1755. thirty years after this was written, and when the writer had been fifteen years in his grave, the crash of the falling Et. 27. Bastille resounded over Europe. Before Goldsmith quitted Paris, he is said by his biographers to have been seen and become known to Voltaire.* But at Paris this could not have been. The great wit was then self-exiled from the capital, which he had not seen from the luckless hour in which he accepted the invitation of varieties of men, not only placed him in advance of his contemporaries on several social questions, but occasionally gave him very much the advantage over greatly more learned, and, so to speak, educated men. Thus it was, in short, he became a Citizen of the World; and the passage in the text may be taken for proof that he never could have used the shallow argument maintained by Johnson in his dispute with Sir Adam Ferguson: "Sir, I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of "government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an "individual. Sir, the danger of the abuse of power is nothing to a private man. "What Frenchman is prevented from passing his life as he pleases? SIR ADAM: "But, Sir, in the British constitution it is surely of importance to keep up a spirit "in the people, so as to preserve a balance against the crown. JOHNSON: Sir, I "perceive you are a vile whig. Why all this childish jealousy of the power of the "crown? The crown has not power enough." Boswell, iii. 202-3. This was in 1772; and in 1789 the Bastille came down. * Prior, i. 181. Since my first edition was published, an octogenarian of Cork, the late Mr. Roche, who had talked with Gibbon in Switzerland and narrowly missed having talked with Montesquieu; who refers to his friend Vergniaud and details his impression of Mirabeau's speech on national bankruptcy, who paid once for his dinner at a Paris chop-house 14000 francs (in assignats), and in company with Malesherbes had the honour to be put into prison by Robespierre,—has made much, in a book of published anecdotes, of his supposed detection of this error; Mr. Irving having repeated it in the interval, and Lord Brougham having also given currency to it in a Life of Voltaire. I learn this from a notice in the Globe newspaper of a few months back. "Take for instance," says the writer, enlarging on the cleverness of his octogenarian friend, "Brougham, Washington Irving, Mr. Prior, "and Oliver Goldsmith, all of whom are convicted of a gross conspiracy to circulate "a fraud of which honest Noll was the original fabricator, the others having "only endorsed the forgery. Goldsmith could not by chance have conversed with "Voltaire in Paris during the year 1754, as he impudently says he did, for the "simple reason that Voltaire quitted Paris in 1750, and never set foot in the capital "till eighteen years afterwards, in 1778. The two lives by Irving and Prior still "hold this falsehood, but"--and the writer goes on to say that I appear not only to have entertained some suspicion of it, but to have doubted the veracity of my hero, and that in consequence I omit the anecdote altogether. My text in this passage, nevertheless, stands now precisely as it did four years ago. 1755. Æt. 27. Frederick of Prussia. The fact is alleged, it is quite true, on Goldsmith's own authority; but the passage is loosely written, does not appear in a work which bore the writer's name, and may either have been tampered with by others, or even mistakenly set down by himself in confusion of memory. The error does not vitiate the statement in an integral point, since it can hardly be doubted, I think, that the meeting actually took place. The time when Goldsmith passed through the Genevese territory, is the time when Voltaire had settled himself, in greater quiet than he had known for years, in his newly-purchased house of Les Délices, his first residence in Geneva. He is, in a certain sort, admitted president of the European intellectual republic; and, from his president's chair, is laughing at his own follies, laughing heartily at the kings of his acquaintance, particularly and loudly laughing at Frederick and his "Euvres des Poeshies." It is the time of all others when, according to his own letters, he is resolved to have, on every occasion and in every shape, "the society of agreeable and "clever people."* Goldsmith, flute in hand, or Goldsmith, learned and poor companion to a rich young fool,Goldsmith, in whatever character, yearning to literature, its fame, and its awe-inspiring professors,—would not find himself near Les Délices without finding also easy passage to its illustrious owner. By whatever chance or design, there at any rate he seems to have been. A large party was present, and conversation turned upon the English; of whom, as he afterwards observed in a letter to the Public Ledger, Goldsmith recollected Voltaire to have remarked, that at the battle of Dettingen they exhibited prodigies of valour, * See the delightful and entertaining fragment of Memoirs written at this time to explain his quarrel with Fritz. but lessened their well-bought conquest by lessening the merit of those they had conquered. 