while upwards of a third of his "Histoire de François Wills, ou le labour remained still unper-"Triomphe de la Bienfaisance, par "l'auteur du Ministre de Wakefield."

formed.

Nor was this all. He had It is suggested that this may 1772. involved himself in an have been the incomplete chapEt. 44. undertaking to Newbery ters left by Goldsmith, thought to supply another tale like the unworthy of publication here, Vicar of Wakefield; some years concluded by some inferior hand, had elapsed since the unre- and sold to the French market; deemed promise was made; and but the account I have received a portion of a tale submitted to of the English original quite exthe publisher had lately been cludes the possibility of Goldreturned with intimation of dis- smith's having had anything approval. It appears to have whatever to do with it.* been a narrative version of the Another labour that occupied plot of the Good-natured Man, and Goldsmith in the Edgeware coton that ground objected to. So tage was the abridgment of his much was long remembered by Roman History; and this was Miss Mary Horneck, to whom, probably the time when he tried and to her sister, Goldsmith unsuccessfully to lighten his afterwards read such chapters as various toil by means of exhe had written;* and it may be traneous assistance. Exceptions worth stating in connection with may of course be stated to every this fact, which Hazlitt heard rule, but it will be found, I think, from Mrs. Gwyn herself in that writers of the best style are Northcote's painting-room, that Southey notices in his Omniana a fraud he supposes to have been practised on Goldsmith's reputation in France, by the an- "volume, twaddling story of a sort of nouncement, in a list of books at "aunt, -1.6. "orphan,-i. e. Wills, whom his maiden Benevolence Triumphant, the end of a volume published in "brings up against the opposition of her the year of his death, of a trans-"kindred; he proving a scapegrace, and lation from the English entitled she gracious to.. not the end; for, at "the decline of her life, and a good way "in the second volume, Benevolence

"I read that History of Francis "Wills, or the Triumph of Benevolence," writes Mr. Browning to me,

"some

"twenty years ago: a miserable, two

"I have been informed by the lady "marries some stingy Scotch Captain "who requested a lock of his hair before "Macsomething, and instantly turns as "interment, that he once read to her "stingy as he, or worse-dissecting the "several chapters of a novel in manu-"flints he only skinned-till the very "script which he had in contemplation; "last of all, of the life and volume to"but which he did not live to finish, now 66 gether, when Benevolence does indeed "irrecoverably lost." Northcote's Life of Reynolds, 1. 327. "Goldsmith had begun "another novel, of which he read the "first chapter to the Miss Hornecks a "little while before his death." Northcote's Conversations, 169.

"triumph, in her return to the old way. "So the poor author intended: whereas, "you see, the devil and Captain Mac so "managed that Malevolence triumphed "with a vengeance, in giving the pater"nity of the book to Goldsmith!" (1852.)

1772.

Æt.

generally the least able to find | scientific knowledge; and the any relief in dictating to others. same will have to be said of his "When Doctor Goldsmith," says other history books, even though the kindly biographer of the his general historical knowgood Jonas Hanway, "to relieve ledge should be measured 'himself from the labour of writ- by the anecdote of Gib- 44. "ing, engaged an amanuensis, bon's visit to him in the Temple “he found himself incapable of some few months hence, when "dictation; and after eyeing each he looked up from the manu"other some time, unable to script of his Grecian History which 'proceed, the Doctor put a he happened to be writing, asked guinea in his hand, and sent of his scholarly visitor the name "him away: but it was not so of the Indian king who gave “with Mr. Hanway; he could Alexander so much trouble, and, "compose faster than any person on Gibbon facetiously answer"could write."* No doubt; nor ing Montezuma, gravely wrote it

66

was such information as Mr. Han-down.

way had to contribute at all But his ignorance in this and likely to be the worse for his other respects I have shown to fast composition, whereas Gold-be absurdly overstated. The smith perhaps eyed his wonder- purse he had so often to take ing amanuensis all the more out was not so often empty. wistfully and silently because of What Johnson says may be true a misgiving connected with the of the few last years of his life, somewhat scant information to that he was at no pains to fill his be then and there imparted. mind with knowledge; that, Still, of his historical taskwork transplanting it from one place it is to be said quite as truly as to another, it did not settle, and of the delightful Animated Nature, so he could not tell what was in that such defects of imperfect his own books;-but this should research as it exhibited were be limited by those years of his counterbalanced by simplicity of life, judged by the distractions diction, a lucid beauty of narra- which then beset him, and action, and unaffectedness of style; companied with the admission and that schoolboys have more which Johnson did not omit, that profited by the one than lost by the world had taught him knowthe other. Johnson said, as we ledge where books had not; that have seen, that he would make a whatever he wrote, he did better very fine natural history book, than any other man could do; though, if he could distinguish a that he well deserved his place in cow from a horse, that he be- Westminster Abbey, and that lieved to be the extent of his every year he lived he would. * Pugh's Remarkable Occurrences in the have deserved it better. * Life of Jonas Hanway, Esq. 223-224. *Boswell, vII. 96.

