1773. them that at least he could sing. After taking prominent Et. 15. part in the after-dinner talk (expatiating on one of his favourite themes of the effect of luxury in degenerating races, and maintaining afterwards a discussion with Johnson *), he sang with great applause, on joining the ladies at tea, not only Tony Lumpkin's song of the Three Jolly Pigeons, but a very pretty one to an Irish tune, -the Humours of Ballamagairy, afterwards sung by Irish Johnstone, and appropriated in the delightful Melodies of Moore,-which he had written for Miss Hardcastle, but which Mrs. Bulkley cut out, not being able to sing. Two days later, the three again met at General Paoli's; and what even Boswell noted down of Goldsmith's share in the conversation, is no unreasonable answer to his own and Johnson's multiplied charges of absurdity and ignorance. What Goldsmith says for the most part is excellent sense, very tersely and happily expressed. The exception was a hasty remark upon Sterne, to whose writings he was not 66 * Goldsmith expatiated on the common topic, that the race of our people was degenerated, and that this was owing to luxury. JOHNSON. "Sir, in the first place, I doubt the fact. I believe there are as many tall men in England now, as ever there were. But, secondly, supposing the stature of our people to be "diminished, that is not owing to luxury; for, sir, consider to how very small a "proportion of our people luxury can reach. . . You will observe, there is no man "who works at any particular trade, but you may know him from his appearance to "do so. One part or the other of his body being more used than the rest, he is in some degree deformed: but, Sir, that is not luxury. A tailor sits cross-legged; "but that is not luxury." GOLDSMITH. "Come, you're just going to the same "place by another road." JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, I say that is not luxury. Let us take a walk from Charing Cross to Whitechapel, through, I suppose, the greatest series of shops in the world: what is there in any of these shops (if you except gin-shops) that can do any human being any harm?" GOLDSMITH. "Well, Sir, I'll accept your challenge. The very next shop to Northumberland "House is a pickle-shop." JOHNSON. "Well, Sir; do we not know that a maid "can in one afternoon make pickles sufficient to serve a whole family for a year? "nay, that five pickle-shops can serve all the kingdom? Besides, sir, there is no "harm done to any body by the making of pickles, or the eating of pickles." iii. 256-7. 66 the man 1773. yet become reconciled. Johnson had instanced They fell into something like an argument, afterwards, as to whether Signor Martinelli, a very fashionable and complacent teacher of Italian who had written a history of England (he was present at the dinner, or they would hardly have spoken so respectfully of a mere compilation from Rapin), should continue his history to the present day. "To be sure he should," said Goldsmith. "No, sir," said Johnson, "he would give great offence. He would "have to tell of almost all the living great what they do "not wish to be told." To this Goldsmith replied, that it might perhaps be necessary for a native to be more cautious; but a foreigner, who came among us without prejudice, might be considered as holding the place of a judge, and might speak his mind freely. Johnson retorted that the foreigner was just as much in danger of catching "the error and mistaken enthusiasm" of the people he happened to be among. "Sir," persisted Goldsmith," he wants only to sell his history, and to tell truth: one an honest, "the other a laudable motive." "Sir," returned Johnson, * Boswell, iii. 266. Æt. 45. 1773. Æt. 45. 66 66 'they are both laudable motives. It is laudable in a man to wish to live by his labours; but he should write so as he may live by them, not so as he may be knocked on the "head. I would advise him to be at Calais before he writes "his history of the present age. A foreigner who attaches "himself to a political party in this country, is in the worst "state that can be imagined; he is looked upon as a mere "intermeddler. A native may do it from interest." "Or principle," interposed Boswell. Goldsmith's observation on this was not very logical, it must be confessed.