IN the summer of 1770 there arrived at the town of Lisle a coach
containing three ladies and one man, followed by a travelling chaise
with servants and luggage. Of the ladies, one was approaching middle
age, handsome and elegant; the other two were her daughters, and both
were extremely beautiful and graceful girls, under twenty years of age.
The man was a small, middle-aged person, with a face which one would
have called plain if it had not been that the protruding of his upper
lip and the twinkle in his eyes suggested not plainness, but comedy. The
very soul of comedy was in the gravity of his face; but it was that sort
which is not apparent to all the world. It was the soul of comedy, not
the material part; and most people are disposed to deny the possibility
of comedy's existing except in juxtaposition with the grin through the
horse-collar. Solemnity in a face, with a twinkle in the eye--that is
an expression which comedy may wear without arousing the
curiosity--certainly without exciting the laughter--of the multitude.
And this was exactly the form that the drama of this man's life assumed;
only it was tragedy with a twinkle. Tragedy with a twinkle--that was
Oliver Goldsmith.
[Illustration: 0203]
The vehicles drew up in the courtyard of the hotel in the square, and
Dr. Goldsmith, after dismounting and helping the ladies to dismount,
gave orders in French to the landlord in respect of the luggage, and
made inquiries as to the table d'hôte. Shown to their respective rooms,
the members of the party did not meet again for some time, and then it
was in the private _salle_ which they had engaged, looking out upon
the square. The two girls were seated at a window, and their mother was
writing letters at a table at one side.
When Dr. Goldsmith entered we may be pretty sure that he had exchanged
his travelling dress for a more imposing toilet, and we may be equally
certain that these two girls had something merry to say about the cut or
the colour of his garments--we have abundant record of their _badinage_
bearing upon his flamboyant liking for colour, and of his retorts in
the same spirit. We have seen him strutting to and fro in gay apparel,
obtrusively calling attention to the beauty of his waistcoat and
speaking in solemn exaggeration of its importance. The girls were well
aware of this form of his humour; they appreciated it to the full, and
responded to it in their merriment.
Then there came the sound of martial music from the square, and the
elder of the girls, opening the window on its hinges, looked out. A
regiment of soldiers was turning into the square and would pass the
hotel, she said. The two girls stood at one window and Goldsmith at
another while the march past took place. It was not surprising that,
glancing up and seeing the beautiful pair at the window, the mounted
officers at the head of the regiment should feel flattered by the
attention, nor was it unlikely that the others, taking the _pas_ from
their superiors, should look up and exchange expressions in admiration
of the beauty of the young ladies. It is recorded that they did so, and
that, when the soldiers had marched off, the little man at the other
window walked up and down the room in anger “that more attention had
been paid to them than to him.”
These are the words of Boswell in concluding his account of the episode,
which, by the way, he printed with several other stories in illustration
of the overwhelming vanity and extraordinary envy in Goldsmith's
nature. As if any human being hearing such a story of the most complete
curmudgeon would accept the words as spoken seriously! And yet Boswell
printed it in all solemnity, and hoped that every one who read it would
believe that Goldsmith, the happy-go-lucky Irishman, was eaten up with
envy of the admiration given to the two exquisite girls on whom, by the
way, be conferred immortality; for so long as English literature remains
the names of the Jessamy Bride and Little Comedy will live. Yes, and
so long as discriminating people read the story of Goldsmith's envious
outburst they will not fail to see the true picture of what did actually
take place in that room in the Lisle hotel--they will see the little man
stalking up and down, that solemn face of his more solemn than ever, but
the twinkle in his eyes revealing itself all the more brightly on this
account, while he shakes his fists at the ladies and affirms that the
officers were dolts and idiots to waste their time gazing at them when
they had a chance “of seeing me, madam, me--_me!_” Surely every human
being with the smallest amount of imagination will see the little man
thumping his waistcoat, while the Miss Hornecks hold up their hands and
go into fits of laughter at that whimsical Dr. Goldsmith, whom they had
chosen to be their companion on that tour of theirs through France with
their mother.
