though it was but the year before his death, he saw his well-beloved bailiffs restored to the scene, of which they have ever since been the most popular attraction. With the play, the prologue of course was printed; and here, too, Goldsmith had another satisfaction, in the alteration of a line that had been laughed at. Don't call me our 'LITTLE bard' he said to Johnson; and 'our anxious bard' was good-naturedly substituted. But what Boswell interposes on this head simply shows us how uneasy he was, not when Johnson's familiar diminutives, more fond than respectful, were used by himself, but when they passed into the mouths of others. I have often desired Mr. Johnson not to call me Goldy,' was his complaint to Davies. It was a courteous way of saying, 'I wish you wouldn't call 'me Goldy, whatever Mr. Johnson does.'

The comedy was played ten consecutive nights: their majesties commanding it on the fifth night (a practice not unwise, though become unfashionable); and the third, sixth, and ninth, being advertised as appropriated to the author. Shuter gave it an eleventh night, a month later, by selecting it for his benefit; when Goldsmith, in a fit of extravagant good nature, sent him ten guineas (perhaps the last he had at the time) for a box ticket. It was again, after an interval of three years, played three nights; and it was selected for a benefit the second year after that, when the bailiffs reappeared. This is all I can discover of its career upon the stage while the author yet lived to enjoy it.

Its success, in other respects, very sensibly affected his ways of life. His three nights had produced him nearly £100; Griffin had paid him £100 more; and for any good fortune of this kind, his past fortunes had not fitted him. So little, he would himself say, was he used to receive money 'in a lump,' that when Newbery made him his first advance of twenty guineas, his embarrassment was as great as Captain Brazen's in the play, whether he should build a privateer or a play-house with the money. He now took means hardly less effective to disembarrass himself of the profits of his comedy. 'He descended 'from his attic story in the Staircase, Inner Temple,' says Cooke (who here writes somewhat hastily, one descent from the 'attic' having already been made), ' and purchased 'chambers in Brick Court, Middle Temple, for which he gave four hundred pounds.' They were No. 2 on the second floor, on the right hand ascending the staircase; and consisted of three reasonably sized rooms, which he furnished handsomely, with Wilton carpets,' blue marine' mahogany sofas, blue marine curtains, chairs corresponding, chimney glasses, Pembroke and card tables, and tasteful book-shelves. Thus, and by payment for the lease of the chambers, the sum Cooke mentions would seem to have been expended; and with it began a system of waste and debt, involving him in difficulties 'he never surmounted.' The first was in the shape of money borrowed from Mr. Edmund Bott, a barrister who occupied the rooms opposite his, on the same floor; who remained very intimate with

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him for the rest of his life; and whose Poor Laws treatise is supposed to have received revision and improvement from him. Exactly below Goldsmith's were the chambers of Mr. Blackstone; and the rising lawyer, at this time finishing the fourth volume of his Commentaries, is reported to have made frequent complaint of the distracting social noises that went on above. A Mr. Children succeeded him, and made the same complaint.

The nature of the noises may be presumed from what is said on the authority of a worthy Irish merchant settled in London (Mr. Seguin), to two of whose children Goldsmith stood godfather; and whose intimacy with the poet descended as an heirloom to his family, by whom every tradition of it has been carefully cherished. They spoke to Mr. Prior of other Irish friends (Mr. Pollard, of Castle Pollard, and his wife) who visited London at this time, and were entertained by Goldsmith. They remembered dinners at which Johnson, Percy, and Bickerstaff, were guests. They talked of supper parties with younger people, as well in the London chambers as in suburban lodgings; preceded by blind-man's buff, forfeits, or games of cards; and where Goldsmith, festively entertaining them all, made frugal supper for himself off boiled milk. They related how he would sing all kinds of Irish songs; with what special enjoyment he gave the Scotch ballad of Johnny Armstrong (his old nurse's favourite); how cheerfully he would put the front of his wig behind, or contribute in any other way to the general amusement; and to what

accompaniment of uncontrollable laughter he danced a 'minuet with Mrs. Seguin.' Little of the self-satisfied importance which Boswell is most fond of connecting with him, is to be discovered in recollections like these.

And they are confirmed by Cooke's more precise account of scenes he witnessed at the Wednesday's club, where Goldsmith's more intimate associates seem now to have attempted to restrain the too great familiarity he permitted to the humbler members. An amusing instance is related. The fat man who sang songs had a friend in a certain Mr. B., described as a good sort of man and an eminent pig-butcher; who piqued himself very much on his good fellowship with the author of the Traveller, and whose constant manner of drinking to him was, 'Come, Noll, ' here's my service to you, old boy!' Repeating this one night after the comedy was played, and when there was a very full club, Glover went over to Goldsmith, and said in a whisper that he ought not to allow such liberties. 'Let 'him alone,' answered Goldsmith, and you'll see how civilly I'll let him down.' He waited a little; and on the next pause in the conversation, called out aloud, with a marked expression of politeness and courtesy, 'Mr. B., I ' have the honor of drinking your good health.' 'Thanke'e, 'thanke'e, Noll,' returned Mr. B., pulling the pipe out of his mouth, and answering with great briskness. Well, 'where's the advantage of your reproof?' asked Glover. 'In truth,' remarked Goldsmith, with an air of goodhumoured disappointment, intended to give greater force

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to a stroke of meditated wit, 'I give it up; I ought to have known before now, there is no putting a pig in the

The same authority informs us of liberties not quite so harmless as Mr. B.'s, and wit quite as flat as Goldsmith's, practised now and then on the poet for more general amusement, by the choicer spirits of the Globe. For example, he had come into the club-room one night, eager and clamorous for his supper, having been out on some 'shooting party,' and taken nothing since the morning. The wags were still round the table, at which they had been enjoying themselves, when a dish of excellent mutton chops, ordered as he came in, was set before the famishing poet. Instantly one of the company rose, and went to another part of the room. A second pushed his chair away from the table. A third showed more decisive signs of distress, connecting it with the chops in a manner not to be mistaken. How the waiter could 'have dared to produce such a dish,' was at last the reluctant answer to Goldsmith's alarmed enquiries: the 'chops were offensive; the fellow ought to be made to eat 'them himself.' Anxious for supper as he was, the plate was at once thrust from him; the waiter violently summoned into the room; and an angry order given that he should try to make his own repast of what he had so impudently set before a hungry man. The waiter, now conscious of a trick, complied with affected reluctance; and Goldsmith, more quickly appeased than enraged, as his wont was, ordered a fresh supper for himself, and a dram