Goldsmith Part 6

"On Torno's cliffs or Pambamarca's side;"

and the poet, in the closing lines of the poem, bids her a pa.s.sionate and tender farewell:--

"And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid, Still first to fly where sensual joys invade; Unfit in these degenerate times of shame To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame; Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried, My shame in crowds, my solitary pride; Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe, That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so; Thou guide by which the n.o.bler arts excel, Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!

Farewell, and O! where'er thy voice be tried, On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side, Whether where equinoctial fervours glow, Or winter wraps the polar world in snow, Still let thy voice, prevailing over time, Redress the rigours of the inclement clime; Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain; 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; That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away; While self-dependent power can time defy, As rocks resist the billows and the sky."

So ends this graceful, melodious, tender poem, the position of which in English literature, and in the estimation of all who love English literature, has not been disturbed by any fluctuations of literary fas.h.i.+on. We may give more attention at the moment to the new experiments of the poetic method; but we return only with renewed grat.i.tude to the old familiar strain, not the least merit of which is that it has nothing about it of foreign tricks or graces. In English literature there is nothing more thoroughly English than these writings produced by an Irishman. And whether or not it was Paddy Byrne, and Catherine Geraghty, and the Lissoy ale-house that Goldsmith had in his mind when he was writing the poem, is not of much consequence: the manner and language and feeling are all essentially English; so that we never think of calling Goldsmith anything but an English poet.

The poem met with great and immediate success. Of course everything that Dr. Goldsmith now wrote was read by the public; he had not to wait for the recommendation of the reviews; but, in this case, even the reviews had scarcely anything but praise in the welcome of his new book. It was dedicated, in graceful and ingenious terms, to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who returned the compliment by painting a picture and placing on the engraving of it this inscription: "This attempt to express a character in the _Deserted Village_ is dedicated to Dr.

Goldsmith by his sincere friend and admirer, Sir Joshua Reynolds."

What Goldsmith got from Griffin for the poem is not accurately known; and this is a misfortune, for the knowledge would have enabled us to judge whether at that time it was possible for a poet to court the draggle-tail muses without risk of starvation. But if fame were his chief object in the composition of the poem, he was sufficiently rewarded; and it is to be surmised that by this time the people in Ireland--no longer implored to get subscribers--had heard of the proud position won by the vagrant youth who had "taken the world for his pillow" some eighteen years before.

That his own thoughts had sometimes wandered back to the scenes and friends of his youth during this labour of love, we know from his letters. In January of this year, while as yet the _Deserted Village_ was not quite through the press, he wrote to his brother Maurice; and expressed himself as most anxious to hear all about the relatives from whom he had been so long parted. He has something to say about himself too; wishes it to be known that the King has lately been pleased to make him Professor of Ancient History "in a Royal Academy of Painting which he has just established;" but gives no very flouris.h.i.+ng account of his circ.u.mstances. "Honours to one in my situation are something like ruffles to a man that wants a s.h.i.+rt." However, there is some small legacy of fourteen or fifteen pounds left him by his uncle Contarine, which he understands to be in the keeping of his cousin Lawder; and to this wealth he is desirous of foregoing all claim: his relations must settle how it may be best expended. But there is not a reference to his literary achievements, or the position won by them; not the slightest yielding to even a pardonable vanity; it is a modest, affectionate letter. The only hint that Maurice Goldsmith receives of the esteem in which his brother is held in London, is contained in a brief mention of Johnson, Burke, and others as his friends. "I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture of myself, as I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer. I have ordered it to be left for her at George Faulkenor's, folded in a letter. The face, you well know, is ugly enough; but it is finely painted. I will shortly also send my friends over the Shannon some mezzotinto prints of myself, and some more of my friends here, such as Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Colman. I believe I have written an hundred letters to different friends in your country, and never received an answer from any of them. I do not know how to account for this, or why they are unwilling to keep up for me those regards which I must ever retain for them." The letter winds up with an appeal for news, news, news.

CHAPTER XV.

OCCASIONAL WRITINGS.

Some two months after the publication of the _Deserted Village_, when its success had been well a.s.sured, Goldsmith proposed to himself the relaxation of a little Continental tour; and he was accompanied by three ladies, Mrs. Horneck and her two pretty daughters, who doubtless took more charge of him than he did of them. This Mrs. Horneck, the widow of a certain Captain Horneck, was connected with Reynolds, while Burke was the guardian of the two girls; so that it was natural that they should make the acquaintance of Dr. Goldsmith. A foolish attempt has been made to weave out of the relations supposed to exist between the younger of the girls and Goldsmith an imaginary romance; but there is not the slightest actual foundation for anything of the kind.

Indeed the best guide we can have to the friendly and familiar terms on which he stood with regard to the Hornecks and their circle, is the following careless and jocular reply to a chance invitation sent him by the two sisters:--

"Your mandate I got, You may all go to pot; Had your senses been right, You'd have sent before night; As I hope to be saved, I put off being shaved; For I could not make bold, While the matter was cold, To meddle in suds, Or to put on my duds; So tell Horneck and Nesbitt And Baker and his bit, And Kauffman beside, And the Jessamy bride; With the rest of the crew, The Reynoldses two, Little Comedy's face And the Captain in lace.

