thick in the tale. The characters themselves | complex self he has contrived to furnish two characters-George Primrose and Sir William Thornhill. Even these materials were not employed for the first time. He had drawn extensively upon them before, in the story of the "Man in Black," and in other portions of his miscellaneous writings. If the male characters were family portraits, there can be little question that Mrs. Primrose had a strong resemblance to his mother, and Olivia and Sophia to his sisters; for since he left Ireland he had never sat at a domestic hearth, and had had no later experience of the female life he describes.* in several particulars are overdone. The simplicity of the vicar is delightful, but when he mistakes such a servant as Goldsmith has drawn for the owner of the house, and such women of the town for London fine ladies, the credulity of Dr. Primrose is much too great for that of the reader. Sir William Thornhill is represented as a good and sensible man, but he shows himself to be neither when he abandons his estate to a monster like his nephew, and permits the vicar to be crushed by miseries he could have averted or relieved. Yet in spite of these and numerous other blemishes of the same description, the story, from first to last, leaves a pervading sense of beauty upon the mind. This is in a large degree due to the running commentary of wise and gentle sentiments which gives the tone to the narrative, and to the charm of the serene and finished style, of what is by far the finest specimen of Goldsmith's prose. If an objection is to be made, it is that the neatness is so uniform that it grows monotonous. But its highest excellence is as a representation of domestic life, painted with the smoothness and minute fidelity of a Dutch picture. It is a phase of humanity which lies within the experience, and carries with it the sympathy, of nearly all the world, and is not the less relished that the family, with more than an ordinary amount of the amiability, have their full share of the petty weaknesses of their class. The vicar is the most perfect character in the book, but while we love him for his benevolence, his resignation, and his cheerfulness, we smile at the contrast between the sense of his conversation and the simplicity of his conduct, at the wise maxims which he utters on every occasion, and which on every occasion are overruled by the pertinacity of his wife and daughters. Nothing else in the tale equals the skill and humor with which Goldsmith has depicted the vanities and stratagems of the female part of the establishment, and especially of poor Mrs. Primrose herself, whom he barely manages to redeem from contempt. The nature, however, which he describes, is what lies chiefly upon the surface. He did not attempt to sound the depths of the heart, which is the faculty that Johnson valued most in a novelist, and the want of it in Goldsmith was a principal cause of his low estimation of the "Vicar of Wakefield." Much as Oliver had seen of life, he had no great power of seizing character. He never was able to travel far beyond the circle of his early home. The vicar was his father, and out of his not very The pecuniary obligations of Goldsmith continued to increase with his years, and he was recommended to write for the stage, a successful play at that period producing far larger profits to the author than any other species of literary composition. He acted on the advice, and, having completed in 1767 his comedy of the "Good-natured Man," offered it to Garrick. Davies informs us that Johnson took pleasure in introducing Goldsmith to his eminent acquaintances, but he had not brought him into contact with his old pupil, for a bad feeling had long existed between the actor and the poet. It was the latter that laid the foundation of the ill-will by commencing with severity upon the treatment which dramatists received from managers in a passage of his "Essay upon Polite Learning" that was aimed at Garrick. Shortly afterwards the office of secretary to the "Society of Arts and Sciences" became vacant, and Goldsmith, not very delicately, called upon the subject of his censure, who was a perfect stranger to him, and requested his vote. The manager replied that he had deprived himself of all claim to his support by delightful story is the number of subjects it has fur* One indication of the extreme popularity of this nished for pictures, some of which are as beautiful as the book which inspired them. No one who has ever seen it can forget the exquisite work of Mul ready, "The Choosing the Wedding Gown," or the masterly painting by Maclise of "Moses and the gross of Green Spectacles," which was in the Academy Exhibition of 1850. Nothing could be more faithful to the spirit of Goldsmith's characters than the expression depicted in each of the countenances in the latter picture, the emotion varying with every member of the group, and as true as it was powerful in all. No pictures are more popular than those which illustrate some literary masterpiece, and