1769. made a three days' wonder of it (the 6th, 7th, and 8th of September), and then came back to town. Neither Johnson Et. 41. nor Goldsmith had joined them: but among them were Colman, representing his theatre, in place of poor Powell, who had'died suddenly at Bristol two months before,Foote, laughing at everything going forward,-several of Garrick's noble friends, dukes, earls, and aristocratic beauties, and last, not least, Mr. Boswell "in a Corsican "habit, with pistols in his belt, and a musket at his back, "and in the front of his cap, in gold letters, these words, "PAOLI AND LIBERTY.' He had written a poem for recitation at the masquerade, to which the crowd refused to listen; but he brought it up to London, fired it off in the newspapers, and had the singular satisfaction of presenting it to Paoli himself, who arrived in London not many days after his admirer, and with a note from whom he had already, as we have seen, forced his way, Corsican dress and all, into the presence of the great Mr. Pitt. Patriot Paoli's struggle having ended in the defeat and absorption of Corsica, he was content to subside into a civil dangler at St. James's with a pension of a thousand a-year; and * See also Davies's Life of Garrick, ii. 226-7. + Letters to Mann, ii. 52, 53. "The court artfully adopts him, and thus "crushes one egg on which faction, and her brood hen, Mrs. Macauley, would have "been very glad to have sat." In another letter he is still more amusing and detailed. "The opposition were ready to receive and incorporate him in the list "of popular tribunes. The court artfully intercepted the project; and deeming "patriots of all nations equally corruptible, bestowed a pension of 1000l. a year "on the unheroic fugitive. Themistocles accepted the gold of Xerxes, and excused "himself from receiving a visit from Mrs. Macauley, who had given him printed "advice for settling a republic. I saw him soon after his arrival, dangling at "court. He was a man of decent deportment, vacant of all melancholy reflection, "with as much ease as suited a prudence that seemed the utmost effort of a wary "understanding, and so void of anything remarkable in his aspect, that being asked "if I knew who it was, I judged him a Scottish officer (for he was sandy com"plexioned and in regimentals) who was cautiously awaiting the moment of "promotion. All his heroism consisted in bearing with composure the accounts 1769. probably laughed as heartily as anybody, when Boswell now Et.41. appeared in a full suit of black, with "Corsica" exposed in legible letters on his hat, as the dear defunct he was in mourning for. Nor did the fit abate for some time. It was not till several months later that the old laird of Affleck (so was Auchinleck in those days familiarly called) had occasion to make his famous complaint to a friend. "There's nae 66 "hope for Jamie, mon. Jamie is gaen clean gyte. What do you think, mon? He's done wi' Paoli; he's off wi' the "landlouping scoundrel of a Corsican; and whose tail do "you think he has pinn'd himself to now, mon?" And here the old judge pauses, to summon up a sneer of most sovereign contempt. "A dominie, mon; an auld dominie: "he keeped a schule, and cau'd it an acaadamy."* But, though not yet exclusively pinned to the auld dominie's tail, Jamie so far abated his ostentatious attendance on the landlouping Corsican as to revive some of the old nights at the Mitre, and to get up some dinners and drinking parties at his rooms in Old Bond-street. One of the dinners was fixed for the 16th of October; and the party invited were Johnson, Reynolds (now knighted as the President of the Royal Academy), Goldsmith, Garrick, Murphy, Bickerstaff, and Tom Davies. Some days before it took place, however, an incident occurred of no small interest to that circle. One of Johnson's early acquaintance was Baretti, the Italian, a man of cynical temper and overbearing manners, but also of undoubted ability, who had been useful to him at the time of the "of his friends being tortured and butchered, while he was sunk into a pensioner "of that very court that had proclaimed his valiant countrymen and associates "rebels." Letters to Mann, iii. 386. Not the least remarkable thing about Paoli was that he afterwards became godfather to the son of the Corsican lawyer in right of whom Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is at present Emperor of France. *Note to Foswell, v. 131. Dictionary, and whose services had never been forgotten. To Goldsmith, on the other hand, this man had made himself peculiarly hateful, by all that malice in little, which, on a larger field, he subsequently practised against poor Mrs. Piozzi; and they seem never to have met but to quarrel. Their mutual dislike is described by Davies. He (Goldsmith), least of all mankind, approved Baretti's "conversation; he considered him as an insolent, over"bearing foreigner: as Baretti, in his turn, thought him an "unpolished man, and an absurd companion."