erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey, with the following epitaph
by Johnson, written at the solicitation of their common friends.
Olivarii Goldsmith,
Poetae, Physici, Historici
Qui nullum fere scribendi genus
Non tetigit,
Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit:
Seu risus essent movendi,
Sive lacrymae,
Affectuum potens at lenis dominator:
Ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis,
Oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus:
Hoc monumento memoriam coluit
Sodalium amor,
Amicorum fides,
Lectorum veneratio.
Natus in Hibernia, Forniae Longfordiensis,
In loco cui nomen Pallas.
Nov. XXIX, MDCCXXXI.
Eblanae literis institutus;
Obiit Londini,
April. IV. MDCCLXXIV.
It has been questioned whether there is any authority for using the word
"tetigit" as it is here employed. I have heard it observed by one, whose
opinion on such subjects is decisive, that "contigit" would have better
expressed the writer's meaning.
Another epitaph composed by Johnson in Greek, deserves notice, as it
shows how strongly his mind was impressed by Goldsmith's abilities.
[Greek:
Ton taphon eisoraas ton Olibarioio, koniaen
Aphrosi mae semnaen, xeine, podessi patei
Oisi memaele phusis, metron charis erga palaion,
Klaiete poiaetaen, istorikon, phusikon.]
"Thou beholdest the tomb of Oliver; press not,
O stranger, with the foot of folly, the venerable dust.
Ye who care for nature, for the charms of song, for
the deeds of ancient days, weep for the Historian, the Naturalist,
the Poet."
Goldsmith's stature was below the middle height; his limbs, sturdy; his
forehead, more prominent than is usual; and his face, almost round,
pallid, and marked with the small-pox.
The simpleness, almost approaching to fatuity, of his outward
deportment, combined with the power which there was within, brings to
our recollection some part of the character of La Fontaine, whom a
French lady wittily called the Fable Tree, from his apparent
unconsciousness, or rather want of mental responsibility for the
admirable productions which he was continually supplying. His propriety
and clearness, when he expresses his thoughts with his pen, and his
confusion and inability to impart them in conversation, well illustrated
the observation of Cicero, that it is very possible for a man to think
rightly on any subject, and yet to want the power of conveying his
sentiments by speech in fit and becoming language to others. "Fieri
potest ut recte quis sentiat, sed id quod sentit polite eloqui non
possit." Yet Mr. Cumberland, who was one of his associates, has informed
us, "that he had gleams of eloquence."
Johnson said of him that he was not a social man; he never exchanged
mind with you. His prevailing foible was a desire of shining in those
exterior accomplishments which nature had denied him. Vanity and
benevolence had conspired to make him an easy prey to adulation and
imposture.
His complaints of the envy by which he found his mind tormented, and
especially on the occasion of Johnson's being honoured by an interview
with the king, must have made those who heard him, lose all sense of the
evil passion, in their amusement at a confession so novel and so
pleasant.
One day, we are told, he complained in a mixed company of Lord Camden.
"I met him," said he, "at Lord Clare's house in the country, and he took
no more notice of me than if I had been an ordinary man." The story of
his peach-coloured coat will not soon be forgotten. If--
--in some men
Their graces serve them but as enemies,
Goldsmith was one of those in whom their, frailties are more likely to
serve them as friends; for they were such as could scarcely fail to
assist in appeasing malevolence and conciliating kindness. Be this as it
will, he must, with all his weaknesses, be considered as one of the
chief ornaments of the age in which he lived.
Comparisons have been made between the situation of the men eminent for
literature in Queen Anne's time and at the commencement of the reign of
George the Third. In the former, beginning to be disengaged from the
court, where they were more at home during the reign of the Charleses,
they were falling under the influence of the nobility, amongst whom they
generally found their patrons, and often their associates. In the
latter, they had been insensibly shaken off alike by the court and the
nobles, and were come into the hands of the people and the booksellers.
I know not whether they were much the worse for this change. If in the
one instance they were rendered more studious of elegance and smartness;
in the other, they attained more freedom and force. In the former, they
were oftener imitators of the French. In the latter, they followed the
dictates of a better sense, and trusted more to their own resources.
