Book 3 — Footnotes (continued 3)

148.

Smollett of Bonhill, in Dumbartonshire. Arms, az. “a bend, or, between a lion rampant, ppr., holding in his paw a banner, arg. and a bugle-horn, also ppr. Crest, an oak-tree, ppr. Motto, Viresco.” Smollett's father, Archibald, was the fourth son of Sir James Smollett of Bonhill, a Scotch judge and Member of Parliament, and one of the commissioners for framing the Union with England. Archibald married, without the old gentleman's consent, and died early, leaving his children dependent on their grandfather. Tobias, the second son, was born in 1721, in the old house of Dalquharn in the valley of Leven; and all his life loved and admired that valley and Loch Lomond beyond all the valleys and lakes in Europe. He learned the “rudiments” at Dumbarton Grammar-school, and studied at Glasgow. But when he was only eighteen, his grandfather died, and left him without provision (figuring as the old judge in Roderick Random in consequence, according to Sir Walter). Tobias, armed with the Regicide, a tragedy—a provision precisely similar to that with which Dr. Johnson had started, just before—came up to London. The Regicide came to no good, though at first patronized by Lord Lyttelton (“one of those little fellows who are sometimes called great men,” Smollett says); and Smollett embarked as “surgeon's mate” on board a line-of-battle ship, and served in the Carthagena expedition, in 1741. He left the service in the West Indies, and, after residing some time in Jamaica, returned to England in 1746. He was now unsuccessful as a physician, to begin with; published the satires, Advice and Reproof—without any luck; and (1747) married the “beautiful and accomplished Miss Lascelles”. In 1748 he brought out his Roderick Random, which at once made a “hit”. The subsequent events of his life may be presented, chronologically, in a bird's-eye view:— 1750. Made a tour to Paris, where he chiefly wrote Peregrine Pickle. 1751. Published Peregrine Pickle. 1753. Published Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. 1755. Published version of Don Quixote. 1756. Began the Critical Review. 1758. Published his History of England. 1763-1766. Travelling in France and Italy; published his Travels. 1769. Published Adventures of an Atom. 1770. Set out for Italy; died at Leghorn 21st of Oct., 1771, in the fifty-first year of his age.

149.

A good specimen of the old “slashing” style of writing is presented by the paragraph on Admiral Knowles, which subjected Smollett to prosecution and imprisonment. The admiral's defence on the occasion of the failure of the Rochfort expedition came to be examined before the tribunal of the Critical Review. “He is,” said our author, “an admiral without conduct, an engineer without knowledge, an officer without resolution, and a man without veracity!” Three months imprisonment in the King's Bench avenged this stinging paragraph. But the Critical was to Smollett a perpetual fountain of “hot water”. Among less important controversies may be mentioned that with Grainger, the translator of Tibullus. Grainger replied in a pamphlet; and in the next number of the Review we find him threatened with “castigation”, as an “owl that has broken from his mew”! In Dr. Moore's biography of him is a pleasant anecdote. After publishing the Don Quixote, he returned to Scotland to pay a visit to his mother:— “On Smollett's arrival, he was introduced to his mother with the connivance of Mrs. Telfer (her daughter), as a gentleman from the West Indies, who was intimately acquainted with her son. The better to support his assumed character, he endeavoured to preserve a serious countenance, approaching to a frown; but while his mother's eyes were riveted on his countenance, he could not refrain from smiling: she immediately sprung from her chair, and throwing her arms round his neck, exclaimed, ‘Ah, my son! my son! I have found you at last!’ “She afterwards told him, that if he had kept his austere looks and continued to gloom, he might have escaped detection some time longer, but ‘your old roguish smile’, added she, ‘betrayed you at once.’ ” “Shortly after the publication of The Adventures of an Atom, disease again attacked Smollett with redoubled violence. Attempts being vainly made to obtain for him the office of Consul in some part of the Mediterranean, he was compelled to seek a warmer climate, without better means of provision than his own precarious finances could afford. The kindness of his distinguished friend and countryman, Dr. Armstrong (then abroad), procured for Dr. and Mrs. Smollett a house at Monte Nero, a village situated on the side of a mountain overlooking the sea, in the neighbourhood of Leghorn, a romantic and salutary abode, where he prepared for the press, the last, and like music ‘sweetest in the close’, the most pleasing of his compositions, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker. This delightful work was published in 1771.”—Sir Walter Scott.

150.

The dispute with the captain arose from the wish of that functionary to intrude on his right to his cabin, for which he had paid thirty pounds. After recounting the circumstances of the apology, he characteristically adds:— “And here, that I may not be thought the sly trumpeter of my own praises, I do utterly disclaim all praise on the occasion. Neither did the greatness of my mind dictate, nor the force of my Christianity exact this forgiveness. To speak truth, I forgave him from a motive which would make men much more forgiving, if they were much wiser than they are; because it was convenient for me so to do.”

151.

