Oliver Goldsmith Part 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Rischgitz Collection._]

GOLDSMITH IN MIDDLE AGE.

(From an engraving by Ridley.)]

It is commonly said that Goldsmith had a thick-set figure. This does not mean that he was a st.u.r.dy, muscular man. Weakness of const.i.tution, a habit of stooping as he strolled in his meditative manner, and constantly bending as he wrote at desk or table, and early deprivations both of soul and body, had huddled up the low stature and given the compressed frame a semblance of solidity. His cheeks were sunken, and there were dark rims about the eyes, and the minimum of fleshly and substantial covering clad these limbs. Goldsmith had a queer little manner of bobbing. This bob he fondly imagined a bow.

That it was meant to be dignified there is no doubt. It came a little from that personal vanity from which no one will ever wish to deem him entirely exempt, and a little, too, from great nervousness. It flowed also from an innate good breeding and cultured and natural chivalry.

This bobbing as he entered or left a room was finely caricatured by Garrick. No doubt the actor's own bowing was the perfection of formal grace. Yet if the motive of politeness and personal ceremonial condone its outward and practical shortcomings, then we shall discover more true soul in Goldsmith's bob than Garrick's bow. Noll bobbed timidly when compliments were paid him, and gratefully and affirmatively when in his presence he heard others praised. If anything n.o.ble or beautiful was told of anyone, then came the revering little bob, this time intended as a tribute to human honour and the virtue of the heart and the valour of the race.

CHAPTER VII

DEBTS AND DIGNITIES

All through his life Goldsmith was greatly given to grand clothes. It is a pity that grand clothes were not always greatly given to him, for he never appeared quite able to pay for them. Although he became deeply involved in debt, he never cultivated luxurious or unworthy delights. His pleasures were of the simplest. His insolvent condition was due, true enough, to pleasure and his foremost luxury--the luxury of ceaseless charities that he could as ill afford as a coach-and-four. He was one of the hearts not meant to draw near the gates of heaven alone, and could not accept a pleasure without someone sharing it with him and having more than half.

When he gave his suppers, we find the measure of the man who always gave more than he received, for the viands were for his friends, and a basin of boiled milk satisfied his own demands. There is a sad message in the milk. It showed the concealed weakness of the little man, and the growing disease, not now ever to be wholly known, from which he died so young. Too likely all through his life some constant, growing pain, stealing his pleasures, stole his prudence too. He was always frank and as open with his creditors, as he was candid with his friends. When Newbery's account with him had become complicated, he had no means of liquidating the reckoning save by offering the copyright of his play, then advancing towards production under many disadvantages.

"To tell the truth, Frank," he said, in his lofty and affable manner, "there are very small hopes of its success."

It is almost diverting to find Goldsmith himself baffled, if not beaten, in seeking prosperity from literature, majestically introducing others into the sacred sphere. His name was sufficient to lead others to those rewards that he himself needed even more than they did. Like Johnson, Goldsmith wrote many introductions to books and various dedications for authors, who availed themselves both of the influence and of the ability of these distinguished leaders in the realm of letters. When Goldsmith had become known in the world and life of literature, and was already respected by a select circle of the authors of the time, although his place and power were by no means established, it was through the pressure of debt and its distresses that the greatest work of his genius came to light.

"One morning in the year 1764," said Dr. Johnson to the faithful Boswell, "I received a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed."

It is impossible to pa.s.s and not pause here in grateful admiration for the true heart of Dr. Johnson, who never failed a friend or any man.

He proceeded with his confidences.

"I found," he went on, concerning Goldsmith, "that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent pa.s.sion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea and had got a bottle of Madeira and a gla.s.s before him."

The coming pa.s.sage is beautifully characteristic:

"I put the cork into the bottle," said Johnson, and then goes on with the narrative.

"I desired he would be calm," he proceeded, "and I began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced. I looked into it and saw its merits, told the landlady I should soon return, and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in high tone for having used him so ill."