* "There are people who tell a hundred political lies every 66 66 day," he said, “and are not hurt by it. Surely, then, one "may tell truth with safety." "Why, sir," Johnson answered, "a man had rather have a hundred lies told of him, than one truth which he does not wish to be told." "Well," protested Goldsmith, "for my part, I'd tell the truth, and "shame the devil." "Yes, sir," said the other; "but the "devil will be angry. I wish to shame the devil as much 66 as you do, but I should choose to be out of the reach of "his claws." "His claws can do you no harm, when you "have the shield of truth," was Goldsmith's happy retort, which on the whole perhaps left the victory with him. The same spirit, but not so good an argument, was in his subsequent comment on Johnson's depreciation of the learning of * Boswell, iii. 259. Once for all let me say, as to Goldsmith's share in this and other conversations now to be recorded, that it is never a real deficiency of sense or knowledge that is to be noted in him, so much as an occasional blundering precipitancy which does no justice to what is evidently a view of the subject not incorrect in the main. Let me in some sort illustrate what I mean, by quoting a passage from Swift's Journal to Stella (Works, ii. 76). "I have" he writes, "my mouth full "of water, and was going to spit it out, because I reasoned with myself, how "could I write when my mouth was full. Have not you done things like that, "reasoned wrong at first thinking?” This is what Goldsmith was constantly doing in society-reasoning wrong at first thinking-with the disadvantage that those first thoughts got blurted out, and the thoughts that corrected them came too late. 1773. Harris of Salisbury, the first Lord Malmesbury's father. "He may not be an eminent Grecian," he interposed, "but t. 45. "he is what is much better: he is a worthy humane man." * 66 66 Nay, sir," said Johnson, "that will as much prove that he can play upon the fiddle as well as Giardini, as that he is "an eminent Grecian." Goldsmith felt this; and turned off with a remark that "the greatest musical performers "have small emoluments. Giardini, I am told, does not get above seven hundred a year." "That," replied Johnson, with a philosophy worthy of Adam Smith, "is indeed "but little for a man to get, who does best that which so many endeavour to do." Then there was some talk about She Stoops to Conquer; and little weaknesses of Goldsmith's peeped out. 66 Somebody wondered if the King would come to see the new play. "I wish he would," said Goldsmith quickly. "Not," he added, with a show of indifference meant to cover his too great earnestness, "that it would do me the least good." "Well then, sir," said Johnson, laughing, "let us "say it would do him good. No, sir, this affectation will 66 # Boswell, iii. 266-7. + Goldsmith might have spoken more confidently. Against Johnson's depreciation of the learning of Harris, and the frequent sneers of Walpole, and (which is more important) the objection of Gray, who instanced the Hermes as what he called the "shallow profound" (Works, v. 35), is to be set off the weighty opinion of such men as Gibbon, Dugald Stewart, and Coleridge. I would add that some dialogues by Harris (and other lighter works of his are equally accessible), which show him to have been what Goldsmith asserted him to be, something more worthy and humane than mere scholarship would have entitled him to be thought, will be found at the end of the novel of David Simple, by Fielding's sister, to which Fielding himself wrote a charming preface. "I wish you had "been with me last week writes Joseph Warton to his brother in 1746 (Wooll, 215), "when I spent two evenings with Fielding, and his sister, who wrote David Simple, and you may guess I was very well entertained. The lady indeed "retir'd pretty soon, but Russell and I sat up with the Poet till one or two in "the morning, and were inexpressibly diverted. I find he values, as he justly "may, his Joseph Andrews above all his writings." 1773. Æt. 45. In such a state as ours, who "not pass it is mighty idle. "would not wish to please the chief magistrate?” “I do "wish to please him," returned Goldsmith frankly, and eager to repair his error. "I remember a line in Dryden, 66 " And every poet is the monarch's friend.' "It ought to be reversed." "Nay, there are finer lines in Dryden on this subject," said Johnson; and, not caring for the moment to recollect that their host had been a rebel, he quoted the couplet, 66 66 66 "For colleges on bounteous kings depend, Nay," said Paoli, "successful rebels might." "Happy rebellions," explained Martinelli. "We have no such phrase," said Goldsmith. "But have you not the thing?" asked Paoli. "Yes," the other answered; "all our happy "revolutions. They have hurt our constitution, and will “hurt it, till we mend it by another happy revolution.” Boswell adds that he never before discovered that his friend Goldsmith had "so much of the old prejudice in him:" but the remark was more probably thrown out, at once to please old Johnson, and at the same time vindicate his own independence in the matter of royalty. The turn taken by the conversation would indicate this. 66 "Il a fait," said Paoli of Goldsmith, "un compliment très-gracieux à une certaine grande dame." The allusion was to a strong intimation in She Stoops to Conquer, of its author's dislike of the Royal Marriage Act, and sympathy with its victim the Duchess of Gloucester. The Duke of Cumberland had been forbidden the Court on his marriage with a handsome widow, Mrs. Horton (Lord Carhampton's, better known as Colonel Luttrel's, sister), a year before: but on the Duke of Gloucester's subsequent avowal of his |