whole day than sit and instruct their feathered pupils; and that the birds were thus distinct in their lessons in consequence of continual schooling.'

His tour does not seem to have left in his memory the most 5 fragrant recollections; for, being asked, after his return, whether travelling on the Continent repaid "an Englishman for the privations and annoyances attendant on it," he replied, "I recommend it by all means to the sick, if they are without the sense of smelling, and to the poor if they are without the 10 sense of feeling, and to both if they can discharge from their minds all idea of what in England we term comfort."

It is needless to say that the universal improvement in the art of living on the Continent has at the present day taken away the force of Goldsmith's reply, though even at the time it 15 was more humorous than correct.

CHAPTER XXX

Death of Goldsmith's Mother. - Biography of Parnell. - Agreement with Davies for the History of Rome. - Life of Bolingbroke. - The Haunch of Venison.

On his return to England, Goldsmith received the melancholy tidings of the death of his mother. Notwithstanding the fame as an author to which he had attained, she seems to have been disappointed in her early expectations from him. Like others 20 of his family, she had been more vexed by his early follies than pleased by his proofs of genius; and in subsequent years, when he had risen to fame and to intercourse with the great, had been annoyed at the ignorance of the world and want of management, which prevented him from pushing his fortune. 25 had always, however, been an affectionate son, and in the latter years of her life, when she had become blind, contributed from his precarious resources to prevent her from feeling want.

He

He now resumed the labors of his pen, which his recent excursion to Paris rendered doubly necessary. We should have 30 mentioned a Life of Parnell, published by him shortly after the

Deserted Village. It was, as usual, a piece of job-work, hastily got up for pocket-money. Johnson spoke slightingly of it, and the author himself thought proper to apologize for its meagreness,—yet, in so doing, used a simile, which for beauty of imagery and felicity of language is enough of itself to stamp a 5 value upon the essay.

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Such," says he, "is the very unpoetical detail of the life of a poet. Some dates and some few facts, scarcely more interesting than those that make the ornaments of a country tombstone, are all that remain of one whose labors now begin to 10 excite universal curiosity. A poet, while living, is seldom an object sufficiently great to attract much attention; his real merits are known but to a few, and these are generally sparing in their praises. When his fame is increased by time, it is then too late to investigate the peculiarities of his disposition; the 15 dews of morning are past, and we vainly try to continue the chase by the meridian splendor."

He now entered into an agreement with Davies to prepare an abridgment, in one volume duodecimo, of his History of Rome; but first to write a work for which there was a more immediate 20 demand. Davies was about to republish Lord Bolingbroke's Dissertation on Parties, which he conceived would be exceedingly applicable to the affairs of the day, and make a probable hit during the existing state of violent political excitement; to give it still greater effect and currency, he engaged Goldsmith to intro- 25 duce it with a prefatory life of Lord Bolingbroke.

About this time Goldsmith's friend and countryman, Lord Clare, was in great affliction, caused by the death of his only son, Colonel Nugent, and stood in need of the sympathies of a kind-hearted friend. At his request, therefore, Goldsmith paid 30 him a visit at his seat of Gosfield, taking his tasks with him. Davies was in a worry lest Gosfield Park should prove a Capua to the poet, and the time be lost. "Dr. Goldsmith," writes he to a friend," has gone with Lord Clare into the country, and I am plagued to get the proofs from him of the Life of Lord 35 Bolingbroke." The proofs, however, were furnished in time for the publication of the work in December. The Biography, though written during a time of political turmoil, and introducing a work intended to be thrown into the arena of politics,

maintained that freedom from party prejudice observable in all the writings of Goldsmith. It was a selection of facts, drawn from many unreadable sources, and arranged into a clear, flowing narrative, illustrative of the career and character of one 5 who, as he intimates, "seemed formed by Nature to take delight in struggling with opposition; whose most agreeable hours were passed in storms of his own creating; whose life was spent in a continual conflict of politics, and as if that was too short for the combat, has left his memory as a subject of lasting conten10 tion." The sum received by the author for this memoir is supposed, from circumstances, to have been forty pounds.