They lost, indeed, the character of wits, but they aspired to that of
instructors. Yet in one respect, and that a material one, it must be
owned, that they were sufferers by this alteration in affairs. For the
quantity of their labours having become more important under their new
masters than it was under their old ones, they had less care of
selection, and their originality was weakened by diffusiveness. They
indulged themselves but sparingly in the luxury of composing verse,
which was too thriftless an occupation to be continued long. They used
it, perhaps, as the means of attracting notice to themselves at their
first entrance on the world, but not as the staple on which they were
afterwards to depend. When the song had drawn a band of hearers around
them, it had done its duty. The crowd was to be detained and increased,
by expectations of advantage rather than of pleasure. A writer consulted
Goldsmith on what subjects he might employ his pen with most profit to
himself. "It will be better," said the author of The Traveller and the
Deserted Village, laughing indeed, but in good earnest, "to relinquish
the draggle-tail muses. For my part, I have found productions in prose
more sought after and better paid for." This is, no doubt, the reason
that his verse bears so small a proportion to his other writings. Yet it
is by the former, added to the few works of imagination which he has
left besides, that he will be known to posterity. His histories will
probably be superseded by more skilful or more accurate compilations; as
they are now read by few who can obtain information nearer to its
original sources.
In the natural manner of telling a short and humorous story, he is
perhaps surpassed by no writer of prose except Addison. In his Essays,
the style preserves a middle way between the gravity of Johnson and the
lightness of Chesterfield; but it may often be objected to them, as to
the moral writings of Johnson, that they present life to us under a
gloomy aspect, and leave an impression of despondence on the mind of the
reader.
In his poetry there is nothing ideal. It pleases chiefly by an
exhibition of nature in her most homely and familiar views. But from
these he selects his objects with due discretion, and omits to represent
whatever would occasion unmingled pain or disgust.
His couplets have the same slow and stately march as Johnson's; and if
we can suppose similar images of rural and domestic life to have
arrested the attention of that writer, we can scarcely conceive that he
would have expressed them in different language.
Some of the lines in The Deserted Village are said to be closely copied
from a poem by Welsted, called the _[Greek: Oikographia]_; but I do not
think he will be found to have levied larger contributions on it, than
most poets have supposed themselves justified in making on the neglected
works of their predecessors.
The following particulars relating to this poem, which I have extracted
from the letter of Dr. Strean before referred to, cannot fail to gratify
that numerous class of readers with whom it has been a favourite from
their earliest years.
The poem of The Deserted Village took its origin from the circumstance
of General Robert Napper (the grandfather of the gentleman who now lives
in the house within half a mile of Lissoy, and built by the General),
having purchased an extensive tract of the country surrounding Lissoy,
or _Auburn_; in consequence of which, many families, here called
_cottiers_, were removed to make room for the intended improvements of
what was now to become the wide domain of a rich man, warm with the idea
of changing the face of his new acquisition; and were forced "_with
fainting steps_," to go in search of "_torrid tracts_" and "_distant
climes_."
This fact alone might be sufficient to establish the seat of the poem;
but there cannot remain a doubt in any unprejudiced mind, when the
following are added; viz. that the character of the village-preacher,
the above-named Henry, (the brother of the poet,) is copied from nature.
He is described exactly as he lived; and his "modest mansion" as it
existed. Burn, the name of the village-master, and the site of his
school-house, and _Catherine Giraghty_, a lonely widow;
The wretched matron forced in age for bread
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread;
(and to this day the brook and ditches, near the spot where her cabin
stood, abound with cresses) still remain in the memory of the
inhabitants, and _Catherine's_ children live in the neighbourhood. The
pool, the busy mill, the house where "_nut-brown draughts inspired_,"
are still visited as the poetic scene; and the "_hawthorn-bush_" growing
in an open space in front of the house, which I knew to have three
trunks, is now reduced to one; the other two having been cut, from time
to time, by persons carrying away pieces of it to be made into toys, &c.
in honour of the bard, and of the celebrity of his poem. All these
contribute to the same proof; and the "_decent church_," which I
attended for upwards of eighteen years, and which "_tops the
neighbouring hill_," is exactly described as seen from Lissoy, the
residence of the preacher.