And surely every one must see them in precisely the same attitude, when
they read the story in Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, and notice what
interpretation has been put upon it by the Scotsman--hands uplifted in
amazement and faces “o'er-running with laughter” at the thought of how
Mr. Boswell has, for the thousandth time, been made a fool of by
some one who had picked up the story from themselves and had solemnly
narrated it to Boswell. But in those days following the publication of
the first edition of the _Life_, people were going about with uplifted
hands, wondering if any man since the world began had ever been so
befooled as Boswell.
When the story appeared in _Johnson's Life_ the two girls had been
married for several years; but one of them at least had not forgotten
the incident upon which it was founded; and upon its being repeated in
Northcote's _Life of Reynolds_, she wrote to the biographer, assuring
him that in this, as well as in other stories of the same nature, the
expression on Goldsmith's face when he professed to be overcome by envy
was such as left no one in doubt that he was jesting. But Croker, in
spite of this, had the impudence to sneer at the explanation, and to
attribute it to the good-nature of the lady. Mr. Croker seems to have
had a special smile of his own for the weaknesses of ladies. This was
the way he smiled when he was searching up old registries of their birth
in his endeavour to prove that they had made themselves out to be six
months younger than they really were. (Quite different, however, must
his smile have been when he read Macaulay's Essay on Croker's edition
of Boswell's _Life of Johnson_). But, unhappily for poor Goldsmith,
Mr. Boswell was able to bring forward much stronger evidence of the
consuming Vanity, the parent of Envy, with which his “honest Dr.
Goldsmith” was afflicted. There was once an exhibition of puppets in
Panton Street, and on some member of the distinguished company in which
he, curiously enough for such a contemptible lout, constantly found
himself, admiring the dexterity with which the wooden figure tossed
a halbert, Goldsmith, we are gravely told, appeared annoyed and said:
“Pshaw! I could do it as well myself!” Supposing that some one had said
to Boswell, “After all, sir, perhaps Dr. Goldsmith could have done it as
well himself,” would the man have tried to explain that the question was
not whether Goldsmith or the puppet was the more dexterous, but
whether it was possible to put any other construction upon Goldsmith's
exclamation than that assumed by Mr. Boswell?
Yet another instance is given of Goldsmith's envy, and this time the
object of it is not a wooden figure, but Shakespeare himself. He could
not bear, Dr. Beattie tells us, that so much admiration should be given
to Shakespeare. Hearing this, we feel that we are on quite a different
level. There is no jealousy rankling this time in Goldsmith's heart
against a mere puppet. It is now a frantic passion of chagrin that
Shakespeare should still receive the admiration of a chosen few!
But such vanity as that so strikingly illustrated by this last told
story, is, one must confess with feelings of melancholy, not yet wholly
extinct among literary men. It would scarcely be believed--unless by
Boswell or Beattie--that even in America a man with some reputation as
a writer should deliberately ask people to assume that he himself was
worthy of a place in a group that included not merely Shakespeare, but
also Milton and Homer. “Gentlemen,” said this egregious person at a
public dinner, “Gentlemen, think of the great writers who are dead and
gone. There was Shakespeare, he is dead and gone; and Milton, alas!
is no longer in the land of the living; Homer has been deceased for a
considerable time, and I myself, gentlemen, am not feeling very well
to-night.”
What a pity it is that Beattie has gone the way of so many other great
writers. If he could only have been laid on to Mark Twain we should have
the most comic biography ever written.
Goldsmith was, according to the great Boswell and the many lesser
Boswells of his day, the most contemptible wretch that ever wrote the
finest poem of the century, the finest comedy of the century, the
finest romance of the century. He was a silly man, an envious man, an
empty-headed man, a stuttering fool, an idiot (of the inspired variety),
an awkward lout, a shallow pedant, and a generally ridiculous person;
and yet here we find him the chosen companion of two of the most
beautiful and charming young ladies in England on their tour through
France, and on terms of such intimacy with them and their brother, an
officer in the Guards and the son-in-law of a peer, that nicknames are
exchanged between them. A singular position for an Irish lout to find
himself in!
