1770.

scolding everything they met with, passed on through Flanders, and to Paris by way of Lisle. The latter city Et. 42. was the scene of an incident afterwards absurdly misrelated. Standing at the, window of their hotel to see a company of soldiers in the square, the beauty of the sisters Horneck drew such marked admiration, that Goldsmith, with that assumption of solemnity to heighten drollery which was generally a point in his humour, and as often was very solemnly misinterpreted, turned off from the window with the remark that elsewhere he, too, could have his admirers. The Jessamy Bride, Mrs. Gwyn, was asked about the occurrence not many years ago; remembered it as a playful jest; and said how shocked she had subsequently been "to see it "adduced in print as a proof of his envious disposition.' The readers of Boswell will remember that it is so related by him. "When accompanying two beautiful young ladies "with their mother on a tour in France, he was seriously angry that more attention was paid to them than to "him!

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At Lisle another letter to Reynolds was begun, but laid aside, because everything they had seen was so dull that the description would not be worth reading. Nor had matters much improved when they got to Paris. Alas! Goldsmith had discovered a change in himself since he traversed those scenes with only his youth and his poverty for companions.

Life of Johnson, ii. 191. Northcote, with less excuse, has repeated it (Life of Reynolds, i. 250); but in later years he apologised for having too hastily done so, having since been better informed by Mrs. Gwyn. And see Moore's Diary, vi. 114-15. On the other hand, Mr. Croker, who had received from Mrs. Gwyn some notes for his Boswell, is careful to remind us that, "the good-natured construction which the kind "old lady was willing, after a lapse of above sixty years, to put on Goldsmith's "behaviour, she did not express in her previous communication with me, though "it had afforded so obvious an opportunity of correcting the alleged injustice; and "after all, it can be only matter of opinion whether the vexation so seriously "exhibited by Goldsmith was real or assumed." 140. See post, chap. xii.

1770.

Æt. 42.

Lying in a barn was no disaster then. Then, there were
no postilions to quarrel with, no landladies to be cheated by,
no silk coat to tempt him into making himself look like a
fool. The world was his oyster in those days, which with
his flute he opened. He expressed all this very plainly in
a letter to Reynolds soon after their arrival, dated from
Paris on the 29th of July. He is anxious to get back to
what Gibbon, when he became a member of the club, called
the relish of manly conversation, and the society of the
brown table. He is getting nervous about his arrears of
work. He dares not think of another holiday yet, though
Reynolds had proposed, on his return, a joint excursion into
Devonshire. He is already planning new labour. He is
even thinking of another comedy; and therefore glad that
Colman's suit in chancery has ended in confirming his right
as acting manager (the whole quarrel was made
up
the
following year by Mr. Harris's quarrel with Mrs. Lessingham).
But here is the letter, as printed* from the original in
possession of Mr. Singer; and how pleasant are its little.
references to those weaknesses of his own which he well
knew had never such kindly interpretation as from Reynolds,
as where he whimsically protests that it never can be natural
in himself to be stupid, where he reports himself saying
as a good thing a thing which was not understood, and where
he describes the silk coat he has purchased which makes
him look like a fool!

་

a

"MY DEAR FRIEND, I began a long letter to you from Lisle giving description of all that we had done and seen, but finding it very " dull, and knowing that you would show it again, I threw it aside and "it was lost. You see by the top of this letter that we are at Paris, "and (as I have often heard you say) we have brought our own amuse

* Prior, ii. 292-5.

"ment with us, for the ladies do not seem to be very fond of what we "have yet seen.

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"With regard to myself I find that travelling at twenty and at forty are very different things. I set out with all my confirmed habits "about me, and can find nothing on the Continent so good as when I "formerly left it. One of our chief amusements here is scolding at every thing we meet with, and praising every thing and every person we left at home.* You may judge therefore whether your name is "not frequently bandied at table among us. To tell you the truth I never thought I could regret your absence so much as our various "mortifications on the road have often taught me to do. I could tell you of disasters and adventures without number, of our lying in "barns, and of my being half-poisoned with a dish of green peas, of our “quarrelling with postilions and being cheated by our landladies, but "I reserve all this for an happy hour which I expect to share with you upon my return.

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"I have little to tell you more but that we are at present all well, "and expect returning when we have staid out one month, which I "should not care if it were over this very day. I long to hear from 66 you all how you yourself do, how Johnson, Burke, Dyer, Chamier, Colman, and every one of the club do. I wish I could send you some "amusement in this letter, but I protest I am so stupified by the air of this country (for I am sure it can never be natural) that I have not a word to say. I have been thinking of the plot of a comedy which "shall be entitled A Journey to Paris, in which a family shall be intro"duced with a full intention of going to France to save money. You "know there is not a place in the world more promising for that purpose. As for the meat of this country I can scarce eat it, and though we pay two good shillings an head for our dinner, I find it all so tough, that I have spent less time with my knife than my pick"tooth. I said this as a good thing at table, but it was not understood. "I believe it to be a good thing.

