Oliver Goldsmith: A Biography Part 6

"Your last letter, I repeat it, was too short; you should have given me your opinion of the design of the heroi-comical poem which I sent you. You remember I intended to introduce the hero of the poem as lying in a paltry alehouse. You may take the following specimen of the manner, which. I flatter myself is quite original. The room in which he lies may be described somewhat in this way:

"'The window, patched with paper, lent a ray That feebly show'd the state in which he lay; The sanded floor that grits beneath the tread, The humid wall with paltry pictures spread; The game of goose was there exposed to view, And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew; The Seasons, framed with listing, found a place.

And Prussia's monarch show'd his lampblack face.

The morn was cold: he views with keen desire A rusty grate unconscious of a fire; An unpaid reckoning on the frieze was scored, And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board.'

"And now imagine, after his soliloquy, the landlord to make his appearance in order to dun him for the reckoning:

"'Not with that face, so servile and so gay, That welcomes every stranger that can pay: With sulky eye he smoked the patient man, hen pull'd his breeches tight, and thus began,' etc.

[Footnote: The projected poem, of which the above were specimens, appears never to have been completed.]

"All this is taken, you see, from nature. It is a good remark of Montaigne's, that the wisest men often hare friends with whom they do not care how much they play the fool. Take my present follies as instances of my regard. Poetry is a much easier and more agreeable species of composition than prose; and could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet. I am resolved to leave no s.p.a.ce, though I should fill it up only by telling you, what you very well know already, I mean that I am your most affectionate friend and brother,

"OLIVER GOLDSMITH."

The Life of Voltaire, alluded to in the latter part of the preceding letter, was the literary job undertaken to satisfy the demands of Griffiths. It was to hare preceded a translation of the Henriade, by Ned Purdon, Goldsmith's old schoolmate, now a Grub Street writer, who starved rather than lived by the exercise of his pen, and often tasked Goldsmith's scanty means to relieve his hunger. His miserable career was summed up by our poet in the following lines written some years after the tune we are treating of, on hearing that he had suddenly dropped dead in Smithfield:

"Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed, Who long was a bookseller's hack; He led such a d.a.m.nable life in this world, I don't think he'll wish to come back."

The memoir and translation, though advertised to form a volume, were not published together; but appeared separately in a magazine.

As to the heroi-comical poem, also, cited in the foregoing letter, it appears to have perished in embryo. Had it been brought to maturity we should have had further traits of autobiography, the room already described was probably his own squalid quarters in Green Arbor Court; and in a subsequent morsel of the poem we have the poet himself, under the euphonious name of Scroggin:

"Where the Red Lion peering o'er the way, Invites each pa.s.sing stranger that can pay; Where Calvert's b.u.t.t and Parson's black champagne Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury Lane: There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug, The muse found Scroggin stretch'd beneath a rug; A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay, A cap by night, a stocking all the day!"

It is to be regretted that this poetical conception was not carried out; like the author's other writings, it might have abounded with pictures of life and touches of nature drawn from his own observation and experience, and mellowed by his own humane and tolerant spirit; and might have been a worthy companion or rather contrast to his Traveler and Deserted Village, and have remained in the language a first-rate specimen of the mock-heroic.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PUBLICATION OF THE INQUIRY--ATTACKED BY GRIFFITHS' REVIEW--KENRICK THE LITERARY ISHMAELITE--PERIODICAL LITERATURE--GOLDSMITH'S ESSAYS--GARRICK AS A MANAGER--SMOLLETT AND HIS SCHEMES--CHANGE OF LODGINGS--THE ROBIN HOOD CLUB

Toward the end of March, 1759, the treatise on which Goldsmith had laid so much stress, on which he at one time had calculated to defray the expenses of his outfit to India, and to which he had adverted in his correspondence with Griffiths, made its appearance. It was published by the Dodsleys, and ent.i.tled An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.

