Goldsmith Part 7

_Fourth Fel._ The genteel thing is the genteel thing any time: if so be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.

_Third Fel._ I likes the maxum of it, Master Muggins. What, though I am obligated to dance a bear, a man may be a gentleman for all that. May this be my poison, if my bear ever dances but to the very genteelest of tunes; 'Water Parted,' or the 'The Minuet in Ariadne.'"

Indeed, Goldsmith, however he might figure in society, was always capable of holding his own when he had his pen in his hand. And even at the outset of this comedy one sees how much he has gained in literary confidence since the writing of the _Good-natured Man_. Here there is no anxious stiffness at all; but a brisk, free conversation, full of point that is not too formal, and yet conveying all the information that has usually to be crammed into a first scene. In taking as the groundwork of his plot that old adventure that had befallen himself--his mistaking a squire's house for an inn--he was hampering himself with something that was not the less improbable because it had actually happened; but we begin to forget all the improbabilities through the naturalness of the people to whom we are introduced, and the brisk movement and life of the piece.

Fas.h.i.+ons in dramatic literature may come and go; but the wholesome good-natured fun of _She Stoops to Conquer_ is as capable of producing a hearty laugh now, as it was when it first saw the light in Covent Garden. Tony Lumpkin is one of the especial favourites of the theatre-going public; and no wonder. With all the young cub's jibes and jeers, his impudence and grimaces, one has a sneaking love for the scapegrace; we laugh with him, rather than at him; how can we fail to enjoy those malevolent tricks of his when he so obviously enjoys them himself? And Diggory--do we not owe an eternal debt of grat.i.tude to honest Diggory for telling us about Ould Grouse in the gunroom, that immortal joke at which thousands and thousands of people have roared with laughter, though they never any one of them could tell what the story was about? The scene in which the old squire lectures his faithful attendants on their manners and duties, is one of the truest bits of comedy on the English stage:

"_Mr. Hardcastle._ But you're not to stand so, with your hands in your pockets. Take your hands from your pockets, Roger; and from your head, you blockhead you. See how Diggory carries his hands. They're a little too stiff, indeed, but that's no great matter.

_Diggory._ Ay, mind how I hold them. I learned to hold my hands this way when I was upon drill for the militia. And so being upon drill--.

_Hard._ You must not be so talkative, Diggory. You must be all attention to the guests. You must hear us talk, and not think of talking; you must see us drink, and not think of drinking; you must see us eat, and not think of eating.

_Dig._ By the laws, your wors.h.i.+p, that's parfectly unpossible. Whenever Diggory sees yeating going forward, ecod, he's always wis.h.i.+ng for a mouthful himself.

_Hard._ Blockhead! Is not a bellyfull in the kitchen as good as a bellyfull in the parlour? Stay your stomach with that reflection.

_Dig._ Ecod, I thank your wors.h.i.+p, I'll make a s.h.i.+ft to stay my stomach with a slice of cold beef in the pantry.

_Hard._ Diggory, you are too talkative.--Then, if I happen to say a good thing, or tell a good story at table, you must not all burst out a-laughing, as if you made part of the company.

_Dig._ Then ecod your wors.h.i.+p must not tell the story of Ould Grouse in the gunroom: I can't help laughing at that--he! he! he!--for the soul of me. We have laughed at that these twenty years--ha! ha! ha!

_Hard._ Ha! ha! ha! The story is a good one. Well, honest Diggory, you may laugh at that--but still remember to be attentive. Suppose one of the company should call for a gla.s.s of wine, how will you behave? A gla.s.s of wine, sir, if-you please (_to_ DIGGORY).--Eh, why don't you move?

_Dig._ Ecod, your wors.h.i.+p, I never have courage till I see the eatables and drinkables brought upo' the table, and then I'm as bauld as a lion.

_Hard._ What, will n.o.body move?

_First Serv._ I'm not to leave this pleace.

_Second Serv._ I'm sure it's no pleace of mine.

_Third Serv._ Nor mine, for sartain.

_Dig._ Wauns, and I'm sure it canna be mine."

No doubt all this is very "low" indeed; and perhaps Mr. Colman may be forgiven for suspecting that the refined wits of the day would be shocked by these rude humours of a parcel of servants. But all that can be said in this direction was said at the time by Horace Walpole, in a letter to a friend of his; and this criticism is so amusing in its pretence and imbecility that it is worth quoting at large. "Dr.