Lady Mary was his second cousin—their respective grandfathers being sons of George Fielding, Earl of Desmond, son of William, Earl of Denbigh. In a letter dated just a week before his death, she says:— “H. Fielding has given a true picture of himself and his first wife in the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Booth, some compliments to his own figure excepted; and I am persuaded, several of the incidents he mentions are real matters of fact. I wonder he does not perceive Tom Jones and Mr. Booth are sorry scoundrels.... Fielding has really a fund of true humour, and was to be pitied at his first entrance into the world, having no choice, as he said himself, but to be a hackney writer or a hackney coachman. His genius deserved a better fate; but I cannot help blaming that continued indiscretion, to give it the softest name, that has run through his life, and I am afraid still remains.... Since I was born no original has appeared excepting Congreve, and Fielding, who would, I believe, have approached nearer to his excellences, if not forced by his necessities to publish without correction, and throw many productions into the world he would have thrown into the fire, if meat could have been got without money, or money without scribbling.... I am sorry not to see any more of Peregrine Pickle's performances; I wish you would tell me his name,”—Letters and Works (Lord Wharncliffe's ed.), vol. iii, pp. 93, 94.

152.

He sailed for Lisbon, from Gravesend, on Sunday morning, June 30th, 1754; and began the Journal of a Voyage during the passage. He died at Lisbon, in the beginning of October of the same year. He lies buried there, in the English Protestant church-yard, near the Estrella Church, with this inscription over him:— “HENRICUS FIELDING, LUGET BRITANNIA GREMIO NON DATUM FOVERE NATUM.”

153.

Fielding himself is said by Dr. Warton to have preferred Joseph Andrews to his other writings.

154.

“Richardson,” says worthy Mrs. Barbauld, in her Memoir of him, prefixed to his Correspondence, “was exceedingly hurt at this (Joseph Andrews), the more so as they had been on good terms, and he was very intimate with Fielding's two sisters. He never appears cordially to have forgiven it (perhaps it was not in human nature he should), and he always speaks in his letters with a great deal of asperity of Tom Jones, more indeed than was quite graceful in a rival author. No doubt he himself thought his indignation was solely excited by the loose morality of the work and of its author, but he could tolerate Cibber.”

155.

It must always be borne in mind, that besides that the Doctor couldn't be expected to like Fielding's wild life (to say nothing of the fact, that they were of opposite sides in politics), Richardson was one of his earliest and kindest friends. Yet Johnson too (as Boswell tells us) read Amelia through without “stopping”.

156.

“Manners change from generation to generation, and with manners morals appear to change—actually change with some, but appear to change with all but the abandoned. A young man of the present day who should act as Tom Jones is supposed to act at Upton, with Lady Bellaston, &c., would not be a Tom Jones; and a Tom Jones of the present day, without perhaps being in the ground a better man, would have perished rather than submit to be kept by a harridan of fortune. Therefore, this novel is, and indeed, pretends to be, no example of conduct. But, notwithstanding all this, I do loathe the cant which can recommend Pamela and Clarissa Harlowe as strictly moral, although they poison the imagination of the young with continued doses of tinct. lyttae, while Tom Jones is prohibited as loose. I do not speak of young women; but a young man whose heart or feelings can be injured, or even his passions excited by this novel, is already thoroughly corrupt. There is a cheerful, sunshiny, breezy spirit, that prevails everywhere, strongly contrasted with the close, hot, day dreamy continuity of Richardson.”—Coleridge, Literary Remains, vol. ii, p. 374.

157.

“Nor was she (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu) a stranger to that beloved first wife, whose picture he drew in his Amelia, when, as she said, even the glowing language he knew how to employ, did not do more than justice to the amiable qualities of the original, or to her beauty, although this had suffered a little from the accident related in the novel—a frightful overturn, which destroyed the gristle of her nose. He loved her passionately, and she returned his affection.... “His biographers seem to have been shy of disclosing that after the death of this charming woman, he married her maid. And yet the act was not so discreditable to his character as it may sound. The maid had few personal charms, but was an excellent creature, devotedly attached to her mistress, and almost brokenhearted for her loss. In the first agonies of his own grief, which approached to frenzy, he found no relief but from weeping along with her; nor solace when a degree calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they mutually regretted. This made her his habitual confidential associate, and in process of time he began to think he could not give his children a tenderer mother, or secure for himself a more faithful housekeeper and nurse. At least, this was what he told his friends; and it is certain that her conduct as his wife confirmed it, and fully justified his good opinion.”—Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Edited by Lord Wharncliffe. Introductory Anecdotes, vol. i, pp. 80, 81. Fielding's first wife was Miss Craddock, a young lady from Salisbury, with a fortune of 1,500l., whom he married in 1736. About the same time he succeeded, himself, to an estate of 200l. per annum, and on the joint amount he lived for some time as a splendid country gentleman in Dorsetshire. Three years brought him to the end of his fortune; when he returned to London, and became a student of law.