I should have observed, that Elizabeth Delap, who was a parishioner of
mine, and died at the age of about ninety, often told me she was the
first who put a book into Goldsmith's hand; by which she meant, that she
taught him his letters: she was allied to him, and kept a little school.
The Hermit is a pleasing little tale, told with that simplicity which
appears so easy, and is in fact so difficult, to be obtained. It was
imitated in the Ballad of a Friar of Orders Grey, in Percy's Reliques of
English Poetry.
His Traveller was, it is said, pronounced by Mr. Fox to be one of the
finest pieces in the English language. Perhaps this sentence was
delivered by that great man with some qualification, which was either
forgotten or omitted by the reporter of it; otherwise such praise was
surely disproportioned to its object.
In this poem, he professes to compare the good and evil which fall to
the share of those different nations whose lot he contemplates. His
design at setting out is to shew that, whether we consider the blessings
to be derived from art or from nature, we shall discover "an equal
portion dealt to all mankind." And the conclusion which he draws at the
end of the poem would be perfectly just, if these premises were allowed
him.
In every government though terrors reign,
Though tyrant kings or tyrant laws restrain,
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,
Our own felicity we make or find:
With secret course, which no loud streams annoy.
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,
Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel,
To men remote from power but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.
That it matters little or nothing to the happiness of men whether they
are governed well or ill, whether they live under fixed and known laws,
or at the will of an arbitrary tyrant, is a paradox, the fallacy of
which is happily too apparent to need any refutation. Nor is his
inference warranted by those particular observations which he makes for
the purpose of establishing it. When of Italy he tells us, "that sensual
bliss is all this nation knows," how is Italy to be compared either with
itself when it was prompted by those "noble aims," of which he speaks,
or with that country where he sees
The lords of human kind pass by,
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,
By forms unfashion'd, fresh from nature's hand,
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imagined right, above controul;
While e'en the peasant learns these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man?
That good is every where balanced by some evil, none will deny. But that
no effort of human courage or prudence can make one scale preponderate
over the other, and that a decree of fate has fixed them in eternal
equipoise, is an opinion which, if it were seriously entertained, must
bind men to a tame and spiritless acquiescence in whatever disadvantages
or inconveniences they may chance to find themselves involved, and leave
to them the exercise of no other public virtue than that of a blind
submission.
His poetry is happily better than his argument. He discriminates with
much skill the manners of the several countries that pass in review
before him; the illustrations, with which he relieves and varies his
main subject, are judiciously interspersed; and as he never raises his
tone too far beyond his pitch at the first starting, so he seldom sinks
much below it. The thought at the beginning appears to have pleased him;
for he has repeated it in "the Citizen of the World:"
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravel'd fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.
"The further I travel, I feel the pain of separation with stronger
force; those ties that bind me to my native country and you are still
unbroken. By every remove I only drag a greater length of chain."
To the poetical compositions of Goldsmith, in general, may be applied
with justice that temperate commendation which he has given to the works
of Parnell in his life of that Poet. "At the end of his course the
reader regrets that his way has been so short; he wonders that it gave
him so little trouble; and so resolves to go the journey over again."
There is much to solace fatigue and even to excite pleasure, but nothing
to call forth rapture. We stay to contemplate and enjoy the objects on
our road; but we feel that it is on this earth we have been travelling,
and that the author is either not willing or not able to raise us above
it. No writer in the English language has combined such various
excellences as a novelist, a writer of comedies, and a poet.
FOOTNOTES
[1] He took the degree of Bachelor of Arts, Feb. 27, 1749. _Prior's Life
of Goldsmith_, vol. i. p.98. ED.
[2] He also helped himself by writing street-ballads. _Prior_, vol. i.
p. 75. ED.