Amid all his distresses, Goldsmith had been quietly and diligently perfecting his beautiful novel, _The Vicar of Wakefield_.

Simultaneously he had been engaged upon _The Traveller_. At that very instant it lay completed in his desk.

The pure delights of life he knew faithfully, and lovingly bestowed.

This man possessed not merely in an unusual, but in an absolutely unique, degree the grace of sympathetic affectionateness. He fulfilled the Pauline mandate, "Be kindly affectionate one to another." In Goldsmith this was nothing less than very genius. His graceful letters to his Irish friends, and, indeed, to all to whom he ever wrote, evince the kindest and most caressing feelings imaginable. They are about the home, the children, the pet animals, and trivial ties, and pleasing, pleading memories and hopes. As you read, Divinity hedges about the lowly hearths that he pictured so lovingly. It is a curious power. When Goldsmith was at Bath, from the way that Johnson mentions him in his letters to Langton we note how much the little doctor was missed by his friend when he left town. It was a bright moment when Goldsmith moved into his chambers in the Temple. Here he lived his last years, and his literary life will always be a.s.sociated more with this place than with any other. In these rooms, amongst his friends might have been seen old General Oglethorpe, that courageous veteran Paoli, and the young and dauntless Grattan. Here the _Roman History_ was written. This work was greatly applauded by the critics. Its production made Johnson burst forth into that splendour of laudation in which he said that whatever Goldsmith did, he did better than all others, and he counted him as an historian superior to Hume, Smollett, and Lyttelton. Goldsmith had a fine faculty in histories for presenting vital facts concisely, and making his pages compendious.

The grace he had by instinct others strove to create by vast elaboration. It has been said that Robertson's ornamentations hid what is essential in his records. No one can ever discover Goldsmith in anything striving for effect. It is not possible now to enumerate, or even ascertain, all the friends that came to those chambers in the Temple. Among them may be mentioned young Craddock, with an estate in the country, aesthetic tendencies, and literary talents. With him, in a few light musical works that came to little, Goldsmith collaborated.

This man had that respect for the poet and the humorist his life and character and genius deserved. When once this cultured squire exhibited for criticism an elaborate ma.n.u.script, which in all the peace of leisured wealth and ease, and such talent as he possessed, he had composed with exquisite care, well might poor Goldsmith say:

"Ah, Mr. Craddock, think of me, that must write a volume every month."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Rischgitz Collection._]

2, BRICK COURT, TEMPLE, WHERE GOLDSMITH DIED.]

In his rooms in Brick Court, Temple, Goldsmith used to sit at his window, his eyes lingering lovingly upon the flowers and the foliage in the gardens beneath, and his heart drinking in the sweet peacefulness of the scene. He watched the Thames gliding on silently, serenely faithful to and fulfilling its great imperishable mission.

Rivers are the signs and the symbols of immortality. The poet saw the rooks upon the lawns, and made new friends of these black-winged, busy birds, and found angels' voices in the whispers of the rustling leaves sweetly pleading. The flowers smiled up at him, as, gazing gently down, he wreathed with welcomes all pa.s.sing hearts amid many known and unknown wanderers. There are those that have wondered, in the inscrutable ordering of events, and feeling that strange chances take their unexpected, often fulfilling, and often failing, part in these, what had happened for letters and for humanity had Goldsmith met Chatterton, who may have wearily paced the Temple Gardens, and even have glanced up and seen Goldsmith looking down in all his tenderness.

In the literary history of this period the death of Chatterton darkens the most painful page. At the time when this poor boy took his life Goldsmith was not in London, and not even in England. He was in Paris.

