After dinner they took tea with the ladies, where we find poor Goldsmith happy and at home, singing Tony Lumpkin's song of the Three Jolly Pigeons," and another, called the "Humours of Ballamaguery," to a very pretty Irish tune. It was to have been introduced inShe Stoops to Conquer," but was left out, as the actress who played the heroine could not sing.

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It was in these genial moments that the sunshine of Goldsmith's nature would break out, and he would say and do a thousand whimsical and agreeable things that made him the life of the strictly social circle. Johnson, with whom conversation was everything, used to judge Goldsmith too much by his own colloquial standard, and undervalue him for being less provided than himself with acquired facts, the ammunition of the tongue, and often the mere lumber of the memory; others, however, valued him for the native felicity of his thoughts, however carelessly expressed, and for certain good-fellow qualities, less calculated to dazzle than to endear. "It is amazing," said Johnson one day, after he himself had been talking like an oracle; "it is amazing how little Goldsmith knows; he seldom comes where he is not more ignorant than any one else." Yet," replied Sir Joshua Reynolds, with affectionate prompt ness, "there is no man whose company is more liked." Two or three days after the dinner at General Ogle thorpe's, Goldsmith met Johnson again at the table of General Paoli, the hero of Corsica. Martinelli, of Florence, author of an Italian History of England, was among the guests; as was Boswell, to whom we are indebted for minutes of the conversation which took place. The question was debated whether Martinelli should continue his history down to that day. To be sure he should," said Goldsmith. "No, sir;" cried Johnson, "it would give great offence. He would have to tell of almost all the living great what they did not wish told." Goldsmith." It may, perhaps, be neccessary for a native to be more cautious; but a foreigner, who comes among us without prejudice, may be considered as holding the place of a judge, and may speak his mind freely." Johnson.-"Sir, a foreigner, when he sends a work from the press, ought to be on his guard against catching the error and mistaken enthusiasm of the people among whom he happens to be." Goldsmith.—" Sir, he wants only to sell his history, and to tell truth; one an honest, the other a laudable motive." Johnson." Sir, they are both laudable motives. It is laudable in a man to wish to live by his labours; but he should write so as he may live by them, not so as he may be knocked on the head. I would advise him to be at Calais before he publishes his history of the present age. A foreigner who attaches himself to a political party in this country is in the worst state that can be imagined; he is looked upon as a mere intermeddler. A native may do it for interest." Boswell.---" Or principle" Goldsmith." There are people who tell a hundred political lies every day, and are not hurt by it. Surely, then, one may tell truth with perfect safety." Johnson." Why, sir, in the first place, he who tells a hundred lies has disarmed the force of his lies. But, besides, a man had rather have a hundred lies told of him than one truth which he does not wish to be told." Goldsmith.-"For my part, I'd tell the truth and shame the devil." Johnson." Yes, sir, but the devil will be angry. I wish to shame the devil as much as you do, but I should choose to be out of the reach of his claws." Goldsmith." His claws can do you no hurt where you have the shield of truth." This last reply was one of Goldsmith's lucky hits, and closed the argument in his favour

"We talked," writes Boswell, of the king's coming to see Goldsmith's new play." "I wish he would," said Goldsmith, adding, however, with an affected indiffer ence," not that it would do me the least good." "Well, then," cried Johnson, laughing, "let us say it would do him good. No, sir, this affectation will not pass;-it is

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For colleges on bounteous kings depend, And never rebel was to arts a friend.

"there

General Paoli observed that "successful rebels might be." Happy rebellions," interjected Martinelli. "We have no such phrase," cried Goldsmith. But have you not the thing?' asked Paoli. "Yes," replied Goldsmith, all our happy revolutions. They have hurt our constitutions, and will hurt it, till we mend it by another HAPPY REVOLUTION." This was a sturdy sally of Jacobitism that quite surprised Boswell, but must have been relished by Johnson.