158.

In the Gentleman's Magazine, for 1786, an anecdote is related of Harry Fielding, “in whom,” says the correspondent, “good nature and philanthropy in their extreme degree were known to be the prominent features.” It seems that “some parochial taxes” for his house in Beaufort Buildings had long been demanded by the collector. “At last, Harry went off to Johnson, and obtained by a process of literary mortgage the needful sum. He was returning with it, when he met an old college chum whom he had not seen for many years. He asked the chum to dinner with him at a neighbouring tavern; and learning that he was in difficulties, emptied the contents of his pocket into his. On returning home he was informed that the collector had been twice for the money. ‘Friendship has called for the money and had it,’ said Fielding; ‘let the collector call again.’ ” It is elsewhere told of him, that being in company with the Earl of Denbigh, his kinsman, and the conversation turning upon their relationship, the Earl asked him how it was that he spelled his name “Fielding”, and not “Feilding”, like the head of the house? “I cannot tell, my lord,” said he, “except it be that my branch of the family were the first that knew how to spell.”

159.

In 1749, he was made Justice of the Peace for Westminster and Middlesex, an office then paid by fees, and very laborious, without being particularly reputable. It may be seen from his own words, in the Introduction to the Voyage, what kind of work devolved upon him, and in what a state he was, during these last years; and still more clearly, how he comported himself through all. “Whilst I was preparing for my journey, and when I was almost fatigued to death with several long examinations, relating to five different murders, all committed within the space of a week, by different gangs of street-robbers, I received a message from his grace the Duke of Newcastle, by Mr. Carrington, the King's messenger, to attend his grace the next morning in Lincoln's Inn Fields, upon some business of importance: but I excused myself from complying with the message, as, besides being lame, I was very ill with the great fatigues I had lately undergone, added to my distemper. “His grace, however, sent Mr. Carrington the very next morning, with another summons; with which, though in the utmost distress, I immediately complied; but the duke happening, unfortunately for me, to be then particularly engaged, after I had waited some time, sent a gentleman to discourse with me on the best plan which could be invented for these murders and robberies, which were every day committed in the streets; upon which I promised to transmit my opinion in writing to his grace, who, as the gentleman informed me, intended to lay it before the Privy Council. “Though this visit cost me a severe cold, I, notwithstanding, set myself down to work, and in about four days sent the duke as regular a plan as I could form, with all the reasons and arguments I could bring to support it, drawn out on several sheets of paper; and soon received a message from the Duke, by Mr. Carrington, acquainting me that my plan was highly approved of, and that all the terms of it would be complied with. “The principal and most material of these terms was the immediately depositing 600l. in my hands; at which small charge I undertook to demolish the then reigning gangs, and to put the civil policy into such order, that no such gangs should ever be able for the future, to form themselves into bodies, or at least to remain any time formidable to the public. “I had delayed my Bath journey for some time, contrary to the repeated advice of my physical acquaintances, and the ardent desire of my warmest friends, though my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice; in which case the Bath waters are generally reputed to be almost infallible. But I had the most eager desire to demolish this gang of villains and cut-throats.... “After some weeks the money was paid at the Treasury, and within a few days, after 200l. of it had come into my hands, the whole gang of cut-throats was entirely dispersed....” Further on, he says— “I will confess that my private affairs at the beginning of the winter had but a gloomy aspect; for I had not plundered the public or the poor of those sums which men, who are always ready to plunder both as much as they can, have been pleased to suspect me of taking; on the contrary, by composing, instead of inflaming, the quarrels of porters and beggars (which I blush when I say hath not been universally practised), and by refusing to take a shilling from a man who most undoubtedly would not have had another left, I had reduced an income of about 500l., a year of the dirtiest money upon earth, to little more than 300l., a considerable portion of which remained with my clerk.”

160.

He came of a Suffolk family—one of whom settled in Nottinghamshire. The famous “starling” was actually the family crest.

161.

“It was in this parish” (of Animo, in Wicklow), “during our stay, that I had that wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race, whilst the mill was going, and of being taken up unhurt; the story is incredible, but known for truth in all that part of Ireland, where hundreds of the common people flocked to see me.”—Sterne.

162.

“My wife returns to Toulouse, and proposes to pass the summer at Bagnères—I, on the contrary, go and visit my wife, the church, in Yorkshire. We all live the longer, at least the happier, for having things our own way; this is my conjugal maxim. I own 'tis not the best of maxims, but I maintain 'tis not the worst.”—Sterne's Letters, 20th January, 1764.

163.

