author, who, as he became a kind of competitor of Goldsmith's, deserves particular mention. He was an Irishman, about twentyeight years of age, originally apprenticed to a staymaker in Dublin; then writer to a London attorney; then a Grub-Street 5 hack, scribbling for magazines and newspapers. Of late he had set up for theatrical censor and satirist, and in a paper called Thespis, in emulation of Churchill's Rosciad, had harassed many of the poor actors without mercy, and often without wit; but had lavished his incense on Garrick, who, in consequence, 10 took him into favor. He was the author of several works of superficial merit, but which had sufficient vogue to inflate his vanity. This, however, must have been mortified on his first introduction to Johnson; after sitting a short time he got up to take leave, expressing a fear that a longer visit might be 15 troublesome. "Not in the least, sir," said the surly moralist, "I had forgotten you were in the room." Johnson used to speak of him as a man who had written more than he had read.

A prime wag of this club was one of Goldsmith's poor countrymen and hangers-on, by the name of Glover. He had originally 20 been educated for the medical profession, but had taken in early life to the stage, though apparently without much success. While performing at Cork, he undertook, partly in jest, to restore life to the body of a malefactor, who had just been executed. To the astonishment of every one, himself among the 25 number, he succeeded. The miracle took wind. He abandoned the stage, resumed the wig and cane, and considered his fortune as secure. Unluckily, there were not many dead people to be restored to life in Ireland; his practice did not equal his expectation, so he came to London, where he continued to dabble 30 indifferently, and rather unprofitably, in physic and literature.

He was a great frequenter of the Globe and Devil taverns, where he used to amuse the company by his talent at storytelling and his powers of mimicry, giving capital imitations of Garrick, Foote, Colman, Sterne, and other public characters of 35 the day. He seldom happened to have money enough to pay his reckoning, but was always sure to find some ready purse among those who had been amused by his humors. Goldsmith, of course, was one of the readiest. It was through him that Glover was admitted to the Wednesday Club, of which his

theatrical imitations became the delight. Glover, however, was a little anxious for the dignity of his patron, which appeared to him to suffer from the over-familiarity of some of the members of the club. He was especially shocked by the free and easy tone in which Goldsmith was addressed by the pig-butcher. 5 "Come, Noll," would he say, as he pledged him, "here's my service to you, old boy!"

Glover whispered to Goldsmith, that he "should not allow such liberties." "Let him alone," was the reply, "you'll see how civilly I'll let him down." After a time, he called out, 10 with marked ceremony and politeness, "Mr. B., I have the honor of drinking your good health." Alas! dignity was not poor Goldsmith's forte: he could keep no one at a distance. "Thank'ee, thank'ee, Noll," nodded the pig-butcher, scarce taking the pipe out of his mouth. "I don't see the effect of 15 your reproof," whispered Glover. "I give it up," replied Goldsmith, with a good-humored shrug; "I ought to have known before now there is no putting a pig in the right way."

Johnson used to be severe upon Goldsmith for mingling in these motley circles, observing, that, having been originally 20 poor, he had contracted a love for low company. Goldsmith,

however, was guided not by a taste for what was low, but for what was comic and characteristic. It was the feeling of the artist; the feeling which furnished out some of his best scenes in familiar life, the feeling with which "rare Ben Jonson " sought these very haunts and circles in days of yore, to study Every Man in his Humor.

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It was not always, however, that the humor of these associates was to his taste: as they became boisterous in their merriment, he was apt to become depressed. "The company of fools," 30 says he, in one of his essays, "may at first make us smile, but at last never fails of making us melancholy." "Often he would become moody," says Glover, "and would leave the party abruptly to go home and brood over his misfortune."

It is possible, however, that he went home for quite a dif- 35 ferent purpose: to commit to paper some scene or passage suggested for his comedy of The Good-natured Man. The elaboration of humor is often a most serious task; and we have never witnessed a more perfect picture of mental misery than

was once presented to us by a popular dramatic writer — still, we hope, living whom we found in the agonies of producing a farce which subsequently set the theatres in a roar.

CHAPTER XX

The Great Cham of Literature and the King. - Scene at Sir Joshua Reynolds's. - Goldsmith accused of Jealousy. - Negotiations with Garrick. The Author and the Actor; Their Correspondence.