Goldsmith has written a comedy," says this profound critic, "--no, it is the lowest of all farces; it is not the subject I condemn, though very vulgar, but the execution. The drift tends to no moral, no edification of any kind--the situations, however, are well imagined, and make one laugh in spite of the grossness of the dialogue, the forced witticisms, and total improbability of the whole plan and conduct. But what disgusts me most is, that though the characters are very low, and aim at low humour, not one of them says a sentence that is natural, or marks any character at all." Horace Walpole sighing for edification--from a Covent Garden comedy! Surely, if the old G.o.ds have any laughter left, and if they take any notice of what is done in the literary world here below, there must have rumbled through the courts of Olympus a guffaw of sardonic laughter, when that solemn criticism was put down on paper.

Meanwhile Colman's original fears had developed into a sort of stupid obstinacy. He was so convinced that the play would not succeed, that he would spend no money in putting it on the stage; while far and wide he announced its failure as a foregone conclusion. Under this gloom of vaticination the rehearsals were nevertheless proceeded with--the brunt of the quarrels among the players falling wholly on Goldsmith, for the manager seems to have withdrawn in despair; while all the Johnson confraternity were determined to do what they could for Goldsmith on the opening night. That was the 15th of March, 1773. His friends invited the author to dinner as a prelude to the play; Dr.

Johnson was in the chair; there was plenty of gaiety. But this means of keeping up the anxious author's spirits was not very successful.

Goldsmith's mouth, we are told by Reynolds, became so parched "from the agitation of his mind, that he was unable to swallow a single mouthful." Moreover, he could not face the ordeal of sitting through the play; when his friends left the tavern and betook themselves to the theatre, he went away by himself; and was subsequently found walking in St. James's Park. The friend who discovered him there, persuaded him that his presence in the theatre might be useful in case of an emergency; and ultimately got him to accompany him to Covent Garden. When Goldsmith reached the theatre, the fifth act had been begun.

Oddly enough, the first thing he heard on entering the stage-door was a hiss. The story goes that the poor author was dreadfully frightened; and that in answer to a hurried question, Colman exclaimed, "Psha!

Doctor, don't be afraid of a squib, when we have been sitting these two hours on a barrel of gunpowder." If this was meant as a hoax, it was a cruel one; if meant seriously, it was untrue. For the piece had turned out a great hit. From beginning to end of the performance the audience were in a roar of laughter; and the single hiss that Goldsmith unluckily heard was so markedly exceptional, that it became the talk of the town, and was variously attributed to one or other of Goldsmith's rivals. Colman, too, suffered at the hands of the wits for his gloomy and falsified predictions; and had, indeed, to beg Goldsmith to intercede for him. It is a great pity that Boswell was not in London at this time; for then we might have had a description of the supper that naturally would follow the play, and of Goldsmith's demeanour under this new success. Besides the gratification, moreover, of his choice of materials being approved by the public, there was the material benefit accruing to him from the three "author's nights."

These are supposed to have produced nearly five hundred pounds--a substantial sum in those days.

Boswell did not come to London till the second of April following; and the first mention we find of Goldsmith is in connection with an incident which has its ludicrous as well as its regrettable aspect.

The further success of _She Stoops to Conquer_ was not likely to propitiate the wretched hole-and-corner cut-throats that infested the journalism of that day. More especially was Kenrick driven mad with envy; and so, in a letter addressed to the _London Packet_, this poor creature determined once more to set aside the judgment of the public, and show Dr. Goldsmith in his true colours. The letter is a wretched production, full of personalities only fit for an angry washerwoman, and of rancour without point. But there was one pa.s.sage in it that effectually roused Goldsmith's rage; for here the Jessamy Bride was introduced as "the lovely H----k." The letter was anonymous; but the publisher of the print, a man called Evans, was known; and so Goldsmith thought he would go and give Evans a beating. If he had asked Johnson's advice about the matter, he would no doubt have been told to pay no heed at all to anonymous scurrility--certainly not to attempt to reply to it with a cudgel. When Johnson heard that Foote meant to "take him off," he turned to Davies and asked him what was the common price of an oak stick; but an oak stick in Johnson's hands, and an oak stick in Goldsmith's Lands, were two different things.