General Paoli mentioned a passage in the play, which had been construed into a compliment to a lady of distinction, whose marriage with the Duke of Cumberland had excited the strong disapprobation of the king as a mésalliance. Boswell, to draw Goldsmith out, pretended to think the compliment unintentional. The poet smiled, and hesitated. The general came to his relief. sieur Goldsmith," said he, "est comme la mer, qui jette des perles et beaucoup d'autres belles choses, sans s'en appercevoir." (Mr. Goldsmith is like the sea, which casts forth pearls and many other beautiful things without perceiving it.)

"Mon

"Très-bien dit, et très-élégamment" (very well said, and very elegantly) exclaimed Goldsmith, delighted with so beautiful a compliment from such a quarter.

Johnson spoke disparagingly of the learning of a Mr. Harris, of Salisbury, and doubted his being a good Grecian. "He is what is much better," cried Goldsmith, with prompt good nature, "he is a worthy, humane man." Nay, sir," rejoined the logical Johnson, "that is not to the purpose of our argument; that will prove that he can play upon a fiddle as well as Giardini, as that he is an eminent Grecian." Goldsmith found that he had got into a scrape, and seized upon Giardini to help him out of it. "The greatest musical performers," said he, dexterously turning the conversation, have but small emoluments; Giardini, I am told, does not get above seven hundred a year." That is indeed but little for a man to get," observed Johnson, "who does best that which so many endeavour to do. There is nothing, I think, in which the power of art is shown so much as in playing on the fiddle. In all other things we can do something at first. Any man will forge a bar of iron, if you give him a hammer-not so well as a smith, but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of wood, and make a box, though a clumsy one; but give him a fiddle and a fiddlestick, and he can do nothing."

This upon the whole, though reported by the one-sided Boswell, is a tolerable specimen of the convervations of Goldsmith and Johnson; the former heedless, often illogical, always on the kind-hearted side of the question, and prone to redeem himself by lucky hits; the latter closely argumentative, studiously sententious, often profound, and sometimes laboriously prosaic.

They had an argument a few days later at Mr. Thrale's table, on the subject of suicide. Do you think, sir," said Boswell," that all who commit suicide are mad?" "Sir," replied Johnson," they are not often universally disordered in their intellects, but one passion presses so upon them that they yield to it, and commit suicide, as a passionate man will stab another. I have often thought,” added he, that after a man has taken the resolution to kill himself, it is not courage in him to do anything, however desperate, because he has nothing to fear." I don't see that," observed Goldsmith. "Nay, but my dear sir," rejoined Johnson, "why should you not see what every one else does ?" "It is," replied

sided on the evening of the 23rd of April. The nomination was seconded by Beauclerc. According to the rules of the club, the ballot would take place at the next meeting (on the 30th); there was an intervening week, therefore, in which to discuss the pretensions of the candidate. We may easily imagine the discussions that took place. Boswell had made himself absurd in such a variety of ways, that the very idea of his admission was exceedingly irksome to some of the members. "The honour of being elected into the Turk's Head Club,” said the Bishop of St. Asaph, "is not inferior to that of being representative of Westminster and Surrey;" what had Boswell done to merit such an honour? What chance had he of gaining it? The answer was simple: he had been v persevering worshiper, if not sycophant, of Johnson. The great lexicographer had a heart to be won by apparent affection; he stood forth authoritatively in support of his vassal. If asked to state the merits of the candidate, he summed them up in an indefinite but comprehensive word of his own coining: he was clubable. He, moreover, gave insignificant hints, that if Boswell were kept out he should oppose the admission of any other candidate. No further opposition was made; in fact, none of the members had been so fastidious and exclusive in regard to the club as Johnson himself; and if he were pleased, they were easily satisfied: besides, they knew that, with all his faults, Boswell was a cheerful companion, and possessed lively social qualities.