Yet how can I when vext Thus stray from my text?

Tell each other to rue Your Devons.h.i.+re crew, For sending so late To one of my state.

But 'tis Reynolds's way From wisdom to stray, And Angelica's whim To be frolic like him.

But, alas! your good wors.h.i.+ps, how could they be wiser, When both have been spoiled in to-day's _Advertiser_?"

"The Jessamy Bride" was the pet nickname he had bestowed on the younger Miss Horneck--the heroine of the speculative romance just mentioned; "Little Comedy" was her sister; "the Captain in lace" their brother, who was in the Guards. No doubt Mrs. Horneck and her daughters were very pleased to have with them on this Continental trip so distinguished a person as Dr. Goldsmith; and he must have been very ungrateful if he was not glad to be provided with such charming companions. The story of the sudden envy he displayed of the admiration excited by the two handsome young Englishwomen as they stood at a hotel-window in Lille, is so incredibly foolish that it needs scarcely be repeated here; unless to repeat the warning that, if ever anybody was so dense as not to see the humour of that piece of acting, one had better look with grave suspicion on every one of the stories told about Goldsmith's vanities and absurdities.

Even with such pleasant companions, the trip to Paris was not everything he had hoped. "I find," he wrote to Reynolds from Paris, "that travelling at twenty and at forty are very different things. I set out with all my confirmed habits about me, and can find nothing on the Continent so good as when I formerly left it. One of our chief amus.e.m.e.nts here is scolding at everything we meet with, and praising every thing and every person we left at home. You may judge therefore whether your name is not frequently bandied at table among us. To tell you the truth, I never thought I could regret your absence so much, as our various mortifications on the road have often taught me to do. I could tell you of disasters and adventures without number, of our lying in barns, and of my being half poisoned with a dish of green peas, of our quarrelling with postilions and being cheated by our landladies, but I reserve all this for a happy hour which I expect to share with you upon my return." The fact is that although Goldsmith had seen a good deal of foreign travel, the manner of his making the grand tour in his youth was not such as to fit him for acting as courier to a party of ladies. However, if they increased his troubles, they also shared them; and in this same letter he bears explicit testimony to the value of their companions.h.i.+p. "I will soon be among you, better pleased with my situation at home than I ever was before.

And yet I must say, that if anything could make France pleasant, the very good women with whom I am at present would certainly do it. I could say more about that, but I intend showing them this letter before I send it away." Mrs. Horneck, Little Comedy, the Jessamy Bride, and the Professor of Ancient History at the Royal Academy, all returned to London; the last to resume his round of convivialities at taverns, excursions into regions of more fas.h.i.+onable amus.e.m.e.nt along with Reynolds, and task-work aimed at the pockets of the booksellers.

It was a happy-go-lucky sort of life. We find him now showing off his fine clothes and his sword and wig at Ranelagh Gardens, and again shut up in his chambers compiling memoirs and histories in hot haste; now the guest of Lord Clare, and figuring at Bath, and again delighting some small domestic circle by his quips and cranks; playing jokes for the amus.e.m.e.nt of children, and writing comic letters in verse to their elders; everywhere and at all times merry, thoughtless, good-natured.

And, of course, we find also his humorous pleasantries being mistaken for blundering stupidity. In perfect good faith Boswell describes how a number of people burst out laughing when Goldsmith publicly complained that he had met Lord Camden at Lord Clare's house in the country, "and he took no more notice of me than if I had been an ordinary man." Goldsmith's claiming to be a very extraordinary person was precisely a stroke of that humorous self-depreciation in which he was continually indulging; and the Jessamy Bride has left it on record that "on many occasions, from the peculiar manner of his humour, and a.s.sumed frown of countenance, what was often uttered in jest was mistaken by those who did not know him for earnest." This would appear to have been one of those occasions. The company burst out laughing at Goldsmith's having made a fool of himself; and Johnson was compelled to come to his rescue. "Nay, gentlemen, Dr. Goldsmith is in the right.

A n.o.bleman ought to have made up to such a man as Goldsmith; and I think it is much against Lord Camden that he neglected him."

Mention of Lord Clare naturally recalls the _Haunch of Venison_.

Goldsmith was particularly happy in writing bright and airy verses; the grace and lightness of his touch has rarely been approached. It must be confessed, however, that in this direction he was somewhat of an Autolycus; unconsidered trifles he freely appropriated; but he committed these thefts with scarcely any concealment, and with the most charming air in the world. In fact some of the s.n.a.t.c.hes of verse which he contributed to the _Bee_ scarcely profess to be anything else than translations, though the originals are not given. But who is likely to complain when we get as the result such a delightful piece of nonsense as the famous Elegy on that Glory of her s.e.x, Mrs. Mary Blaize, which has been the parent of a vast progeny since Goldsmith's time?

"Good people all, with one accord Lament for Madam Blaize, Who never wanted a good word, From those who spoke her praise.

