the previous month, when they talked of Goldsmith: his rise in the world puzzled Boswell, who said that all who knew him seemed to know that he had passed a very loose, odd, scrambling kind of life. "Sir," said Johnson, "Goldsmith is one of the first men we now have as an author, and he is a very worthy man too. He has been loose in his principles, but he is coming right." At the supper on July 1, Goldsmith flung a paradox at both Johnson and Boswell's heads: he maintained that knowledge was not desirable on its own account, for it often was a source of unhappiness. He supped with them again at the Mitre five days later, as Boswell's guest, and again was pa radoxical. He disputed very warmly with Johnson the maxim of the British Constitution-that the king can do no wrong. This was a bold thing to do. "As usual," says Boswell, "he endeavoured, with too much eagerness, to shine." But Boswell was impatient of Goldsmith from the first hour of their acquaintance: he describes him as of short person, coarse and vulgar countenance, and deportment, though a scholar, awkwardly affecting the easy gentleman. Ironically, Boswell records: "Doctor Goldsmith being a、 privileged man, went with him this night," (the first supper at the Mitre,) "strutting away, and calling to me with an air of superiority, like that of an esoteric over an exoteric disciple of a sage of antiquity. I go to Miss Williams,"" to be allowed to do which was decisive of Johnson's favour. SHUTER AND GOLDSMITH IN STRANGE COMPANY. In a curious little book, entitled Life's Painter of Variegated Characters in Public and Private Life,* we find the following recollections of the night-houses of that period, and a freak of town life, in which Shuter, the actor, and Goldsmith find themselves in undesirable companionship. The author writes: I remember spending an evening with the celebrated Ned Shuter, in company with that darling of the age, Dr. Gold *The author of Life's Painter was George Barker, who was born in 1732, near Canterbury; entered the naval service early, and next served as a private soldier under the command of the immortal Wolfe. He next became a supernumerary exciseman, and then went upon the stage; and lastly, commenced lecturer upon elocution. Life's Painter was published, with Barker's portrait, in 1789.-See Notes and Queries, 2nd S. No. 87. smith. Staying rather late, as we were seeing the Doctor to his chambers in the Temple, where he then lived, Shuter prevailed on him to step into one of these houses, just to see a little fun, as he called it, at the same time assuring the Doctor that no harm might be apprehended, as he was well acquainted with the Cove and Covess, Slavey and Moll Slavey, that is the landlord and landlady, man and maidservant. Upon the strength of this we beat our rounds, until we arrived at the door of the house; in the middle of the door was a wicket, through which the landlord looked, and the moment he saw Shuter, without any questions, the door flew open as if by enchantment. We entered; the Doctor slipt down on the first seat he saw empty. Shuter ordered a quart of gin-hot; we had no sooner tasted it but a voice saluted the actor thus: "I say, Master Shuter, when is your benefit? Come, tip us a chaunt, and hand us over a ticket, and here's a bobstick." (shilling.) Shuter took the man by the hand, and begged to introduce him to the Doctor, which he did in the following manner: "Sit down, my friend; there, Doctor, is a gentleman as well as myself, whose family has made some noise in the world; his father I knew as a drummer in the third regiment of guards, and his mother sold oysters at Billingsgate; he is likewise high-borned and deep-learned, for he was borned in a garret, and bred in a night-cellar." As I sat near, the Doctor whispered me, to know whether I knew this gentleman Mr. Shuter had introduced; I replied, I had not that honour, when immediately a fellow came into the box, and in a kind of under voice asked the person Mr. Shuter had introduced, "How many there were crap'd on Wednesday ?" The other replied "Three." "Was there a cock among them?" resumed the other (meaning a fellow who died game). "No, but an old pal of yours, which I did a particular service to as he was going his journey; I took the liberty of troubling him with a line, which he no sooner got about his neck, than I put my thumb under the burr of the left ear, and at the same time, as I descended from the cart, I gave him such a gallows snatch of the dewbeaters, that he was dead near twenty minutes by the sheriff's watch before the other two. I don't recollect that I have crap'd a man better for this last twelvemonth." The Doctor beckoned to Shuter, and in the same breath cried out, "For Heaven's sake who is this man you have 66 introduced me to ?" "Who is he?" says Shuter; "why, he's Squire Tollis, don't you know him ?" "No, indeed," replied the Doctor. Why," answered Shuter, "the world vulgarly call him the hangman, but here he is called the crap merchant." The Doctor rose from his seat in great perturbation of mind, and exclaimed, "Good God! and have I been sitting in company all this time with a hangman ?" The Doctor asked me if I would see him out of the house, which I did, highly pleased with the conversation of two men, whose feelings of nature as widely differed as those of the recording angel in heaven's high chancery (as mentioned in Sterne's La Fevre), and the opposite one of the midnight ruffian who murdered the ever-to-be-lamented Linton, [a musician, who was robbed and murdered in St. Martin'slane.] CHARLES GOLDSMITH. The poet's younger brother Charles in person resembled Oliver, was a man of some pleasantry, sang a song tolerably well, and had