Goldsmith, William Black [fiction book recommendations txt] 📗

went to work, and some weeks after produced the following printed poem, called _Retaliation_." But Garrick himself goes on to say, "The following poems in manuscript were written by several of the gentlemen on purpose to provoke the Doctor to an answer, which came forth at last with great credit to him in _Retaliation_." The most probable version of the story, which may be pieced together from various sources, is that at the coffee-house named this business of writing comic epitaphs was started some evening or other by the whole company; that Goldsmith and Garrick pitted themselves against each other; that thereafter Goldsmith began as occasion served to write similar squibs about his friends, which were shown about as they were written; that thereupon those gentlemen, not to be behindhand, composed more elaborate pieces in proof of their wit; and that, finally, Goldsmith resolved to bind these fugitive lines of his together in a poem, which he left unfinished, and which, under the name of _Retaliation_, was published after his death. This hypothetical account receives some confirmation from the fact that the scheme of the poem and its component parts do not fit together well; the introduction looks like an after-thought; and has not the freedom and pungency of a piece of improvisation. An imaginary dinner is described, the guests being Garrick, Reynolds, Burke, Cumberland, and the rest of them, Goldsmith last of all. More wine is called for, until the whole of his companions have fallen beneath the table:


"Then, with chaos and blunders encircling my head,
Let me ponder, and tell what I think of the _dead_."


This is a somewhat clumsy excuse for introducing a series of epitaphs; but the epitaphs amply atone for it. That on Garrick is especially remarkable as a bit of character-sketching; its shrewd hints--all in perfect courtesy and good humour--going a little nearer to the truth than is common in epitaphs of any sort:--


"Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can;
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.
As an actor, confessed without rival to shine:
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line:
Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart,
The man had his failings, a dupe to his art.
Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread,
And beplastered with rouge his own natural red.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
'Twas only that, when he was off, he was acting.
With no reason on earth to go out of his way,
He turned and he varied full ten times a day:
Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick
If they were not his own by finessing and trick;
He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew when he pleased he could whistle them back.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallowed what came;
And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame;
Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease,
Who peppered the highest was surest to please.
But let us be candid, and speak out our mind:
If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind.
Ye Kenricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave,
What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave!
How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you raised,
While he was be-Rosciused, and you were bepraised.
But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies,
To act as an angel and mix with the skies:
Those poets who owe their best fame to his skill
Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will;
Old Shakespeare receive him with praise and with love,
And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above."


The truth is that Goldsmith, though he was ready to bless his "honest little man" when he received from him sixty pounds in advance for a comedy not begun, never took quite so kindly to Garrick as to some of his other friends. There is no pretence of discrimination at all, for example, in the lines devoted in this poem to Reynolds. All the generous enthusiasm of Goldsmith's Irish nature appears here; he will admit of no possible rival to this especial friend of his:--


"Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind,
He has not left a wiser or better behind."


There is a tradition that the epitaph on Reynolds, ending with the unfinished line


"By flattery unspoiled ..."


was Goldsmith's last piece of writing. One would like to believe that, in any case.

Goldsmith had returned to his Edgware lodgings, and had, indeed, formed some notion of selling his chambers in the Temple, and living in the country for at least ten months in the year, when a sudden attack of his old disorder drove him into town again for medical advice. He would appear to have received some relief; but a nervous fever followed; and on the night of the 25th March, 1774, when he was but forty-six years of age, he took to his bed for the last time. At first he refused to regard his illness as serious; and insisted on dosing himself with certain fever-powders from which he had received benefit on previous occasions; but by and by as his strength gave way, he submitted to the advice of the physicians who were in attendance on him. Day after day passed; his weakness visibly increasing, though, curiously enough, the symptoms of fever were gradually abating. At length one of the doctors, remarking to him that his pulse was in greater disorder than it should be from the degree of fever, asked him if his mind was at ease. "No, it is not," answered Goldsmith; and these were his last words. Early in the morning of Monday, April 4, convulsions set in; these continued for rather more than an hour; then the troubled brain and the sick heart found rest for ever.

