Oliver Goldsmith: A Biography Part 8

Mr. Anthony Chamier was secretary in the War Office, and a friend of Beauclerc, by whom he was proposed. We have left our mention of Bennet Langton and Topham Beauclerc until the last, because we have most to say about them. They were doubtless induced to join the club through their devotion to Johnson, and the intimacy of these two very young and aristocratic young men with the stern and somewhat melancholy moralist is among the curiosities of literature.

Bennet Langton was of an ancient family, who held their ancestral estate of Langton in Lincolnshire, a great t.i.tle to respect with Johnson. "Langton, sir," he would say, "has a grant of free warrant from Henry the Second; and Cardinal Stephen Langton, in King John's reign, was of this family."

Langton was of a mild, contemplative, enthusiastic nature. When but eighteen years of age he was so delighted with reading Johnson's Rambler that he came to London chiefly with a view to obtain an introduction to the author. Boswell gives us an account of his first interview, which took place in the morning. It is not often that the personal appearance of an author agrees with the preconceived ideas of his admirer. Langton, from perusing the writings of Johnson, expected to find him a decent, well dressed, in short a remarkably decorous philosopher. Instead of which, down from his bed chamber about noon, came, as newly risen, a large uncouth figure, with a little dark wig which scarcely covered his head, and his clothes hanging loose about him. But his conversation was so rich, so animated, and so forcible, and his religious and political notions so congenial with those in which Langton had been educated, that he conceived for him that veneration and attachment which he ever preserved.

Langton went to pursue his studies at Trinity College, Oxford, where Johnson saw much of him during a visit which he paid to the university. He found him in close intimacy with Topham Beauclerc, a youth two years older than himself, very gay and dissipated, and wondered what sympathies could draw two young men together of such opposite characters. On becoming acquainted with Beauclerc he found that, rake though he was, he possessed an ardent love of literature, an acute understanding, polished wit, innate gentility and high aristocratic breeding. He was, moreover, the only son of Lord Sidney Beauclerc and grandson of the Duke of St. Albans, and was thought in some particulars to have a resemblance to Charles the Second.

These were high recommendations with Johnson, and when the youth testified a profound respect for him and an ardent admiration of his talents the conquest was complete, so that in a "short time," says Boswell, "the moral pious Johnson and the gay dissipated Beauclerc were companions."

The intimacy begun in college chambers was continued when the youth came to town during the vacations. The uncouth, unwieldy moralist was flattered at finding himself an object of idolatry to two high-born, high-bred, aristocratic young men, and throwing gravity aside, was ready to join in their vagaries and play the part of a "young man upon town." Such at least is the picture given of him by Boswell on one occasion when Beauclerc and Langton having supped together at a tavern determined to give Johnson a rouse at three o'clock in the morning. They accordingly rapped violently at the door of his chambers in the Temple. The indignant sage sallied forth in his shirt, poker in hand, and a little black wig on the top of his head, instead of helmet; prepared to wreak vengeance on the a.s.sailants of his castle; but when his two young friends, Lankey and Beau, as he used to call them, presented themselves, summoning him forth to a morning ramble, his whole manner changed. "What, is it you, ye dogs?" cried he. "Faith, I'll have a frisk with you!"

So said so done. They sallied forth together into Covent Garden; figured among the green grocers and fruit women, just come in from the country with their hampers; repaired to a neighboring tavern, where Johnson brewed a bowl of _bishop_, a favorite beverage with him, grew merry over his cups, and anathematized sleep in two lines from Lord Lansdowne's drinking song:

"Short, very short, be then thy reign, For I'm in haste to laugh and drink again."

They then took boat again, rowed to Billingsgate, and Johnson and Beauclerc determined, like "mad wags," to "keep it up" for the rest of the day.

Langton, however, the most sober-minded of the three, pleaded an engagement to breakfast with some young ladies; whereupon the great moralist reproached him with "leaving his social friends to go and sit with a set of wretched _unideal_ girls."