a good deal of oddity in his manner. His early life was passed in the West Indies, where he accumulated a small property. Of his subsequent years these interesting details were communicated in 1832 to the Mirror, vol. xx., by Mr. Roffe, the well-known engraver. Charles, on his returning to this country from the West Indies, had with him two daughters, and one son named Henry, all under fourteen years of age. He purchased two houses in the Polygon, Somers Town, in one of which he resided. Here the elder of his girls died: I attended her funeral; she was buried in the churchyard of St. Pancras, near the grave of Mary Wolstonecraft Godwin. Henry was my fellow-pupil; but not liking the profession of engraving, after a short trial, he returned to the West Indies. At the peace of Amiens, Charles sold his houses, and with his wife and daughter, and a son born in England, he went to reside in France, where his daughter married. In consequence of the orders of Buonaparte for detaining British subjects, Charles again returned home by way of Holland, and died about twenty-five years since, [1807,] at humble lodgings in Ossulston-street, Somers Town. After his death, his widow, who was a native of the West Indies, and her son Oliver, returned thither. Charles Goldsmith had in his possession a copy from Sir Joshua Reynolds's portrait of his brother: and I can vouch his resemblance to the picture was most striking. Charles, like the poet, played on the German flute, and to use his own words, found it in the hour of adversity his best friend. He only once, I have heard him say, saw Oliver in England, which was during his prosperity." A Correspondent of Notes and Queries has lately, (2nd S. vol. x.) inquired as to the identity of an old portrait of a gentleman in a fantastic dress playing the flute: the features are very much like those of Oliver Goldsmith: if this be not a portrait of the poet, possibly it may be that of his brother Charles. In 1832, there died in England, of cholera, a person who stated himself to be a nephew of the poet. His nephew, Oliver, died in 1858; for we read in the Hampshire Advertiser of October 23rd, of that year: "On the 25th July, at sea, Oliver Goldsmith, aged 24, second officer of the Dunsandle, third son of the late Commander Charles Goldsmith, R.N., and a great-grand-nephew of the poet Oliver Goldsmith." SCRIBBLING FOR BREAD IN A GARRET. In a letter to his cousin, Mr. Bryanton, of Ballymahon, we find Goldsmith thus cheerful in his early struggles, amid "those streets where Butler and Otway starved before him :" "I sate down with an intention to chide, and yet methinks I have forgot my resentment already. The truth is, I am a simpleton with regard to you; I may attempt to bluster, but, like Anacreon, my heart is respondent only to softer affections. And yet now I think on't again, I will be angry. Do you know whom you have offended? A man whose character may one of these days be mentioned with profound respect in a German comment or Dutch dictionary; whose name you will probably hear ushered in by a Doctissimus Doctissimorum, or heelpieced with a long Latin termination. Think how Goldsmithius, or Gubblegurchius, or some such sound, as rough as a nutmeg-grater, will become me ! Think of that! I must own my ill-natured cotemporaries have not hitherto paid me those honours I have had such just reason to expect. I have not yet seen my face reflected in all the lively display of red and white paints on any sign-posts in the suburbs. Your handkerchief-weavers seem as yet unacquainted with my merits or physiognomy, and the very snuff-box makers appear to have forgot their respect. Tell them all from me, they are a set of Gothic, barbarous, ignorant scoundrels. There will come a day, no doubt it willI beg you may live a couple of hundred years longer only to see the day when the Scaligers and Daciers will vindicate my character, give learned editions of my labours, and bless the times with copious comments on the text. You shall see how they will fish up the heavy scoundrels who disregard me now, or will then offer to cavil at my productions. How will they bewail the times that suffered so much genius to lie neglected! If ever my works find their way to Tartary or China, I know the consequence.-Let me, then, stop my fancy to take a view of my future self; and, as the boys say, light down to see myself on horseback. Well, now I am down, where the d-1 is I? Oh, Gods! Gods! here in a garret writing for bread, and expecting to be dunned for a milk-score! However, dear Bob, whether in penury or affluence, serious or gay, I am ever wholly thine, "London, Temple Exchange Coffee-house, Temple Bar, August 14, 1758. "OLIVER GOLDSMITH. "Give my-no, not compliment neither, but something the most warm and sincere wish that you can conceive, to your mother, Mrs. Bryanton, to Miss Bryanton, to yourself; and if there be a favourite dog in the family, let me be remembered to it." "WHEN LOVELY WOMAN STOOPS TO FOLLY." When lovely woman stoops to folly, And finds too late that men betray, To hide her shame from every eye, This charming song, which is sung by Olivia, in the Vicar of Wakefield, is almost a literal translation from the chanson of an obscure French poet, one Ségur, who wrote early in the eighteenth century. His poems are very scarce, and in proof of the above we subjoin the chanson to which Goldsmith was so much indebted, from the edition of Ségur's poems printed at Paris in the year 1719 : Lorsqu'une femme, après trop de tendresse, Comment, pour cette si douce foiblesse, Le seul remède qu'elle peut resentir, Samuel Rogers, in his Table Talk, relates this odd anecdote: "Most unfortunately, one morning, during breakfast at |