Oliver Goldsmith by Washington Irving

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On the 13th of April we find Goldsmith and Johnson at the table of old
General Oglethorpe, discussing the question of the degeneracy of the human
race. Goldsmith asserts the fact, and attributes it to the influence of
luxury. Johnson denies the fact; and observes that, even admitting it,
luxury could not be the cause. It reached but a small proportion of the
human race. Soldiers, on sixpence a day, could not indulge in luxuries; the
poor and laboring classes, forming the great mass of mankind, were out of
its sphere. Wherever it could reach them, it strengthened them and rendered
them prolific. The conversation was not of particular force or point as
reported by Boswell; the dinner party was a very small one, in which there
was no provocation to intellectual display.

After dinner they took tea with the ladies, where we find poor Goldsmith
happy and at home, singing Tony Lumpkin's song of the Three Jolly Pigeons,
and another called the Humors of Ballamaguery, to a very pretty Irish tune.
It was to have been introduced in She Stoops to Conquer, but was left out,
as the actress who played the heroine could not sing.

It was in these genial moments that the sunshine of Goldsmith's nature
would break out, and he would say and do a thousand whimsical and agreeable
things that made him the life of the strictly social circle. Johnson, with
whom conversation was everything, used to judge Goldsmith too much by his
own colloquial standard, and undervalue him for being less provided than
himself with acquired facts, the ammunition of the tongue and often the
mere lumber of the memory; others, however, valued him for the native
felicity of his thoughts, however carelessly expressed, and for certain
good-fellow qualities, less calculated to dazzle than to endear. "It is
amazing," said Johnson one day, after he himself had been talking like an
oracle; "it is amazing how little Goldsmith knows; he seldom comes where he
is not more ignorant than any one else." "Yet," replied Sir Joshua
Reynolds, with affectionate promptness, "there is no man whose company is
more _liked_."

Two or three days after the dinner at General Oglethorpe's, Goldsmith met
Johnson again at the table of General Paoli, the hero of Corsica.
Martinelli, of Florence, author of an Italian History of England, was among
the guests; as was Boswell, to whom we are indebted for minutes of the
conversation which took place. The question was debated whether Martinelli
should continue his history down to that day. "To be sure he should," said
Goldsmith. "No, sir;" cried Johnson, "it would give great offense. He would
have to tell of almost all the living great what they did not wish told."
Goldsmith.--"It may, perhaps, be necessary for a native to be more
cautious; but a foreigner, who comes among us without prejudice, may be
considered as holding the place of a judge, and may speak his mind freely."
Johnson.--"Sir, a foreigner, when he sends a work from the press, ought to
be on his guard against catching the error and mistaken enthusiasm of the
people among whom he happens to be." Goldsmith.--"Sir, he wants only to
sell his history, and to tell truth; one an honest, the other a laudable
motive." Johnson.--"Sir, they are both laudable motives. It is laudable in
a man to wish to live by his labors; but he should write so as he may live
by them, not so as he may be knocked on the head. I would advise him to be
at Calais before he publishes his history of the present age. A foreigner
who attaches himself to a political party in this country is in the worst
state that can be imagined; he is looked upon as a mere intermeddler. A
native may do it from interest." Boswell.--"Or principle."
Goldsmith.--"There are people who tell a hundred political lies every day,
and are not hurt by it. Surely, then, one may tell truth with perfect
safety." Johnson.--"Why, sir, in the first place, he who tells a hundred
lies has disarmed the force of his lies. But, besides, a man had rather
have a hundred lies told of him than one truth which he does not wish to be
told." Goldsmith.--"For my part, I'd tell the truth, and shame the devil."
Johnson.--"Yes, sir, but the devil will be angry. I wish to shame the devil
as much as you do, but I should choose to be out of the reach of his
claws." Goldsmith.--"His claws can do you no hurt where you have the
shield of truth."

This last reply was one of Goldsmith's lucky hits, and closed the argument
in his favor.

"We talked," writes Boswell, "of the king's coming to see Goldsmith's new
play." "I wish he would," said Goldsmith, adding, however, with an affected
indifference, "Not that it would do me the least good." "Well, then," cried
Johnson, laughing, "let us say it would do _him_ good. No, sir, this
affectation will not pass; it is mighty idle. In such a state as ours, who
would not wish to please the chief magistrate?"

"I _do_ wish to please him," rejoined Goldsmith. "I remember a line in
Dryden:

"'And every poet is the monarch's friend,'

"it ought to be reversed." "Nay," said Johnson, "there are finer lines in
Dryden on this subject:

"'For colleges on bounteous kings depend,
And never rebel was to arts a friend.'"