In a collection of Seven Letters by Sterne and His Friends, (printed for private circulation), in 1844, is a letter of M. Tollot, who was in France with Sterne and his family in 1764. Here is a paragraph:— “Nous arrivâmes le lendemain à Montpellier, où nous trouvâmes notre ami Mr. Sterne, sa femme, sa fille, Mr. Huet, et quelques autres Anglaises; j'eus, je vous l'avoue, beaucoup de plaisir en revoyant le bon et agréable Tristram.... Il avait été assez longtemps à Toulouse, où il se serait amusé sans sa femme, qui le poursuivit partout, et qui voulait être de tout. Ces dispositions dans cette bonne dame, lui ont fait passer d'assez mauvais momens; il supporte tous ces désagrémens avec une patience d'ánge.” About four months after this very characteristic letter, Sterne wrote to the same gentleman to whom Tollot had written; and from his letter we may extract a companion paragraph:— “... All which being premised, I have been for eight weeks smitten with the tenderest passion that ever tender wight underwent. I wish, dear cousin, thou couldst conceive (perhaps thou canst without my wishing it) how deliciously I canter'd away with it the first month, two up, two down, always upon my hanches, along the streets from my hotel to hers, at first once—then twice, then three times a day, till at length I was within an ace of setting up my hobby-horse in her stable for good and all. I might as well, considering how the enemies of the Lord have blasphemed thereupon. The last three weeks we were every hour upon the doleful ditty of parting—and thou mayest conceive, dear cousin, how it altered my gait and air—for I went and came like any louden'd carl, and did nothing but jouer des sentimens with her from sun-rising even to the setting of the same; and now she is gone to the south of France; and to finish the comédie, I fell ill and broke a vessel in my lungs, and half bled to death. Voilà mon histoire!” Whether husband or wife had most of the patience d'ánge may be uncertain; but there can be no doubt which needed it most!

164.

“Tristram Shandy is still a greater object of admiration, the man as well as the book; one is invited to dinner, when he dines, a fortnight before. As to the volumes yet published, there is much good fun in them, and humour sometimes hit and sometimes missed. Have you read his Sermons, with his own comick figure, from a painting by Reynolds, at the head of them? They are in the style I think most proper for the pulpit, and show a strong imagination and a sensible heart; but you see him often tottering on the verge of laughter, and ready to throw his periwig in the face of the audience.”—Gray's Letters, June 22nd, 1760. “It having been observed that there was little hospitality in London—Johnson: ‘Nay, sir, any man who has a name, or who has the power of pleasing, will be very generally invited in London. The man, Sterne, I have been told, has had engagements for three months.’ Goldsmith: ‘And a very dull fellow.’ Johnson: ‘Why, no, sir.’ ”—Boswell's Life of Johnson. “Her [Miss Monckton's] vivacity enchanted the sage, and they used to talk together with all imaginable ease. A singular instance happened one evening, when she insisted that some of Sterne's writings were very pathetic. Johnson bluntly denied it. ‘I am sure,’ said she, ‘they have affected me.’ ‘Why,’ said Johnson, smiling, and rolling himself about—‘that is, because, dearest, you're a dunce.’ When she some time afterwards mentioned this to him, he said with equal truth and politeness, ‘Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not have said it.’ ”—Boswell's Life of Johnson.

165.

A passage or two from Sterne's Sermons may not be without interest here. Is not the following, levelled against the cruelties of the Church of Rome, stamped with the autograph of the author of the Sentimental Journey?— “To be convinced of this, go with me for a moment into the prisons of the Inquisition—behold religion with mercy and justice chained down under her feet,—there, sitting ghastly upon a black tribunal, propped up with racks, and instruments of torment.—Hark!—what a piteous groan!—See the melancholy wretch who uttered it, just brought forth to undergo the anguish of a mock-trial, and endure the utmost pain that a studied system of religious cruelty has been able to invent. Behold this helpless victim delivered up to his tormentors. His body so wasted with sorrow and long confinement, you'll see every nerve and muscle as it suffers. Observe the last movement of that horrid engine.—What convulsions it has thrown him into! Consider the nature of the posture in which he now lies stretched.—What exquisite torture he endures by it.—'Tis all nature can bear.—Good God! see how it keeps his weary soul hanging upon his trembling lips, willing to take its leave, but not suffered to depart. Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell,—dragg'd out of it again to meet the flames—and the insults in his last agonies, which this principle—this principle, that there can be religion without morality—has prepared for him.”—Sermon 27th. The next extract is preached on a text to be found in Judges xix, ver. 1, 2, 3, concerning a “certain Levite”:— “Such a one the Levite wanted to share his solitude and fill up that uncomfortable blank in the heart in such a situation; for, notwithstanding all we meet with in books, in many of which, no doubt, there are a good many handsome things said upon the secrets of retirement, &c.... yet still, ‘it is not good for man to be alone’: nor can all which the cold-hearted pedant stuns our ears with upon the subject, ever give one answer of satisfaction to the mind; in the midst of the loudest vauntings of philosophy, nature will have her yearnings for society and friendship;—a good heart wants some object to be kind to—and the best parts of our blood, and the purest of our spirits, suffer most under the destitution. “Let the torpid monk seek Heaven comfortless and alone. God speed him! For my own part, I fear I should never so find the way; let me be wise and religious, but let me be Man; wherever Thy Providence places me, or whatever be the road I take to Thee, give me some companion in my journey, be it only to remark to, ‘How our shadows lengthen as our sun goes down’;—to whom I may say, ‘How fresh is the face of Nature! how sweet the flowers of the field! how delicious are these fruits!’ ”—Sermon 18th. The first of these passages gives us another drawing of the famous “Captive”. The second shows that the same reflection was suggested to the Rev. Laurence, by a text in Judges, as by the fille-de-chambre. Sterne's Sermons were published as those of “Mr. Yorick”.