none will have a more enduring interest. The beautiful paintings of Mr. Leslie owe their reputation to their intrinsic excellence, but it cer tainly adds to the delight they afford that they give form and color to our shadowy ideas of the creations of Cervantes, Goldsmith, and Sterne. "All an unprovoked attack. "In truth," Gold- | the piece. But though not actually damned, smith said, "he had spoken his mind, and he it had only just struggled through; and the believed he was very right." They parted experiment was felt on the whole to be a with outward civility and mutual irritation, failure. Goldsmith retired with his coland met no more until they were put into leagues of the "Literary Club" to sup at the communication by Reynolds, with a view to "Turk's Head," joined gaily in the converget the "Good-natured Man" upon the stage. sation, and, as he afterwards related, when Garrick, according to Davies, expected to be he and Johnson were the guests of Dr. courted, and Goldsmith was determined not Percy at the chaplain's table at St. James's, to fawn. Differences soon broke out between "to impress them more forcibly with an idea them. Garrick demanded alterations, Gold- of his magnanimity," sang his favorite song smith was pertinacious in refusing to make about "an old woman tossed in a blanket them, and gave only a modified consent in seventeen times as high as the moon." the end; Garrick proposed that Whitehead this while," he continued, "I was suffering the laureate—we cannot say the poet-should horrid tortures, and verily believe that if I arbitrate between them, and Goldsmith re- had put a bit into my mouth it would have jected the suggestion as an insult. It at last strangled me on the spot, I was so excescame to an open rupture, and Oliver, after sively ill; but I made more noise than usual telling the actor that he suspected his con- to cover all that; and so they never perduct to be dictated by revenge for the old ceived my not eating, nor I believe at all imoffence, withdrew his comedy, and sent it to aged to themselves the anguish of my heart. Colman, the new manager of Covent-Garden When all were gone except Johnson here I theatre, who immediately accepted it. "I burst out a-crying, and even swore that I cannot help feeling a secret satisfaction," he would never write again." "All which," wrote to his new ally, "that poets for the fu- remarked Johnson, taking up the conversature are likely to have a protector who de- tion, "I thought had been a secret between clines taking advantage of their dependent you and me; and I am sure I would not situation, and scorns that importance which have said anything about it for the world." may be acquired by trifling with their anxie- When his own "Irene" met with just such ties." A little further experience of the pro- a dubious reception, and he was asked how tector of poets changed his opinion. The he felt, he replied, "Like the Monument;" words with which Garrick concluded his part and he might well wonder at the voluntary of the correspondence breathed a kindly spi- exposure of a weakness to which his sturdier rit. "It has been the business," he said, mind would have scorned to give way. The "and ever will be, of my life to live on the fortune of Johnson's tragedy and Goldbest terms with men of genius, and I know smith's comedy on their first appearance was that Dr. Goldsmith will have no reason to nearly identical. As the introduction of the change his previous friendly disposition to- bailiffs had almost cut short the performance wards me, as I shall be glad of every future of the one, so the attempt to strangle the opportunity to convince him how much I am heroine of the other upon the stage called his well wisher." forth shouts of "Murder! murder!" which were with difficulty quelled. "Irene," by the friendship of Garrick, lingered nine nights; the "Good-natured Man," as Mr. Cooke relates, "dragged through" ten; and both dramatists received one hundred pounds, in addition to their theatrical profits, for the copyright of their plays. The sum derived by Goldsmith from the performances on his "third nights," which was then the mode of remunerating the author, was four hundred pounds. Without the direct testimony of Mr. Cooke" that the success of the comedy fell infinitely short of what either Goldsmith or his friends had anticipated," we should have augured from the result that it had done by no means ill. At Covent Garden the play appeared on the 29th of January, 1768, and was opened by a prologue from the pen of Johnson, in which Goldsmith was designated "our little bard." The epithet was as distasteful to his dignity as Pope's "low-born Allen" was to the wealthy proprietor of Prior Park, and Johnson, to humor him, changed it to "anxious." Anxious enough he had reason to be, for the play long hung trembling in the balance, and at the scene of the bailiffs there burst forth a cry of "Low! vulgar !" which had nearly proved fatal to it. The irresistible comicality with which Shuter, who performed the part of Croaker, read the incendiary letter in the fourth act, coupled with the strenuous exertions of the poet's friends, who had assembled in great strength, saved VOL. XXXIV.