much for their irregularities as their genius, was likewise among his acquaintance: it is said to have commenced in an unusual manner, whether previous to the criticism on Nash's life is doubtful; but the term "good-natured editor" used in it implied sufficient knowledge of his person or character. The story was told by Mr. Cooke, and warrants the propriety of the appellation used by Lloyd as to his easiness of temper.

While sitting in the Chapter Coffee-house, Goldsmith who had been recently ill, was accosted by a stranger with inquiries after his health; and evincing the surprise and hesitation natural on the occasion, the inquirer proceeded to introduce himself. "You will pardon my abruptness; my name is Lloyd; you are Dr. Goldsmith: as literary men, familiar to each other by name, we ought to be acquainted; and as I have a few friends to supper here this evening, let me have the pleasure of your company likewise without further ceremony." The frankness of the invitation to a man of social propensities, insured its acceptance: he joined the party composed chiefly of authors, spent an agreeable evening, but when about to depart overheard a discussion between his new friend and the landlord who seemed perfectly known to each other, implying that the one could not at that moment pay the reckoning while the other declined to give credit. The generosity of Goldsmith obviated the difficulty by guarantying the debt which eventually he paid, Lloyd who had long lived by shifts and expedients caring nothing further

about the matter.

Another deception alleged to have been practised upon him is of a date shortly anterior to this: it is told by Sir John Hawkins, who viewed the Poet as he did Burke with no favourable eye, and even if true, indicates rather simplicity of character, a good-natured acquiescence in what he did not stop to examine, or a degree of delicacy in charging ignorance or imposture upon the supposed musician, than total ignorance of the matter in discussion. We may at least question the correctness of the story in the way he tells it. That Goldsmith had some though possibly slight knowledge of music is certain. Few persons of any education blow the flute for a series years without knowing a single note; and it would only require an acquaintance with the first half dozen in the stave, to perceive the imposition attempted by his facetious acquaintance. Another reason for doubt applies to time. Roubiliac died after an illness of some duration, early in January 1762; the occurrence therefore must have taken place if at all some months previously, when Goldsmith was perhaps scarcely of consequence enough to be made the subject of ridicule, or to have it remembered of him nearly thirty years afterwards, when the alleged author of the trick had so long quitted the scene.

of

"But in truth," writes Sir John, in allusion to the performance of the Poet on the German flute," he understood not the character in which music is written, and played on that instrument, as many of the vulgar do, merely by ear. Roubiliac, the sculptor, a merry fellow, once heard him play, and minding to put a trick upon him,

pretended to be charmed with his performance, as also that himself was skilled in the art, and entreated him to repeat the air, that he might write it down. Goldsmith readily consenting, Roubiliac called for paper, and scored thereon a few five-line staves, which having done, Goldsmith proceeded to play, and Roubiliac to write; but his writing was only such random notes on the lines and spaces as any one might set down who had ever inspected a page of music. When they had both done, Roubiliac showed the paper to Goldsmith, who, looking it over with seeming great attention, said it was very correct, and that if he had not seen him do it, he never could have believed his friend capable of writing music after him."

CHAPTER XII.

Boswell.-Residence of Goldsmith at Islington, and Connexion with Newbery.

ABOUT this period he first became acquainted with Mr. Boswell; an observer whose representations having had some influence in giving an erroneous idea of the character of the subject of these pages, their intercourse requires to be noticed more in detail.

He had just arrived from Scotland, warm with the design of seeking the society of the first wits of the metropolis; and had already, as he tells us, found access to Wilkes, Churchill, Thornton, Lloyd, and others. His chief object of pursuit, however, was Dr. Johnson. Before this introduction could be successfully accomplished, he met Goldsmith, one of their earliest interviews being at dinner with Mr. Thomas Davies, the bookseller, in Russell Street, Covent Garden, toward the end of 1762 or commencement of the following year. Mr. Robert Dodsley was of the party; and a discussion arising relative to the character of modern poetry, Goldsmith asserted that there was none, that is none of superior merit, of that age. Dodsley appealed to his Collection (the well known work in six volumes) for proofs to the contrary, maintaining, in his phrase, that though no palaces could be pointed out, such as Dryden's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, there were villages composed of very pretty houses, and instanced particularly the poem of "The Spleen." Johnson on hearing of the argument gave it against Dodsley. "He and Goldsmith said the same thing," was his remark, "only he said it in a softer manner than Goldsmith did; for he acknowledged there was no poetry, nothing that towered above the common mark."

