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Title: Oliver Goldsmith
Author: E. S. Lang Buckland
Release Date: March 1, 2010 [EBook #31462]
Language: English
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OLIVER GOLDSMITH
[Illustration:
_Rischgitz Collection._]
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
(From the painting by Reynolds.)]
Bell's Miniature Series of Great Writers
Oliver Goldsmith
BY
E. S. LANG BUCKLAND
[Illustration]
LONDON
GEORGE BELL & SONS
1909
PREFACE
It is only right to acknowledge my indebtedness in the compilation of
this volume to John Forster, to whom as one of the most courageous,
industrious, and sympathetic of the writers of biography, all students
of Goldsmith must be profoundly grateful. To several other writers I
must also express my thanks, and to save the time of my kind readers
and to preserve a proper sense of obligation, it would perhaps be best
to admit at once that if this little book has any merits, they are due
to others, while its errors are all my own.
E. S. L. B.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. "THE BEST BELOVED OF ENGLISH WRITERS" 1
II. "THE DESERTED VILLAGE" 13
III. "THE TRAVELLER" 27
IV. LONDON 36
V. "THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD" 45
VI. THE LITERARY CLUB 50
VII. DEBTS AND DIGNITIES 59
VIII. CONSUMMATE COMEDY 66
IX. THE POET AND THE ESSAYIST 75
X. THE LIGHT OF LOVE 84
LIST OF THE WORKS OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH 88
SOME WORKS OF REFERENCE 89
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
OLIVER GOLDSMITH, FROM A PAINTING BY REYNOLDS _Frontispiece_
GOLDSMITH AS A YOUNG MAN 28
DR. JOHNSON, BOSWELL, AND GOLDSMITH AT THE MITRE TAVERN 46
THE ORIGINAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN GOLDSMITH AND DODSLEY, 1763 52
GOLDSMITH IN MIDDLE AGE 56
NO. 2, BRICK COURT, TEMPLE (WHERE GOLDSMITH DIED) 63
STATUE OF GOLDSMITH 80
CHAPTER I
"THE BEST BELOVED OF ENGLISH WRITERS"
The Goldsmith family sprang originally from Crayford, a nestling
village in Kent. This southern county, in all its loveliness, can thus
add this high honour to its other though not greater glories. "To be
the best beloved of English writers," said Thackeray, "what a title
that is for a man!" This he gave to Goldsmith. It is a title that none
will dispute. Here is a love that will never pass away from our
hearts. Of Oliver Goldsmith, as poet and novelist, essay-writer, wit
and playwright, it may be said that his distinction and celebrity are
essentially English. Erin, sweet sister island, that land of loving
hearts, gave this child of sun and shade, his birthplace, his home and
many dear delightful days, never to be forgotten. Across the
separating years, to the very end and through all, the grateful heart
of the poet looked back very fondly upon the gentle and pathetic land
of his nativity. On November 10, 1728, Oliver Goldsmith first saw the
light of that world which, to the last, he loved, and greeted that
suffering heart and seeking aspiration of humanity, that above and
beyond almost all other men he could, and did, unfailingly
compassionate. It is needless to trace and recall, the ancestral
traditions of the Goldsmith family. Of its early history in England
and later settlement in Ireland, it will suffice that its annals are
as honourable as they are obscure. It had its men of light and
learning, but their power attained neither fame nor rank, and their
virtues were rather domestic than distinguished.
The family, which flowers in the delightful novelist and playwright,
was ever famed for goodness of heart and the possession of the very
smallest possible sum total of worldly prudence. Goldsmith was named
Oliver, after Oliver Jones, his grandfather. Noll held that Miss Ann
Jones, his mother, was descended from a Huntingdon stock, and that the
name Oliver came from no ancestor less celebrated than the Great
Protector. Whilst this may be felicitously fanciful, and quite in
character with dear Noll, who, doting upon every form of finery,
whether it came from illustrious ancestry or coloured clothes,
certainly had a face not unlike in contour and feature, the rugged
countenance of Cromwell.
Goldsmith was born in the remote village of Pallasmore, in the county
of Longford, Ireland. This district has been called the very midmost
solitude. Oliver's father was the Vicar of the parish. Three daughters
and one son preceded the appearance of little Noll in the parsonage
at Pallasmore. He was followed by three more brothers, making in all a
happy family of eight, of whom two died in childhood.
In 1730 the Rev. Charles Goldsmith was preferred from Pallas to the
living of Kilkenny West. The parsonage connected with this better
benefice was situated at Lissoy, the Immortal Village. Here Oliver's
childhood was passed. Unlike Pallasmore, this was a picturesque place
in the centre of a fair and goodly land. No poem opens more sweetly
than that which heralds its message:
"Sweet Auburn, loveliest village."
The Vicar's meagre income as a country pastor was increased
by farming, and vastly diminished by his open-hearted, swift
responsiveness to every sudden or permanent appeal to his purse, the
family wardrobe, or the larder. In this excellent and honoured man,
whose very piety was as sublime as it was confused, rambling, and
paradoxical, we have the quaint original of Dr. Primrose, one of the
most lovable characters that has ever lived to charm the page of
lasting literature.
In the family life at Lissoy one little child strikes us all with
deepest interest and love, and yet he was an oddity to those who knew
him, not as we do now, but as he was--a dull boy, and quite a
"blockhead in book-learning."
The master at the village school had been a soldier under the Duke of
Marlborough ere he returned to what had been his earlier vocation,
that of a pedagogue. He was a rough diamond, yet most revered, with
great kindness in his heart. His love of poetry inspired his pupils as
much as his stories of campaigns. He had an excellent literary taste.
If Goldsmith even when a boy valued this old friend, Paddy Byrne not
less saw the goodness, the hidden power, and the brightness of the
child. Noll was soon taken away from the village school. Just at the
moment when the heart of the master had greeted the hope of his little
scholar, Oliver caught confluent smallpox, with the pathetic result
that a face plain to begin with, grew a whimsical and winsome ugliness
all its own. Goldsmith has given us more than one friend, and not the
least of these old Paddy Byrne:
"Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way,
With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule,
The village master taught his little school.
A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew."
Then we are told:
"Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes--for many a joke had he--
Full well the busy whisper circling round
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned."
As the piece proceeds, the delicately chiding satire is delightful,
ringing at last with the laughing lines:
"And still they gazed, and still their wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew."
Seven years had elapsed between the birth of Oliver and the child that
preceded him. His elder brother Henry had superior qualities which
were early marked. To these his father gave great attention, lavishing
his means upon this boy's education. Oliver was destined for
commercial life in the paternal projection of those affairs and
eventualities of which men imagine they are masters. The force of
impressions that fall upon the mind in childhood must be strongest in
those children whose imaginations are most vivid. Listening to Paddy
Byrne made Oliver in heart and mind a wayward rover all his life.
Something of the imprudence of the little man came, it might be said,
from this dash of the recklessness of the old soldier and adventurer
infused into imaginative infant hopefulness. From this same instructor
he also gathered his devotion to books and poetry, which proved a
revelation that changed his father's purpose of fitting him for a
commercial calling.
Henry Goldsmith is known and remembered now through the poetic
expressions of honour and affection bestowed upon him by his brother.
One cannot tell at this hour whether the deeper sense of reverence
should fall upon his character or upon that gratitude through which
alone it lives.
In the childhood of Oliver Goldsmith, his brightness and the
foreshadowings of future force were not alone among the elements
within the little heart which lay neglected by those he loved and
whose lives he lighted, though they knew it not. In due course he was
despatched to another school, thirty miles away. He lived with his
uncle, Mr. John Goldsmith, a landed gentleman, and attended the school
at Elphin; and at eleven years of age was sent to another and a more
reputed Academy nearer home, at Athlone. Two years here and four at
Edgeworthstown completed his schooling at the age of seventeen.
Of the Vicar of Wakefield, and thence of the father of little Oliver,
it was said that all his adventures were by his own fireside, and all
his travels from one room to another. He was in all likelihood a
delicate man, and certainly deeply religious, with a high sense of
honour and common moral obligation. The _Vicar of Wakefield_, his best
portrait, stands an honourable and an imperishable filial tribute, the
fairest ever paid by son to sire.
One day, when this young Master Goldsmith was in his teens, he left
home for Edgeworthstown, riding a good horse, borrowed from a friend,
and in high glee, if money braces the manly heart. With a golden
guinea in his purse, he was as proud as wealth untold can make a
buoyant spirit, in the days when life is very bright and happiness is
everywhere. He loitered on the journey. The horse nigh slept, whilst
the rider mooned on in meditative peace, and a lad's romantic building
up of airy castellations. Instead of achieving his actual destination
by nightfall, he was still miles away from the appointed place.
Nothing daunted, with a proud and mighty air, he paused in the streets
of Ardagh to ask a wayfarer where he could find the best house of
entertainment. This question, it happened, was addressed to the
greatest wag in the vicinity.
The wit, a jocose fencing-master, Mr. Cornelius Kelly, now fenced with
words, and in all his life never did defter work. He pointed to the
house of old Squire Featherston, rightly averring no better
entertainment or hospitality could be found anywhere in all the world
than in that generous and hearty home. Thus mistaking this private
house and family mansion for an inn, the youth approached the place,
and the wag went on his way. Oliver gave the bell a good ring, told
the man to take his horse, and sauntered into the commodious parlour
of the Squire as if it had been the public room in some well-supplied
hotel. The Squire soon detected the mistake that had been made, and
knowing the father of the boy, seized upon the diverting situation,
entering with all his heart into the possibilities the joke might
yield. He turned landlord for the nonce, brought in the supper piping
hot, and then was ordered to bring a bottle of good wine. This the lad
cordially, yet with some condescension, shared with the supposed
master of the hostelry. More than this, at last putting all pride of
place aside, he told the good man to bring his wife and daughter to
the table. Oliver gave minute and particular orders for a good
breakfast on the morrow, and then went to bed.
We can picture the sweetly smiling daughter of the Squire, rippling
with laughter and every moment more bewitching.
We wonder what this prototype of Miss Hardcastle was like to look
upon, and whether her heart was as tender, and her wit and grace as
charming, as that of the character she at least did something to
inspire.
In the morning when master Oliver expected to part for ever with that
guinea in his pocket, he learned the actual state of things and left
no poorer than he came, but all the richer for the laughter and the
merriment and the good wishes of the friends, who, to divert and amuse
both him and themselves, had treated their guest so well.
In Trinity College, at the time when Goldsmith studied there as a
sizar, menial offices were involved in this dubious position. Amongst
these were sweeping the courts in the morning, carrying up the dishes
from the kitchen to the Fellows' table, waiting for dinner until all
the rest had finished, and wearing a garb to signalise inferiority and
degradation. Common manliness cannot suffer indignities of this sort.
Johnson at Oxford and Goldsmith in Dublin rebelled. The agonised sense
of decent justice could not be stifled. In such contexts, only cowards
can wish dishonour borne and indignation unrevealed. Oliver himself
had none of those conventional prejudices that raise Universities to
fetishes. Like the man he was, he would have been content to enter
some true trade.
His relatives had other thoughts. That faithful clergyman, his uncle
Contarine, persuaded his nephew into those paths of decorous ignorance
in which the ranks of the respectable tread their gentle way, and are
not rude enough to question custom. He in his time had been a sizar,
and had not found the duties devolving lowering or an impediment, as
he said, to intimacy and association with the great and good. The
reason why Goldsmith's career at Dublin was not radiant was dogging
poverty. In the midst of penury no sooner was money in his pockets
than silver and copper sped in response to any petition made upon his
unfailing if not unerring charity.
The poor fellow gave the very clothing from his bed. In the anguish of
pity, giving blankets, and sleeping cold and being laughed at and
scorned, involved the warranty of self-suffering upon the eager deed.
The lad lived in utter misery through the brutal tyranny of his tutor,
Wilder, a dissolute drunkard, a disgrace to his own times and
incomprehensible to ours. Death overtook this man in a drunken brawl.
His crimes were not without attenuating circumstances. College tutors
have trials enough to crush their characters, when they have
characters to crush.