"As for our intended journey to Devonshire I find it out of my power to perform it, for, as soon as I arrive at Dover I intend to let "the ladies go on, and I will take a country lodging somewhere near

*The same opinion, still more forcibly, he is represented to have expressed at Ridge's table (the "Anchovy" of Retaliation) after his return, when, in answer to a question whether he would recommend travel, he said yes, he would by all means recommend it, to the rich if they were without the sense of smelling, and to the poor if they were without the sense of feeling.

1770.

Æt. 42.

1770.

Et. 42.

"that place in order to do some business. I have so outrun the แ constable, that I must mortify a little to bring it up again. For God's "sake the night you receive this take your pen in your hand and tell "me something about yourself, and myself, if you know of any thing "that has happened. About Miss Reynolds, about Mr. Bickerstaff, my 66 nephew, or any body that you regard. I beg you will send to Griffin "the bookseller to know if there be any letters left for me, and be so good as to send them to me at Paris. They may perhaps be left for me at the porter's lodge opposite the pump in Temple-lane. The same messenger will do. I expect one from Lord Clare from Ireland. As "for others I am not much uneasy about.

"Is there any thing I can do for you at Paris? I wish you would "tell me. The whole of my own purchases here, is one silk coat which “I have put on, and which makes me look like a fool. But no more "of that. I find that Colman has gained his lawsuit. I am glad of it. "I suppose you often meet. I will soon be among you, better pleased "with my situation at home than I ever was before. And yet I must say, that if any thing could make France pleasant, the very good women with whom I am at present would certainly do it. I could say more about that, but I intend showing them this letter before "I send it away. What signifies teazing you longer with moral obser"vations when the business of my writing is over. I have one thing "only more to say, and of that I think every hour in the day, namely, "that I am your most

"Sincere and most affectionate friend,

"Direct to me at the Hôtel de Danemarc,

"Rue Jacob, Fauxbourg St. Germains."

"OLIVER GOLDSMITH."

Little more is to be added of this excursion. It was not made more agreeable to Goldsmith by an unexpected addition to the party in the person of Mr. Hickey (the "special attorney" who is niched into Retaliation),* who joined them

Then what was his failing? come, tell it, and burn ye

He was, could he help it? a special attorney."

"Much inquiry having been made concerning a gentleman who had quitted a company where Johnson was, and no information being obtained, at last "Johnson observed that he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back,

at Paris, and whose habit of somewhat coarse raillery was 1770. apt to be indulged too freely at Goldsmith's expense. One Et. 42. of the stories Hickey told on his return, however, seems to have been true enough. Goldsmith sturdily maintained that a certain distance from one of the fountains at Versailles was within reach of a leap, and tumbled into the water in his attempt to establish that position. He also made his friends smile by protesting that all the French parrots he had heard spoke such capital French that he understood them perfectly, whereas an English parrot, talking his own native Irish, was quite unintelligible to him.* It was also told of him, in proof of his oddity, that on Mrs. Horneck desiring him more than once, when they had no place of protestant worship to attend, to read them the morning service, his uniform answer was, "I should be happy to oblige you, my dear "madam, but in truth I do not think myself good enough." This, however, we may presume to think perhaps less eccentric than his friends supposed it to be.

Goldsmith did not stay in Dover as he had proposed. He brought the ladies to London. Among the letters forwarded to him in Paris had been an announcement of his mother's, death. Dead to any consciousness or enjoyment of life, she had for some time been; blind, and otherwise infirm; and hardly could the event have been unexpected by him, or by

"but he believed the gentleman was an attorney." Maxwell's Collectanea, in Boswell, iii. 141. Mrs. Piozzi relates the same incident (Anecdotes, 272), and adds that though Johnson did not encourage general satire, he was not at all displeased to be reminded of this instance of indulgence in it.

* For grave reasoning in support of this proposition, see Animated Nature, iv. 217. "I was at first for ascribing it to the different qualities of the two languages, "and was for entering into an elaborate discussion on the vowels and consonants; "but a friend that was with me solved the difficulty at once, by assuring me that "the French women scarcely did anything else the whole day than sit and instruct "their feathered pupils; and that the birds were thus distinct in their lessons in "consequence of continual schooling."