sports of blind-man's-buff, hunt the slipper, &c., or in their games at cards, and was the most noisy of the party, affecting to cheat and to be excessively eager to win; while with children of smaller size he would turn the hind part of his wig before, 5 and play all kinds of tricks to amuse them.

One word as to his musical skill and his performance on the flute, which comes up so invariably in all his fireside revels. He really knew nothing of music scientifically; he had a good ear, and may have played sweetly; but we are told he could not 10 read a note of music. Roubillac, the statuary, once played a trick upon him in this respect. He pretended to score down an air as the poet played it, but put down crotchets and semibreves at random. When he had finished, Goldsmith cast his eyes over it and pronounced it correct! It is possible that his exe15 cution in music was like his style in writing; in sweetness and melody he may have snatched a grace beyond the reach of art!

He was at all times a capital companion for children, and knew how to fall in with their humors. "I little thought," said Miss Hawkins, the woman grown, "what I should have to 20 boast when Goldsmith taught me to play Jack and Jill by two bits of paper on his fingers." He entertained Mrs. Garrick, we are told, with a whole budget of stories and songs; delivered the Chimney Sweep with exquisite taste as a solo; and performed a duet with Garrick of Old Rose and Burn the Bellows. 25 "I was only five years old," says the late George Colman, "when Goldsmith one evening, when drinking coffee with my father, took me on his knee and began to play with me, which amiable act I returned with a very smart slap in the face; it must have been a tingler, for I left the marks of my little spite30 ful paw upon his cheek. This infantile outrage was followed by summary justice, and I was locked up by my father in an adjoining room, to undergo solitary imprisonment in the dark. Here I began to howl and scream most abominably. At length a friend appeared to extricate me from jeopardy; it was the 35 good-natured Doctor himself, with a lighted candle in his hand, and a smile upon his countenance, which was still partially red from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and sobbed, and he fondled and soothed until I began to brighten. He seized the propitious moment, placed three hats upon the carpet, and a

shilling under each; the shillings, he told me, were England, France, and Spain. 'Hey, presto, cockolorum!' cried the Doctor, and, lo! on uncovering the shillings, they were all found congregated under one. I was no politician at the time, and therefore might not have wondered at the sudden revolution 5 which brought England, France, and Spain all under one crown; but, as I was also no conjurer, it amazed me beyond measure. From that time, whenever the Doctor came to visit my father,

"I pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile;'

a game of romps constantly ensued, and we were always cordial friends and merry playfellows."

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Although Goldsmith made the Edgeware farm-house his headquarters for the summer, he would absent himself for weeks at a time on visits to Mr. Cradock, Lord Clare, and Mr. Langton, 15 at their country-seats. He would often visit town, also, to dine and partake of the public amusements. On one occasion he accompanied Edmund Burke to witness a performance of the Italian Fantoccini or Puppets, in Panton Street; an exhibition which had hit the caprice of the town, and was in a great vogue. 20 The puppets were set in motion by wires, so well concealed as to be with difficulty detected. Boswell, with his usual obtuseness with respect to Goldsmith, accuses him of being jealous of the puppets! "When Burke," said he, "praised the dexterity with which one of them tossed a pike, 'Pshaw,' said Goldsmith 25 with some warmth, I can do it better myself."" "The same

evening," adds Boswell, "when supping at Burke's lodgings, he broke his shin by attempting to exhibit to the company how much better he could jump over a stick than the puppets."

Goldsmith jealous of puppets! This even passes in absurdity 30 Boswell's charge upon him of being jealous of the beauty of the two Miss Hornecks.

The Panton-Street puppets were destined to be a source of further amusement to the town, and of annoyance to the little autocrat of the stage. Foote, the Aristophanes of the English 35 drama, who was always on the alert to turn every subject of popular excitement to account, seeing the success of the

Fantoccini, gave out that he should produce a Primitive Puppet-Show at the Haymarket, to be entitled The Handsome Chambermaid, or Piety in Pattens; intended to burlesque the sentimental comedy which Garrick still maintained at Drury 5 Lane. The idea of a play to be performed in a regular theatre by puppets excited the curiosity and talk of the town. " Will your puppets be as large as life, Mr. Foote?" demanded a lady of rank. 66 Oh, no, my lady," replied Foote, “not much larger than Garrick."

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CHAPTER XXXV

Broken Health. - Dissipation and Debts. - The Irish Widow. - Practical Jokes. Scrub. A misquoted Pun. - Malagrida. Goldsmith proved to be a Fool.-Distressed Ballad-Singers.-The Poet at Ranelagh.

