roasted joint of lamb, and a tart; and the doctor either sat down or walked about just as he pleased. After dinner he took some wine with biscuits; but I was obliged soon to leave him for a while, as I had matters to settle prior to my next day's journey. On my return coffee was ready, and the doctor appeared more cheerful (for Mrs. Cradock was always rather a favorite with him), and in the evening he endeavored to talk and remark as usual, but all was forced. He stayed till midnight, and I insisted on seeing him safe home, and we most cordially shook hands at the Temple gate." Cradock little thought that this was to be their final parting. He looked back to it with mournful recollections in after years, and lamented that he had not remained longer in town at every inconvenience, to solace the poor broken-spirited poet. At the open

The latter continued in town all the autumn. ing of the Opera House, on the 20th of November, Mrs. Yates, an actress whom he held in great esteem, delivered a poetical exordium of his composition. Beauclerc, in a letter to Lord Charlemont, pronounced it very good, and predicted that it would soon be in all the papers. It does not appear, however, to have been ever published. In his fitful state of mind Goldsmith may have taken no care about it, and thus it has been lost to the world, although it was received with great applause by a crowded and brilliant audience.

A gleam of sunshine breaks through the gloom that was gathering over the poet. Toward the end of the year he receives another Christmas invitation to Barton. A country Christmas! with all the cordiality of the fireside circle, and the joyous revelry of the oaken hall-what a contrast to the loneliness of a bachelor's chambers in the Temple! It is not to be resisted. But how is poor Goldsmith to raise the ways and means? His purse is empty; his booksellers are already in advance to him. As a last resource, he applies to Garrick. Their mutual inti nacy at Barton may have suggested him as an alternative. The old loan of forty pounds has never been paid; and Newbery's note, pledged as a security, has never been taken up. An additional loan of sixty pounds is now asked for, thus increasing the loan to one hundred; to insure the payment, he now offers, besides Newbery's note, the transfer of the comedy of the Good-Natured Man to Drury Lane, with such alterations as Garrick may suggest. Garrick, in reply, evades the offer of the altered comedy, alludes significantly to a new one which Goldsmith had talked of writing for him,

and offers to furnish the money required on his own accept

ance.

The reply of Goldsmith bespeaks a heart brimful of gratitude and overflowing with fond anticipations of Barton and the smiles of its fair residents. "My dear friend," writes he, "I thank you. I wish I could do something to serve you. I shall have a comedy for you in a season, or two at farthest, that I believe will be worth your acceptance, for I fancy I will make it a fine thing. You shall have the refusal. I will draw upon you one month after date for sixty pounds, and your acceptance will be ready money, part of which I want to go down to Barton with. May God preserve my honest little man, for he has my heart. Ever,

66 OLIVER GOLDSMITH."

And having thus scrambled together a little pocket money, by hard contrivance, poor Goldsmith turns his back upon care and trouble, and Temple quarters, to forget for a time his des olate bachelorhood in the family circle and a Christmas fireside at Barton.

CHAPTER XLIV.

A RETURN TO DRUDGERY-FORCED

GAYETY-RETREAT TO THE COUNTRY-THE POEM OF RETALIATION-PORTRAIT OF GARRICK OF REYNOLDS-ILLNESS OF THE POET-HIS DEATH-GRIEF OF HIS FRIENDS-A LAST WORD RESPECTING THE JESSAMY BRIDE.

-OF GOLDSMITH

THE Barton festivities are over; Christmas, with all its home-felt revelry of the heart, has passed like a dream; the Jessamy Bride has beamed her last smile upon the poor poet, and the early part of 1774 finds him in his now dreary bachelor abode in the Temple, toiling fitfully and hopelessly at a multiplicity of tasks. His "Animated Nature," so long delayed, so often interrupted, is at length announced for publication, though it has yet to receive a few finishing touches. He is preparing a third "History of England," to be compressed and condensed in one volume, for the use of schools. He is revising his "Inquiry into Polite Learning," for which he receives the pittance of five guineas, much needed in his present scanti

ness of purse; he is arranging his "Survey of Experimental Philosophy," and he is translating the "Comic Romance of Scarron." Such is a part of the various labors of a drudging, depressing kind, by which his head is made weary and his heart faint. "If there is a mental drudgery," says Sir Walter Scott, "which lowers the spirits and lacerates the nerves, like the toil of a slave, it is that which is exacted by literary composition, when the heart is not in unison with the work upon which the head is employed. Add to the unhappy author's task sickness, sorrow, or the pressure of unfavorable circumstances, and the labor of the bondsman becomes light in comparison." Goldsmith again makes an effort to rally his spirits by going into gay society. "Our club," writes Beauclerc to Charlemont, on the 12th of February, "has dwindled away to nothing. Sir Joshua and Goldsmith have got into such a round of pleasures that they have no time." This shows how little Beauclerc was the companion of the poet's mind, or could judge of him below the surface. Reynoids, the kind participator in joyless dissipation, could have told a different story of his companion's heart-sick gayety.