On Friday, when the ballot was to take place, Beauclerc gave a dinner at his house in the Adelphi, where Boswell met several of the members who were favourable to his election. After dinner Beauclerc adjourned to the club, leaving Boswell in company with Lady Di Beauclerc until the fate of his election should be known. He sat, he says, in a state of anxiety, which even the charm ing conversation of Lady Di could not entirely dissipate. It was not long before tidings were brought of his election, and he was conducted to the place of meeting, where, besides the company he had met at dinner, Burke, Dr.Nugent, Garrick, Goldsmith, and Mr. William Jones were waiting to receive him. The club, notwithstanding all its learned dignity in the eyes of the world, could at times "unbend and play the fool" as well as less important bodies. Some of its jocose conversations have at times leaked out, and a society in which Goldsmith could venture to sing his song of "An Old Woman Tossed in a Blanket" could not be so very staid in its gravity. We may suppose, therefore, the jokes that had been passing among the members while awaiting the arrival of Boswell. Beauclerc himself could not have repressed his disposition for a sarcastic pleasantry. At least we have a right to presume all this from the conduct of Dr. Johnson himself.

With all his gravity he possessed a deep fund of quiet humour, and felt a kind of whimsical responsibility to protect the club from the absurd propensities of the very questionable associate he had thus inflicted on them. Rising, therefore, as Boswell entered, he advanced with a very doctorial air, placed himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a desk or pulpit, and then delivered, ex cathedrâ, a mock solemn charge, pointing out the conduct expected from him as a good member of the club; what he was to do, and especially what he was to avoid; including in the latter, no doubt, all those petty, prying, questioning, gossiping, babbling habits which had so often grieved the spirit of the lexicographer. It is to be regretted that Boswell has never thought proper to note down the particulars of this charge, which, from the well known characters and positions of the parties, might have furnished a parallel to the noted charge of Launcelot Gobbo to his dog.

CHAP. XLI.

Dinner at Dilly's-Conversations on natural history-Intermed dling of Boswell-Dispute about toleration-Johnson's rebuff to Goldsmith-His apology-Man-worship-Doctors Major and Minor -A farewell visit.

A few days after the serio-comic scene of the elevation of Boswell into the Literary Club, we find that indefatigable biographer giving particulars of a dinner at the Dillys, booksellers in the Poultry, at which he met Goldsmith and Johnson, with several other literary characters. His anecdotes of the conversation of course go to glorify Dr. Johnson; for, as he observes in his biography, "his conversation alone, or what led to it, or was interwoven with it, is the business of this work." Still, on the present, as on other occasions, he gives unintentional and perhaps unavoidable gleams of Goldsmith's good sense, which show that the latter only wanted a less prejudiced and more impartial reporter, to put down the charge of colloquial incapacity so unjustly fixed upon him. The conversation turned upon the natural history of birds-a beautiful subject, on which the poet, from his recent studies, his habits of observation, and his natural tastes, must have talked with instruction and feeling ; yet, though we have much of what Johnson said, we have only a casual remark or two of Goldsmith. One was on the migration of swallows, which he pronounced partial; "the stronger ones," said he " migrate, the

others do not."

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Johnson denied the brute creation the faculty of reason. "Birds," said he, build hy instinct; they never improve; they build their first nest as well as any one they ever build." Yet we see," observed Goldsmith, if you take away a bird's nest with the eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest and lay again." Sir," replied Johnson, "that is because at first she has full time, and makes her nest deliberately. In the case you mention, she is pressed to lay, and must, therefore, make her nest quickly, and consequently it will be slight." "The nidification of birds," rejoined Goldsmith, is what is least known in natural history, though one of the most curious things in it" While conversation was going on in this placid, agreeable, and instructive manner, the eternal meddler and busy-body, Boswell, must intrude to put it in a brawl. The Dillys were dissenters; two of their guests were dissenting clergymen; another, Mr. Toplady, was a clergyman of the established church. Johnson himself was a zealous, uncompromising churchman. None but a Marplot like Boswell would have thought, on such an occasion and in such company, to broach the subject of religious toleration; but, as has been well observed, "it was his perverse inclination to introduce subjects that he hoped would produce difference and debate." In the present instance he gained his point An animated dispute immediately arose, in which according to Boswell's report, Johnson monopolised the greater part of the conversation, not always treating the dissenting clergymen with the greatest courtesy, and even once wounding the feelings of the mild and amiable Bennet Langton by his harshness.

Goldsmith mingled a little in the dispute, and with some advantage, but was cut short by flat contradiction when most in the right. He sat for a time silent but impatient under such overbearing dogmatisin, though Boswell, with is usual misinterpretation, attributes his "restless agitation" to a wish to get in and shine.