GOLDSMITH returned to town in the autumn (1772), with his health much disordered. His close fits of sedentary application, during which he in a manner tied himself to the mast, had laid the seeds of a lurking malady in his system, and produced a severe illness in the course of the summer. Town-life was not 15 favorable to the health either of body or mind. He could not resist the siren voice of temptation, which, now that he had become a notoriety, assailed him on every side. Accordingly we find him launching away in a career of social dissipation; dining and supping out; at clubs, at routs, at theatres; he is a 20 guest with Johnson at the Thrales', and an object of Mrs. Thrale's lively sallies; he is a lion at Mrs. Vesey's and Mrs. Montagu's, where some of the high-bred blue-stockings pronounce him a "wild genius," and others, peradventure, a "wild Irishman." In the mean time his pecuniary difficulties are 25 increasing upon him, conflicting with his proneness to pleasure and expense, and contributing by the harassment of his mind to the wear and tear of his constitution. His Animated Nature, though not finished, has been entirely paid for, and the money spent. The money advanced by Garrick on Newbery's note, 30 still hangs over him as a debt. The tale on which Newbery

had loaned from two to three hundred pounds previous to the excursion to Barton, has proved a failure. The bookseller is urgent for the settlement of his complicated account; the perplexed author has nothing to offer him in liquidation but the copyright of the comedy which he has in his portfolio; "Though, 5 to tell you the truth, Frank," said he, “there are great doubts of its success." The offer was accepted, and, like bargains wrung from Goldsmith in times of emergency, turned out a golden speculation to the bookseller.

In this way Goldsmith went on "overrunning the constable," 10 as he termed it; spending everything in advance; working with an overtasked head and weary heart to pay for past pleasures and past extravagance, and at the same time incurring new debts, to perpetuate his struggles and darken his future prospects. While the excitement of society and the 15 excitement of composition conspire to keep up a feverishness of the system, he has incurred an unfortunate habit of quacking himself with James's powders, a fashionable panacea of the day.

A farce, produced this year by Garrick, and entitled The Irish 20 Widow, perpetuates the memory of practical jokes played off a year or two previously upon the alleged vanity of poor, simplehearted Goldsmith. He was one evening at the house of his friend Burke, when he was beset by a tenth muse, an Irish widow and authoress, just arrived from Ireland, full of brogue 25 and blunders, and poetic fire and rantipole gentility. She was soliciting subscriptions for her poems, and assailed Goldsmith for his patronage; the great Goldsmith her countryman, and of course her friend. She overpowered him with eulogiums on his own poems, and then read some of her own, with vehemence 30 of tone and gesture, appealing continually to the great Goldsmith to know how he relished them.

Poor Goldsmith did all that a kind-hearted and gallant gentleman could do in such a case; he praised her poems as far as the stomach of his sense would permit - perhaps a little 35 further; he offered her his subscription; and it was not until she had retired with many parting compliments to the great Goldsmith, that he pronounced the poetry which had been inflicted on him execrable. The whole scene had been a hoax

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got up by Burke for the amusement of his company; and the Irish widow, so admirably performed, had been personated by a Mrs. Balfour, a lady of his connection, of great sprightliness and talent.

We see nothing in the story to establish the alleged vanity of Goldsmith, but we think it tells rather to the disadvantage of Burke, being unwarrantable under their relations of friendship, and a species of waggery quite beneath his genius.

Croker, in his notes to Boswell, gives another of these practi10 cal jokes perpetrated by Burke at the expense of Goldsmith's credulity. It was related to Croker by Colonel O'Moore, of Cloghan Castle, in Ireland, who was a party concerned. The Colonel and Burke, walking one day through Leicester Square on their way to Sir Joshua Reynolds's, with whom they were to 15 dine, observed Goldsmith, who was likewise to be a guest, standing and regarding a crowd which was staring and shouting at some foreign ladies in the widow of a hotel. "Observe Goldsmith," said Burke to O'Moore, " and mark what passes between us at Sir Joshua's." They passed on and reached there before 20 him. Burke received Goldsmith with affected reserve and coldness; being pressed to explain the reason, "Really," said he, "I am ashamed to keep company with a person who could act as you have just done in the Square." Goldsmith protested he was ignorant of what was meant. "Why," said Burke, "did 25 you not exclaim, as you were looking up at those women, what stupid beasts the crowd must be for staring with such admiration at those painted Jezebels, while a man of your talents passed by unnoticed?" Surely, surely, my dear friend,” cried Goldsmith, with alarm, "surely I did not say so?" 30" Nay," replied Burke, "if you had not said so, how should I have known it?" "That's true," answered Goldsmith, "I am very sorry it was very foolish: I do recollect that something of the kind passed through my mind, but I did not think I had uttered it."

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35 It is proper to observe that these jokes were played off by Burke before he had attained the full eminence of his social position, and that he may have felt privileged to take liberties with Goldsmith as his countryman and college associate. It is evident, however, that the peculiarities of the latter, and his