166.

“I am glad that you are in love—'twill cure you at least of the spleen, which has a bad effect on both man and woman—I myself must even have some Dulcinea in my head; it harmonizes the soul; and in these cases I first endeavour to make the lady believe so, or rather, I begin first to make myself believe that I am in love—but I carry on my affairs quite in the French way, sentimentally—l'amour (say they) n'est rien sans sentiment. Now, notwithstanding they make such a pother about the word, they have no precise idea annexed to it. And so much for that same subject called love.”—Sterne's Letters, May 23rd, 1765. “PS.—My Sentimental Journey will please Mrs. J—— and my Lydia [his daughter, afterwards Mrs. Medalle]—I can answer for those two. It is a subject which works well, and suits the frame of mind I have been in for some time past. I told you my design in it was to teach us to love the world and our fellow creatures better than we do—so it runs most upon those gentler passions and affections which aid so much to it.”—Letters [1767].

167.

TO MRS. H——. “Coxwould, Nov. 15th, 1767. “Now be a good, dear woman, my H——, and execute those commissions well, and when I see you I will give you a kiss—there's for you! But I have something else for you which I am fabricating at a great rate, and that is my Sentimental Journey, which shall make you cry as much as it has affected me, or I will give up the business of sentimental writing ... “I am yours, &c. &c., “T. Shandy.” TO THE EARL OF ——. “Coxwould, Nov. 28th, 1767. “MY LORD—'Tis with the greatest pleasure I take my pen to thank your lordship for your letter of inquiry about Yorick—he was worn out, both his spirits and body, with the Sentimental Journey; 'tis true, then, an author must feel himself, or his reader will not—but I have torn my whole frame into pieces by my feelings—I believe the brain stands as much in need of recruiting as the body; therefore I shall set out for town the twentieth of next month, after having recruited myself a week at York. I might indeed solace myself with my wife (who is come from France), but, in fact, I have long been a sentimental being, whatever your lordship may think to the contrary.”

168.

“It is known that Sterne died in hired lodgings, and I have been told that his attendants robbed him even of his gold sleeve-buttons while he was expiring.”—Dr. Ferriar. “He died at No. 41 (now a cheesemonger's) on the west side of Old Bond Street.—Handbook of London.”

169.

“In February, 1768, Laurence Sterne, his frame exhausted by long debilitating illness, expired at his lodgings in Bond Street, London. There was something in the manner of his death singularly resembling the particulars detailed by Mrs. Quickly, as attending that of Falstaff, the compeer of Yorick for infinite jest, however unlike in other particulars. As he lay on his bed totally exhausted, he complained that his feet were cold, and requested the female attendant to chafe them. She did so, and it seemed to relieve him. He complained that the cold came up higher; and whilst the assistant was in the act of chafing his ankles and legs, he expired without a groan. It was also remarkable that his death took place much in the manner which he himself had wished; and that the last offices were rendered him, not in his own house, or by the hand of kindred affection, but in an inn, and by strangers. “We are well acquainted with Sterne's features and personal appearance, to which he himself frequently alludes. He was tall and thin, with a hectic and consumptive appearance.”—Sir Walter Scott.

170.

“With regard to Sterne, and the charge of licentiousness which presses so seriously upon his character as a writer, I would remark that there is a sort of knowingness, the wit of which depends, firstly, on the modesty it gives pain to; or, secondly, on the innocence and innocent ignorance over which it triumphs; or thirdly, on a certain oscillation in the individual's own mind between the remaining good and the encroaching evil of his nature—a sort of dallying with the devil—a fluxionary art of combining courage and cowardice, as when a man snuffs a candle with his fingers for the first time, or better still, perhaps, like that trembling daring with which a child touches a hot tea-urn, because it has been forbidden; so that the mind has its own white and black angel; the same or similar amusement as may be supposed to take place between an old debauchee and a prude—the feeling resentment, on the one hand, from a prudential anxiety to preserve appearances and have a character; and, on the other, an inward sympathy with the enemy. We have only to suppose society innocent, and then nine-tenths of this sort of wit would be like a stone that falls in snow, making no sound, because exciting no resistance; the remainder rests on its being an offence against the good manners of human nature itself. “This source, unworthy as it is, may doubtless be combined with wit, drollery, fancy, and even humour; and we have only to regret the misalliance; but that the latter are quite distinct from the former, may be made evident by abstracting in our imagination the morality of the characters of Mr. Shandy, my Uncle Toby, and Trim, which are all antagonists to this spurious sort of wit, from the rest of Tristram Shandy, and by supposing, instead of them, the presence of two or three callous debauchees. The result will be pure disgust. Sterne cannot be too severely censured for thus using the best dispositions of our nature as the panders and condiments for the basest.”—Coleridge, Literary Remains, vol. i, pp. 141, 142.