* * * * *
ERASMUS DARWIN.
Erasmus, the seventh child and fourth son of Robert Darwin, Esq. by his
wife Elizabeth Hill, was born at Elston, near Newark, in
Nottinghamshire, on the 12th of December 1731. He was educated at the
Grammar school of Chesterfield, in Derbyshire, under the Rev. Mr.
Burrows, and from thence sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he
had for his tutor Dr. Powell, afterwards Master of the College, to whose
learning and goodness, Mason, another of his pupils, has left a
testimony in one of his earliest poems.
After proceeding Bachelor in Medicine at Cambridge, Darwin went to
Edinburgh, in order to pursue his studies in that science to more
advantage. When he had been there long enough to entitle him to the
degree of Doctor in Medicine, he quitted Edinburgh, and began his
practice at Nottingham, but soon after (in 1756) removed to Lichfield.
In the following year he married Mary, daughter of Charles Howard, Esq.
a proctor in the Ecclesiastical Court of Lichfield. He was very soon
distinguished for his professional skill. The first case which he
treated with so much success as to attract the public notice, was that
of a young man of fortune, who, being in a fever, was given over by his
ordinary physician, but whom Darwin restored, probably by one of those
bold measures from which others would have shrunk, but to which he
wisely had recourse whenever a desperate malady called for a desperate
cure. His patient, whose name was Inge, was, I believe, the same whom
Johnson, in his life of Ambrose Phillips, has termed a gentleman of
great eminence in Staffordshire. Part of the wealth that now flowed in
upon him, from an extensive and opulent circle, was employed with that
liberality which in this country is perhaps oftener exercised by men of
his profession than by those of any other.
At Lichfield, he formed an intimacy with several persons, who afterwards
rose to much distinction. Of these, the most remarkable were Mr.
Edgeworth, whose skill in mechanics made him acceptable to Darwin; Mr.
Day, a man remembered to more advantage by his writings, than by the
singularities of his conduct; and Anna Seward, the female most eminent
in her time for poetical genius. The manner in which the first of these
introduced himself shall be told in his own words, as they convey a
lively description of Darwin's person and habits of life at this time.
"I wrote an account to the Doctor of the reception which his scheme"
(for preventing accidents to a carriage in turning) "had met with from
the Society of Arts. The Doctor wrote me a very civil answer; and
though, as I afterwards found out, he took me for a coach-maker, he
invited me to his house: an invitation which I accepted in the ensuing
summer. When I arrived at Lichfield, I went to inquire whether the
Doctor was at home. I was shewn into a room where I found Mrs. Darwin. I
told her my name. She said the Doctor expected me, and that he intended
to be at home before night. There were books and prints in the room, of
which I took occasion to speak. Mrs. Darwin asked me to drink tea, and I
perceived that I owed to my literature the pleasure of passing the
evening with this most agreeable woman. We talked and conversed upon
various literary subjects till it was dark; when Mrs. Darwin seeming to
be surprised that the Doctor had not come home, I offered to take my
leave; but she told me that I had been expected for some days, and that
a bed had been prepared for me: I heard some orders given to the
housemaid, who had destined a different room for my reception from that
which her mistress had upon second thoughts appointed. I perceived that
the maid examined me attentively, but I could not guess the reason. When
supper was nearly finished, a loud rapping at the door announced the
Doctor. There was a bustle in the hall, which made Mrs. Darwin get up
and go to the door. Upon her exclaiming that they were bringing in a
dead man, I went to the hall. I saw some persons, directed by one whom I
guessed to be Doctor Darwin, carrying a man who appeared to be
motionless. 'He is not dead,' said Doctor Darwin. 'He is only dead
drunk. I found him,' continued the Doctor, 'nearly suffocated in a
ditch: I had him lifted into my carriage, and brought hither, that we
might take care of him to-night.' Candles came; and what was the
surprise of the Doctor and of Mrs. Darwin, to find that the person whom
he had saved was Mrs. Darwin's brother! who, for the first time in his
life, as I was assured, had been intoxicated in this manner, and who
would undoubtedly have perished had it not been for Doctor Darwin's
