yond measure. visit my father,

From that time, whenever the doctor came to

'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."

Although Goldsmith made the Edgeware farmhouse his headquarters for the summer, he would absent himself for weeks at a time on visits to Mr. Cradock, Lord Clare, and Mr. Langton, 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 great vogue. 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 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 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 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 Puppetshow 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 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. "Oh, no, my lady;" replied Foote, "not much larger than Garrick "

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CHAPTER XXXV.

BROKEN HEALTH-DISSIPATION AND DEBTS-THE IRISH WIDOWPRACTICAL JOKES SCRUB-A MISQUOTED PUN-MALAGRIDAPROVED TO BE A FOOL DISTRESSED BALLAD

GOLDSMITH

SINGERS-THE POET AT RANELAGH.

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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 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 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 meantime his pecuniary difficulties are 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 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 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," 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 excitement of composition conspire to keep up a feverishness of the system, he has incurred an unfortunate habit of quacking himself with James' powders, a fashionable panacea of the day.

A farce, produced this year by Garrick, and entitled The Irish Widow, perpetuates the memory of practical jokes played off a year or two previously upon the alleged vanity of poor, simple-hearted' 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 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 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 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 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 practical 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 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 window 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 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 prote: ted he was ignorant of what was meant. "Why," said Burke, "did 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?" "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.”

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 guileless simplicity, made him a butt for the broad waggery of some of his associates; while others more polished, though equally perfidious, were on the watch to give currency to his bulls and blunders.

The Stratford jubilee, in honor of Shakespeare, where Boswell had made a fool of himself, was still in every one's mind. It was sportively suggested that a fête should be held at Lichfield in honor of Johnson and Garrick, and that the Beaux' Stratagem should be played by the members of the Literary Club. "Then," exclaimed Goldsmith, "I shall certainly play Scrub. I should like of all things to try my hand at that character." The unwary speech, which any one else might have made without comment, has been thought worthy of record as whimsically characteristic. Beauclerc was extremely apt to circulate anecdotes at his expense, founded perhaps on some trivial incident, but dressed up with the embellishments of his sarcastic brain. One relates to a venerable dish of peas, served up at Sir Joshua's table, which should have been green, but were any other color. A wag suggested to Goldsmith, in a

whisper, that they should be sent to Hammersmith, as that was the way to turn-em-green (Turnham-Green). Goldsmith, delighted with the pun, endeavored to repeat it at Burke's table, but missed the point. "That is the way to make 'em green," said he. Nobody laughed. He perceived he was at fault. "I mean that is the road to turn 'em green." A dead pause and a stare; "whereupon," adds Beauclerc, "he started up disconcerted and abruptly left the table." This is evidently one of Beauclerc's caricatures.

On another occasion the poet and Beauclerc were seated at the theatre next to Lord Shelburne, the minister, whom political writers thought proper to nickname Malagrida. "Do you know," said Goldsmith to his lordship in the course of conversation, "that I never could conceive why they call you Malagrida. for Malagrida was a very good sort of man." This was too good a trip of the tongue for Beauclerc to let pass: he serves it up in his next letter to Lord Charlemont, as a specimen of a mode of turning a thought the wrong way, peculiar to the poet; he makes merry over it with his witty and sarcastic compeer, Horace Walpole, who pronounces it "a picture of Goldsmith's whole life." Dr. Johnson alone, when he hears it bandied about as Goldsmith's last blunder, growls forth a friendly defence: "Sir," said he, "it was a mere blunder in emphasis. He meant to say, I wonder they should use Malagrida as a term of reproach." Poor Goldsmith! On such points he was ever doomed to be misinterpreted. Rogers, the poet, meeting in times long subsequent with a survivor of those days, asked him what Goldsmith really was in conversation. The old conversational character was too deeply stamped in the memory of the veteran to be effaced. "Sir," replied the old wiseacre, "he was a fool. The right word never came to him. If you gave him back a bad shilling, he'd say, Why it's as good a shilling as ever was born. You know he ought to have said coined. Coined, sir, never entered his head. He was a fool, sir."

We have so many anecdotes in which Goldsmith's simplicity is played upon, that it is quite a treat to meet with one in which he is represented playing upon the simplicity of others, especially when the victim of his joke is the "Great Cham" himself, whom all others are disposed to hold so much in awe. Goldsmith and Johnson were supping cosily together at a tavern in Dean 'Street, Soho, kept by Jack Roberts, a singer at Drury Lane, and a protégé of Garrick's. Johnson delighted in these