171.

“He was a friend to virtue, and in his most playful pages never forgets what is due to it. A gentleness, delicacy, and purity of feeling distinguishes whatever he wrote, and bears a correspondence to the generosity of a disposition which knew no bounds but his last guinea.... “The admirable ease and grace of the narrative, as well as the pleasing truth with which the principal characters are designed, make the Vicar of Wakefield one of the most delicious morsels of fictitious composition on which the human mind was ever employed. “... We read the Vicar of Wakefield in youth and in age—we return to it again and again, and bless the memory of an author who contrives so well to reconcile us to human nature.”—Sir Walter Scott.

172.

“Now Herder came,” says Goethe in his Autobiography, relating his first acquaintance with Goldsmith's masterpiece, “and together with his great knowledge brought many other aids, and the later publications besides. Among these he announced to us the Vicar of Wakefield as an excellent work, with the German translation of which he would make us acquainted by reading it aloud to us himself.... “A Protestant country clergyman is perhaps the most beautiful subject for a modern idyl; he appears like Melchizedeck, as priest and king in one person. To the most innocent situation which can be imagined on earth, to that of a husbandman, he is, for the most part, united by similarity of occupation as well as by equality in family relationships; he is a father, a master of a family, an agriculturist, and thus perfectly a member of the community. On this pure, beautiful, earthly foundation rests his higher calling; to him is it given to guide men through life, to take care of their spiritual education, to bless them at all the leading epochs of their existence, to instruct, to strengthen, to console them, and if consolation is not sufficient for the present, to call up and guarantee the hope of a happier future. Imagine such a man with pure human sentiments, strong enough not to deviate from them under any circumstances, and by this already elevated above the multitude of whom one cannot expect purity and firmness; give him the learning necessary for his office, as well as a cheerful, equable activity, which is even passionate, as it neglects no moment to do good—and you will have him well endowed. But at the same time add the necessary limitation, so that he must not only pause in a small circle, but may also, perchance, pass over to a smaller; grant him good nature, placability, resolution, and everything else praiseworthy that springs from a decided character, and over all this a cheerful spirit of compliance, and a smiling toleration of his own failings and those of others,—then you will have put together pretty well the image of our excellent Wakefield. “The delineation of this character on his course of life through joys and sorrows, the ever-increasing interest of the story, by the combination of the entirely natural with the strange and the singular, make this novel one of the best which has ever been written; besides this, it has the great advantage that it is quite moral, nay, in a pure sense, Christian—represents the reward of a goodwill and perseverance in the right, strengthens an unconditional confidence in God, and attests the final triumph of good over evil; and all this without a trace of cant or pedantry. The author was preserved from both of these by an elocution of mind that shows itself throughout in the form of irony, by which this little work must appear to us as wise as it is amiable. The author, Dr. Goldsmith, has, without question, a great insight into the moral world, into its strength and its infirmities; but at the same time he can thankfully acknowledge that he is an Englishman, and reckon highly the advantages which his country and his nation afford him. The family, with the delineation of which he occupies himself, stands upon one of the last steps of citizen comfort, and yet comes in contact with the highest; its narrow circle, which becomes still more contracted, touches upon the great world through the natural and civil course of things; this little skiff floats on the agitated waves of English life, and in weal or woe it has to expect injury or help from the vast fleet which sails around it. “I may suppose that my readers know this work, and have it in memory; whoever hears it named for the first time here, as well as he who is induced to read it again, will thank me.”—Goethe, Truth and Poetry; from my own Life (English translation, vol. i, pp. 378-9). “He seems from infancy to have been compounded of two natures, one bright, the other blundering; or to have had fairy gifts laid in his cradle by the ‘good people’ who haunted his birthplace, the old goblin mansion, on the banks of the Inny. “He carries with him the wayward elfin spirit, if we may so term it, throughout his career. His fairy gifts are of no avail at school, academy, or college: they unfit him for close study and practical science, and render him heedless of everything that does not address itself to his poetical imagination, and genial and festive feelings; they dispose him to break away from restraint, to stroll about hedges, green lanes, and haunted streams, to revel with jovial companions, or to rove the country like a gipsy in quest of odd adventures.... “Though his circumstances often compelled him to associate with the poor, they never could betray him into companionship with the depraved. His relish for humour, and for the study of character, as we have before observed, brought him often into convivial company of a vulgar kind; but he discriminated between their vulgarity and their amusing qualities, or rather wrought from the whole store familiar features of life which form the staple of his most popular writings.”—Washington Irving.