Living in actual need as far as money was concerned, and a destitution
of interest more to be pitied, Oliver passed in obscurity through the
University. The Rev. Charles Goldsmith, dying in 1747, made the
position of his son even more precarious and pathetic, and a career of
mishap and misunderstanding still harder to endure. We find dear Noll
failing in scholarships, or losing through mere negligence the prizes
he had gained, and, lastly, with a philosophic indifference to the
transitory nature of mortal learning, pawning the books he ought to
have studied. It was a doleful business. He had, as he said, "a knack
of hoping." It must have been a clever trick, for it never quite
failed. He wrote ballads that were bought up eagerly, and merrily
sung, cheering the poor in the common streets of Dublin. He made a
shilling or two now and then upon these transactions. These, we can
imagine, brought him more pride and pleasure than academic prowess
could have afforded. One night he gave a supper to his friends, who
were all of a lively and hilarious order, and was for this, before his
assembled guests, thrashed by his tutor for his breach of college
discipline. Selling his remaining books and his clothes, he fled from
this scene of many sorrows. At Dublin, Goldsmith's diligence, however
faulty, was enough to gain for him commendation from time to time, but
no distinction worth mentioning. His worst crime is seen in a riot in
which he was not a ringleader. He scraped into his scrapes as he
scraped through his examinations.
These days were most desolate. His flight was not final. Reconciled
to his condition, he graduated in 1749, his name as usual the last
upon the list. When, later in life, he penned his _Inquiry into the
State of Polite Learning_, he wrote from bitter experience. Allied
with Johnson in the feeling of humiliation at the position of a sizar
in a College, Goldsmith went further, and questioned the whole policy
of education at our schools and Universities. It is hardly too much to
hold him one of the pioneers of modern methods, and those new,
slowly-growing principles, which mark our present somewhat broader
enlightenment.
Leaving the University, and returning to his mother's house at
Ballymahon, Goldsmith loafed about lazily, good-humouredly, and
merrily, taking things just as they came. To bear with him in patience
was hard for the members of his family. Our young, dreaming, and
delightful poet may not have been a blessing at home. Another hearth
saw this minstrel in his happiest vein. Passing his evenings at an
inn, he gleaned there a knowledge of mankind of which in later years
he made capital use. In time a finer audience than that he cheered at
this village ale-house, greeted a fairer humour when this tavern,
immortalised in happy memory, was seen in _She Stoops to Conquer_. At
this village hostelry, merriment, and not indulgence, ruled delighted
hours. In this haven of hilarity Oliver sang ditties and told stories
that blessed his boon companions. One recalls Shenstone's words:
"Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn."
It may seem difficult to discover a hero rejoicing in comrades
discovered in a village ale-house. Still less should we expect to find
in a heart pleased so easily a man of refined and exquisite
sensibility. Oliver Goldsmith, revelling in friends coarse and crass
to superficial vision, must have found in them gleams of holiness that
lives less loving could not discern.
CHAPTER II
"THE DESERTED VILLAGE"
The wandering boy, stricken with grief at the pain and the poverty he
sees, alike in town and village in Ireland, foreshadows and unveils
the coming man, who, knowing his own anxieties, was ever more
distressed by the cares and afflictions he beheld than by those
through which he was at any time himself the sufferer.
In all the careers of the essentially great, there are times when
laughter will mingle with the honour we bestow, and compassion oust
our adoration from its throne. Laughter may grow derisive and
compassion scornful. Contempt has one virtue--it recoils. Derision can
find no room within the fathoming comprehension that does not forget
the ceaseless pressure of those ruthless surroundings in which often
noblest lives are framed.
Pope's line on Gay pictures Goldsmith:
"In wit, a man--simplicity, a child."
In these early days no path seemed chosen save that of the road
following the loitering line of least resistance.
After his University career was over, Goldsmith for a while made his
home with his sister and her husband near Lissoy, enjoying fishing and
otter-hunting. Principally he passed his days idling, as people say,
or seeing visions, as the poets and the prophets plead. He was often
with his brother Henry, sharing in the pastor's work. Precious these
fraternal communions must have been. Abiding was Oliver's love
for Henry, to the last, deep, devoted, and revering. During this
wayward era, splendidly attired, and gaily wearing a pair of red
riding-breeches, he called upon the Bishop, having at the moment a
hazy view of being ordained. Noll's radiant apparel, laughing eyes,
and merry face, made the bewildered prelate diffident. Contarine
procured his nephew a tutorship, which was held for twelve months,
until one night, playing cards, Noll called his employer a scoundrel
and a cheat. With thirty pounds in his leaking pockets, later he set
out from home for Cork, and thence, according to his magnificent
plans, for America. He was not destined to become an Empire-builder in
the Colonies. Six weeks saw him home again as happy as ever, and quite
penniless. Neither he himself nor anyone else ever knew, or ever will
know now, what in the meantime had happened to the good fellow. He had
exchanged a capital horse for a lank and bony creature of which he
appeared very fond, called Fiddle-back. According to his story, he
had put his kit on board, and the captain of the ship had sailed
without him. No one was too glad to see him back again so soon. His
mother and his brother Henry knew that neither of them had means to
support him as a man of fantastic leisure. His indolence dishonoured
the family. Perplexing eccentricities had grown intolerable. Only old
Uncle Contarine stood by the boy. He still believed in and loved dear
Noll, incorrigible as the good fellow was, and inexplicable from every
vantage. When he returned poor Oliver had said, with his happy though
here unconscious humour: "And now, my dear mother, after having
struggled so hard to come home to you, I wonder that you are not more
rejoiced to see me."
Even his poor mother could not welcome his return with warmth. A
certain coldness crept into the heart of Henry, the beloved brother.
They had been greatly tried. Perhaps Uncle Contarine continued clement
merely because in the nature of things his responsibilities for the
vagrancies of his kinsman were inevitably less intimate. As he was not
willing to enter the Church, his uncle now thought that Goldsmith
should go to London and study law at the Temple. He gave the prodigal
fifty pounds, and bade him God-speed. Goldsmith made his way as far as
Dublin. There, passing a merry and philanthropic time with new and old
familiars, he gambled away, and gave away, and lost his money, and all
too soon had none for further travels. He returned with shame upon
his brow, completely contrite. The kindly Contarine possessed that
fine courage, the fortitude of forgiveness. It was springtime in the
poet's heart. This was his era of heroic hope, immortal dreaming, and
Divine revelation.
Following the traditions of his family, he would have become a
clergyman. It was not want of religious sentiment that precluded his
feeling sincerely called to this Divine office, but the unutterable
profoundness of his reverence. With all his laughter he ever had the
pure spirit of the pastor. For the faithful fulfilment of the
ministry, in that marvellous picture of a parson's life given in _The
Deserted Village_ he has revealed a living and an enlightening ideal.
Here the hearts of priest and poet beat as one. There is a universal
ministry, higher than divided priesthoods. Oliver Goldsmith, poet,
playwright, and humorist, was a veritable minister of God. Poetry has
one eternal test. The poem must ever be a very part of the very life
of the poet, his very soul, the breathing hope and the vital blood of
his whole being. This is true of Goldsmith's two great poems. They are
in themselves a sufficing and beautiful biography. We know the heart
of the man from these sublime outpourings of the soul. For every word
and every line we love and honour Goldsmith. _The Deserted Village_
reveals the singer's sense of sorrow, reverence for the reverend in
life, his compassion and outpouring sympathy, not for single hearts
merely, but that wider love involved and proclaimed in the
understanding pity for a race--and not for one place alone, but for a
whole land, lain desolate.
Whatever may be the ultimate verdict upon Goldsmith's greatest poem,
one thing is as significant as it is certain. These poetic yearnings
were long in his heart ere he gave them utterance. A wayward, careless
lad, heedless of all responsibility, he seems purposeless and
perplexing to the last degree, yet the profoundest meditations of his
life moved his soul. The very spell of poetry was upon him. This
Divine revealing may have accounted for that outward want of
earnestness of the character, and the career that troubled others if
it did not trouble him. The hold upon the inward and the hidden spirit
absorbed and stagnated the outward movements and the conventional
plans of common existence. It is right to be implicitly imbued with
the honour due to honour, and that tribute which must in every issue
be humbly paid to elemental guiding and essential greatness. Amid the
inconsequent and eccentric variations of evolving genius, the Uncle
Contarine possessed inexhaustible patience. If he had very possibly
not a complete confidence in his wayward nephew, he had an affection
for the lad, and a devotion to his welfare that nothing could
diminish.
This good old man often thought of the poor widow and her boy. He saw
that the provision for a grown lad, ripening into manhood, with no
visible means of independent subsistence, and no ostensible desire for
any conceivable occupation, was a burden too great for the fondest of
mothers to bear when she was very poor. Contarine had been deeply
moved when Oliver came home again that last time thoroughly ashamed
and broken-hearted. This contrition touched the very depths of all the
old man's sympathy. He must have been a man of few words--so few that
he had none to spare for reproaches. He saw to the full the
embarrassments of the situation, and came once more swiftly to the
rescue. His manner was at all times persuasive rather than peremptory.
His plans were practical and immediate. Sudden action stayed the
possibility of growing bitterness. Forthwith Goldsmith was despatched
to Edinburgh to qualify for the medical profession. He was twenty-four
years of age. Although he loved his family dearly, and cherished the
land of his birth with all its pathos and its poetry, he never saw
Ireland again, nor the kinsmen and kinswomen to whom, in his heart, he
lived his days mid fault and failure, sorrow and success, joy and
pain, endlessly devoted.
From the earliest days to the last, throughout the whole career of
Oliver Goldsmith, there were deep emotions in the mind and high
motives in the life and character of this great man that few in his
own times even dimly perceived. Impenetrable love was hidden in that
laughter-laden heart, with its outward concealing and dissimulating
vanities.
When the time came, and he might have left his work in London and gone
home to Ireland for a while, it was too late, for his dear and gentle
mother, old Uncle Contarine, and brother Henry had passed away. It may
be hard to think that an indolent boy who squanders without scruple
the money you have with great embarrassment raised for his benefit
loves you devotedly, and has dedicated his whole heart, and life, and
love to yours. It is difficult, too, to think that a vain little man
is, in his soul, an earnest great one. Yet all this must be achieved
if the heart would know Oliver Goldsmith rightly, and give at least
one faithful life its due.
There is no period in which the moving mind of genius is not
receptive. In those days of wayward adolescence, Goldsmith found books
somewhere, and many, and read them to the depths. Some men have left
lists of the works they studied--even Burns and Byron did. Noll was
never at any time systematic enough to have done this. Often the
spirit is more influenced by the things that are read and not greatly
heeded, than by those that become the subject of fixed study.
Goldsmith was always a lover of Latin poetry and classic models. In
this perplexing youthful time of transition, he had imbued his mind
with romance and with those higher aspirations of the poets of all
ages and eras in which their utterances, growing religious, pertain to
life in its love and light and lofty purity. Literature yields
nothing more enthralling than those passages in which sublimity is
seized, and the mind of man is commanded to rise above the pressing
issue and the material care.
Prudence has many advantages. It makes men rich and respectable, but
it is the death of poetry. Prudence has no genius. It cannot perceive
its own deplorable delimitations. It may not fathom the vagaries of
high minds. Goldsmith was not meant to make his own fortune. He was
intended to make what is far dearer and better than prosperity--hope
and happiness for many and many a heart, and many and many a home.
Burns was not prudent, Byron was not; Johnson was not industrious for
the pure sake and love of labour. He preferred ease, and never, he
acknowledged, worked when he had a guinea to preclude the unpleasant
necessity of toil. Of Goldsmith Thackeray said: "The poor fellow was
never so friendless but he could befriend someone." Sincere and
sublime tributes of love, honour, and affection are offerings doubly
blessed, blessing those who give and those who do receive. Nobly
Oliver Goldsmith revered his brother Henry. The sudden separation from
this heart was the greatest pain for Goldsmith when at last the day
came.
The best idea of the life of Goldsmith at this period is gleaned from
his great poem _The Deserted Village_. These were his words as he
looked back:
"How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene!"
With what delight he shares the rustic revelry. There falls the light
of lingering love on each and every line and word:
"These were thy charms, but all these charms are fled,"
he cries,
"And desolation saddens all thy green."
He depicts emigration and its devastating and enforced exile, so
widely diverse from the healthful, free, and willing spirit of true
and liberal colonisation:
"Far, far away thy children leave the land.
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay."
Years later the man wrote these lines, but the thoughts, the burning
sense of burning wrong, the pain and anguish, were hidden in the heart
of the youth, outwardly so careless:
"A bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied."
There is a majesty in the lines--
"His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth."
A little later he speaks of
"Every pang that folly pays to pride."
There is a depth in the man who could write:
"Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain;
In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my grief--and God has given my share--
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down."
