[22] The manager of Goodman's Fields theatre.
[23] The author whom Johnson had first discovered on the apple-shelf at
Lichfield. See p. 7.
[24] See p. 28.
_Oliver Goldsmith_
Oliver Goldsmith, known best to us as the author of _The Vicar of
Wakefield_, and described by Boswell as "one of the brightest ornaments
of the Johnsonian school" was, like his master, an adventurer in
literature.
The son of a poor Irish clergyman, he went, after an unhappy time at
school, where he was teased by the boys on account of his disfigurement
by small pox, to Trinity College, Dublin.
Here, like Johnson at Oxford, he was a "lounger at the college-gate"
and, in spite of his poverty, a leading spirit in college riots, such
as the ducking of a bailiff and the gathering of a dancing party "of
humblest sort" in his college room.
However, he worked hard enough to get the degree of Bachelor of Arts,
and learnt, besides, to write ballads and to play the flute. After
three years of idleness he went to Edinburgh to study medicine, the
money being provided by a generous uncle. But more of this bounty was
spent on fine clothes than on medical books and his restlessness soon
drove him abroad to the university of Leyden, where he studied little
except in what Johnson calls "the great book of mankind."
With the true spirit of the Irish adventurer he now began his
wanderings on foot through Flanders, France, Switzerland and Italy.
Sometimes he had to depend on the tunes of his flute to get him food
and lodging; sometimes he earned a few shillings "by demanding at
Universities to enter the lists as a disputant." Having thus disputed
his passage through Europe, as Boswell says, he landed in England at
the age of 28 without a shilling in his pocket.
For him, as for Johnson, there was only one kind of life possible--the
life of "Grub Street." Here are a few lines from his own _Description
of an Author's Bedchamber_:
The morn was cold, he views with keen desire
The rusty grate unconscious of a fire:
With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scored,
And five crack'd teacups dress'd the chimney board:
A nightcap deck'd his brows instead of bay,
A cap by night--a stocking all the day!
In his early years in London he was, as Boswell tells us, "employed
successively in the capacities of an usher to an academy, a
corrector of the press, a reviewer, and a writer for a news-paper.
He had sagacity enough to cultivate assiduously the acquaintance of
Johnson.... To me and many others it appeared that he studiously copied
the manner of Johnson, though, indeed, upon a smaller scale. At this
time I think he had published nothing with his name, though it was
pretty generally known that _one Dr Goldsmith_ was the authour of _An
Enquiry into the present State of polite Learning in Europe_, and of
_The Citizen of the World_, a series of letters supposed to be written
from London by a Chinese."
Johnson paid his first visit to Goldsmith in 1761. Dr Percy, a friend
of both, gave this account of it:
"The first visit Goldsmith ever received from Johnson was on May 31,
1761, when he gave an invitation to him, and much other company, many
of them literary men, to a supper in his lodgings in Wine Office
Court, Fleet Street. Percy being intimate with Johnson, was desired to
call upon him and take him with him. As they went together the former
was much struck with the studied neatness of Johnson's dress. He had
on a new suit of clothes, a new wig nicely powdered, and everything
about him so perfectly dissimilar from his usual appearance that
his companion could not help inquiring the cause of this singular
transformation. 'Why, Sir,' said Johnson, 'I hear that Goldsmith, who
is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and
decency by quoting my practice, and I am desirous this night to show
him a better example.'"
Johnson quickly took Goldsmith to his heart, and praised his writing at
a time when the public "_made a point_ to know nothing about it."
Goldsmith was an original member of the Literary Club and, rather to
Boswell's chagrin, soon became a real intimate of Johnson's household:
"My next meeting with Johnson," says Boswell, "was on Friday the 1st
of July, [1763] when he and I and Dr Goldsmith supped together at the
Mitre.... Goldsmith's respectful attachment to Johnson was then at its
height; for his own literary reputation had not yet distinguished him
so much as to excite a vain desire of competition with his great
Master. He had increased my admiration of the goodness of Johnson's
heart, by incidental remarks in the course of conversation, such as ...
when I wondered that he was very kind to a man of whom I had heard a
very bad character, 'He is now become miserable, and that insures the
protection of Johnson....'"
[Illustration: OLIVER GOLDSMITH]
"At this time _Miss_ Williams, as she was then called ... had so much
of his attention, that he every night drank tea with her before he went
home, however late it might be.... Dr Goldsmith, being a privileged
man, went with him this night, strutting away, and calling to me with
an air of superiority ... 'I go to Miss Williams.' I confess, I then
envied him this mighty privilege, of which he seemed so proud; but it
was not long before I obtained the same mark of distinction[25]."
Goldsmith, indeed, was sometimes rather bitter about Boswell.
"Who _is_ this Scotch cur at Johnson's heels?" asked someone. "He is
not a cur," answered Goldsmith, "you are too severe. He is only a bur.
Tom Davies flung him at Johnson in sport, and he has the faculty of
sticking."
_The Traveller_, published in 1764, at length brought Goldsmith fame,
though not a fortune. He received but twenty guineas for it and was
still miserable enough to qualify for Johnson's protection.
"I received one morning," so Johnson told Boswell, "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 drest, and found 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. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he
would be calm, and 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 to me. I looked into it, and saw its merit; 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 a high tone for having used
him so ill."
The novel ready for the press was _The Vicar of Wakefield_.
This is not the place for a full account of Goldsmith's works; but we
will glance at one or two.
The picture of English country life in _The Deserted Village_ still
delights us. Here, for instance, are a few lines on the village
schoolmaster:
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
The village master taught his little school:
A man severe he was, and stern to view,
I knew him well, and every truant knew;
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he.
As a writer of plays, Goldsmith gained a great success with _She Stoops
to Conquer_. Johnson, to whom it was dedicated, said:
"I know of no comedy for many years that has so much exhilarated an
audience, that has answered so much the great end of comedy--making an
audience merry."
Goldsmith wrote histories of England, Greece, and Rome--sometimes
inaccurate, but always readable, and, with but a shallow knowledge of
natural science, plunged into a work called _A History of the Earth and
Animated Nature_. He had, as Boswell says, "a more than common share of
that hurry of ideas which we often find in his countrymen."
"Goldsmith told us, that he was now busy in writing a natural history,
and ... had taken lodgings, at a farmer's house, near to the six
mile-stone, on the Edgeware road, and had carried down his books in two
returned post-chaises.... I went to visit him at this place ... and
found curious scraps of descriptions of animals, scrawled upon the wall
with a black lead pencil."
When Johnson heard of the project, he said:
"Goldsmith, Sir, will give us a very fine book upon the subject; but
if he can distinguish a cow from a horse, that, I believe, may be the
extent of his knowledge of natural history."
Goldsmith was certainly not very sound on cows. This is what he says of
their horns:
"At three years old the cow sheds its horns, and new ones arise in
their place, which continue as long as it lives"!
But all that Goldsmith wrote had charm, and no one was more sensitive
to it than Johnson.