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of these Rockinghams and Richmonds. He consented to do this, and the end was but a part of the beginning. Already it was manifest, to one who could pierce through the overrefinings of his genius to its unavailing and unpractical issues. Was it strange that Goldsmith should have been that one? Was it strange that among all the men in familiar intercourse with him, or belonging to the society of which he was the leading ornament, he should first have heard the truth from that member of the circle whose opinions on such a theme perhaps all would have hailed with laughter? Burke was only upon the threshold of his troubled though great career; he had yet to live twenty-seven years of successes in every means employed, and of failures in every object sought; when Goldsmith conceived and wrote his imaginary epitaph. But its truth was prophetic. Through the exquisite levity of its tone appeared a weight and seriousness of thought, which was found applicable to every after movement in Burke's subsequent life; and now confirms as by the judgment of his time, the unsparing verdicts of history. But as yet it was Goldsmith's alone. What hitherto had fallen from Johnson showed no such perception as this; and it may be doubtful if the rest knew much more of the likeness than that the statesman's long speeches did detain him sadly from his dinner, and he too often arrived at table when his mutton was cold. It was not till many years later he obtained the name of the dinner-bell.

Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such,
We scarcely can praise it, or blame it too much;

Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat,
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote;
Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining.
Though equal to all things, for all things unfit:
Too nice for a statesman; too proud for a wit;
For a patriot, too cool; for a drudge, disobedient;
And too fond of the right, to pursue the expedient.
In short, 'twas his fate, unemploy'd, or in place, sir,
To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor.

Tommy Townshend had confirmed in the last session the claim he formerly put forward to a mention here. Again he had attacked Johnson, with allusion to his Falkland Islands pamphlet, as a pensioner paid to abuse the opposition; and again Burke had remained silent, leaving his friend's defence this time to Wedderburne, a recent deserter from the Whigs. And yet he might fairly enough, if less anxious at the moment for Townshend's go-between service, have spurned the charge against the great pamphleteer, that his pension had lately been increased to reward a hireling advocacy. Johnson laughed at it himself when Boswell named it to him, and said (justly enough) that Lord North had no such friendly disposition that way. But he added a curious illustration of the temper of the time. A certain airy lady' (Mrs. Cholmondely, Peg Woffington's sister, formerly named as one of Goldsmith's personal critics) had given him proof that even the private visitings of members of parliament were now watched; and when he went himself to the prime minister on the business

of that pamphlet, though he went after dark and with all possible secrecy, he was quietly told in a day or two, 'Well! you have been with Lord North.

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Some such suspicion against even poor Goldsmith, unpensioned as he was, broke out on the appearance of his English History in August. Yet a more innocent production could hardly have been imagined. It was simply a compilation, in his easy flowing style, from four historians he impartially characterised in his preface; and with as little of the feeling of being influenced by any, this book throughout had been written. They have each,' he says, speaking of Rapin, Carte, Smollett, and Hume, 'their peculiar admirers, in proportion as the reader is studious of 'political antiquities, fond of minute anecdote, a warm partizan, or a deliberate reasoner.' Nevertheless, passages of very harmless narrative were displayed in the papers as of very questionable tendency; he was asked if he meant to be the tool of a minister, as well as the drudge of a bookseller; he was reminded that the favour of a generous public (so generous at other people's cost), was better than the best of pensions; and he finally was warned against betraying his country for base and scandalous pay.' The poor publisher became alarmed, and a formal defence of the book appeared in the Public Advertiser. Tom was himself a critic, and had taken the field full armed for his friend (and his property). Have you seen,' he says in a letter to Granger, an impartial account of Goldsmith's "History of England? If you want to know who was

'the writer of it, you will find him in Russell Street: 'but Mum!'

Meanwhile Goldsmith had been steadily working at his new labour, had nearly finished his comedy, and was too quiet and busy in his country lodging to be much disturbed by those noises elsewhere. The farm-house still stands on a gentle eminence in what is called Hyde Lane, leading to Kenton, about three hundred yards from Hyde village, and looking over a pretty country in the direction of Hendon; and when Mr. Prior went in search of it some years since, he found still living in the neighbourhood the son of the farmer (a Mr. Selby) with whom the poet lodged, and in whose family the property of the house and farm remained. He found traditions of Goldsmith surviving, too: how he used now and then to wander into the kitchen from his own room in fits of study or abstraction, and the parlour used to be given up to him when he had visitors to tea; how Reynolds and Johnson had come out there, and he had once taken the young folks of the farm to see some strolling players at Hendon; how he had come home one night without his shoes, having left them stuck fast in a slough; and how he had an evil habit of reading in bed, and of putting out his candle by flinging his slipper at it. It is certain he was fond of this humble place. He told Johnson and Boswell that he believed the farmer's family thought him an odd character, similar to that in which The Spectator appeared to his landlady and her children. He was The Gentleman. And so content for the

present was he to continue here, that he had given up a summer visit into Lincolnshire, proposed in company with Reynolds, to see their friend Langton in his new character of Benedict. He had married, the previous year, one of those three Countess Dowagers of Rothes who had all of them the fortune to get second husbands at about the same time; and to Bennet Langton, Esq., at Langton, near Spilsby, in Lincolnshire,' it seems to have been Goldsmith's first business to write on his return to his chambers in the Temple. The pleasant letter has happily been preserved, and is dated from Brick Court, on the seventh of September.

"MY DEAR SIR, Since I had the pleasure of seeing you last, I have been almost wholly in the country at a farmer's house, quite alone, trying to write a comedy. It is now finished; but when or how it will be acted, or whether it will be acted at all, are questions I cannot resolve. I am therefore so much employed upon that, that I am under the necessity of putting off my intended visit to Lincolnshire for this season. Reynolds is just returned from Paris, and finds himself now in the case of a truant that must make up for his idle time by diligence. We have therefore agreed to postpone our journey till next summer, when we hope to have the honour of waiting upon Lady Rothes, and you, and staying double the time of our late intended visit. We often meet, and never without remembering you. I see Mr. Beauclerc very often both in town and country. He is now going directly forward to become a second Boyle deep in chemistry and physics. Johnson has been down on a visit to a country parson, Doctor Taylor; and is returned to his old haunts at Mrs. Thrale's. Burke is a farmer, en attendant a better place; but visiting about too. Every soul is a visiting about and merry but myself. And that is hard too, as I have been trying

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