table, till the Scot, though already replete with tripe and bacon, announces 'a corner for thot;' and 'we'll all keep a corner,' is the general resolve, and on the pasty everything is concentrated: when the terrified maid brings in, not the pasty, but the catastrophe, in the shape of terrible news from the baker. To him had the pasty been carried, crust and all :

And so it fell out, that that negligent sloven
Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven.

It may have been on hearing these verses read in the Beauclerc and Bunbury circles (it was from a copy Lord Clare had given Bunbury they were afterwards printed) that Horace Walpole conceded to the silly changeling,' as he called Goldsmith, bright gleams of parts;' this being the style of verse he relished most, and could value beyond Travellers and Deserted Villages. It was in a later letter he made it a kind of boast that he had never exchanged a syllable with Johnson in his life, and had never been in a room with him six times; for the necessity of finding himself, once a year at least, perforce in the same room with him, and with Goldsmith too, did not till the present year begin. On St. George's day, 1771, Sir Joshua Reynolds took the chair at the first annual dinner of the Royal Academy: where the entertainers, himself and his fellow Academicians, sat surrounded by such evidence of claims to respect as their own pencils had adorned the walls with, and their guests were the most distinguished men of the day. It was one of the happy

devices of the president by which he steered the new and unchartered Academy through those quicksands and shoals that had wrecked the chartered institution out of which it rose. Academies cannot create genius; academies had

nothing to do with the

begetting of Hogarth, or Reynolds, or Wilson, or Gainsborough, the greatest names of our English

school; but they may strengthen the painter's claims to consideration and esteem, and give, to that sense of dignity which should invest every liberal art, and which too often passes for an airy nothing amid the hustle and crowd of more vulgar pretences, a local habitation and a name.' This was the main wise drift of Reynolds and his fellow labourers; it was the charter that held them together in spite of all their later dissensions; and to this day it outweighs the gravest fault or disadvantage that has yet been charged against the Royal Academy.

A fragment of the conversation at this first Academy dinner has survived; and takes us from it to the darkest contrast, the most deplorable picture of human misery and disadvantage, which even these pages have described. Goldsmith spoke of an extraordinary boy who had come up to London from Bristol, died very miserably, and left a wonderful treasure of ancient poetry behind him. Horace Walpole listened carelessly at first, it would seem; but soon perceived in the subject of conversation a special interest for himself. Some years afterwards he described what passed, with an affectation of equanimity which even then he did not feel. Dining at the Royal Academy,' he said, 'Doctor 'Goldsmith drew the attention of the company with the 'account of a marvellous treasure of ancient poems lately 'discovered at Bristol, and expressed enthusiastic belief in 'them; for which he was laughed at by Doctor Johnson, 'who was present. I soon found that this was the trouvaille ' of my friend Chatterton; and I told Doctor Goldsmith

1

'that this novelty was known to me, who might, if I had 'pleased, have had the honour of ushering the great discovery to the learned world. You may imagine, sir, we did 'not at all agree in the measure of our faith. But though 'his credulity diverted me, my mirth was soon dashed; for 'on asking about Chatterton, he told me he had been ' in London, and had destroyed himself. The persons ' of honour and veracity who were present will attest with 'what surprise and concern I thus first heard of his 'death.' Yes; for the concern was natural. Even a Goldsmith credulity, for once, would have been Walpole's better friend. His mirth was dashed at the time, and his peace was for many years invaded, by that image of Chatterton.

From the time he resisted the imposition,' says Miss Hawkins in her considerate way, 'he began to go down in 'public favour.' An imposition it undoubtedly was, even such an imposition as he had himself attempted with his Castle of Otranto; and he had a perfect right to resist it. It was no guilt he had committed, but it was a great occasion lost. The poor boy who invented Rowley (the most wonderful invention of literature, all things considered), had not only communicated his discovery to the learned Mr. Walpole,' but the learned Mr. Walpole had with profuse respect and deference believed in it, till Gray and Mason laughed at him; when, turning coldly away from Chatterton's eager proposals, he planted in that young ambitious heart its bitterest thorn. As for Goldsmith's upholding of the authenticity of Rowley, it may pass with

a smile, if it really meant anything more than a belief in poor Chatterton himself; and it is a pity that Doctor Percy should have got up a quarrel with him about it, as he is said to have done. There is nothing so incredible that the wisest may not believed in Ossian once, though a few years later he doubted, and at his death scornfully disbelieved.

be found to believe. Hume

Goldsmith's stay in London, at this time, was to see his English History through the press; and it did not long detain him. But his re-appearance in the Temple seldom failed to bring him new acquaintances now. His reputation kept no one at a distance; for his hospitable habits, his genial unaffected ways, were notorious to all. In particular to his countrymen. The Temple student from Ireland, with or without introduction, seems to have walked into his chambers as a home. To this period belong two such new acquaintances, sufficiently famous to have survived for recollection. The one was a youth named Day, afterwards one of the Irish judges, and more famous for his amiability than his law; the other was a friend and fellow-student of his, now ripening for a great career, and the achievement of an illustrious name. Henry Grattan's accomplishments made their first strong impression on Goldsmith; and it need not be reckoned their least distinction. Judge Day lived to talk and write to Mr. Prior about these early times; and described the 'great delight' which the conversation and society of Grattan,' then a youth of about nineteen, seemed to give to their more