Even before he is known to fame, and familiar only with famine, he is
visited in his garret by Dr. Percy, a member of the great Northumberland
family at whose town house he lived. So much for the empty-headed fool
who never opened his mouth except to put his foot in it, as a countryman
of his said about quite another person. He was a shallow prig, and yet
when “the Club” was started not one of the original members questioned
his right to a place among the most fastidious of the community,
although Garrick--to the shame of Johnson be it spoken--was not admitted
for nine years. Boswell--to the shame of Johnson be it spoken--was
allowed to crawl in after an exclusion of ten. According to his numerous
detractors, this Goldsmith was one of the most objectionable persons
possible to imagine, and yet we find him the closest friend of the
greatest painter of the day and the greatest actor of the day. He
associates with peers on the friendliest terms, and is the idol of their
daughters. He is accused, on the one hand, of aiming at being accounted
a Macaroni and being extravagant in his dress, and yet he has such a
reputation for slovenliness in this respect that it is recorded that
Dr. Johnson, who certainly never was accused of harbouring unworthy
aspirations to be accounted a beau, made it a point of putting on his
best garments--he may even have taken the extreme step of fastening up
his garters--before visiting Goldsmith, in order, as he explained, that
the latter might have no excuse for his slovenliness. We are also told
that Goldsmith made a fool of himself when he got on his feet to make
a speech, and yet it is known that he travelled through Europe, winning
the hospitality of more than one university by the display of his skill
as a disputant. Again, none of his innumerable traits of awkwardness is
so widely acknowledged as his conversational, and yet the examples which
survive of his impromptu wit are of the most finished type; and (even
when the record is made by Boswell), when he set himself out to take
opposite sides to Johnson, he certainly spoke better sense than his
antagonist, though he was never so loud. It is worth noting that nearly
all the hard things which Johnson is reported to have said respecting
Goldsmith were spoken almost immediately after one of these disputes.
Further, we are assured that Goldsmith's learning was of the shallowest
order, and yet when he was appointed Professor of History to the Royal
Academy we do not hear that any voice was raised in protest.
What is a simple reader to think when brought face to face with such
contradictory accounts of the man and his attainments? Well, possibly
the best one can do is to say, as Fanny Burney did, that Goldsmith was
an extraordinary man.
Of course, so far as his writings are concerned there is no need for one
to say much. They speak for themselves, and readers can form their own
opinion on every line and every sentence that has come from his pen.
There is no misunderstanding the character of _The Traveller_ or _The
Deserted Village_ or _The Vicar of Wakefield_. These are acknowledged by
the whole world to be among the most precious legacies of the eighteenth
century to posterity. Who reads nowadays, except out of curiosity, such
classics as _Tristram Shandy, Clarissa Harlow, Evelina, or Rasselas?_
But who has not read, and who does not still read for pleasure, _The
Vicar of Wakefield?_ Johnson's laborious poem, _The Vanity of Human
Wishes_, now only exists as an example of the last gasp of the
didactic in verse; but we cannot converse without quoting--sometimes
unconsciously--from _The Deserted Village_ When the actor-manager of a
theatre wishes to show how accomplished a company he has at his disposal
he produces _She Stoops to Conquer_, and he would do so more frequently
only he is never quite able to make up his mind whether he himself
should play the part of old Hardcastle, Tony Lumpkin, Young Marlow,
or Diggory. But what other eighteenth-century comedy of all produced
previous to the death of Goldsmith can any manager revive nowadays with
any hope of success? Colman of the eighteenth century is as dead
as Congreve of the seventeenth; and what about the masterpieces of
Cumberland, and Kelly, and Whitehead, and the rest? What about the Rev.
Mr. Home's _Douglas_, which, according to Dr. Johnson, was equal to
Shakespeare at his best? They have all gone to the worms, and these
not even bookworms--their very graves are neglected. But _She Stoops
to Conquer_ is never revived without success--never without a modern
audience recognising the fact that its characters are not the puppets
of the playwright, but the creations of Nature. It is worthy of mention,
too, that the play which first showed the capacity of an actress
whose name was ever at the head of the list of actresses of the last
generation, was founded on _The Vicar of Wakefield._ It was Miss Ellen
Terry's appearance in _Olivia_ in 1878 that brought about her connection
with the ever memorable Lyceum management as an associate of the
greatest actor of our day.
