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publisher had frankly accepted the chances of a certain copyright, and had no right to wait the issue of those chances before he assumed the liability they imposed.

"MY DEAR FRIEND, I thank you! I wish I could do something to serve you. I shall have a comedy for you in a season or two at farthest that I believe will be worth your acceptance, for I fancy I will make it a fine thing. You shall have the refusal. I wish you would not take up Newbery's note but let Waller tease him, without however coming to extremities; let him haggle after him and he will get it. I will draw upon you one month after date for sixty pound and your acceptance will be ready money, part of which I want to go down to Barton with. May God preserve my honest little man, for he has my heart. Ever, OLIVER GOLDSMITH."

Barton was a gleam of sunshine in his darkest days. There, if no where else, he could still strive to be, as in his younger time, 'well when he was not ill, and pleased 'when he was not angry.' It was the precious maxim of Reynolds, as it had been the selectest wisdom of Sir William Temple. Reynolds himself, too, their temporary disagreement forgotten, gave him much of his society on his return: seeing, as he said afterward, the change in his manner; how greatly he then seemed to need the escape from his own thoughts; and with what a look of distress he would suddenly start from the midst of social scenes he continued still passionately fond of, to go home and brood over his misfortunes. The last gay picture in Goldsmith's life is of himself and Sir Joshua at Vauxhall. And not the least memorable figures in that sauntering crowd, though it numbered princes and ambassadors then; and on its tide and

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torrent of fashion, floated all the beauty of the time; and through its lighted avenues of trees, glided cabinet ministers

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agreeable 'young ladies and gentlemen of eighty two,' and all the red-heeled macaronies; were those of the President, and the ancient history Professor, of the Royal Academy. A little later we trace Goldsmith from Vauxhall to the theatre, but his enjoyment is not so certain. Kelly had tried another comedy (The School for Wives) under a feigned name, and with somewhat better success, though it lived but a few brief nights. Yet Beauclerc (who also tells Lord Charlemont of the round of pleasures Goldsmith and Sir Joshua had been getting into) says of it: 'We have a new comedy here which is good for nothing; 'bad as it is, however, it succeeds very well, and has almost 'killed Goldsmith with envy.'

Cradock's account of what was really killing him is somewhat different from Beauclerc's, and will perhaps be thought more authentic. Although, according to the same letter of Beauclerc's, all the world but himself and a million of vulgar people were then in the country, Cradock had come up to town to place his wife under care of a dentist, and had taken lodgings in Norfolk Street to be near his friend. He found Goldsmith much altered, he says; at times very low; and he passed his mornings with him. He induced him once to dine in Norfolk Street: but his usual cheerfulness had gone, and all was forced.' The idea occurred to Cradock that money might be raised by a special subscription edition of the Traveller and Deserted Village, if consent could be obtained from the holders of the copyrights. Pray do what you please with them,' said Goldsmith sadly.

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But he rather submitted, than encouraged, says Cradock; and the scheme fell to the ground. 'Oh sir,' said two sister milliners, named Gun, who lived at the corner of Temple Lane and were among his creditors, 'sooner persuade him 'to let us work for him gratis, than suffer him to apply to ' any other. We are sure that he will pay us if he can.' Cradock ends his melancholy narrative by saying, that had Goldsmith freely laid open all the debts he had contracted, he is certain his zealous friends were so numerous that they would freely have contributed to his relief. There is reason to presume as much of Reynolds, certainly; and that he had offered his aid. 'I mean,' Cradock adds, 'explicitly

to assert only, that I believe he died miserably, and that 'his friends were not entirely aware of his distress.' Truly, it was to assert enough.

Yet before he died, and from the depth of that distress, his genius flashed forth once more. Johnson had returned to town after his three months' tour in the Hebrides; parliament had again brought Burke to town; Richard Burke was in London on the eve of his return to Grenada; the old dining party had resumed their meetings at the St. James' Coffee House, and out of these meetings sprang Retaliation. More than one writer has professed to describe the particular scene from which it immediately rose, but their accounts are not to be reconciled with what is certainly known. Cumberland's is pure romance. The poem itself, however, with what was prefixed to it when published, sufficiently explains its own origin. What had formerly

been abrupt and strange in Goldsmith's manners had now so visibly increased, as to become matter of increased sport to such as were ignorant of its cause; and a proposition, made at one of the dinners when he was absent, to write a series of epitaphs upon him (his 'country dialect,' and his awkward person), was agreed to and put in practice by several of the guests. The active aggressors appear to have been Garrick, Doctor Barnard, Richard Burke, and Caleb Whitefoord. Cumberland says he, too, wrote an epitaph; but it was complimentary and grave, and hence the grateful return he received. None were actually preserved but Garrick's; but it will indicate what was doubtless (unless the exception of Cumberland be admitted) the tone of all.

Here lies poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,

Who wrote like an angel but talk'd like poor Poll.

This, with the rest, was read to Goldsmith when he next appeared at the St. James' Coffee House. 'The Doctor 'was called on for Retaliation,' says the friend who published the poem with that name, 'and at their next meeting pro'duced the following, which I think adds one leaf to his 'immortal wreath.' It is possible he may have been asked to retaliate, but not likely; very certainly, however, the poem was not produced at the next meeting. It was unfinished when he died. But fragments of it, as written from time to time, appear to have been handed about; and it is pretty clear that the masterly lines on Garrick were known some time before the others. This was a subject he had

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