1771.

Bath; and it was in the latter city the amusing incident occurred which Bishop Percy has related, as told him by the Et. 43. Duchess of Northumberland. The Duke and Duchess occupied a house on one of the parades next door to Lord Clare's, and were surprised one day, when about to sit down to breakfast, to see Goldsmith enter the breakfast-room as from the street, and, without notice of them or the conversation they continued, fling himself unconcernedly, in a

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manner the most free and easy," on a sofa. After a few minutes, " as he was then perfectly known to them both, they "inquired of him the Bath news of the day; and imagining "there was some mistake, endeavoured by easy and cheerful conversation to prevent his being too much embarrassed, "till, breakfast being served up, they invited him to stay and partake of it;" but upon this, the invitation calling him back from the dream-land he had been visiting, he declared with profuse apologies that he had thought he was in his friend Lord Clare's house, and in irrecoverable confusion hastily withdrew. "But not," adds the Bishop, "till they "had kindly made him promise to dine with them.”*

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Of Lord Clare's friendly familiarity with the poet, this incident gives us proof; he had himself no very polished manners, being the Squire Gawkey of the libels of his time, and might the better tolerate Goldsmith's; but that their intercourse just at present was as frequent as familiar, seems to have been because, at this time, Lord Clare had most need of a friend. I am told," says a letter-writer of the day, that Doctor Goldsmith now generally lives with his countryman Lord Clare, who has "lost his only son, Colonel Nugent." There was left to him, however, an only daughter, the handsome girl whom * Percy Memoir, 69.

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VOL. II.

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1771.

Reynolds painted; who was married, in the year after GoldAt. 43. smith's death, to the first Marquis of Buckingham; and with whom, she being as yet in her childhood, and he (as she loved long afterwards to say) being never out of his,* Goldsmith became companion and playfellow. He taught her games, she played him tricks, and, to the last hour of her long life," dearly loved his memory." Yet even in this friendly house he was not without occasional mortifications, such as his host could not protect him from; and one of them was related by himself. In his "diverting simplicity," says Boswell, speaking with his own much more diverting air of patronage, Goldsmith complained one day, in a mixed company, of Lord Camden. "I met him," he said, " at Lord "Clare's house in the country; and he took no more notice "of me than if I had been an ordinary man." At this, according to Boswell, himself and the company laughed heartily; whereupon Johnson stood forth in defence of his friend. "Nay, gentlemen, Doctor Goldsmith is in the "right. A nobleman ought to have made up to such a man as Goldsmith; and I think it is much against Lord "Camden that he neglected him." †

* An expression often repeated to me by her son, Lord Nugent.

+ Bos. vii. 160. And see Lord Campbell's Chancellors, v. 353. Lord Campbell seems to infer that it was from a dislike to Goldsmith, and the set, that Lord Camden was "not a member of the literary club," which, the noble biographer tells us, he should have been glad to record that he was; but Lord Campbell does not seem to be aware that Camden was proposed at the club and blackballed. See ante, i. 336. And to what extent such noblemen as the whig or tory chancellors made up for their neglect of a Goldsmith by their attentions to a Johnson, Mr. Croker gives us some means of judging in a characteristic note to his first edition of Boswell. "His polite acquaintance did not extend much beyond the circle of “Mr. Thrale, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the members of the club. There is no "record that I recollect of his having dined at the table of any peer in London "(Lord Lucan, an Irish peer, is hardly an exception). He seems scarcely to "have known an English bishop, except Dr. Shipley, whom every one knew, and Bishop Porteus; and except by a few occasional visits at the bas bleux assemblies "of Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Vesey, we do not trace him in anything like "fashionable society. This seems strange to us; for happily, in our day, a

It was doubtless much for Lord Clare that he did not. 1771. By that simple means, he would seem to have lessened Et. 43. many griefs, and added to many an enjoyment. Attentions are cheaply rendered that win such sympathy as a true heart returns; and if, from what Wraxall describes as the then spacious avenues of Gosfield park, Lord Clare had sent an entire buck every season to his friend's humble chambers in the Temple, the single Haunch of Venison which Goldsmith sent back would richly have repaid him. The charming verses which bear that name were written this year, and appear to have been written for Lord Clare alone; nor was it till two years after their writer's death that they obtained a wider audience than his immediate circle of friends. Yet, written with no higher aim than of private pleasantry, a more delightful piece of humour, or a more