It is

astonishing how many thoughts, considered as much of his phifamiliar now as household words, losophy occasionally is, his Esoriginated with Goldsmith,* even says and Citizen of the World conto the famous saying that tain views of life and economy, 1772. it was not so much to ex- political and social, which for Æt. 44. press as to conceal our subtlety and truth Burke never wants that language had been surpassed, nor the far-seeing given us; ** while, loose and ill-wisdom of Adam Smith himself. * Who has not laughed at Sheridan's ing, the resource of his days of To that fragmentary way of writremark to his son, on the latter proposing to descend a coal-pit for the mere poverty, his present narrow nepleasure of saying he had done so, which cessities seemed again to have Beau Tibbs anticipated in his remark to driven him back; for, besides the the man who would have justified the

66

"Blast

large price he demanded for a seat to see Edgeware labours just named, the coronation? "What you can bring the latest of the Essays in the away is the pleasure of having it to say collection which now bears that that you saw the coronation." "me!" cries Tibbs, "if that be all, there title were written in the present "is no need of paying for that, since I am year. They appeared in a new "resolved to have that pleasure, whether magazine, started by his ac

"I am there or no!" Letter CV.

**Already referred to (1. 155). The quaintance Captain (so called, maxim is Jack Spindle's; that he who but strictly Lieutenant) Thompson* and other members of the

"to the ordinary sort of men whereby to "politick sages, that speech was given "men, whereby to conceal it." Which communicate their mind; but to wise Young, speaking of precisely the same court influences, afterwards condensed into this couplet:

"Where Nature's end of language is declined,

And men talk only to conceal their mind."

"best knows how to keep his necessities "private, is the most likely person to "have them redressed; and that the true. "use of speech is not so much to express "our wants as to conceal them." But the original of this thought, which Talleyrand turned to such profligate use in his maxim that speech was given to man to conceal his thoughts, has been traced to a fine passage in the Sermons of South. "It is looked upon, 99 says that noble preacher, "as a great piece of weakness and unfitness for business (forsooth) for 66 a man to be so clear and open, as really "to think not only what he says but *For an account of Thompson, who, "what he swears: and when he makes through Garrick's interest with Lord "any promise to have the least intent of "performing it... What between French "fashions and Italian dissimulations, the "old generous English spirit which here"tofore made this nation so great in the "eyes of all the world round about it, 66 seems utterly lost and extinct; and we are degenerated into a mean, sharking, "fallacious, undermining way of con"verse; there being a snare and a trepan "almost in every word we hear, and "every action we see. Men speak with "designs of mischief, and therefore they "speak in the dark. In short, this seems to "be the true, inward judgment of all our

Sandwich and Sir Edward Hawke, obtained a command, and died a Commodore off the coast of Africa, see Gar. Cor. 1. 402, and Percival Stockdale's Memoirs, II. 26-8. As I may probably not again refer to this latter book, I here mention an affecting remark of Johnson's recorded in it which may help to make us very tolerant of whatever occasional harshnesses have been attributed to him here or elsewhere. The subject of drinking being mentioned, and Mrs. Williams wondering what pleasure men could take in making beasts of themselves, Johnson replied that very strong

1772.

old Wednesday-club: and com- traced to Goldsmith's hand in the prised a highly humorous paper new magazine, showed chiefly of imaginary Scotch marriages, his own renewed anxieties in the for which he stole some sen- direction of the stage. Antences from the Landlady in the other successful venture Æt. Good-natured Man; a whimsical there was indeed become 44. narrative of a noted sleep- almost his only hope, in, the walker; a gracefully-written no- desperate distress to which he tice of Shenstone's Leasowes, appeared to be verging; yet the full of sympathy for the kind old fears had been interposed by thoughtful poet; and a capital Colman, on the old hackneyed attack, as full of good-humour ground. The comedy of which as of hard hitting, on the senti- the first draft had been commental school of comedy.

*

CHAPTER XIV.

Puppets at Drury-Lane and Elsewhere.

