Goldsmith, who supposed, of course, that he was a friend of the family. The owner of the house rose on the entrance of the strangers. The undaunted Glover shook hands with him in the most cordial manner possible, fixed his eye on one of the company who had a peculiarly good-natured physiognomy, 5 muttered something like a recognition, and forthwith launched into an amusing story, invented at the moment, of something which he pretended had occurred upon the road. The host supposed the new-comers were friends of his guests; the guests, that they were friends of the host. Glover did not give them 10 time to find out the truth. He followed one droll story with another; brought his powers of mimicry into play, and kept the company in a roar. Tea was offered and accepted; an hour went off in the most sociable manner imaginable, at the end of which Glover bowed himself and his companion out of the 15 house with many facetious last words, leaving the host and his company to compare notes, and to find out what an impudent intrusion they had experienced. Nothing could exceed the dismay and vexation of Goldsmith when triumphantly told by Glover that it was all a hoax, and 20 that he did not know a single soul in the house. His first impulse was to return instantly and vindicate himself from all participation in the jest; but a few words from his free-andeasy companion dissuaded him. "Doctor," said he, coolly, "we are unknown; you quite as much as I; if you return and 25 tell the story, it will be in the newspapers to-morrow; nay, upon recollection, I remember in one of their offices the face of that squinting fellow who sat in the corner as if he was treasuring up my stories for future use, and we shall be sure of being exposed; let us therefore keep our own counsel.” This story was frequently afterward told by Glover, with rich dramatic effect, repeating and exaggerating the conversation, and mimicking, in ludicrous style, the embarrassment, surprise, and subsequent indignation of Goldsmith. 30 It is a trite saying that a wheel cannot run in two ruts; nor 35 a man keep two opposite sets of intimates. Goldsmith sometimes found his old friends of the "Jolly-Pigeon" order turning up rather awkwardly when he was in company with his new aristocratic acquaintances. He gave a whimsical account of the sudden apparition of one of them at his gay apartments in the Temple, who may have been a welcome visitor at his squalid quarters in Green Arbor Court. "How do you think he served me?" said he to a friend. 66 Why, sir, after staying away two 5 years, he came one evening into my chambers, half drunk, as I was taking a glass of wine with Topham Beauclerc and General Oglethorpe°; and sitting himself down, with most intolerable assurance inquired after my health and literary pursuits, as if we were upon the most friendly footing. I was at first so 10 much ashamed of ever having known such a fellow, that I stifled my resentment, and drew him into a conversation on such topics as I knew he could talk upon; in which, to do him justice, he acquitted himself very reputably; when all of a sudden, as if recollecting something, he pulled two papers out of 15 his pocket, which he presented to me with great ceremony, saying, Here, my dear friend, is a quarter of a pound of tea, and a half pound of sugar, I have brought you; for though it is not in my power at present to pay you the two guineas you so generously lent me, you, nor any man else, shall ever have it to 20 say that I want gratitude.' This," added Goldsmith, too much. I could no longer keep in my feelings, but desired him to turn out of my chambers directly; which he very coolly did, taking up his tea and sugar; and I never saw him afterwards." 66 was 25 CHAPTER XXIV Reduced again to Book-building. - Rural Retreat at Shoemaker's Paradise. Death of Henry Goldsmith; Tributes to his Memory in The Deserted Village. THE heedless expenses of Goldsmith, as may easily be supposed, soon brought him to the end of his "prize-money," but when his purse gave out he drew upon futurity, obtaining advances from his booksellers and loans from his friends in the confident hope of soon turning up another trump. The debts 30 which he thus thoughtlessly incurred in consequence of a transient gleam of prosperity embarrassed him for the rest of his life; so that the success of The Good-natured Man may be said to have been ruinous to him. He was soon obliged to resume his old craft of book-building, and set about his History of Rome, undertaken for Davies. 