Once

Finding himself excluded," continues Boswell, “he had taken his hat to go away, but remained for a time with it in his hand, like a gamester, who, at the end of a long night, lingers for a little while to see if he can have a favourable opportunity to finish with success." he was beginning to speak, when he was overpowered by the loud voice of Johnson, who was at the opposite end of the table, and did not perceive his attempt; whereupon he threw down, as it were, his hat and his

argument, and, darting an angry glance at Johnson, exclaimed in a bitter tone, "Take it."

Just then one of the disputants was beginning to speak, when Jolinson, uttering some sound as if about to interrupt him, Goldsmith, according to Boswell, seized the opportunity to vent his own envy and spleen, under pretext of supporting another person. "Sir," said he to Johnson, "the gentleman bas heard you patiently for an hour; pray allow us now to hear him." It was a reproof in the lexicographer's own style, and he may have felt that he merited it; but he was not accustomed to be reproved. "Sir," said he sternly, "I was not interrupting the gentleman; 1 was only giving him a signal of my attention. Sir, you are impertinent." Goldsmith made no reply, but after some time went away, having another engagement.

That evening, as Boswell was on the way with Johnson and Langton to the club, he seized the occasion to make some disparaging remarks on Goldsmith, which he thought would just then be acceptable to the great lexicographer. "It was a pity," he said, "that Goldsmith would on every occasion endeavour to shine, by which he so often exposed himself." Langton contrasted him with Addison, who, content with the fame of his writings, acknowledged himself unfit for conversation; and, on being taxed by a lady with silence in company, replied, Madam, I have but ninepence in ready money, but I can draw for a thousand pounds." To this Boswell rejoined, that Goldsmith had a great deal of gold in his cabinet, but was always taking out his purse, "Yes, sir," chuckled Johnson, "and that so often an empty purse."

By the time Johnson arrived at the club, however, his angry feelings had subsided, and his native generosity and sense of justice had got the uppermost. He found Goldsmith in company with Burke, Garrick, and other members, but sitting silent and apart, "brooding," as Boswell says, "over the reprimand he had received." Johnson's good heart yearned towards him; and knowing his placable nature, "I'll make Goldsmith forgive me," whispered he; then, with a loud voice, "Dr. Goldsmith," said he " something passed to-day where you and I dined-I ask your pardon." The ire of the poet was extinguished in an instant, and his grateful affection for the magnanimous though sometimes overbearing moralist rushed to his heart. It must be much from

you, sir," said he, that I take ill!" And so," adds Boswell," the difference was over, and they were on as easy terms as ever, and Goldsmith rattled away as usual." We do not think these stories tell to the poet's disadvantage, even though related by Boswell.

Goldsmith, with all his modesty, could not be ignorant of his proper merit; and must have felt annoyed at times at being undervalued and elbowed aside by light-minded or dull men, in their blind and exclusive homage to the literary autocrat. It was a fine reproof he gave to Boswell on one occasion, for talking of Johnson as entitled to the honour of exclusive superiority: "Sir, you are for making a monarchy what should be a republic." On another occasion, when he was conversing in company with great vivacity, and apparently to the satisfaction of those around him, an honest Swiss who sat near, one George Michael Moser, keeper of the Royal Academy, perceiving Dr. Johnson rolling himself as if about to speak, exclaimed, "Stay, stay! Toctor Shonson is going to say something." And are you sure, sir," replied Goldsmith, sharply, "that you can comprehend what be says ?"

This clever rebuke, which gave the main zest to the anecdote, is omitted by Boswell, who probably did not perceive the point of it.

He relates another anecdote of this kind, on the authority of Johnson himself. The latter and Goldsmith were one evening in company with the Rev. George Graham, a master of Eton, who, notwithstanding the

sobriety of his cloth, had got intoxicated "to a pitch of looking at one mau and talking to another." Doctor," cried he, in an ecstasy of devotion and good will, but goggling by mistake upon Goldsmith, "I should be glad to see you at Eton." "I shall be glad to wait upon you,” replied Goldsmith. "No, no!" cried the other eagerly; "'tis not you I mean, Doctor Minor, 'tis Doctor Major there!" You may easily conceive," said Johnson, in relating the anecdote, “what effect this had upon Gold smith, who was irascible as a hornet." The only comment, however, which he is said to have made, partakes more of quaint and dry humour than bitterness; "that Graham," said he, "is enough to make one commit suicide." What more could be said to tolerate the nuisance of a consummate bore?