humanity. During this scene I had time to survey my new friend, Doctor
Darwin. He was a large man, fat, and rather clumsy; but intelligence and
benevolence were painted in his countenance: he had a considerable
impediment in his speech, a defect which is in general painful to
others; but the Doctor repaid his auditors so well for making them wait
for his wit or his knowledge, that he seldom found them impatient. When
his brother was disposed of, he came to supper, and I thought that he
looked at Mrs. Darwin as if he was somewhat surprised when he heard that
I had passed the whole evening in her company. After she withdrew, he
entered into conversation with me upon the carriage that I had made, and
upon the remarks that fell from some members of the Society to whom I
had shewn it. I satisfied his curiosity; and having told him that my
carriage was in the town, and that he could see it whenever he pleased,
we talked upon mechanical subjects, and afterwards on various branches
of knowledge, which necessarily produced allusions to classical
literature; by these, he discovered that I had received the education of
a gentleman. 'Why! I thought,' said the Doctor, 'that you were a
coach-maker!' 'That was the reason,' said I, 'that you looked surprised at
finding me at supper with Mrs. Darwin. But you see, Doctor, how superior
in discernment ladies are even to the most learned gentlemen: I assure
you that I had not been in the room five minutes before Mrs. Darwin
asked me to tea!'"
These endeavours to improve the construction of carriages were near
costing him dear; nor did he desist till he had been several times
thrown down, and at last broke the pan of the right knee, which
occasioned a slight but incurable lameness. The amiable woman, of whom
Mr. Edgeworth has here spoken, died in 1770. Of the five children whom
she brought him, two were lost in their infancy. Charles, the eldest of
the remaining three, died at Edinburgh, in 1778, of a disease supposed
to be communicated by a corpse which he was dissecting, when one of his
fingers was slightly wounded. He had obtained a gold medal for pointing
out a test by which pus might be distinguished from mucus; and the Essay
in which he had stated his discovery was published by his father after
his death, together with another treatise, which he left incomplete, on
the Retrograde Motions of the Absorbent Vessels of Animal Bodies in some
Diseases. Another of his sons, Erasmus, who was a lawyer, in a temporary
fit of mental derangement put an end to his existence, in 1799. Robert
Waring, a physician, now in high reputation at Shrewsbury, is the only
one of these children who survived him.
A few years before he quitted Lichfield, in consequence of a second
marriage, he attempted to establish a Botanical Society in that city;
but his only associates were the present Sir Brooke Boothby, and a
proctor whose name was Jackson. Of this triumvirate, Miss Seward, who
knew them well, tells us that Jackson admired Sir Brooke Boothby, and
worshipped and aped Dr. Darwin. He became a useful drudge to each in
their joint work, the translation of the Linnaean system of vegetation
into English from the Latin. His illustrious coadjutors exacted of him
fidelity to the sense of their author, and they corrected Jackson's
inelegant English, weeding it of its pompous coarseness. Darwin had
already conceived the design of turning the Linnaean system into a poem,
which, after he had composed it, was long handed about in manuscript;
and, I believe, frequently revised and altered with the most sedulous
care. The stage on which he has introduced his fancied Queen of Botany,
and her attendants from the Rosicrusian world, has the recommendation of
being a real spot of ground within a mile of the place he inhabited. A
few years ago it retained many traces of the diligence he had bestowed
on it, and has probably not yet entirely lost them. Of this work, called
the Botanic Garden, which he retained till he thought there was no
danger of his medical character suffering from his being known as a
poet, he published, in 1789, the second part, containing the Loves of
the Plants, first; believing it to be more level to the apprehension of
ordinary readers. It soon made its way to an almost universal
popularity. With the lovers of poetry, the novelty of the subject, and
the high polish, as it was then considered, of the verse, secured it
many favourers, and the curiosity of the naturalist was not less
gratified by the various information and the fanciful conjectures which
abounded in the notes. The first part was given to the public in three
years after.