encore the cow! encore the cow! In the pride of my heart 1762. "I attempted imitations of some other animals, but with Et. 34. very inferior effect." A Scotch friend was with him, and gave sensible advice. "My dear sir," said Doctor Blair, earnestly, "I would confine myself to the cow!" or, as Walter Scott tells the anecdote in purer vernacular, "Stick "to the cow, mon."* Nor was the advice lost altogether; for Boswell stuck afterwards to his cow, in other words to what he could best achieve, pretty closely; though Goldsmith, among others, had no small reason to regret, that he should also, doing the cow so well, still " with very inferior effect" attempt imitations of other animals. But little does Goldsmith or any other man suspect as yet, that within this wine-bibbing tavern babbler, this meddling, conceited, inquisitive, loquacious lion-hunter, this bloated and vain young Scot, lie qualities of reverence, real insight, quick observation, and marvellous memory, which, strangely assorted as they are with those other meaner habits, and parasitical, self-complacent absurdities, will one day connect his name eternally with the men of genius of his time, and enable him to influence posterity in its judgments on them. They seem to have met occasionally before Boswell returned to Edinburgh; but only two of Goldsmith's answers to the other's perpetual and restless questionings remain to indicate the nature of their intercourse. There lived at this time with Johnson, a strange, silent, grotesque companion, whom he had supported for many years, and continued to keep with him till death; and Boswell could not possibly conceive * Boswell, Life, v. 148,9, and note. The story was incautiously told to Johnson; and afterwards, on Boswell's talking, as he himself tells us, "too confidently upon some point, which I now forget, he did not spare me. “Nay, 'sir,' said he, if you cannot talk better as a man, I'd have you bellow like a ""cow."" 666 1762. Æt. 34. what the claim of that insignificant Robert Levett could be, on the great object of his own veneration. "He is poor and "honest," was Goldsmith's answer, "which is recommenda"tion enough for Johnson."* Discovery of another object of the great man's charity, however, seemed difficult to be reconciled with this; for here was a man of whom Mr. James Boswell had heard a very bad and shameful character,† and, in almost the same breath, that Johnson had been kind to him also. "He is now become miserable," was Goldsmith's quiet explanation, "and that ensures the protection of Johnson." ii. 194. See notices of him in Boswell, Life, i. 289-90; ii. 138-9; vii. 45; viii, 121, &c. Johnson's letters on the death of his thirty years' companion are most affecting. "He was not unprepared, for he was very good to the poor. "How much soever I valued him, I now wish I had valued him more." Boswell describes him as an obscure practiser of physic amongst the lower people, his fees being sometimes such provisions as his patients could afford him; and his popularity in this was so great, that "his walk was from Houndsditch to "Marylebone.” He began life as a waiter in a coffee-house in Paris frequented by medical men, whose attention he attracted, and thus qualified himself ultimately. George Steevens, who relates this, describes also the other great event of his life. When past middle life, he married a woman of the town, who had persuaded him (notwithstanding their place of congress was a small coal-shed in Fetter Lane) that she was nearly related to a man of fortune, but was kept by him out of large possessions. Johnson used to say, that, compared with the marvels of this transaction, the stories of the Arabian Nights were familiar occurrences. He had not been married four months before a writ was taken out against him, for debts contracted by his wife. Afterwards she ran away from him, and was tried for picking pockets at the Old Bailey. She pleaded her own cause, and was acquitted; a separation took place; and Johnson then took Levett home, where he continued till his death. His name will always be remembered in connection with Johnson's noble verse: "In Misery's darkest caverns known, "His useful care was ever nigh, "Where hopeless Anguish pour'd his groan, "And lonely Want retir'd to die." + It has been supposed that this was the wretched Bickerstaff, but it was not till ten years later that his shame came upon him. Ibid ii. 194. "Levett had admired Johnson because others admired him ; "Johnson in pity loved Levett, because few others could find anything in him to "love." Hawkins, 404. The malicious knight may here perhaps be believed. CHAPTER VII. HOGARTH AND REYNOLDS. 1762-1763. 1762. NEWBERY'S account-books and memoranda carry us, at the close of 1762, to a country lodging in Islington, kept by Et. 34. a stout and elderly lady named Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming, and inhabited by Oliver Goldsmith. He is said to have moved here to be near Newbery, who had chambers at the time in Canonbury-house or tower; and that the publisher had looked out the lodgings for him, may be inferred from the fact that Mrs. Fleming was a friend of Mr. Newbery's, and, when he afterwards held the lease of Canonbury-house, seems to have rented or occupied part of it. But Goldsmith had doubtless also a stronger inducement in thus escaping, for weeks together, from the crowded noise of Wine Office Court (where he retained a lodging for town uses), to comparative quiet and healthy air. There were still green fields and lanes in Islington. Glimpses were discernible yet, even of the old time when the tower was Elizabeth's hunting seat, and the country all about was woodland. There were walks where houses were not; neither terraces, nor taverns; and where stolen hours might be given to precious thought, in the intervals of toilsome labour. That he had come here with designs of labour, more Y 1762. Æt. 34. 1763. constant and unremitting than ever, new and closer arrangements with Newbery would seem to indicate. The publisher made himself, with certain prudent limitations, Mrs. Fleming's paymaster; board and lodging were to be charged £50 a-year (the reader has to keep in mind that this would be now nearly double that amount), and, when the state of their accounts permitted it, to be paid each quarter by Mr. Newbery; the publisher taking credit for these payments in his literary settlements with Goldsmith. The first quarterly payment had become due on the 24th of March 1763; and on that day the landlady's claim of £12 10s. made up to £14 by "incidental expenses," was discharged by Newbery. It Et. 35. stands as one item in an account of his cash advances for the first nine months of 1763, which characteristically exhibits the relations of bookwriter and bookseller. Mrs. Fleming's bills recur at their stated intervals; and on the 8th of September, there is a payment of £15 to William Filby the tailor. The highest advance in money is one (which is not repeated) of three guineas; the rest vary, with intervals of a week or so between each, from two guineas to one guinea and half a guinea. The whole amount, from January to October 1763, is little more than £96; upwards of £60 of which Goldsmith had meanwhile satisfied by "copies of different kinds," when on settlement day he gave his note for the balance.* What these "copies" in every case were, it is not so easy 1763. to discover. From a list of books* lent to him by Newbery, a compilation on popular philosophy appears to have been Et. 35. contemplated; he was certainly engaged in the revision of what was meant to be a humorous recommendation of female government entitled Description of Millenium Hall, as well as in making additions to four juvenile volumes of Wonders of Nature and Art; and he had yet more to do with another book, the System of Natural History by Dr. Brookes (the author of the Gazetteer), which he thoroughly revised, and to which he not only contributed a graceful preface, but several up the vouchers." } 14 13 6 £111 1 6 63 0 0 £48 1 6 A promissory note was given by Goldsmith for the balance. Prior, i. 459-60. Newbery MSS. "Nov. 25, 1762. Lent Dr. Goldsmith. Martin's Philosophy, 3 vols 8vo; Kiel's Introduction; Macquart's Chemistry, 3 vols, French; Encyclopædia, 8 vols folio, French; Chinese Letters, French; Persian, ditto; Pemberton's Views of Newton's Philosophy; Hale's Vegetable Statics, 2 vols 8vo; Ferguson's Astronomy, 4to; Buffon's Natural History, 9 vols 4to; The Origin of Laws, Arts, and Sciences, 3 vols 8vo, Edinburgh." Newbery MSS. Prior, i. 415. |