Complete Fictional Works of Washington Irving (Illustrated) (427 page)

“Being with a party at Versailles, viewing the waterworks, a question arose among the gentlemen present, whether the distance from whence they stood to one of the little islands was within the compass of a leap. Goldsmith maintained the affirmative; but, being bantered on the subject, and remembering his former prowess as a youth, attempted the leap, but, falling short, descended into the water, to the great amusement of the company.”

Was the Jessamy Bride a witness of this unlucky exploit?

This same Hickey is the one of whom Goldsmith, some time subsequently, gave a good-humored sketch in his poem of The Retaliation.

”Here Hickey reclines, a most blunt, pleasant creature,
And slander itself must allow him good nature;
He cherish’d his friend, and he relish’d a bumper,
Yet one fault he had, and that one was a thumper.
Perhaps you may ask if the man was a miser;
I answer No, no, for he always was wiser;
Too courteous, perhaps, or obligingly flat,
His very worst foe can’t accuse him of that;
Perhaps he confided in men as they go,
And so was too foolishly honest? Ah, not
Then what was his failing? Come, tell it, and burn ye —
He was, could he help it? a special attorney.”

One of the few remarks extant made by Goldsmith during his tour is the following, of whimsical import, in his Animated Nature.

“In going through the towns of France, some time since, I could not help observing how much plainer their parrots spoke than ours, and how very distinctly I understood their parrots speak French, when I could not understand our own, though they spoke my native language. I at first ascribed it to the different qualities of the two languages, and was for entering into an elaborate discussion on the vowels and consonants; but a friend that was with me solved the difficulty at once, by assuring me that the French women scarce did anything else the whole day than sit and instruct their feathered pupils; and that the birds were thus distinct in their lessons in consequence of continual schooling.”

His tour does not seem to have left in his memory the most fragrant recollections; for, being asked, after his return, whether traveling on the Continent repaid “an Englishman for the privations and annoyances attendant on it,” he replied, “I recommend it by all means to the sick, if they are without the sense of
smelling
, and to the poor, if they are without the sense of
feeling
; and to both, if they can discharge from their minds all idea of what in England we term comfort.”

It is needless to say that the universal improvement in the art of living on the Continent has at the present day taken away the force of Goldsmith’s reply, though even at the time it was more humorous than correct.

CHAPTER THIR
TY

DEATH OF GOLDSMITH’S MOTHER — BIOGRAPHY OF PARNELL — AGREEMENT WITH DAVIES FOR THE HISTORY OF ROME — LIFE OP BOLINGBROKE — THE HAUNCH OF VENISON

On his return to England, Goldsmith received the melancholy tidings of the death of his mother. Notwithstanding the fame as an author to which he had attained, she seems to have been disappointed in her early expectations from him. Like others of his family, she had been more vexed by his early follies than pleased by his proofs of genius; and in subsequent years, when he had risen to fame and to intercourse with the great, had been annoyed at the ignorance of the world and want of management, which prevented him from pushing his fortune. He had always, however, been an affectionate son, and in the latter years of her life, when she had become blind, contributed from his precarious resources to prevent her from feeling want.

He now resumed the labors of the pen, which his recent excursion to Paris rendered doubly necessary. We should have mentioned a Life of Parnell, published by him shortly after the Deserted Village. It was, as usual, a piece of job work, hastily got up for pocket-money. Johnson spoke slightingly of it, and the author, himself, thought proper to apologize for its meagerness; yet, in so doing, used a simile which for beauty of imagery and felicity of language is enough of itself to stamp a value upon the essay.

“Such,” says he, “is the very unpoetical detail of the life of a poet. Some dates and some few facts, scarcely more interesting than those that make the ornaments of a country tombstone, are all that remain of one whose labors now begin to excite universal curiosity. A poet, while living, is seldom an object sufficiently great to attract much attention; his real merits are known but to a few, and these are generally sparing in their praises. When his fame is increased by time, it is then too late to investigate the peculiarities of his disposition;
the dews of morning are past, and we vainly try to continue the chase by the meridian splendor
.”