These things speak for themselves, and prove incontestably that
Goldsmith was head and shoulders above all those writers with whom he
was on intimate terms. But the mystery of the contradictory accounts
which we have of the man himself and his ways remains as unsolved as
ever.
Yes, unless we assume one thing, namely--that the majority of the people
about him were incapable of understanding him. Is it going too far to
suggest that, as Daniel Defoe was sent to the pillory because his ironic
jest in _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_ was taken in earnest, and
as good people shuddered at the horrible proposal of Swift that Irish
babies should be cooked and eaten, so Goldsmith's peculiarities of
humour were too subtle to be in any degree appreciated by most of the
people with whom he came in contact in England?
In Ireland there would be no chance of his being misunderstood; for
there no form that his humour assumed would be regarded as peculiar.
Irony is a figure of speech so largely employed by the inhabitants in
some parts that people who have lived there for any length of time have
heard whole conversations carried on by two or three men without the
slightest divergence from this tortuous form of expression into the
straight path of commonplace English. And all this time there was no
expression but one of complete gravity on the faces of the speakers;
a stranger had no clue whatsoever to the game of words that was being
played before him.
Another fully recognised form of humour which prevails in Ireland is
even more difficult for a stranger to follow; its basis consists in
mystifying another person, not for the sake of getting a laugh from a
third who has been let into the secret, but simply for the satisfaction
of the mystifier himself. The forms that such a scheme of humour
may assume are various. One of the most common is an affectation of
extraordinary stupidity. It is usually provoked by the deliverance of a
platitude by a stranger. The humourist pretends that he never heard such
a statement before, and asks to have it repeated. When this is done,
there is usually a pause in which the profoundest thought is suggested;
then the clouds are seen to clear away, and the perplexity on the man's
face gives way to intelligence; he has grasped the meaning of the phrase
at last, and he announces his victory with sparkling eyes, and forthwith
puts quite a wrong construction upon the simplest words. His chuckling
is brought to a sudden stop by the amazed protest of the victim against
the suggested solution of the obvious. Thus, with consummate art, the
man is led on to explain at length, with ridiculous emphasis, the exact
meaning of his platitude; but it is all to no purpose. The humourist
shakes his head; he pretends that the cleverness of the other is
too much for him to grasp all in a moment; it's a fine thing to have
learning, to be sure, but these things may be best not meddled with
by ignorant creatures like himself; and so he goes off murmuring his
admiration for the fine display of wisdom that comes so easy-like from
the man whom he has been fooling.
This form of humour is indulged in by some Irishmen simply for the
satisfaction it gives them to indulge in it. They never hurry off
to acquaint a neighbour with what they have done, and they are quite
pleased with the thought that the person on whom they have been imposing
will tell the whole story of their extraordinary obtuseness to some
one else; it never strikes them that that some one else may fail to see
through the trick, and actually be convinced of the existence of their
obtuseness. But if such a possibility did occur to them, they would be
all the better pleased: they would feel that they had fooled two instead
of one.
But, of course, the most widely recognised form of Irish humour is that
known as the “bull.” This is the delivery of a paradox so obvious as
to be detected--after a brief consideration--by an Englishman or
even--after an additional space for thought--by a Scotsman. But where
the fun comes in is (in the Irishman's eyes) when the others assume
that the humour of the bull is involuntary; and this is just what the
Englishman has been doing, and what the Irishman has been encouraging
him to do, for centuries. The Englishman is so busy trying to make it
appear that he is cleverer than he really is, he cannot see the humour
of any man trying to make out that he is more stupid than he really
is. Let no one fancy for a moment that the humour of an Irish bull is
involuntary. It is a form of expression that may be due to a peculiar
twist in the Irishman's mind--indeed, every form of humour may be said
to be due to a peculiar twist of the mind--but it is as much a figure
of speech as irony or satire. “Blarney” and “palaver” are other forms
of speech in which the Irish of some generations ago indulged with great
freedom, and both are essentially Irish and essentially humorous,
though occasionally borrowed and clumsily worn on the other side of
the Channel, just as the bernous of the Moor is worn by an English
missionary when lecturing in the village schoolroom (with a
magic-lantern) on The Progress of Christianity in Morocco.
