1767.

Et. 39.

assisted with his interest to pro-"relieved; and he has been often motion in the navy, and who is "known to leave himself even still remembered for his songs "without a guinea, in order to and his edition of Andrew Marvel; "supply the necessities of and another Irishman, named "others."* It is to be Glover, also a protégé of Gar- added of Glover, however, rick's, and mentioned on an earlier who was notorious for his songs page, *who had been bred a and imitations, that he was addoctor, figured afterwards as an dicted to practical jokes; and actor, and now earned scanty often rewarded his patron's subsistence as a sort of Grub- generosity with very impudent street Galen. The anecdotes of betrayal of his simplicity. It was Goldsmith which appeared on his he who, in one of their summer death in the Annual Register (with rambles over Hampstead, took the signature G), and some of Goldsmith into a cottage at Westwhich reappeared in the Dublin end, through the open window edition (1777) of his poems by of which they saw a little party Malone, to be afterwards adopted assembled at tea of whom in into Evans's biographical sketch reality he knew nothing though and transferred to the Percy he undertook to introduce his Memoir, were written by this friend, and who actually, to the Glover; who was one of the many poet's awkward horror and malhumble Irish clients whom Gold-address when he saw the trick, smith's fame drew around him, imposed himself on the party and who profited by every scan-assembled as a pretended old actiest gleam of his prosperity. It quaintance, on the host as known is he who says (and none had to the guests and on the guests better cause to say it), "Our as familiar with the host, and "Doctor," as Goldsmith was now coolly sat down to tea with universally called, "had a con- them.

"stant levee of his distrest Hugh Kelly seems to have "countrymen, whose wants, as been a greater favourite than "far as he was able, he always Glover with good Mr. Ballantyne. "Much," says one of his notes, *Ante, 1. 42, and 50. "He is a most "skilful, worthy man, a good writer, and “as I esteemed Mr. Kelly, when a steady friend to Government. I have "a member of the Wednesday"known him long; he is much beloved, club at the Globe in Fleet"and the worst thing I ever heard of him

66

was, that, by his skill in his profession,"street, called Goldsmith's, who "he recovered a thief, after he had hung was seldom absent-Irespected "half-an-hour, and which thief, before him because he was always "he had healed the circle the rope had "made, picked Glover's pocket by way "unassuming-this" (the note is "of gratitude, and never thanked him for appended to a poem of Kelly's "his good offices." Garrick to Lord Rochford, recommending Glover for a * Preface to the Poems (Ed. 1777), Surgeoncy in the Essex Militia.

VI.

1767.

called Meditation), "had I then source of such inspiration was a "known him to be the author of well-known public-house within a "it, would have made me adore few doors of Drury-lane theatre, "him." The poem never-where the fettered lions of the theless is poor enough; stage were always growling t. 39 and, though Kelly was cer- against their tamers, we find that tainly popular with his nearer "the talents for satire displayed friends and had many kindly quali- "in this work by Mr. Kelly, reties, his unassumingness may be "commended him at once to the doubted. He had lately emerged "notice of Mr. Garrick." What to notoriety, out of a desperate resulted from that notice will and obscure struggle, by some-soon, with somewhat higher prewhat questionable arts. His youth tensions, re-introduce the object had been passed in Dublin as of it; and meanwhile he may be a staymaker's apprentice, and left with Mr. Ballantyne's praise, making sudden flight from this and with the remark, to counteruncongenial employment, he was balance it, of Johnson, who made obliged to resume it in London answer to Kelly's request for perto save himself from starvation; mission to converse with him, but he succeeded afterwards in "Sir, I never desire to converse hiring himself as writer to an at- "with a man who has written torney, from this got promotion "more than he has read."* to Grub-street, and had laboured Of the obscurer members of meanly, up to the present year, the Wednesday or Globe club in hack work for the magazines our mention may be limited to a and newspapers (Newbery hav- Mr. Gordon, who is remembered ing given him employment on by Mr. Ballantyne in connection the Public Ledger), when it oc- with the jovial and jocund song curred to him to make profit of of Nottingham Ale. "Mr. GorChurchill's example and set up "don," he says, "the largest man as a satirist and censor of the "I ever kept company with, stage. This he did after the usual "usually sung this song at the fashion of an imitator, and in his "Globe-club; and it always very Thespis caricatured the Rosciad. Poor Mrs. Dancer he called a It is also said that on Kelly's first "moon-eyed idiot;" talked of introduction to Johnson, after having sat "Clive's weak head and exe- with the remark that he feared a longer a short time, he got up to take his leave "crable heart;" libelled such visit might be troublesome; whereto men as Woodward and Moody; Johnson replied, "Not in the least, sir; I and lavished all his praise on "had forgotten that you were in the 66 room." Boswell, VIII. 411. Yet Mr. the Hursts, Ackmans, and Brans-John Nichols, after describing Kelly to Yet though the manifest Boswell as a person "in whom vanity "was somewhat too predominant," added *See Davies's Life of Garrick, II. 140; that Johnson "had a real friendship for and Taylor's Records, 1, 95-102,

