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his sisters playfully and somewhat proudly called him, he having lately entered the Guards. The daughters are described as uncommonly beautiful, intelligent, sprightly, and agreeable. Catharine, the eldest, went among her friends by the name of Little Comedy, indicative, very, probably, of her disposition. She was engaged to William Henry Bunbury, second son of a Suffolk baronet. The hand and heart of her sister Mary were yet unengaged, although she bore the by-name among her friends of the Jessamy Bride. This family was prepared, by their intimacy with Reynolds and his sister, to appreciate the merits of Goldsmith. The poet had always been a chosen friend of the eminent painter; and Miss Reynolds, as we have shown, ever since she had heard his poem of "The Traveller" read aloud, had ceased to consider him ugly. The Hornecks were equally capable of forgetting his person in admiring his works. On becoming acquainted with him, too, they were delighted with his guileless simplicity, his buoyant good-nature, and his innate benevolence; and an enduring intimacy soon sprang up between them. For once poor Goldsmith had met with polite society, with which he was perfectly at home, and by which he was fully appreciated; for once he had met with lovely women, to whom his ugly features were not repulsive. A proof of the easy and playful terms in which he was with them, remains in a whimsical epistle in verse, of which the following was the occasion. A dinner was to be given to their family by a Dr. Baker, a friend of their mother's, at which Reynolds and Angelica Kauff

A RHYMING EPISTLE.

251

man were to be present. The young ladies were eager to have Goldsmith of the party, and their intimacy with Dr. Baker allowing them to take the liberty, they wrote a joint invitation to the poet at the last moment. It came too late, and drew from him the following reply; on the top of which was scrawled, "This is a poem ! This is a copy of

verses ! "

"Your mandate I got,
You may all go to pot;
Had your senses been right,
You'd have sent before night:
So tell Horneck and Nesbitt,
And Baker and his bit,
And Kauffman beside,
And the Jessamy Bride,

With the rest of the crew,

The Reynoldses too,

Little Comedy's face,

And the Captain in Lace,-
Tell each other to rue
Your Devonshire crew,
For sending so late
To one of my state.
But 't is Reynolds's way
From wisdom to stray,
And Angelica's whim
To befrolic like him;

But alas! your good worships, how could they be wiser, When both have been spoil'd in to-day's ' Advertiser' ? "*

It has been intimated that the intimacy of poor Goldsmith with the Miss Hornecks, which began in so sprightly a vein, gradually assumed something of a more tender nature, and that he was not insensible to the fascinations of the younger

*The following lines had appeared in that day's "Advertiser," on the portrait of Sir Joshua by Angelica Kauffman:"While fair Angelica, with matchless grace,

Paints Conway's burly form and Stanhope's face;
Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay,
We praise, admire, and gaze our souls away.
But when the likeness she hath done for thee,
O Reynolds! with astonishment we see,
Forced to submit, with all our pride we own,
Such strength, such harmony excelled by none,
And thou art rivalled by thyself alone."

sister. This may account for some of the phenomena which about this time appeared in his wardrobe and toilet. During the first year of his acquaintance with these lovely girls, the tell-tale book of his tailor, Mr. William Filby, displays entries of four or five full suits, besides separate articles of dress. Among the items we find a green half-trimmed frock and breeches, lined with silk; a queen's-blue dress suit; a half-dress suit of ratteen, lined with satin; a pair of silk stocking-breeches, and another pair of a bloom-color. Alas! poor Goldsmith! how much of this silken finery was dictated, not by vanity, but humble consciousness of thy defects; how much of it was to atone for the uncouthness of thy person, and to win favor in the eyes of the Jessamy Bride!

CHAPTER XXVI.

Goldsmith in the Temple.-Judge Day and Grattan. — Labor and Dissipation. - Publication of the Roman History. Opinions of it." History of Animated Nature."-Temple Rookery. Anecdotes of a Spider.

N the winter of 1768-69 Goldsmith occu

pied himself at his quarters in the Temple, slowly "building up" his Roman History. We have pleasant views of him in this learned and half-cloistered retreat of wits and lawyers and legal students, in the reminiscences of Judge Day of the Irish Bench, who in his advanced age delighted to recall the days of his youth, when he was a templar, and to speak of the kindness with which he and his fellow-student, Grattan, were treated by the poet. "I was just arrived from college," said he, "full freighted with academic gleanings, and our author did not disdain to receive from me some opinions and hints towards his Greek and Roman histories. Being then a young man, I felt much flattered by the notice of so celebrated a person. He took great delight in the conversation of Grattan, whose brilliancy in the morning of life furnished full earnest of the unrivalled splendor which awaited his meridian; and finding us dwelling together in Essex Court, near himself, where he frequently

visited my immortal friend, his warm heart became naturally prepossessed towards the associate of one whom he so much admired."

The Judge goes on, in his reminiscences, to give a picture of Goldsmith's social habits, similar in style to those already furnished. He frequented much the Grecian Coffee-House, then the favorite resort of the Irish and Lancashire Templars. He delighted in collecting his friends around him at evening parties at his chambers, where he entertained them with a cordial and unostentatious hospitality. "Occasionally," adds the Judge, "he amused them with his flute, or with whist, neither of which he played well, particularly the latter, but, on losing his money, he never lost his temper. In a run of bad luck and worse play, he would fling his cards upon the floor and exclaim, "Byefore George, I ought forever to renounce thee, fickle, faithless fortune.'

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The Judge was aware, at the time, that all the learned labor of poor Goldsmith upon his Roman History was mere hack-work to recruit his exhausted finances. "His purse replenished," adds he, "by labors of this kind, the season of relaxation and pleasure took its turn, in attending the theatres, Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and other scenes of gayety and amusement. Whenever his funds were dissipated, and they fled more rapidly from being the dupe of many artful persons, male and female, who practised upon his benevolence, - he returned to his literary labors, and shut himself up from society to provide fresh matter for his bookseller, and fresh supplies for himself."

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