In the present day, when the whole field of contemporary literature is so widely surveyed and amply discussed, and when the current productions of every country are constantly collated and ably criticised, a treatise like that of Goldsmith would be considered as extremely limited and unsatisfactory; but at that time it possessed novelty in its views and wideness in its scope, and being indued with the peculiar charm of style inseparable from the author, it commanded public attention and a profitable sale. As it was the most important production that had yet come from Goldsmith's pen, he was anxious to have the credit of it; yet it appeared without his name on the t.i.tle-page. The authors.h.i.+p, however, was well known throughout the world of letters, and the author had now grown into sufficient literary importance to become an object of hostility to the underlings of the press. One of the most virulent attacks upon him was in a criticism on this treatise, and appeared in the "Monthly Review," to which he himself had been recently a contributor. It slandered him as a man while it decried him as an author, and accused him, by innuendo, of "laboring under the infamy of having, by the vilest and meanest actions, forfeited all pretensions to honor and honesty," and of practicing "those acts which bring the sharper to the cart's tail or the pillory."

It will be remembered that the "Review" was owned by Griffiths the bookseller, with whom Goldsmith had recently had a misunderstanding. The criticism, therefore, was no doubt dictated by the lingerings of resentment; and the imputations upon Goldsmith's character for honor and honesty, and the vile and mean actions hinted at, could only allude to the unfortunate p.a.w.ning of the clothes. All this, too, was after Griffiths had received the affecting letter from Goldsmith, drawing a picture of his poverty and perplexities, and after the latter had made him a literary compensation. Griffiths, in fact, was sensible of the falsehood and extravagance of the attack, and tried to exonerate himself by declaring that the criticism was written by a person in his employ; but we see no difference in atrocity between him who wields the knife and him who hires the cut-throat. It may be well, however, in pa.s.sing, to bestow our mite of notoriety upon the miscreant who launched the slander. He deserves it for a long course of dastardly and venomous attacks, not merely upon Goldsmith, but upon most of the successful authors of the day. His name was Kenrick.

He was originally a mechanic, but, possessing some degree of talent and industry, applied himself to literature as a profession. This he pursued for many years, and tried his hand in every department of prose and poetry; he wrote plays and satires, philosophical tracts, critical dissertations, and works on philology; nothing from his pen ever rose to first-rate excellence, or gained him a popular name, though he received from some university the degree of Doctor of Laws. Dr. Johnson characterized his literary career in one short sentence. "Sir, he is one of the many who have made themselves _public_ without making themselves _known_."

Soured by his own want of success, jealous of the success of others, his natural irritability of temper increased by habits of intemperance, he at length abandoned himself to the practice of reviewing, and became one of the Ishmaelites of the press. In this his malignant bitterness soon gave him a notoriety which his talents had never been able to attain. We shall dismiss him for the present with the following sketch of him by the hand of one of his contemporaries:

"Dreaming of genius which he never had, Half wit, half fool, half critic, and half mad; Seizing, like s.h.i.+rley, on the poet's lyre, With all his rage, but not one spark of fire; Eager for slaughter, and resolved to tear From other's brows that wreath he most not wear Next Kenrick came: all furious and replete With brandy, malice, pertness, and conceit; Unskill'd in cla.s.sic lore, through envy blind To all that's beauteous, learned, or refined; For faults alone behold the savage prowl, With reason's offal glut his ravening soul; Pleased with his prey, its inmost blood he drinks, And mumbles, paws, and turns it--till it stinks."

The British press about this time was extravagantly fruitful of periodical publications. That "oldest inhabitant," the "Gentleman's Magazine," almost coeval with St. John's gate which graced its t.i.tle-page, had long been elbowed by magazines and reviews of all kinds; Johnson's Rambler had introduced the fas.h.i.+on of periodical essays, which he had followed up in his Adventurer and Idler. Imitations had sprung up on every side, under every variety of name; until British literature was entirely overrun by a weedy and transient efflorescence. Many of these rival periodicals choked each other almost at the outset, and few of them have escaped oblivion.