66 66 66 In a Life of Voltaire afterwards begun, but not finished, in one of the magazines of the day, he recalled this conversation in greater detail, to illustrate the general manner of the famous Frenchman. "When he was warmed in discourse, and had got over a hesitating manner which "sometimes he was subject to, it was rapture to hear him. His meagre visage seemed insensibly to gather beauty, every muscle in it had meaning, and his eye beamed with "unusual brightness." Among the persons alleged to be present, though this might be open to question if anything of great strictness were involved, the names are used of the vivid and noble talker, Diderot, and of Fontenelle, then on the verge of the grave that waited for him nigh a hundred years. The last, Goldsmith says, reviled the English in everything; the first, with unequal ability, defended them; and, to the surprise of all, Voltaire long continued silent. At last he was roused from his reverie; a new life pervaded his frame; he flung himself into an animated defence of England; strokes of the finest raillery fell thick and fast on his antagonist; and he spoke almost without intermission for three hours. "I never was so much "charmed," he added; "nor did I ever remember so "absolute a victory as he gained in this dispute." Here Goldsmith was a worshipper at the footstool, and Voltaire was on the throne; yet it is possible that when the great Frenchman heard in later years the name of the celebrated Englishman, he may have remembered this night at Les Délices, and the enthusiasm of his young admirer, he may have recalled, with a smile for its fervent. * Miscellaneous Works, iii. 224, 225. 1755. Æt. 27. 1755. zeal, the pale, somewhat sad face, with its two great wrinkles Æt. 27. between the eyebrows, but redeemed from ugliness or contempt by its kind expression of simplicity, as his own was by its wonderful intellect and look of unutterable mockery. For though, when they met, Voltaire was upwards of sixty-one, and Goldsmith not twenty-seven, it happened that when (in 1778) the Frenchman's popularity returned, and all the fashion and intellect of Paris were again at the feet of the philosopher of Ferney; the Johnsons, Burkes, Gibbons, Wartons, Sheridans, and Reynoldses of England were discussing the inscription for the marble tomb of the author of the Vicar of Wakefield. The lecture rooms of Germany are so often referred to in his prose writings, that, as he passed to Switzerland, he must have taken them in his way. In the Polite Learning,* one is painted admirably: its Nego, Probo, and Distinguo, growing gradually loud till denial, approval, and distinction are altogether lost; till disputants grow warm, moderator is unheard, audience take part in the debate, and the whole hall buzzes with false philosophy, sophistry, and error. Passing into Switzerland, he saw Schaffhausen frozen quite across, and the water standing in columns where the cataract had formerly fallen. His Animated Nature, in which this is noticed, contains also masterly descriptions, from his own experience, of the wonders that present themselves to the traveller over lofty mountains; and he adds that "nothing can be finer or more exact than "Mr. Pope's description of a traveller straining up the Alps." Geneva was his resting-place in Switzerland; but he visited Basle and Berne; ate a "savoury" dinner on the top of the Alps; flushed woodcocks on Mount Jura; 66 wondered to see the sheep in the valleys, as he had read of Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend, Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale, Remembering thus his brother's humble kindly life, he had set in pleasant contrast before him the weak luxuriance of Italy, and the sturdy enjoyment of the rude Swiss home. Observe in this following passage with what an exquisite art of artlessness, if I may so speak, an unstudied character is given to the verses by the recurring sounds in the rhymes; by the turn that is given to particular words and their repetition; and by the personal feeling, the natural human Glover, who related many anecdotes on Goldsmith's own authority, distinctly tells us (Malone's Dublin edition of the Poems, p. iv. And see Annual Register, xvii. 30) that it was here he first tried a sustained flight in verse, and that he sent from Switzerland the first sketch of the Traveller to his brother Henry. Mrs. Hodson tells us: "She hath seen letters to his friends, which he wrote "from Switzerland, Germany, and Italy." Narrative in Percy Memoir, 14. These letters are supposed to be still in existence; another in more humorous vein, written from Paris and describing his necessities, is also believed to have been preserved; but none of them have yet risen to the surface. 1755. Æt. 27. |