LETTER TO REYNOLDS.

285

"With regard to myself, I find that travelling at twenty and forty are very different things. I set out with all my confirmed habits about me, and can find nothing on the Continent so good as when I formerly left it. One of our chief amusements here is scolding at everything we meet with, and praising everything and every person we left at home. You may judge, therefore, whether your name is not frequently bandied at table among us. To tell you the truth, I never thought I could regret your absence so much as our various mortifications on the road have often taught me to do. I could tell you of disasters and adventures without number; of our lying in barns, and of my being half poisoned with a dish of green peas; of our quarrelling with postilions, and being cheated by our landladies; but I reserve all this for a happy hour which I expect to share with you upon my return.

"I have little to tell you more, but that we are at present all well, and expect returning when we have stayed out one month, which I did not care if it were over this very day. I long to hear from you all, how you yourself do, how Johnson, Burke, Dyer, Chamier, Colman, and every one of the club do. I wish I could send you some amusement in this letter, but I protest I am so stupefied by the air of this country (for I am sure it cannot be natural) that I have not a word to say. I have been thinking of the plot of a comedy, which shall be entitled 'A Journey to Paris,' in which a family shall be introduced with a full intention of going to France to save money. You know

there is not a place in the world more promising for that purpose. As for the meat of this country, I can scarce eat it; and though we pay two good shillings a head for our dinner, I find it all so tough that I have spent less time with my knife than my picktooth. I said this as a good thing at the table, but it was not understood. I believe it to be a good thing.

For

"As for our intended journey to Devonshire, I find it out of my power to perform it; for, as soon as I arrive at Dover, I intend to let the ladies go on, and I will take a country-lodging somewhere near that place in order to do some business. I have so outrun the constable that I must mortify a little to bring it up again. God's sake, the night you receive this, take your pen in your hand and tell me something about yourself and myself, if you know anything that has happened. About Miss Reynolds, about Mr. Bickerstaff, my nephew, or anybody that you regard. I beg you will send to Griffin the bookseller to know if there be any letters left for me, and be so good as to send them to me at Paris. They may perhaps be left for me at the Porter's Lodge, opposite the pump in Temple Lane. The same messenger will do. I expect one from Lord Clare, from Ireland. As for the others, I am not much uneasy about.

"Is there anything I can do for you at Paris? I wish you would tell me. The whole of my own purchases here is one silk coat, which I have put on, and which makes me look like a fool. But no more of that. I find that Colman has gained

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his lawsuit. I am glad of it. I suppose you often meet. I will soon be among you, better pleased with my situation at home than I ever was before. And yet I must say, that, if anything could make France pleasant, the very good woman with whom I am at present would certainly do it. I could say more about that, but I intend showing them the letter before I send it away. What signifies teazing you longer with moral observations, when the business of my writing is over?

I have one thing only more to say, and of that I think every hour in the day, namely, that I am your most sincere and most affectionate friend,

"OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

"Direct to me at the Hotel de Danemarc, Rue Jacob, Fauxbourg St. Germains."

}

A word of comment on this letter:

Travelling is, indeed, a very different thing with Goldsmith the poor student at twenty, and Goldsmith the poet and Professor at forty. At twenty, though obliged to trudge on foot from town to town, and country to country, paying for a supper and a bed by a tune on the flute, everything pleased, everything was good; a trucklebed in a garret was a couch of down, and the homely fare of the peasant a feast fit for an epicure. Now, at forty, when he posts through the country in a carriage, with fair ladies by his side, everything goes wrong: he has to quarrel with postilions, he is cheated by landladies, the hotels are barns, the meat is too tough to be eaten, and he is half poisoned by green peas! A line in his letter explains the secret: "the ladies do not

seem to be very fond of what we have seen." “One of our chief amusements is scolding at everything we meet with, and praising everything and every person we have left at home!" the true English travelling amusement. Poor Goldsmith! he has "all his confirmed habits about him"; that is to say, he has recently risen into high life, and acquired high-bred notions; he must be fastidious like his fellow-travellers; he dare not be pleased with what pleased the vulgar tastes of his youth. He is unconsciously illustrating the trait so humorously satirized by him in Ned Tibbs, the shabby beau, who can find "no such dressing as he had at Lord Crump's or Lady Crimp's "; whose very senses have grown genteel, and who no longer "smacks at wretched wine or praises detestable custard." A lurking thorn, too, is worrying him throughout this tour; he has "outrun the constable"; that is to say, his expenses have outrun his means, and he will have to make up for this butterfly flight by toiling like a grub on his return.

Another circumstance contributes to mar the pleasure he had promised himself in this excursion.

At Paris the party is unexpectedly joined by a Mr. Hickey, a bustling attorney, who is well acquainted with that metropolis and its environs, and insists on playing the cicerone on all occasions. He and Goldsmith do not relish each other, and they have several petty altercations. The lawyer is too much a man of business and method for the careless poet, and is disposed to manage everything. He has perceived Goldsmith's whimsical peculiarities without properly

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appreciating his merits, and is prone to indulge in broad bantering and raillery at his expense, particularly irksome if indulged in presence of the ladies. He makes himself merry on his return to England, by giving the following anecdote as illustrative of Goldsmith's vanity:

66

Being with a party at Versailles, viewing the water-works, a question arose among the gentlemen present, whether the distance from whence they stood to one of the little islands was within the compass of a leap. Goldsmith maintained

the affirmative; but, being bantered on the subject, and remembering his former prowess as a youth, attempted the leap, but, falling short, descended into the water, to the great amusement of the company."

Was the Jessamy Bride a witness of this unlucky exploit ?

This same Hickey is the one of whom Goldsmith, some time subsequently, gave a good-humored sketch, in his poem of "The Retaliation."

"Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature,
And slander itself must allow him good-nature;
He cherish'd his friend, and he relish'd a bumper,
Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper.
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser;
I answer, No, no, for he always was wiser;
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat?
His very worst foe can't accuse him of that;
Perhaps he confided in men as they go,
And so was too foolishly honest? Ah, no!

Then what was his failing? Come, tell it, and burn ye-
He was, could he help it? a special attorney."

One of the few remarks extant made by Gold