DEBTS AND DIGNITIES
All through his life Goldsmith was greatly given to grand clothes. It
is a pity that grand clothes were not always greatly given to him, for
he never appeared quite able to pay for them. Although he became
deeply involved in debt, he never cultivated luxurious or unworthy
delights. His pleasures were of the simplest. His insolvent condition
was due, true enough, to pleasure and his foremost luxury--the luxury
of ceaseless charities that he could as ill afford as a
coach-and-four. He was one of the hearts not meant to draw near the
gates of heaven alone, and could not accept a pleasure without someone
sharing it with him and having more than half.
When he gave his suppers, we find the measure of the man who always
gave more than he received, for the viands were for his friends, and a
basin of boiled milk satisfied his own demands. There is a sad message
in the milk. It showed the concealed weakness of the little man, and
the growing disease, not now ever to be wholly known, from which he
died so young. Too likely all through his life some constant, growing
pain, stealing his pleasures, stole his prudence too. He was always
frank and as open with his creditors, as he was candid with his
friends. When Newbery's account with him had become complicated, he
had no means of liquidating the reckoning save by offering the
copyright of his play, then advancing towards production under many
disadvantages.
"To tell the truth, Frank," he said, in his lofty and affable manner,
"there are very small hopes of its success."
It is almost diverting to find Goldsmith himself baffled, if not
beaten, in seeking prosperity from literature, majestically
introducing others into the sacred sphere. His name was sufficient to
lead others to those rewards that he himself needed even more than
they did. Like Johnson, Goldsmith wrote many introductions to books
and various dedications for authors, who availed themselves both of
the influence and of the ability of these distinguished leaders in the
realm of letters. When Goldsmith had become known in the world and
life of literature, and was already respected by a select circle of
the authors of the time, although his place and power were by no means
established, it was through the pressure of debt and its distresses
that the greatest work of his genius came to light.
"One morning in the year 1764," said Dr. Johnson to the faithful
Boswell, "I received a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in
great distress, and as it was not in his power to come to me, begging
that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and
promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was
dressed."
It is impossible to pass and not pause here in grateful admiration for
the true heart of Dr. Johnson, who never failed a friend or any man.
He proceeded with his confidences.
"I found," he went on, concerning Goldsmith, "that his landlady had
arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I
perceived that he had already changed my guinea and had got a bottle
of Madeira and a glass before him."
The coming passage is beautifully characteristic:
"I put the cork into the bottle," said Johnson, and then goes on with
the narrative.
"I desired he would be calm," he proceeded, "and I began to talk to
him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that
he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced. I looked into
it and saw its merits, told the landlady I should soon return, and
having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought
Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating
his landlady in high tone for having used him so ill."
Amid all his distresses, Goldsmith had been quietly and diligently
perfecting his beautiful novel, _The Vicar of Wakefield_.
Simultaneously he had been engaged upon _The Traveller_. At that very
instant it lay completed in his desk.
The pure delights of life he knew faithfully, and lovingly bestowed.
This man possessed not merely in an unusual, but in an absolutely
unique, degree the grace of sympathetic affectionateness. He fulfilled
the Pauline mandate, "Be kindly affectionate one to another." In
Goldsmith this was nothing less than very genius. His graceful letters
to his Irish friends, and, indeed, to all to whom he ever wrote,
evince the kindest and most caressing feelings imaginable. They are
about the home, the children, the pet animals, and trivial ties, and
pleasing, pleading memories and hopes. As you read, Divinity hedges
about the lowly hearths that he pictured so lovingly. It is a curious
power. When Goldsmith was at Bath, from the way that Johnson mentions
him in his letters to Langton we note how much the little doctor was
missed by his friend when he left town. It was a bright moment when
Goldsmith moved into his chambers in the Temple. Here he lived his
last years, and his literary life will always be associated more with
this place than with any other. In these rooms, amongst his friends
might have been seen old General Oglethorpe, that courageous veteran
Paoli, and the young and dauntless Grattan. Here the _Roman History_
was written. This work was greatly applauded by the critics. Its
production made Johnson burst forth into that splendour of laudation
in which he said that whatever Goldsmith did, he did better than all
others, and he counted him as an historian superior to Hume, Smollett,
and Lyttelton. Goldsmith had a fine faculty in histories for
presenting vital facts concisely, and making his pages compendious.
The grace he had by instinct others strove to create by vast
elaboration. It has been said that Robertson's ornamentations hid what
is essential in his records. No one can ever discover Goldsmith in
anything striving for effect. It is not possible now to enumerate, or
even ascertain, all the friends that came to those chambers in the
Temple. Among them may be mentioned young Craddock, with an estate in
the country, aesthetic tendencies, and literary talents. With him, in a
few light musical works that came to little, Goldsmith collaborated.
This man had that respect for the poet and the humorist his life and
character and genius deserved. When once this cultured squire
exhibited for criticism an elaborate manuscript, which in all the
peace of leisured wealth and ease, and such talent as he possessed, he
had composed with exquisite care, well might poor Goldsmith say:
"Ah, Mr. Craddock, think of me, that must write a volume every month."
[Illustration:
_Rischgitz Collection._]
2, BRICK COURT, TEMPLE, WHERE GOLDSMITH DIED.]
In his rooms in Brick Court, Temple, Goldsmith used to sit at his
window, his eyes lingering lovingly upon the flowers and the foliage
in the gardens beneath, and his heart drinking in the sweet
peacefulness of the scene. He watched the Thames gliding on silently,
serenely faithful to and fulfilling its great imperishable mission.
Rivers are the signs and the symbols of immortality. The poet saw the
rooks upon the lawns, and made new friends of these black-winged, busy
birds, and found angels' voices in the whispers of the rustling leaves
sweetly pleading. The flowers smiled up at him, as, gazing gently
down, he wreathed with welcomes all passing hearts amid many known and
unknown wanderers. There are those that have wondered, in the
inscrutable ordering of events, and feeling that strange chances take
their unexpected, often fulfilling, and often failing, part in these,
what had happened for letters and for humanity had Goldsmith met
Chatterton, who may have wearily paced the Temple Gardens, and even
have glanced up and seen Goldsmith looking down in all his tenderness.
In the literary history of this period the death of Chatterton darkens
the most painful page. At the time when this poor boy took his life
Goldsmith was not in London, and not even in England. He was in Paris.
The idea that had he encountered Chatterton it could hardly have
failed to be to the advantage, and possibly the redemption, and the
whole rescue of that young spirit, is not a charming conjecture that
has only flattery for its foundation. Oliver Goldsmith was one who
must perforce befriend the destitute. He could not let any hopeless
heart still keep its despair unmarked and not alleviated, if soothing
could prove possible. In the year 1772, a youth named Macdonald, of
Irish lineage, through the sudden death of his elder brother, found
himself friendless and alone in London, and wandering, dejected and
despairing, in the Temple Gardens. Thus, too, Chatterton might have
strayed in an even greater loneliness. The ages of these youths were
the same.
"Providence," writes Macdonald, "directed me to the Temple Gardens. I
threw myself on a seat, and willing to forget my miseries for a
moment, drew out a book. I had not been there long when a gentleman
strolling about passed near me, and observing, addressed me: 'Sir, you
seem studious. I hope you find this a favourable place.' Conversation
ensued. I told him my history. He gave me his address, and desired me
to call soon."
Goldsmith received him in the kindest manner. Macdonald became his
amanuensis. Goldsmith treated the young man throughout with unfailing
tenderness and sympathy and almost fatherly kindness and solicitude.