1765. new Premier, written from Queen Anne-street the day after Et. 37. his appointment, was to David Garrick; and is the first pleasant evidence we receive, that whatever may be the success of his adventure in politics, there is little chance of its weaning him from the society of wits and men of letters to which this narrative belongs. Burke cheerfully invokes his friend as his "little Horace," his "lepidissime homuncio," to call and see his "Mæcenas atavis," and "praise this "administration of Cavendishes and Rockinghams in ode, "and abuse their enemies in epigram.' Garrick had arrived in England, from his foreign tour, three months before; his old weaknesses coming back as he verged nearer and nearer home, and, for his last few days in Paris, disturbing him with visions of Powell. "I'll answer for "nothing and nobody in a playhouse," he wrote to Colman; "the devil has put his hoof into it, and he was a deceiver "from the beginning of the world. Tell me really what you "think of Powell. I am told by several that he will bawl "and roar. Ross, I hear, has got reputation in Lear. I don't "doubt it. The Town is a facetious gentleman." A few days later, Sterne wrote to him from Bath "strange" things of Powell; and when himself on the point of starting for London, he met Beauclerc accidentally, who reported of the new tragedian not less strangely. "What, 'all my children!' "I fear he has taken a wrong turn. Have you advised him?" * Garrick Correspondence, i. 189. "My dear Garrick," he said in the same letter, "you have made me perfectly happy by the friendly and obliging satis"faction you are so good to express on this little gleam of prosperity, which has "at length fallen on my fortune." It was indeed but a transient gleam, for the administration passed away in a month! + March 10, 1765. Peake's Memoirs, i. 141. 66 Powell," Sterne adds,-"good heaven! give me some one with less smoke " and more fire. There are, who, like the Pharisees, still think they shall be "heard for much speaking. Come-come away, my dear Garrick, and teach us "another lesson." Letter dated Bath, April 6, 1765. 1765. he wrote again to Colman. "Do you see him? Is he "grateful? is he modest? Or, is he conceited and undone? "* Æt. 37. Nor could the uneasy little great actor bring himself to make his journey home, till he had privately sent on for anonymous publication at the moment of his arrival, a rhymed satirical fable in anticipation and forestalment of expected Grubstreet attacks, wherein he humbly depicted himself as The Sick Monkey, and the whole race of other animals as railing at the monkey and his travels. But it was labour all thrown away. The finessing and trick were of no use, the hearts of his admirers being already securely his without such miserable help. Grub-street, when he came, showed no sign of discomposure; and there was but one desire in London and Westminster to see their favourite actor again. Let us not be surprised if these intolerable vanities and selfdistrusts weighed, with contemporaries of his own grade, against the better qualities of this delightful man, and pressed down the scale. Johnson loved him, but could not always show it for hatred of his foppery; Goldsmith admired him, yet was always ready to join in any scheme for his mortification and annoyance. Two things had been done in his absence to which he addressed himself with great anxiety on his return. The Covent Garden actors had established a voluntary benefit-subscription, to relieve their poorer fellows in distress; and, jealous of such a proposal without previous consultation with himself, he was now throwing all his energy into a similar fund at Drury Lane, which should excel and over-rule the other. Without him, too, the club had been established; but as he could not * Letter dated 7th April 1765. Peake's Memoirs, i. 149-50. "Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick, + If they were not his own by finessing and trick." Retaliation. See Murphy's Life, ii. 14, and Davies, ii. 332. 1765. Æt. 37. hope to succeed in setting up a rival to that, he was using every anxious means to secure his own immediate election. Johnson resolutely opposed it. Reynolds first conveyed to him Garrick's wish, to the effect that he liked the idea of the club excessively, and thought he should be of them. "He'll "be of us!" exclaimed Johnson; "how does he know we will "permit him? The first duke in England has no right to "hold such language."