1772.

pleted the year before, and which in the interval had been re-cast and strengthened, was now in the hands of the Covent-garden manager; whose tedious suspended judgments made GoldTHE resolute attack on senti- smith long for even Garrick's mental comedy which I have tender mercies. Indeed he had inducements existed to such excess, "for no present reason to think that "he who makes a beast of himself gets the Drury-lane manager would "rid of the pain of being a man." (11. not have treated him with un109.) On another occasion, however, in usual consideration, if his prethe year before Goldsmith's death, he gave a happier turn to the same subject. vious promise had not bound him The passage is as curious and charac- to the other house; for the recent teristic as anything Boswell has pre-good understanding between served for us. "Dr. Johnson observed, "that our drinking less than our ances them continued, and is observ"tors was owing to the change from ale able in many little incidents of "to wine. I remember, he added, when the time. The libellers who "all the decent people in Lichfield got "drunk every night, and were not the knew Garrick's weakness, for ex"worse thought of. Ale was cheap, so ample, now assailed him through you pressed strongly. When a man the side of Goldsmith; and not "in such haste. I remember when only was the latter accused of "people in England changed a shirt only harbouring low writers busied "once a week: a Pandour, when he gets in abusing his new ally* (which

66

แ

"must bring a bottle of wine, he is not

66 à shirt, greases it to make it last. "Formerly, good tradesmen had no fire. "but in the kitchen; never in the par"four, except on Sunday. My father, "who was a magistrate of Lichfield, lived "thus. They never began to have a fire "in the parlour, but on leaving off busi66 'ness, or some great revolution of their "life." Bos. IV. 55-6.

See ante, 1. p. 125.

Oliver Goldsmith's Life and Times. II.

A correspondent who signs himself: "D. W-s," writes on the 2nd Oct. 1772 to warn Garrick that a very bitter letter against him, just published by Bladon, had been written by a young man who is making himself known as a first-rate genius. "I who know your merits as "well as your faults, would wish you

16

1772.

Garrick had sense enough to his laugh against Goldsmith laugh at), but Kenrick accused seems also obvious enough, but them both of conspiring against it is all in good-humour. A little himself, and taunted the before this date Richard Burke Drury-lane manager with was writing to him from Grenada, t. 44 his new literary favourites. to which after more than one "My literary favourites," Gar-"absence" in London he was rick cleverly retorted, "are men again returned, and after per"of the greatest honour and petrating a bad joke which he "genius in this nation, and have protests he thinks witty, “Let "all had the honour, with myself, "Goldsmith," he adds, "when "of being particularly abused by "he comes from France, be the "you. Your pretence of my hav-"judge. I hope that he will not "ing, in conjunction with Doctor "leave his poetry there: let him "Goldsmith and others, abused "bring home as many French "you in the Morning Chronicle, 1"airs as he pleases; I would have "most solemnly protest is false; "his song continue to be plain "nay more, I never saw such "English. His poetry is all I can "abuse, or heard of it, till within "now have a concern in; half "this hour."* That still he has "the convex world intrudes be"tween me and his old or new

66

"young man. His ears are always filled

66

"would take method to undeceive this acquired accomplishments of "with accounts of your villany. His "any other kind.” * And far "name is Williams; he is intimate at better would Garrick have emCaptain Pye's. Goldsmith knows him, "and I have seen him go into Johnson's, ployed himself in giving Gold"but perhaps it was for music. Rice, the smith practical proof, in connec"instructor of English, was with him last tion with his new comedy, of the "night in the front box of Drury-lane, new interest in him which his "and they seemed very intimate."

Gur

rick Correspondence, 1. 487. What makes Correspondence thus evinces, than the signature of this letter rather curious in pursuing that labour of man

is the fact that John Kemble has written

He was

un

on his copy of the Letter to Garrick al-agement which just now laded to (now in the British Museum) luckily engaged him, and exthe name of David Williams as its writer. cluded every other. For a memoir of Williams, see Chalmers, and the Gent. Mag. for 1816. One of the greatest mistakes founder of the Literary Fund. (1852.) of Garrick's life was committed See also, for an episode in Garrick's life at the end of this year. He had highly creditable to him, in which Wil- of late, needlessly suspecting a liams plays an important part, Mr. Percy Fitzgerald's Life of Garrick, II. 349-57. failure in his own continued (1870.) powers of attraction, greatly Garrick Correspondence, II. 341. In the overdone the ornamental part of same letter Garrick tells Kenrick: " "Sir, "I would have honoured you by giving his scenery** and general man"the satisfaction of a gentleman, if you "could (as Shakespeare says) have "screwed your courage to the sticking 'place, to have taken it."

* Gar. Correspondence, 1. 401-2.

**I have before me such a pleasant unpublished letter from the great painter