bys.*

"him."

1767.

"much pleased Doctor Gold-"epitaph," says William Ballan"smith, Doctor Glover, good tyne, "in his way from his cham"Tom King the comedian, and "bers in the Temple to the Wed"myself, William Ballantyne." "nesday evening's club at Nor was the evening's amuse- "the Globe. I think he will ment limited to songs, but had " never come back, I believe Et. 39. the variety of dramatic imita- "he said. I was sitting by him, tions, with occasional original "and he repeated it more than epigram; and here was first heard "twice. I think he will never come that celebrated epitaph on Ed-"back." Ah! and not altogether ward Purdon, which showed that as a jest, it may be, the second Goldsmith had lately been read- and the third time. It is not ing Pope's and Swift's Miscel- without a certain pathos to me lanies:* that he should so have repeated

Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery

freed,

Who long was a bookseller's hack;

He led such a damnable life in this world,

I don't think he'll wish to come back.

it.

Purdon's fate, from their first There was something in cident in Smithfield, which bore meeting in college to that inno very violent contrast to his It was in the April of the pre- Glover has said of Oliver's freown; and remembering what sent year that Purdon fitly closed quent sudden descents from mirth his luckless life by suddenly to melancholy, some such fitful dropping down dead in Smithfield; and as it was chiefly Gold-change of temper would here have been natural enough. "His smith's pittance that had saved "disappointments at these times," him thus long from starvation, it Glover tells us "made him was well that the same friend "peevish and sullen; and he has should give him his solitary often left a party of convivial chance of escape from oblivion. "friends abruptly in the evening, "Doctor Goldsmith made this in order to go home and brood * The original of all is the epitaph on "over his misfortunes.”* a better medicine for his grief than brooding over it, was a sudden start into the country to forget it; and it was probably with a feeling of this kind he had in the summer revisited Islington, to which, after this Wedneslies under-day-club digression, we must now for a very brief space accompany him.

"La Mort du Sieur Etienne.

Il est au bout de ses travaux Il a passé le Sieur Etienne; En ce monde il eut tant des maux Qu'on ne croit pas qu'il revienne." With this perhaps Goldsmith was familiar, and had therefore less scruple in laying felonious hands on the epigram in the Miscellanies (Swift, XIII. 372):

"Well, then, poor G

ground!

So there's an end of honest Jack. So little justice here he found, 'Tis ten to one he'll ne'er come back."

But

*Annual Register, XVII. 31. Life prefixed to Malone's edition (1777), IX.

He had one room in the turret | autumn, and could have been of Canonbury-house, which, since but the fragments or beginnings altered and subdivided, to within of a poem; for he did not return the last twenty years re- to the lodging. He now re'1767. mained as it was in his mained some weeks in it; and is t. 39. time; a genuine relic of said to have been often found, Elizabeth's hunting seat. It was during the time, among a social an old oak room on the first party of his fellow-lodgers (pubfloor, with Gothic windows, lishers Robinson and Francis panelled wainscot, and a recess Newbery, printers Baker and in its eastern corner for a large Hamilton, editor Beaufort afterpress-bedstead, which doubtless wards of the Town and Country Mathe poet occupied.* Canonbury- gazine, poets Woty and Huddletower, with which Newbery had stone Wynne, and pamphleteersome connection as holding a ing parsons Rider and Sellon), lease or property in it (of which presiding at the festive board of he gave the management to the the Crown-tavern, in the IslingFlemings), was for many years ton lower-road, where they had let out in this way, and had been formed a kind of temporary club. the frequent resort of men con- At the close of the year he had nected with literature: but if, as returned to the Temple, was in at times alleged, any of Gold- communication with Burke about smith's poetry was written here, his comedy, and was again pretty it was written in the present constant in his attendance at Gerrard-street.