Goldsmith did not find the residence among the great unattended with mortifications. He had now become accustomed to be regarded in London as a literary lion, and was annoyed, 15 at what he considered a slight, on the part of Lord Camden. He complained of it on his return to town at a party of his friends. "I met him," said he, " at Lord Clare's house in the country; and he took no more notice of me than if I had been an ordinary man." "The company," says Boswell, " laughed 20 heartily at this piece of diverting simplicity."" And foremost among the laughers was doubtless the rattle-pated Boswell. Johnson, however, stepped forward, as usual, to defend the poet, whom he would allow no one to assail but himself; perhaps in the present instance he thought the dignity of literature itself 25 involved in the question. Nay, gentlemen," roared he, " Dr. Goldsmith is in the right. A nobleman ought to have made up to such a man as Goldsmith, and I think it is much against Lord Camden that he neglected him."

After Goldsmith's return to town he received from Lord 30 Clare a present of game, which he has celebrated and perpetuated in his amusing verses entitled the Haunch of Venison. Some of the lines pleasantly set forth the embarrassment caused by the appearance of such an aristocratic delicacy in the humble kitchen of a poet, accustomed to look up to mutton 35 as a treat:

"Thanks, my lord, for your venison; for finer or fatter
Never rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter:
The haunch was a picture for painters to study,
fat was so white, and the lean was so ruddy;

Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting
To spoil such a delicate picture by eating

I had thought in my chambers to place it in view,

To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtu;
As in some Irish houses where things are so-so,
One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show;

But, for eating a rasher, of what they take pride in,
They'd as soon think of eating the pan it was fry'd in

But hang it-to poets, who seldom can eat,

Your very good mutton's a very good treat,

Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt;
It's like sending them, ruffles, when wanting a shirt."

We have an amusing anecdote of one of Goldsmith's blunders which took place on a subsequent visit to Lord Clare's, when that nobleman was residing in Bath.

5

10

15

Lord Clare and the Duke of Northumberland had houses next to each other, of similar architecture. Returning home one morning from an early walk, Goldsmith, in one of his frequent fits of absence, mistook the house, and walked up into the Duke's dining-room, where he and the Duchess were about 20 to sit down to breakfast. Goldsmith, still supposing himself in the house of Lord Clare, and that they were visitors, made them an easy salutation, being acquainted with them, and threw himself on a sofa in the lounging manner of a man perfectly at home. The Duke and Duchess soon perceived his mistake, 25 and, while they smiled internally, endeavored, with the considerateness of well-bred people, to prevent any awkward embarrassment. They accordingly chatted sociably with him about matters in Bath, until, breakfast being served, they invited him to partake. The truth at once flashed upon poor 30 heedless Goldsmith; he started up from his free-and-easy position, made a confused apology for his blunder, and would have retired perfectly disconcerted, had not the Duke and Duchess treated the whole as a lucky occurrence to throw him in their way, and exacted a promise from him to dine with them.

This may be hung up as a companion-piece to his blunder on his first visit to Northumberland House.

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CHAPTER XXXI

Dinner at the Royal Academy. - The Rowley Controversy. — Horace Walpole's Conduct to Chatterton. -Johnson at Redcliffe Church.Goldsmith's History of England. - Davies's Criticism.-Letter to Bennet Langton.

ON St. George's day of this year (1771), the first annual banquet of the Royal Academy was held in the exhibition-room; the walls of which were covered with works of art, about to be submitted to public inspection. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who 5 first suggested this elegant festival, presided in his official character; Drs. Johnson and Goldsmith, of course, were present, as Professors of the academy; and, beside the academicians, there was a large number of the most distinguished men of the day as guests. Goldsmith on this occasion drew on himself the 10 attention of the company by launching out with enthusiasm on the poems recently given to the world by Chatterton, as the works of an ancient author by the name of Rowley, discovered in the tower of Redcliffe Church, at Bristol. Goldsmith spoke of them with rapture, as a treasure of old English poetry. 15 This immediately raised the question of their authenticity; they having been pronounced a forgery of Chatterton's. Goldsmith was warm for their being genuine. When he considered, he said, the merit of the poetry, the acquaintance with life and the human heart displayed in them, the antique quaintness of the 20 language and the familiar knowledge of historical events of their supposed day, he could not believe it possible they could be the work of a boy of sixteen, of narrow education, and confined to the duties of an attorney's office. They must be the productions of Rowley.

25

Johnson who was a stout unbeliever in Rowley, as he had been in Ossian, rolled in his chair and laughed at the enthusiasm of Goldsmith. Horace Walpole, who sat near by, joined in the laugh and jeer as soon as he found that the "trouvaille," as he called it, "of his friend Chatterton" was in question. 30 This matter, which had excited the simple admiration of Goldsmith, was no novelty to him, he said. "He might, had he