day-when the Scaligers and Daciers will vindicate my character, give learned editions of my labours, and bless the times with copious comments on the text. You shall see how they will fish up the heavy scoundrels who disregard me now, or will then offer to cavil at my productions. How will they bewail the times that suffered so much genius to lie neglected! If ever my works find their way to Tartary or China, I know the consequence.-Let me, then, stop my fancy to take a view of my future self; and, as the boys say, light down to see myself on horseback. Well, now I am down, where the d-1 is I? Oh, Gods! Gods! here in a garret writing for bread, and expecting to be dunned for a milk-score! However, dear Bob, whether in penury or affluence, serious or gay, I am ever wholly thine, "London, Temple Exchange Coffee-house, Temple Bar, August 14, 1758. "OLIVER GOLDSMITH. "Give my-no, not compliment neither, but something the most warm and sincere wish that you can conceive, to your mother, Mrs. Bryanton, to Miss Bryanton, to yourself; and if there be a favourite dog in the family, let me be remembered to it." "WHEN LOVELY WOMAN STOOPS TO FOLLY." When lovely woman stoops to folly, And finds too late that men betray, The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from every eye, And wring his bosom, is-to die. This charming song, which is sung by Olivia, in the Vicar of Wakefield, is almost a literal translation from the chanson of an obscure French poet, one Ségur, who wrote early in the eighteenth century. His poems are very scarce, and in proof of the above we subjoin the chanson to which Goldsmith was so much indebted, from the edition of Ségur's poems printed at Paris in the year 1719: Lorsqu'une femme, après trop de tendresse, Le seul remède qu'elle peut resentir, Samuel Rogers, in his Table Talk, relates this odd anecdote: "Most unfortunately, one morning, during breakfast at St. Anne's Hill, [Fox's country-seat,] I repeated and praised Goldsmith's song, 'When lovely woman stoops to folly,' &c., quite forgetting that it must necessarily hurt the feelings of Mrs. Fox. She seemed a good deal discomposed by it. Fox merely remarked, 'Some people write damned nonsense.' GOLDSMITH'S LOVE OF DRESS. "He was fond," says one of his contemporaries, "of exhibiting his muscular little person in the gayest apparel of the day, to which was added a bag-wig and sword.' Thus arrayed, he used to figure about in the sunshine in the Temple Gardens, much to his own satisfaction, but to the amusement of his acquaintances. At a dinner-party at Boswell's, while waiting for some lingerers to arrive, "Goldsmith strutted about," says Boswell, "bragging of his dress, and I believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was undoubtedly prone to such impressions. Come, come,' said Garrick, 'talk no more of that. You are perhaps the worst—eh, eh!' Goldsmith was eagerly attempting to interrupt him, when Garrick went on, laughing ironically, 'Nay, you will always look like a gentleman; but I am talking of your being well or ill-dressed.' 'Well, let me tell you,' said Goldsmith, when the tailor brought home my bloom-coloured coat, he said, "Sir, I have a favour to beg of you; when anybody asks you who made your clothes, be pleased to mention John Filby, at the Harrow, in Water Lane." 'Why, sir,' cried Johnson,' that was because he knew the strange colour would attract crowds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of him, and see how well he could make a coat of so absurd a colour.'' Goldsmith always wore a wig, a peculiarity which those who judge of his appearance only from the fine poetical head of Reynolds would not suspect. GOLDSMITH'S COMPILATIONS. Cumberland, who, it must be remembered, was a bitter reviewer, has left this ill-natured character of Goldsmith's compilations, which, it must be admitted, were in many respects unworthy of his genius: "Distress drove Goldsmith upon undertakings neither congenial with his studies, nor worthy of his talents. I remember, when in his chamber in the Temple, he showed me the beginning of his Animated Nature; it was with a sigh, such as genius draws when hard necessity diverts it from its bent to drudge for bread, and talk of birds and beasts, and creeping things, which Pidcock's showman would have done as well. Poor fellow, he hardly knew an ass from a mule, nor a turkey from a goose, but when he saw it upon the table. But publishers hate poetry, and Paternoster-row is not Parnassus. Now, though necessity, or, I should rather say, the desire of finding money for a masquerade, drove Oliver Goldsmith upon abridging histories, and turning Buffont into English, yet I much doubt if, without that spur, he would ever have put his Pegasus into action; no, if he had been rich, the world would have been poorer than it is by the loss of all the treasures of his genius, and the contributions of his pen."-Memoirs. "His compilations," says Macaulay, "are widely distinguished from the compilations of ordinary book-makers. He was a great, perhaps an unequalled master of the arts of selection and condensation "-a much higher quality, we may add, than the knack of spinning "words, words, words." The Animated Nature was the only one of Goldsmith's heavier exertions for which he received even a decent remuneration from the booksellers. For the eight volumes he got 800 guineas. His Deserted Village brought him only 100%. -the same sum that Hannah More received about the same time for her worthless ballad, Sir Eldred of the Bower. By his first comedy, between theatrical profits and copyright, he appears to have netted about 500l. Upon the whole, during the last eight brilliant years of his established fame and unwearied diligence, his income does not seem to have averaged more than from 2007. to 3007. His first biographer (the preface writer) speaks quite at random when he talks of his having made in one year, 28007. Lee Lewes has related that, of all his compilations Goldsmith used to say, his Selections of English Poetry showed more "the art of profession." Here he did nothing but mark the particular passages with a red-lead pencil, and for this he got 2007.