General Paoli observed that "successful rebels might be." "Happy
rebellions," interjected Martinelli. "We have no such phrase," cried
Goldsmith. "But have you not the thing?" asked Paoli. "Yes," replied
Goldsmith, "all our _happy_ revolutions. They have hurt our
constitution, and _will_ hurt it, till we mend it by another HAPPY
REVOLUTION." This was a sturdy sally of Jacobitism that quite surprised
Boswell, but must have been relished by Johnson.

General Paoli mentioned a passage in the play, which had been construed
into a compliment to a lady of distinction, whose marriage with the Duke of
Cumberland had excited the strong disapprobation of the king as a
mesalliance. Boswell, to draw Goldsmith out, pretended to think the
compliment unintentional. The poet smiled and hesitated. The general came
to his relief. "Monsieur Goldsmith," said he, "est comme la mer, qui jette
des perles et beaucoup d'autres belles choses, sans s'en appercevoir" (Mr.
Goldsmith is like the sea, which casts forth pearls and many other
beautiful things without perceiving it).

"Tres-bien dit, et tres-elegamment" (very well said, and very elegantly),
exclaimed Goldsmith; delighted with so beautiful a compliment from such a
quarter.

Johnson spoke disparagingly of the learning of a Mr. Harris, of Salisbury,
and doubted his being a good Grecian. "He is what is much better," cried
Goldsmith, with a prompt good-nature, "he is a worthy, humane man." "Nay,
sir," rejoined the logical Johnson, "that is not to the purpose of our
argument; that will prove that he can play upon the fiddle as well as
Giardini, as that he is an eminent Grecian." Goldsmith found he had got
into a scrape, and seized upon Giardini to help him out of it. "The
greatest musical performers," said he, dexterously turning the
conversation, "have but small emoluments; Giardini, I am told, does not get
above seven hundred a year." "That is indeed but little for a man to get,"
observed Johnson, "who does best that which so many endeavor to do. There
is nothing, I think, in which the power of art is shown so much as in
playing on the fiddle. In all other things we can do something at first.
Any man will forge a bar of iron, if you give him a hammer; not so well as
a smith, but tolerably. A man will saw a piece of wood, and make a box,
though a clumsy one; but give him a fiddle and fiddlestick, and he can do
nothing."

This, upon the whole, though reported by the one-sided Boswell, is a
tolerable specimen of the conversations of Goldsmith and Johnson; the
farmer heedless, often illogical, always on the kind-hearted side of the
question, and prone to redeem himself by lucky hits; the latter closely
argumentative, studiously sententious, often profound, and sometimes
laboriously prosaic.

They had an argument a few days later at Mr. Thrale's table, on the subject
of suicide. "Do you think, sir," said Boswell, "that all who commit suicide
are mad?" "Sir," replied Johnson, "they are not often universally
disordered in their intellects, but one passion presses so upon them that
they yield to it, and commit suicide, as a passionate man will stab
another. I have often thought," added he, "that after a man has taken the
resolution to kill himself, it is not courage in him to do anything,
however desperate, because he has nothing to fear." "I don't see that,"
observed Goldsmith. "Nay, but, my dear sir," rejoined Johnson, "why should
you not see what every one else does?" "It is," replied Goldsmith, "for
fear of something that he has resolved to kill himself; and will not that
timid disposition restrain him?" "It does not signify," pursued Johnson,
"that the fear of something made him resolve; it is upon the state of his
mind, after the resolution is taken, that I argue. Suppose a man, either
from fear, or pride, or conscience, or whatever motive, has resolved to
kill himself; when once the resolution is taken he has nothing to fear. He
may then go and take the King of Prussia by the nose at the head of his
army. He cannot fear the rack who is determined to kill himself." Boswell
reports no more of the discussion, though Goldsmith might have continued it
with advantage; for the very timid disposition, which, through fear of
something, was impelling the man to commit suicide, might restrain him from
an act involving the punishment of the rack, more terrible to him than
death itself.

It is to be regretted in all these reports by Boswell we have scarcely
anything but the remarks of Johnson; it is only by accident that he now and
then gives us the observations of others, when they are necessary to
explain or set off those of his hero. "When in _that presence_," says
Miss Burney, "he was unobservant, if not contemptuous of every one else. In
truth, when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly forbore even answering
anything that was said, or attending to anything that went forward, lest he
should miss the smallest sound from that voice, to which he paid such
exclusive, though merited, homage. But the moment that voice burst forth,
the attention which it excited on Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain. His
eyes goggled with eagerness; he leaned his ear almost on the shoulder of
the doctor; and his mouth dropped open to catch every syllable that might
be uttered; nay, he seemed not only to dread losing a word, but to be
anxious not to miss a breathing; as if hoping from it latently, or
mystically, some information."

