desire to depreciate Goldsmith) declares that it "gives the head with admirable fidelity as he actually lived among us." "Nothing (she adds) can exceed its truth." On the other hand, she says of Reynolds's picture, that "it was painted as a fine poetical head for the admiration of posterity," but "was not the man as seen in daily life." This is obviously just. In the noble portrait by Sir Joshua personal regard has idealized the resemblance, and the artist, to use his familiar phrase, has put into his sitter's head something from his own. His finely perceptive genius has fixed for ever the most appealing characteristics of his friend's inner nature, his "exquisite sensibility of contempt," his wistful hunger for recognition, his craving to be well with all men. The only other portrait which needs mention is that prefixed to Evans's edition of the "Poetical and Dramatic Works." It stands (with less individuality) between the other two, and may be a copy of the miniature to which Goldsmith refers in his letter to his brother Maurice, of January, 1770. "I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature picture of myself, as I believe it is the most acceptable present I can offer. . The face you know is ugly enough, but it is finely painted."

The words last quoted might be adduced as evidence that Goldsmith was not always as vain as some of his contemporaries would have us believe. He was, in reality, of so open and unguarded a disposition, and so wholly incapable of any conventional concealment of his thoughts and emotions, that in collecting anecdotes to illustrate his character, it is of the first importance to ascertain whether the narrator is a friend or an enemy.

Side by side with many rare and noble qualities, Goldsmith had many weaknesses, which were sometimes, especially to unsympathetic observers, far more manifest than his merits. "The doctor," says one contemporary, "was a perfect Heteroclite, an inexplicable existence in creation; such a compound of absurdity, envy, and malice, contrasted with the opposite virtues of kindness, generosity, and benevolence, that he might be said to consist of two distinct souls, and influenced by the agency of a good and bad spirit." This was the opinion of Davies the bookseller, who had known him intimately, and could hardly be described as either friend or foe, unless his position as Garrick's biographer puts him. ex officio in the latter category. But the passage serves to show that Goldsmith was, above all, a man of whom, to echo a Greek idiom, we should "truth it in love," and, in this connection, the testimony of witnesses such as Johnson and Reynolds, or even as Glover and Cooke, is of far greater import than that of Walpole, or Boswell, or Hawkins, who scarcely ever speak of him without an accent of disdain or patronage.

That Goldsmith's last years were one prolonged struggle with embarrassment has been sufficiently asserted. It seems equally clear that his difficulties arose less from lack of means, or inadequate remuneration, than from his constitutional heedlessness. Nor can it be doubted that they played their part in shortening his life. "Of poor dear Dr. Goldsmith -wrote Johnson to Boswell-"there is little to be told, more than the papers have made publick. He died of a fever, made, I am afraid, more violent by uneasiness of mind. His debts began to be heavy, and all

his resources were exhausted. Sir Joshua is of opinion that he owed not less than two thousand pounds. Was ever poet so trusted before?" To Langton, in a letter bearing the next day's date, the story is the same. "He [Goldsmith] died of a fever, exasperated, as I believe, by the fear of distress. He had raised money and squandered it, by every artifice of acquisition, and folly. But let not his frailties be remembered; These utterances are, in

of expense.

he was a very great man." part, confirmed by the record, incomplete as it must necessarily be, of the amounts he had received since the success of "The Good Natur'd Man" in 1768. A rough calculation of his ascertained gains from that date gives over £3,000-a sum, in all probability, much below his actual receipts. If, as Reynolds thought, his debts came to "not less than £2,000," he must, for the last six years of his life, have been living at the rate of at least £800 a year, a sum which, to Johnson, with the modest pension of £300, out of which he managed to maintain so many other pensioners of his own, must have had all "the glitter of affluence." On the other hand, it should be remembered that Goldsmith's income was not paid with the regularity of a State stipend. Yet it was an income which, with moderate care, might have sufficed for a bachelor. Even if the £2,000 debt be deducted, there still remains an income of £500, or £200 more than Johnson's pension, and more than double the allowance Lord Auchinlech made to Boswell. To acquit Goldsmith of "folly of expense" is therefore impossible. It is clear that his money must have "burnt his pocket" as freely in his later years, as in those

earlier days, when he first set out to study law in London.

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Johnson might have saved much speculation if he had thrown some light on the specific prodigalities to which he indirectly refers. Was gambling one of them? If we are to believe Cradock, it was. "The greatest real fault of Dr. Goldsmith," he says, was, that if he had thirty pounds in his pocket, he would go into certain companies in the country, and in hopes of doubling the sum, would generally return to town without any part of it." Cooke and Davies speak much to the same effect; and the fact that Garrick, in one of his epitaphs, calls him 'gamester," may at least be taken to signify that the accusation of play was currently made against him. Moreover, it had been alleged to be one of his especial temptations, even in his younger days, and when he was a student at Leyden. Both Mr. Forster and Mr. Prior, doubtless with praiseworthy intentions, endeavour to palliate this weakness, by proving that Goldsmith could not have "played high;" but to a man with an uncertain income, a trifling loss would be far more disastrous than those easy thousands which Fox and Lord March flung away at the hazard table. Added to this he had apparently but few qualifications for success in this direction. He may have been unlucky at cards, but he was, admittedly, "exceedingly inexpert in their use," as well as impatient of temper.

Another source of extravagance was undoubtedly the succession of splendid garments, in which, with the assistance of Mr. William Filby, at the sign "of the Harrow, in Water Lane," he was wont, in Judge Day's

expression, to "exhibit his muscular little person." This had been a frailty from his boyhood-witness the story of the Elphin red breeches, and the Edinburgh student bills. Something of vanity was doubtless mingled with it, but the desire to extenuate his personal shortcomings, and the mistaken idea of the importance of fine clothes to the gentleman, had also considerable influence. Certainly, in his better moments, he was fully conscious of the futility of squandering money in this way. Once Reynolds found him in a reverie, kicking a bundle mechanically round the room. Upon examination, this proved to be an expensive masquerade dress, which he had been tempted to purchase, and out of which, its temporary ends having been served, he was endeavouring, as he jestingly said, to extract the value in exercise. At his death he owed Filby £79, although only the previous year he had paid him sums amounting in all to £110. It is but fair to add that £35 of this £79 was incurred for a ne'er-do-well nephew from Ireland, who, when he afterwards became a prosperous "squireen," never thought it due to his uncle's memory to discharge the balance. And nowhere more fitly than in this place can it be recorded that the tailor always spoke well of his distinguished debtor. "He had been a good customer," said honest Mr. Filby of the Harrow; "and had he lived would have paid every farthing." Nor was Mr. Filby the only person who was charitably disposed to that kindly spendthrift at Brick Court. There were two poor Miss Gunns, milliners at the corner of Temple Lane, who told Cradock that they would work for his friend for nothing, rather than that he should go elsewhere. "We are sure