How pretty and how pathetic is the picture in this poem of the end
that he had fancied for his days! A thousand and a thousand times
the ceaseless humanity, seeking only love, endears the man. Mark the
sweet, true, and sublime ideal:
"Angels around befriending Virtue's friend:
Bends to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His Heaven commences ere the world be past!"
In simplicity Goldsmith equals Gray. There is a Miltonic dignity truly
classical in the line--
"The sad historian of the pensive plain."
Failures have been indicated in the literary construction of the
finest poems. Critics have held that Burns, in "The Cotter's Saturday
Night," lost the Scottish and gave the piece an English colour.
Macaulay contended that the deserted hamlet pictured by Goldsmith
was neither one thing nor the other, but first Irish and then
English. Criticism purely æsthetic cannot destroy the poignancy and
profoundness of the theme and throughout the touch of a master power.
From beginning to end the piece proceeds in a picturesque progress
which in its steady advancement and maintained dignity is splendidly
processional.
At last we come to the village pastor, and line after line, love leads
the light:
"A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year;
Remote from towns he ran his godly race,
Nor ere had changed, nor wished to change, his place."
"Far other aims his heart had learned to prize,
More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise."
"Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began."
"Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway,
And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray."
This passage concludes in a fine strain, the finest in the poem:
"To them his heart, his love, his griefs, were given,
But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven.
As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."
Here is a transcendent radiance that has been held the most sublime
simile that language yields. Then, following with a most delicate
transition, we have the genial and gentle humour in the picture of
the pedagogue and his pupils, and then the village inn and the rustics
discussing news "much older than their ale."
Well may the sweetly chiding and chastening poet reflect,
"How wide the limits stand,
Between a splendid and a happy land."
It may be surprising to hear dear Noll, the dandy of the Literary
Club, deride
"The glaring impotence of dress."
There is a grace--nay, more, there is a genius in transition. The
exile and the emigration of the Irish were not, and are not now,
exclusively territorial, nor is the spiritual pang of leaving loved
homes and cherished hearts entirely sentimental. Of the Irish it may
be said that, of all the races, their pure love of home is the
deepest, and the most faithful and devoted. Often the enforced exile
that must be endured had no solace save death and the grave for
peace--and a home. Of all the fair, and the gentle and pure, fairest
and gentlest and purest, now and ever, is the Irish girl. Swift the
passage in this tender poem from the village in its sunshine to the
town and the streets in their darkness, and the clouds about the life
of outcast humanity, suffering a more fearful exile:
"Where the poor houseless shivering female lies:
She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest,
Has wept at tales of innocence distrest.
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;
Now lost to all, her friends, her virtue, fled,
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head."
The wonders of the poem are first its pathos, and then its
picturesqueness and its charm. With all these glidings from light to
grave and gladness into gloom, and then again to gaiety, it is a
moving and a magic intermingling. There is a very thunder in the
phrase,
"Pamper luxury, and thin mankind."
And then later:
"Oh, luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree,
How ill-exchanged are things like these for thee!
How do thy potions, with insidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures, only to destroy.
Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown,
Boast of a florid vigour not their own.
At every draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mass of rank, unwieldy woe;
Till sapped their strength, and every part unsound,
Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round."
In this poem we find the sympathy and the grace of Gray and Wordsworth
with a greater warmth and a glow that is enkindling. The man who is a
master in transition is also and perforce powerful in contrast. In
this graceful gift the whole piece is a striking study. Whether the
strain be didactic or dramatic, emotional or vivacious, melody is
never lost. With many poets frequently the whole melodiousness of
poetry disappears in the prose of a too palpably proclaimed
philosophy. This poem from a pure heart, and these lines from a
loving life, enlighten, but do not tease the mind. There is a prayer
in the words,
"Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain,
Teach him that states of native strength possest,
Though very poor, may still be very blest."
This poem, and also and not less _The Traveller_, although it is a
tale of wandering, beyond all else, reveal the light and the love of
the home.
CHAPTER III
"THE TRAVELLER"
At the University of Edinburgh, Goldsmith became a more earnest
student. He was certainly not without the higher aspirations of the
sublime profession to which circumstance and necessity rather than
aptitude or inclination had called him. Whilst it may be questioned
whether he ever had the poetic imagination of the physician, he never
allowed the honour in which he held the vocation to lessen, and never
lost the satisfaction he himself cherished through his association
with this calling. To the last he was proud of being--or as his
cynical critic might say, of counting himself--a doctor. In Scotland
he worked harder, studied chemistry with intelligence, and evinced
considerable ability. He viewed with ardour his prospective work in
life, and was keenly interested in the medical system and the surgical
processes of that period. As a student he was respected. He became a
conspicuous member of the Medical Society. It is needless, however, to
add that his studies were not so strenuous as to make his mood at any
time monastic, compelling him to live heedless of passing pleasures
and delightful days, or forgetful of his fellow-men.
Goldsmith had been very poor in Dublin. He was not rich in Edinburgh,
but he was welcomed in the refined circles of both University and
civic society. He discovered his place amongst graceful and gracious
women and high-minded and cultured men, and then, all at once, amid
all his new-found success and happiness, he unexpectedly closed his
medical career at the University and left not less suddenly than he
had come. Nothing could be more abrupt than his departure. Rumour has
it that, with chaotic benevolence, he had become security for one of
his fellow-students for a considerable sum of money on account of a
tailor's bill. Here we have the prototype of "the good-natured man."
[Illustration:
_Rischgitz Collection._]
GOLDSMITH AS A YOUNG MAN.
(From the rare etching by Bretherton after Bunbury's drawing.)]
Goldsmith could make nothing of mathematics, and held this science
fit only for mean intellects. Later in his life this delightful
philosopher confided to Malone that he still held the study in a kind
of scorn, seeing that he could himself turn an ode of Horace into
English better than any of the mathematicians. There is scarcely an
infinitesimal sign of the principle of mathematical precision about
the career of Oliver Goldsmith. Yet in Scotland, possibly because the
virtue of prudence is infectious, during this period, for some time
and by some miracle, Noll cultivated a habit to which he was
throughout his career very slightly addicted--he paid his way. Yet
when he was leaving this centre of learning we find Uncle Contarine
once more besought, and this time for twenty rapidly forthcoming
sterling pounds, to carry Mr. Oliver to the Continent for the
completion of his medical education. The wandering spirit had seized
him. Paris and Leyden, with their learned lecturers, were but pretexts
for travelling and fulfilling the long-cherished hope of seeing
foreign lands. He thirsted for deep draughts of experience flowing
from the hidden springs of unknown climes. Professor Masson wittily
tells us that as Goldsmith had planned to go to Paris, of course
he arrived in the end at Leyden. Having secured those necessary
munitions of war which to the full extent of his means Uncle Contarine
unfailingly provided, Goldsmith set sail in a ship bound for Bordeaux.
At Newcastle he was, by mistake, arrested as a political prisoner and
retained in durance as a Jacobite. The ship sailed without him. It
sank; every life was lost. Soon after reaching Leyden, Goldsmith left
that seat of learning for his wanderings through Europe, his only
aids to this majestic design being a fine voice and an instrument of
music--some sort of flute, we must presume. It was a queer pilgrimage.
The peasantry gave the minstrel food by day and a bed at night.
Village after village welcomed him. He left Leyden penniless. He
might have had a useful coin or two to help him, but that, espying
some lovely flowers, he could not resist buying all his poor purse
permitted and sending them to Uncle Contarine. No long-suffering
uncle, in all the chronicles and all the untold trials of uncles,
deserved better of a nephew than this good old man.
Goldsmith's ramble through Europe was one of the maddest escapades in
the records of the eccentricities of adolescent genius. The enterprise
was attended with ceaseless difficulty, danger, and deprivation. Not
seldom the hedgeside yielded him his nightly rest. Places of learning
from time to time gave the wanderer a dinner. He could make the
monasteries havens of repose. For a little while he acted as guide and
tutor to the son of some wealthy manufacturer. This youth cared
nothing for architecture or antiquity, the histories of cities, or
natural scenery. His sole purpose seemed to be to save money on his
travels. The liberal and lively tutor left a pupil as dull as he was
mean. The love of wandering lay deep in Goldsmith's heart. This early
pilgrimage through much of Europe inspired his pen to write _The
Traveller_. In later years he had throughout this eager longing for a
roving life.
Notwithstanding his roaming, in some inexplicable manner, Goldsmith,
the pilgrim of improvidence and knight errant from the Order of
Chivalrous Carelessness, still pursued his medical studies, and
carried this training for the vocation of a doctor to some kind of
completion. Italy is supposed to have conferred his diploma as a
physician upon Goldsmith, and either Padua or Louvain has the honour.
_The Traveller_ must, indeed, long have been in all its grace and
beauty treasured in his heart, for he actually penned lines for this
fine poem during these boyish wanderings through Europe.
This sojourn on the Continent occupied two years or more. He reached
England in the year 1756, landing at Dover. This penniless pilgrim
made his way on foot, bravely trudging the highroad, with few hopes of
coming fame, but many pangs of very present poverty. Our minstrel
gathered a little money here and there by singing ditties and ballads,
spontaneous compositions, delightfully original, to cheer him and the
laughing rustic hearts he met and loved, lads and maids, old men and
children, and all, forthwith and henceforth and for ever, his friends.
Tramping from Dover, receiving a warm English welcome at many a
wayside farm, and the hearty hospitality of the cottage hearth and
home; anon sleeping in barns, or, if need be, making the hedgerow his
haven and shelter for the night, passing village after village--the
days went by, and then he sighted the great town of great trial. He
entered London, the city of cities, with its innumerable multitudes
and its untold loneliness.
No one can read the opening line in _The Traveller_--
"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow"--
without feeling that the words could only have sprung from very
genius. We have here that uniqueness that signalises and divides.
Throughout there is that sincerity of sentiment which separates and
guides those deeper natures who amid all joys know the vein of sorrow
prevailing in the human heart. From yearning aspiration comes that
exaltation which connotes the higher character. It is this element
that we are apt to forget in our humorists. Lamb, Hood, Thackeray, and
Goldsmith, had strains of reflection which went more into the very
heart of being and not being, fulfilling and failing, living and
dying, than we can ever discover in those who decorate their days with
a clamant seriousness. That semblance of earnestness accepted by the
populace often lacks poetic force and sublime sanction. _The
Traveller_ attains the heights and depths of the Divine communion that
unites poetry with prayer. The speeding pen, the quivering lips, the
moving mind, and beating heart, are slight contrasted with this
prayerful yearning of the unseen and spiritual. Poetry is the
unutterable, yet sweetly and strangely uttered voicing of the soul
ineffable.
_She Stoops to Conquer_ inspired Sheridan with his inimitable dramatic
conceptions. _The Traveller_ roused Byron to the heights he attained
in "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." _The Traveller_ heralds an era and
proclaims the true imperial note, clear and triumphant. If poetry be
the prophetic vein, calling an age to realise its aspirations,
foreseeing, forewarning, and foremaking coming time, then here the
poet, the maker, and the creator, speaks. Nor kings nor warriors
rule, but thinkers, and amongst these rulers in the high realm of
thought and spiritual power, highest of all in every age and
clime--the poet! Hidden in the soul's depths we discover an
earnestness which in the outward light-hearted man we fail to
recognise. That one we thought we knew so well, we find, too late, we
knew, if not altogether ill, at least too slightingly. The poem is
doubtless too didactic at times to always move consummate delight.
There is a ring more Latin than English in the line,
"Wealth, commerce, honour, liberty, content."
Yet even in this we see how words can weigh with meaning, and not one
prove wasted, but each contributes to the fulfilling of the complete
intention. This line has that poetic power which in one single flash
can show what volumes men might write and not reveal. Pope crippled
meaning and weakened force to procure a rhyme--nay, since he actually
planned the rhymes to make his couplets before he penned his poetry,
to him not infrequently it was far more to rhyme than realise. In
Goldsmith's couplet,
"Till carried to excess in each domain,
This favourite good begets peculiar pain,"
we have a dissertation upon both individual and national ethics, and
the sole secret of the failures of men and States. There appear
passages where Goldsmith held Virgil much in view. To some extent this
poem, and also _The Deserted Village_, remind one of Volney. In this
light the style in places is more French than English. There is full
force in the phrase,
"And e'en in penance, planning sins anew."
While the poem is always graceful, readers are not at their happiest
when pleasing poets turn philosophers. Throughout the piece there is a
manly courage, a purity of motive, a magnanimous ideality, and an
unexpected and almost muscular robustness. What gaiety there is in
this phrase--
"Sport and flutter in a kinder sky."