On one occasion the doctor detected Boswell, or Bozzy, as he called him,
eavesdropping behind his chair, as he was conversing with Miss Burney at
Mr. Thrale's table. "What are you doing there, sir?" cried he, turning
round angrily, and clapping his hand upon his knee. "Go to the table, sir."

Boswell obeyed with an air of affright and submission, which raised a smile
on every face. Scarce had he taken his seat, however, at a distance, than,
impatient to get again at the side of Johnson, he rose and was running off
in quest of something to show him, when the doctor roared after him
authoritatively, "What are you thinking of, sir? Why do you get up before
the cloth is removed? Come back to your place, sir"--and the obsequious
spaniel did as he was commanded. "Running about in the middle of meals!"
muttered the doctor, pursing his mouth at the same time to restrain his
rising risibility.

Boswell got another rebuff from Johnson, which would have demolished any
other man. He had been teasing him with many direct questions, such as What
did you do, sir? What did you say, sir? until the great philologist became
perfectly enraged. "I will not be put to the _question!_" roared he.
"Don't you consider, sir, that these are not the manners of a gentleman? I
will not be baited with _what_ and _why;_ What is this? What is
that? Why is a cow's tail long? Why is a fox's tail bushy?" "Why,
sir," replied pil-garlick, "you are so good that I venture to trouble you,"
"Sir," replied Johnson, "my being so _good_ is no reason why you
should be so _ill_." "You have but two topics, sir," exclaimed he on
another occasion, "yourself and me, and I am sick of both."

Boswell's inveterate disposition to _toad_ was a sore cause of
mortification to his father, the old laird of Auchinleck (or Affleck). He
had been annoyed by his extravagant devotion to Paoli, but then he was
something of a military hero; but this tagging at the heels of Dr. Johnson,
whom he considered a kind of pedagogue, set his Scotch blood in a ferment.
"There's nae hope for Jamie, mon," said he to a friend; "Jamie is gaen
clean gyte. What do you think, mon? He's done wi' Paoli; he's off wi' the
land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican; and whose tail do you think he has
pinn'd himself to now, mon? A _dominie_ mon; an auld dominie: he
keeped a schule, and cau'd it an acaadamy."

We shall show in the next chapter that Jamie's devotion to the dominie did
not go unrewarded.

CHAPTER FORTY

CHANGES IN THE LITERARY CLUB--JOHNSON'S OBJECTION TO GARRICK--ELECTION OP
BOSWELL

The Literary Club (as we have termed the club in Gerard Street, though it
took that name some time later) had now been in existence several years.
Johnson was exceedingly chary at first of its exclusiveness, and opposed to
its being augmented in number. Not long after its institution, Sir Joshua
Reynolds was speaking of it to Garrick. "I like it much," said little
David, briskly; "I think I shall be of you." "When Sir Joshua mentioned
this to Dr. Johnson," says Boswell, "he was much displeased with the
actor's conceit. '_He'll be of us?_' growled he. 'How does he know we
will _permit_ him? The first duke in England has no right to hold such
language.'"

When Sir John Hawkins spoke favorably of Garrick's pretensions, "Sir,"
replied Johnson, "he will disturb us by his buffoonery." In the same spirit
he declared to Mr. Thrale that if Garrick should apply for admission he
would blackball him. "Who, sir?" exclaimed Thrale, with surprise; "Mr.
Garrick--your friend, your companion--blackball him!" "Why, sir," replied
Johnson, "I love my little David dearly--better than all or any of his
flatterers do; but surely one ought to sit in a society like ours,

"'Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player.'"

