BROKEN HEALTH--DISSIPATION AND DEBTS--THE IRISH WIDOW--PRACTICAL
JOKES--SCRUB--A MISQUOTED PUN--MALAGRIDA--GOLDSMITH PROVED TO BE A
FOOL--DISTRESSED BALLAD SINGERS--THE POET AT RANELAGH
Goldsmith returned to town in the autumn (1772), with his health much
disordered. His close fits of sedentary application, during which he in a
manner tied himself to the mast, had laid the seeds of a lurking malady in
his system, and produced a severe illness in the course of the summer. Town
life was not favorable to the health either of body or mind. He could not
resist the siren voice of temptation, which, now that he had become a
notoriety, assailed him on every side. Accordingly we find him launching
away in a career of social dissipation; dining and supping out; at clubs,
at routs, at theaters; he is a guest with Johnson at the Thrales, and an
object of Mrs. Thrale's lively sallies; he is a lion at Mrs. Vesey's and
Mrs. Montagu's, where some of the high-bred blue-stockings pronounce him a
"wild genius," and others, peradventure, a "wild Irishman." In the meantime
his pecuniary difficulties are increasing upon him, conflicting with his
proneness to pleasure and expense, and contributing by the harassment of
his mind to the wear and tear of his constitution. His Animated Nature,
though not finished, had been entirely paid for, and the money spent. The
money advanced by Garrick on Newbery's note still hangs over him as a debt.
The tale on which Newbery had loaned from two to three hundred pounds
previous to the excursion to Barton has proved a failure. The bookseller is
urgent for the settlement of his complicated account; the perplexed author
has nothing to offer him in liquidation but the copyright of the comedy
which he has in his portfolio; "Though to tell you the truth, Frank," said
he, "there are great doubts of its success." The offer was accepted, and,
like bargains wrung from Goldsmith in times of emergency, turned out a
golden speculation to the bookseller.
In this way Goldsmith went on "outrunning the constable," as he termed it;
spending everything in advance; working with an overtasked head and weary
heart to pay for past pleasures and past extravagance, and at the same time
incurring new debts, to perpetuate his struggles and darken his future
prospects. While the excitement of society and the excitement of
composition conspire to keep up a feverishness of the system, he has
incurred an unfortunate habit of quacking himself with James' powders, a
fashionable panacea of the day.
A farce, produced this year by Garrick, and entitled The Irish Widow,
perpetuates the memory of practical jokes played off a year or two
previously upon the alleged vanity of poor, simple-hearted Goldsmith. He
was one evening at the house of his friend Burke, when he was beset by a
tenth muse, an Irish widow and authoress, just arrived from Ireland, full
of brogue and blunders, and poetic fire and rantipole gentility. She was
soliciting subscriptions for her poems; and assailed Goldsmith for his
patronage; the great Goldsmith--her countryman, and of course her friend.
She overpowered him with eulogiums on his own poems, and then read some of
her own, with vehemence of tone and gesture, appealing continually to the
great Goldsmith to know how he relished them.
Poor Goldsmith did all that a kind-hearted and gallant gentleman could do
hi such a case; he praised her poems as far as the stomach of his sense
would permit: perhaps a little further; he offered her his subscription,
and it was not until she had retired with many parting compliments to the
great Goldsmith that he pronounced the poetry which had been inflicted on
him execrable. The whole scene had been a hoax got up by Burke for the
amusement of his company, and the Irish widow, so admirably performed, had
been personated by a Mrs. Balfour, a lady of his connection, of great
sprightliness and talent.
We see nothing in the story to establish the alleged vanity of Goldsmith,
but we think it tells rather to the disadvantage of Burke; being
unwarrantable under their relations of friendship, and a species of waggery
quite beneath his genius. Croker, in his notes to Boswell, gives another of
these practical jokes perpetrated by Burke at the expense of Goldsmith's
credulity. It was related to Croker by Colonel O'Moore, of Cloghan Castle,
in Ireland, who was a party concerned. The colonel and Burke, walking one
day through Leicester Square on their way to Sir Joshua Reynolds', with
whom they were to dine, observed Goldsmith, who was likewise to be a guest,
standing and regarding a crowd which was staring and shouting at some
foreign ladies in the window of a hotel. "Observe Goldsmith," said Burke to
O'Moore, "and mark what passes between us at Sir Joshua's." They passed on
and reached there before him. Burke received Goldsmith with affected
reserve and coldness; being pressed to explain the reason. "Really," said
he, "I am ashamed to keep company with a person who could act as you have
just done in the Square." Goldsmith protested he was ignorant of what was
meant. "Why," said Burke, "did you not exclaim as you were looking up at
those women, what stupid beasts the crowd must be for staring with such
admiration at those _painted Jezebels_, while a man of your talents
passed by unnoticed?" "Surely, surely, my dear friend," cried Goldsmith,
with alarm, "surely I did not say so?" "Nay," replied Burke, "if you had
not said so, how should I have known it?" "That's true," answered
Goldsmith, "I am very sorry--it was very foolish: _I do recollect that
something thing of the kind passed through my mind, but I did not think I
had uttered it_."