This madcap freak of the great lexicographer made a sensation, as may well be supposed, among his intimates. "I heard of your frolic t'other night,"

said Garrick to him; "you'll be in the 'Chronicle.'" He uttered worse forebodings to others. "I shall have my old friend to bail out of the round-house," said he. Johnson, however, valued himself upon having thus enacted a chapter in the Rake's Progress, and crowed over Garrick on the occasion. "_He_ durst not do such a thing!" chuckled he, "his _wife_ would not _let_ him!"

When these two young men entered the club, Langton was about twenty-two, and Beauclerc about twenty-four years of age, and both were launched on London life. Langton, however, was still the mild, enthusiastic scholar, steeped to the lips in Greek, with fine conversational powers and an invaluable talent for listening. He was upward of six feet high, and very spare. "Oh! that we could sketch him," exclaims Miss Hawkins, in her Memoirs, "with his mild countenance, his elegant features, and his sweet smile, sitting with one leg twisted round the other, as if fearing to occupy more s.p.a.ce than was equitable; his person inclining forward, as if wanting strength to support his weight, and his arms crossed over his bosom, or his hands locked together on his knee." Beauclerc, on such occasions, sportively compared him to a stork in Raphael's Cartoons, standing on one leg. Beauclerc was more "a man upon town," a lounger in St.

James's Street, an a.s.sociate with George Selwyn, with Walpole, and other aristocratic wits; a man of fashion at court; a casual frequenter of the gaming-table; yet, with all this, he alternated in the easiest and happiest manner the scholar and the man of letters; lounged into the club with the most perfect self-possession, bringing with him the careless grace and polished wit of high-bred society, but making himself cordially at home among his learned fellow members.

The gay yet lettered rake maintained his sway over Johnson, who was fascinated by that air of the world, that ineffable tone of good society in which he felt himself deficient, especially as the possessor of it always paid homage to his superior talent. "Beauclerc," he would say, using a quotation from Pope, "has a love of folly, but a scorn of fools; everything he does shows the one, and everything he says the other." Beauclerc delighted in rallying the stern moralist of whom others stood in awe, and no one, according to Boswell, could take equal liberty with him with impunity. Johnson, it is well known, was often shabby and negligent in his dress, and not overcleanly in his person. On receiving a pension from the crown, his friends vied with each other in respectful congratulations.

Beauclerc simply scanned his person with a whimsical glance, and hoped that, like Falstaff, "he'd in future purge and live cleanly like a gentleman." Johnson took the hint with unexpected good humor, and profited by it.

Still Beauclerc's satirical vein, which darted shafts on every side, was not always tolerated by Johnson. '"Sir," said he on one occasion, "you never open your mouth but with intention to give pain; and you have often given me pain, not from the power of what you have said, but from seeing your intention."

When it was at first proposed to enroll Goldsmith among the members of this a.s.sociation, there seems to have been some demur; at least so says the pompous Hawkins. "As he wrote for the booksellers, we of the club looked on him as a mere literary drudge, equal to the task of compiling and translating, but little capable of original and still less of poetical composition."

Even for some time after his admission, he continued to be regarded in a dubious light by some of the members. Johnson and Reynolds, of course, were well aware of his merits, nor was Burke a stranger to them; but to the others he was as yet a sealed book, and the outside was not prepossessing.

His ungainly person and awkward manners were against him with men accustomed to the graces of society, and he was not sufficiently at home to give play to his humor and to that bonhomie which won the hearts of all who knew him. He felt strange and out of place in this new sphere; he felt at times the cool satirical eye of the courtly Beauclerc scanning him, and the more he attempted to appear at his ease the more awkward he became.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

JOHNSON A MONITOR TO GOLDSMITH--FINDS HIM IN DISTRESS WITH HIS LANDLADY--RELIEVED BY THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD--THE ORATORIO--POEM OF THE TRAVELER--THE POET AND HIS DOG--SUCCESS OF THE POEM--ASTONISHMENT OF THE CLUB--OBSERVATIONS ON THE POEM

Johnson had now become one of Goldsmith's best friends and advisers. He knew all the weak points of his character, but he knew also his merits; and while he would rebuke him like a child, and rail at his errors and follies, he would suffer no one else to undervalue him. Goldsmith knew the soundness of his judgment and his practical benevolence, and often sought his counsel and aid amid the difficulties into which his heedlessness was continually plunging him.