*Mr. Hone in his Every Day Book says, on the authority of Mr. Symes, bailiff of the manor of Islington, "that his mother"in-law, Mrs. Evans, who had lived "there three-and-thirty years, and was "wife to the former bailiff, often told "him that her aunt, Mrs. Tapps, a "seventy years' inhabitant of the tower,

CHAPTER XVIII.

Patrons of Literature.
1767.

ON his reappearance in Lon"was accustomed to talk much about don, Goldsmith found political "Goldsmith and his apartment. It was excitement raging, and Burke "the old oak-room on the first floor. still rising higher through the

Mrs. Tapps affirmed that he there wrote

"his Deserted Village, and that he slept in storm. He might have wondered "a large press-bedstead placed in the to see, among the first acts of the "eastern corner. From this room two new administration, his country"small ones for sleeping in have since "been separated, by the removal of the man and friend Robert Nugent, "panelled oak wainscotting from the the most furious upholder of "north-east wall, and the cutting of two colonial taxation, selected for a "doors through it, with a partition be

"tween them; and since Goldsmith was lordship of the Board of Trade, "here, the window on the south side has and raised to the rank of Baron been broken through." The Every Day Nugent and Viscount Clare; yet Book for 8th May, 1825 (1. 638). The

passage in the text was written in 1848. this was nothing to the marvel

1767.

39.

of seeing emanate," from Lord | Newcastle-house, that the power Chatham's Chancellor of the Ex- of Lord Bute was still to be chequer, a new project for taxa- resisted; resolutely refused to tion of America. The rest of sanction any arrangement their career had been only less which would again expose Æt. disgraceful; nor is it possible, America to the mercies of without some allusion to it, to George Grenville; and finally reexhibit properly either the social jected the party combination influences of the time, or that in- which the old Duke of Newcident of Goldsmith's life with castle, to get himself once more which this chapter will close. into office, had ever since he left Violating public faith in their at- office been labouring to effect tack on the East India Charter, "tooth and nail" (that is, says they had sustained, from its re- Horace Walpole, "with the one solute exposure by Mr. O'Bourke "of each sort that he has left, (as pompous Beckford, Lord "the old wretch!") And when, Chatham's tool in the matter, during the earlier progress of persisted in calling Edmund), a these confusions and disgraces, most damaging blow. They had Chatham sullenly disappeared suffered an ignominious defeat, from the scene and withdrew the without precedent since Wal- last restraint from his ill-assorted pole's fall, on the question of colleagues, George Grenville, continuing the land tax at four seeing his opportunity, had shillings, which Dowdeswell suc- taunted the fiery Townshend to ceeded in reducing to three, open rebellion. An agent from backed by all the country gen- Connecticut, Jared Ingersoll, tlemen, by the Bedfords and the was present in the House (the Grenvilles, by the single partisan reader will remember that these or so who still followed New-were not the days of reporters), castle, and by all the Rocking- and has described what passed. hams except Burke, who alone Grenville stopped suddenly in ("not having our number of the midst of a powerful speech "acres," said the top-booted on the existing financial depresgentlemen to each other) fell sion, and turning to the treasury from his party on that question, bench, exclaimed: "You and would not vote to lighten "cowards, you are afraid of the land. They had tasted as "the Americans. You dare not bitter humiliation in the later rejection of their overtures for help *Since this biography first appeared, by the despised head of the last Mr. Bancroft has depicted in a lively way (in the second volume of his History of administration, who, manfully the American Revolution, 274-5) the effect acting on Burke's warnings and which Ingersoll's reports of what was suggestions, maintained, in the then passing in the English House of Commons produced throughout the towns meeting with the Bedfords at and villages of Connecticut.

are