1774.

Æt. 46.

It

quoted, in which not alone his the Animated Nature; and the last character was expressed, but his letter which remains of all that career was prefigured.* This have come down to us, characmay be doubtful, for the plan of teristic of his whole life, the poem, it is evident, had was written concerning grown far beyond its original that book to a publisher, purpose, as, "with chaos and Mr. Nourse, who had bought "blunders encircling his head," Griffin's original interest. poor Goldsmith continued to asked him to allow "his friend work at it. It became something "Griffin" to purchase back a better than "retaliation." In the portion of the copyright; thanked last lines, on which he is said to him at the same time for an have been engaged when his "over-payment," which in confatal illness seized him, may be sideration of the completed read the gratitude of a life. manuscript, and its writer's They will help to keep Reynolds necessities, Mr. Nourse had con immortal.

Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell my mind,

He has not left a wiser or better

hind.

you

be

His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand:

His manners were gentle, complying,
and bland;

Still born to improve us in every part,
His pencil our faces, his manners our

heart.

To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering,

sented to make; and threw out an idea of extending the work into the vegetable and fossil kingdoms. * Always working,

"SIR, As the work for which we en "the over payment of which I return you "gaged is now near coming out and for "my thanks, I would consider myself "still more obliged to you if you would "let my friend Griffin have a part of it. "He is ready to pay you for any part "you will think proper to give him, and 66 as I have thoughts of extending the 'work into the vegetable and fossil kingCor-"such engagement as may happen to "doms, you shall share with him in any ensue. I am, Sir, your very humble "servant, OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Prior, II. 504-5. Of the influence with booksellers, reported if not real, which the

When they judged without skill he was
still hard of hearing:
When they talked of their Raphaels,
reggios, and stuff,
He shifted his trumpet, and only took".
snuff.

By flattery unspoiled ...

...

66

It is not unpleasing to think writer seems to have maintained to the that Goldsmith's hand should have been tracing that unfinished line when illness struck the pen from it for ever. It was in the middle of March 1774.

last through all his sore distress, here is a proof dating but a few months earlier. It is addressed to the same publisher, "Andrews, who has just finished a work Mr. Nourse. "Sir, the bearer is Doctor "relative to Denmark, which I have seen 66 Some 'and read with great pleasure. He is of "expressing my approbation, will be a "opinion that a short letter of this kind

little time before, he had gone to his Edgeware lodging, to pursue his labours undisturbed. Here, at length, he had finished *See ante, 213-214.

proper introduction to you. I there"fore once more recommend it in the warmest manner, and unless I am mis"taken it will be a great credit to him as "well as benefit to the purchaser of the

always wanting, still asking, and "serious to laugh. He had lately hoping, and planning out fresh "written epitaphs for them all, labour! Here, too, he was com-"some of which hurt, and per

pleting the Grecian History; "haps made them not sorry that 1774. making another Abridge-"his own was the first necesEt. 46. ment of English History for " sary.' I do not know what schools; translating Scarron's excuse may have been given for Comic Romance; revising, for the this piece of scandal, but it is moderate payment of five guineas certain that Goldsmith had bitvouchsafed by James Dodsley, terly felt a reproach which Johnand with the further condition son gave him at their latest inthat he was to put his name to it, terview before leaving London, a new edition of his Enquiry into when, having asked him and Polite Learning;* labouring to Reynolds to dinner at the Temple bring into shape the compilation to meet an old acquaintance to on Experimental Philosophy, which whom his Dictionary project had had been begun eight years be- reintroduced him (Dr. Kippis, fore; writing his Retaliation; and who tells the anecdote), Johnmaking new resolves for the son silently reproved the extrafuture. Such was the end, such vagance of a too expensive dinthe unwearying and sordid toil, ner, by sending away a whole to which even his six years' term "second course" untouched. of established fame had brought him! The cycle of his life was complete; and in the same miserable labour wherein it had be-without a regret that Goldsmith had not gun, it was to close.