The idea that had he encountered Chatterton it could hardly have failed to be to the advantage, and possibly the redemption, and the whole rescue of that young spirit, is not a charming conjecture that has only flattery for its foundation. Oliver Goldsmith was one who must perforce befriend the dest.i.tute. He could not let any hopeless heart still keep its despair unmarked and not alleviated, if soothing could prove possible. In the year 1772, a youth named Macdonald, of Irish lineage, through the sudden death of his elder brother, found himself friendless and alone in London, and wandering, dejected and despairing, in the Temple Gardens. Thus, too, Chatterton might have strayed in an even greater loneliness. The ages of these youths were the same.

"Providence," writes Macdonald, "directed me to the Temple Gardens. I threw myself on a seat, and willing to forget my miseries for a moment, drew out a book. I had not been there long when a gentleman strolling about pa.s.sed near me, and observing, addressed me: 'Sir, you seem studious. I hope you find this a favourable place.' Conversation ensued. I told him my history. He gave me his address, and desired me to call soon."

Goldsmith received him in the kindest manner. Macdonald became his amanuensis. Goldsmith treated the young man throughout with unfailing tenderness and sympathy and almost fatherly kindness and solicitude.

CHAPTER VIII

CONSUMMATE COMEDY

In 1771 Goldsmith was full of hope for that capital essay in comedy, _She Stoops to Conquer_. Two years pa.s.sed before he could obtain its definite acceptance. He found his manager not in Garrick, as one might have antic.i.p.ated, but again in Colman. The pretty piece appeared at Covent Garden. Tried as Goldsmith had been ere _The Good-natured Man_ was produced, the negotiations and delays about _She Stoops to Conquer_ were not less torturing. Colman kept the ma.n.u.script in his hands for months and months without coming to any decision. The playwright's letters to the manager are absolute supplications.

Humiliation appears the very discipline of genius. At one time the ma.n.u.script was actually recalled by its author and despatched to Garrick. Before it had really come under his consideration, which very likely might have been just as obtuse, Johnson intervened. To send it to Garrick, in his opinion, would be tantamount to an acknowledgment of its refusal by Colman. This had not taken place. The manager would neither accept the piece nor produce it. He said he would keep his faith, but whatever that might mean in his mind, he did nothing.

Johnson finally and very firmly brought the man to book. When Colman had accepted the piece, through his gloomy forebodings he bia.s.sed the actors against the play before they had even seen it, but no sooner had the rehearsals begun in earnest than they warmed to their a.s.signed parts, and in due time admired and revelled in the comedy. Colman, n.i.g.g.ard, would risk nothing in the production of the piece, neither in new costumes nor theatrical fittings. He actually held forth disparagingly in his own box-office to those who sent to purchase tickets for the play.

In the Republic of Letters rumours of wrong run like riot through the realm. Indignant at Goldsmith's sufferings through Colman's insults, and still more from their love of the playwright, his friends determined that if popular support and applause on the first night could make his comedy succeed, then no effort in this direction should be spared upon his behalf. An ill.u.s.trious and a memorable house greeted the rising curtain. This a.s.semblage of celebrities and the men and women who loved and admired and were resolved to stand by and support Oliver Goldsmith was moving in itself, and one of the greatest possible evidences of the honour and popularity in which the man was held. The people rallied to the rescue of their favourite--the best beloved of all the authors. This is one of the finest demonstrations of public sympathy and regard the history of literature affords. It was enough for Oliver Goldsmith to have lived for that night, and, if need be, for that alone. The whole affair proved an unequivocal success. Those friends, bent on conquest, applauded everything, and led the streams of welcoming mirth and merriment. The fact that the comedy did not require this protection could not make the personal kindliness less pleasing. Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, Stevens, Fitzherbert, and a rallying host, dined together before proceeding to the theatre. Johnson led them like a commander-in-chief. The hearty meal at the Shakespeare Tavern was one of the most jovial imaginable.

The party mustered on the battle-field. It was Goldsmith's Waterloo.