—NO. I. The indifferent reception of the "Goodnatured Man" was not the only mortification 2 66 connected with it. When Goldsmith commenced his literary career, sentimental comedy had possession of the stage. To be solemn was as much the fashion then as is the dreary attempt to be vivacious now. He waged war from the outset with the prevailing taste, and in his "Essay on Polite Learning" vindicated the humorous exposure of absurdities from the imputation of being low. The "Good-natured Man" was a practical attempt to give effect to his theory. At the same period the Hugh Kelly with whom he had promised to dine by way of doing something for him," a man destitute of acquired knowledge but with fair natural talent, commenced a play in the approved sentimental style. Though by this time they had advanced to considerable intimacy, Goldsmith was filled with jealousy and alarm at what he considered a rival scheme, and, being questioned by somebody as to Kelly's project, he replied, "he knew nothing at all about it. He had heard there was a man of that name about town who wrote in newspapers, but of his talents for comedy, or even for the work he was engaged in, he could not judge." Kelly's piece, under the title of "False Delicacy," was brought out by Garrick at Drury-lane theatre on the 23d of January, six nights before the performance of theGood-natured Man." "All kinds of composition," said Grimm, "are good except the tiresome," and to this kind the sentimental comedy belonged. Great, nevertheless, was the success of "False Delicacy." It was played twenty nights in the season to crowded houses; the sale of it when printed was ten thousand copies; and the bookseller who purchased it, to evince his gratitude, gave the author a public breakfast and a piece of plate. The entire gains of Kelly amounted to more than seven hundred pounds. The fame of the piece was not limited to England. It was translated into German, Portuguese, and French, and was played in Lisbon and Paris with marked applause. These continental honors were perplexing to Goldsmith. He denied at first that any translation had been made, and when the fact was demonstrated beyond dispute, he gravely asserted "it must be done for the purpose of exhibiting it at the booth of foreign fairs, for which it was well enough calculated." He vented his spleen at coffeehouses as well as among his friends, and vowed "he would write no more for the stage whilst the dramatic chair was occupied by such blockheads." In the midst of these In the midst of these pangs of envy he accidentally met Kelly, who was no stranger to the abuse he had lavished upon him, in the Green-room of the CoventGarden theatre, and congratulated him faintly on the success of his comedy. "I cannot thank you," said Kelly, "for I cannot believe you." They never spoke again, but, when Goldsmith was buried, Kelly of his own accord joined the funeral procession, and wept bitterly over the grave. False Delicacy," like its author, has passed away, and the "Good-natured Man" survives. "It is the best comedy," said Johnson, "that has appeared since the Provoked Husband. There has not of late been any such character exhibited upon the stage as that of Croaker." It was with reason that Johnson was partial to Croaker, for Goldsmith acknowledged that he had borrowed the conception from the Suspirius of the "Rambler." Of the two other prominent personages Honey wood was a repetition of the many portraits from himself, and we cannot but suspect that he also found the germ of Lofty in his own addiction to unfounded boasting. The rest are agents to conduct the plot, and have little that is distinguishing. "To delineate character," he said in his preface, "had been his principal aim," and Mrs. Inchbald was of opinion that the design had been attended with conspicuous success. Croaker, Honeywood, and Lofty deserved, she said, the highest praise which could be bestowed upon the creations of the mind. of the mind. "In fiction they are perfectly original, yet are seen every day in real life." To us, on the contrary, they seem to want nature; a large alloy of the peculiarities of each is common enough in the world, but they never exist in solitary extravagance. Honey wood, Croaker, and Lofty are rather the personifications of qualities than men. The first is all childish benevolence, the second all groundless alarm, and the third a mere mouthpiece for ostentatious lies. The same objection, however, may be urged against several of the masterpieces of Molière. "To exaggerate the features of folly, to render it more thoroughly ridiculous,' was the just principle of comic satire laid down by Goldsmith in his "Essay on Learning." His mistake is to have carried the principle too far, till comedy descends to the lower level of farce. The humor is excellent of its kind. Lofty is entertaining, and the apprehensions of Croaker are ludicrous