-but then he used *Pidcock was then proprietor of the Menagerie at Exeter Change, Strand; the admission-money in 1810 was 2s. 6d. each person. A nephew of Goldsmith, when in town with a friend, proposed to call on uncle Oliver, who was then writing his Animated Nature: they expected to find him in a well-furnished library, with a host of books; when great was their surprise, the only book they saw in the place was a well-thumbed part of Buffon's Natural History. to add, "a man shows his judgment in these selections, and he may be often twenty years of his life cultivating that judgment." And Oliver was right. Goldsmith also compiled for the use of schools a History of Rome, by which he made 300l., and a History of Greece, 250l. These works he produced by translating the materials he collected into his own clear, pure, and flowing language. These, abridged by himself, and his History of England, continued to our times, are read in schools at the present day. Lord Macaulay has judiciously observed; "in general, nothing is less attractive than an epitome; but the epitomes of Goldsmith, even when most concise, are always amusing; and to read them is considered, by intelligent children, not as a task, but as a pleasure." Yet Oliver made strange omissions. In one of his Histories of England he tells us, that Naseby is in Yorkshire! and omits all mention of either the Great Plague or the Fire of London ! The most noted of his Histories was that in two volumes, entitled the History of England in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son. It was digested from Hume, Rapin, Carte, and Kennet. These authors he would read in the morning; make a few notes; ramble with a friend into the country about the skirts of "merry Islington;" return to a temperate dinner and cheerful evening; and before going to bed, write off what had arranged itself in his head from the studies of the morning. This work was anonymous. Some attributed it to Lord Chesterfield, others to Lord Orrery, and others to Lord Lyttelton. The latter never disowned the bantling thus laid at his door; and well might he have been proud to be considered capable of producing what has been justly pronounced "the most finished and elegant summary of English history in the same compass that has been or is likely to be written." One of the daily newspapers drew largely from these letters during the agitation of the Reform Bill, some thirty years since. A new edition was in consequence called for, and, we believe, rapidly disposed of. At Hyde Farm, Edgeware, Goldsmith's life of literary toil may almost be said to have closed. He had finished the Animated Nature: his last letter was to a publisher, Mr. Nourse, who had bought Griffin's original interest, asking him to allow "his friend Griffin " to purchase back a portion of the copyright; thanking him, at the same time, for an "over-pay ment," which, in consideration of the completion, and its writer's necessities, Mr. Nourse had consented to make; and throwing out an idea of extending the work into the vegetable and fossil kingdoms. Here, too, he was completing the Grecian History; making another Abridgment of English History for schools; translating Scarron's Comic Romance; revising (for five guineas, vouchsafed by James Dodsley) a new edition of his Inquiry into Polite Learning; writing his Retaliation; and making new resolves for the future-for labour was the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, of his existence: as it had begun, so it was to close. This habit of "resolving" has sent many a man of letters to an untimely grave: he hopes to begin a better course; but in the meantime, the mind wears out the body, and the castlebuilding is over. WHO WROTE "GOODY TWO SHOES ?"" Some of Goldsmith's literary productions, published anonymously, have but recently been traced to his pen; while of many the true authorship will probably never be discovered. Among others, it is suggested, and with great probability, that he wrote for Mr. Newbery the famous nursery story of Goody Two Shoes, which appeared in 1765, at a moment when he was much pressed for funds. Several quaint little tales introduced in his Essays show that he had a turn for this species of mock history; and the advertisement and title-page bear the stamp of his sly and playful humour : "We are desired to give notice, that there is in the press, and speedily will be published, either by subscription or otherwise, as the public shall please to determine, the History of Little Goody Two Shoes, otherwise Mrs. Margery Two Shoes; with the means by which she acquired learning and wisdom, and in consequence thereof, her estate; set forth at large for the benefit of those "Who, from a state of rags and care, Godwin, the author of Caleb Williams, and a publisher of children's books, in Skinner-street, and St. Clement's, Strand, was, we believe, the first to state that he believed Goody Two Shoes to be Goldsmith's handiwork. |