That great victory, like the triumph of _She Stoops to Conquer_, was a.s.sured ere it was fought. Goldsmith, very nervous at the dinner, did not go at once to the theatre, but strolled away, and rambled alone in St. James's Park. He crept back, or, rather, was persuaded by Stevens to come, and arrived at the opening of the fifth act. Strangely enough, as he entered he caught the only sign of disapproval heard that night.

_She Stoops to Conquer_, owing much to its capital central motive, is as graceful as it is diverting. Its humour is unfailing. The delightful force of Goldsmith's dialogue lies in entire naturalness.

The author of "The School for Scandal" creates for his comedies an atmosphere of superheated wit and intellectualism, which, whilst inevitably pleasing, is beyond probability. Certain novelists vaunt and revel in the creation of impossibly vivacious wits. Nature has a finer grace; its faithful reflection is purer art. Those true to natural humour and the spontaneous rather than the fabricated repartee represent a small minority. Amongst the novelists Goldsmith and Jane Austen have few to follow them, and with the dramatists Moliere and Pinero are almost his solitary a.s.sociates. Perfectly natural are the arguments, 'mid trips and a.s.saults, between Mr. Burch.e.l.l and Mrs.

Primrose in _The Vicar of Wakefield_, and Hastings and Mrs. Hardcastle in _She Stoops to Conquer_. This play achieved a revolution in dramatic presentation. It changed the course of comedy, heightened humour, and rang like laughter round the town. It was performed as long as there were nights to spare. In book-form it proved a great success. In this we have the beautiful words of the dedication to Dr.

Johnson. The town was disgusted to the depths with Colman. No one will ever pity him for the private contempt and the public derision he brought upon himself through his mean discernment and his want of appreciation of the very best play of the period. The press so teemed with caustic and sarcastic epigrams at his expense that he fled for refuge to Bath during the run of the piece, and at last begged Goldsmith to intercede and rescue him from the scorn of the critics.

After all the worries and vexations, it is not surprising that poor Noll should write: "I am sick of the stage!"

When it was known that the King would visit the theatre to see _She Stoops to Conquer_, he said: "I wish he would;" and then added, carried away by the undercurrent of pressing trials: "Not that it would do me the least good." "Then," said Johnson, "let us hope that it will do him good."

The interval in time was not wide that divided the last triumph from the last day of Goldsmith's life. He was still toiling amid many monetary perplexities, that he had not bettered by accepting payment for works before they were completed. It was now all pouring out and nothing coming in, and there was no hope. He projected a _Dictionary of Arts and Sciences_ upon a comprehensive system, at once practical and ambitious. Failing health had made him sadly dilatory. The booksellers, who had lost confidence in his schemes, did not hold him the man for this encyclopaedic labour or suited for long and strenuous strain. Friends ineffectually tried to procure him a pension. He had made many notes and written sundry essays, intended for a treatise in two volumes, to be ent.i.tled _A Survey of Experimental Philosophy_. In the midst of vain strivings he died. The knack of hoping could not do all. The heart was broken and the soul pa.s.sing. It is a tragedy to remember that his one chance lay now in writing another comedy. In these distressed days Garrick came to his aid, helping him over one stile, at least, by paying liberally, and probably from charity, for the promise of a play. The poet's physical strength was poorer even than his empty purse. In this sad state he pursued his labours, toiling like a slave almost to the last, looking back and recovering nothing, forward and seeing nothing, pressing on with all the poor power he had left, and making no headway. He gave one last extravagant dinner to his old friends, which in his poverty, and for very shame and pity, and a little even in rebuke, they would not take at his expense. Then for a time he sought once again the fresh, sweet country air. He returned to town. The old talent was not yet fled. He wrote that fine _Retaliation_ at this time. It is pathetically possible that the weakening appearance of the poet induced his lively friends to pen epitaphs upon the little man. Many jests have their serious motives, not wholly known to those who perpetrate the jokes. If unconscious of the forces really leading to the episode, little did they dream that its results would live till now, and to all intents for ever. Each wrote an epitaph on Noll, and he in turn an epitaph on all. The _Retaliation_ shows his power in compressed expression, and his fine discernment of men and character. The little poem lives, a veritable, and, in its way, a wholesale contribution to national biography. It is a candid commentary upon some of the best men of that day. Garrick is treated more elaborately than the rest. He had been the prime offender, and naturally came foremost for the fire of the reply. The poem was never finished. The kind words about Sir Joshua were practically the last the poet penned. Reynolds, to the very end trying to cheer Goldsmith and be with him whenever he could, proved now, as he had ever been, the sweetest of friends--a true and loving, tender man.

