SOCIAL RESORTS--THE SHILLING WHIST CLUB--A PRACTICAL JOKE--THE WEDNESDAY
CLUB--THE "TUN OP MAN"--THE PIG BUTCHER--TOM KING--HUGH KELLY--GLOVER AND
HIS CHARACTERISTICS
Though Goldsmith's pride and ambition led him to mingle occasionally with
high society, and to engage in the colloquial conflicts of the learned
circle, in both of which he was ill at ease and conscious of being
undervalued, yet he had some social resorts in which he indemnified himself
for their restraints by indulging his humor without control. One of them
was a shilling whist club, which held its meetings at the Devil Tavern,
near Temple Bar, a place rendered classic, we are told, by a club held
there in old times, to which "rare Ben Jonson" had furnished the rules. The
company was of a familiar, unceremonious kind, delighting in that very
questionable wit which consists in playing off practical jokes upon each
other. Of one of these Goldsmith was made the butt. Coming to the club one
night in a hackney coach, he gave the coachman by mistake a guinea instead
of a shilling, which he set down as a dead loss, for there was no
likelihood, he said, that a fellow of this class would have the honesty to
return the money. On the next club evening he was told a person at the
street door wished to speak with him. He went forth, but soon returned with
a radiant countenance. To his surprise and delight the coachman had
actually brought back the guinea. While he launched forth in praise of
this unlooked-for piece of honesty, he declared it ought not to go
unrewarded. Collecting a small sum from the club, and no doubt increasing
it largely from his own purse, he dismissed the Jehu with many encomiums on
his good conduct. He was still chanting his praises when one of the club
requested a sight of the guinea thus honestly returned. To Goldsmith's
confusion it proved to be a counterfeit. The universal burst of laughter
which succeeded, and the jokes by which he was assailed on every side,
showed him that the whole was a hoax, and the pretended coachman as much a
counterfeit as the guinea. He was so disconcerted, it is said, that he soon
beat a retreat for the evening.
Another of those free and easy clubs met on Wednesday evenings at the Globe
Tavern in Fleet Street. It was somewhat in the style of the Three Jolly
Pigeons; songs, jokes, dramatic imitations, burlesque parodies and broad
sallies of humor, formed a contrast to the sententious morality, pedantic
casuistry, and polished sarcasm of the learned circle. Here is a huge "tun
of man," by the name of Gordon, use to delight Goldsmith by singing the
jovial song of Nottingham Ale, and looking like a butt of it. Here, too, a
wealthy pig butcher, charmed, no doubt, by the mild philanthropy of The
Traveler, aspired to be on the most sociable footing with the author, and
here was Tom King, the comedian, recently risen to consequence by his
performance of Lord Ogleby in the new comedy of the Clandestine Marriage.
A member of more note was one Hugh Kelly, a second-rate author, who, as he
became a kind of competitor of Goldsmith's, deserves particular mention. He
was an Irishman, about twenty-eight years of age, originally apprenticed to
a staymaker in Dublin; then writer to a London attorney; then a Grub Street
hack, scribbling for magazines and newspapers. Of late he had set up for
theatrical censor and satirist, and, in a paper called Thespis, in
emulation of Churchill's Rosciad, had harassed many of the poor actors
without mercy, and often without wit; but had lavished his incense on
Garrick, who, in consequence, took him into favor. He was the author of
several works of superficial merit, but which had sufficient vogue to
inflate his vanity. This, however, must have been mortified on his first
introduction to Johnson; after sitting a short time he got up to take
leave, expressing a fear that a longer visit might be troublesome. "Not in
the least, sir," said the surly moralist, "I had forgotten you were in the
room." Johnson used to speak of him as a man who had written more than he
had read.
A prime wag of this club was one of Goldsmith's poor countrymen and
hangers-on, by the name of Glover. He had originally been educated for the
medical profession, but had taken in early life to the stage, though
apparently without much success. While performing at Cork, he undertook,
partly in jest, to restore life to the body of a malefactor, who had just
been executed. To the astonishment of every one, himself among the number,
he succeeded. The miracle took wind. He abandoned the stage, resumed the
wig and cane, and considered his fortune as secure. Unluckily, there were
not many dead people to be restored to life in Ireland; his practice did
not equal his expectation, so he came to London, where he continued to
dabble indifferently, and rather unprofitably, in physic and literature.
He was a great frequenter of the Globe and Devil taverns, where he used to
amuse the company by his talent at story-telling and his powers of mimicry,
giving capital imitations of Garrick, Foote, Coleman, Sterne, and other
public characters of the day. He seldom happened to have money enough to
pay his reckoning, but was always sure to find some ready purse among those
who had been amused by his humors. Goldsmith, of course, was one of the
readiest. It was through him that Glover was admitted to the Wednesday
Club, of which his theatrical imitations became the delight. Glover,
however, was a little anxious for the dignity of his patron, which
appeared to him to suffer from the overfamiliarity of some of the members
of the club. He was especially shocked by the free and easy tone in which
Goldsmith was addressed by the pig butcher: "Come, Noll," would he say, as
he pledged him, "here's my service to you, old boy."
Glover whispered to Goldsmith that he "should not allow such liberties."
"Let him alone," was the reply, "you'll see how civilly I'll let him down."
After a time, he called out, with marked ceremony and politeness, "Mr. B.,
I have the honor of drinking your good health." Alas! dignity was not poor
Goldsmith's forte: he could keep no one at a distance. "Thank'ee, thank'ee,
Noll," nodded the pig-butcher, scarce taking the pipe out of his mouth. "I
don't see the effect of your reproof," whispered Glover. "I give it up,"
replied Goldsmith, with a good-humored shrug, "I ought to have known before
now there is no putting a pig in the right way."
Johnson used to be severe upon Goldsmith for mingling in these motley
circles, observing that, having been originally poor, he had contracted a
love for low company. Goldsmith, however, was guided not by a taste for
what was low, but for what was comic and characteristic. It was the feeling
of the artist; the feeling which furnished out some of his best scenes in
familiar life; the feeling with which "rare Ben Jonson" sought those very
haunts and circles in days of yore, to study "Every Man in His Humor."
It was not always, however, that the humor of these associates was to his
taste: as they became boisterous in their merriment he was apt to become
depressed. "The company of fools," says he, in one of his essays, "may at
first make us smile; but at last never fails of making us melancholy."
"Often he would become moody," says Glover, "and would leave the party
abruptly to go home and brood over his misfortune."
It is possible, however, that he went home for quite a different purpose;
to commit to paper some scene or passage suggested for his comedy of The
Good-Natured Man. The elaboration of humor is often a most serious task;
and we have never witnessed a more perfect picture of mental misery than
was once presented to us by a popular dramatic writer--still, we hope,
living--whom we found in the agonies of producing a farce which
subsequently set the theaters in a roar.