We have, when he comes to France, upon which country he writes
delightfully, a couplet happily autobiographical:
"Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance forgetful of the noontide hour."
Radiant must have been the moments when later the little man in Fleet
Street could look back on scenes like these. We wish that his own
graceful pen had granted us a full and vivid record of his roamings.
It cannot be said that from the higher standpoint Goldsmith owed much
to Dublin, Edinburgh, Leyden, or Louvain. His class-rooms for the
study of life were provided in rustic inns, his studious chambers
village greens in the land where he was born, French riversides,
Swiss mountains, Italian lakes, the blue skies of many climes, and
later the crowded streets of the London he loved. His books were the
hearts of women, the smiles of children, and the lives of men.
CHAPTER IV
LONDON
Young Oliver Goldsmith, diffident and with no adroitness of address,
was not one of those authors who can take publishers by storm, and
fame with a wave of the hand. He was a nervous man. Although one of
the most collected of writers, he had to be fully at his ease before,
in conversation or the common intercourse of society, he could be
himself and reveal that force of mind and invincibility of personality
that mark his influence and creates his charm. He knew and felt his
weakness. When Johnson narrated his adventures in a close and friendly
gossip with the King, Goldsmith said:
"Well, you acquitted yourself in this conversation better than I
should have done, for I should have bowed and stammered through the
whole of it."
Goldsmith's face must have shone in moments of animation, its very
ugliness gaining a beauty all its own, more lovable for that
transformation one smile creates. He may have had an uncouth
appearance and an awkward bearing. The charm and gentleness of such a
spirit as his must have outweighed accidents of form. Now we associate
an inevitable purity and tenderness with him and with all he ever did.
If he had a poor outward mien and fashion, men must have thought
nothing of this compared to the inward grace of the heart and
love-illumined soul of the man.
Alone in London, he had come to his fierce fight: not for fame, but
for bread. Through all his squalid wanderings in the hard times, and
all his sordid trials, he sustained his cheerfulness, and in a
selfless supremacy ever strove to bestow on other lives the faith and
courage his own bright heart never wholly lost. How he lived in these
early days in London no one knows, and the tale of want, care, and
humiliation incident to gnawing peril and privation made a story too
agonising for him, open as he was, ever to fully reveal. He said one
day very quietly: "When I lived among the beggars in Axe Lane."
He may have laughed as he said the words. He must have shuddered. The
laugh was a selfless sacrifice. The shudder was real and to the very
last too true, for painful memory was vivid. We cannot tell whether,
like Shakespeare, he held the reins of horses, standing outside
taverns and theatres; or whether he carried bags for pence, ran
errands, gambled for his bread, or begged for shelter. Here was a
sweet, weak, pure, and gentle, sympathetic lad, only a boy in heart
and strength, and not even a child in that hardness life demands,
stepping he knew not whither, meeting the world in an actual and
visible solitude, and a loneliness of soul beyond the force of words
to tell. There are those who, having passed their twentieth year, are
already men of mark and power. Not such a one was poor Noll. Through
ceaseless dependence and uncertainty in both his purpose and his
position in life, he tardily gained that dignity and validity that
attends the realisation of man's estate.
With Goldsmith now one eager and despairing quest for work followed
hard upon another, and disappointments in rapid and relentless
succession. After wandering on from door to door, and hope to its
scattering, and chance to its dispelling, he obtained his first
situation as a dispenser in a chemist's shop. He lost opportunities
and failed to create confidence, more than anything through the
forlornness of his appearance, and the too obvious simplicity of his
bearing. Then he heard of an old friend, a warm-hearted Edinburgh
student, a certain Dr. Sleigh. To this generous man he bent his steps.
As soon as he was recognized, he was received into the home of his
former companion, and welcomed with all that brotherliness of which
sterling friendship is capable.
The old apothecary, with whom Goldsmith worked as a dispenser for a
time, deserves the grateful honour that we now can pay his kindly
heart. His name was Jacobs. He appears to have been an old man of
benign mien and inclination. He recognized the superior learning and
credentials of his young assistant. He thought that a qualified doctor
should not be serving drugs in a shop, but in greater dignity visiting
his patients. Largely through this man's kindly exertions, and also
with a little help from Dr. Sleigh, who soon left London and was lost
to his former friend, and with the sympathy and good wishes of more
than one old Edinburgh comrade, remembered and met again, Goldsmith
was set up in a mean and meagre manner as a physician, in a very poor
and dingy neighbourhood--Bank Side, Southwark. The whole prospect was
neither pleasant nor propitious. Hidden in his desolute obscurity,
friends lost, for a time at all events, all thought of Goldsmith. The
poor doctor soon seemed quite alone, and, what was worse, forgotten.
From the moment that Oliver Goldsmith entered London, penury and
meanness had dogged his steps. It is piteous to dwell upon these
squalid scenes. We need not recall the second-hand wardrobe that
decked him out as a physician in this practice, unimaginably poor and
dark and dingy. Fancy cannot conceive a greater dreariness or deeper
destitution. He was so poor that his poorest patients felt compassion
for his even greater poverty. Seeing one day his doctor's pockets
bulging with papers, so that he looked like the man of letters in a
then clever and popular caricature, an invalid, a journeyman printer,
who had sought this physician's aid and advice, now feelingly
commended him to Samuel Richardson, his own master and employer, with
at first, at all events, apparently auspicious results. Leaving his
dubious practice, Goldsmith became proof reader to the printer,
publisher, and novelist who had also in his own good time befriended
the great Dr. Johnson. No ultimate advantage, however, accrued to
Goldsmith from this distinguished association with and employment by
one of the most successful authors of the day.
He met the poet Young, and other men. He never wrote for Richardson,
and soon left this place of books and business. His position can have
been neither dignified nor lucrative. The wanderer bent his weary
feet, neither knowing whither his steps might tend nor with the
wherewithal to meet the journey. He was almost starving in the
streets, when one day he met young Milner, another Edinburgh student,
who carried Noll off to his father, a learned Presbyterian divine, who
kept a school. Goldsmith then had, it seems, some vague dream about
being sent to the East to decipher ancient inscriptions, but in the
end he found occupation in Peckham, and not Palestine.
There is no particular reason, however wayward his studies, to
question that Goldsmith was, in the lighter order of that day, a
qualified physician. When he landed in England from the Continent in
all probability he had secreted in some loose pocket a foreign medical
diploma. Besides this certificate, granting him the right to practise,
but not the power to succeed, as a doctor, he carried other
papers--parts of poems, essays, notes for plays, and perhaps even then
the opening of a novel. He set great store on these precious papers.
He may have lost his diploma. He became an usher in Dr. Milner's
school at Peckham. He hated this work. In _The Vicar of Wakefield_, in
a few striking sentences, he shows the humiliations of the position.
Wherever we find him, he is always the same in the matter of worldly
prudence, and in his fondness for making those about him bright. He
spent his salary in giving treats to his pupils. The kindly
schoolmaster's wife said that she ought to keep Mr. Goldsmith's money
as well as the young gentlemen's. Dear Noll was full of fun and fine
humour for the boys about him, doing all he could for their delight,
and loving some like a brother. When years had passed and he had
attained his fame, he met one of his old scholars, knew him in an
instant, and although the lad had become a married man, was anxious,
as in the old days, to treat him at an apple-stall. Then suddenly he
said:
"Sam, have you seen my picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds? Have you seen
it, Sam? Have you got an engraving?"
Sam had not yet procured the picture.
"Sam," said Goldsmith, "if your picture had been published, I should
not have waited an hour without having it."
Despite his pranks with his pupils, this time was no happy period. The
unpleasantness of the office and the severities of the scorned and
profitless labours weighed sorely on him. Every collection of
schoolboys has its share of ineffaceable snobs. These were a trial to
the teacher. Amid his practical jokes with William the footboy, and
one merry-maker and another, there is still an underlying earnestness
in all and a reverence for the pure sentiment of the heart. At this
time, when asked whom he held the best commentator on the Scriptures,
Goldsmith replied very simply, "Common Sense."
The principal of the school, Dr. Milner, was one of the most sincere
of Goldsmith's friends. At the house of this good man, Griffiths, the
publisher, meeting Goldsmith, detected his abilities at once, and
found him the first opening for his literary labours. He gave him mere
hack-work on the _Monthly Review_. This was the Whig journal of the
day, and opposed later by its Tory rival, the _Critical Review_,
edited by Smollet, also physician, novelist, and historian. Leaving
Peckham, Goldsmith now lived for a while over the shop of his employer
in Paternoster Row, gaining shelter of a sort and board and lodging.
Poor as may have been the fare, and mean as must have been the
livelihood under the roof of Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths, Oliver Goldsmith,
escaping from these conditions of life, entered others that were for a
time, at all events, far worse. One cannot tell what he did, or where
he went, or how he lived. Near Salisbury Square some squalid garret
sheltered him. He tried to shun the common gaze and hide his very
whereabouts. He turned to translating, chance criticisms, and any
drudgery that came his way, and all to little purpose. He lived in
wretchedness and obscurity, bearing the weight of an increasing
poverty, until at last the very hope of bare subsistence perished.
On one dark and misty day, as Goldsmith, in his tattered and
threadbare clothes, sat pensive and dejected in his dingy, miserable
garret, rich in fancies and very poor in food, a merry rap upon the
door aroused the poet from his meditations. A young countryman, all
hope and health, had briskly announced his advent. This comer was not
one to wait without and need a bidding for his entrance. Oliver could
not hide himself completely. He was tracked down at last, and by none
other than his younger brother Charles. To the youth the emaciated
apparition of poor Oliver was indeed astounding. Charles had pictured
him already a prosperous and influential man of letters, who had but
to raise and wave his hand to confer work, wealth, and position, and
the possibilities of fame upon anyone whom he might lovingly patronise
and befriend. Imagine the disappointment.
"All in good time, my dear boy," said Oliver. "I shall be richer
by-and-by. Besides, you see, I am not in positive want. Addison, let
me tell you, wrote his poem of 'The Campaign' in a garret in the
Haymarket, three storeys high, and you see I am not come to that yet,
for I have only reached the second storey."
Some days later, just as suddenly as he had come, the younger brother
vanished. He had brought Oliver a breath of the old home. Charles made
his way to Jamaica, in all likelihood as a common sailor, and proved a
rover to the last. Darker shadows were to fall upon poor Noll through
still deeper experience of deprivation, misadventure and despair. The
days of doubt were passed at last, and in the end successes were
achieved in every sphere, unrivalled alike in their sublime heights
and vast variety.
CHAPTER V
"THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD"
Goldsmith's first victory was the _Inquiry into the State of Polite
Learning_.
The _Inquiry_ was written at a time when its author had suffered from
the tyranny and the mercilessness of booksellers. This explains his
onslaught upon this then ungenerous craft. Injury had been heaped on
insult. Disappointment and despair were tearing and gnawing at the
poor man's heart. The demon imp of petty poverty first starved him and
then laughed at his insufficing fare, reduced him to rags and
ridiculed his wretchedness.
The _Inquiry_ was published by Dodsley. Upon this work the poor author
placed all his hopes, and was not disappointed. He had sailed his
little boat to the sea at last. The hardships, however, that he had
passed through held to the end their sway upon his heart.
The _Inquiry_ was for its author the first triumphant advance. Its
consequences had their obverse aspect. The criticism of actor-managers
drew forth Garrick's indignation. The results of this were to be
realised later in Goldsmith's career. The judicial severities
levelled against the tribe of publishers gathered black clouds.
Griffiths took the onslaught on his craft as personal, and thundered
out a libellous retort, that, wanting much, was lacking nothing in
spite, which failing in taste found its fruition in malice. Griffiths
was one of those mean men who can never forgive, and whose deeds in
sober truth do test the force of our own capacity to pardon and
forget. Even when Goldsmith was dead, Griffiths still tried to cast
vituperations on the poor man's memory.
At this time Noll engaged to furnish two brightly written articles
each week for the _Public Ledger_, of which paper Newbery was the
proprietor. These serial articles appeared under the title of _The
Citizen of the World_. A large concourse of readers looked forward to
the welcome advents of the cheerful and clever Citizen. The character
became a household word. This was Goldsmith's first really great
popular hit. Apart, however, from the appreciation of the general
public, it must be considered that, more than anything hitherto, these
articles brought their author to the knowledge and gained the
admiration of the men of letters of his day. The _Citizen_ figures in
a popular and lively light, yet still with a charming and a moving
manner. Here we see the writer in his fairest freedom and delight,
ruling a little philosophic realm and social world all his own. Up to
that time nothing quite like it had been done before. There is, as the
name implies, a world of difference between Addison, the Spectator;
Steele, the Tatler; Johnson, the Rambler; and Goldsmith, the Citizen.
