hilarity. Thus the comedy of "The Good-Natured Man" was conceived, and in 1767 submitted to the judgment of Johnson, and other members of the Literary Club. Their verdict was favourable; and Johnson offered to write the prologue, declaring it to be the best comedy that had been written since "The Provoked Husband." An estrangement had taken place between Garrick-who was then manager of Drury Lane-and Goldsmith; but kind Joshua Reynolds brought them together at his own hospitable board, and reconciled them. Goldsmith gave the play to Garrick; delays arose; the manager spoke disparagingly of the play; suggested alterations, which the author indignantly resisted, and finally transferred the piece to Colman, the manager of the rival theatre of Covent Garden. At last, on the 29th January, 1768, it was put on the stage. Every actor played as if to damn it, save Shuter; and damned it would have been, but for his "Croaker," whose inimitable humour carried it safely through. Goldsmith, who had been in agonies throughout the performance, overwhelmed him with thanks, and with a desponding heart hurried off to the "Turk's Head," to disguise, in forced merriment, his chagrin; but he broke down when alone with Johnson, and burst into tears. It had a run of ten nights; then fitfully appeared at intervals; and, despite of its merits, never became a stock piece for the stage, though it has ever been a favourite with the reader. But it paid Goldsmith better than better things, and at the end of the time he had £500 in his pocket. Where worse could it have been? From so unsafe a place it was soon removed: £400 of it went to purchase chambers in Brick Court, Middle Temple; the rest in fine furniture. Then followed entertainments and hilarious uproar, singing, dancing, and romping at blind-man's buff, that scandalised the neighbourhood, and shook the ceiling of the room beneath, in which erudite Dr. Blackstone was then composing the fourth volume of his famous "Commentaries," and, it may be, considering whether the distracting tumult overhead came within the category of "common nuisancessuch inconvenient or troublesome offences as annoy the whole community "and, therefore, abateable by indictment; or only a "private nuisance"-as keeping "hogs or other noisome animals" near the house of another-for which he should bring his action at law. Judge Day, of the Irish Bench, who lived far into the days of the present generation, told many a pleasant anecdote of the kind reception he and Henry Grattan met from their good-natured countryman, when students in the Temple. Goldsmith is soon as necessitous as ever, and drudges away at compilations and nameless things; honours, in the meantime, gathering around him; for the King has lately made him Professor of Ancient History to the New Academy-a gift, as he humorously observed, like ruffles to one that wants a shirt." At times, too, he retreated from the City, and buried himself in the seclusion of his "Shoemaker's Paradise," some eight miles from town, on the Edgware Road. There, sauntering through

green fields and rural scenery-meditating on the social changes which the usurping march of wealth was effecting on the poor-he was composing his immortal poem of "The Deserted Village." His mind, too, was solemnised to tenderness by the recent death of his beloved brother Henry, to whom his heart had ever turned with the "ceaseless pain" of home-love-that brother for whom he had condescended to sue when he scorned to do so for himself, or to hire out his pen to a political party. Father and brother had now both gone to a better world; they had for him no existence on earth but in a loving memory-shadowy, but how beautiful! And thus their individual personalities were blent together, in the poet's fancy-as when one dreams of the dead—into one harmonious vision of ideal excellence: the "pastor" of "The Deserted Village." But this is a labour of thought and time, as well as of love; and, meanwhile, the man who flings away his earnings daily must work at what will give him daily bread. Accordingly, he wrote the "History of Rome,” and a biography of Parnell, and worked at his "Animated Nature" at intervals; alternating labour with pleasure, as was ever his wont; enjoying the society of the charming family of the Hornecks, "the Captain" and "Little Comedy," and, above all, the sweet "Jessamy Bride," whose memory will be ever associated with his own.