"literary man of much less than Johnson's eminence would be courted into the
highest and most brilliant ranks. Lord Wellesley recollects, with regret, the
"little notice, compared with his posthumous reputation, which the fashionable
"world seemed to take of Johnson." In his last edition (p. 501) Mr. Croker
omits the second sentence of this note; and in the third, omitting the sneer at
Bishop Shipley, adds Mrs. Ord's name to those of Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Vesey.
But I believe the original note to be substantially correct, and so I leave it.
Very honourable to him, let me add, is the invariable tone employed by Lord
Campbell in commenting upon traits of this kind. "With all his titles and all
"his wealth," he exclaims of Lord Hardwicke (Chancellors, v. 167), "how poor
"is his fame in comparison of that of his contemporary, Samuel Johnson, whom
"he would not have received at his Sunday evening parties in Powis-house, or
"invited to hear his stale stories at Wimpole ! A man desirous of solid fame
"would rather have written the Rambler, The Vanity of Human Wishes,
"Rasselas, or the Lives of the Poets, than have delivered all Lord Hardwicke's
speeches in parliament, and all his judgments in the Court of Chancery, although
"the Author had been sometimes obliged to pass the night on the ashes of a
glass-house, and at last thought himself passing rich with his 3007. pension,
"while the Peer lived in splendour, and died worth a million. . . Hardwicke is to
"Johnson, as the most interesting life that could be written of Hardwicke is to
"Boswell's Life of Johnson,-the proportion of a farthing candle to the meridian
"sun."
For a hint as to the causes of the general dislike of great people for
Johnson, see ante, 206 (note); and we must always remember Johnson's own
remark to Boswell: "Sir, great lords and great ladies don't love to have their
"mouths stopped."

1771.

Æt. 43.

finished piece of style, has probably been seldom written. There is not a word to spare, every word is in its right place, the most boisterous animal spirits are controlled by the most charming good taste, and an indescribable airy elegance. pervades and encircles all. Its very incidents seem of right to claim a place here, so naturally do they fall within the drama of Goldsmith's life.

Allusions in the lines fix their date to the early months of 1771; and it was probably on his return from the visit to which reference has just been made, that Lord Clare's side of venison had reached him.

Thanks, my Lord, for your Venison, for finer or fatter
Never rang'd in a forest, or smoak'd in a platter;
The Haunch was a picture for Painters to study,

The white was so white, and the red was so ruddy;

*

Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting,

To spoil such a delicate picture by eating;

I had thoughts, in my Chambers to place it in view,

To be shown to my Friends as a piece of Virtu ;
As in some Irish houses, where things are so-so,
One Gammon of Bacon hangs up for a show ;—
But, for eating a Rasher of what they take pride in,
They'd as soon think of eating the Pan it is fried in.

But these witty fancies yield to more practical views as he contemplates the delicate luxury; and he bethinks him of the appetites most likely to do it justice.

To go on with my Tale-as I gaz'd on the Haunch,

I thought of a friend that was trusty and staunch;

So I cut it, and sent it to Reynolds undrest,

To paint it, or eat it, just as he lik'd best.

I prefer this to the text of the second edition:

"The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy."

Neither edition of the poem, as I mention in my text, appeared till 1776; but the second had ten additional lines, and is likely, as alleged, to have been printed from Goldsmith's corrected copy.

Of the Neck and the Breast I had next to dispose ;

'Twas a Neck and a Breast that might rival M—r—se :
But in parting with these I was puzzled again,

With the how, and the who, and the where, and the when :
There's H―d, and C—y, and H—rth, and H—ff,

I think they love Venison—I know they love Beef.

Ah! he had excellent reason to know it. These were four of his poor poet-pensioners, three of whom, in the first uncorrected copy of the poem, stood undisguisedly as "Coley, and Williams, and Howard, and Hiff;" but Hiffernan is alone recognisable now. (M-r-se was Lord Townshend's Dorothy Monroe, to whose charms he devoted his verse.)

There's my countryman H-gg-ns-Oh! let him alone,
For making a Blunder, or picking a Bone.
But hang it to Poets who seldom can eat,

Your very good Mutton's a very good Treat;

Such Dainties to them! It would look like a flirt,

Like sending 'em Ruffles when wanting a Shirt.*

While thus I debated, in Reverie centred,

An Acquaintance, a Friend as he call'd himself, enter'd ;

An underbred, fine-spoken Fellow was he,

And he smil'd, as he looked at the Venison and me.

This is the hero of the poem; and sketched so vividly, with a humour so life-like and droll, that he was probably a veritable person. In the first published copy, indeed, which contains some touches I prefer to their correction in the second version, he is described as

"A fine spoken Custom-house officer he,

Who smil'd as he gaz'd on the Venison and me."

* I here again, in my text, interpose the reading of the first edition as preferable to this of the second:

"Such Dainties to them their Health it might hurt,
It's like sending them Ruffles when wanting a Shirt."

1771.

Et. 43.