"The needy seldom pa.s.sed her door, And always found her kind; She freely lent to all the poor,-- Who left a pledge behind.

"She strove the neighbourhood to please, With manners wondrous winning; And never followed wicked ways,-- Unless when she was sinning.

"At church, in silks and satins new, With hoop of monstrous size, She never slumbered in her pew,-- But when she shut her eyes.

"Her love was sought, I do aver, By twenty beaux and more; The king himself has followed her,-- When she has walked before.

"But now her wealth and finery fled, Her hangers-on cut short all; The doctors found, when she was dead,-- Her last disorder mortal.

"Let us lament, in sorrow sore, For Kent Street well may say, That had she lived a twelvemonth more,-- She had not died to-day."

The _Haunch of Venison_, on the other hand, is a poetical letter of thanks to Lord Clare--an easy, jocular epistle, in which the writer has a cut or two at certain of his literary brethren. Then, as he is looking at the venison, and determining not to send it to any such people as Hiffernan or Higgins, who should step in but our old friend Beau Tibbs, or some one remarkably like him in manner and speech?--

"While thus I debated, in reverie centred, An acquaintance, a friend as he called himself, entered; An under-bred, fine-spoken fellow was he, And he smiled as he looked at the venison and me.

'What have we got here?--Why this is good eating!

Your own, I suppose--or is it in waiting?'

'Why, whose should it be?' cried I with a flounce; 'I get these things often'--but that was a bounce: 'Some lords, my acquaintance, that settle the nation, Are pleased to be kind--but I hate ostentation.'

'If that be the case then,' cried he, very gay, 'I'm glad I have taken this house in my way.

To-morrow you take a poor dinner with me; No words--I insist on't--precisely at three; We'll have Johnson, and Burke; all the wits will be there; My acquaintance is slight, or I'd ask my Lord Clare.

And now that I think on't, as I am a sinner!

We wanted this venison to make out the dinner.

What say you--a pasty? It shall, and it must, And my wife, little Kitty, is famous for crust.

Here, porter! this venison with me to Mile End; No stirring--I beg--my dear friend--my dear friend!'

Thus, s.n.a.t.c.hing his hat, he brushed off like the wind, And the porter and eatables followed behind."

We need not follow the vanished venison--which did not make its appearance at the banquet any more than did Johnson or Burke--further than to say that if Lord Clare did not make it good to the poet he did not deserve to have his name a.s.sociated with such a clever and careless _jeu d'esprit_.

CHAPTER XVI.

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER.

But the writing of smart verses could not keep Dr. Goldsmith alive, more especially as dinner-parties, Ranelagh masquerades, and similar diversions pressed heavily on his finances. When his _History of England_ appeared, the literary cut-throats of the day accused him of having been bribed by the Government to betray the liberties of the people:[3] a foolish charge. What Goldsmith got for the _English History_ was the sum originally stipulated for, and now no doubt all spent; with a further sum of fifty guineas for an abridgment of the work. Then, by this time, he had persuaded Griffin to advance him the whole of the eight hundred guineas for the _Animated Nature_, though he had only done about a third part of the book. At the instigation of Newbery he had begun a story after the manner of the _Vicar of Wakefield_; but it appears that such chapters as he had written were not deemed to be promising; and the undertaking was abandoned. The fact is, Goldsmith was now thinking of another method of replenis.h.i.+ng his purse. The _Vicar of Wakefield_ had brought him little but reputation; the _Good-natured Man_ had brought him 500. It was to the stage that he now looked for a.s.sistance out of the financial slough in which he was plunged. He was engaged in writing a comedy; and that comedy was _She Stoops to Conquer_.

[Footnote 3: "G.o.d 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 n.o.body.'"--Goldsmith to Langton, September, 1771.]

In the Dedication to Johnson which was prefixed to this play on its appearance in type, Goldsmith hints that the attempt to write a comedy not of the sentimental order then in fas.h.i.+on, was a hazardous thing; and also that Colman, who saw the piece in its various stages, was of this opinion too. Colman threw cold water on the undertaking from the very beginning. It was only extreme pressure on the part of Goldsmith's friends that induced--or rather compelled--him to accept the comedy; and that, after he had kept the unfortunate author in the tortures of suspense for month after month. But although Goldsmith knew the danger, he was resolved to face it. He hated the sentimentalists and all their works; and determined to keep his new comedy faithful to nature, whether people called it low or not. His object was to raise a genuine, hearty laugh; not to write a piece for school declamation; and he had enough confidence in himself to do the work in his own way. Moreover he took the earliest possible opportunity, in writing this piece, of poking fun at the sensitive creatures who had been shocked by the "vulgarity" of _The Good-natured Man_. "Bravo! Bravo!" cry the jolly companions of Tony Lumpkin, when that promising buckeen has finished his song at the Three Pigeons; then follows criticism:--

"_First Fellow._ The squire has got s.p.u.n.k in him.

_Second Fel._ I loves to hear him sing, bekeays he never gives us nothing that's low.

_Third Fel._ O d.a.m.n anything that's low, I cannot bear it.