"I received one morning," says Johnson, "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, and found 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 a bottle of Madeira and a gla.s.s before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it and saw its merit; 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 a high tone for having used him go ill."

The novel in question was the Vicar of Wakefield; the bookseller to whom Johnson sold it was Francis Newbery, nephew to John. Strange as it may seem, this captivating work, which has obtained and preserved an almost unrivaled popularity in various languages, was so little appreciated by the bookseller that he kept it by him for nearly two years unpublished!

Goldsmith had, as yet, produced nothing of moment in poetry. Among his literary jobs, it is true, was an oratorio ent.i.tled The Captivity, founded on the bondage of the Israelites in Babylon. It was one of those unhappy offsprings of the muse ushered into existence amid the distortions of music. Most of the oratorio has pa.s.sed into oblivion; but the following song from it will never die:

"The wretch condemned from life to part, Still, still on hope relies, And every pang that rends the heart Bids expectation rise.

"Hope, like the glimmering taper's light, Illumes and cheers our way; And still, as darker grows the night, Emits a brighter ray."

Goldsmith distrusted his qualifications to succeed in poetry, and doubted the disposition of the public mind in regard to it. "I fear," said he, "I have come too late into the world; Pope and other poets have taken up the places in the temple of Fame; and as few at any period can possess poetical reputation, a man of genius can now hardly acquire it." Again, on another occasion, he observes: "Of all kinds of ambition, as things are now circ.u.mstanced, perhaps that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest.

What from the increased refinement of the tunes, from the diversity of judgment produced by opposing systems of criticism, and from the more prevalent divisions of opinion influenced by party, the strongest and happiest efforts can expect to please but in a very narrow circle."

At this very time he had by him his poem of The Traveler. The plan of it, as has already been observed, was conceived many years before, during his travels in Switzerland, and a sketch of it sent from that country to his brother Henry in Ireland. The original outline is said to have embraced a wider scope; but it was probably contracted through diffidence, in the process of finishing the parts. It had laid by him for several years in a crude state, and it was with extreme hesitation and after much revision that he at length submitted it to Dr. Johnson. The frank and warm approbation of the latter encouraged him to finish it for the press; and Dr. Johnson himself contributed a few lines toward the conclusion.

We hear much about "poetic inspiration," and the "poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling"; but Sir Joshua Reynolds gives an anecdote of Goldsmith while engaged upon his poem, calculated to cure our notions about the ardor of composition. Calling upon the poet one day, he opened the door without ceremony, and found him in the double occupation of turning a couplet and teaching a pet dog to sit upon his haunches. At one time he would glance his eye at his desk, and at another shake his finger at the dog to make him retain his position. The last lines on the page were still wet; they form a part of the description of Italy:

"By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, The sports of children satisfy the child."

Goldsmith, with his usual good-humor, joined in the laugh caused by his whimsical employment, and acknowledged that his boyish sport with the dog suggested the stanza The poem was published on the 19th of December, 1764, in a quarto form, by Newbery, and was the first of his works to which Goldsmith prefixed his name. As a testimony of cherished and well-merited affection, he dedicated it to his brother Henry. There is an amusing affectation of indifference as to its fate expressed in the dedication.

"What reception a poem may find," says he, "which has neither abuse, party, nor blank verse to support it, I cannot tell, nor am I solicitous to know."

The truth is, no one was more emulous and anxious for poetic fame; and never was he more anxious than in the present instance, for it was his grand stake. Dr. Johnson aided the launching of the poem by a favorable notice in the "Critical Review"; other periodical works came out in its favor. Some of the author's friends complained that it did not command instant and wide popularity; that it was a poem to win, not to strike; it went on rapidly increasing in favor; in three months a second edition was issued; shortly afterward a third; then a fourth; and, before the year was out, the author was p.r.o.nounced the best poet of his time.