Goldsmith wrote for some of the most successful, such as the "Bee," the "Busy-Body," and the "Lady's Magazine." His essays, though characterized by his delightful style, his pure, benevolent morality, and his mellow, un.o.btrusive humor, did not produce equal effect at first with more garish writings of infinitely less value; they did not "strike," as it is termed; but they had that rare and enduring merit which rises in estimation on every perusal. They gradually stole upon the heart of the public, were copied into numerous contemporary publications, and now they are garnered up among the choice productions of British literature.

In his Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning, Goldsmith had given offense to David Garrick, at that time the autocrat of the Drama, and was doomed to experience its effect. A clamor had been raised against Garrick for exercising a despotism over the stage, and bringing forward nothing but old plays to the exclusion of original productions. Walpole joined in this charge. "Garrick," said he, "is treating the town as it deserves and likes to be treated; with scenes, fireworks, and _his own writings_. A good new play I never expect to see more; nor have seen since the Provoked Husband, which came out when I was at school." Goldsmith, who was extremely fond of the theater, and felt the evils of this system, inveighed in his treatise against the wrongs experienced by authors at the hands of managers. "Our poet's performance," said he, "must undergo a process truly chemical before it is presented to the public. It must be tried in the manager's fire; strained through a licenser, suffer from repeated corrections, till it may be a mere _caput mortuum_ when it arrives before the public." Again. "Getting a play on even in three or four years is a privilege reserved only for the happy few who have the arts of courting the manager as well as the muse; who have adulation to please his vanity, powerful patrons to support their merit, or money to indemnify disappointment. Our Saxon ancestors had but one name for a wit and a witch.

I will not dispute the propriety of uniting those characters then; but the man who under present discouragements ventures to write for the stage, whatever claim he may have to the appellation of a wit, at least has no right to be called a conjurer." But a pa.s.sage which perhaps touched more sensibly than all the rest on the sensibilities of Garrick was the following.

"I have no particular spleen against the fellow who sweeps the stage with the besom, or the hero who brushes it with his train. It were a matter of indifference to me whether our heroines are in keeping, or our candle snuffers burn their fingers, did not such make a great part of public care and polite conversation. Our actors a.s.sume all that state off the stage which they do on it; and, to use an expression borrowed from the green room, every one is _up_ in his part. I am sorry to say it, they seem to forget their real characters."

These strictures were considered by Garrick as intended for himself, and they were rankling in his mind when Goldsmith waited upon him and solicited his vote for the vacant secretarys.h.i.+p of the Society of Arts, of which the manager was a member. Garrick, puffed up by his dramatic renown and his intimacy with the great, and knowing Goldsmith only by his budding reputation, may not have considered him of sufficient importance to be conciliated. In reply to his solicitations, he observed that he could hardly expect his friendly exertions after the unprovoked attack he had made upon his management. Goldsmith replied that he had indulged in no personalities, and had only spoken what he believed to be the truth. He made no further apology nor application; failed to get the appointment, and considered Garrick his enemy. In the second edition of his treatise he expunged or modified the pa.s.sages which had given the manager offense; but though the author and actor became intimate in after years, this false step at the outset of their intercourse was never forgotten.

About this time Goldsmith engaged with Dr. Smollett, who was about to launch the "British Magazine." Smollett was a complete schemer and speculator in literature, and intent upon enterprises that had money rather than reputation in view. Goldsmith has a good-humored hit at this propensity in one of his papers in the "Bee," in which he represents Johnson, Hume, and others taking seats in the stagecoach bound for Fame, while Smollett prefers that destined for Riches.