It would be interesting to make a scientific inquiry into the origin and
the maintenance of all these forms of expression among the Irish; but it
is unnecessary to do so in this place. It is enough if we remind English
readers of the existence of such forms even in the present day, when
there is so little need for their display. It can without difficulty be
understood by any one, however superficially acquainted with the history
of Ireland for the past thousand years, that “blarney” and “palaver”
were as necessary to the existence of the natives of the island as
suspicion and vigilance were to the existence of the invaders. But it is
not so apparent why Irishmen should be given to rush into the extremes
of bragging on the one hand, and self-depreciation on the other.
Bragging is, however, as much an endowment of Nature for the protection
of a species or a race as is imitation or mimicry. The Irishman who was
able by the exercise of this gift to intimidate the invaders, escaped a
violent death and transmitted his art to his children. The practice of
the art of self-depreciation was quite as necessary for the existence of
the Irish race up to the time of the passing of the first Land Act.
For several generations an Irishman was not allowed to own a horse
of greater value than five pounds; and every Irish agriculturist who
improved the miserable cabin which he was supposed to share with his
pigs and his fowl, might rest certain that his rent would be raised out
of all proportion to his improvements. In these circumstances it can
easily be understood that it was accounted a successful joke for a man
who was doing tolerably well to put on a poor face when in the presence
of an inquiry agent of the absent landlord--to run down all his own
efforts and to depreciate generally his holding, and thus to save
himself from the despicable treatment which was meted out to the
unfortunate people by the conquerors of their country.
It is not necessary to do more than make these suggestions to a
scientific investigator who may be disposed to devote some time to the
question of the origin of certain forms of Irish humour; it is enough
for us, in considering the mystery of that typical Irishman, Oliver
Goldsmith, to know that such forms of humour as we have specified have
an actual existence. Such knowledge is a powerful illuminant to a reader
of Boswell's and Beattie's stories of the stupidity of Goldsmith. A fine
flood of light is thrown upon the apparent mystery of the inspiration
of this idiot--of this man “who wrote like an angel and talked like poor
poll.”
Goldsmith was just too successful in maintaining that gravity which is
the very essence of those forms of humour in which he was constantly
indulging for his own satisfaction; the mask of gravity was such a good
fit that the short-sighted people who were around him never penetrated
it. He was making fools of the people about him, never giving a thought
to the possibility that they would transmit to posterity the impression
which his attitude conveyed to them, which was that he was a shallow
fool.
Of course, it would be as absurd to contend that Goldsmith never made a
fool of himself as it would be to assume that Johnson never made a fool
of himself, or that Boswell ever failed to do so. The occasions upon
which he made himself ridiculous must have been numerous, but out of the
many incidents which Boswell and Beattie and Cooke and the others bring
forward as proofs of his stupidity there are few that will not bear to
be interpreted as instances of his practice of a form of humour well
known in Ireland. If his affectation of chagrin at the admiration given
to the Panton Street puppets, followed by the boast, “I could do it as
well myself,” was not humorous, then indeed there is nothing humorous
under the sun. If his object of setting the room roaring with laughter
was not achieved the night when at the club he protested that the
oratory of Burke was nothing--that all oratory, as a matter of fact, was
only a knack--and forthwith stood upon a chair and began to stutter,
all that can be said is that the famous club at Gerrard Street was more
stolid than could be believed. If his strutting about the room where he
and his friends were awaiting a late-comer to dinner, entreating
Johnson and the rest to pay particular attention to the cut of his new
peach-bloom coat, and declaring that Filby, his tailor, had told him
that when any one asked him who had made the garment he was not to
forget Filby's address, did not help materially to enliven the tedium
of that annoying wait, all that can be said is that Thrale, as well as
Boswell, must have been of the party.