The appearance of The Traveler at once altered Goldsmith's intellectual standing in the estimation of society; but its effect upon the club, if we may judge from the account given by Hawkins, was most ludicrous. They were lost in astonishment that a "newspaper essayist" and "bookseller's, drudge"

should have written such a poem. On the evening of its announcement to them Goldsmith had gone away early, after "rattling away as usual," and they knew not how to reconcile his heedless garrulity with the serene beauty, the easy grace, the sound good sense, and the occasional elevation of his poetry. They could scarcely believe that such magic numbers had flowed from a man to whom in general, says Johnson, "it was with difficulty they could give a hearing." "Well", exclaimed Chamier, "I do believe he wrote this poem himself, and, let me tell you, that is believing a great deal."

At the next meeting of the club Chamier sounded the author a little about his poem. "Mr. Goldsmith," said he, "what do you mean by the last word in the first line of your Traveler, 'remote, unfriended, solitary, slow?' do you mean tardiness of locomotion?" "Yes," replied Goldsmith inconsiderately, being probably flurried at the moment. "No, sir,"

interposed his protecting friend Johnson, "you did not mean tardiness of locomotion; you meant that sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in solitude." "Ah," exclaimed Goldsmith, "that was what I meant."

Chamier immediately believed that Johnson himself had written the line, and a rumor became prevalent that he was the author of many of the finest pa.s.sages. This was ultimately set at rest by Johnson himself, who marked with a pencil all the verses he had contributed, nine in number, inserted toward the conclusion, and by no means the best in the poem. He moreover, with generous warmth, p.r.o.nounced it the finest poem that had appeared since the days of Pope.

But one of the highest testimonials to the charm of the poem was given by Miss Reynolds, who had toasted poor Goldsmith as the ugliest man of her acquaintance. Shortly after the appearance of The Traveler, Dr. Johnson read it aloud from beginning to end in her presence. "Well," exclaimed she, when he had finished, "I never more shall think Dr. Goldsmith ugly!"

On another occasion, when the merits of The Traveler were discussed at Reynolds' board, Langton declared "There was not a bad line in the poem, not one of Dryden's careless verses." "I was glad," observed Reynolds, "to hear Charles Fox say it was one of the finest poems in the English language." "Why was you glad?" rejoined Langton; "you surely had no doubt of this before." "No," interposed Johnson, decisively; "the merit of The Traveler is so well established that Mr. Fox's praise cannot augment it, nor his censure diminish it."

Boswell, who was absent from England at the time of the publication of The Traveler, was astonished, on his return, to find Goldsmith, whom he had so much undervalued, suddenly elevated almost to a par with his idol. He accounted for it by concluding that much both of the sentiments and expression of the poem had been derived from conversations with Johnson.

"He imitates you, sir," said this incarnation of toadyism. "Why, no, sir,"

replied Johnson, "Jack Hawksworth is one of my imitators, but not Goldsmith. Goldy, sir, has great merit." "But, sir, he is much indebted to you for his getting so high in the public estimation." "Why, sir, he has, perhaps, got _sooner to it by his intimacy with me."

The poem went through several editions in the course of the first year, and received some few additions and corrections from the author's pen. It produced a golden harvest to Mr. Newbery, but all the remuneration on record, doled out by his n.i.g.g.ard hand to the author, was twenty guineas!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

NEW LODGINGS--JOHNSON'S COMPLIMENT--A t.i.tLED PATRON--THE POET AT NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE--HIS INDEPENDENCE OF THE GREAT--THE COUNTESS OF NORTHUMBERLAND--EDWIN AND ANGELINA--GOSFORD AND LORD CLARE--PUBLICATION OF ESSAYS--EVILS OF A RISING REPUTATION--HANGERS-ON--JOB WRITING--GOODY TWO SHOES--A MEDICAL CAMPAIGN--MRS. SIDEBOTHAM