Another prominent employer of Goldsmith was Mr. John Newbery, who engaged him to contribute occasional essays to a newspaper ent.i.tled the "Public Ledger," which made its first appearance on the 12th of January, 1760. His most valuable and characteristic contributions to this paper were his Chinese Letters, subsequently modified into the Citizen of the World. These lucubrations attracted general attention; they were reprinted in the various periodical publications of the day, and met with great applause.

The name of the author, however, was as yet but little known.

Being now in easier circ.u.mstances, and in the receipt of frequent sums from the booksellers, Goldsmith, about the middle of 1760, emerged from his dismal abode in Green Arbor Court, and took respectable apartments in Wine-Office Court, Fleet Street.

Still he continued to look back with considerate benevolence to the poor hostess, whose necessities he had relieved by p.a.w.ning his gala coat, for we are told that "he often supplied her with food from his own table, and visited her frequently with the sole purpose to be kind to her."

He now became a member of a debating club, called the Robin Hood, which used to meet near Temple Bar, and in which Burke, while yet a Temple student, had first tried his powers. Goldsmith spoke here occasionally, and is recorded in the Robin Hood archives as "a candid disputant, with a clear head and an honest heart, though coming but seldom to the society." His relish was for clubs of a more social, jovial nature, and he was never fond of argument. An amusing anecdote is told of his first introduction to the club by Samuel Derrick, an Irish acquaintance of some humor. On entering, Goldsmith was struck with the self-important appearance of the chairman ensconced in a large gilt chair. "This," said he, "must be the Lord Chancellor at least." "No, no," replied Derrick, "he's only master of the _rolls_."--The chairman was a _baker_.

CHAPTER TWELVE

NEW LODGINGS--VISITS OF CEREMONY--HANGERS-ON--PILKINGTON AND THE WHITE MOUSE--INTRODUCTION TO DR. JOHNSON--DAVIES AND HIS BOOKSHOP--PRETTY MRS.

DAVIES--FOOTE AND HIS PROJECTS--CRITICISM OF THE CUDGEL

In his new lodgings in Wine-Office Court, Goldsmith began to receive visits of ceremony and to entertain his literary friends. Among the latter he now numbered several names of note, such as Guthrie, Murphy, Christopher Smart, and Bickerstaff. He had also a numerous cla.s.s of hangers-on, the small-fry of literature; who, knowing his almost utter incapacity to refuse a pecuniary request, were apt, now that he was considered flush, to levy continual taxes upon his purse.

Among others, one Pilkington, an old college acquaintance, but now a s.h.i.+fting adventurer, duped him in the most ludicrous manner. He called on him with a face full of perplexity. A lady of the first rank having an extraordinary fancy for curious animals, for which she was willing to give enormous sums, he had procured a couple of white mice to be forwarded to her from India. They were actually on board of a s.h.i.+p in the river. Her grace had been apprised of their arrival, and was all impatience to see them. Unfortunately, he had no cage to put them in, nor clothes to appear in before a lady of her rank. Two guineas would be sufficient for his purpose, but where were two guineas to be procured!

The simple heart of Goldsmith was touched; but, alas! he had but half a guinea in his pocket. It was unfortunate, but after a pause his friend suggested, with some hesitation, "that money might be raised upon his watch; it would but be the loan of a few hours." So said, so done; the watch was delivered to the worthy Mr. Pilkington to be pledged at a neighboring p.a.w.nbroker's, but nothing further was ever seen of him, the watch, or the white mice. The next that Goldsmith heard of the poor s.h.i.+fting scapegrace, he was on his deathbed, starving with want, upon which, forgetting or forgiving the trick he had played upon him, he sent him a guinea. Indeed, he used often to relate with great humor the foregoing anecdote of his credulity, and was ultimately in some degree indemnified by its suggesting to him the amusing little story of Prince Bonbennin and the White House in the Citizen of the World.