In this forced mood Goldsmith gave entertainments in his chambers in the Temple; the last of which was a dinner to Johnson, Reynolds, and others of his intimates, who partook with sorrow and reluctance of his imprudent hospitality. The first course vexed them by its needless profusion. When a second, equally extravagant, was served up, Johnson and Reynolds declined to partake of it; the rest of the company, understanding their motives, followed their example, and the dishes went from the table untasted. Goldsmith felt sensibly this silent and well-intended rebuke.

The gayeties of society, however, cannot medicine for any length of time a mind diseased. Wearied by the distractions and harassed by the expenses of a town life, which he had not the discretion to regulate, Goldsmith took the resolution, too tardily adopted, of retiring to the serene quiet and cheap and healthful pleasures of the country, and of passing only two months of the year in London. He accordingly made arrangements to sell his right in the Temple chambers, and in the month of March retired to his country quarters at Hyde, there to devote himself to toil. At this dispirited juncture when inspiration seemed to be at an end, and the poetic fire extinguished, a spark fell on his combustible imagination and set in a blaze.

He belonged to a temporary association of men of talent, some of them members of the Literary Club, who dined together occasionally at the St. James' Coffee-house. At these dinners, as usual, he was one of the last to arrive. On one occasion, when he was more dilatory than usual, a whim seized the company to write epitaphs on him, as "The late Dr. Goldsmith," and several were thrown off in a playful vein, hitting off his peculiarities. The only one extant was written by Garrick, and has been preserved, very probably, by its pun

gency:

"Here lies poor Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor poll."

Goldsmith did not relish the sarcasm, especially as coming from such a quarter. He was not very ready at repartee; but he took his time, and in the interval of his various tasks, concocted a series of epigrammatic sketches, under the title of Retaliation, in which the characters of his distinguished inti- · mates were admirably hit off, with a mixture of generous praise and good-humored raillery. In fact the poem for its graphic truth; its nice discrimination; its terse good sense, and its shrewd knowledge of the world, must have electrified the club almost as much as the first appearance of The Traveller, and let them still deeper into the character and talents of the man they had been accustomed to consider as their butt. Retaliation, in a word, closed his accounts with the club, and balanced all his previous deficiencies.

The portrait of David Garrick is one of the most elaborate in the poem. When the poet came to touch it off, he had some lurking piques to gratify, which the recent attack had revived. He may have forgotten David's cavalier treatment of him in the early days of his comparative obscurity; he may have forgiven his refusal of his plays; but Garrick had been capricious in his conduct in the times of their recent intercourse; sometimes treating him with gross familiarity, at other times affecting dignity and reserve, and assuming airs of superiority; frequently he had been facetious and witty in company at his expense, and lastly he had been guilty of the couplet just quoted. Goldsmith, therefore, touched off the lights and shadows of his character with a free hand, and, at the same time, gave a side hit at his old rival, Kelly, and his critical persecutor, Kenrick, in making them sycophantic satellites of the actor. Goldsmith, however, was void of gall,

even in his revenge, and his very satire was more humorous than caustic:

"Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can,

An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man;
As an actor, confess'd 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 colors he spread,
And beplaster'd 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 turn'd 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 swallow'd what came,

And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame;
Till his relish, grown callous almost to disease,
Who pepper'd 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 reëcho the shouts that you raised,

While he was be-Rosciused and you were be-praised!

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."

This portion of Retaliation soon brought a retort from Garrick, which we insert, as giving something of a likeness of Goldsmith, though in broad caricature:

"Here, Hermes, says Jove, who with nectar was mellow,

Go fetch me some clay-I will make an odd fellow:

Right and wrong shall be jumbled, much gold and some dross,
Without cause be he pleased, without cause be he cross;

Be sure, as I work, to throw in contradictions,

A great love of truth, yet a mind turn'd to fictions;

Now mix these ingredients, which, warm'd in the baking
Turn'd to learning and gaming, religion, and raking.
With the love of a wench, let his writings be chaste;
Tip his tongue with strange matters, his lips with fine taste;
That the rake and the poet, o'er all may prevail,

Set fire to the head and set fire to the tail:

For the joy of each sex on the world I'll bestow it,

This scholar, rake, Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet.
Though a mixture so odd, he shall merit great fame,
And among brother mortals be Goldsmith his name;
When on earth this strange meteor no more shall appear,
You, Hermes, shall fetch him, to make us sport here."