He now entered into an agreement with Davies to prepare an abridgment, in one volume duodecimo, of his History of Rome; but first to write a work for which there was a more immediate demand. Davies was about to republish Lord Bolingbroke’s Dissertation on Parties, which he conceived would be exceedingly applicable to the affairs of the day, and make a probable
hit
during the existing state of violent political excitement; to give it still greater effect and currency he engaged Goldsmith to introduce it with a prefatory life of Lord Bolingbroke.

About this time Goldsmith’s friend and countryman, Lord Clare, was in great affliction, caused by the death of his only son, Colonel Nugent, and stood in need of the sympathies of a kindhearted friend. At his request, therefore, Goldsmith paid him a visit at his noble seat of Gosford, taking his tasks with him. Davies was in a worry lest Gosford Park should prove a Capua to the poet, and the time be lost. “Dr. Goldsmith,” writes he to a friend, “has gone with Lord Clare into the country, and I am plagued to get the proofs from him of the Life of Lord Bolingbroke.” The proofs, however, were furnished in time for the publication of the work in December. The Biography, though written during a time of political turmoil, and introducing a work intended to be thrown into the arena of politics, maintained that freedom from party prejudice observable in all the writings of Goldsmith. It was a selection of facts drawn from many unreadable sources, and arranged into a clear, flowing narrative, illustrative of the career and character of one who, as he intimates, “seemed formed by nature to take delight in struggling with opposition; whose most agreeable hours were passed in storms of his own creating; whose life was spent in a continual conflict of politics, and as if that was too short for the combat, has left his memory as a subject of lasting contention.” The sum received by the author for this memoir is supposed, from circumstances, to have been forty pounds.

Goldsmith did not find the residence among the great unattended with mortifications. He had now become accustomed to be regarded in London as a literary lion, and was annoyed at what he considered a slight on the part of Lord Camden. He complained of it on his return to town at a party of his friends. “I met him,” said he, “at Lord Clare’s house in the country; and he took no more notice of me than if I had been an ordinary man.” “The company,” says Boswell, “laughed heartily at this piece of ‘diverting simplicity.’” And foremost among the laughters was doubtless the rattle-pated Boswell. Johnson, however, stepped forward, as usual, to defend the poet, whom he would allow no one to assail but himself; perhaps in the present instance he thought the dignity of literature itself involved in the question. “Nay, gentlemen,” roared he, “Dr. Goldsmith is in the right. A nobleman ought to have made up to such a man as Goldsmith, and I think it is much against Lord Camden that he neglected him.”

After Goldsmith’s return to town he received from Lord Clare a present of game, which he has celebrated and perpetuated in his amusing verses entitled the Haunch of Venison. Some of the lines pleasantly set forth the embarrassment caused by the appearance of such an aristocratic delicacy in the humble kitchen of a poet, accustomed to look up to mutton as a treat:

“Thanks, my lord, for your venison; for finer or fatter
Never rang’d in a forest, or smok’d in a platter:
The haunch was a picture for painters to study,
The fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy;
Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting,
To spoil such a delicate picture by eating:
I had thought in my chambers to place it in view,
To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtu;
As in some Irish houses where things are so-so,
One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show;
But, for eating a rasher, of what they take pride in,
They’d as soon think of eating the pan it was fry’d in.

*

“But hang it — to poets, who seldom can eat,
Your very good mutton’s a very good treat;
Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt;
It’s like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.
”

We have an amusing anecdote of one of Goldsmith’s blunders which took place on a subsequent visit to Lord Clare’s, when that nobleman was residing in Bath.

Lord Clare and the Duke of Northumberland had houses next to each other, of similar architecture. Returning home one morning from an early walk, Goldsmith, in one of his frequent fits of absence, mistook the house, and walked up into the duke’s dining-room, where he and the duchess were about to sit down to breakfast. Goldsmith, still supposing himself in the house of Lord Clare, and that they were visitors, made them an easy salutation, being acquainted with, them, and threw himself on a sofa in the lounging manner of a man perfectly at home. The duke and duchess soon perceived his mistake, and, while they smiled internally, endeavored, with the considerateness of well-bred people, to prevent any awkward embarrassment. They accordingly chatted sociably with him about matters in Bath, until, breakfast being served, they invited him to partake. The truth at once flashed upon poor heedless Goldsmith; he started up from the free-and-easy position, made a confused apology for his blunder, and would have retired perfectly disconcerted, had not the duke and duchess treated the whole as a lucky occurrence to throw him in their way, and exacted a promise from him to dine with them.