In this year Goldsmith became personally acquainted with Dr. Johnson, toward whom he was drawn by strong sympathies, though their natures were widely different. Both had struggled from early life with poverty, but had struggled in different ways. Goldsmith, buoyant, heedless, sanguine, tolerant of evils and easily pleased, had s.h.i.+fted along by any temporary expedient; cast down at every turn, but rising again with indomitable good-humor, and still carried forward by his talent at hoping. Johnson, melancholy, and hypochondriacal, and p.r.o.ne to apprehend the worst, yet sternly resolute to battle with and conquer it, had made his way doggedly and gloomily, but with a n.o.ble principle of self-reliance and a disregard of foreign aid. Both had been irregular at college, Goldsmith, as we have shown, from the levity of his nature and his social and convivial habits; Johnson, from his acerbity and gloom. When, in after life, the latter heard himself spoken of as gay and frolicsome at college, because he had joined in some riotous excesses there, "Ah, sir!" replied he, "I was mad and violent. It was bitterness which they mistook for frolic. _I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit_. So I disregarded all power and all authority."

Goldsmith's poverty was never accompanied by bitterness; but neither was it accompanied by the guardian pride which kept Johnson from falling into the degrading s.h.i.+fts of poverty. Goldsmith had an unfortunate facility at borrowing, and helping himself along by the contributions of his friends; no doubt trusting, in his hopeful way, of one day making retribution.

Johnson never hoped, and therefore never borrowed. In his sternest trials he proudly bore the ills he could not master. In his youth, when some unknown friend, seeing his shoes completely worn out, left a new pair at his chamber door, he disdained to accept the boon, and threw them away.

Though like Goldsmith an immethodical student, he had imbibed deeper draughts of knowledge, and made himself a riper scholar. While Goldsmith's happy const.i.tution and genial humors carried him abroad into suns.h.i.+ne and enjoyment, Johnson's physical infirmities and mental gloom drove him upon himself; to the resources of reading and meditation; threw a deeper though darker enthusiasm into his mind, and stored a retentive memory with all kinds of knowledge.

After several years of youth pa.s.sed in the country as usher, teacher, and an occasional writer for the press, Johnson, when twenty-eight years of age, came up to London with a half-written tragedy in his pocket; and David Garrick, late his pupil, and several years his junior, as a companion, both poor and penniless, both, like Goldsmith, seeking their fortune in the metropolis. "We rode and tied," said Garrick sportively in after years of prosperity, when he spoke of their humble wayfaring. "I came to London,"

said Johnson, "with twopence halfpenny in my pocket." "Eh, what's that you say?" cried Garrick, "with twopence halfpenny in your pocket?" "Why, yes; I came with twopence halfpenny in _my_ pocket, and thou, Davy, with but three halfpence in thine." Nor was there much exaggeration in the picture; for so poor were they in purse and credit that after their arrival they had, with difficulty, raised five pounds, by giving their joint note to a bookseller in the Strand.

Many, many years had Johnson gone on obscurely in London, "fighting his way by his literature and his wit"; enduring all the hards.h.i.+ps and miseries of a Grub Street writer; so dest.i.tute at one time that he and Savage the poet had walked all night about St. James's Square, both too poor to pay for a night's lodging, yet both full of poetry and patriotism, and determined to stand by their country; so shabby in dress at another time, that when he dined at Cave's, his bookseller, when there was prosperous company, he could not make his appearance at table, but had his dinner handed to him behind a screen.

Yet through all the long and dreary struggle, often diseased in mind as well as in body, he had been resolutely self-dependent, and proudly self-respectful; he had fulfilled his college vow, he had "fought his way by his literature and his wit." His Rambler and Idler had made him the great moralist of the age, and his Dictionary and History of the English Language, that stupendous monument of individual labor, had excited the admiration of the learned world. He was now at the head of intellectual society; and had become as distinguished by his conversational as his literary powers. He had become as much an autocrat in his sphere as his fellow-wayfarer and adventurer Garrick had become of the stage, and had been humorously dubbed by Smollett, "The Great Cham of Literature."