Home at the Temple, and in the dear London he loved, Goldsmith grew ill very rapidly, and in his illness fell into a deep sleep. He slept to wake; he stooped to conquer. This, instead of being the sleep of restoring strength, was that in which disease takes its last, firm grasp. One struggle with the feeble frame, and the wrestle for life was over for ever. His biographers write of this sleep, that was watched with so much anxiety by his physicians: "It was hoped that a favourable crisis had arrived." It had. It marked the advent of the last reprieve, that release that can never be recalled. The clouds have pa.s.sed away for ever, and in the sunshine came the solace of all cares, the finality of pain, and the soothing and the solution of all sorrow. Heaven had sent its last call and its greatest message to the heart. In all, only forty-seven years had been given, and all that may have been ill in the time is forgotten and forgiven, and the fairest part of all that was well and high and true is with us even now, and the radiance must last for long, cheering many hearts, brightening souls that are failing, and blessing homes that are and will be. The night of pa.s.sing death has led on to the day of unpa.s.sing life.

On April 4, 1774, the spirit of Oliver Goldsmith conquered that which men call death. Burke burst into tears at the news of the pa.s.sing of the man and the friend he cherished and revered. Reynolds laid his work aside and rose, shaken in his great sorrow, and trembling with the sense of an untold loss. Looking back upon the fading figure, so dear to so many, and a light for years to come, shining still in many homes and many hearts and many lands, Johnson, in his sacred solemnity, said: "Poor Goldsmith! He was a very great man."

The body of Oliver Goldsmith was buried in the quiet Temple churchyard. There is a tablet to his memory in the church itself, but no one now knows exactly where the mortal remnant was laid, for no memorial marked that last resting-place. The epitaph on Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey runs: "He left no spheres of writing untouched or unadorned by his pen. n.o.ble, pure, and delicate, his memory will last as long as society retains affection, friendship is not devoid of honour, and reading wants not her admirers." Intimately we are guided most of all by those whom most we love. The eyes may close, but not the life. There is the knowledge of loving power wielded on the heart by those whom men call dead. There is a soul in men rising beyond visible activities; its story is not told in the recognised deeds of a career and their outward record. Beyond the acknowledged actions and admitted attainments, there stays the prevailing essence. The glory of Christianity is seen in its illuminating stars, living everlastingly.

Through grace and gentleness, Goldsmith was one in that long train in which shine Sister Dora and St. Francis of a.s.sisi.

Oliver Goldsmith was the most pure and suasive spirit of his age. To this day his gentle touch and soothing spell, by that magnetic power that flows through purity of sympathy, still sway the heart. His charming radiance and pure, divine delight move and master those who admire and honour this all-loving soul and most graceful writer. In reading his works, there is for all, and there must ever be, that sense of compa.s.sion and that absolving perception which must have moved the finer feelings of those who lived in his own time, and actually knew the man himself. Not less does his purifying power, with its elevating inspiration, survive. It is a silent and unseen, but still a lofty, a lasting, and an impressive influence. Lovers of Goldsmith feel friendship and affection for the moving and immortal spirit of the man. His works need no learned commentary. The common heart is their sufficing commentary.

CHAPTER IX

THE POET AND THE ESSAYIST