5 It was his custom, as we have shown, during the summertime, when pressed by a multiplicity of literary jobs, or urged to the accomplishment of some particular task, to take country lodgings a few miles from town, generally on the Harrow or Edgeware roads, and bury himself there for weeks and months 10 together. Sometimes he would remain closely occupied in his room, at other times he would stroll out along the lanes and hedgerows, and taking out paper and pencil, note down thoughts to be expanded and connected at home. His summer retreat for the present year, 1768, was a little cottage with a garden, 15 pleasantly situated about eight miles from town on the Edgeware road. He took it in conjunction with a Mr. Edmund Botts, a barrister and man of letters, his neighbor in the Temple, having rooms immediately opposite him on the same floor. They had become cordial intimates, and Botts was one 20 of those with whom Goldsmith now and then took the friendly but pernicious liberty of borrowing. The cottage which they had hired belonged to a rich shoemaker of Piccadilly, who had embellished his little domain of half an acre with statues, and jets, and all the decorations of 25 landscape gardening; in consequence of which Goldsmith gave it the name of The Shoemaker's Paradise. As his fellowoccupant, Mr. Botts, drove a gig, he sometimes, in an interval of literary labor, accompanied him to town, partook of a social dinner there, and returned with him in the evening. On one 30 occasion, when they had probably lingered too long at the table, they came near breaking their necks on their way homeward by driving against a post on the side-walk, while Botts was proving by the force of legal eloquence that they were in the very middle of the broad Edgeware road. In the course of this summer, Goldsmith's career of gayety was suddenly brought to a pause by intelligence of the death of his brother Henry, then but forty-five years of age. He had led a quiet and blameless life amid the scenes of his 35 youth, fulfilling the duties of village pastor with unaffected piety; conducting the school at Lissoy with a degree of industry and ability that gave it celebrity, and acquitting himself in all the duties of life with undeviating rectitude and the 5 mildest benevolence. How truly Goldsmith loved and venerated him is evident in all his letters and throughout his works; in which his brother continually forms his model for an exemplification of all the most endearing of the Christian virtues; yet his affection at his death was embittered by the 10 fear that he died with some doubt upon his mind of the warmth of his affection. Goldsmith had been urged by his friends in Ireland, since his elevation in the world, to use his influence with the great, which they supposed to be all-powerful, in favor of Henry, to obtain for him church-preferment. He did exert 15 himself as far as his diffident nature would permit, but without success; we have seen that, in the case of the Earl of Northumberland, when, as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, that nobleman proffered him his patronage, he asked nothing for himself, but only spoke on behalf of his brother. Still some of his 20 friends, ignorant of what he had done and of how little he was able to do, accused him of negligence. It is not likely, however, that his amiable and estimable brother joined in the accusation. To the tender and melancholy recollections of his early days 25 awakened by the death of this loved companion of his childhood, we may attribute some of the most heartfelt passages in his Deserted Village. Much of that poem we are told was composed this summer, in the course of solitary strolls about the green lanes and beautifully rural scenes of the neighborhood; 30 and thus much of the softness and sweetness of English landscape became blended with the ruder features of Lissoy. It was in these lonely and subdued moments, when tender regret was half mingled with self-upbraiding, that he poured forth that homage of the heart rendered as it were at the grave of his 35 brother. The picture of the village pastor in this poem, which we have already hinted was taken in part from the character of his father, embodied likewise the recollections of his brother Henry; for the natures of the father and son seem to have been identical. In the following lines, however, Goldsmith evidently contrasted the quiet settled life of his brother, passed at home in the benevolent exercise of the Christian duties, with his own restless vagrant career : — "Remote from towns he ran his godly race, Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place." To us the whole character seems traced as it were in an expiatory spirit; as if, conscious of his own wandering restlessness, he sought to humble himself at the shrine of excellence which he had not been able to practise : "At church with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorn'd the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile; Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distress'd; 25 Dinner at Bickerstaff's. CHAPTER XXV Hiffernan and his Impecuniosity. - Kenrick's Johnson's A IN October, Goldsmith returned to town and resumed his usual haunts. We hear of him at a dinner given by his countryman, Isaac Bickerstaff. author of Love in a Village, Lionel |