It is proper to observe that these jokes were played off by Burke before he
had attained the full eminence of his social position, and that he may have
felt privileged to take liberties with Goldsmith as his countryman and
college associate. It is evident, however, that the peculiarities of the
latter, and his guileless simplicity, made him a butt for the broad waggery
of some of his associates; while others more polished, though equally
perfidious, are on the watch to give currency to his bulls and blunders.
The Stratford jubilee, in honor of Shakespeare, where Boswell had made a
fool of himself, was still in every one's mind. It was sportively suggested
that a fete should be held at Lichfield in honor of Johnson and Garrick,
and that the Beaux' Stratagem should be played by the members of the
Literary Club. "Then," exclaimed Goldsmith, "I shall certainly play Scrub.
I should like of all things to try my hand at that character." The unwary
speech, which any one else might have made without comment, has been
thought worthy of record as whimsically characteristic. Beauclerc was
extremely apt to circulate anecdotes at his expense, founded perhaps on
some trivial incident, but dressed up with the embellishments of his
sarcastic brain. One relates to a venerable dish of peas, served up at Sir
Joshua's table, which should have been green, but were any other color. A
wag suggested to Goldsmith, in a whisper, that they should be sent to
Hammersmith, as that was the way to _turn-em-green_ (Turnham-Green).
Goldsmith, delighted with the pun, endeavored to repeat it at Burke's
table, but missed the point. "That is the way to _make_ 'em green,"
said he. Nobody laughed. He perceived he was at fault. "I mean that is the
_road_ to turn 'em green." A dead pause and a stare; "whereupon," adds
Beauclerc, "he started up disconcerted and abruptly left the table." This
is evidently one of Beauclerc's caricatures.
On another occasion the poet and Beauclerc were seated at the theater next
to Lord Shelburne, the minister, whom political writers thought proper to
nickname Malagrida. "Do you know," said Goldsmith to his lordship, in the
course of conversation, "that I never could conceive why they called you
Malagrida, _for_ Malagrida was a very good sort of man." This was too
good a trip of the tongue for Beauclerc to let pass: he serves it up in his
next letter to Lord Charlemont, as a specimen of a mode of turning a
thought the wrong way, peculiar to the poet; he makes merry over it with
his witty and sarcastic compeer, Horace Walpole, who pronounces it "a
picture of Goldsmith's whole life." Dr. Johnson alone, when he hears it
bandied about as Goldsmith's last blunder, growls forth a friendly defense:
"Sir," said he, "it was a mere blunder in emphasis. He meant to say, I
wonder they should use Malagrida as a term of reproach." Poor Goldsmith! On
such points he was ever doomed to be misinterpreted. Rogers, the poet,
meeting in times long subsequent with a survivor of those days, asked him
what Goldsmith really was in conversation. The old conversational character
was too deeply stamped in the memory of the veteran to be effaced. "Sir,"
replied the old wiseacre, "_he was a fool_. The right word never came
to him. If you gave him back a bad shilling, he'd say, Why, it's as good a
shilling as ever was _born_. You know he ought to have said
_coined_. _Coined_, sir, never entered his head. _He was a
fool, sir_."
We have so many anecdotes in which Goldsmith's simplicity is played upon
that it is quite a treat to meet with one in which he is represented
playing upon the simplicity of others, especially when the victim of his
joke is the "Great Cham" himself, whom all others are disposed to hold so
much in awe. Goldsmith and Johnson were supping cozily together at a tavern
in Dean Street, Soho, kept by Jack Roberts, a singer at Drury Lane, and a
protege of Garrick's. Johnson delighted in these gastronomical
tete-a-tetes, and was expatiating in high good-humor on rumps and kidneys,
the veins of his forehead swelling with the ardor of mastication. "These,"
said he, "are pretty little things; but a man must eat a great many of them
before he is filled." "Ay; but how many of them," asked Goldsmith, with
affected simplicity, "would reach to the moon?" "To the moon! Ah, sir,
that, I fear, exceeds your calculation." "Not at all, sir; I think I could
tell." "Pray, then, sir, let us hear." "Why, sir, one, _if it were long
enough_!" Johnson growled for a time at finding himself caught in such a
trite schoolboy trap. "Well, sir," cried he at length, "I have deserved it.
