1771.

Æt. 43.

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!"

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Granger, an industrious but not very brilliant person (whom Boswell tried hard to exhibit to Johnson as untainted with whiggery, notwithstanding the patronage of Horace Walpole, vi. 217), has niched Goldsmith so oddly into his Biographical History of England that I may perhaps be forgiven for quoting, from one of the later editions of that successful book, the allusion here. It occurs in a note to an article on Francis Goldsmith, of Gray's Inn, who died in 1655, after translating one of the minor works of Grotius. "We had lately a poet of the same name with the person just mentioned, perhaps of the same family, but by no 66 means of the same character. His writings, in general, are much esteemed; "but his poetry is greatly admired. Few tragedies have been read with stronger "emotions of pity than the distressful scenes in the Vicar of Wakefield; yet we cannot but regret that the author of the Traveller (decies repetita placebit) "should have undervalued his genius so far as to write a romance. Biog. Hist. iv. 40. What worthy Mr. Granger must have thought of those dull dogs, Fielding and Smollett, who wrote hardly anything else, the reader may be left to imagine. Tom Davies published Granger's book, and made money by it; nor is it possible to read the Letters from which I have quoted in the text without constantly recurring laughter at the amusing airs of importance displayed by Tom to his modest, inexperienced, deferential, laborious, biographical parson. In one of the more strict letters of business, I may add, Goldsmith's name is introduced; and it may serve to show the estimation in which he now stood (13th November, 1769), that his good word in society was thought worth securing by the bribe of a presentation copy. "I have," writes Davies, "taken all the pains I can to make 66 your book as public as possible. The advertisements have cost me a great "deal of money; and I have made presents of several copies printed on one side, "in order to promote the sale of your book. I have given presents, as above, "to the following gentlemen: Dr. Askew; Dr. Ducarel, of the Commons; the "Rev. Mr. Bernard, a worthy clergyman in Cambridgeshire; Mr. Farmer, of Cambridge, author of the Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare; Dr. Gold"smith; the Rev. Mr. Bowle," &c. Granger's Letters, 25-29.

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+ Nov. 5, 1771. Granger's Letters, 53-54.

CHAPTER XII.

COUNTRY RELAXATIONS.

1771.

1771.

MEANWHILE, indifferent enough to the blustering reception vouchsafed to his very innocent History, Goldsmith had Et. 43. been steadily working at his new labour, had now nearly finished his comedy, and was too quiet and busy in his country lodging* to be much disturbed by those violent party 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 the village of Hyde, and looking over a pretty country in the direction of Hendon; and when a biographer of the poet 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.t He found traditions of Goldsmith

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* Ante, 293.

+ I subjoin the recollections of Mr. Selby, as given in Prior, ii. 332-4. Being then about sixteen years old he remembers the poet perfectly, and with some degree of pride pointed to the room where She Stoops to Conquer was written, a convenient and airy apartment up one pair of stairs to the right of "the landing as we ascended. . . . . . It appears that though boarding with the family, the poet had the usual repasts commonly sent to his own apartment, “where his time was chiefly spent in writing. Occasionally he wandered into the

1771.

Et. 43.

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 had to be given up to him when he had visitors to tea; how Reynolds and Johnson and Sir William Chambers had been entertained there, and he had once taken the young folks of the farm in a coach 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, and that he was to them what The Spectator appeared to his landlady and her children. He was The

kitchen, took his stand with his back towards the fire apparently absorbed "in thought, till, something seeming to occur to mind, he would hurry off, to "commit it, as they supposed, to paper. Sometimes he strolled about the fields, or was seen loitering and musing under the hedges, or perusing a book. More frequently he visited town, and remained absent many weeks at a time, or "paid visits to private friends in other parts of the country. In the house, he "usually wore his shirt collar open in the manner represented in the portrait by "Sir Joshua. Occasionally he read much at night when in bed; at other times "when not disposed to read, and yet unable to sleep, which was not an unusual 66 occurrence, the candle was kept burning, his mode of extinguishing which when "out of immediate reach was characteristic of his fits of indolence or carelessness; "he flung his slipper at it, which in the morning was in consequence usually found 66 near the overturned candlestick, daubed with grease. Among others who "frequently spent an evening with him was Hugh Boyd, one of the supposed "writers of the Letters of Junius, who resided for some time at the neighbouring "village of Kenton above two miles distant. The road thither being excessively "bad, Goldsmith, having once paid him a visit on foot, returned at night without "his shoes, which had stuck fast in a slough; and, anathematising the parish "authorities for their negligence, declared he could not again undertake such a 'journey."

*The reader will remember what Mrs. Piozzi says of Johnson, and his alarming chemical explosions. "It was a perpetual miracle that he did not set himself on fire "reading a-bed, as was his constant custom, when exceedingly unable even to keep "clear of mischief with our best help; and accordingly the foretops of all his wigs 66 were burned by the candle down to the very net-work. . . Future experiments in "chemistry however were too dangerous, and Mr. Thrale insisted that we should "do no more towards finding the philosopher's stone." Piozzi's Anecdotes, 237-8.

1771.

Gentleman. And so content for the present was he to continue here, that he had given up a summer visit into Et.43. Lincolnshire, proposed in company with Reynolds, to see their friend Langton in his new character of Benedict. The latter 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

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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 Brickcourt, on the seventh of September.

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"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 can"not 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 him"self 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 chymistry "and physics. Johnson has been down upon 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 these three months to do

something to make people laugh. There have I been strolling about "the hedges, studying jests with a most tragical countenance. The "Natural History is about half finished, and I will shortly finish the "rest. God knows I am tired of this kind of finishing, which is but

*In the Percy Memoir, 92-94.

1771.

Æt. 43.

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"bungling work; and that not so much my fault as the fault of my scurvy circumstances. They begin to talk in town of the Opposition's gaining ground; the cry of liberty is still as loud as ever. I have "published, or Davies has published for me, an Abridgement of the "History of England,* for which I have been a good deal abused in "the newspapers for betraying the liberties of the people. God knows "I had no thought for or against liberty in my head; my whole aim being to make up a book of a decent size, that, as 'Squire Richard would do no harm to nobody. However, they set me down as an arrant Tory, and consequently an honest man. When you come "to look at any part of it, you'll say that I am a sour Whig. God "bless you, and with my most respectful compliments to her ladyship, "I remain, dear Sir, your most affectionate humble servant, OLIVER "GOLDSMITH."

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says,

Though the Langton visit had been thus deferred, however, another new married couple claimed him soon after this letter; and he could not, amidst all his scurvy circumstances, resist the temptation. Little Comedy had become Mrs. Bunbury, and he was asked to visit them at Barton. But his means were insufficient; and, for a time to anticipate them, he laid himself under fresh obligations to Francis Newbery. Former money transactions between them, involving unfulfilled engagements for a new story, remained still uncancelled; and Garrick still held an outstanding note of Newbery's, unpaid because of disputed claims on behalf of the elder Newbery's estate: but a better understanding between the publisher and his creditor, on the faith of certain completed chapters of the long-promised tale, had now arisen, and Garrick was in no humour to disturb it by reviving any claim of his. Recent courtesies and kindness had been heartily interchanged between the poet and the actor, and showed how little on either side was at any time needed to have made these celebrated men fast friends. In

He means the History as published in four volumes, which, however, he had also undertaken to "abridge "on payment of fifty guineas. See Percy Memoir, 79.