FABLE OF THE LITTLE FISHES. 205

to be worsted, but would attempt to bear down his adversary by the rolling thunder of his periods, and, when that failed, would become downright insulting. Boswell called it "having recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry"; but Goldsmith designated it much more happily. "There is no arguing with Johnson," said he, 'for, when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the but-end of it."*

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In several of the intellectual collisions recorded by Boswell as triumphs of Dr. Johnson, it really appears to us that Goldsmith had the best both of the wit and the argument, and especially of the courtesy and good-nature.

On one occasion he certainly gave Johnson a capital reproof as to his own colloquial peculiarities. Talking of fables, Goldsmith observed that the animals introduced in them seldom talked in character. "For instance," said he, "the fable of the little fishes, who saw birds fly over their heads, and, envying them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The skill consists in making them talk like little fishes." Just then

observing that Dr. Johnson was shaking his sides and laughing, he immediately added, "Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for, if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales."

* The following is given by Boswell, as an instance of ro bust sophistry:- "Once, when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus - My dear Boswell, let's have no more of this; you'll make nothing of it; I'd rather hear you whistle a Scotch tune.'"

But though Goldsmith suffered frequent mortifications in society from the overbearing, and sometimes harsh, conduct of Johnson, he always did justice to his benevolence. When royal pensions were granted to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Shebbeare, a punster remarked, that the king had pensioned a she-bear and a he-bear; to which Goldsmith replied, "Johnson, to be sure, has a roughness in his manner, but no man alive has a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear

but the skin."

Goldsmith, in conversation, shone most when he least thought of shining; when he

gave up all effort to appear wise and learned, or to cope with the oracular sententiousness of Johnson, and gave way to his natural impulses. Even Boswell could perceive his merits on these occasions. "For my part," said he, condescendingly, "I like very well to hear honest Goldsmith talk away carelessly;" and many a much wiser man than Boswell delighted in those outpourings of a fertile fancy and a generous heart. In his happy

moods, Goldsmith had an artless simplicity and buoyant good-humor, that led to a thousand amusing blunders and whimsical confessions, much to the entertainment of his intimates; yet in his most thoughtless garrulity there was occa sionally the gleam of the gold and the flash of he diamond.

Social Resorts.

CHAPTER XIX.

The Shilling Whist-Club. - A Practical Joke. - The Wednesday Club. The "Tun of Man." The Pig-Butcher. - Tom King. - Hugh Kelly.- Glover and his Characteristics.

HOUGH Goldsmith's pride and ambition led him to mingle occasionally with high society, and to engage in the colloquial conflicts of the learned circle, in both of which he was ill at ease and conscious of being undervalued, yet he had some social resorts in which he indemnified himself for their restraints by indulging his humor without control. One of them was a shilling whist-club, which held its meetings at the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, a place rendered classic, we are told, by a club held there in old times, to which " rare Ben Jonson had furnished the rules. The company was of a familiar, unceremonious kind, delighting in that very questionable wit which consists in playing off practical jokes upon each other. Of one of these Goldsmith was made the butt. the club one night in a hackney-coach, he gave the coachman by mistake a guinea instead of a shilling, which he set down as a dead loss, for there was no likelihood, he said, that a fellow of this class would have the honesty to return the

Coming to

money. On the next club-evening he was told a person at the street-door wished to speak with him. He went forth, but soon returned with a radiant countenance. To his surprise and delight the coachman had actually brought back the guinea. While he launched forth in praise of this unlooked-for piece of honesty, he declared it ought not to go unrewarded. Collecting a small sum from the club, and no doubt increasing it largely from his own purse, he dismissed the Jehu with many encomiums on his good conduct. He was still chanting his praises, when one of the club requested a sight of the guinea thus honestly returned. To Goldsmith's confusion it proved to be a counterfeit. The universal burst of laughter which succeeded, and the jokes by which he was assailed on every side, showed him that the whole was a hoax, and the pretended coachman as much a counterfeit as the guinea. He was so disconcerted, it is said, that he soon beat a retreat for the evening.

Another of those free and easy clubs met on Wednesday evenings at the Globe Tavern in Fleet Street. It was somewhat in the style of the Three Jolly Pigeons: songs, jokes, dramatic imitations, burlesque parodies, and broad sallies of humor, formed a contrast to the sententious morality, pedantic casuistry, and polished sarcasm of the learned circle. Here a huge "tun of man," by the name of Gordon, used to delight Goldsmith by singing the jovial song of Nottingham Ale, and looking like a butt of it. Here, too, a wealthy pig-butcher, charmed, no doubt, by the

HUGH KELLY. - GLOVER.

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mild philanthropy of "The Traveller," aspired to be on the most sociable footing with the author; and here was Tom King, the comedian, recently risen to consequence by his performance of Lord Ogleby in the new comedy of "The Clandestine Marriage."

A member of more note was one Hugh Kelly a second-rate author, who, as he became a kind of competitor of Goldsmith's, deserves particular mention. He was an Irishman, about twenty eight years of age, originally apprenticed to a staymaker in Dublin; then writer to a London attorney; then a Grub-Street hack; scribbling for magazines and newspapers. Of late he had set up for theatrical censor and satirist, and in a paper called "Thespis," in emulation of Churchill's

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Rosciad," had harassed many of the poor actors without mercy, and often without wit; but had lavished his incense on Garrick, who, in consequence, took him into favor. He was the author of several works of superficial merit, but which had sufficient vogue to inflate his vanity. This, however, must have been mortified on his first introduction to Johnson; after sitting a short time he got up to take leave, expressing a fear that a longer visit might be troublesome. "Not

in the least, sir," said the surly moralist, "I had forgotten you were in the room." Johnson used to speak of him as a man who had written more than he had read.

A prime wag of this club was one of Goldsmith's poor countrymen and hangers-on, by the name of Glover. He had originally been edu.