in the extreme. The misunderstandings, though not always probable, are well contrived for producing mirth, and the piece must have had a triumphant run if the insipid Honey wood had been replaced by a character of more sterling worth or more comic effect. As it is he provokes less laughter than contempt, and is too complete an illustration of the proverb that "every man's friend is every man's fool" for the serious hero of a play. Shuter selected the piece for his benefit, and the author, says Mr. Forster, “in a fit of extravagant good nature sent him ten guineas for a box ticket." In this instance we think that the gratuity of Goldsmith was the discharge of a debt, for, by saving his comedy from being damned,' Shuter had brought him fifty times the sum. On the first night of the play he told the actor that he had exceeded his own idea of the character, and that the fine comic richness of the coloring made it appear almost as new to him as to the audience. The bulk of the proceeds from the " Good-natured Man" was spent in purchasing, and furnishing with elegance, a set of chambers in Brick Court, in the Temple, for which he gave four hundred pounds. Having emptied out his pockets the instant they were filled, he had still his daily bread to earn, and for this he trusted to a "History of Rome" in two volumes which he was compiling for Davies. It was commenced in 1767, and published in May, 1769. The price paid for the copyright was two hundred and fifty guineas. This was the work which Johnson very erroneously contended placed Goldsmith above Robertson as a writer of history. Goldsmith, he said, had put into his book as much as it would hold-had told briefly, plainly, and agreeably all that the reader wanted to know; while Robertson was fanciful, cumbrous, and diffuse. "Goldsmith's abridgement," he went on, "is better than that of Lucius Florus or Eutropius; and I will venture to say that, if you compare him with Vertot in the same places of Roman History, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the art of compiling, and of saying everything he has to say in a pleasing manner.' Though there is broad truth in the commendation of Johnson, it conveys an exaggerated notion of the merit of the book, which is not only destitute of exact scholarship, but bears in the style innumerable marks of the careless haste with which it was composed. The credit he derived from his English and Roman Histories, coupled with his general fame, procured him, in December, 1769, the distinction of being nominated Professor of History in the newly-created Royal Academy of Painting, at the same time that Johnson was appointed Professor of Ancient Literature. There was neither salary nor duties attached to the office, and Goldsmith, in a stray letter to his brother Maurice in the January following, says, "I took it rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit to myself. Honors to one in my situation are something like ruffles to one that wants a shirt." A less vain and simple man would have reversed the phrase and represented the appointment as a compliment from the institution to himself. To obtain the requisite shirt, he had entered into an engagement in February, 1769, with a bookseller, Mr. Griffin, to compile a Natural History in eight volumes, at the rate of a hundred guineas a volume, and in June, encouraged by the success of his "Rome," he contracted with Davies to finish in two years a 66 History of England," in four volumes, for five hundred pounds. He was to be paid for each volume of the Natural History as the manuscript was delivered; but he was to receive nothing on the "History of England" till the whole was complete. Before the year had run out he persuaded Griffin to advance him five hundred guineas on a work he had barely begun, and, having anticipated and squandered his supplies from this source, he devoted nearly all his time to the compilation for Davies, which would bring a re turn. He had never been very sensitive in pecuniary matters, and his obtuseness increased with his difficulties. The breach of his engagements produced expostulations from the booksellers, which roused more ire than repentance. In one altercation of the kind with Davies, they agreed to refer the difference to Johnson; and Goldsmith "was enraged to find that one author should have so little feeling for another as to determine a dispute to his disadvantage in favor of a tradesman." The Mr. Robert Day, then a law student at the Middle Temple, and afterwards an Irish judge, became acquainted with him in 1769, and often visited him in conjunction with another of his countrymen, the young and at that time unknown Henry Grattan. habit of Goldsmith, according to this unexceptionable witness, was to lay aside his labors when his purse was replenished, and give himself up, while he had a sixpence left, to convivial enjoyments, and attendance at the theatres, Ranelagh, and Vauxhall. His funds dissipated, he recommenced his drudgery, and paid for his brief excesses by protracted toil. All