when the "Tyrian bloom satin in the tone he took during this "grain, and garter blue silk quarrel, and after it. It was "breeches" (charged £8 2s. 7d.) not for him to sneer at Gold-were sent home; and doubtless smith's follies, who was for no- this was the suit ordered for the thing more celebrated than for comedy's first night. Within his own unconscious imitations three months, Mr. Filby having of them; who was so fond, in his meanwhile been paid his prelittle gleam of prosperity, of dis-vious year's account by a draft playing on his sideboard the lon Griffin,+ another more ex at this time. The name was probably mistaken for that of Chamier, or some other of Goldsmith's club friends. *Europ. Mag. XXIV. 171. Incidental evidence is certainly afforded by Reynolds's note-books of this year, not only of the increase of Goldsmith's dinings out, but of the also unhappily increasing frequency of his dinners at home. Reynolds went for a few weeks' trip to Paris in the autumn, returning on Sunday, the 23rd of October, and on "Monday 24th, dined with Dr. Goldsmith," is the first entry after his return. "This dinner," Mr. Taylor adds, "is followed next day "by another; and during the remainder of the year there are frequent engage"ments with the Doctor, now living in his new rooms at Brick-court. One "of these engagements for Wednesday the 23rd of November, must have been "just after Reynolds had been made president of the New Academy. There "is one 6th of October engagement, too, to Mr. Bott, Goldsmith's opposite neigh"bour in Brick-court; and traces of a visit, doubtless with Goldsmith, to the "Shilling-Rubber Club held at the Devil Tavern." Life of Reynolds, 1. 218. ** Johnson mentioned this characteristic fact to Mr. John Nichols. Boswell, VII. 411. *** I quote from a notice of Kelly, also written by Cooke in the Europ. Mag. XXIV. 421. I subjoin the entries for 1767 and 1768 from Mr. William Filby's Ledger (whom Newbery miscalled Pilby, I find by reference to his original MSS, while Boswell misnamed him John), as given in Prior, II. 231-2. pensive suit ("lined with silk, tidings of his loss, the character "and gold buttons") was sup- of the Village Preacher was most plied; and in three months more, probably written; for certainly the entry on the same account of the lines which imme 1768. "a suit of mourning," furnished diately precede it were Æt. 40. on the 16th of June, marks the composed about a month period of his brother Henry's before. From his father and his death. At the close of the pre- brother alike, indeed, were drawn vious month, in the village of the exquisite features of this Athlone, had terminated, at the sketch; but of the so recent grief age of forty-five, that life of we may find marked and unactive piety and humble but questionable trace, as well in the noble usefulness, whose unpre-sublime and solemn image at tending Christian example, far the close, as in those opening above the worldlier fame he had allusions to Henry's unworldly himself acquired, his younger contentedness, which already he brother's genius has consecrated had celebrated, in prose hardly for ever. Shortly after he had less beautiful, by that dedication 1768. Jan. 21. (Paid by a draft on Griffin, Feb. 6, 1768.) To Tyrian bloom satin grain and garter March 17. To suit of clothes £8 2 7 colour, lined with June 16. silk, and gold buttons To suit of mourning July 22. To 2 yards of green livery cloth Aug. 29. To suit cleaned. (Paid Oct. 9, 1769, by a note on Mr. Griffin, three months after date, for £33.)" And now, as I am again on this subject of dress which so sadly plagues poor Goldsmith's memory, let me take the opportunity of remarking that sobriety of costume really was the exception rather than the rule of the period. I shall have something to record shortly of the wardrobe of the Macaronis, and meanwhile Horne Tooke's biographer may give us, from the year now present, a glimpse of the "fashionable" clothes in which the Vicar of New Brentford was wont to disport himself during intervals of holiday from his ministerial duties, and a relay of which he kept privately at Paris for that purpose. Among them we find suits of scarlet and gold, of white and silver, of blue and silver, of flowered silk, of black silk, and of black velvet. See Stephen's Life of Horne Tooke (letter dated 25th May, 1767), I. 83. To them his heart, his love, his griefs | Beheld the duteous son, the sire decay'd, The modest matron, and the blushing were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven: As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head. * The idea of the Deserted Village was thrown out at the close of the Traveller, maid, Forc'd from their homes...) 1768. Æt. 40. The and on the general glad acceptance of that poem he had at once turned his thoughts to its successor. subject of the growth of trade and opulence in England, of the relation of labour to the production of wealth, and of the advantage or disadvantage of its position in reference to manufactures and commerce, or as connected with the cultivation of land, which, * Gilbert Wakefield (in his Memoirs) two years after the Traveller apcalls this “perhaps the sublimest simile peared, Adam Smith exalted into "that English poetry can boast," and pro- a philosophic system by the resembling it, which however is not publication of his immortal Invery likely to have fallen in Goldsmith's quiry into the Nature and Causes of way. To my friend Lord Lytton I owe the Wealth of Nations, was one that the knowledge of another and very (Have we not seen, at pleasure's lordly call, The smiling, long-frequented village fall? duces a passage from Claudian strongly curious resemblance between it and Goldsmith had frequently adsome lines in a poem on the ills and in-verted to in his earliest writings, conveniences of old age, written by the and on which his views were unAbbé de Chaulieu, whom Voltaire so nay. "Au milieu cependant de ces peines cruelles De notre triste hiver, compagnes trop fidèles, much admired, and who felt the ills he doubtedly less sound than poeticelebrates so little, that when he had cal. It may be worth remark inpassed his eightieth year he was the declared lover of Mademoiselle de Lau-deed, that, a favourite subject of reflection as this theme always was with him, and often as he adverts to such topics connected with it as the effects of luxury and wealth on the simpler habits of a people, it is difficult to believe that he had ever arrived at a settled conclusion in his own mind, one way or the other. What he pleads for in his poetry, his prose for the most part condemns. Thus the argument of Je suis tranquille et gai. Quel bien plus précieux Puis-je espérer jamais de la bonté des dieux! Tel qu'un rocher dont la tête, Voit à ses pieds la tempête Troubler le calme des flots, La mer autour bruit et gronde; Malgré ses émotions, Sur son front élevé règne une paix the Deserted Village is distinctly at profonde, Que tant d'agitations Et que ses fureurs de l'onde Respectent à l'égal du nid des alcyons," |