This may be hung up as a companion-piece to his blunder on his first visit to Northumberland House.

CHAPTER THIRTY-O
NE

DINNER AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY — THE ROWLEY CONTROVERSY — HORACE WALPOLE’S CONDUCT TO CHATTERTON — JOHNSON AT REDCLIFFE CHURCH — GOLDSMITH’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND — DAVIES’ CRITICISM — LETTER TO BENNET LANGTON

On St. George’s day of this year (1771), the first annual banquet of the Royal Academy was held in the exhibition room; the walls of which were covered with works of art, about to be submitted to public inspection. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who first suggested this elegant festival, presided in his official character; Drs. Johnson and Goldsmith, of course, were present, as professors of the academy; and, besides the academicians, there was a large number of the most distinguished men of the day as guests. Goldsmith on this occasion drew on himself the attention of the company by launching out with enthusiasm on the poems recently given to the world by Chatterton as the works of an ancient author by the name of Rowley, discovered in the tower of Redcliffe Church, at Bristol. Goldsmith spoke of them with rapture, as a treasure of old English poetry. This immediately raised the question of their authenticity; they having been pronounced a forgery of Chatterton’s. Goldsmith was warm for their being genuine. When he considered, he said, the merit of the poetry; the acquaintance with life and the human heart displayed in them, the antique quaintness of the language and the familiar knowledge of historical events of their supposed day, he could not believe it possible they could be the work of a boy of sixteen, of narrow education, and confined to the duties of an attorney’s office. They must be the productions of Rowley.

Johnson, who was a stout unbeliever in Rowley, as he had been in Ossian, rolled in his chair and laughed at the enthusiasm of Goldsmith. Horace Walpole, who sat near by, joined in the laugh and jeer as soon as he found that the “
trouvaille
,” as he called it, “of
his friend
Chatterton” was in question. This matter, which had excited the simple admiration of Goldsmith, was no novelty to him, he said. “He might, had he pleased, have had the honor of ushering the great discovery to the learned world.” And so he might, had he followed his first impulse in the matter, for he himself had been an original believer; had pronounced some specimen verses sent to him by Chatterton wonderful for their harmony and spirit; and had been ready to print them and publish them to the world with his sanction. When he found, however, that his unknown correspondent was a mere boy, humble in sphere and indigent in circumstances, and when Gray and Mason pronounced the poems forgeries, he had changed his whole conduct toward the unfortunate author, and by his neglect and coldness had dashed all his sanguine hopes to the ground.

Exulting in his superior discernment, this cold-hearted man of society now went on to divert himself, as he says, with the credulity of Goldsmith, whom he was accustomed to pronounce “an inspired idiot”; but his mirth was soon dashed, for on asking the poet what had become of this Chatterton, he was answered, doubtless in the feeling tone of one who had experienced the pangs of despondent genius, that “he had been to London and had destroyed himself.”

The reply struck a pang of self-reproach even to the cold heart of Walpole; a faint blush may have visited his cheek at his recent levity. “The persons of honor and veracity who were present,” said he in after years, when he found it necessary to exculpate himself from the charge of heartless neglect of genius, “will attest with what surprise and concern. I thus first heard of his death.” Well might he feel concern. His cold neglect had doubtless contributed to madden the spirit of that youthful genius, and hurry him toward his untimely end; nor have all the excuses and palliations of Walpole’s friends and admirers been ever able entirely to clear this stigma from his fame.

But what was there in the enthusiasm and credulity of honest Goldsmith in this matter to subject him to the laugh of Johnson or the raillery of Walpole? Granting the poems were not ancient, were they not good? Granting they were not the productions of Rowley, were they the less admirable for being the productions of Chatterton? Johnson himself testified to their merits and the genius of their composer when, some years afterward, he visited the tower of Redcliffe Church, and was shown the coffer in which poor Chatterton had pretended to find them. “This,” said he, “is the most extraordinary young man that has encountered my knowledge.
It is wonderful how the whelp has written such things
.”