[Illustration:
_Rischgitz Collection._]
DR. JOHNSON, BOSWELL AND GOLDSMITH, AT THE MITRE TAVERN.
(From the painting by Eyre Crowe.)]
_The Citizen of the World_ is a capital collection of essays,
possessed of an imperishable interest and significance, and a charm as
faultless and unfailing as that compassion and consuming charity which
never pass from the page, and never deserted the heart of their gentle
author. Still, this spirit touches and moves the heart. He saw the
wrongs and the goodness, the truth and the untruth, and he knew the
minds of men. This cosmopolitan saw Russia, the enemy of the peace of
Europe, and foresaw its vast advancing, aggressive power. He warned
the English how insecure was their then faulty hold upon the American
colonies. In these essays we find vigorous and thrilling protests
against cruelty to animals. These appeals then were rare indeed, and
even now are only revealed in any earnestness through a slowly dawning
purer spirit. The greatest men of that age, and the best, loved
Goldsmith like a brother. Very soon we see Dr. Johnson marching down
Fleet Street arm-in-arm with Percy to take supper with Dr. Goldsmith.
The lexicographer has on a new suit of clothes and a wig finely
powdered, and looks uncommon through this unexpected scrupulosity of
costume. Percy is impertinent enough to inquire the cause of this
finery.
"Why, sir," said Johnson, "I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great
sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting
my practice, and I am desirous this night to show him a better
example."
This amusing incident marks the foundation of a great friendship. If
ever Goldsmith had a friend, that friend was Johnson; if Johnson ever
had a friend, that friend was Goldsmith. The story does not proclaim
dear Noll a dandy this time. Doubtless his care or carelessness in
garment kept pace, step by step, with varying moods. There is evidence
enough to tell us how much he doted on finery and fashionable raiment
in those bills from his tailor, which to the very last remained
unpaid. Filby could afford the loss. It will be gathered from all this
that with a change in fortune there had also been a departure from
those scanty quarters in Green Arbour Court. His new apartments in
Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, were not elaborately furnished, nor
dignified in themselves or their situation, but they were the sign of
better days. For all Fame brings its rich rewards. For Goldsmith the
greatest of these was Johnson's friendship and esteem. The bond that
bound these two was this, that they were always the last to abandon
the poor and the worthless. Tired out with failure or importunity,
other men of kindly heart might leave the incorrigible to their fate,
but not Samuel Johnson nor Oliver Goldsmith. A better basis for
friendship could not be.
No sooner was Goldsmith known, than a bright devoted band of loving
spirits clustered round, loving the life of the man and feeling the
help and the hope that it gave. Simplicity sways its sceptre. Purity
of heart is a Divine power. Not through his position and achievements,
but for himself, men and women loved and honoured him. Burke and
Reynolds became his devoted friends and constant allies. Fairest of
all the bonds was that dreamy sympathy with the sweet little Jessamy
Bride. He loved the poor. In this affection it might be said that his
very life was dedicated to all who bore the burden of sad necessity,
and needed help or solace in their suffering. For the most part his
intimacies were with men, but noble women whose names have passed away
must have honoured him and found that hour a happy one that brought
the comforting and kindly and enkindling soul within the circle of the
home. He loved children and understood them. He longed to have them
for his readers. In a picturesque succession the old lady who taught
Charles Lamb his letters was patted on her curly head by Goldsmith
when she was a little child.
CHAPTER VI
THE LITERARY CLUB
Goldsmith's income accrued, not through royalties upon his few great
and immortal works, but from arduous and endless ephemeral tasks. This
ceaseless taxation of the mental faculties probably represents the
most exhausting of all the processes of gaining a decent livelihood.
Never the strongest of men, these relentless intellectual exactions
gave the brain no rest, and kept the physical frame in a condition of
constant nervous weakness. Writing from a bed of sickness, he tells
his employer almost pitifully, amid the strain of things, that he
cannot complete his translations from Plutarch. Without a pension or a
sinecure in some office of the State, literary life at that time was
fraught with such incalculable difficulties that it demanded the
maximum of prudence to achieve the minimum of subsistence. Men of
letters lived, and by some miracle enjoyed themselves. The commercial
basis of their being, and their professional and economic relationship
with both the booksellers and the public, were as unsatisfactory as
can be imagined. The sum received by Milton for "Paradise Lost"
indicates the usage of an earlier day. Things had not much improved.
Newbery gave five guineas for the copyright of _The Citizen of the
World_ and fourteen guineas for _The Life of Beau Nash_. A struggle
consequent upon the combination of very little means, and still less
practical prudence, soon began in Goldsmith's case. His mode of life,
if not luxurious, was easier than it had been. It bore the semblance
of secure prosperity. He left his chambers in Wine Office Court for a
more commodious set of apartments in Canonbury, then a delightful
village. Newbery made all the arrangements. From him Goldsmith's
landlady received her quarterly due for the board and lodging of this
celebrated author. However precautious this plan of payment may have
been, it probably led to Noll spending more on incidental outlays than
he otherwise would have done with a weekly reckoning to meet. His
cares never came from personal profusion or self-indulgence, but from
the warmth and impulse of his too generous heart and lavish love of
giving. With him the purpose of money was not its preservation for a
rainy day, but its distribution on a fine one. He never found much
fun in making guineas come, or hilarity in keeping them. It was a
vast delight to make them fly. At this feat no one was ever more
accomplished. Here we have the man and his mistakes, and the troubles
that came, and came to stay. Some might have grown rich from his
financial opportunities. Whilst making the most and the worst of
his prudential incompetence, it is easy to estimate too highly his
rewards. It is an exaggeration to speak of his having made in his
time thousands of pounds.
All he earned very hardly he squandered most carelessly. This
foreshadows that fierce stream of fatality in which he proved
powerless to the end. Underlying currents of embarrassments were as
constant as the grace and purity and beauty of his heart, and more
close to him than that they could not be. Those men of business who
never had their dues met, were better able to bear the losses than
would have been the poor pensioners whom Goldsmith's compassion
enriched. His was never the philanthropy of reasoned prudence, but
that of impotent prodigality. He scattered guineas as heedless of
himself as he was careless of his creditors. He was at this time most
industrious. In 1763 and 1764 he produced countless miscellaneous
articles and essays. He composed a _History of England_ in a series of
letters written after the manner of a nobleman to his son, and through
this mistakenly attributed to Lord Chesterfield. He may have penned
"Goody Two-Shoes"--it is too late to tell. Subsequently came another
and more responsible _History of England_, used until recently in many
of our public schools. Oliver Goldsmith had become one of the men of
his time.
[Illustration:
_It is agreed between Oliver Goldsmith M. B on one hand
and James Dodsley on the other that Oliver Goldsmith shall
write for James Dodsley a book called a Chronological history
of the lives of eminent persons of Great Britain and Ireland
or to that effect, consisting of about two volumes 8^vo about
the same size and letter with the universal history published
in 8^vo for the writing of which and compiling the same James
Dodsley shall pay Oliver Goldsmith three guineas for every
printed sheet, so that the whole shall be delivered complete
in the space of two years at farthest James Dodsley however
shall print the above book in whatever manner or size he
shall think fit only the universal history above mentioned
shall be the standard by which Oliver Goldsmith shall expect
to be paid. Oliver Goldsmith shall be paid one moiety upon
delivery of the whole copy complete, and the other moiety one
half of it at the conclusion of six months and the other half
at the expiration of twelve months next after the publication
of the work, James Dodsley giving however upon the delivery
of the whole copy two notes for the money left unpaid. Each
volume of the above intended work shall not contain more than
five and thirty sheets and if they should contain more the
surplus shall not be paid for by James Dodsley. Oliver
Goldsmith shall print his name to the said work._
_Oliver Goldsmith_
_Mar 31 1763_ _Jas Dodsley_
_Rischgitz Collection._] [_British Museum._
FACSIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN GOLDSMITH AND
DODSLEY, MARCH 31, 1763.]
Nothing can be more interesting in every period in the history of
literature, art, science, and philosophy than the manner in which,
thrown together by the mysterious magnetism of mutually alluring
greatness and power, the first and highest minds of all epochs grow
inevitably associated. We find this now in the formation of the
Literary Club, of which many of the most moving minds of that day in
which Goldsmith lived were members. The Club met on Monday evenings in
the Turk's Head Tavern, Soho. It was in working order in 1764. Sir
Joshua Reynolds was its founder. Goldsmith's membership of the
Literary Club, happy as it was, marks great misunderstandings involved
in that misguided judgment passed upon the man by his contemporaries,
which posterity has been content too easily to accept. It was thought
that Oliver Goldsmith had no learning to substantiate his position,
and that he had no wit for conversation, but only for writing. There
is so little to support these ideas that it is surprising that they
should have arisen, and for any period, or in any mind, have
persisted. Horace Walpole, in his graceful way, called Goldsmith an
inspired idiot. Garrick told us that "Dear Noll wrote like an angel
and talked like poor Poll." Johnson said: "No man was more foolish
when he had not a pen in his hand." The charge that Goldsmith was
incapable of collected thought in conversation falls to the ground if
we recall one gentle utterance: "It must be much from you, sir, that
I take ill." These words from one who had suffered an indescribably
teasing impertinence at the hands of Johnson are the most collected
conceivable. They are not less chivalrous. In _The Retaliation_
Johnson alone is spared. To this friend nothing could shake
Goldsmith's admiring and unalterable faithfulness and affection.
There is a certain spirit in expression that must stand inevitably
associated with the collected mind. When it was wondered why Johnson
cared for some unhappy mortal who had no charm or talent, Goldsmith
said, in his quiet and reflective way: "The man is poor and honest,
which is recommendation enough for Johnson." Concerning one who was
undeserving, according to the manner of the world, who had no honour,
and had forfeited all claim to character, yet still retained Johnson's
compassion, Goldsmith rejoined: "This man has become miserable, and
that ensures the protection of Johnson." Goldsmith, who could so
readily reply to protests with answers at once as felicitous and as
reflective as these, could not have been an uncollected
conversationalist. Not merely the words, but also the manner that one
must associate with their utterance preclude the possibility.
Goldsmith is supposed to have had no learning because one day he
called upon Gibbon, who gulled him. He questioned the author of "The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" upon some historic issue, and
the historian led him grotesquely astray. Who would not have accepted
anything Gibbon said without criticism? Who would have expected this
great personage capable of indulging in a school-boy prank?
Goldsmith's writings prove him well instructed and widely read, and
show his mind as curiously stored and equipped as its whole genius was
charming and gracious. If he could not talk, but could only write,
then the pen in his hand is taken as an instrument capable of exerting
hypnotic force, and converting by magic a fool into a wit.
In his own time, from some unaccountable cause, it became a habit to
treat Goldsmith with a form of moral and intellectual patronage. This
has never entirely passed away. Carlyle, following Horace Walpole's
idea, writing of Johnson, thus speaks of Goldsmith: "An inspired idiot
hangs strangely about him. Yet on the whole there is no evil in the
gooseberry fool, but rather much good--of a fine, if of a weaker sort
than Johnson's--and all the more genuine that he himself could never
become conscious of it."
In the sphere of the high-minded of that period, with the possible but
not the clear and certain exception of Johnson himself, not one in all
that circle, illustrious as it was, so impressed the kindred spirits
of that time and age as Oliver Goldsmith did. His impressiveness
swayed its force and influence over all. This was due first to the
winning grace, but partly to the greatness of the man. "Dr.
Goldsmith," said Johnson, "is one of the first men we now have as an
author, and he is a very worthy man, too." At another time he said:
"As a writer he was of the most distinguished abilities. Whatever he
composed he did it better than any other man could, and whether we
consider him as a poet, as a comic writer, or as a historian, so far
as regards his power of composition he was one of the finest writers
of his time, and will ever stand in the foremost class." These words
were uttered shortly after Goldsmith's death. One can imagine the
looking back with love upon the companionship and the conversation of
one friend at least who would never be forgotten. All natures in some
sphere, touch the infinite. In the silence of his great heart, the
radiance of his intellect, and in his uttered word, the very soul of
Goldsmith's genius lies in a loving understanding. In this man there
flows and shines the very grace of the very Christ. Unfailing
gentleness lives lighted by divinity.
