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1773. Et. 45.

"it the best among us." "The dog would write it best, to "be sure," was Johnson's half-jesting half bitter-rejoinder, "but his particular malice towards me, and general disregard of truth, would make the book useless to all and "injurious to my character."*

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Uttered carelessly enough, no doubt, and with small thought that his gay little mistress would turn authoress, and put it in a book! Let such things be taken always with the wise comment which Johnson himself supplied to them, in an invaluable remark of his ten years later. "I am not an uncandid nor am I a severe man. I sometimes say more "than I mean, in jest; and people are apt to believe me serious. However, I am more candid than I was when I

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was younger. As I know more of mankind, I expect less “of them; and am ready now to call a man a good man

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upon easier terms than I was formerly." He loved Goldsmith when he so spoke of him, and had no doubt of Goldsmith's affection;-but he spoke with momentary bitterness; of the "something after death," whether a biography

What

* Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes, 31-2. The remark was made in July 1773. Mrs. Thrale adds would hardly have been said, if Johnson had spoken at all seriously. "Oh! as to that, said I, we should all fasten upon him, and force "him to do you justice; but the worst is, the doctor does not know your life.”" The mere prevalence of a suspicion, however, that Goldsmith would be Johnson's biographer, was a discomforting one for Boswell, and there is doubtless some truth in Sir Walter Scott's suggestion, that " rivalry for Johnson's good graces" in regard to this possible point of contention, might account for much of the language in which Boswell, who naturally was neither an ill-natured nor an unjust man, describes such intercourse as he had with Goldsmith.

+ Boswell, viii. 233. On another occasion he remarked, on Boswell showing him a rather questionable opinion attributed to him in a magazine, "I may, "perhaps, have said this; for nobody, at times, talks more laxly than I do."

And now, approaching as I am to the conclusion of my book, let me take the opportunity of saying, that,, with an admiration for Boswell's biography confirmed and extended by my late repeated study of it, I am more than ever convinced that not a few of those opinions of Johnson's put forth in it which appear most repulsive or extravagant, would for the most part lose that character if Boswell had accompanied them always with the provocation or incitement, as it were, under which they

1773.

or matter more serious, he never spoke patiently; and no man's quarrels, at all times, had in them so much of Et. 45. lovers' quarrels. "Sir," he said to Boswell, with a faltering voice, when Beauclerc was in his last illness, "I would walk "to the extremity of the diameter of the earth to save "Beauclerc : " yet with no one more bitterly than Beauclerc, did he altercate in moments of difference. Nor was his fervent tribute, "The earth, sir, does not bear a worthier "man than Bennet Langton," less sincere, because one of his most favourite topics of talk to Boswell was the little weaknesses of their worthy friend.

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were delivered. But certainly he does not always do this, any more than he is careful at all times to distinguish when things are said in irony or jest. To illustrate my meaning, I quote a short passage from a conversation in which Boswell appears to have been boring Johnson by trying to prove that the highest sort of praise might yet, in particular circumstances, be resorted to without the suspicion of exaggeration. "Thus," he continues, "one might say of Mr. Edmund Burke, he "is a very wonderful man." JOHNSON: "No, sir, you would not be safe, if "another man had a mind perversely to contradict. He might answer, 'Where "is all the wonder? Burke is, to be sure, a man of uncommon abilities; with a great quantity of matter in his mind, and a great fluency of language in his "mouth. But we are not to be stunned and astonished by him.' So you see, "sir, even Burke would suffer, not from any fault of his own, but from your "folly." viii. 57-58. I cannot help regarding this last remark as the real clue to a great deal that offends against good taste in Boswell's extraordinary book. Men and things,—and poor Goldsmith and his affairs very prominently among both,— over and over again "suffer not from any fault of their own," but from Boswell's teasing, pertinacious, harassing, and foolish way of dragging them forward. He was always disregarding that excellent saying of Mrs. Thrale's, formerly quoted, in which she tells us that to praise anything, even what he liked extravagantly, was generally displeasing to Johnson. Now, he would say to her, "you praised "that man with such disproportion, that I was incited to lessen him, perhaps more than he deserves. His blood is upon your head." Boswell himself reports this, yet was continually falling into the same scrape, and hence his own frequent confession that "it is not improbable that, if one had taken the other side, he "might have reasoned differently." iii. 112. The real truth was that, so long as, by any sort or kind of boredom, or of excitement, he elicited one of Johnson's peculiarities—the more harsh or decisive the better-he did not care what or who might be sacrificed in the process. If he could ever discover a tender place, on that he was sure to fix himself; and any hesitation or misgiving about a particular subject, was pretty sure to be turned the wrong way if he proceeded to meddle with it. For one out of many notable examples, see vi. 135.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

1773.