On the 26th of May, 1770, "The Deserted Village, a Poem, by Dr. Goldsmith," was published. Here is no hesitation as to its reception. The public judgment anticipates the critic's function. Praise is universal, and success immediate. Within a fortnight there is a second edition, four within the month of June, and a fifth in August. "Even his enemies in the press," says Mr. Forster, "were silent, and nothing interrupted the praise which greeted him on all sides." Truly, they were great critics who praised it then-Johnson, and Burke, and Gray-and in every age since great critics have affirmed the praise. Goethe and his friends hailed it with transport. Campbell, Scott, Byron, are loud in eulogy. "The judgment," says Mr. Forster, "has since been affirmed by hundreds of thousands, and any adverse appeal is little likely now to be lodged against it." We wish this last sentence had been qualified in the recent editions of Mr. Forster's work. Some years since, the silence was broken; the adverse appcal was lodged; but the general judgment has not been reversed. In a criticism as astutely censorious as it is palpably unsound, Macaulay has boldly arraigned the decision which a century had confirmed. He arraigns the poem, not for false theories in political economy, but for "an unpardonable fault which pervades the whole," and by which "more discerning judges are shocked." He declares the "poet cannot be pardoned for describing ill; for observing the world in which he lives so carelessly that his portraits bear no resemblance to the originals; for exhibiting, as copies from real life, monstrous combinations. of things which never were, and never could be, found together." Admirable

keenness of critical vision! For Lord Macaulay was reserved this notable discovery, that eluded the eyes of all his literary predecessors. The images that he saw were distorted and incongruous, indeed, but it was because the medium through which he looked diffracted and discoloured them. They who went before used no spectacles, and they saw correctly. He put them on that he might see better than they did, and so he saw what never existed. But the arraignment has been answered by an eloquent advocate. Mr. Whiteside thus sums up his able defence:--"I believe that criticism to be erroneous. First, who are the discerning judges who are shocked by the unpardonable fault which pervades the poem? When did they shine? What 'monstrous combinations of things has Goldsmith described, which never were, or could be, found together?' Nothing so unsound in criticism have I ever read. Must the poet fix time, and place, and locality for his poem? * One single idea is presented by the poet, which is wrought out in the poem to perfection." So let us pass from the criticism of Lord Macaulay. We do not think that it affected the fame of Goldsmith even momentarily. Despite the critic's great name, that criticism will be soon forgotten. Ere passing from the subject, it is well to record a statement made not without authority, strongly illustrative of the character of Goldsmith, as it is highly honourable to him, Having received £100, the price agreed for the poem, a friend remarked it was a great price (five shillings a couplet) for so short a work. "I think so, too," was the reply; "it is much more than the honest man can afford, or the piece is worth. I have not been easy since I received it." So Goldsmith returned the money, desiring the publisher to pay him when it should be ascertained what the poem was worth.

*

In the summer of 1770 he paid a visit to Paris, in the company of the Hornecks, to find, on his return, the intelligence of his mother's death awaiting him, and to turn again to the labour of his life, His "Memoir of Parnell" had recently appeared, and he now produced an abridgment of his Roman History. Then followed his English History, in four volumes. All this time Goldsmith spent money as fast as he got it. He was a "literary lion," and associated with the nobles and wits of the day, getting venison from Lord Clare, and making him immortal by his poetical acknowledgment; and, alas! loving the cardtable too much, and smarting for it. He takes lodgings with a farmer, Selby, in Hyde Lane,* off his favourite Edgware Road, where he spends much of his time strolling about the fields, composing his "Animated Nature;" and, with the leaven of his boyish nature working strongly in him, frequenting country fairs

*To Sir James Prior we are indebted for preserving the identification of this favourite residence of Goldsmith, as he visited it while the son of Farmer Selby was still living, who pointed out Goldsmith's room, and gave some very interesting anecdotes of the poet, whom he well remembered. Sir James recently took me to the house, which, as he describes it, "stands upon a gentle eminence, in what is called Hyde Lane, leading to Kenton, about three hundred yards from the village of Hyde, on the Edgware Road, and commands a view of an undulating country directly opposite, diversified with wood, in the direction of Hendon." I may add that the house, which now belongs to a Mr Arbon, faces some points south of east, and enjoys a very sweet prospect, having Hendon on the left and the high ground of Hampstead on the right. A garret on the north side of the house is now incorrectly shown as the poet's room.