Those were happy days passed in heart-to-heart friendships and
affections, and they were merry hours that sped so swiftly at the
Literary Club. The great are never greater than in the hearts of their
homes and the simplicities of their friendships. At this club the gods
forgot their power and high beings laid aside their loftiness. In the
midst we find the man they teased the man most welcome; that one that
all affected to despise, each in his inmost heart unfeignedly
respected. The man most laughed at was most loved. Oliver Goldsmith
made the mirth of things. He was always forbearing, and to this
passive pleasingness he added that finest of activities, unfailing
kindliness. If it is no wonder that they loved him, it is no marvel
that they laughed at him as well.
[Illustration:
_Rischgitz Collection._]
GOLDSMITH IN MIDDLE AGE.
(From an engraving by Ridley.)]
It is commonly said that Goldsmith had a thick-set figure. This does
not mean that he was a sturdy, muscular man. Weakness of constitution,
a habit of stooping as he strolled in his meditative manner, and
constantly bending as he wrote at desk or table, and early
deprivations both of soul and body, had huddled up the low stature and
given the compressed frame a semblance of solidity. His cheeks were
sunken, and there were dark rims about the eyes, and the minimum of
fleshly and substantial covering clad these limbs. Goldsmith had a
queer little manner of bobbing. This bob he fondly imagined a bow.
That it was meant to be dignified there is no doubt. It came a little
from that personal vanity from which no one will ever wish to deem him
entirely exempt, and a little, too, from great nervousness. It flowed
also from an innate good breeding and cultured and natural chivalry.
This bobbing as he entered or left a room was finely caricatured by
Garrick. No doubt the actor's own bowing was the perfection of formal
grace. Yet if the motive of politeness and personal ceremonial condone
its outward and practical shortcomings, then we shall discover more
true soul in Goldsmith's bob than Garrick's bow. Noll bobbed timidly
when compliments were paid him, and gratefully and affirmatively when
in his presence he heard others praised. If anything noble or
beautiful was told of anyone, then came the revering little bob, this
time intended as a tribute to human honour and the virtue of the heart
and the valour of the race.
CHAPTER VII
DEBTS AND DIGNITIES
All through his life Goldsmith was greatly given to grand clothes. It
is a pity that grand clothes were not always greatly given to him, for
he never appeared quite able to pay for them. Although he became
deeply involved in debt, he never cultivated luxurious or unworthy
delights. His pleasures were of the simplest. His insolvent condition
was due, true enough, to pleasure and his foremost luxury--the luxury
of ceaseless charities that he could as ill afford as a
coach-and-four. He was one of the hearts not meant to draw near the
gates of heaven alone, and could not accept a pleasure without someone
sharing it with him and having more than half.
When he gave his suppers, we find the measure of the man who always
gave more than he received, for the viands were for his friends, and a
basin of boiled milk satisfied his own demands. There is a sad message
in the milk. It showed the concealed weakness of the little man, and
the growing disease, not now ever to be wholly known, from which he
died so young. Too likely all through his life some constant, growing
pain, stealing his pleasures, stole his prudence too. He was always
frank and as open with his creditors, as he was candid with his
friends. When Newbery's account with him had become complicated, he
had no means of liquidating the reckoning save by offering the
copyright of his play, then advancing towards production under many
disadvantages.
"To tell the truth, Frank," he said, in his lofty and affable manner,
"there are very small hopes of its success."
It is almost diverting to find Goldsmith himself baffled, if not
beaten, in seeking prosperity from literature, majestically
introducing others into the sacred sphere. His name was sufficient to
lead others to those rewards that he himself needed even more than
they did. Like Johnson, Goldsmith wrote many introductions to books
and various dedications for authors, who availed themselves both of
the influence and of the ability of these distinguished leaders in the
realm of letters. When Goldsmith had become known in the world and
life of literature, and was already respected by a select circle of
the authors of the time, although his place and power were by no means
established, it was through the pressure of debt and its distresses
that the greatest work of his genius came to light.
"One morning in the year 1764," said Dr. Johnson to the faithful
Boswell, "I received a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in
great distress, and as it was not in his power to come to me, begging
that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and
promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was
dressed."
It is impossible to pass and not pause here in grateful admiration for
the true heart of Dr. Johnson, who never failed a friend or any man.
He proceeded with his confidences.
"I found," he went on, concerning Goldsmith, "that his landlady had
arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I
perceived that he had already changed my guinea and had got a bottle
of Madeira and a glass before him."
The coming passage is beautifully characteristic:
"I put the cork into the bottle," said Johnson, and then goes on with
the narrative.
"I desired he would be calm," he proceeded, "and I began to talk to
him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that
he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced. I looked into
it and saw its merits, told the landlady I should soon return, and
having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought
Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating
his landlady in high tone for having used him so ill."
Amid all his distresses, Goldsmith had been quietly and diligently
perfecting his beautiful novel, _The Vicar of Wakefield_.
Simultaneously he had been engaged upon _The Traveller_. At that very
instant it lay completed in his desk.
The pure delights of life he knew faithfully, and lovingly bestowed.
This man possessed not merely in an unusual, but in an absolutely
unique, degree the grace of sympathetic affectionateness. He fulfilled
the Pauline mandate, "Be kindly affectionate one to another." In
Goldsmith this was nothing less than very genius. His graceful letters
to his Irish friends, and, indeed, to all to whom he ever wrote,
evince the kindest and most caressing feelings imaginable. They are
about the home, the children, the pet animals, and trivial ties, and
pleasing, pleading memories and hopes. As you read, Divinity hedges
about the lowly hearths that he pictured so lovingly. It is a curious
power. When Goldsmith was at Bath, from the way that Johnson mentions
him in his letters to Langton we note how much the little doctor was
missed by his friend when he left town. It was a bright moment when
Goldsmith moved into his chambers in the Temple. Here he lived his
last years, and his literary life will always be associated more with
this place than with any other. In these rooms, amongst his friends
might have been seen old General Oglethorpe, that courageous veteran
Paoli, and the young and dauntless Grattan. Here the _Roman History_
was written. This work was greatly applauded by the critics. Its
production made Johnson burst forth into that splendour of laudation
in which he said that whatever Goldsmith did, he did better than all
others, and he counted him as an historian superior to Hume, Smollett,
and Lyttelton. Goldsmith had a fine faculty in histories for
presenting vital facts concisely, and making his pages compendious.
The grace he had by instinct others strove to create by vast
elaboration. It has been said that Robertson's ornamentations hid what
is essential in his records. No one can ever discover Goldsmith in
anything striving for effect. It is not possible now to enumerate, or
even ascertain, all the friends that came to those chambers in the
Temple. Among them may be mentioned young Craddock, with an estate in
the country, æsthetic tendencies, and literary talents. With him, in a
few light musical works that came to little, Goldsmith collaborated.
This man had that respect for the poet and the humorist his life and
character and genius deserved. When once this cultured squire
exhibited for criticism an elaborate manuscript, which in all the
peace of leisured wealth and ease, and such talent as he possessed, he
had composed with exquisite care, well might poor Goldsmith say:
"Ah, Mr. Craddock, think of me, that must write a volume every month."
[Illustration:
_Rischgitz Collection._]
2, BRICK COURT, TEMPLE, WHERE GOLDSMITH DIED.]
In his rooms in Brick Court, Temple, Goldsmith used to sit at his
window, his eyes lingering lovingly upon the flowers and the foliage
in the gardens beneath, and his heart drinking in the sweet
peacefulness of the scene. He watched the Thames gliding on silently,
serenely faithful to and fulfilling its great imperishable mission.
Rivers are the signs and the symbols of immortality. The poet saw the
rooks upon the lawns, and made new friends of these black-winged, busy
birds, and found angels' voices in the whispers of the rustling leaves
sweetly pleading. The flowers smiled up at him, as, gazing gently
down, he wreathed with welcomes all passing hearts amid many known and
unknown wanderers. There are those that have wondered, in the
inscrutable ordering of events, and feeling that strange chances take
their unexpected, often fulfilling, and often failing, part in these,
what had happened for letters and for humanity had Goldsmith met
Chatterton, who may have wearily paced the Temple Gardens, and even
have glanced up and seen Goldsmith looking down in all his tenderness.
In the literary history of this period the death of Chatterton darkens
the most painful page. At the time when this poor boy took his life
Goldsmith was not in London, and not even in England. He was in Paris.
The idea that had he encountered Chatterton it could hardly have
failed to be to the advantage, and possibly the redemption, and the
whole rescue of that young spirit, is not a charming conjecture that
has only flattery for its foundation. Oliver Goldsmith was one who
must perforce befriend the destitute. He could not let any hopeless
heart still keep its despair unmarked and not alleviated, if soothing
could prove possible. In the year 1772, a youth named Macdonald, of
Irish lineage, through the sudden death of his elder brother, found
himself friendless and alone in London, and wandering, dejected and
despairing, in the Temple Gardens. Thus, too, Chatterton might have
strayed in an even greater loneliness. The ages of these youths were
the same.
"Providence," writes Macdonald, "directed me to the Temple Gardens. I
threw myself on a seat, and willing to forget my miseries for a
moment, drew out a book. I had not been there long when a gentleman
strolling about passed near me, and observing, addressed me: 'Sir, you
seem studious. I hope you find this a favourable place.' Conversation
ensued. I told him my history. He gave me his address, and desired me
to call soon."
Goldsmith received him in the kindest manner. Macdonald became his
amanuensis. Goldsmith treated the young man throughout with unfailing
tenderness and sympathy and almost fatherly kindness and solicitude.
CHAPTER VIII
CONSUMMATE COMEDY
In 1771 Goldsmith was full of hope for that capital essay in comedy,
_She Stoops to Conquer_. Two years passed before he could obtain its
definite acceptance. He found his manager not in Garrick, as one might
have anticipated, but again in Colman. The pretty piece appeared at
Covent Garden. Tried as Goldsmith had been ere _The Good-natured Man_
was produced, the negotiations and delays about _She Stoops to
Conquer_ were not less torturing. Colman kept the manuscript in his
hands for months and months without coming to any decision. The
playwright's letters to the manager are absolute supplications.
Humiliation appears the very discipline of genius. At one time the
manuscript was actually recalled by its author and despatched to
Garrick. Before it had really come under his consideration, which very
likely might have been just as obtuse, Johnson intervened. To send it
to Garrick, in his opinion, would be tantamount to an acknowledgment
of its refusal by Colman. This had not taken place. The manager would
neither accept the piece nor produce it. He said he would keep his
faith, but whatever that might mean in his mind, he did nothing.
Johnson finally and very firmly brought the man to book. When Colman
had accepted the piece, through his gloomy forebodings he biassed the
actors against the play before they had even seen it, but no sooner
had the rehearsals begun in earnest than they warmed to their assigned
parts, and in due time admired and revelled in the comedy. Colman,
niggard, would risk nothing in the production of the piece, neither in
new costumes nor theatrical fittings. He actually held forth
disparagingly in his own box-office to those who sent to purchase
tickets for the play.
In the Republic of Letters rumours of wrong run like riot through the
realm. Indignant at Goldsmith's sufferings through Colman's insults,
and still more from their love of the playwright, his friends
determined that if popular support and applause on the first night
could make his comedy succeed, then no effort in this direction should
be spared upon his behalf. An illustrious and a memorable house
greeted the rising curtain. This assemblage of celebrities and the men
and women who loved and admired and were resolved to stand by and
support Oliver Goldsmith was moving in itself, and one of the greatest
possible evidences of the honour and popularity in which the man was
held. The people rallied to the rescue of their favourite--the best
beloved of all the authors. This is one of the finest demonstrations
of public sympathy and regard the history of literature affords. It
was enough for Oliver Goldsmith to have lived for that night, and, if
need be, for that alone. The whole affair proved an unequivocal
success. Those friends, bent on conquest, applauded everything, and
led the streams of welcoming mirth and merriment. The fact that the
comedy did not require this protection could not make the personal
kindliness less pleasing. Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, Stevens,
Fitzherbert, and a rallying host, dined together before proceeding to
the theatre. Johnson led them like a commander-in-chief. The hearty
meal at the Shakespeare Tavern was one of the most jovial imaginable.
The party mustered on the battle-field. It was Goldsmith's Waterloo.