The exclusion from the club was a sore mortification to Garrick, though he
bore it without complaining. He could not help continually to ask questions
about it--what was going on there--whether he was ever the subject of
conversation. By degrees the rigor of the club relaxed: some of the members
grew negligent. Beauclerc lost his right of membership by neglecting to
attend. On his marriage, however, with Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of the
Duke of Marlborough, and recently divorced from Viscount Bolingbroke, he
had claimed and regained his seat in the club. The number of members had
likewise been augmented. The proposition to increase it originated with
Goldsmith. "It would give," he thought, "an agreeable variety to their
meetings; for there can be nothing new among us," said he; "we have
traveled over each other's minds." Johnson was piqued at the suggestion.
"Sir," said he, "you have not traveled over my mind, I promise you." Sir
Joshua, less confident in the exhaustless fecundity of his mind, felt and
acknowledged the force of Goldsmith's suggestion. Several new members,
therefore, had been added; the first, to his great joy, was David Garrick.
Goldsmith, who was now on cordial terms with him, had zealously promoted
his election, and Johnson had given it his warm approbation. Another new
member was Beauclerc's friend, Lord Charlemont; and a still more important
one was Mr., afterward Sir William Jones, the famous Orientalist, at that
time a young lawyer of the Temple and a distinguished scholar.

To the great astonishment of the club, Johnson now proposed his devoted
follower, Boswell, as a member. He did it in a note addressed to Goldsmith,
who presided on the evening of the 23d of April. The nomination was
seconded by Beauclerc. According to the rules of the club, the ballot would
take place at the next meeting (on the 30th); there was an intervening
week, therefore, in which to discuss the pretensions of the candidate. We
may easily imagine the discussions that took place. Boswell had made
himself absurd in such a variety of ways, that the very idea of his
admission was exceedingly irksome to some of the members. "The honor of
being elected into the Turk's Head Club," said the Bishop of St. Asaph, "is
not inferior to that of being representative of Westminster and Surrey."
What had Boswell done to merit such an honor? What chance had he of gaining
it? The answer was simple: he had been the persevering worshiper, if not
sycophant of Johnson. The great lexicographer had a heart to be won by
apparent affection; he stood forth authoritatively in support of his
vassal. If asked to state the merits of the candidate, he summed them up in
an indefinite but comprehensive word of his own coining; he was
_clubable_. He moreover gave significant hints that if Boswell were
kept out he should oppose the admission of any other candidate. No further
opposition was made; in fact none of the members had been so fastidious and
exclusive in regard to the club as Johnson himself; and if he were pleased,
they were easily satisfied; besides, they knew that, with all his faults,
Boswell was a cheerful companion, and possessed lively social qualities.

On Friday, when the ballot was to take place, Beauclerc gave a dinner, at
his house in the Adelphi, where Boswell met several of the members who were
favorable to his election. After dinner the latter adjourned to the club,
leaving Boswell in company with Lady Di Beauclerc until the fate of his
election should be known. He sat, he says, in a state of anxiety which even
the charming conversation of Lady Di could not entirely dissipate. It was
not long before tidings were brought of his election, and he was conducted
to the place of meeting, where, besides the company he had met at dinner,
Burke, Dr. Nugent, Garrick, Goldsmith, and Mr. William Jones were waiting
to receive him. The club, notwithstanding all its learned dignity in the
eyes of the world, could at times "unbend and play the fool" as well as
less important bodies. Some of its jocose conversations have at times
leaked out, and a society in which Goldsmith could venture to sing his song
of "an old woman tossed in a blanket," could not be so very staid in its
gravity. We may suppose, therefore, the jokes that had been passing among
the members while awaiting the arrival of Boswell. Beauclerc himself could
not have repressed his disposition for a sarcastic pleasantry. At least we
have a right to presume all this from the conduct of Dr. Johnson himself.

With all his gravity he possessed a deep fund of quiet humor, and felt a
kind of whimsical responsibility to protect the club from the absurd
propensities of the very questionable associate he had thus inflicted on
them. Rising, therefore, as Boswell entered, he advanced with a very
doctorial air, placed himself behind a chair, on which he leaned as on a
desk or pulpit, and then delivered, _ex cathedra_, a mock solemn
charge, pointing out the conduct expected from him as a good member of the
club; what he was to do, and especially what he was to avoid; including in
the latter, no doubt, all those petty, prying, questioning, gossiping,
babbling habits which had so often grieved the spirit of the lexicographer.
It is to be regretted that Boswell has never thought proper to note down
the particulars of this charge, which, from the well known characters and
positions of the parties, might have furnished a parallel to the noted
charge of Launcelot Gobbo to his dog.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

DINNER AT THE DILLYS'--CONVERSATIONS ON NATURAL HISTORY--INTERMEDDLING OF
BOSWELL--DISPUTE ABOUT TOLERATION--JOHNSON'S REBUFF TO GOLDSMITH--HIS
APOLOGY--MAN-WORSHIP--DOCTORS MAJOR AND MINOR--A FAREWELL VISIT