Goldsmith, now that he was rising in the world, and becoming a notoriety, felt himself called upon to improve his style of living. He according emerged from Wine-Office Court, and took chambers in the Temple. It is true they were but of humble pretensions, situated on what was then the library staircase, and it would appear that he was a kind of inmate with Jeffs, the butler of the society. Still he was in the Temple, that cla.s.sic region rendered famous by the "Spectator" and other essayists, as the abode of gay wits and thoughtful men of letters; and which, with its retired courts and embowered gardens, in the very heart of a noisy metropolis, is, to the quiet-seeking student and author, an oasis freshening with verdure in the midst of a desert. Johnson, who had become a kind of growling supervisor of the poet's affairs, paid him a visit soon after he had installed himself in his new quarters, and went prying about the apartment, in his near-sighted manner, examining everything minutely. Goldsmith was fidgeted by this curious scrutiny, and apprehending a disposition to find fault, exclaimed, with the air of a man who had money in both pockets, "I shall soon be in better chambers than these." The harmless bravado drew a reply from Johnson which touched the chord of proper pride. "Nay, sir," said he, "never mind that. Nil te quaesiveris extra," implying that his reputation rendered him independent of outward show. Happy would it have been for poor Goldsmith could he have kept this consolatory compliment perpetually in mind, and squared his expenses accordingly.

Among the persons of rank who were struck with the merits of The Traveler was the Earl (afterward Duke) of Northumberland. He procured several other of Goldsmith's writings, the perusal of which tended to elevate the author in his good opinion, and to gain for him his good will. The earl held the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and understanding Goldsmith was an Irishman, was disposed to extend to him the patronage which his high post afforded. He intimated the same to his relative, Dr. Percy, who, he found, was well acquainted with the poet, and expressed a wish that the latter should wait upon him. Here, then, was another opportunity for Goldsmith to better his fortune, had he been knowing and worldly enough to profit by it.

Unluckily the path to fortune lay through the aristocratical mazes of Northumberland House, and the poet blundered at the outset. The following is the account he used to give of his visit: "I dressed myself in the best manner I could, and, after studying some compliments I thought necessary on such an occasion, proceeded to Northumberland House, and acquainted the servants that I had particular business with the duke. They showed me into an antechamber, where, after waiting some time, a gentleman, very elegantly dressed, made his appearance; taking him for the duke, I delivered all the fine things I had composed in order to compliment him on the honor he had done me; when, to my great astonishment, he told me I had mistaken him for his master, who would see me immediately. At that instant the duke came into the apartment, and I was so confounded on the occasion that I wanted words barely sufficient to express the sense I entertained of the duke's politeness, and went away exceedingly chagrined at the blunder I had committed."

Sir John Hawkins, in his life of Dr. Johnson, gives some further particulars of this visit, of which he was, in part, a witness. "Having one day," says he, "a call to make on the late Duke, then Earl, of Northumberland, I found Goldsmith waiting for an audience in an outer room; I asked him what had brought him there; he told me an invitation from his lordship. I made my business as short as I could, and, as a reason, mentioned that Dr. Goldsmith was waiting without. The earl asked me if I was acquainted with him. I told him that I was, adding what I thought was most likely to recommend him. I retired, and stayed in the outer room to take him home. Upon his coming out, I asked him the result of his conversation. 'His lordship,' said he, 'told me he had read my poem, meaning The Traveler, and was much delighted with it; that he was going to be lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and that, hearing I was a native of that country, he should be glad to do me any kindness.' 'And what did you answer,' said I, 'to this gracious offer?' 'Why,' said he, 'I could say nothing but that I had a brother there, a clergyman, that stood in need of help: as for myself, I have no great dependence on the promises of great men; I look to the booksellers for support; they are my best friends, and I am not inclined to forsake them for others.'" "Thus," continues Sir John, "did this idiot in the affairs of the world trifle with his fortunes, and put back the hand that was held out to a.s.sist him."

We cannot join with Sir John in his worldly sneer at the conduct of Goldsmith on this occasion. While we admire that honest independence of spirit which prevented him from asking favors for himself, we love that warmth of affection which instantly sought to advance the fortunes of a brother: but the peculiar merits of poor Goldsmith seem to have been little understood by the Hawkinses, the Boswells, and the other biographers of the day.