The

We have now given the last scenes between Goldsmith and Johnson which stand recorded by Boswell. latter called on the poet a few days after the dinner at Dilly's to take leave of him prior to departing for Scotland; yet, even in this last interview, he contrives to get up a charge of "jealousy and envy." Goldsmith, he would fain persuade us, is very angry that Johnson is going to travel with him in Scotland; and endeavours to persuade him that he will be a dead weight" to lug along through the Highlands and Hebrides." Any one else, knowing the character and habits of Johnson, would have thought the same; and no one but Boswell would have supposed his office of bear-leader to the ursa-major a thing to be envied."*

CHAP. XLII.

Project of a "Dictionary of Arts and Sciences"-Disappointment -Negligent authorship-Application for a pension-Beattie's Essay on Truth”—Public adulation—A high-minded rebuke. The works which Goldsmith had still in hand being already paid for, and the money gone, some new scheme must be devised to provide for the past and the futurefor impending debts, which threatened to crush him, and expenses which were continually increasing. He now projected a work of greater compass than any he had yet undertaken-a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences" a comprehensive scale, which was to occupy a number of volumes. For this he received pro mises of assistance from several powerful hands. Johnson was to contribute an article on ethics; Burke, an abstract of his Essay on the Sublime and the Beautiful, an essay on the Berkeleyan system of philosophy, and others on political science, Sir Joshua Reynolds, an essay on painting; and Garrick, while he undertook ou his own part to furnish an essay on acting, engaged Dr. Burney to contribute an article on music. Here was a great array of talent positively engaged, while other writers of eminence were to be sought for the various departments of science, Goldsmith was to edit the whole.

One of Peter Pindar's (Dr. Wolcot) most amusing "jeux d'esprit" is his congratulatory epistle to Boswell on this tour, of which we subjoin a few lines:

"O Boswell, Bozzy, Bruce, whate'er thy name,
Thou mighty shark for anecdote and fame;
Thou jackal, leading lion Johnson forth,
To eat M'Pherson 'midst his native north;
To frighten grave professors with his roar,
And shake the Hebrides from shore to shore.

An undertaking of this kind, while it did not incessantly task and exhaust his inventive powers by original composition, would give agreeable and profitable exercise to his taste and judgment in selecting, compiling, and arranging, and he calculated to diffuse over the whole the acknowledged grace of his style.

He drew up a prospectus of the plan, which is said by Bishop Percy, who saw it, to have been written with un common ability, and to have had that perspicuity and elegance for which his writings are remarkable. This paper, unfortunately, is no longer in existence.

Goldsmith's expectations, always sanguine respecting any new plan, were raised to an extraordinary height by the present project; and well they might be, when we consider the powerful coadjutors already pledged. They were doomed, however, to complete disappointment. Davies, the bibliopole of Russell-street, lets us into the secret of this failure. "The booksellers," said he, “notwithstanding they had a very good opinion of his abilities, yet were startled at the bulk, importance, and expense of so great an undertaking, the fate of which was to depend on the industry of a man, with whose indolence of temper and method of procrastination they had long been acquainted."

Goldsmith certainly gave reason for some such distrust by the heedlessness with which he conducted his literary undertakings. Those unfinished, but paid for, would be suspended, to make way for some job that was to provide for present necessities. Those thus hastily taken up would be as hastily executed, and the whole, however pressing, would be shoved aside and left “at loose ends," on some sudden call to social enjoyment or recreation.