A few days after the serio-comic scene of the elevation of Boswell into the
Literary Club, we find that indefatigable Biographer giving particulars of
a dinner at the Dillys', booksellers, in the Poultry, at which he met
Goldsmith and Johnson, with several other literary characters. His
anecdotes of the conversation, of course, go to glorify Dr. Johnson; for,
as he observes in his biography, "His conversation alone, or what led to
it, or was interwoven with it, is the business of this work." Still on the
present, as on other occasions, he gives unintentional and perhaps
unavoidable gleams of Goldsmith's good sense, which show that the latter
only wanted a less prejudiced and more impartial reporter to put down the
charge of colloquial incapacity so unjustly fixed upon him. The
conversation turned upon the natural history of birds, a beautiful subject,
on which the poet, from his recent studies, his habits of observation, and
his natural tastes, must have talked with instruction and feeling; yet,
though we have much of what Johnson said, we have only a casual remark or
two of Goldsmith. One was on the migration of swallows, which he pronounced
partial; "the stronger ones," said he, "migrate, the others do not."

Johnson denied to the brute creation the faculty of reason. "Birds," said
he, "build by instinct; they never improve; they build their first nest as
well as any one they ever build." "Yet we see," observed Goldsmith, "if you
take away a bird's nest with the eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest
and lay again." "Sir," replied Johnson, "that is because at first she has
full time, and makes her nest deliberately. In the case you mention, she is
pressed to lay, and must, therefore, make her nest quickly, and
consequently it will be slight." "The nidification of birds," rejoined
Goldsmith, "is what is least known in natural history, though one of the
most curious things in it." While conversation was going on in this
placid, agreeable and instructive manner, the eternal meddler and busybody
Boswell, must intrude, to put it in a brawl. The Dillys were dissenters;
two of their guests were dissenting clergymen; another, Mr. Toplady, was a
clergyman of the established church. Johnson, himself, was a zealous,
uncompromising churchman. None but a marplot like Boswell would have
thought, on such an occasion, and in such company, to broach the subject of
religious toleration; but, as has been well observed, "it was his perverse
inclination to introduce subjects that he hoped would produce difference
and debate." In the present instance he gamed his point. An animated
dispute immediately arose in which, according to Boswell's report, Johnson
monopolized the greater part of the conversation; not always treating the
dissenting clergymen with the greatest courtesy, and even once wounding the
feelings of the mild and amiable Bennet Langton by his harshness.

Goldsmith mingled a little in the dispute and with some advantage, but was
cut short by flat contradictions when most in the right. He sat for a time
silent but impatient under such overbearing dogmatism, though Boswell, with
his usual misinterpretation, attributes his "restless agitation" to a wish
to _get in and shine_. "Finding himself excluded," continued Boswell,
"he had taken his hat to go away, but remained for a time with it in his
hand, like a gamester, who, at the end of a long night, lingers for a
little while to see if he can have a favorable opportunity to finish with
success." Once he was beginning to speak when he was overpowered by the
loud voice of Johnson, who was at the opposite end of the table, and did
not perceive his attempt; whereupon he threw down, as it were, his hat and
his argument, and, darting an angry glance at Johnson, exclaimed in a
bitter tone, "_Take it._"

Just then one of the disputants was beginning to speak, when Johnson
uttering some sound, as if about to interrupt him, Goldsmith, according to
Boswell, seized the opportunity to vent his own _envy and spleen_
under pretext of supporting another person. "Sir," said he to Johnson, "the
gentleman has heard you patiently for an hour; pray allow us now to hear
him." It was a reproof in the lexicographer's own style, and he may have
felt that he merited it; but he was not accustomed to be reproved. "Sir,"
said he sternly, "I was not interrupting the gentleman; I was only giving
him a signal of my attention. Sir, _you are impertinent_." Goldsmith
made no reply, but after some time went away, having another engagement.

That evening, as Boswell was on the way with Johnson and Langton to the
club, he seized the occasion to make some disparaging remarks on Goldsmith,
which he thought would just then be acceptable to the great lexicographer.
"It was a pity," he said, "that Goldsmith would, on every occasion,
endeavor to shine, by which he so often exposed himself." Langton
contrasted him with Addison, who, content with the fame of his writings,
acknowledged himself unfit for conversation; and on being taxed by a lady
with silence in company, replied, "Madam, I have but ninepence in ready
money, but I can draw for a thousand pounds." To this Boswell rejoined that
Goldsmith had a great deal of gold in his cabinet, but was always taking
out his purse. "Yes, sir," chuckled Johnson, "and that so often an empty
purse."

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