Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER XXV.

Dinner at Bickerstaff's.

- Hiffernan and his Impecuniosity. Kenrick's Epigram. -Johnson's Consolation. Goldsmith's Toilet. - The Bloom-colored Coat. - New Acquaintances; The Hornecks. —A Touch of Poetry and Passion. The Jessamy Bride.

N October, Goldsmith returned to town and resumed his usual haunts. We hear of him at a dinner given by his countryman, Isaac Bickerstaff, author of "Love in a Village," ""Lionel and Clarissa," and other success ful dramatic pieces. The dinner was to be followed by the reading by Bickerstaff of a new play. Among the guests was one Paul Hiffernan, likewise an Irishman; somewhat idle and intemperate; who lived nobody knew how nor where, sponging wherever he had a chance, and often of course upon Goldsmith, who was ever the vagabond's friend, or rather victim. Hiffernan was something of a physician, and elevated the emptiness of his purse into the dignity of a disease, which he termed impecuniosity, and against which he claimed a right to call for relief from the healthier purses of his friends. He was a scribbler for the newspapers, and latterly a dramatic critic, which had probably gained him an invitation to the dinner and reading. The

wine and wassail, however, befogged his senses. Scarce had the author got into the second act of his play, when Hiffernan began to nod, and at length snored outright. Bickerstaff was embarrassed, but continued to read in a more elevated tone. The louder he read, the louder Hiffernan snored; until the author came to a pause. "Never mind the brute, Bick, but go on," cried Goldsmith. "He would have served Homer just so if he were here and reading his own works."

Kenrick, Goldsmith's old enemy, travestied this anecdote in the following lines, pretending that the poet had compared his countryman Bickerstaff to Homer.

"What are your Bretons, Romans, Grecians,
Compared with thorough-bred Milesians!
Step into Griffin's shop, he 'll tell ye

Of Goldsmith, Bickerstaff, and Kelly...
And, take one Irish evidence for t'other,

Ev'n Homer's self is but their foster-brother."

66

Johnson was a rough consoler to a man when wincing under an attack of this kind. "Never mind, sir," said he to Goldsmith, when he saw that he felt the sting. "A man whose business it is to be talked of is much helped by being at tacked. Fame, sir, is a shuttlecock; if it be struck only at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground; to keep it up, it must be struck at both ends."

Bickerstaff, at the time of which we are speaking, was in high vogue, the associate of the first wits of the day; a few years afterwards he was

GOLDSMITH'S TOILET.

247

obliged to fly the country to escape the punishment of an infamous crime. Johnson expressed great astonishment at hearing the offence for which he had fled. 66 Why, sir?" said Thrale; "he had long been a suspected man." Perhaps there was a knowing look on the part of the eminent brewer, which provoked a somewhat con- temptuous reply. "By those who look close to the ground," said Johnson, "dirt will sometimes be seen; I hope I see things from a greater distance."

We have already noticed the improvement, or rather the increased expense, of Goldsmith's wardrobe since his elevation into polite society. "He was fond," says one of his contemporaries, "of exhibiting his muscular little person in the gayest apparel of the day, to which was added a bag-wig and sword." Thus arrayed, he used to figure about in the sunshine in the Temple Gardens, much to his own satisfaction, but to the amusement of his acquaintances.

Boswell, in his memoirs, has rendered one of his suits forever famous. That worthy, on the 16th of October in this same year, gave a dinner to Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick, Murphy, Bickerstaff, and Davies. Goldsmith was generally apt to bustle in at the last moment, when the guests were taking their seats at table; but on this occasion he was unusually early. While waiting for some lingerers to arrive," he strutted about," says Boswell," bragging of his dress, and I believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was undoubtedly prone to such impres

[ocr errors]

sions. 'Come, come,' said Garrick, 'talk no more of that. You are perhaps the worst eh, eh?' Goldsmith was eagerly attempting to interrupt him, when Garrick went on, laughing ironically. Nay, you will always look like a gentleman; but I am talking of your being well or ill dressed. 6 Well, let me tell you,' said Goldsmith, 'when the tailor brought home my bloom-colored coat, he said, "Sir, I have a favor to beg of you; when anybody asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention John Filby, at the Harrow, in Water Lane." 6 Why, sir,' cried Johnson, 'that was because he knew the strange color would attract crowds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of him, and see how well he could make a coat of so absurd a color.'

دو

But though Goldsmith might permit this raillery on the part of his friends, he was quick to resent any personalities of the kind from strangers. As he was one day walking the Strand in grand array with bag-wig and sword, he excited the merriment of two coxcombs, one of whom called to the other to "look at that fly with a long pin stuck through it." Stung to the quick, Goldsmith's first retort was to caution the passersby to be on their guard against "that brace of disguised pickpockets," his next was to step into the middle of the street, where there was room for action, half-draw his sword, and beckon the joker, who was armed in like manner, to follow him. This was literally a war of wit which the other had not anticipated. He had no inclination to push the joke to such an extreme, but

NEW ACQUAINTANCES.

249

abandoning the ground, sneaked off with his brother-wag amid the hootings of the spectators.

This proneness to finery in dress, however, which Boswell and others of Goldsmith's contemporaries, who did not understand the secret plies of his character, attributed to vanity, arose, we are convinced, from a widely different motive. It was from a painful idea of his own personal defects, which had been cruelly stamped upon his mind in his boyhood, by the sneers and jeers of his playmates, and had been ground deeper into it by rude speeches made to him in every step of his struggling career, until it had become a constant cause of awkwardness and embarrassment. This he had experienced the more sensibly since his reputation had elevated him into polite society; and he was constantly endeavoring by the aid of dress to acquire that personal acceptability, if we may use the phrase, which nature had denied him. If ever he betrayed a little self-complacency on first turning out in a new suit, it may, perhaps, have been because he felt as if he had achieved a triumph over his ugliness.

There were circumstances too, about the time of which we are treating, which may have rendered Goldsmith more than usually attentive to his personal appearance. He had recently made the acquaintance of a most agreeable family from Devonshire, which he met at the house of his friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds. It consisted of Mrs. Horneck, widow of Captain Kane Horneck; two daughters, seventeen and nineteen years of age; and an only son, Charles, the Captain in Lace, as

« PreviousContinue »