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1767.

Æt. 39.

masters and author of an indifferent Masque of Telemachus,* as he sat at supper with Johnson and Goldsmith, indulging somewhat freely in wine, and arrived at that pitch in his cups, when he gave this invitation, of looking at one man and talking to another. "I shall be glad to wait upon you," answered Goldsmith. "No, no," replied Graham: “'tis not

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you I mean, Doctor Minor; 'tis Doctor Major, there." + "Now, that Graham," said Goldsmith, afterwards, "is a "fellow to make one commit suicide;" and upon nothing graver than expressions such as this, have men like Hawkins inferred that he loved not Johnson but rather envied him for his parts. 'Indeed," pursues the musical knight, "he once entreated a friend to desist from praising "him; for in doing so,' said he, 'you harrow up my "soul:'" which it may be admitted was not at all impro

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*If any one would judge how far such a person as this Graham was entitled to address contemptuously such a man as Goldsmith, let him turn to a letter in the Garrick Correspondence, i. 193-5.

+ Boswell, iv. 98. Mrs. Piozzi had told the anecdote before him with the addition that Goldsmith was so eager to respond to the invitation that he “proposed "setting out with Mr. Johnson for Buckinghamshire in a fortnight" (180.) She had heard it from Johnson, who used to tell the story himself; and "what effect," he would say, in conclusion, "this had on Goldsmith, who was as irascible as a "hornet, may be easily conceived." Mr. Croker has justly remarked that out of it, and the epithet Ursa Major applied to Johnson by Boswell's father, Miss Reynolds had evidently manufactured the anecdote told in her Recollections (Croker's Boswell, 831.) "At another time, a gentleman who was sitting between "Dr. Johnson and Dr. Goldsmith, and with whom he had been disputing, remarked "to another, loud enough for Goldsmith to hear him, 'That he had a fine time "of it, between Ursa major and Ursa minor!'"

Hawkins's Life of Johnson, 417. This statement of Hawkins is put in a general form by Beattie, who had no personal knowledge of the matter at all ("In "Johnson's presence he was quiet enough, but in his absence expressed great "uneasiness on hearing him praised." Forbes's Life, iii. 130); and thus it is that mere unauthorised repetitions come to be quoted as additional testimony, and one ill-natured idle remark is the seed-plot of a forest of misstatements. Even Hawkins himself appears to have coolly copied this absurd imputation on Goldsmith's 's sense, as well as his humanity and gratitude, from Tom Davies's Life of Garrick (ii. 151). Tom is its first author, and uses the very expression employed by Hawkins: "No more, I desire you; you harrow up my soul." See note above, and ante, 15-16, note.

Et. 39.

bable, if it was Hawkins praising him; for there is nothing 1767. so likely as a particular sort of praise to harrow up an affectionate soul. Such most certainly was Goldsmith's, and he loved with all his grateful heart whatever was loveable in Johnson. Boswell himself admits it, on more than one occasion; and contradicts much of what he has chosen to say on others, by the remark that in his opinion Goldsmith had not really more of envy than other people, but only talked of it freely.*

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"Ah,

That free talking did all the mischief. He was candid and simple enough to say aloud, what others would more prudently have concealed. "Here's such a stir," he exclaimed to Johnson one day, in a company at Thrale's,-it was when London had gone mad about Beattie's commonplace Essay on Truth, had embraced the author as "the long-delayed avenger of insulted Christianity," and had at last treated, flattered, and caressed him into a pension of £200 a-year," here's such a stir about a fellow that has "written one book, and I have written many." Doctor!" retorted Johnson, on his discontented, disregarded, unpensioned friend, "there go two-and-forty sixpences, you "know, to one guinea:" whereat the lively Mrs. Thrale claps her hands with delight, and poor Goldsmith can but sulk in a corner. Being an author, it is true, he had no business to be thus thin-skinned, and should rather have been shelled like a rhinoceros; but a stronger man than he was, might have fretted with the irritation of such doubtful wit, and been driven to even intemperate resentment. Into that he never was betrayed. With all that at various times, and in differing degrees, depressed his honest ambition, ruffled his pride, or invaded his self-respect, it will on the

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1767.

whole be very plain, by the time this narrative has closed, Et. 39. that no man more thoroughly, and even in his own despite, practised those gracious and golden maxims with which Edmund Burke this very year rebuked the hasty temper of his protégé Barry, and which every man should take for ever to his heart. "Who can live in the world without some "trial of his patience?" asked the statesman of the young painter, who had fallen into petty disputes at Rome. And then he warned him that a man can never have a point of mere pride that will not be pernicious to him; that we must be at peace with our species, if not for their sakes, yet very much for our own; and that the arms with which the ill dispositions of the world are to be combated, and the qualities by which it is to be reconciled to us and we reconciled to it, are moderation, gentleness, a little indulgence to others, and a great deal of distrust of ourselves; "which are not qualities of a mean spirit, as some may possibly think them, but virtues of a great and noble kind, and such as dignify our nature as much as they contribute to our for"tune and repose."