* It now unhappily fell out, however, that in a street scuffle Baretti drew out a fruit knife which he always carried, and killed a man (one of three who had grossly insulted him, on his somewhat rudely repulsing the overtures of a woman with whom they were proved to be connected); † and it further happened that Goldsmith was among the first to hear of the incident next morning, while Baretti was under examination before Sir John Fielding. The good-natured man forgot all his wrongs in an instant, thought only of his enemy's evil plight, and hurried off to render him assistance. "When "this unhappy Italian," says Davies, "was charged with "murder, and sent by Sir John Fielding to Newgate, "Goldsmith opened his purse, and would have given him every shilling it contained: he at the same time insisted upon going in the coach with him to the place of his "confinement." Bail was given before Lord Mansfield a few days later; and never were such names, before or since, proffered in connection with such a charge. They were Reynolds, Fitzherbert, Burke, and Garrick. All the friends met to arrange the defence; and it was at one of the 66 66 1769. Æt. 41. 1769. consultations, on a hot dispute arising between Burke and Et. 41. Johnson, that the latter is reported to have frankly admitted afterwards, "Burke and I should have been of one opinion "if we had had no audience."* Baretti was acquitted, though not without merited rebuke; and Johnson subsequently obtained for him the post of tutor in the family of the Thrales (which Mrs. Thrale lived to have reason bitterly to repent), and Reynolds that of honorary foreign secretary to the new Academy. But Mr. Boswell's dinner is waiting us. On that very day (as Mr. William Filby's bills enable us with commendable correctness to state), Goldsmith's tailor took him home "half-dress suit of ratteen lined with satin, a pair of silk "stocking breeches, and a pair of bloom-coloured ditto" (for which the entire charge was about sixteen pounds); and to Old Bond-street the poet would seem to have proceeded in "silk attire." Though he is said to have been last at every * Boswell tells this on the authority of George Steevens (viii. 326), but it is surely doubtful if in a matter of life and death the passion of talking for victory could have displayed itself in a man naturally so humane; and it is to be added that George Steevens is not in any matter a very reliable authority. Baretti's witnesses to "the quietness of his general character" were Beauclerc, Reynolds, Johnson, Fitzherbert, Burke, Garrick, Goldsmith, and Dr. Hallifax. + I here give, from Mr. Filby's Ledger (Prior, ii. 232-3), Goldsmith's sartorial account for 1769 and 1770. Oct. 16. To making a half-dress suit of ratteen, lined with 230 639 12 12 0 25 0 1 4 6 1 10 0 1769. dinner party, arriving always (according to Sir George Beaumont) in a violent bustle just as the rest were sitting down, Et. 41. when he arrived on this occasion, there was still a laggard: but Garrick and Johnson were come, and Boswell pleasantly relates with what good humour they had met; how Garrick played round Johnson with a fond vivacity, taking hold of the breasts of his coat, and, as he looked up in his face with a lively archness, complimenting him on the good health which he seemed then to enjoy, while the sage, shaking his head, beheld him with a gentle complacency. Dinner continued to be kept waiting however, Reynolds not yet arriving; and, says Boswell, "Goldsmith, to divert the “tedious minutes, strutted about bragging of his dress, "and I believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was wonderfully prone to such impressions." Of course Boswell had no such weakness, any more than Horace Walpole, also a great laugher on the same score. Though the one had so lately figured in Corsican costume, and was so proud of his ordinary dress that he would show off to printers' devils his new ruffles and sword, though the other had just received a party of French visitors at Strawberry-hill in elaborate state, presenting himself at the gate in a "cravat of Gibbons's carving" and a pair of James-the-First gloves embroidered 66 66 (Paid 401. February 8, 1771, by a note of hand on Mr. Thos. Davies; and 231. Oct. 2nd, by part of a note of hand on Griffin.) * "I proposed, as usual upon such occasions, to order dinner to be served; "adding, ought six people to be kept waiting for one? Why, yes,' answered "Johnson, with a delicate humanity, if the one will suffer more by your sitting "down than the six will do by waiting.'" Boswell, iii. 83. |