criticism of the day being too long for insertion here, will be found in a future volume annexed to the poem. Among other evidences of the popularity of the poem were imitations of the title and subject. Thus, "The Village Oppressed; a Poem-Dedicated to Dr. Goldsmith," and "The Frequented Village; a Poem-Dedicated to Dr. Goldsmith," soon appeared, both authors proud of his acquaintance, and proud likewise to tell the world of the honour they enjoyed. It may be doubted whether he was equally proud of his disciples, neither of whom were proficients in the art of poetry, as will be obvious from the complimentary and concluding part of the latter production, the better of the two, "by a Gentleman of the Middle Temple," who was so impressed by the danger of surreptitious copies of his work being put into circulation, that he begs to sign the initials of his name B. K.' in each copy." 66 "Accept dear Goldsmith, these ingenuous lines, A bright example sheds its light aronnd. 'Dear charming nymph, neglected and decry'd, Thou source of all my bliss and all my wo, That found'st me poor at first and keep'st me so, Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!' "Apollo and the Muses forbid! What! shall the author of the Traveller and the Deserted Village, poems which not only do honour to the nation, but are the only living proofs that true poetry is not dead among us; shall he, I say, this author, living in the richest nation in Europe and the subject of a young and generous King who loves, cherishes, and understands the fine arts, be obliged to drudge for booksellers, and write, because he must write, lives of poets much inferior to himself, Roman History, Natural History, or any history, and be forced to curb his imagination lest it should run him into distresses? 'Quatenus heu nefas.' "I could not stop the overflowing of my mind on this occasion in the following lines UPON DR. GOLDSMITH TAKING HIS FAREWELL OF POETRY IN HIS DESERTED VILLAGE. 'Mason was mute, and Gray but touch'd the lyre, For faction chills, not fans, poetic fire; Where Shakspeare's genius blazed and Milton's glow'd, Discord has fix'd her dark and drear abode, Spreads gloom around, and now no tuneful bird, Except the lonely Nightingale, is heard; He sadly sweet, his wo-fraught bosom heaved, J. B." To thee unfledged my tender muse would soar, The four concluding lines of the poem were supplied by Dr. Johnson, who in looking it over while preparing for the press, conceived they furnished a more appropriate termination "That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, As rocks resist the billows and the sky." See Boswell, vol. ii. p. 309. CHAPTER XX. Requested to write in support of the ministry.-Newspaper wit.-Life of Parnell. Excursion to Paris.-Adridgment of Roman History.-Life of Bolingbroke.-Opinion of Rowley's Poems.-Haunch of Venison--Dr. Hiffernan, THE attention drawn to his farewell to Poetry appeared to answer the object for which it was probably written; that of hinting the impracticability of pursuing an art in which he gave so much pleasure, without having other pecuniary means than his literary labours furnished, of acquiring the necessary leisure for that purpose; and a public provision was thought of by his friends. An impression of being neglected, there is no doubt, had for some time taken root in his mind; he became irritable from the constant drudgery of writing; and from the same cause experienced occasional attacks of a very painful complaint, which were usually succeeded by fits of despondency, and these held up to an exciting imagination the probability of being deprived by advancing infirmity of the power of contributing to his own support. A considerable share of public favour and applause added something perhaps to the opinion of his own deserts. Next to Johnson, he occupied the largest share of public attention in popular literature; on topics of criticism and polite letters his name frequently occurs in the periodical works of the day in conjunction with the latter, and appeals were made conjointly to their judgment; his works had acquired the highest reputation; and the state of his pecuniary circumstances when known, induced the hope of sharing in the bounty that had pensioned Johnson, Sheridan, and Shebbeare, and found means if not of pensioning, at least of being liberal to Murphy, Kelly, and others. Allusions to his poverty occur in many parts of his writings and he was equally unreserved in conversation. To Poetry he says emphatically "That found'st me poor at first and keep'st me so. Writing to Mr. Bennet Langton in 1771, in speaking of his labours in Natural History we have the admission-" God knows I am tired of this kind of finishing, which is but bungling work; and that not so much my fault as the fault of my scurvy circumstances." In the preface to that history in allusion to the expense as well as the labour it cost him, we are told, "I have taxed my scanty circumstances in procuring books, which are on this subject, of all others the most expensive." To the Earl of Lisburn, who once addressed him at a dinner at the Royal Academy with a complimentary notice of his poetical talents and an inquiry whether the world was to be favoured by a new production of his genius, he jocularly replied, "My Lord, I cannot afford to court the draggletail Muses; they will let me starve: but by pursuing plain prose, can make shift to eat, and drink, and wear good clothes." I No other notice of the hints thus dropped was taken by the dispensers of national bounty, than an attempt made some months af terwards to engage him through the means of one of their most active agents in support of the ministry, which was then hard-pressed by the opposition in parliament, and by Junius, Wilkes, and a variety of other political writers out of it; so that his reward or expected reward was thus to be made dependent not on his literary, but on his political services. This proposal he had the courage to decline. The fact of its having been made seems to be placed beyond doubt by the bearer of it. The Rev. Dr. Scott, well known as a warm political partisan of the day, and a constant writer in the newspapers under a variety of signatures particularly Anti-Sejanus, Panurge, and others,* having communicated the fact to living witnesses. To one of these, Mr. Basil Montagu, to whom the public is indebted for matters of much more importance, the writer is obliged for the anecdote. It exhibits the very different tone of feeling between the Poet though poor, and the reverend and prosperous politician, the studious scholar, and the veteran man of the world; and the former perhaps deserves the more credit for his independence when we consider that in complying with the request, he would have been advancing not only his worldly interests, but supporting his avowed political principles, which were nearly similar to those of Dr. Johnson. "A few months," writes Mr. Montagu, "before the death of Dr. Scott, author of Anti-Sejanus and other political tracts in support