That great victory, like the triumph of _She Stoops to Conquer_, was
assured ere it was fought. Goldsmith, very nervous at the dinner, did
not go at once to the theatre, but strolled away, and rambled alone in
St. James's Park. He crept back, or, rather, was persuaded by Stevens
to come, and arrived at the opening of the fifth act. Strangely
enough, as he entered he caught the only sign of disapproval heard
that night.
_She Stoops to Conquer_, owing much to its capital central motive, is
as graceful as it is diverting. Its humour is unfailing. The
delightful force of Goldsmith's dialogue lies in entire naturalness.
The author of "The School for Scandal" creates for his comedies an
atmosphere of superheated wit and intellectualism, which, whilst
inevitably pleasing, is beyond probability. Certain novelists vaunt
and revel in the creation of impossibly vivacious wits. Nature has a
finer grace; its faithful reflection is purer art. Those true to
natural humour and the spontaneous rather than the fabricated repartee
represent a small minority. Amongst the novelists Goldsmith and Jane
Austen have few to follow them, and with the dramatists Molière and
Pinero are almost his solitary associates. Perfectly natural are the
arguments, 'mid trips and assaults, between Mr. Burchell and Mrs.
Primrose in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, and Hastings and Mrs. Hardcastle
in _She Stoops to Conquer_. This play achieved a revolution in
dramatic presentation. It changed the course of comedy, heightened
humour, and rang like laughter round the town. It was performed as
long as there were nights to spare. In book-form it proved a great
success. In this we have the beautiful words of the dedication to Dr.
Johnson. The town was disgusted to the depths with Colman. No one will
ever pity him for the private contempt and the public derision he
brought upon himself through his mean discernment and his want of
appreciation of the very best play of the period. The press so teemed
with caustic and sarcastic epigrams at his expense that he fled for
refuge to Bath during the run of the piece, and at last begged
Goldsmith to intercede and rescue him from the scorn of the critics.
After all the worries and vexations, it is not surprising that poor
Noll should write: "I am sick of the stage!"
When it was known that the King would visit the theatre to see _She
Stoops to Conquer_, he said: "I wish he would;" and then added,
carried away by the undercurrent of pressing trials: "Not that it
would do me the least good." "Then," said Johnson, "let us hope that
it will do him good."
The interval in time was not wide that divided the last triumph from
the last day of Goldsmith's life. He was still toiling amid many
monetary perplexities, that he had not bettered by accepting payment
for works before they were completed. It was now all pouring out and
nothing coming in, and there was no hope. He projected a _Dictionary
of Arts and Sciences_ upon a comprehensive system, at once practical
and ambitious. Failing health had made him sadly dilatory. The
booksellers, who had lost confidence in his schemes, did not hold him
the man for this encyclopædic labour or suited for long and strenuous
strain. Friends ineffectually tried to procure him a pension. He had
made many notes and written sundry essays, intended for a treatise in
two volumes, to be entitled _A Survey of Experimental Philosophy_. In
the midst of vain strivings he died. The knack of hoping could not do
all. The heart was broken and the soul passing. It is a tragedy to
remember that his one chance lay now in writing another comedy. In
these distressed days Garrick came to his aid, helping him over one
stile, at least, by paying liberally, and probably from charity, for
the promise of a play. The poet's physical strength was poorer even
than his empty purse. In this sad state he pursued his labours,
toiling like a slave almost to the last, looking back and recovering
nothing, forward and seeing nothing, pressing on with all the poor
power he had left, and making no headway. He gave one last extravagant
dinner to his old friends, which in his poverty, and for very shame
and pity, and a little even in rebuke, they would not take at his
expense. Then for a time he sought once again the fresh, sweet country
air. He returned to town. The old talent was not yet fled. He wrote
that fine _Retaliation_ at this time. It is pathetically possible that
the weakening appearance of the poet induced his lively friends to pen
epitaphs upon the little man. Many jests have their serious motives,
not wholly known to those who perpetrate the jokes. If unconscious of
the forces really leading to the episode, little did they dream that
its results would live till now, and to all intents for ever. Each
wrote an epitaph on Noll, and he in turn an epitaph on all. The
_Retaliation_ shows his power in compressed expression, and his fine
discernment of men and character. The little poem lives, a veritable,
and, in its way, a wholesale contribution to national biography. It
is a candid commentary upon some of the best men of that day. Garrick
is treated more elaborately than the rest. He had been the prime
offender, and naturally came foremost for the fire of the reply. The
poem was never finished. The kind words about Sir Joshua were
practically the last the poet penned. Reynolds, to the very end trying
to cheer Goldsmith and be with him whenever he could, proved now, as
he had ever been, the sweetest of friends--a true and loving, tender
man.
Home at the Temple, and in the dear London he loved, Goldsmith grew
ill very rapidly, and in his illness fell into a deep sleep. He slept
to wake; he stooped to conquer. This, instead of being the sleep of
restoring strength, was that in which disease takes its last, firm
grasp. One struggle with the feeble frame, and the wrestle for life
was over for ever. His biographers write of this sleep, that was
watched with so much anxiety by his physicians: "It was hoped that a
favourable crisis had arrived." It had. It marked the advent of the
last reprieve, that release that can never be recalled. The clouds
have passed away for ever, and in the sunshine came the solace of all
cares, the finality of pain, and the soothing and the solution of all
sorrow. Heaven had sent its last call and its greatest message to the
heart. In all, only forty-seven years had been given, and all that may
have been ill in the time is forgotten and forgiven, and the fairest
part of all that was well and high and true is with us even now, and
the radiance must last for long, cheering many hearts, brightening
souls that are failing, and blessing homes that are and will be. The
night of passing death has led on to the day of unpassing life.
On April 4, 1774, the spirit of Oliver Goldsmith conquered that which
men call death. Burke burst into tears at the news of the passing of
the man and the friend he cherished and revered. Reynolds laid his
work aside and rose, shaken in his great sorrow, and trembling with
the sense of an untold loss. Looking back upon the fading figure, so
dear to so many, and a light for years to come, shining still in many
homes and many hearts and many lands, Johnson, in his sacred
solemnity, said: "Poor Goldsmith! He was a very great man."
The body of Oliver Goldsmith was buried in the quiet Temple
churchyard. There is a tablet to his memory in the church itself, but
no one now knows exactly where the mortal remnant was laid, for no
memorial marked that last resting-place. The epitaph on Goldsmith in
Westminster Abbey runs: "He left no spheres of writing untouched or
unadorned by his pen. Noble, pure, and delicate, his memory will last
as long as society retains affection, friendship is not devoid of
honour, and reading wants not her admirers." Intimately we are guided
most of all by those whom most we love. The eyes may close, but not
the life. There is the knowledge of loving power wielded on the heart
by those whom men call dead. There is a soul in men rising beyond
visible activities; its story is not told in the recognised deeds of a
career and their outward record. Beyond the acknowledged actions and
admitted attainments, there stays the prevailing essence. The glory of
Christianity is seen in its illuminating stars, living everlastingly.
Through grace and gentleness, Goldsmith was one in that long train in
which shine Sister Dora and St. Francis of Assisi.
Oliver Goldsmith was the most pure and suasive spirit of his age. To
this day his gentle touch and soothing spell, by that magnetic power
that flows through purity of sympathy, still sway the heart. His
charming radiance and pure, divine delight move and master those who
admire and honour this all-loving soul and most graceful writer. In
reading his works, there is for all, and there must ever be, that
sense of compassion and that absolving perception which must have
moved the finer feelings of those who lived in his own time, and
actually knew the man himself. Not less does his purifying power, with
its elevating inspiration, survive. It is a silent and unseen, but
still a lofty, a lasting, and an impressive influence. Lovers of
Goldsmith feel friendship and affection for the moving and immortal
spirit of the man. His works need no learned commentary. The common
heart is their sufficing commentary.
CHAPTER IX
THE POET AND THE ESSAYIST
Successful in every sphere, it is as an essayist that, amongst the
immortals, Goldsmith sways signal and supreme distinction. As a poet,
not less than as a playwright, he triumphed in his own, and inspired
and influenced the coming age. As a biographer, he readily gained
contemporary celebrity, both through the sympathetic understanding of
his heart and the delightful facility of his literary style. In his
own time, he occupied, through the high and undoubted merits of his
works, an eminent position amongst the historians. The appealing force
of his power in this field has lasted practically until the present
day. That his histories have been superseded is due far more to
changes in attitude and criticism and the revolutionary results of
modern research than to intrinsic failures in the works themselves.
They still stand monuments in pure English and models in patriotic
perception, the due balance between the general and the particular,
and also in vividness, compression, and an unfailing clearness, both
in sound views, and also in their unfailing explicit expression.
Whilst it has appeared the unhappy destiny of this author to have been
at times too lightly regarded, high praise has almost always been
accorded to his labours.
Sir Walter Scott writes: "The wreath of Goldsmith is unsullied; he
wrote to exalt virtue and expose vice; and he accomplished his task in
a manner that raises him to the highest rank among British authors. We
close his volumes with a sigh that such an author should have written
so little from the stores of his own genius, and that he should have
been so prematurely removed from the sphere of literature which he
adorned." Johnson writes: "The Life of Dr. Parnell is a task which I
should very willingly decline, since it has been lately written by
Goldsmith--a man of such variety of powers, and such felicity of
performance, that he always seemed to do best that which he was doing.
What such an author has told, who would wish to tell again?" The same
generous soul exclaimed: "Is there a man, sir, now, who can pen an
essay with such ease and elegance as Goldsmith?" All can see how true
this is when they compare Goldsmith's style with that of his
contemporaries--that hostile essay, for example, published from
Richardson's firm, in which, time after time, sneers must cease and
praise prevail, despite the intention to decry. If reluctant laudation
is most sincere, then Boswell himself said of Goldsmith that there was
nothing that he touched that he did not adorn. Goldsmith adorned, but
not with mere polish or veneer. He threw a curious felicity on things,
and made them fair. The very beauty of his touch allures us to take
his work too lightly. If his essays had been in his own time
translated into pompous terms, he could have passed for a sage. As
convention makes religion something of which little children grow
afraid, so older minds think beauty must be frivolous, and that moral
worth must live in rapt association with outward ugliness. A most
graceful literary style may be as true and earnest and inspiring as a
very pretty woman. It teaches as it smiles. On everything Goldsmith
ever cast a fairer and more hallowed light. The very inmost essence of
his genius was purity in its compassionate perfection. It must,
indeed, have been difficult under the conditions of distress amidst
which almost throughout his whole life he wrote, for him to preserve
an ease of style, and with the ease a dignity. Yet through all, not
even once he faltered. He never failed. Following Fielding's happy
epigram--if it ought not to be rather called most unhappy--in these
days the lot of a literary man who was a hackney writer was hardly
better, nay, scarce as good, as the lot of a hackney coachman. Yet
even in those writings which must have been rushed off most rapidly,
and amidst the fires of scorching distress, Goldsmith maintained his
grace of style, and did not forget the reverence due to writing and
the honour of literature. Without any trace or taint of
self-consciousness or self-conceit, he held the pen a sacred trust. As
a critic Goldsmith had a high ideal, and more than this. And, what is
finer, an entirely new conception. No poet could read his criticism of
Gray and not feel inspired. No one could peruse the article and not
feel that henceforth poetry was something more to him and to all life
than it had ever been before. Criticism is itself among the evolving
sciences. Depreciation was rife. Goldsmith touched a new chord in
inspiring and chastening appreciation, a spirit which even now, more
and more, in life and letters, men must realize. Unlike Brougham,
Goldsmith could chide without unkindness, and prove severe without
proving cruel. He threw such a light of love on merit that could and
did soften and condone the deserved censure of the strictures that not
envy, but mercy, made him utter. Criticism in its true sense was
hardly known. In enlarging the message of poetry, the motive of the
drama and the functions of fiction, Goldsmith fulfilled the
responsibilities of higher criticism, and that power of inspiration
and heightening of expression and perceptivity which are its first
duty and its highest honour. Whilst in the elevation of criticism and
the higher interpretation of poetry much is due to the inspiring
guidance of Gray, a great deal, and more than is commonly admitted, is
due to Goldsmith. If he did not force, he influenced the splendid
expansion of spiritual perception. It is as a writer of essays that
on Goldsmith falls the light of pure pre-eminence. Some hold Charles
Lamb supreme amongst the essayists, and others Goldsmith, The last men
who would ever have fought for the vanity of recognised supremacy
would have been these two gentle rival claimants for the crown. There
is a peculiar felicity in much of the writing of Laurence Sterne. His
demerits preclude him from a sacred place. It is strange how rare
grace is in every sphere of art. In that of gracious writing, Oliver
Goldsmith, Charles Lamb, and Nathaniel Hawthorne are alone in pure and
isolated splendour. We speak of grace, and not here of power of mind
or informative force. How greatly Froude and Emerson would be enhanced
gifted with graciousness. Goldsmith, even in his own day, was
acknowledged the best of the essay writers. This is the realm in which
he was, and is to this day, king. From his love of poetry and
happiness in his art, and that shining in the power of deft and
delightful expression, there is another sphere in which it would be
expected that his power would prevail, but in which he had either no
actual talent or very little. However we may admire _The Haunch of
Venison_ and other stray pieces, Goldsmith was really not a writer of
what is now called "Society verse." In that delightful sphere Austin
Dobson has no rival. In the higher realms of poetry there are many who
will regret that necessity forced Goldsmith to turn almost exclusively
to prose. Poetry loves genius, and starves it; whilst prose, hating,
feeds and clothes its child. Clearly genius, so much at ease in the
essay, would prosper in the poem. No one can imagine when men will
live and not love Gray's "Elegy"; and if this be so, then for as long,
at least, there will be a place within the heart for Goldsmith's
_Deserted Village_. Of _The Traveller_, Dr. Johnson said: "There has
not been so fine a poem since Pope's time." This may seem poor praise.