I should not have provoked so foolish an answer by so foolish a question."
Among the many incidents related as illustrative of Goldsmith's vanity and
envy is one which occurred one evening when he was in a drawing-room with a
party of ladies, and a ballad-singer under the window struck up his
favorite song of Sally Salisbury. "How miserably this woman sings!"
exclaimed he. "Pray, doctor," said the lady of the house, "could you do it
better?" "Yes, madam, and the company shall be judges." The company, of
course, prepared to be entertained by an absurdity; but their smiles were
wellnigh turned to tears, for he acquitted himself with a skill and pathos
that drew universal applause. He had, in fact, a delicate ear for music,
which had been jarred by the false notes of the ballad-singer; and there
were certain pathetic ballads, associated with recollections of his
childhood, which were sure to touch the springs of his heart. We have
another story of him, connected with ballad-singing, which is still more
characteristic. He was one evening at the house of Sir William Chambers, in
Berners Street, seated at a whist table with Sir William, Lady Chambers,
and Baretti, when all at once he threw down his cards, hurried out of the
room and into the street. He returned in an instant, resumed his seat, and
the game went on. Sir William, after a little hesitation, ventured to ask
the cause of his retreat, fearing he had been overcome by the heat of the
room. "Not at all," replied Goldsmith; "but in truth I could not bear to
hear that unfortunate woman in the street, half singing, half sobbing, for
such tones could only arise from the extremity of distress; her voice
grated painfully on my ear and jarred my frame, so that I could not rest
until I had sent her away." It was in fact a poor ballad-singer, whose
cracked voice had been heard by others of the party, but without having the
same effect on their sensibilities. It was the reality of his fictitious
scene in the story of the "Man in Black"; wherein he describes a woman in
rags with one child in her arms and another on her back, attempting to sing
ballads, but with such a mournful voice that it was difficult to determine
whether she was singing or crying. "A wretch," he adds, "who, in the
deepest distress, still aimed at good-humor, was an object my friend was by
no means capable of withstanding." The Man in Black gave the poor woman all
that he had--a bundle of matches. Goldsmith, it is probable, sent his
ballad-singer away rejoicing with all the money in his pocket.
Ranelagh was at that time greatly in vogue as a place of public
entertainment. It was situated near Chelsea; the principal room was a
rotunda of great dimensions, with an orchestra in the center and tiers of
boxes all round. It was a place to which Johnson resorted occasionally. "I
am a great friend to public amusements," said he, "for they keep people
from vice." [Footnote: "Alas, sir!" said Johnson, speaking, when in another
mood, of grand houses, fine gardens, and splendid places of public
amusement; "alas, sir! these are only struggles for happiness. When I first
entered Ranelagh it gave an expansion and gay sensation to my mind, such as
I never experienced anywhere else. But, as Xerxes wept when he viewed his
immense army, and considered that not one of that great multitude would be
alive a hundred years afterward, so it went to my heart to consider that
there was not one in all that brilliant circle that was not afraid to go
home and think."] Goldsmith was equally a friend to them, though perhaps
not altogether on such moral grounds. He was particularly fond of
masquerades, which were then exceedingly popular, and got up at Ranelagh
with great expense and magnificence. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who had likewise
a taste for such amusements, was sometimes his companion, at other times he
went alone; his peculiarities of person and manner would soon betray him,
whatever might be his disguise, and he would be singled out by wags,
acquainted with his foibles, and more successful than himself in
maintaining their incognito, as a capital subject to be played upon. Some,
pretending not to know him, would decry his writings, and praise those of
his contemporaries; others would laud his verses to the skies, but
purposely misquote and burlesque them; others would annoy him with
parodies; while one young lady, whom he was teasing, as he supposed, with
great success and infinite humor, silenced his rather boisterous laughter
by quoting his own line about "the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind."
On one occasion he was absolutely driven out of the house by the
persevering jokes of a wag, whose complete disguise gave him no means of
retaliation.
His name appearing in the newspapers among the distinguished persons
present at one of these amusements, his old enemy, Kenrick, immediately
addressed to him a copy of anonymous verses, to the following purport.