However, to the bookseller's shop the indignant poet proceeded, in company with a friend; got hold of Evans; accused him of having insulted a young lady by putting her name in his paper; and, when the publisher would fain have s.h.i.+fted the responsibility on to the editor, forthwith denounced him as a rascal, and hit him over the back with his cane. The publisher, however, was quite a match for Goldsmith; and there is no saying how the deadly combat might have ended, had not a lamp been broken overhead, the oil of which drenched both the warriors. This intervention of the superior G.o.ds was just as successful as a Homeric cloud; the fray ceased; Goldsmith and his friend withdrew; and ultimately an action for a.s.sault was compromised by Goldsmith's paying fifty pounds to a charity. Then the howl of the journals arose. Their prerogative had been a.s.sailed. "Attacks upon private character were the most liberal existing source of newspaper income," Mr. Forster writes; and so the pack turned with one cry on the unlucky poet. There was nothing of "the Monument" about poor Goldsmith; and at last he was worried into writing a letter of defence addressed to the public. "He has indeed done it very well," said Johnson to Boswell, "but it is a foolish thing well done." And further he remarked, "Why, sir, I believe it is the first time he has _beat_; he may have _been beaten_ before. This, sir, is a new plume to him."

CHAPTER XVII.

INCREASING DIFFICULTIES.--THE END.

The pecuniary success of _She Stoops to Conquer_ did but little to relieve Goldsmith from those financial embarra.s.sments which were now weighing heavily on his mind. And now he had less of the old high spirits that had enabled him to laugh off the cares of debt. His health became disordered; an old disease renewed its attacks, and was grown more violent because of his long-continued sedentary habits.

Indeed, from this point to the day of his death--not a long interval, either--we find little but a record of successive endeavours, some of them wild and hopeless enough, to obtain money anyhow. Of course he went to the Club, as usual; and gave dinner-parties; and had a laugh or a song ready for the occasion. It is possible, also, to trace a certain growth of confidence in himself, no doubt the result of the repeated proofs of his genius he had put before his friends. It was something more than mere personal intimacy that justified the rebuke he administered to Reynolds, when the latter painted an allegorical picture representing the triumph of Beattie and Truth over Voltaire and Scepticism. "It very ill becomes a man of your eminence and character," he said, "to debase so high a genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie and his book will be forgotten in ten years, while Voltaire's fame will last for ever. Take care it does not perpetuate this picture, to the shame of such a man as you." He was aware, too, of the position he had won for himself in English literature. He knew that people in after-days would ask about him; and it was with no sort of unwarrantable vainglory that he gave Percy certain materials for a biography which he wished him to undertake.

Hence the _Percy Memoir_.

He was only forty-five when he made this request; and he had not suffered much from illness during his life; so that there was apparently no grounds for imagining that the end was near. But at this time Goldsmith began to suffer severe fits of depression; and he grew irritable and capricious of temper--no doubt another result of failing health. He was embroiled in disputes with the booksellers; and, on one occasion, seems to have been much hurt because Johnson, who had been asked to step in as arbiter, decided against him. He was offended with Johnson on another occasion because of his sending away certain dishes at a dinner given to him by Goldsmith, as a hint that these entertainments were too luxurious for one in Goldsmith's position. It was probably owing to some temporary feeling of this sort--perhaps to some expression of it on Goldsmith's part--that Johnson spoke of Goldsmith's "malice" towards him. Mrs. Thrale had suggested that Goldsmith would be the best person to write Johnson's biography. "The dog would write it best, to be sure," said Johnson, "but his particular malice towards me, and general disregard of truth, would make the book useless to all and injurious to my character." Of course it is always impossible to say what measure of jocular exaggeration there may not be in a chance phrase such as this: of the fact that there was no serious or permanent quarrel between the two friends we have abundant proof in Boswell's faithful pages.

To return to the various endeavours made by Goldsmith and his friends to meet the difficulties now closing in around him, we find, first of all, the familiar hack-work. For two volumes of a _History of Greece_ he had received from Griffin 250. Then his friends tried to get him a pension from the Government; but this was definitely refused. An expedient of his own seemed to promise well at first. He thought of bringing out a _Popular Dictionary of Arts and Sciences_, a series of contributions mostly by his friends, with himself as editor; and among those who offered to a.s.sist him were Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, and Dr.