It was not so at that time; Pope reigned supreme, and was esteemed by
Johnson at home, and Voltaire abroad, as pre-eminent. Worshipping
admirers held Pope and Dryden very gods. Dryden and Pope have passed
away more easily than Gray and Goldsmith will. In Dryden, Pope, and
Johnson himself we have mere imitators of Latinity. They have no style
or fashion that can be wholly held their own, and without Virgil,
Juvenal, Horace, and Ovid they could not have spoken. Goldsmith
strikes a purer strain, and one peculiarly his own and ours. He is as
English as Wordsworth. This makes the comparison with Pope and Dryden
now most imperfect. Admitting so much, it almost follows of necessity
that Goldsmith was the first poet of the rich and enriching school
that still sways the common heart, that gave us Tennyson, Keats,
Shelley, and an unrivalled host in the history of poetic inspiration
and expression. It must, of course, be recognised that Goldsmith was
not the first to herald the purely homely and an entirely indigenous
note, since Gray was with him, and far earlier, Philip Sydney had
poured forth his fair and felicitous melodies. Beyond, above, and
greater far than these, Milton, attuning his hallowed and harmonious
strains, through the classic chords of Rome, had so faithfully
fulfilled their inspiration with moving majesty, that rising and
transcendently surpassing all his models, he was, and is, in very deed
unique, original, unsupported, and supreme. _The Deserted Village_ was
given to the world, but one cannot say how long it lay hidden in the
yearning heart of that genius who gave it light and life. It
substantiated the fame of Goldsmith for ever and unalterably. In the
last year of his life, Gray welcomed the piece, and was most moved and
grateful as he greeted it. It is as much a part of our life as his own
"Elegy," and though each poem is distinct and could only have been
bestowed by the one heart of the poet, who blessed himself and blessed
the lives of men in writing it, still there is a sweet similitude.
[Illustration:
_Rischgitz Collection._]
GOLDSMITH.
(From an engraving of the statue at Trinity College, Dublin.)]
The highest praise that one could give Gray and Goldsmith is to hold
their genius and their influence kindred. There is, however, a
glistening and Chaucerian brightness and vitality in Goldsmith not
discernible in Gray. Their kindredness is thus that of the vernal unto
the autumnal light. In _The Deserted Village_, from its whole
reflective vein, at a glance we must perceive that long these loved
and loving thoughts had lingered in the mind and the heart of the
poet. Sparks from Heaven fell upon the tinder of the yearnings of the
lowly heart. At last the glow was seen, and grew a light distinct.
There is a moulding, moving music of the mind. Swiftly, in time, line
after line found its place within the common heart and life. Again, as
in earlier days, we see the spiritual spell, and with the force, the
form and understanding, fathoming stretch and reach and power and
grasp of genius.
The sublimity of the spirit of Shakespeare and the aloofness of the
mind of Milton divide their influence, through an infinite
universality, from the current of evolving expression. Goldsmith was
one in the great succession of the dynasty of poetry that must outlast
the nation and the race. In the line of this successive sovereignty
the name of Chaucer is first inscribed, and that of the towering
Browning is now seen the last upon the glorious list of the kings of
poetry. If Gray's "Elegy" came close to the outward beauty and the
inmost heart of nature, the same must be said of Goldsmith's _Deserted
Village_. From the heart and life of nature, poetry has now passed to
the heart and life of man. That first natural interpretation that
gained its meridian glory through Wordsworth, and its bright, vivid,
yet evening radiance in the sweet spirit of the dulcet Tennyson, knew
its dawn through the love-lit lines of Gray and Goldsmith.
_The Deserted Village_ appeared soon after the production of _The
Good-natured Man_ in the moving and marvellous procession of Oliver
Goldsmith's great and successive achievements. The poem was dedicated
to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was as rejoiced and grateful as only a
true friend could be. The artist could admire the piece profoundly,
but still not more sincerely than Edmund Burke, the statesman and the
orator. As Tennyson had a lilt and Byron a sentiment, swiftly and
easily appealing, consciously or unconsciously caught, and sincerely
felt or insincerely imitated, so Goldsmith possessed a teaching charm
and a guiding grace that can be traced in many later poets and amongst
the works of greatest minds, in the poetry of Robert Burns. Poets,
like priests, teach the hearts and lives of men, the means and power
of their expression. One may cull from Goldsmith his own sublime
simile:
"And, as a bird, each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay,
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way."
CHAPTER X
THE LIGHT OF LOVE
To think of Oliver Goldsmith is to feel him near--a friend, and the
brightest of friends. This is the spell that still he sways. His words
are semblant to moving memories. His genius purifies the clouds of
life, and cheers and inspires the heavy-laden heart. One cannot tell
what was, and is, the hidden charm that gave and gives for ever this
appealing influence. It may be touching simplicity. It may have been
his sacrifice and deep devotion, or that kindly affectionateness which
is itself sublime. It might be that pretty gift, the joyousness of
innocence. It is radiant to remember Goldsmith's love of life, and its
pleasures and adventures. He loved the town. He loved the country. He
loved the rich. He loved the poor, the crude, the cultured, the pious,
and the base. He was a philanthropist. It kept him poor. He was, in
all his struggles, ever a patron of literature. No striving aspirant
pleaded for his munificence in vain. If his old friends in Ireland
came to London, he housed, fed, and clothed them. No beggar in the
street could pass without recognition. It was all one to this pure
benevolence whether the gift was rendered in gold or copper. The
beggar who sought a penny could, no doubt, find room for a guinea, if
need be, just as easily in some poor pocket hidden in his deserved
rags and tatters. Goldsmith taught that great lesson that, after all,
the undeserving most deserve compassion. So completely is Goldsmith
bound up in his works, that as you fondly press the cherished volume
of all that he gave that was best, the heart of the man beats with
yours, and in an immortal friendship his life and hope and spirit are
your own. His many and most varied intimacies reveal a genius for
companionability, whilst his higher and deeper unions show equally his
force in friendship, that great grace which few attain.
Everyone became swiftly fond of him and he as fond of everyone. Unlike
Socrates and Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith loved the fields and the
countryside. He roamed and rambled everywhere. Hardly a county seemed
to him quite unknown, from Surrey to Yorkshire. He wandered West: Bath
lives hallowed through his visits to the place. With the bright and
beautiful Misses Horneck and their widowed mother he went again to
France, doubtless often laughingly recalling his earlier travels and
their troubles, telling much and hiding more, with the very poverty of
the past now proving the rich treasures of the present. All hardships
were melted to deep delights in merry reminiscence, Oliver Goldsmith,
loving the Horneck girls much as Horace Walpole cherished in his heart
the beautiful Misses Berry, had nicknames for these daughters of his
gentle hostess, the elder being Little Comedy, and the younger the
Jessamy Bride. If ever Goldsmith loved anyone, he loved the Jessamy
Bride. The sweet girl was bewitching, gentle, and innocent, bright,
and very young, and that chivalrous and tender soul that honoured her
with his devotion a prematurely bent and aged man of more than forty
summers. Her wifely affections were early destined for another heart.
From the beginning, come what may, she could never be Oliver
Goldsmith's wife. The Jessamy Bride was a pure and lovely spirit. No
poet was ever moved in reverence for a fairer personification of a
pure ideal.
It was a most stately, graceful, gracious, and fascinating very old
lady whom, when years, and many years, had come and gone, Hazlitt met
and greeted. Still she remembered and still she revered the loved and
moving heart of Oliver Goldsmith. It is his greatness, and it is his
glory that his soul could and did appeal to the sublime spirit of pure
womanhood. Of none could greater, or more than this be said. Man need
not crave for more, or aspire on earth to purer heights. It was
beautiful to know, and to be the friend of, and it was divine to be
remembered by, the Jessamy Bride. These two made merry when they met.
Laughing eyes danced. All was pure, spontaneous revelry. These two
were the source and centre of mirth and cheerfulness. Partly he
amused, and partly enticed reverence and respect. The outward laughter
moved, but depth of life and love drew heart to heart. This sunshine
was most fair. As it was, Goldsmith knew the last loneliness of
things, and lived a single life and died in solitude. In Oliver
Goldsmith, Washington Irving says: "Eminent ability was allied with
spotless virtue." He sympathetically suggests how home, wife, and
children would have softened those ills that came from solitude and
enriched what was at once an abundant, and yet still, in some
respects, an impoverished nature.
LIST OF THE WORKS OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH
MEMOIRS OF A PROTESTANT--A TRANSLATION (1758).
ENQUIRY INTO THE STATE OF POLITE LEARNING (1759).
THE BEE (1759).
THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD (1762).
THE LIFE OF RICHARD NASH (1762).
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN A SERIES OF LETTERS (1764).
THE TRAVELLER--A POEM (1765).
COLLECTED ESSAYS (1765).
EDWIN AND ANGELINA--A POEM (1765).
THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD (1766).
MEMOIRS OF VOLTAIRE (1760).
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY--TRANSLATION (1766).
BEAUTIES OF ENGLISH POESY--EDITED (1767).
THE GOOD-NATURED MAN--PRODUCED AT COVENT GARDEN THEATRE 1768.
ROMAN HISTORY (1769).
THE DESERTED VILLAGE (1770).
LIFE OF THOMAS PARNELL (1770).
LIFE OF LORD BOLINGBROKE (1770).
HISTORY OF ENGLAND (1771).
PROLOGUE TO CRADOCK'S "ZOBEIDE" (1771).
SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER--PRODUCED 1773.
RETALIATION (1774).
THE GRECIAN HISTORY (1774).
THE HISTORY OF EARTH AND ANIMATED NATURE (1774).
SURVEY OF EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY (1776).
THE CAPTIVITY--AN ORATORIO (1836).
TRANSLATION OF "PLUTARCH'S LIVES."
SOME WORKS OF REFERENCE
"The Life of Oliver Goldsmith," by John Forster.
Publishers--Hutchinson and Co., Paternoster Row.
"The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith,"
with biographical introduction, by Professor Masson.
Globe Edition. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd.
"Oliver Goldsmith," a Biography, by Washington Irving.
The Cameo Classics. London: The Library Press, 9, Duke
Street, Charing Cross.
"Lives of the Novelists," by Sir Walter Scott, with
introduction by Austin Dobson. Henry Froude, Oxford
University Press, London, New York, and Toronto.
"The Life of Oliver Goldsmith," by William Black.
English Men of Letters Series. Macmillan.
"The Early Haunts of Oliver Goldsmith," by J. J. Kelly,
D.D. Dublin: Sealy and M. H. Gill.
Boswell's "Life of Johnson."
"Library of Literary Criticism" (Vol. III., 1730-1784).
Edited by Charles Willis Moulton.
Lord Macaulay's "Essay."
Johnson's Criticism of "The Traveller."
Thackeray's "Humourists of the Eighteenth Century."
Smith, Elder, and Co.
Prior's "Life of Oliver Goldsmith." Published in 1837.
Biographies of Burke, Garrick, Sheridan, and Sir Joshua
Reynolds.
Essay on "The Vicar of Wakefield," by Sir Henry Irving.
Various Memoirs, notably those of Miss Reynolds, Sir John
Hawkins, Cumberland, Davies, the actor and bookseller,
Colman, and many others.
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