* To Thrale, the next intercessor, he threw out even threats of a blackball; but this moved the worthy brewer to remonstrate warmly, and Johnson, thus hard pressed, picked up somewhat recklessly a line of Pope's, as in self-defence one might pick up a stone by the wayside, without regard to its form or fitness. Why, sir, "I love my little David dearly, better than all or any of "his flatterers do; but surely one ought to sit in a society "like ours "Unelbow'd by a gamester, pimp or player." + Still the subject was not suffered to let drop, and the next who undertook it was Hawkins. "He will disturb us, sir, "by his buffoonery," was the only and obdurate answer. Garrick saw that for the present it was hopeless (though not long after, as will be seen, Percy, Chambers, and Colman obtained their election); and, with his happier tact and really handsome spirit, § visited Johnson as usual, and seemed * Boswell, ii. 274-5. Boswell relates this by way of contradicting Hawkins, whose account, however, it plainly confirms. + Piozzi Letters, ii. 387. Life of Johnson, 425. § In the midst of Garrick's uneasy little vanities, let me show him in his better character (also from an incident of the present year) as the benefactor and friend of worth and virtue. It will enable me too, as I have already illustrated Goldsmith's Doctor Marrowfat by comparison with a living dignitary of the church (ante, 278-9), to offer a not unworthy companion picture to Goldsmith's Doctor Primrose, in the person of an actual living vicar. Garrick is writing to one of his great friends on behalf of the Rev. Mr. Beighton, and "the worthy parson" is thus most happily sketched by him. "The honest vicar of Egham might be made to withdraw his claim. But he could not conceal his uneasi- 1765. "He would often stop at my gate," says his good- Et. 37. natured friend Hawkins, who lived at Twickenham," in his ness. 66 66 66 6 66 6 way to and from Hampton, with messages from Johnson relating to his Shakspeare, then in the press, and ask "such questions as these: Were you at the club on Monday night? What did you talk of? Was Johnson "there? I suppose he said something of Davy?—that 'Davy was a clever fellow in his way, full of convivial "pleasantry, but no poet, no writer, ha!'"* Hawkins might hear all this, however, with better grace than any one else; for that worthy magistrate took little interest in the club. In a letter to Langton, written shortly after, Johnson specially mentions him as remiss in attendance, while he "the happiest man upon earth with a small addition to his present income. . . He is 66 1765. Et. 37. 66 admits that he is himself not over diligent. "Dyer, Doctor Nugent, Doctor Goldsmith, and Mr. Reynolds," he adds, are very constant.' Without its dignified doctorial prefix, Goldsmith's name is now seldom mentioned; even Newbery is careful to preserve it in his memoranda of books lent for the purposes of compilation; and he does not seem, himself, to have again laid it wholly aside. Indeed he now made a brief effort, at the suggestion of Reynolds, to make positive professional use of it. It was much to have a regular calling, said the successful painter; it gave a man social rank, and consideration in the world. Advantage should be taken of the growing popularity of the Traveller. To be at once physician and man of letters, was the most natural thing possible: there were the Arbuthnots and Garths, to say nothing of Cowley himself, among the dead; there were the Akensides, Graingers, Armstrongs, and Smolletts, still among the living; and where was the degree in medicine belonging to any of them, to which the degree in poetry or wit had not given more glad acceptance? Out came Goldsmith accordingly (in the June of this year, according to the account books of Mr. William Filby the tailor), in purple silk small-clothes, a handsome scarlet roquelaure buttoned close under the chin, and with all the additional importance derivable from a full dress professional wig, a sword, and a gold-headed cane. The style of the coat and small-clothes may be presumed from the "four guineas "and a half" paid for them; and, as a child with its toy * Boswell, ii. 321. In the same letter he writes "Mr. Lye is printing his Saxon "and Gothic dictionary: all The Club subscribes." + These account books were communicated to Mr. Prior by the son of William Filby (miscalled John in Boswell), Mr. John Filby, "a respectable member of the “Corporation of London," and will hereafter be quoted in detail. They complete the picture of which I furnish the beginning on a previous page (53-4), in the extracts there first printed from the Edinburgh tailor's ledger. |