173.

“The family of Goldsmith, Goldsmyth, or, as it was occasionally written, Gouldsmith, is of considerable standing in Ireland, and seems always to have held a respectable station in society. Its origin is English, supposed to be derived from that which was long settled at Crayford in Kent.”—Prior's Life of Goldsmith. Oliver's father, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather were clergymen; and two of them married clergymen's daughters.

174.

At church with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorn'd the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remain'd to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal each honest rustic ran; E'en children follow'd with endearing wile, And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest, Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest; To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven. As some tall cliff that lifts his awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head. The Deserted Village.

175.

“In May this year (1768), he lost his brother, the Rev. Henry Goldsmith, for whom he had been unable to obtain preferment in the Church.... “....To the curacy of Kilkenny West, the moderate stipend of which, forty pounds a year, is sufficiently celebrated by his brother's lines. It has been stated that Mr. Goldsmith added a school, which, after having been held at more than one place in the vicinity, was finally fixed at Lissoy. Here his talents and industry gave it celebrity, and under his care the sons of many of the neighbouring gentry received their education. A fever breaking out among the boys about 1765, they dispersed for a time, but reassembling at Athlone, he continued his scholastic labours there until the time of his death, which happened, like that of his brother, about the forty-fifth year of his age. He was a man of an excellent heart and an amiable disposition.”—Prior's Goldsmith. Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee: Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. The Traveller.

176.

“When Goldsmith died, half the unpaid bill he owed to Mr. William Filby (amounting in all to 79l.) was for clothes supplied to this nephew Hodson.”—Forster's Goldsmith, p. 520. As this nephew Hodson ended his days (see the same page) “a prosperous Irish gentleman”, it is not unreasonable to wish that he had cleared off Mr. Filby's bill.

177.

“Poor fellow! He hardly knew an ass from a mule, nor a turkey from a goose, but when he saw it on the table.”—Cumberland's Memoirs.

178.

“These youthful follies, like the fermentation of liquors, often disturb the mind only in order to its future refinement: a life spent in phlegmatic apathy resembles those liquors which never ferment and are consequently always muddy.”—Goldsmith, Memoir of Voltaire. “He (Johnson) said Goldsmith was a plant that flowered late. There appeared nothing remarkable about him when he was young.”—Boswell.

179.

“An ‘inspired idiot’, Goldsmith, hangs strangely about him [Johnson] ... Yet, on the whole, there is no evil in the ‘gooseberry-fool’, but rather much good; of a finer, if of a weaker sort than Johnson's; and all the more genuine that he himself could never become conscious of it, though unhappily never cease attempting to become so: the author of the genuine Vicar of Wakefield, nill he will he, must needs fly towards such a mass of genuine manhood.”—Carlyle's Essays (2nd ed.), vol. iv, p. 91.

180.

“At present, the few poets of England no longer depend on the great for subsistence; they have now no other patrons but the public, and the public, collectively considered, is a good and a generous master. It is indeed too frequently mistaken as to the merits of every candidate for favour; but to make amends, it is never mistaken long. A performance indeed may be forced for a time into reputation, but, destitute of real merit, it soon sinks; time, the touchstone of what is truly valuable, will soon discover the fraud, and an author should never arrogate to himself any share of success till his works have been read at least ten years with satisfaction. “A man of letters at present, whose works are valuable, is perfectly sensible of their value. Every polite member of the community, by buying what he writes, contributes to reward him. The ridicule, therefore, of living in a garret might have been wit in the last age, but continues such no longer, because no longer true. A writer of real merit now may easily be rich, if his heart be set only on fortune: and for those who have no merit, it is but fit that such should remain in merited obscurity.”—Goldsmith, Citizen of the World, Let. 84.

181.

Goldsmith attacked Sterne, obviously enough, censuring his indecency, and slighting his wit, and ridiculing his manner, in the 53rd letter in the Citizen of the World. “As in common conversation,” says he, “the best way to make the audience laugh is by first laughing yourself; so in writing, the properest manner is to show an attempt at humour, which will pass upon most for humour in reality. To effect this, readers must be treated with the most perfect familiarity; in one page the author is to make them a low bow, and in the next to pull them by the nose; he must talk in riddles, and then send them to bed in order to dream for the solution,” &c. Sterne's humorous mot on the subject of the gravest part of the charges, then, as now, made against him, may perhaps be quoted here, from the excellent, the respectable Sir Walter Scott. “Soon after Tristram had appeared, Sterne asked a Yorkshire lady of fortune and condition, whether she had read his book, ‘I have not, Mr. Sterne,’ was the answer; ‘and to be plain with you, I am informed it is not proper for female perusal.’ ‘My dear good lady,’ replied the author, ‘do not be gulled by such stories; the book is like your young heir there’ (pointing to a child of three years old, who was rolling on the carpet in his white tunics): ‘he shows at times a good deal that is usually concealed, but it is all in perfect innocence.’ ”

182.

