room compared with the figure he makes in his poetry! "The reason of that, madam," replied Foote, "is because the Muses are better company than the players."

Beauclerc's letters to his friend, Lord Charlemont, who was 5 absent in Ireland, give us now and then an indication of the whereabout of the poet during the present year. "I have been but once to the club since you left England," writes he; "we were entertained, as usual, with Goldsmith's absurdity." With Beauclerc everything was absurd that was not polished and 10 pointed. In another letter he threatens, unless Lord Charlemont returns to England, to bring over the whole club, and let them loose upon him to drive him home by their peculiar habits of annoyance; -Johnson shall spoil his books; Goldsmith shall pull his flowers; and last, and most intolerable of all, Boswell 15 shall talk to him. It would appear that the poet, who had a passion for flowers, was apt to pass much of his time in the garden when on a visit to a country-seat, much to the detriment of the flower-beds and the despair of the gardener.

The summer wore heavily away with Goldsmith. He had 20 not his usual solace of a country retreat, his health was impaired and his spirits depressed. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who perceived the state of his mind, kindly gave him much of his company. In the course of their interchange of thought, Goldsmith suggested to him the story of Ugolino, as a subject for 25 his pencil. The painting founded on it remains a memento of their friendship.

On the 4th of August we find them together at Vauxhall, at that time a place in high vogue, and which had once been to Goldsmith a scene of Oriental splendor and delight. We 30 have, in fact, in the Citizen of the World a picture of it as it had struck him in former years and in his happier moods. Upon entering the gardens," says the Chinese philosopher, "I found every sense occupied with more than expected pleasure the lights everywhere glimmering through the scarcely 35 moving trees; the full-bodied concert bursting on the stillness of the night; the natural concert of the birds in the more retired part of the grove, vying with that which was formed by art; the company gayly dressed, looking satisfaction, and the tables spread with various delicacies, all conspired to fill my

imagination with the visionary happiness of the Arabian lawgiver, and lifted me into an ecstasy of admiration." 1

Everything now, however, is seen with different eyes; with him it is dissipation without pleasure; and he finds it impossible any longer, by mingling in the gay and giddy throng 5 of apparently prosperous and happy beings, to escape from the carking care which is clinging to his heart.

His kind friend, Cradock, came up to town towards autumn, when all the fashionable world was in the country, to give his wife the benefit of a skilful dentist. He took lodgings in Nor- 10 folk Street, to be in Goldsmith's neighborhood, and passed most of his mornings with him. "I found him," he says, "much altered and at times very low. He wished me to look over and revise some of his works; but, with a select friend or two, I was more pressing that he should publish by subscrip- 15 tion his two celebrated poems of the Traveller and the Deserted Village, with notes." The idea of Cradock was, that the subscription would enable wealthy persons, favorable to Goldsmith, to contribute to his pecuniary relief without wounding his pride. "Goldsmith," said he, "readily gave up to me 20 his private copies, and said, 'Pray do what you please with them.' But whilst he sat near me, he rather submitted to than encouraged my zealous proceedings.

"I one morning called upon him, however, and found him infinitely better than I had expected; and, in a kind of exult- 25 ing style, he exclaimed, 'Here are some of the best of my prose writings; I have been hard at work since midnight, and I desire you to examine them.' 'These,' said I, are excellent indeed.' They are,' replied he, 'intended as an introduction to a body of arts and sciences.''

6

999

Poor Goldsmith was, in fact, gathering together the fragments of his shipwreck; the notes and essays, and memoranda collected for his dictionary and proposed to found on them a work in two volumes, to be entitled A Survey of Experimental Philosophy.

The plan of the subscription came to nothing, and the projected survey never was executed. The head might yet devise, but the heart was failing him; his talent at hoping, which gave

1 Citizen of the World, letter lxxi.

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him buoyancy to carry out his enterprises, was almost at an end.

Cradock's farewell-scene with him is told in a simple but touching manner.

"The day before I was to set out for Leicestershire, I insisted upon his dining with us. He replied, I will, but on one condition, that you will not ask me to eat anything.'" “Nay,’ said I, 'this answer is absolutely unkind, for I had hoped, as we are supplied from the Crown and Anchor, that you would 10 have named something you might have relished.' Well,' was the reply, if you will but explain it to Mrs. Cradock, I will certainly wait upon you.'