and merry-makings, and show-booths and strolling players, and forgetting himself back into his early life; ever ready, as of old, to relieve the needy, and to alleviate human misery. Let us pass on. Goldsmith is again in town, labouring, earning, spending; dining and supping out; heedless, extravagant, and always in debt-the epitome of his life, from his first emergence from want in London to the last days of his existence. The year 1773 is come, and he had presented to Colman a comedy to which as yet he had given no name. The action was laid in a country village, and it abounded with such scenes and situations as Goldsmith had experimental knowledge of in early life. The Covent Garden manager read it, and then he thought over it, and so months and months passed on, and yet he gave no decisive answer. Goldsmith wrote in terms too pressing for further delay. "I have, as you know," he concludes his appeal, "a large sum of money to make up shortly; by accepting my play I can readily satisfy my creditor that way; at any rate, I must look about to some certainty to be prepared. For God's sake, take the play, and let us make the best of it, and let me have the same measure at least which you have given as bad plays as mine." Colman returns the MS. with annotations of a very disparaging kind, offering, however, to give the play a trial. Then Goldsmith, in hasty anger, sends it to Garrick. Johnson intervenes, for he, and Burke, and Garrick have read the play and seen its merits; he remonstrates with Colman; the MS. is withdrawn from Garrick, and, after the usual difficulties with author, manager, and actors, out comes, on the 15th of March, 1773, on the boards of Covent Garden, "She Stoops to Conquer." Meantime his friends were determined to make failure impossible. "The Terence of England," Richard Cumberland, has left us a humorous though probably exaggerated account of their preparations how they assembled at dinner at the Shakespeare tavern, under the presidency of the great Samuel Johnson; how they laid their plans, assigned their posts to the claqueurs, and gave them their cues for their plaudits; how the great doctor sat in the front row, with all eyes on him, and when he laughed how everybody roared; how Adam Drummond, "with the most sonorous, and at the same time the most contagious laugh that ever echoed from human lungs," was planted in an upper box, and laughed in the right place and in the wrong, to the manifest peril of the performance. But the piece needed not the aid of these friendly conspirators. It was received by the audience "with the utmost applause." Even the fastidious Horace Walpole, despite of his sneer,* was forced to accord a qualified praise. To-day we do not wonder that it carried all hearts along with it. Its humour, though broad and farcical, is never coarse; it is full of vivacious dialogue, the characters are admirably drawn and thoroughly natural, and the situations and ludicrous

• When Walpole heard that Goldsmith called the play "She Stoops to Conquer"—" Stoops, indeed," said he ; does, that is, the Muse; she is dragged up to the knees, and has trudged, I believe, from Southwark fair.”

so she

incidents add great liveliness to the play, and produce the happiest stage effects. It had a run to the end of the season, was played by command, and realised for the manager between £400 and £500 in the first three nights Then it appeared in the Haymarket, and the following winter at Covent Garden again, and so it has continued a favourite, and has come down to our own days with unimpaired popularity. A foolish affair arose out of Goldsmith's success. Kenrick, his old enemy, assailed him anonymously in the "London Packet," and introduced the name of the "Jessamy Bride." Goldsmith caned Evans, the printer, supposing him to be the writer. Evans brought an action, which Goldsmith compromised, and wrote a clever and spirited letter, maintaining that, while every man should be the guardian of the press, he should "endeavour to prevent its licentiousness becoming at last the grave of its freedom." A just and a noble sentiment, which drew from Johnson the remark, "He has indeed done it very well, but it is a foolish thing well done." One might now expect that with a reputation firmly established, a favourite poet, a popular novelist, a successful dramatist, the condition of Goldsmith, if not one of affluence, would assuredly have been that of comfort and freedom from care. Alas! it was not so. Money for Goldsmith was less a release from debts than an incentive to extravagance. Increase of funds brought increase of expenditure. The attractions of club-life, the passion for all social pleasures, the love of dress, and it is to be feared the love of play-all these, added to a nature reckless, improvident, generous even to squandering, and ever disposed to banish in present enjoyment the thoughts of the future, made him always poor-poorest often when he was acquiring most. Accordingly, his life henceforth, apart from the drudgery of writing for daily necessities that arose as fast as they were satisfied, is to be traced in the clubs which he frequented, at dinners and festivities, often the delight, oftener the amusement of those around him. Through all these scenes we shall not pursue him. To what purpose should we do so? If we see him in the Literary Club happy, thoughtless, uttering a thousand sprightly things, and as many silly ones, we see but the picture in the sunlight. We must look at it with the shadows falling around it, sobering, and saddening, and darkening it. We must follow him home, to find him struggling under the almost hopeless pressure of the difficulties which his own imprudence was perpetually creating; writing books, not for money, but to complete the contract, the price of which he had already received and expended, and projecting new labours upon the proposed execution of which again to raise money in advance, Thus it was that he toiled on at his History of Animated Nature" till it was published in 1774—a work which, with all its faults, and they are many, " presents," as Sir Walter Scott observes, "to the ordinary reader a general and interesting view of the subject, couched in the clearest and most beautiful language, and abounding with excellent reflections.