Whether Boswell took part in the conversation does not appear, but from his love of talking, his youthful presumption, his desire on all occasions to exhibit such knowledge as he possessed, and the popular nature of the topic, we may readily believe he was not silent; and boasting as he did of the acquaintance of Churchill and

his friends, he may have been induced to retail their opinions on such subjects, and uphold their claims to superiority. To this school of poetry, which had satire chiefly for its object, Goldsmith felt and expressed strong repugnance: he neither practised nor approved it; and if he were tempted to show how defective the taste or erroneous the judgment of its admirers, would probably have used little ceremony toward a presumptuous young man, such as his new Scottish acquaintance would appear, possessed of no known pretensions to learning, genius, knowledge, literature, or experience in life. He could not be supposed to discover in such a person, one who was destined eventually to sit in judgment upon his character, and become with a few persons not remarkable for critical taste, in some measure an arbiter of his fame. He would not have believed, even when Boswell became more known, that his opinions of literary merit could have weight with tolerable judges, even if his personal civilities were insincere; or that the biography of his friend Johnson (if he ever positively knew who was to be biographer) should be rendered the medium of what resembles a species of covert hostility towards himself.

Boswell, from the first, seems to have viewed him with no favourable eye; a tone of slight, meant to undervalue his powers, mingled indeed with a few sentences of regard, or a compliment to his generous and social qualities, runs through his work, and has often drawn animadversion from the higher order of literary men who have all expressed their sense of its injustice. Conjectures have been hazarded as to the cause, but the motives probably were various; springing from a thousand trifling sources, none singly of material importance, though together sufficient to create distaste in an intercourse which seems never to have reached the point of absolute friendship.

Jealousy of the regard of Johnson formed no doubt one of the chief reasons; a feeling which had not ceased to operate when there was no longer cause for apprehension. Viewing the great moralist as a kind of property which others would descend to the same obsequiousness as himself to secure, Boswell scarcely believed there was a class of men who, from higher spirit or the higher place they held in public esteem, shrunk from submissions that no private man, however eminent or estimable, had a right to exact, but which it suited his views or disposition to render. Wanting a strong tone of independence of mind himself, he made little allowance for its existence in others. He fancied, therefore, a dangerous rival in Goldsmith: a man of various genius, who stood high in esteem with the object of their common solicitude, who was much in his society, and who having no domestic ties requiring his presence, might be supposed to pay him a less divided attention. On the other hand, Goldsmith thought, and there is no doubt expressed to several common friends, that Johnson gave too much of his time to Boswell who he considered had no claim to it, either by high con versational powers, or the possession of acknowledged literary talents.

The querulous feeling of the biographer breaks out without concealment in the following amusing instance, and it marks likewise his presumption; for having at this time a very slight acquaintance with Dr. Johnson, he had no claim for admission to his moments of privacy, or just cause to envy another who from previous intimacy enjoyed this mark of favour. They had been supping together (July 1st, 1763,) at the Mitre, when Johnson, who often thus inverted the usual order of repasts, quitted the tavern to drink tea with Miss Williams, his blind pensioner, without inviting Boswell to join the party. "Dr. Goldsmith," says the latter, "being a privileged man, went with him this night, strutting away and calling to me with an air of superiority like that of an esoteric over that of an exoteric disciple of a sage of antiquity, '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."

The period at which they met, and the relative situation of the parties, may have had weight in abating the admiration of Boswell for his Irish acquaintance. Young at the time, well born, with a high opinion of himself, and with a competent inheritance, he found the latter on their first meeting merely an author, possessing no distinguishing superiority, or who at least had not reached the point of celebrity which he felt bound to worship; he saw him, indeed, emerge speedily into notice, ascend every year higher in estimation, and at length attain the first reputation; but the merit which he had failed at first to discover he appeared scarcely ever after freely to admit.

