on Truth to which I formerly adverted; and which had eagerly been caught at with avowed exaggeration of praise, as a mere battery of assault against the Voltaire and Hume philosophy. The object, such as it was, was a good one; and though it could not make Beattie a tolerable philosopher, it made him, for the time, a very perfect social idol. He was supposed to have 'avenged' insulted Christianity. 'He is so caressed, and invited, and treated, and liked, 'and flattered by the great, that I can see nothing of him,' says Johnson. 'Every one,' says Mrs. Piozzi, 'loves 'Doctor 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, who could believe 'he was so exceedingly ill-natured?' Telling it, one half called him ill-natured; and the other half, absurd. He certainly had the objection all to himself. I have been 'but once to the Club since you left England,' writes Beauclerc to Lord Charlemont : we were entertained as 'usual by Doctor Goldsmith's absurdity.' Some harangue against Beattie, very probably; for even the sarcastic Beau went with the rest of the 'ale-house in Gerrard Street,' in support of the anti-infidel philosopher. What most vexed Goldsmith, however, was the adhesion of Reynolds. It was the only grave difference that had ever been between them; and it is honourable to the poet that it should have arisen on the only incident in the painter's life which has somewhat tarnished his fame. Reynolds accompanied Beattie to Oxford; partook with him in an

honorary doctorship of civil law; and on his return painted his fellow doctor in Oxonian robes, with the Essay on Truth under his arm, and at his side the angel of Truth overpowering and chasing away the demons of Infidelity, Sophistry, and Falsehood: the last represented by the plump and broad-backed figure of Hume, the first by the lean and piercing face of Voltaire. It is unworthy of 'you,' said Goldsmith to Sir Joshua, and his fine rebuke will outlast the silly picture, 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.' Reynolds persisted, notwithstanding the protest; but was incapable of any poor resentment of it. He produced the same year, at Goldsmith's suggestion, his painting of Ugolino. Beattie himself, however, was full of resentment. He called his critic a poor creature, eaten up with jealousy; yet he admired his genius, he said (this was a year hence, when he had no more to fear from his criticism); and was 'sorry 'to find last summer that he looked upon me as a person 'who seemed to stand between him and his interest.' The allusion was to the pension; for which it was well known that Goldsmith was an unsuccessful solicitor, and which had been granted unsolicited to Beattie. The king had sent for him, praised his Essay, and given him two hundred a-year. Johnson welcomed the news in the Hebrides with his most vehement expression of delight, Oh, brave we! Though,

seeing he had quoted his favourite Traveller but three days before, till the 'tear started to his eye,' he might have thought somewhat of his other unpensioned friend, and clapped his hands' less vehemently.

That the failure of hope in this direction should a little have soured and changed the unlucky petitioner, will hardly provoke surprise. He had hitherto taken little interest, and no part in politics; and his inclination, as far as it may be traced, had certainly never been to the ministerial side. But he seems no longer to have scrupled to avow a decisive present sympathy with the opposition. Lord Shelburne's member and protégé, Townshend, was at this time Lord Mayor of London; and by his fiery liberalism, and really bold resolution, quite careless of those Malagrida taunts against his patron with which the sarcasm of Junius had supplied ministerial assailants, was exasperating the Court to the last degree. Yet Goldsmith did not hesitate to praise the 'patriotic magistrate,' and to avow that he had done so. 'Goldsmith the other day,' writes Beauclerc to Lord Charlemont, put a paragraph ' into the newspapers, in praise of Lord Mayor Townshend. 'The same night we happened to sit next to Lord Shelburne, 'at Drury Lane. I mentioned the circumstance of the 'paragraph to him, and he said to Goldsmith that he hoped ' he had mentioned nothing about Malagrida in it. "Do ""you know," answered Goldsmith, "that I never could ""conceive the reason why they call you Malagrida, FOR Malagrida was a very good sort of man." You see

'plainly what he meant to say; but that happy turn of expression is peculiar to himself. Mr. Walpole says that 'this story is a picture of Goldsmith's whole life.' Ah! so it might seem to men whose whole life had been a holiday. No slavish drudgery, no clownish straits, no scholarly loneliness, had befallen them; and how to make allowance in others for disadvantages never felt by ourselves, is still the great problem for us all. Poor Goldsmith's blunder was only a false emphasis. He meant that he wondered Malagrida, being the name of a good man, should be used as a term of reproach. But his whole life was a false emphasis, says Walpole. In his sense, perhaps it was so. He had been emphatic throughout it, where Walpole had only been indifferent; and what to the wit and man of fashion had been a scene for laughter, to the poet and man of letters had been fraught with serious suffering. Life is a comedy 'to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel.' Democritus laughed, and Heraclitus wept.

Beauclerc told Lord Charlemont in the same letter, that Goldsmith had written a prologue for Mrs. Yates, which she was to speak that night at the Opera-house. It is very good. You will see it soon in all the newspapers, other'wise I would send it to you.' The newspapers have nevertheless been searched in vain for it, though it certainly was spoken; and it seems probable that Colman's friends had interfered to suppress it. Mrs. Yates had quarrelled with the Covent Garden manager; and one object of the 'poetical exordium' which Goldsmith had written for her,

was to put before that fashionable audience the injustice of her exclusion from the English theatre. He had great sympathy for Mrs. Yates, thinking her the first English actress; and it is not wonderful that he should have lost all sympathy with Colman. Their breach had lately widened more and more. Kenrick, driven from Drury Lane, had found refuge at the other house; and on the very night of Mrs. Yates's prologue, Colman suffered a new comedy, by that libeller of all his friends, to be decisively damned at Covent Garden. If Goldsmith could have withdrawn both his comedies upon this, he would probably have done it; for at once he made an effort to remove the first to Drury Lane, which he had now the right to do. But Garrick insisted on his original objection to Lofty; and justified it by reference to the comparative coldness with which the comedy had been received in the summer, though with the zealous Lee Lewes in that part (Lewis had not yet assumed it). He would play the Good Natur'd Man if that objection could be obviated, not otherwise. Here the matter rested for a time. But in the course of what passed, Goldsmith found that Newbery had failed to observe his promise in connection with the unpaid bill still in Garrick's hands. This was hardly generous; since the copyright of She Stoops to Conquer had passed in satisfaction of all claims between them, and already promised Newbery the ample profits which it subsequently realised beyond his debt. These are said to have amounted to upwards of three hundred pounds; and the play was still so profitable after several years' sale,