If a novelist, anxious to depict a typical humorous Irishman, were to
show his hero acting as Boswell says Goldsmith acted, would not every
reader acknowledge that he was true to the character of a comical
Irishman? If a playwriter were to put the scene on the stage, would
any one in the audience fail to see that the Goldsmith of the piece was
fooling? Every one in the club--Boswell best of all--was aware of the
fact that Goldsmith had the keenest admiration for Burke, and that
he would be the last man in the world to decry his powers. As for the
peach-bloom coat, it had been the butt of much jesting on the part of
his friends; the elder of the Miss Hornecks had written him a letter of
pretty “chaff” about it, all of which he took in good part. He may have
bought the coat originally because he liked the tint of the velvet; but
assuredly when he found that it could be made the subject of a jest he
did not hesitate to jest upon it himself. How many times have we not
seen in Ireland a man behave in exactly the same way under similar
conditions--a boisterous young huntsman who had put on pink for the
first time, and was strutting with much pride before an admiring group
of servants, every one of whom had some enthusiastic remark to make
about the fit of the coat, until at last the youth, pointing out the
perfection of the gilt buttons, murmured: “Oh, but isn't this a great
day for Ireland!”
What a pity it was that Mr. Boswell had not been present at such a
scene! Can we not hear his comments upon the character of the young man
who had actually been so carried away by his vanity that he was heard to
express the opinion that the fortunes of his country would be materially
affected by the fact of the buttons of his new coat being gilt? (It
was this same Mr. Boswell, the critic of Goldsmith's all too attractive
costume, who, when going to see Pitt for the first time, put on Corsican
native dress, pretending that he did so in order to interest Pitt in
General Paoli.)
In reading these accounts of Goldsmith's ways and the remarks of his
associates it must be noticed that some of these gentlemen had now and
again an uneasy impression that there was more in the poet's stupidity
than met the eye. Sir Joshua Reynolds was his closest friend, and it was
the business of the painter to endeavour to get below the surface of
his sitters. The general idea that prevails in the world is that he
was rather successful in his attempts to reproduce, not merely their
features, but their characters as well; and Sir Joshua saw enough
beneath the rude exterior of the man to cause him to feel toward
Goldsmith as he felt for none of his other friends. When the news of his
death was brought to the painter, he laid down his brushes and spent the
day in seclusion. When it is remembered that he spent every day of the
week, not even excepting Sunday, in his studio, the depth of his grief
for the loss of his friend will be understood. Upon more than one
occasion Reynolds asserted that Goldsmith was diverting himself by
trying to make himself out to be more stupid than he really was. Malone,
whose judgment was rarely at fault, whether it was exercised in the
detection of fraud or in the discovery of genius, was in perfect
agreement with Reynolds on this point, and was always ready to
affirm that Boswell was unjust in his remarks upon Goldsmith and the
conclusions to which he came in respect of his character. It is not
necessary for one to have an especially vivid imagination to enable one
to see what was the expression on Malone's face when he came upon the
patronising passage in the _Life of Johnson_ in which Boswell stated
that for his part he was always glad to hear “honest Dr. Goldsmith”
converse. “Puppy!” cried Johnson upon one occasion when a certain
commentator had patronised a text out of all recognition. What would he
have said had he heard Goldsmith patronised by Boswell?
So far as Goldsmith's actual vanity is concerned, all that can be said
at this time is that had it existed in the offensive form which it
assumes in some of Boswell's stories, Goldsmith would never have won
the friendship of those men and women who were his friends before he had
made a reputation for himself by the publication of _The 'Traveller_.
If he had had an extravagant opinion of his own capacity as a poet,
he would certainly never have suffered Johnson to make an attempt to
improve upon one of his poems; but Goldsmith not only allowed him to do
so, but actually included the lines written by Johnson when he published
the poem. Had he been eaten up by vanity, he would not have gone
wandering down the Mall in St. James's Park while his comedy was being
played for the first time before a delighted house. The really vain man
was the author of The Vanity of Human Wishes, who bought the showiest
set of garments he could find and sat in all their glory in the front
row of the boxes on the night when Garrick produced his tragedy of
_Irene_--Garrick whom he kept out of the Club for nine years simply
because the actor had expressed a wish to become one of the original
members. The really vain man was the one who made his stock story his
account of his conversation with the King in the Royal Library. Every
one sees this now, and every one saw it, except Boswell, when the _Life_
was flung in the face of a convulsed public, for the public of the year
1791 were as little aware of the real value of the book as the author
was of the true character of his hero and his hero's friend Goldsmith.