There are persons willing to render homage to such as are already at the summit of fame, who cannot extend the same degree of applause to those who acquire it under their eye, and whose progress they have had the means of tracing step by step. We frequently see men who rise from obscurity to eminence little thought of by those who started in life as their equals; the privations, trials, and difficulties of the ascent, far from enhancing their merit in the eyes of such, seem to diminish it, or if admitted, it is with sundry deductions and qualifications. We seem to like to have our admiration taken by surprise. A meridian sun overpowers many with its splendour, who perceive little in the subdued beauty of its rise.

The mind of Boswell, obviously not of the most delicate or disinterested texture, influenced his conduct and opinions. In spirit he was, and aimed to be, a man of the world. In Goldsmith he saw qualities of an opposite kind, a thoughtlessness in discourse not uncommon with men of original powers,* an occasional effusion of

• Mr. D'Israeli has happily touched on this frequent characteristic of the race of which he treats :

"One peculiar trait in the conversations of men of genius which has often injured them when the listeners were not intimately acquainted with the man, are certain sports of a vacant mind; a sudden impulse to throw out opinions and take views of things in some humour of the moment. Extravagant paradoxes and false opinions are caught up by the humbler prosers; and the Philistines are thus enabled to triumph over the strong and gifted man, because in the hour of confidence, and in the abandonment of the mind, he laid his head in their lap, and

vanity, oddities of conduct or address, and a simplicity of character, which as varying from the conventional standard, he thought denoted a degree of inferiority. On no better foundation than this, men hackneyed in the ways of life often assume superiority over the recluse scholar, with whom in genius or acquirements they admit of no comparison. Peculiarities floating upon the surface of character they keenly see; qualities which command sincere admiration may lie beneath, but they have neither taste for the search, nor disposition to value them when found. There is no severer, or more unfit, judge of a man of genius than what is called a man of the world.

Another cause of distaste toward Goldsmith is conjectured to have been envy of his literary success. As this usually implies a degree of rivalry in the same pursuit, it is difficult to conceive how Boswell could so far mistake his own powers; but the notice of Johnson, a general acquaintance with men who had acquired eminence by the cultivation of letters, the success of his volume on Corsica, impressed the belief as the tone of his writings prove, that he was fitted if he thought proper, to take a respectable station in literature. Traces of discontent at the popularity of the author of the Traveller appear in various parts of his book,-as on his return from the Continent, when surprise is expressed at finding him stand so high; but the disposition to find fault would seem to have preceded even this period. On the third or fourth interview only (June 25th, 1763,) with Dr. Johnson, a conversation occurred respecting Goldsmith, in which the former states his opinion, even then, of the promising literary character of his friend, and glances not less forcibly at his foibles. We are not told what led to the observations; but from the context it is difficult not to believe they were made in reply to comments of an unfavourable kind proceeding from Boswell :—“ Dr. Goldsmith," said the moralist, "is one of the first men we now have as an author, and he is a very worthy man too. He has been loose in his principles, but he is coming right."

In the tour to the Hebrides many years afterwards, an anecdote transpires, which seems as if he had been brooding over the fame of Goldsmith in no friendly mood, deeming it lightly acquired, or not wholly deserved. After parting with some military officers, and remarking how little of fame or money the majority acquired by service, he introduces the Poet's name in the following manner, though unconnected with the persons or subject before thein:"BOSWELL. Goldsmith has acquired more fame than all the officers last war who were not generals. JOHNSON. Why, Sir, you will find ten thousand fit to do what they did, before you find one who does what Goldsmith has done. You must consider that a thing is valued according to its rarity. A pebble that paves the street is in itself more useful than the diamond upon a lady's finger.

taught them how he might be shorn of his strength."-The Literary Character illustrated, pp. 120, 121. 8vo. 1818.