"How widely different, Goldsmith, are the ways
Of doctors now, and those of ancient days!
Theirs taught the truth in academic shades,
Ours in lewd hops and midnight masquerades.
So changed the times! say, philosophic sage,
Whose genius suits so well this tasteful age,
Is the Pantheon, late a sink obscene,
Become the fountain of chaste Hippocrene?
Or do thy moral numbers quaintly flow,
Inspired by th' _Aganippe_ of Soho?
Do wisdom's sons gorge cates and vermicelli,
Like beastly Bickerstaffe or bothering Kelly?
Or art thou tired of th' undeserved applause
Bestowed on bards affecting Virtue's cause?
Is this the good that makes the humble vain,
The good philosophy should not disdain?
If so, let pride dissemble all it can,
A modern sage is still much less than man."
Goldsmith was keenly sensitive to attacks of the kind, and meeting Kenrick
at the Chapter Coffee-house, called him to sharp account for taking such a
liberty with his name, and calling his morals in question, merely on
account of his being seen at a place of general resort and amusement.
Kenrick shuffled and sneaked, protesting that he meant nothing derogatory
to his private character. Goldsmith let him know, however, that he was
aware of his having more than once indulged in attacks of this dastard
kind, and intimated that another such outrage would be followed by personal
chastisement.
Kenrick having played the craven in his presence, avenged himself as soon
as he was gone by complaining of his having made a wanton attack upon him,
and by making coarse comments upon his writings, conversation and person.
The scurrilous satire of Kenrick, however unmerited, may have checked
Goldsmith's taste for masquerades. Sir Joshua Reynolds, calling on the poet
one morning, found him walking about his room in somewhat of a reverie,
kicking a bundle of clothes before him like a football. It proved to be an
expensive masquerade dress, which he said he had been fool enough to
purchase, and as there was no other way of getting the worth of his money,
he was trying to take it out in exercise.