of In the Public Advertiser, April 6th, 1770, there is a coarse and abusive squib, addressed "To the Rev. Anti-Sejanus, alias the Rev. Mr. Slyboots, alias the Rev. Mr. *** Chaplain to the pious Jemmy Twitcher." (Lord Sandwich, who was known by this name,) This was Dr. Scott. † Since this was written Sir George Tuthill has died. Lord North's administration, I happened to dine with him in company with my friend Sir George Tuthill, who was the Doctor's physician. After dinner Dr. Scott mentioned, as matter of astonishment and a proof of the folly of men who are according to common opinion ignorant of the world, that he was once sent with a carte blanche from the ministry to Oliver Goldsmith to induce him to write in favour of the administration. "I found him," said the Doctor, "in a miserable set of chambers in the Temple; I told him my authority; I told him that I was empowered to pay most liberally for his exertions, and, would you believe it! he was so absurd as to say I can earn as much as will supply my wants without writing for any party; the assistance therefore you offer is unnecessary to me,' and so I left him," added Dr. Scott, "in his garret." The purport of this interview soon came to the knowledge of his friends by whom it was probably mentioned in conversation to others; for threats were occasionally held forth to him in the newspapers if he should become a retainer of the ministry. Among the more authoritative exhortations thus published, and which is said to have been sent him privately, is the following; it seems to proceed from one to whom his hope of receiving a portion of that royal bounty extended to so many others, his inferiors in literary merit, was evidently not unknown. But the persuasive it contained to despise extraneous assistance, and to depend solely on his own resources for support, as if literature was either an easy or a lucrative profession, or one such as required no other encouragement than praise, for little more than praise could be earned by poetry to which this writer points, is one of those gratuitous pieces of advice, which those who commonly give, would deem it exceedingly inconsiderate or a proof of great self-denial in themselves to follow. "A friend to Dr Goldsmith's great merit as a writer, and worth as a man, hopes he will avail himself of the candid and generous treatment he meets with from the public; their favour he will at all times find to be the best of pensions; and if the Doctor thinks rightly, he will pay a strict regard to his reputation, by avoiding the stigma which literary men too often fix upon themselves, that of betraying the interests of their country for base and scandalous pay. There is no need to point out by name the spaniels to power; they are sufficiently known and despised; but the tool of a minister, the drudge of a bookseller, or the compiler of temporising histories are characters beneath Dr. Goldsmith's genius and principles to stoop to. He has luckily too no share in a patent to make him mean or avaricious, nor would he as it is believed, desert the cause of science to become the sparrow and bashaw of a declining theatre. There is a nobler field before the Doctor; let him till it; and may that public who are to reap the fruits of that culture, continue to reward him!" Akin to the disinterestedness which induced him to refuse the proposal from the ministry, the following story is told. Having received for the Deserted Village a note for one hundred guineas, he was told by a friend whom he met when returning from the bookseller, that it was a large sum for a short performance; and seeming to be of the same opinion by the remark "that it was more perhaps than the honest man could afford," he returned and delivered it up. Whether true or not, the anecdote sufficiently conveys the general opinion formed of his probity and generosity; but its authenticity is at least doubtful. A bookseller scarcely requires to be instructed by a stranger about the amount to be given for a poem written by a popular writer, the merit of which was obvious to any critical eye; and Goldsmith was commonly too much in want of money to relinquish, without further and convincing reasons what must have been voluntarily given as the reward of his labours. Had the sale been such as to prove a loss to the purchaser, he would no doubt have reimbursed him in another way, but of the value of the time and labour expended upon the work, the severe and repeated revisions it had undergone, producing so near an approach to perfection as to occasion little or no alteration in successive editions, he could not be ignorant. Poems are not to be judged as the supposed remark of this friend would imply, by their length, but by their excellence; the former is indeed sometimes a vulgar criterion of merit, and it might perhaps escape from one of the persons whom his good nature not their own merits or intelligence, admitted to occasional intimacy. The whole sum received for this poem is supposed not to have been more than one hundred guineas. * The names of Johnson and Goldsmith were so commonly united, that when one became the sport of newspaper wit, the other rarely escaped. The former was callous to any thing of this description; but the Irish poet being known to be sensitive, many of the inferior writers, from envy or love of mischief, took delight in teasing him by their jests and ridicule. On one of these occasions Johnson and he were represented as the Pedant and his flatterer in Love's Labour Lost. Goldsmith, whose dignity was offended by the imputation, came to his friend complaining of their insolence and vowing vengeance against the printer, * The precise sum received for it appears not to have been known among what is called the trade; for Cadell who was connected with Goldsmith in some literary transactions did not know the amount. In Hannah More's correspondence it ap-. pears that he offered her the same sum for Sir Eldred of the Bower as was received for the Deserted Village, if she could find it out-a striking proof of the very different value of poetry in the literary market and in Parnassus, for no one of critical discrimination, least of all the ingenious authoress, would have ventured to compare them in the scale of merit. † Johnson was frequently the subject of a squib, in allusion either to his personal peculiarities, his politics, or his pension. In one he is announced (ironically of course) to appear in the character of Sir Charles Easy, and Goldsmith in that of Common Sense. In another he is represented, in allusion to the pension, as Hercules slaying the Hesperian Dragon, and receiving his reward. Again in a squib against the ministry where each is recommended to fill a place at variance with their supposed characters, he finds a place as Governor of Falkland Islands. In a mock will of Wilkes, among other satirical bequests there is,-"To my dear wife, my love;-to Mrs. Catharine M'Auley, my breeches;" "to Dr. Samuel Johnson, my politeness." These are only a few out of a great number. |