After all, there would be no better way of arriving at a just conclusion
on the subject of Goldsmith's stupidity than by submitting the whole
of the case to an ordinary man accustomed to the many peculiarities of
Irishmen, especially in the exercise of their doubtful gift of humour.
“Here is a man,” we must say, “who became the most intimate friend of
people of title and the dearest friend of many men of brains. When the
most exclusive Club of the day was started his place as a member was not
disputed, even by the man who invented the word 'clubbable,' and knew
what it meant into the bargain; when the Royal Academy of Arts was
started he was invited to become one of its professors. Some of the
wittiest things recorded by the most diligent recorder of witty things
that the world has ever known, were uttered by him. Upon one occasion
when walking among the busts of the poets in Westminster Abbey with a
friend, the latter pointing around said:
“'_Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis_.'
“Leaving the Abbey and walking down the Strand to Temple Bar they saw
the heads of the men who had been captured and decapitated for taking
part in the Rebellion of the year 1745, bleaching in the winds in
accordance with the terms of the sentence for high treason.
“'_Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis_,' murmured the man of
whom we speak. Upon another occasion this same friend of his, who had a
unique reputation for speaking in the most ponderous language, even when
dealing with the simplest matters, asserted that the writing of the
dialogue in some recently published fables where fish were represented
as conversing, was very simple. 'Not so simple at all,' said the other,
'for were you to write them, you would make every minnow talk like a
whale.'
“In the course of a few years, in addition to compiling histories, which
remained standard educational works for more than a century, and several
other books, he wrote a novel which received the highest praise from the
greatest intellects in Europe, and which is still read with delight by
thousands of people of all nationalities; a poem of which almost every
line is quoted daily in conversation--a poem which contains metaphors
that have been repeated for generations in the Senate, in the Court of
Law, and in the Church; and a play which has been pronounced the truest
comedy in the English language. He died at an early age, and a memorial
of his genius was given a place in Westminster Abbey. The inscription
was written by the most distinguished man of letters in England, and
although highly eulogistic, was considered by the greatest painter in
the world and the greatest orator in the world to fall short of doing
justice to the subject.
“But, on the other hand, the man of whom we speak was said by a
Scotchman, who himself was occasionally referred to as a cur and
sometimes as an ape, and more than once as a coxcomb, to have been
roused to a frenzy of envy, because some officers, passing through a
square in a French town, looked admiringly at two lovely girls who
were at a window, ignoring him at another window; and again because his
friends spoke with favour of the dexterity of a wooden figure dressed
as a soldier, and yet again (on another authority) because one of
his friends read a passage from Shakespeare, and affirmed that it was
magnificent. Now, would you say,” we should ask the authority to whom we
are supposed to be stating a case--“would you say that this man was in
earnest when, in the first of the instances quoted, he walked up and
down the room in the French hotel asserting 'that although the young
ladies, of whom he was extremely fond, might have their admirers, there
were places where he, too, was given admiration'? Would you say that he
showed ill-temper or wit when, in the second instance, he declared with
warmth that he could toss a halbert quite as well as any wooden figure?
Would you say that----”
But we should not get any further than this in stating our case to a man
acquainted with the Irish and their humour: he would think that we were
taking a leaf out of the book of Irish humour, and endeavouring to fool
him by asking him to pronounce a grave opinion upon the obvious; he
would not stay to give us a chance of asking him whether he thought that
the temptation of making “Noll” rhyme with “Poll,” was not too great to
be resisted by the greatest farceur of his time, in the presence of a
humorous colleague called Oliver; and whether an impecunious but witty
Irishman begged his greatest friend not to give him the nickname of
Goldy, because his dignity was hurt thereby, or simply because it was
tantalising for one to be called “Goldy,” whose connection with gold was
usually so transitory.
If people will only read the stories told of poor Goldsmith's vanity,
and envy, and coxcombry, with a handbook of Irish humour beside them,
the conclusion to which they will come must, we think, be that Goldsmith
was an Irishman, and that, on the whole, he made very good fun of
Boswell, who was a Scotsman, but that in the long run Boswell got very
much the better of him. Scotsmen usually laugh last.