"The Doctor found, as usual, at my apartments, newspapers and pamphlets, and with a pen and ink he amused himself as 15 well as he could. I had ordered from the tavern some fish, a roasted joint of lamb, and a tart; and the Doctor either sat down or walked about just as he pleased. After dinner he took some wine with biscuits; but I was obliged soon to leave him for a while, as I had matters to settle prior to my next 20 day's journey. On my return, coffee was ready, and the Doctor appeared more cheerful (for Mrs. Cradock was always rather a favorite with him), and in the evening he endeavored to talk and remark as usual, but all was force. He stayed till midnight, and I insisted on seeing him safe home, and we most 25 cordially shook hands at the Temple-gate." Cradock little thought that this was to be their final parting. He looked back to it with mournful recollections in after-years, and lamented that he had not remained longer in town at every inconvenience, to solace the poor broken-spirited poet. The latter continued in town all the autumn. At the opening of the Opera-House, on the 20th of November, Mrs. Yates, an actress whom he held in great esteem, delivered a poetical exordium of his composition. Beauclerc, in a letter to Lord Charlemont, pronounced it very good, and predicted that it 35 would soon be in all the papers. It does not appear, however, to have been ever published. In his fitful state of mind Goldsmith may have taken no care about it, and thus it has been lost to the world, although it was received with great applause by a crowded and brilliant audience.

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A gleam of sunshine breaks through the gloom that was gathering over the poet. Towards the end of the year he receives another Christmas invitation to Barton. A country Christmas! - with all the cordiality of the fireside circle, and the joyous revelry of the oaken hall, what a contrast to the 5 loneliness of a bachelor's chambers in the Temple! It is not to be resisted. But how is poor Goldsmith to raise the ways and means? His purse is empty; his booksellers are already in advance to him. As a last resource, he applies to Garrick. Their mutual intimacy at Barton may have suggested him as 10 an alternative. The old loan of forty pounds has never been paid; and Newbery's note pledged as a security, has never been taken up. An additional loan of sixty pounds is now asked for, thus increasing the loan to one hundred; to insure the payment, he now offers, besides Newbery's note, the trans- 15 fer of the comedy of the Good-natured Man to Drury Lane, with such alterations as Garrick may suggest. Garrick, in reply, evades the offer of the altered comedy, alludes significantly to a new one which Goldsmith had talked of writing for him, and offers to furnish the money required on his own 20 acceptance.

The reply of Goldsmith bespeaks a heart brimful of gratitude and overflowing with fond anticipations of Barton and the smiles of its fair residents. "My dear friend," writes he, "I thank you. I wish I could do something to serve you. I 25 shall have a comedy for you in a season, or two at farthest, that I believe will be worth your acceptance, for I fancy I will make it a fine thing. You shall have the refusal. . . . I will draw upon you one month after date for sixty pounds, and your acceptance will be ready money, part of which I want to go 30 down to Barton with. May God preserve my honest little man, for he has my heart. Ever,

"OLIVER GOLDSMITH."

And having thus scrambled together a little pocket-money, by hard contrivance, poor Goldsmith turns his back upon care 35 and trouble, and Temple quarters, to forget for a time his desolate bachelorhood in the family circle and a Christmas fireside at Barton.

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CHAPTER XLIV

A Return to Drudgery; Forced Gayety; Retreat to the Country; The Poem of Retaliation. - Portrait of Garrick; Of Goldsmith; Of Reynolds. Illness of the Poet; His Death; Grief of his Friends. Last Word respecting the Jessamy Bride.

A

THE Barton festivities are over; Christmas, with all its home-felt revelry of the heart, has passed like a dream; the Jessamy Bride has beamed her last smile upon the poor poet, and the early part of 1774 finds him in his now dreary bachelor 5 abode in the Temple, toiling fitfully and hopelessly at a multiplicity of tasks. His Animated Nature, so long delayed, so often interrupted, is at length announced for publication, though it has yet to receive a few finishing touches. He is preparing a third History of England, to be compressed and 10 condensed in one volume, for the use of schools. He is revising his Inquiry into Polite Learning, for which he receives the pittance of five guineas, much needed in his present scantiness of purse; he is arranging his Survey of Experimental Philosophy, and he is translating the Comic Romance of Scarron. Such is a 15 part of the various labors of a drudging, depressing kind, by which his head is made weary and his heart faint. "If there is a mental drudgery," says Sir Walter Scott, "which lowers the spirits and lacerates the nerves, like the toil of a slave, it is that which is exacted by literary composition, when the heart 20 is not in unison with the work upon which the head is employed." Add to the unhappy author's task sickness, sorrow, or the pressure of unfavorable circumstances, and the labor of the bondsman becomes light in comparison. Goldsmith again makes an effort to rally his spirits by going into gay society. 25"Our Club," writes Beauclerc to Charlemont, on the 12th of February, "has dwindled away to nothing. Sir Joshua and Goldsmith have got into such a round of pleasures that they have no time." This shows how little Beauclerc was the companion of the poet's mind, or could judge of him below the sur30 face. Reynolds, the kind participator in joyless dissipation,