are agreed, notwithstanding the Man in Black, Sir William Thornhill and Honeywood, that much of his money continued to be bestowed upon artful impostors, or upon persons whose circumstances were not so bad as his own. Once, as Mr. Forster relates, when he had recently performed a piece of literary task work for the sake of two guineas, he made over seven and a half to a vagabond Frenchman as a subscription to a pretended History of England in fifteen volumes. Two or three poor authors and several widows and housekeepers were his constant pensioners. "He was so humane in his disposition," says Mr. Cooke, "that his last guinea was the general boundary of his beneficence." Nay, he carried it further still, for, when he had no money to bestow upon his regular dependants, he would give them clothes, and sometimes his food. " Now, let me only suppose," he would say with a smile of satisfaction after sweeping the meal on his table into their laps, that I have eaten a heartier breakfast than usual, ard I am nothing out of pocket." Observers remarked that his benevolence, real as it was, was stimulated by ostentation, and, from his imputing the motive to the characters which he drew from himself, he was evidently conscious of the weakness. The odd simplicity which pervaded his proceedings was especially conspicuous in relation to money. He borrowed a guinea when he was destitute himself to lend it to Mr. Cooke, and endeavored in his absence to thrust it under his door. His friend, in thanking him, remarked that somebody else might have been first at the chambers, and picked up. "In truth, my dear fellow," he replied, "I did not think of that." Another acquaintance remonstrated with him for leaving money in an unlocked drawer, from which an occasional servant took what he pleased for the casual expenses of his master. "What, my dear friend," exclaimed Goldsmith, "do you take Dennis for a thief?" With all his recklessness of expenditure no man had a store of cheaper tastes, or was more easily entertained. His favorite festivity, his holiday of holidays, was to have three or four intimate friends to breakfast with him at ten o'clock, to start at eleven for walk through the fields to Highbury Barn, where they dined at an ordinary, frequented by authors, Templars, and retired citizens, for 10d. a head, to return at six and drink tea at White Conduit House, and to end the evening with a supper at the Grecian or Temple Exchange Coffeehouse. "The whole expense," says Mr. Cooke, "of the day's fête never exceeded a crown, and oftener from three and sixpence to four shillings, for which the party obtained good air, good living, and good conversation." He had got weary of the hopeless attempt to keep up his dignity, and was again willing to be happy in the secondary society where he was alone at his ease. Mr. Forster has tracked him in particular to a club of good fellows at the Globe Tavern, called the Wednesday Club from its day of meeting, and where a principal part of the pleasure was to sing songs after supper. The sort of company he met there, and the terms on which he stood with them, are amusingly exhibited in the fact that a pig-butcher was one of the members, and, piquing himself on his familiarity with the celebrated Goldsmith, always said in drinking to him, "Come, Noll, here's my service to you, old boy." Glover, an Irish adventurer, and who had been, in succession, physician, actor, and author, maliciously whispered to Noll, after one of these salutations, that he wondered he permitted such liberties from a pig-butcher. "Let him alone," said Goldsmith, " and you'll see how civilly I'll let him down." With this design he called out, at the first pause in the conversation, “Mr. B., I have the honor of drinking your good health;" to which the pig-butcher answered briskly, "Thankee, thankee, Noll." "Well, where now," inquired Glover, "is the advantage of your reproof?" and the baffled Noll had nothing to reply, except that "he ought to have known before that there was no putting a pig in the right way." Trivial as are these anecdotes, they are worth repeating, because they throw light upon the character of the man, and explain why he was the jest and riddle," as well as the "glory," of his friends. His enjoyment in all societies where he could freely give way to his natural impulses was immense." He was always cheerful and animated," says Mr. Day, "often indeed boisterous in his mirth." He went to a dance at Macklin's, and was brought to such a pitch of ecstacy by this "frisking light in frolic measures," that he threw up his wig to the ceiling, exclaiming that men were never so much like men as when they looked like boys." He prided himself on his dancing, which was not so graceful as it was hearty, and an Irish family of the name of Seguin, who were intimate with him at this period, were thrown into uncontrollable fits of laughter by seeing him go through a minuet. He loved to romp with children and join in their games. He would put the front of his wig behind to excite their mer |