embarrassed, but continued to read in a more elevated tone. The louder he read, the louder Hiffernan snored; until the author came to a pause. "Never mind the brute, Bick, but go on," cried Goldsmith. "He would have served Homer just so if he were here and reading his own works." Kenrick, Goldsmith's old enemy, travestied this anecdote in the following lines, pretending that the poet had compared his countryman Bickerstaff to Homer. What are your Bretons, Romans, Grecians, Ev'n Homer's self is but their foster brother. Johnson was a rough consoler to a man when wincing under an attack of this kind. "Never mind, sir," said he to Goldsmith, when he saw that he felt the sting. "A man whose business it is to be talked of is much helped by being attacked. is a shuttlecock; if it be struck only at one end of the room, will soon fall to the ground; to keep it up, it must be struck at both ends." Fame, sir, it Bickerstaff at the time of which we are speaking was in high vogue, the associate of the first wits of the day; a few years afterwards, he was obliged to fly the country to escape the punishment of an infamous crime. Johnson expressed great astonishment at hearing the offence for which he had fled. "Why, sir?" said Thrale; "he had long been a suspected man." Perhaps there was a knowing look on the part of the eminent brewer, which provoked a somewhat contemptuous reply. "By those who look close to the ground," said Johnson, “dirt will sometimes be seen; I hope I see things from a greater distance." We have already noticed the improvement, or rather the increased expense, of Goldsmith's wardrobe since his elevation into polite society. "He was fond," says one of his contemporaries, "of exhibiting his muscular little person in the gayest apparel of the day, to which was added a bag-wig and sword" Thus arrayed, he used to figure about in the sunshine in the Temple Gardens, much to his own satisfaction, but to the amusement of his acquaintances. Boswell, in his memoirs, has rendered one of his suits for ever famous. That worthy, on the 16th of October in this same year, gave a dinner to Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick. Murphy, Bickerstaff, and Davies. Goldsmith was generally apt to bustle in at the last moment, when the guests were taking their seats at table, but on this occasion he was unusually early. While waiting for some lingerers to arrive, "he strutted about," says Boswell, "bragging of his dress, and I believe, was seriously vain of it, for his mind was undoubtedly prone to such impres sions. Come, come,' said Garrick, 'talk no more of that. You are perhaps the worst-eh, eh?' Goldsmith was eagerly attempt ing to interrupt him, when Garrick went on, laughing ironically. 'Nay, you will always look like a gentleman; but I am talking of your being well or ill dressed! Well, let me tell you,' said Goldsmith, when the tailor brought home my bloom-colored coat, he said, "Sir, I have a favor to beg of you; when any body asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention John Filby, at the Harrow, in Water Lane." Why, sir,' cried John. Бои, 'that was because he knew the strange color would attract A JOKER OUTJOKED. 225 crowds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of him, and see how well he could make a coat of so absurd a color.'" But though Goldsmith might permit this raillery on the part of his friends, he was quick to resent any personalities of the kind from strangers. As he was one day walking the Strand h grand array with bag-wig and sword, he excited the merriment of two coxcombs, one of whom called to the other to "look at that fly with a long pin stuck through it" Stung to the quick. Goldsmith's first retort was to caution the passers-by to be on their guard against "that brace of disguised pickpockets"-his next was to step into the middle of the street, where there was room for action, half-draw his sword, and beckon the joker, who was armed in like manner, to follow him. This was literally a war of wit which the other had not anticipated. He had no inclination to push the joke to such an extreme, but abandoning the ground, sneaked off with his brother wag amid the hootings of the spectators. This proneness to finery in dress, however, which Boswell and others of Goldsmith's contemporaries, who did not understand the secret plies of his character, attributed to vanity, arose, we are convinced, from a widely different motive. It was from a painful idea of his own personal defects, which had been cruelly stamped upon his mind in his boyhood, by the sneers and jeers of his playmates, and had been ground deeper into it by rude. specches made to him in every step of his struggling career, until it had become a constant cause of awkwardness and embar rassment. This he had experienced the more sensibly since his reputation had elevated him into polite society; and he was con stantly endeavoring by the aid of dress to acquire that personal acceptability, if we may use the phrase, which nature had denied him. If ever he betrayed a little self-complacency on first turning out in a new suit, it may, perhaps, have been because he felt as if he had achieved a triumph over his ugliness. There were circumstances too, about the time of which we are treating, which may have rendered Goldsmith more than asually attentive to his personal appearance. He had recently made the acquaintance of a most agreeable family from Devonshire, which he met at the house of his friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds. It consisted of Mrs. Horneck, widow of Captain Kane Horneck; two daughters, seventeen and nineteen years of age, and an only son, Charles, the Captain in Lace, as his sisters playfully and somewhat proudly called him, he having lately entered the Guards.. The daughters are described as uncommonly beautiful, intelligent, sprightly, and agreeable. Catharine, the eldest, went among her friends by the name of Little Comedy, indicative, very probably, of her disposition. She was engaged to William Henry Bunbury, second son of a Suffolk baronet. The hand and heart of her sister Mary were yet unengaged, although she bore the by-name among her friends of the Jessamy Bride. This family was prepared, by their intimacy with Reynolds and his sister, to appreciate the merits of Goldsmith. The poet had always been a chosen friend of the eminent painter, and Miss Reynolds, as we have shown, ever since she had heard his poem of The Traveller read aloud, had ceased to consider him ugly. The Hornecks were equally capable of forgetting his per son in admiring his works. On becoming acquainted with him. too, they were delighted with his guileless simplicity; his buoy ant good-nature and his innate benevolence, and an enduring intimacy soon sprang up between them. For once poor Goldsmith had met with polite society, with which he was perfectly at A RHYMING EPISTLE. 227 home, and by which he was fully appreciated; for once he had met with lovely women, to whom his ugly features were not repulsive. A proof of the easy and playful terms in which he was with them, remains in a whimsical epistle in verse, of which the following was the occasion. A dinner was to be given to their family by a Dr. Baker, a friend of their mother's, at which Rey nolds and Angelica Kauffman were to be present. The young ladies were eager to have Goldsmith of the party, and their intimacy with Dr. Baker allowing them to take the liberty, they wrote a joint invitation to the poet at the last moment. It came too late, and drew from him the following reply; on the top of which was scrawled, This is a poem! This is a copy of verses! Your mandate I got, And the Jessamy Bride, With the rest of the crew, The Reynoldses too, Little Comedy's face, But alas! your good worships, how could they be wiser, The following lines had appeared in that day's Advertiser, on the portra of Sir Joshua by Angelica Kauffman :— While fair Angelica, with matchless grace, Paints Conway's burly form and Stanhope's face; Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay, We praise, admire and gaze our souls away. |