Burney. But the booksellers were afraid. The project would involve a large expense; and they had no high opinion of Goldsmith's business habits. Then he offered to alter _The Good-natured Man_ for Garrick; but Garrick preferred to treat with him for a new comedy, and generously allowed him to draw on him for the money in advance. This last help enabled him to go to Barton for a brief holiday; but the relief was only temporary. On his return to London even his nearest friends began to observe the change in his manner. In the old days Goldsmith had faced pecuniary difficulties with a light heart; but now, his health broken, and every avenue of escape apparently closed, he was giving way to despair. His friend Cradock, coming up to town, found Goldsmith in a most despondent condition; and also hints that the unhappy author was trying to conceal the true state of affairs. "I believe," says Cradock, "he died miserable, and that his friends were not entirely aware of his distress."

And yet it was during this closing period of anxiety, despondency, and gloomy foreboding, that the brilliant and humorous lines of _Retaliation_ were written--that last scintillation of the bright and happy genius that was soon to be extinguished for ever. The most varied accounts have been given of the origin of this _jeu d'esprit_; and even Garrick's, which was meant to supersede and correct all others, is self-contradictory. For according to this version of the story, which was found among the Garrick papers, and which is printed in Mr. Cunningham's edition of Goldsmith's works, the whole thing arose out of Goldsmith and Garrick resolving one evening at the St.

James's Coffee House to write each other's epitaph. Garrick's well-known couplet was instantly produced:

"Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll."

Goldsmith, according to Garrick, either would not or could not retort at the moment; "but went to work, and some weeks after produced the following printed poem, called _Retaliation_." But Garrick himself goes on to say, "The following poems in ma.n.u.script were written by several of the gentlemen on purpose to provoke the Doctor to an answer, which came forth at last with great credit to him in _Retaliation_." The most probable version of the story, which may be pieced together from various sources, is that at the coffee-house named this business of writing comic epitaphs was started some evening or other by the whole company; that Goldsmith and Garrick pitted themselves against each other; that thereafter Goldsmith began as occasion served to write similar squibs about his friends, which were shown about as they were written; that thereupon those gentlemen, not to be behindhand, composed more elaborate pieces in proof of their wit; and that, finally, Goldsmith resolved to bind these fugitive lines of his together in a poem, which he left unfinished, and which, under the name of _Retaliation_, was published after his death. This hypothetical account receives some confirmation from the fact that the scheme of the poem and its component parts do not fit together well; the introduction looks like an after-thought; and has not the freedom and pungency of a piece of improvisation. An imaginary dinner is described, the guests being Garrick, Reynolds, Burke, c.u.mberland, and the rest of them, Goldsmith last of all. More wine is called for, until the whole of his companions have fallen beneath the table:

"Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head, Let me ponder, and tell what I think of the _dead_."

This is a somewhat clumsy excuse for introducing a series of epitaphs; but the epitaphs amply atone for it. That on Garrick is especially remarkable as a bit of character-sketching; its shrewd hints--all in perfect courtesy and good humour--going a little nearer to the truth than is common in epitaphs of any sort:--

"Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can; An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.

As an actor, confessed without rival to s.h.i.+ne: As a wit, if not first, in the very first line: Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart, The man had his failings, a dupe to his art.

Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread, And beplastered with rouge his own natural red.

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting; 'Twas only that, when he was off, he was acting.

With no reason on earth to go out of his way, He turned and he varied full ten times a day: Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick If they were not his own by finessing and trick; He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack, For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.

Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came; And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame; Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease, Who peppered the highest was surest to please.

But let us be candid, and speak out our mind: If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.

Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave, What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave!

How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you raised, While he was be-Rosciused, and you were bepraised.

But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies, To act as an angel and mix with the skies: Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will; Old Shakespeare receive him with praise and with love, And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above."

The truth is that Goldsmith, though he was ready to bless his "honest little man" when he received from him sixty pounds in advance for a comedy not begun, never took quite so kindly to Garrick as to some of his other friends. There is no pretence of discrimination at all, for example, in the lines devoted in this poem to Reynolds. All the generous enthusiasm of Goldsmith's Irish nature appears here; he will admit of no possible rival to this especial friend of his:--

"Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind, He has not left a wiser or better behind."

There is a tradition that the epitaph on Reynolds, ending with the unfinished line

"By flattery unspoiled ..."