“Goldsmith told us that he was now busy in writing a Natural History; and that he might have full leisure for it, he had taken lodgings at a farmer's house, near to the six-mile stone in the Edgeware Road, and had carried down his books in two returned post-chaises. He said he believed the farmer's family thought him an odd character, similar to that in which the Spectator appeared to his landlady and her children; he was The Gentleman. Mr. Mickle, the translator of the Lusiad, and I, went to visit him at this place a few days afterwards. He was not at home; but having a curiosity to see his apartment, we went in, and found curious scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled upon the wall with a blacklead pencil.”—Boswell.

183.

“When Goldsmith was dying, Dr. Turton said to him, ‘Your pulse is in greater disorder than it should be, from the degree of fever which you have; is your mind at ease?’ Goldsmith answered it was not.”—Dr. Johnson (in Boswell). “Chambers, you find, is gone far, and poor Goldsmith is gone much farther. He 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 of expense. But let not his failings be remembered; he was a very great man.”—Dr. Johnson to Boswell, July 5th, 1774.

184.

“When Burke was told [of Goldsmith's death] he burst into tears. Reynolds was in his painting-room when the messenger went to him; but at once he laid his pencil aside, which in times of great family distress he had not been known to do, left his painting-room, and did not re-enter it that day.... “The staircase of Brick Court is said to have been filled with mourners, the reverse of domestic; women without a home, without domesticity of any kind, with no friend but him they had come to weep for; outcasts of that great, solitary, wicked city, to whom he had never forgotten to be kind and charitable. And he had domestic mourners, too. His coffin was reopened at the request of Miss Horneck and her sister (such was the regard he was known to have for them!) that a lock might be cut from his hair. It was in Mrs. Gwyn's possession when she died, after nearly seventy years.”—Forster's Goldsmith.

185.

“Goldsmith's incessant desire of being conspicuous in company was the occasion of his sometimes appearing to such disadvantage, as one should hardly have supposed possible in a man of his genius. When his literary reputation had risen deservedly high, and his society was much courted, he became very jealous of the extraordinary attention which was everywhere paid to Johnson. One evening, in a circle of wits, he found fault with me for talking of Johnson as entitled to the honour of unquestionable superiority. ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘you are for making a monarchy of what should be a republic.’ “He was still more mortified, when, talking in a company with fluent vivacity, and, as he flattered himself, to the admiration of all present, a German who sat next him, and perceived Johnson rolling himself as if about to speak, suddenly stopped him, saying, ‘Stay, stay—Toctor Shonson is going to zay zomething.’ This was no doubt very provoking, especially to one so irritable as Goldsmith, who frequently mentioned it with strong expressions of indignation. “It may also be observed that Goldsmith was sometimes content to be treated with an easy familiarity, but upon occasions would be consequential and important. An instance of this occurred in a small particular. Johnson had a way of contracting the names of his friends, as Beauclerk, Beau; Boswell, Bozzy.... I remember one day, when Tom Davies was telling that Dr. Johnson said—‘We are all in labour for a name to Goldy's play,’ Goldsmith seemed displeased that such a liberty should be taken with his name, and said, ‘I have often desired him not to call me Goldy.’ ” This is one of several of Boswell's depreciatory mentions of Goldsmith—which may well irritate biographers and admirers—and also those who take that more kindly and more profound view of Boswell's own character, which was opened up by Mr. Carlyle's famous article on his book. No wonder that Mr. Irving calls Boswell an “incarnation of toadyism”. And the worst of it is, that Johnson himself has suffered from this habit of the Laird of Auchenleck's. People are apt to forget under what Boswellian stimulus the great Doctor uttered many hasty things:—things no more indicative of the nature of the depths of his character than the phosphoric gleaming of the sea, when struck at night, is indicative of radical corruption of nature! In truth, it is clear enough on the whole that both Johnson and Goldsmith appreciated each other, and that they mutually knew it. They were, as it were, tripped up and flung against each other, occasionally, by the blundering and silly gambolling of people in company. Something must be allowed for Boswell's “rivalry for Johnson's good graces” with Oliver (as Sir Walter Scott has remarked), for Oliver was intimate with the Doctor before his biographer was,—and as we all remember, marched off with him to “take tea with Mrs. Williams” before Boswell had advanced to that honourable degree of intimacy. But, in truth, Boswell—though he perhaps showed more talent in his delineation of the Doctor than is generally ascribed to him—had not faculty to take a fair view of two great men at a time. Besides, as Mr. Forster justly remarks, “he was impatient of Goldsmith from the first hour of their acquaintance.”—Life and Adventures, p. 292.

186.

The above portraits are from contemporary prints of this princess, before her marriage, and in her old age.

187.

Here [below in the text] are the figures, as drawn by young Gilray, of Lord North, Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Burke.