When the news was carried to his friends, Burke, it is said, burst into tears, and Reynolds put aside his work for the day. But it does not appear that they had visited him during his illness; and neither Johnson, nor Reynolds, nor Burke, nor Garrick followed his body to the grave. It is true, a public funeral was talked of; and, among others, Reynolds, Burke, and Garrick were to have carried the pall; but this was abandoned; and Goldsmith was privately buried in the ground of the Temple Church on the 9th of April, 1774. Strangely enough, too, Johnson seems to have omitted all mention of Goldsmith from his letters to Boswell. It was not until Boswell had written to him, on June 24th, "You have said nothing to me about poor Goldsmith," that Johnson, writing on July 4, answered as follows:--"Of poor dear Dr. Goldsmith there is little to be told, more than the papers have made public. 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?"

But if the greatest grief at the sudden and premature death of Goldsmith would seem to have been shown at the moment by certain wretched creatures who were found weeping on the stairs leading to his chambers, it must not be supposed that his fine friends either forgot him, or ceased to regard his memory with a great gentleness and kindness. Some two years after, when a monument was about to be erected to Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey, Johnson consented to write "the poor dear Doctor's epitaph;" and so anxious were the members of that famous circle in which Goldsmith had figured, that a just tribute should be paid to his genius, that they even ventured to send a round robin to the great Cham desiring him to amend his first draft. Now, perhaps, we have less interest in Johnson's estimate of Goldsmith's genius--though it contains the famous _Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit_--than in the phrases which tell of the honour paid to the memory of the dead poet by the love of his companions and the faithfulness of his friends. It may here be added that the precise spot where Goldsmith was buried in the Temple churchyard is unknown. So lived and so died Oliver Goldsmith.

* * * * *


In the foregoing pages the writings of Goldsmith have been given so prominent a place in the history of his life that it is unnecessary to take them here collectively and endeavour to sum up their distinctive qualities. As much as could be said within the limited space has, it is hoped, been said about their genuine and tender pathos, that never at any time verges on the affected or theatrical; about their quaint delicate, delightful humour; about that broader humour that is not afraid to provoke the wholesome laughter of mankind by dealing with common and familiar ways, and manners, and men; about that choiceness of diction, that lightness and grace of touch, that lend a charm even to Goldsmith's ordinary hack-work.

Still less necessary, perhaps, is it to review the facts and circumstances of Goldsmith's life; and to make of them an example, a warning, or an accusation. That has too often been done. His name has been used to glorify a sham Bohemianism--a Bohemianism that finds it easy to live in taverns, but does not find it easy, so far as one sees, to write poems like the _Deserted Village_. His experiences as an author have been brought forward to swell the cry about neglected genius--that is, by writers who assume their genius in order to prove the neglect. The misery that occasionally befell him during his wayward career has been made the basis of an accusation against society, the English constitution, Christianity--Heaven knows what. It is time to have done with all this nonsense. Goldsmith resorted to the hack-work of literature when everything else had failed him; and he was fairly paid for it. When he did better work, when he "struck for honest fame," the nation gave him all the honour that he could have desired. With an assured reputation, and with ample means of subsistence, he obtained entrance into the most distinguished society then in England--he was made the friend of England's greatest in the arts and literature--and could have confined himself to that society exclusively if he had chosen. His temperament, no doubt, exposed him to suffering; and the exquisite sensitiveness of a man of genius may demand our sympathy; but in far greater measure is our sympathy demanded for the thousands upon thousands of people who, from illness or nervous excitability, suffer from quite as keen a sensitiveness without the consolation of the fame that genius brings.

In plain truth, Goldsmith himself would have been the last to put forward pleas humiliating alike to himself and to his calling. Instead of beseeching the State to look after authors; instead of imploring society to grant them "recognition;" instead of saying of himself "he wrote, and paid the penalty;" he would frankly have admitted that he chose to live his life his own way, and