**

*Correspondence of Walpole and Mason,

I. 138.

** And whose name I cannot introduce

lived to assist in his Dictionary project, to which he would probably have contributed many a charming biography, and of which Walpole soon after this

date was writing in his most characteristical strain: When men write for "profit, they are not very delicate. What "credit can a Biographia Britannica be "when the editor is a mercenary wri"ter?" &c. &c. Nevertheless Dr. Kippis's attempt was a great credit to him, and it was a discredit to the age that it

should not have been more successful. Its first volume was published four years after Goldsmith's death; and after struggling through five volumes, over a lingering space of fifteen years, it had to be discontinued with the letter E incomplete. It was the last effort of "the trade" to combine anything like greatness, public usefulness, with their schemes for private profit, and it marks the close of an honourable epoch in the history of bookselling.

or

Soon after that, he was taking and adds, "Death, I really bemeasures to sell the lease of "lieve, was welcome to a man his Temple chambers; and here "of his great sensibility."* in Edgeware he was telling his that case, the welcome visitor farmer friends that he should was come.

never again live longer than two months a year in London. "One has a strange propensity," says Boswell, describing a perpetual habit of his own, "to fix "upon some point of time from

CHAPTER XXI.

Illness and Death.
1774.

GOLDSMITH arrived in

"whence a better course of life London in the middle of

In

1774.

Æt. 46.

the

“may begin.” Ah, yes! It is March, and obtained reso easy to settle that way what lief from the immediate attack would otherwise never be settled, of his disease, but was left strugand comfort ourselves with a gling with symptoms of low flattery of the future. We seem nervous fever. Yet he was again mended at once, without having among his friends, as well as in taken the trouble of mending. the old haunts; and his cordial Unhappily it is from the same and close relations with instinctive dislike of trouble that Horneck family appear in the the after-failures of these formal very last traces left of him in the resolutions come. Never will world. ** On Friday, the 25th of they cease, notwithstanding, till March, he seems to have been castle-building on the ground Life of Garrick, II. 167. is as easy as to build castles **Charles Horneck (before referred to, in the air. The philosopher 111, 112) had married in the May of 1773 smiles at that word never, but to a daughter of the deceased Lord Albemarle, a lady who in the March of this the last moment it is pronounced year ran away with Mr. Scawen, her by us all. Here it was whisper- husband's most intimate friend: and ing to Goldsmith all sorts of when, in 1775, Horneck sued for his enduring resolutions, when the sudden attack of an old illness warned him to seek advice in London. This was a local disorder, a strangury, which had grown from sedentary habits, and had required great care at every period of his life. It was neglect, says Davies, which now brought it on. He describes it as occasioned by "a continual "had not been at home from the time he "vexation of mind, arising from "went out to dinner, and that Doctor "his involved circumstances;""Goldsmith had not been there at all."

divorce, it appeared that in March 1774 he had been staying with his wife at Scawen's house in Cork-street, Burlington-gardens; and that on a particular evening "in the middle of that month," one of the female servants found Mrs. Horneck's bedchamber door fastened; "why Mrs. Horneck had locked her bedwhereupon next morning she "inquired "chamber door? and she replied that Mr. "Horneck had been at home, and said to "smith were to come and spend the "evening in her bedchamber; to which "the witness answered that Mr. Horneck

"her that Mr. Scawen and Doctor Gold

especially anxious to attend the sense of its universal efficacy as club (Charles Fox, Sir Charles Horace Walpole had, who swore Bunbury, George Steevens, and he should take it if the house

1774.

*

Dr. George Fordyce, had were on fire. Mr. Hawes saw at just obtained their elec- once, however, that, his comAt. 46. tion); but in the afternoon plaint being more of a nervous of that day he took to his bed, affection than a febrile disease, and at eleven o'clock at night a such a remedy would be dangervery benevolent as well as skil-ous; that it would force too large ful surgeon-apothecary, named and sudden an exhaustion of the Hawes, who lived in the Strand, vital powers, to enable him to whom Goldsmith was in the cope with the disorder; and he habit of consulting, and to whose implored him not to think of it. efforts to establish a Humane For more than half an hour, he Society he had given active sym- says, he sat by the bedside urgpathy and assistance, was sent ing its probable danger; "vehefor. He found Goldsmith com- "mently entreating" his difficult plaining of violent pain, extend- patient; but unable to prevail ing over all the fore-part of his upon him to promise that he head; his tongue moist, his pulse would not resort to it. Hawes at ninety, and his mind made up then, after formal protest, said that he should be cured by he had one request to make of James's fever-powders. He had him. “He very warmly asked derived such benefit from this "me what that was." It was fashionable medicine in previous that he would permit his friend attacks, that it seems to have Dr. Fordyce, who had formerly left him with as obstinate a attended him, to be called in at once. He held out against this