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Well would it have been for the subject of this biography, if the same justice which the world thus obtained from him, throughout their chequered intercourse, he had been able to obtain either from or for himself. It has not hitherto been concealed that, in whatever respect society may have conspired against him, he is not clear of the charge of having aided it by his own weakness; and still more evident will this be hereafter. With the present year ended his exclusive reliance on the booksellers, and, as though to mark it more emphatically, his old friend Newbery died;* but with the year

* To the last poor Goldsmith's necessities followed him. At the back of a letter addressed to him, dated the 28th March 1767, in which the writer deplores his

that followed, bringing many social seductions in the train

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of the theatre, came a greater inability than ever to resist Et. 39. improvident temptation and unsuitable expense. His old habit of living merely from day to day, beset every better scheme of life; the difficulty with which he earned money had not helped to teach him its value; and he became unable to apportion wisely his labour and his leisure. The one was too violent, and the other too freely indulged. It is doubtful if the charge of gambling can be supported, to more than a very trifling extent: but in the midst of poverty he was too often profuse, into clothes and entertainments he threw money that should have liquidated debts, and he

worthy publisher's illness, and prays to have his heart rejoiced by the re-establishment of his health, I find sundry pencil marks in his own hand-writing, which are probably our last remaining trace of Mr. Newbery's farewell visit to his favourite Society of Arts, of the jokes he heard there, of the good offices he did there, of the mistakes for which half-learned members got laughed at by the learned there. "You can't lay an egg but you must cackle. Lent Dr. Goldsmith for his instru"ment, 10s. 6d. Combing the horse's tail. Mr. Hely's mistaking Tully's Latin "for bad Latin." This letter forms part of the Newbery MSS. frequently referred to in this biography, and submitted to the use of a former biographer (Mr. Prior), by whom the preposterous claim has been since set up to a kind of property in such use of them; but which happily remain, as far only as such a term is applicable, the property of Mr. Murray, of Albemarle-street, who, since the preceding pages were printed, has most kindly permitted me to inspect and examine them. On such inspection it is clear to me that the three several memoranda in which the payment for the Traveller appears, refer all to one and the same transaction, and that no ground exists for supposing that any addition was ever made to the original 21. I have printed the first (i. 400), and second (the latter from Goldsmith's autograph, ante, 31), of these memoranda. The third, in Newbery's writing, is simply a repetition of the second, with the addition of the 31. 38. for "Preface to "the History of the World" included in the first, of a pencil note of what he had paid for the copy of the Essays also in the first, and of a memorandum to the effect that "The last settlement was the 11th October 1766," where the date of the year is very obviously a slip of the pen for 1763. No trace exists in the papers of any formal settlement subsequent to the 11th of October 1763, on which day a general winding up of accounts as between Newbery and Goldsmith took place, when the latter, besides signing a general receipt, gave special receipts as to each particular transaction (probably required for the satisfaction of other partners in the literary work so paid for), all written by himself and dated on the same day, and finally handed over to Newbery a promissory note, also dated that day, for the balance. Supposing the memorandum made, as is likely, at the close of 1765 or the opening

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Æt. 39.

wanted courage and self-restraint to face the desperate arrears that still daily mounted up against him. Hardly ever did a new resource arise, that did not bring with it a new waste, and fresh demands upon his jaded powers.

But before we too sternly pronounce upon genius sacrificed thus, and opportunities thrown away, let the forty years which have been described in this biography; the thirty of unsettled habit and undetermined pursuit, the ten of unremitting drudgery and desolate toil; be calmly retraced and charitably judged. Nor let us omit from that consideration. the nature to which he was born, the land in which he was raised, his tender temperament neglected in early youth, the brogue and the blunders which he described as his only inheritance; and when the gains are counted up which we

of 1766, the mistake of the latter year for 1763 was a natural one enough. In referring to this general account printed on a former page (i. 322-3) I have here to correct a misprint of Mr. Prior's. It ought to close thus: "Oct. 11. By note of "hand rec. 481. 18. 6d." Then, in a separate line, "and delivered up the "vouchers." In the first of the memoranda containing mention of the Traveller as printed by Mr. Prior (ante, i. 400) it may be right also to state that two characteristic words are omitted. The last item but one should run thus: "Lent "him without receipts at the Society of Arts, &c, and to pay arrears, 31. 2s.” Another slight mistake occurs in the copy as printed (i. 370-1) of Mrs. Fleming's account for 1764, where the charge for "paper" on the 25th May should have been one shilling, and the sum total 15l. 128. 9d. While I am upon this subject, let me add that among these papers I find one in the hand-writing of Mrs. Fleming, endorsed by Newbery "Dr. Goldsmith's accts," and hitherto unprinted. It is to the following effect: "Feb. 1763. Doct Goldsmith, To a Bill "paid by the hands of Mr. Newbery, 147; May, ditto, 147 11s; Oct. 10, ditto, "147 138 6d; Nov. 10, ditto, 157 38. 1764. Aug. 6, ditto, 161 68." From this it would appear that the last of Mrs. Fleming's accounts was ultimately settled by Newbery; but, though this might in itself go far to clear her from the imputation of the arrest, the suspicion I have expressed in connection with Newbery himself (i. 386) leaves the matter still in doubt, and the foregoing memorandum even strengthens the belief of a private understanding existing between her and the bookseller. And now, in bidding farewell to both, let me add another of those papers, hitherto unprinted, which throw such curious light on the domestic economies of poor Goldsmith; whose fate it has been after death, even as it was during life, to be pursued by unsettled accounts scored up against him by tailors and laundresses. Attached to the paper which contains Mrs Fleming's second bill (i. 326-7), I find the details of the washing there included

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