THE Comedy of The Good-natured Man was completed by 5 Goldsmith early in 1767, and submitted to the perusal of Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, and others of the literary club, by whom it was heartily approved. Johnson, who was seldom halfway either in censure or applause, pronounced it the best comedy that had been written since The Provoked Husband 10 and promised to furnish the prologue. This immediately became an object of great solicitude with Goldsmith, knowing the weight an introduction from the Great Cham of literature would have with the public; but circumstances occurred which he feared might drive the comedy and the prologue from John15 son's thoughts. The latter was in the habit of visiting the royal library at the Queen's (Buckingham) House, a noble collection of books, in the formation of which he had assisted the librarian, Mr. Bernard, with his advice. One evening, as he was seated there by the fire reading, he was surprised by 20 the entrance of the King (George III.), then a young man, who sought this occasion to have a conversation with him. The conversation was varied and discursive, the King shifting from subject to subject according to his wont. During the whole interview," says Boswell, "Johnson talked to his Majesty 25 with profound respect, but still in his open, manly manner, with a sonorous voice, and never in that subdued tone which is commonly used at the levee and in the drawing-room. ‘I found his Majesty wished I should talk,' said he, and I made it my business to talk. I find it does a man good to be talked 30 to by his sovereign. In the first place, a man cannot be in a

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passion." It would have been well for Johnson's colloquial disputants, could he have often been under such decorous restraint. Profoundly monarchical in his principles, he retired from the interview highly gratified with the conversation of the King and with his gracious behavior. "Sir," said he to 5 the librarian, "they may talk of the King as they will, but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen."- Sir," said he subsequently to Bennet Langton, "his manners are those of as fine a gentleman as we may suppose Louis the Fourteenth or Charles the Second.”

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While Johnson's face was still radiant with the reflex of royalty, he was holding forth one day to a listening group at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, who were anxious to hear every particular of this memorable conversation. Among other questions, the King had asked him whether he was writing anything. His 15 reply was, that he thought he had already done his part as a writer. "I should have thought so too," said the King, “if you had not written so well." "No man," said Johnson, commenting on this speech, "could have made a handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a King to pay. It was decisive."— 20 "But did you make no reply to this high compliment?" asked one of the company. "No, sir," replied the profoundly deferential Johnson; "when the King had said it, it was to be so. It was not for me to bandy civilities with my sovereign."

During all the time that Johnson was thus holding forth, 25 Goldsmith, who was present, appeared to take no interest in the royal theme, but remained seated on a sofa at a distance, in a moody fit of abstraction; at length recollecting himself, he sprang up, and advancing, exclaimed, with what Boswell calls his usual "frankness and simplicity,”. "Well, you ac- 30 quitted yourself in this conversation better than I should have done, for I should have bowed and stammered through the whole of it." He afterwards explained his seeming inattention by saying that his mind was completely occupied about his play, and by fears lest Johnson, in his present state of 35 royal excitement, would fail to furnish the much-desired prologue.

How natural and truthful is this explanation. Yet Boswell presumes to pronounce Goldsmith's inattention affected, and

attributes it to jealousy. "It was strongly suspected," says he, "that he was fretting with chagrin and envy at the singular honor Dr. Johnson had lately enjoyed." It needed the littleness of mind of Boswell to ascribe such pitiful motives to 5 Goldsmith, and to entertain such exaggerated notions of the honor paid to Dr. Johnson.

The Good-natured Man was now ready for performance, but the question was, how to get it upon the stage. The affairs of Covent Garden, for which it had been intended, were thrown 10 into confusion by the recent death of Rich, the manager. Drury Lane was under the management of Garrick; but a feud, it will be recollected, existed between him and the poet, from the animadversions of the latter on the mismanagement of theatrical affairs, and the refusal of the former to give the 15 poet his vote for the secretaryship of the Society of Arts. Times, however, were changed. Goldsmith, when that feud took place, was an anonymous writer, almost unknown to fame, and of no circulation in society. Now he had become a literary lion; he was a member of the Literary Club; he was 20 the associate of. Johnson, Burke, Topham Beauclerc, and other magnates, in a word, he had risen to consequence in the public eye, and of course was of consequence in the eyes of David Garrick. Sir Joshua Reynolds saw the lurking scruples of pride existing between the author and actor, and think25 ing it a pity that two men of such congenial talents, and who might be so serviceable to each other, should be kept asunder by a worn-out pique, exerted his friendly offices to bring them together. The meeting took place in Reynolds's house in Leicester Square. Garrick, however, could not entirely put off 30 the mock majesty of the stage; he meant to be civil, but he was rather too gracious and condescending. Tom Davies, in his Life of Garrick, gives an amusing picture of the coming together of these punctilious parties. "The manager," says he, was fully conscious of his (Goldsmith's) merit, and perhaps 35 more ostentatious of his abilities to serve a dramatic author than became a man of his prudence; Goldsmith was, on his side, as fully persuaded of his own importance and independent greatness. Mr. Garrick, who had so long been treated with the complimentary language paid to a successful patentee and