GOLDSMITH'S CONVERSATION. 187 which lay at bottom. "The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation," said he, "is this, he goes on without knowing how he is to get off. His genius is great, but his knowledge is small. As they say of a generous man it is a pity he is not rich, we may say of Goldsmith it is a pity he is not knowing. He would no keep his knowledge to himself." And, on another occasion, he observes: "Goldsmith, rather than not talk, will talk of what he knows himself to be ignorant, which can only end in exposing him. If in company with two founders, he would fall a talking on the method of making cannon, though both of them would soon see that he did not know what metal a cannon is made of." And again: Goldsmith should not be for ever attempting to shine in conversation; he has not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails. Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of chance; a man may be beat at times by one who has not the tenth part of his wit. Now Goldsmith, putting himself against another, is like a man laying a hundred to one, who cannot spare the hundred. It is not worth a man's while. A man should not lay a hundred to one unless he can easily spare it, though he has a hundred chances for him; he can get but a guinea, and he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this state. When he contends, if he gets the better, it is a very little addition to a man of his literary reputation; if he does not get the better, he is miserably vexed." Johnson was not aware how much he was himself to blame in producing this vexation. "Goldsmith," said Miss Reynolds "always appeared to be overawed by Johnson, particularly when in company with people of any consequence; always as if im pressed with fear of disgrace; and indeed well he might. I have been witness to many mortifications he has suffered in Dr. Johnson's company." It may not have been disgrace that he feared, but rudeness The great lexicographer, spoiled by the homage of society, wast still more prone than himself to lose temper when the argument went against him. He could not brook appearing to be worsted; but would attempt to bear down his adversary by the rolling thunder of his periods; and, when that failed, would become downright insulting. Boswell called it “having recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry;" but Goldsmith designated it much more happily. "There is no arguing with Johnson," said he, "for, when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it."* In several of the intellectual collisions recorded by Boswell as triumphs of Dr. Johnson, it really appears to us that Goldsmith had the best both of the wit and the argument, and espccially of the courtesy and good-nature. On On one occasion he certainly gave Johnson a capital reproof as to his own colloquial peculiarities. Talking of fables, Goldsmith observed that the animals introduced in them seldom talked in character. "For instance," said he, "the fable of the little fishes, who saw birds fly over their heads, and, envying them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The skill.consists in making them talk like little fishes." Just then observing that Dr. Johnson was shaking his sides and laughing, he immediately * The following is given by Boswell, as an instance of robust sophistry:“Once, when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus- My dear Boswell, let's have no more of this; you'll make nothing of it I'd rather hear you whistle a Scotch tune "" THE SHE-BEAR AND THE HE-BEAR. 189 added, "Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for, if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales." But though Goldsmith suffered frequent mortifications in society from the overbearing, and sometimes harsh, conduct of Johnson, he always did justice to his benevolence. When royal pensions were granted to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Shebbeare, a punster remarked, that the king had pensioned a she-bear and a hebear; to which Goldsmith replied, "Johnson, to be sure, has a roughness in his mnaner, but no man alive has a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear but the skin.” Goldsmith, in conversation, shone most when he least thought of shining; when he gave up all effort to appear wise and learned, or to cope with the oracular sententiousness of Johnson, and gave way to his natural impulses. Even Boswell could perceive his merits on these occasions. "For my part," said he, condescendingly, "I like very well to hear honest Goldsmith talk away carelessly;" and many a much wiser man than Boswell delighted in those outpourings of a fertile fancy and a generous heart In his happy moods, Goldsmith had an artless simplicity and buoyant good-humor, that led to a thousand amusing blunders and whimsical confessions, much to the entertainment of his intimates; yet, in his most thoughtless garrulity, there was occasionally the gleam of the gold and the flash of the diamond. CHAPTER XIX. Social resorts.--The shilling whist club.-A practical joke.--T ne Wednesday club.-The 'tun of man.'-The pig butcher.-Tom King.-Hugh Kelly.Glover and his characteristics. THOUGH Goldsmith's pride and ambition led him to mingle occasionally with high society, and to engage in the colloquial conflicts of the learned circle, in both of which he was ill at ease and conscious of being undervalued, yet he had some social resorts in which he indemnified himself for their restraints by indulging his humor without control. One of them was a shilling whist club, which held its meetings at the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, a place rendered classic, we are told, by a club held there in old times, to which "rare Ben Jonson" had furnished the rules. The company was of a familiar, unceremonious kind, delighting in that very questionable wit which consists in playing off practical jokes upon each other. Of one of these Goldsmith was made the butt. Coming to the club one night in a hackney oach, he gave the coachman by mistake a guinea instead of a hilling, which he set down as a dead loss, for there was no likelihood, he said, that a fellow of this class would have the honesty to return the money. On the next club evening he was told a person at the street door wished to speak with him. He went forth but soon returned with a radiant countenance. To his sur A PRACTICAL JOKE. 191 prise and delight the coachman had actually brought back the guinea. While he launched forth in praise of this unlooked-for piece of honesty, he declared it ought not to go unrewarded. Collecting a small sum from the club, and no douɔt increasing it largely from his own purse, he dismissed the Jehu with many encomiums on his good conduct. He was still chanting his praises, when one of the club requested a sight of the guinea thus honestly returned. To Goldsmith's confusion it proved to be a counterfeit. The universal burst of laughter which succeeded, and the jokes by which he was assailed on every side, showed him that the whole was a hoax, and the pretended coachman as much a counterfeit as the guinea. He was so disconcerted, it is said, that he soon beat a retreat for the evening. Another of those free and easy clubs met on Wednesday evenings at the Globe Tavern in Fleet-street. It was somewhat in the style of the Three Jolly Pigeons: songs, jokes, dramatic imitations, burlesque parodies and broad sallies of humor, formed a contrast to the sententious morality, pedantic casuistry, and polished sarcasm of the learned circle. Here a huge 'tun of man,' by the name of Gordon, used to delight Goldsmith by singing the jovial song of Nottingham Ale, and looking like a butt of it. Here, too, a wealthy pig butcher, charmed, no doubt, by the mild philanthropy of The Traveller, aspired to be on the most sociable footing with the author, and here was Tom King, th comedian, recently risen to consequence by his performance of Lord Ogleby in the new comedy of the Clandestine Marriage. A member of more note was one Hugh Kelly, a second-rate author, who, as he became a kind of competitor of Goldsmith's, deserves particular mention. He was an Irishman, about twenty |