*For a well-deserved tribute to this

excellent man,

of active humanity and public usefulness,

who took afterwards a for some time; endeavoured to physician's degree, and passed a long life raise an obstacle by saying see Gent. Mag. LXXVIII. (1808) 1121. The Fordyce was gone to spend pamphlet I quote in the text is entitled the evening in Gerrard-street An Account of the late Dr. Goldsmith's ill-("where," poor Goldsmith added, ness, so far as relates to the exhibition of I should also have been if I Dr. James's Powders, together with Remarks

on the Use and Abuse of Powerful Medicines "had not been indisposed"); and in the beginning of fevers and other acute at last reluctantly consented. diseases, by William Hawes, M.D. 1-45.

after

My copy is the fourth edition (1780), and "Well, you may send for him, if is dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds and "you will." Hawes despatched Edmund Burke, as "two of Dr. Gold- the note to Gerrard-street; and "smith's most intimate and respectable “friends;” of whom in the course of the Fordyce, arriving soon pamphlet (22) it is observed that they, as Hawes had left, seems to have well as "Mr. Bott and others of Dr. Gold-given Goldsmith a warning "smith's best and most esteemed friends, against the fever-medicine equally strong, but as unavailing.

"have also testified their approbation of "my conduct."

1774

Hawes sent medicine and leeches|Other facts, in what remains to soon after twelve; and, in the be told, appeared in formal hope that Fordyce would have statements subsequently pubsucceeded where he had failed, lished by Francis Newdid not send the fever-powders bery, the proprietor of the ordered. But Goldsmith con- fever-powders, to vindi- t. 46. tinued obstinate. The leeches cate the fame of his medicine. were applied, the medicine re- These were made and signed by jected, and the lad who brought Goldsmith's servant, John Eyles; them from Hawes's surgery was his laundress, Mary Ginger; and sent back for a packet of the a night nurse, Sarah Smith, powders. called in on the second day of So far, in substance, is the nar- the illness. As soon as Goldrative of Hawes; which there is smith took the powder sent him no fair ground for disputing. I from the Strand, he protested it omit everything not strictly de- was the wrong powder; was very scriptive of the illness; but the angry with Hawes; threatened to good surgeon had evidently a pay his bill next morning, and strong regard for his patient.* have done with him; and certainly despatched Eyles, in the

* Hawes spoke from experience of his afternoon of that day, for a fresh help in many humane projects. I quote the concluding passages of his pamphlet: packet from Newbery's. He sent "It may not be improper to observe (as at the same time for his laun"a kind of Apology for some particulars dress (she was wife of the head"which are before related to have passed porter of the Temple), to 66 come "between me and Dr. Goldsmith), that "he was bred a Physician, and therefore "and sit by him, until John "it was natural to converse with him on "returned;" described himself, "the subject of his disorder in a medical when she arrived, as worse; and 66 manner; but his attention had been so

66

"wholly absorbed by polite literature, damned Hawes ("those were his "that it prevented him from making any "very words") for the mistake great progress in medical studies. As he had made. In the afternoon 'an elegant Writer, he will always be "held in the highest esteem by all per- and night of Saturday, two of "sons of true taste. His Traveller and the fresh powders were ad"Deserted Village are deservedly num

"bered among the best poetical produc-"my late respected and ingenious friend, "tions of the present age; and some of "Dr. Goldsmith, was pleased to honour "his essays, and other pieces, are very "Dr. Cogan and myself with his patron"advantageously distinguished by general" age and assistance in the Undertaking "wit and native humour. It should also "for the Recovery of persons apparently "be remembered, that he was not only" dead by Drowning, and other sudden "an excellent writer, but a most amiable "accidents, now on the point of being man. His humanity and generosity "established in this kingdom, I think I "greatly exceeded the narrow limits of "cannot shew a greater proof of my "his fortune; and those who were no "esteem for the deceased, than by apply"judges of the literary merit of the Au- "ing the profits of this publication (if any "thor, could not but love the Man for "should arise) to an institution, the de"that benevolence by which he was so "sign of which was favoured with his ap"strongly characterised. N.B. As "probation." 15-16.

...