DRUDGERY AND DEPRESSION.

1773.

THE first volume of the Grecian History seems to have been finished by Goldsmith soon after Boswell left London, and Griffin, on behalf of the "trade," was then induced to make further advances. An agreement dated on the 22nd of June, states 2501. as the sum agreed and paid for the two volumes; but from this payment had doubtless been deducted some part of the heavy debt, for which the author was already in arrear. The rest of that debt, it seemed hopeless to satisfy by mere drudgery of his own, never more than doubtfully rewarded at best; and the idea now first occurred to poor Goldsmith of a work that he might edit, for which he might procure contributions from his friends, and in which, without any great labour of the pen, the mere influence of his name and repute might suffice to bring a liberal return.* It is pleasant to find Garrick

* This project, and the general condition and habits of Goldsmith at the time, are thus described in the Percy Memoir, p. 112-3. "He had engaged all his 66 literary friends, and the members of the club to contribute articles, each on the "subject in which he excelled; so that it could not but have contained a great "assemblage of excellent disquisitions. He accordingly had prepared a Prospectus, "in which, as usual, he gave a luminous view of his design; but his death unfortu'nately prevented the execution of the work. He was subject to severe fits of the

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helping him in this. "Dear sir," writes Goldsmith to him on the 10th of June, "To be thought of by you, obliges me; "to be served by you, still more. It makes me very happy to "find that Doctor Burney thinks my scheme of a Dictionary useful; still more that he will be so kind as to adorn it "with anything of his own. I beg you, also, will accept my

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gratitude for procuring me so valuable an acquisition. I am, dear sir, Your most affectionate servant, OLIVER "GOLDSMITH."* Garrick had induced Doctor Burney to promise a paper on Music for the scheme, which was that of a Popular Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.

In exertions with a view to this project, and in other persevering labours of the desk, the autumn came on. "Here," he said exultingly to Cradock, on the latter entering his chambers one morning, " are some of my best prose writings. "I have been hard at work ever since midnight, and I desire

you to examine them. They are intended for an intro"duction to a body of arts and sciences." + Cradock thought them excellent indeed, but for other admiration they have unluckily not survived. With these proofs of application, anecdotes of carelessness,-of the disposition which makes so much of the shadow as well as sunshine of the Irish character, as usual alternate; and Cradock relates that, on

"strangury, owing probably to the intemperate manner in which he confined "himself to the desk, when he was employed in his compilations, often indeed "for several weeks successively without taking exercise. On such occasions he "usually hired lodgings in some farm-house a few miles from London, and wrote "without cessation till he had finished his task. He then carried his copy to the "bookseller, received his compensation, and gave himself up, perhaps for months "without interruption, to the gaieties, amusements, and societies of London."

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* Madame d'Arblay's Memoirs of Dr. Burney, i. 272-3. 'My dear Doctor," writes Garrick, enclosing this letter, "I have sent you a letter from Dr. Goldsmith. "He is proud to have your name among the elect. Love to all your fair ones. "Ever yours, D. Garrick."

+ Memoirs, i. 235.

1773.

Et. 45.

1773.

one occasion, he and Percy met by appointment in the Et. 45. Temple, at Goldsmith's special request, and found him gone away to Windsor, after leaving an earnest entreaty (with which they complied) that they would complete for him a halffinished proof of his Animated Nature, which lay upon his desk.* His once trim chambers had then fallen into grievous disorder. Expensive volumes, which, as he says in his preface to the book just named, had sorely taxed his scanty resources, lay scattered about the tables, and tossing on the floor. But of books he had never been careful. Hawkins relates that when engaged in his historical researches about music, Goldsmith told him some curious things one night at the club, which, having asked him to reduce to writing, he promised that he would, and desired Hawkins to call at his chambers for them; when, on the latter doing so, he stepped into a closet and tore out of a printed book six leaves, containing the facts he had mentioned. The carelessness, however, was not of books only. Such money as he had, might be seen lying exposed in drawers, to which his occasional man-servant" would resort as a mere matter of course, for means to pay any small bill that happened to be applied for; and on a visitor once pointing out the danger of this, "What, my dear friend," exclaimed Goldsmith, "do you take Dennis for a thief?" One John Eyles had lately replaced Dennis; and was become inheritor of the too tempting confidence reposed in his predecessor, at the time of Percy's visit to the Temple.

The incident of that visit, I may add, shows us how fleeting the Rowley dispute had been; and it was followed by

* Memoirs, iv. 285.

I refer the reader to the auctioneer's Catalogue of Goldsmith's furniture and books, which I print, by Mr. Murray's permission, from the original and very scarce copy now in his possession. See Appendix B to this volume.

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