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Cradock tells us that on one occasion, when Goldsmith was hard at work on his Natural History, he sent to Dr. Percy and himself, entreating them to finish some pages of his work which lay upon his table, and for which the press was urgent, he being detained by other engagements at Windsor. They met by appointment at his chambers in the Temple, where they found every thing in disorder, and costly books lying scattered about on the table and on the floor; many of the books on natural history, which he had recently consulted, lay open among uncorrected proof-sheets. The subject in hand, and from which he had suddenly broken off, related to birds. "Do you know anything about birds ?" asked Dr. Percy, smiling. Not an atom," replied Cradock; “do you?" "Not I! I scarcely know a goose from a swan: however, let us try what we can do." They set to work and completed their friendly task. Goldsmith, however, when he came to revise it, made such alterations that they could neither of them recognise their own share. The engagement at Windsor, which had thus caused Goldsmith to break off suddenly from his multifarious engagements, was a party of pleasure with some literary ladies. Another anecdote was current, illustrative of the carelessness with which he executed works requiring accuracy and research. On the 22nd of June he had received payment in advance for a Grecian History in two volumes, though only one was finished. As he was pushing on doggedly at the second, Gibbon the historian called in. You are the man of all others I wish to see," cried the poet, glad to be saved the trouble of reference to his books. What was the name of that Indian king who gave Alexander the Great so much trouble?" Montezuma," replied Gibbon, sportively. The heedless author was about committing the name to paper without reference, when Gibbon pretended to recollect himself, and gave the true name, Porus.

This story, very probably, was a sportive exaggeration; but it was a multiplicity of anecdotes like this and the preceding one, some true and some false, which had impaired the confidence of booksellers in Goldsmith as a man to be relied on for a task requiring wide and

accurate research, and close and long-continued application. The project of the Universal Dictionary, therefore, met with no encouragement, and fell through. The failure of this scheme, on which he had built such spacious hopes, sank deep into Goldsmith's heart. He was still further grieved and mortified by the failure of an effort made by some of his friends to obtain for him a pension from government. There had been a talk of the disposition of the ministry to extend the bounty of the crown to distinguished literary men in pecuniary difficulty, without regard to their political creed: when the merits and claims of Goldsmith, however, were laid before them, they met no favour. The sin of sturdy independence lay at his door. He had refused to become a ministerial hack when offered a carte blanche by Parson Scott, the cabinet emissary. The wondering parson had left him in poverty and "his garret," and there the ministry were disposed to suffer him to remain.

In the meantime Dr. Beattie come out with his Essay on Truth, and all the orthodox world are thrown into a paroxysm of contagious ecstasy. He is cried up as the great champion of Christianity against the attacks of modern philosophers and infidels; he is fêted and flattered in every way. He receives at Oxford the honorary degree of doctor of civil law at the same time with Sir Joshua Reynolds. The king sends for him, praises his Essay, and gives him a pension of two hundred pounds. Goldsmith feels more acutely the denial of a pension to himself, when one has thus been given unsolicited to a man he might without vanity consider so much his inferior. He was not one to conceal his feelings.

Here's such a stir," said he one day at Thrale's table, "about a fellow that has written one book, and I have written so many."

Everybody," exclaimed Mrs. Thrale, "loves Dr. Beattie but Goldsmith, who says he cannot bear the sight of so much applause as they all bestow upon him. Did he not tell us so himself. no one would believe he was so exceedingly ill-natured."

He told them so himself because he was too open and unreserved to disguise his feelings, and because he really considered the praise lavished on Beattie extravagant, as in fact it was. It was all, of course, set down to sheer envy and uncharitableness. To add to his annoyance, he found his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds joining in the universal adulation. He had painted a full length portrait of Beattie, decked in the doctor's robes in which he had figured at Oxford, with the "Essay on Truth" under his arm, and the angel of truth at his side, while Voltaire figured as one of the demons of infidelity, sophistry, and falsehood, driven into utter darkness.

Goldsmith had known Voltaire in early life; he had been his admirer and his biographer; he grieved to find him receiving such an insult from the classic pencil of his friend. "It is unworthy of you," said he to Sir Joshua, "to debase so high a genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie and his book will be forgotten in ten years, while Voltaire's fame will last for ever. Take care it does not perpetuate this picture to the shame of such a man as you." This noble and highminded rebuke is the only instance on record of any reproachful words between the poet and the painter: and we are happy to find that it did not destroy the harmony of their intercourse.