As to Goldsmith, he persisted in his credulity, and had subsequently a dispute with Dr. Percy on the subject, which interrupted and almost destroyed their friendship. After all, his enthusiasm was of a generous, poetic kind; the poems remain beautiful monuments of genius, and it is even now difficult to persuade one’s self that they could be entirely the productions of a youth of sixteen.

In the month of August was published anonymously the History of England, on which Goldsmith had been for some time employed. It was in four volumes, compiled chiefly, as he acknowledged in the preface, from Rapin, Carle, Smollett and Hume, “each of whom,” says he, “have their admirers, in proportion as the reader is studious of political antiquities, fond of minute anecdote, a warm partisan, or a deliberate reasoner.” It possessed the same kind of merit as his other historical compilations; a clear, succinct narrative, a simple, easy, and graceful style, and an agreeable arrangement of facts; but was not remarkable for either depth of observation or minute accuracy of research. Many passages were transferred, with little if any alteration, from his Letters from a Nobleman to his Son on the same subject. The work, though written without party feeling, met with sharp animadversions from political scribblers. The writer was charged with being unfriendly to liberty, disposed to elevate monarchy above its proper sphere; a tool of ministers; one who would betray his country for a pension. Tom Davies, the publisher, the pompous little bibliopole of Russell Street, alarmed lest the book should prove unsalable, undertook to protect it by his pen, and wrote a long article in its defense in “The Public Advertiser.” He was vain of his critical effusion, and sought by nods and winks and innuendoes to intimate his authorship. “Have you seen,” said he in a letter to a friend, “‘An Impartial Account of Goldsmith’s History of England’? If you want to know who was the writer of it, you will find him in Russell Street —
but mum
!”

The history, on the whole, however, was well received; some of the critics declared that English history had never before been so usefully, so elegantly, and agreeably epitomized, “and, like his other historical writings, it has kept its ground” in English literature.

Goldsmith had intended this summer, in company with Sir Joshua Reynolds, to pay a visit to Bennet Langton, at his seat in Lincolnshire, where he was settled in domestic life, having the year previously married the Countess Dowager of Rothes. The following letter, however, dated from his chambers in the Temple, on the 7th of September, apologizes for putting off the visit, while it gives an amusing account of his summer occupations and of the attacks of the critics on his History of England:

“MY DEAR SIR — Since I had the pleasure of seeing you last, I have been almost wholly in the country, at a farmer’s house, quite alone, trying to write a comedy. It is now finished; but when or how it will be acted, or whether it will be acted at all, are questions I cannot resolve. I am therefore so much employed upon that, that I am under the necessity of putting off my intended visit to Lincolnshire for this season. Reynolds is just returned from Paris, and finds himself now in the case of a truant that must make up for his idle time by diligence. We have therefore agreed to postpone our journey till next summer, when we hope to have the honor of waiting upon Lady Rothes and you, and staying double the time of our late intended visit. We often meet, and never without remembering you. I see Mr. Beauclerc very often both in town and country. He is now going directly forward to become a second Boyle; deep in chemistry and physics. Johnson has been down on a visit to a country parson, Dr. Taylor; and is returned to his old haunts at Mrs. Thrale’s. Burke is a farmer,
en attendant
a better place; but visiting about too. Every soul is visiting about and merry but myself. And that is hard too, as I have been trying these three months to do something to make people laugh. There have I been strolling about the hedges, studying jests with a most tragical countenance. The Natural History is about half finished, and I will shortly finish the rest. God knows I am tired of this kind of finishing, which is but bungling work; and that not so much my fault as the fault of my scurvy circumstances. They begin to talk in town of the Opposition’s gaining ground; the cry of liberty is still as loud as ever. I have published, or Davies has published for me, an ‘Abridgment of the History of England,’ for which I have been a good deal abused in the newspapers, for betraying the liberties of the people. God knows I had no thought for or against liberty in my head; my whole aim being to make up a book of a decent size, that, as ‘Squire Richard says,
would do no harm to nobody
. However, they set me down as an arrant Tory, and consequently an honest man. When you come to look at any part of it, you’ll say that I am a sore Whig. God bless you, and with my most respectful compliments to her ladyship, I remain, dear sir, your most affectionate humble servant,

“OLIVER GOLDSMITH.”