6 thing was hardly worth even so much trouble, for it was purely an occasional piece. Though not without passages of considerable merit, it was written (as the advertisements prefixed acquaint us) in a couple of days; and it did not appear with his name attached to it till forty years after his death. Cradock then gave it to his friend Nichols, who handed it to Chalmers. His connection with its authorship escaped even Boswell, who, yet busier and more inquisitive than of old, came up from his Scotch practice for his annual London visit not a month after it was performed, more than ever amazed at the amount of Goldsmith's celebrity. 'Sir,' he said to Johnson somewhat later, 'Goldsmith has 'acquired more fame than all the officers last war who were not generals!' 'Why sir,' answered Johnson, 'you 'will find ten thousand fit to do what they did, before you 'find one who does what Goldsmith has done. You must 'consider that a thing is valued according to its rarity. A 'pebble that paves the street is in itself more useful than 'the diamond upon a lady's finger.' But this did not satisfy Boswell, who had now in truth a strong, secret, and to himself perhaps only half-confessed reason, for his very ludicrous jealousy and impatience. He fancied Goldsmith likely to be Johnson's biographer, and that was an office he already coveted and had selected for himself. For now began that series of questions, 'what did you do sir, what did you say sir,' which afterwards forced from their victim the energetic protest: 'Sir, I will not be put to the question. 'Don't you consider, sir, that these are not the manners L ' of a gentleman? I will not be baited with what and 'why; what is this? what is that? why is a cow's tail long? 'why is a fox's tail bushy?' In all which, notwithstanding, Bozzy persisted forgetting so much more of the manners of a gentleman as even to lay down his knife and fork, take out his tablets, and report speeches in the middle of a dinner-table; submitting to daily rebuffs, reproofs, and indignities; satisfied to be played over and drenched by the fountain of wit;' content not only to be called a dunce, a parasite, a coxcomb, an eavesdropper, and a fool, but even faithfully to report what he calls the 'keen sarcastic wit,' the 'variety of degrading images,' the ‘rudeness,' and the 'ferocity,' of which he was made the object: bent all the more firmly upon the one design which seized and occupied the whole of such faculties as he possessed, and living in such manner to achieve it as to have made himself immortal as his hero. You have but two topics, sir,' exclaimed Johnson; 'yourself and me. I am sick of both.' Happily for us, nothing could sicken Boswell of either; and by one of the most moderately wise men that ever lived, the masterpiece of English biography was written. What would we now give to have had a Boswell for every Johnson! to have had in attendance on all our immortals, as much self-complacent folly with as much shrewd clear insight; the same lively talent to do justice to their sayings, the same reverence to devote it to that humble service, and the same conceit full-proof against every degradation it involved. We have but to turn to the biography of any other man of letters, to comprehend our debt of gratitude to Boswell; we have but to remember how fruitless is the quest, when we would seek to stand face to face with any other as famous Englishman. 'So, sir,' said Johnson to Cibber, 'I find you knew Mr. Dryden?' 'Knew him!' said Cibber. O Lord! I was as well 'acquainted with him as if he had been my own brother.' 'Then,' rejoined the other, 'you can tell me some anecdotes ' of him?' 'Oh yes,' exclaimed Colley, a thousand! why, we used to meet him continually at a club at Button's. 'I remember as well as if it were but yesterday, that when he 'came into the room in winter-time, he used to go and sit 'close by the fire in one corner; and that in summer-time, 'he would always go and sit in the window.' Such was the information Johnson got from Cibber as to the manners and habits of Dryden. Such, or little better, but for Boswell, might have been our knowledge of Johnson. Early in April he dined in company with Johnson and Goldsmith at General Oglethorpe's, and fired up' the brave old General by making a question of the moral propriety of duelling. 'I ask you first, sir,' said Goldsmith, 'what would you do if you were affronted?' 'I answered,' says Boswell, 'I should think it necessary to fight.' 'Why 'then,' was the reply, 'that solves the question.' 'No, sir,' interposed Johnson, 'it does not solve the question:' which he thereupon proceeded himself to solve, by regretting the superfluity of refinement which existed in society on the subject of affronts, and admitting that duelling must be tolerated so long as such notions should prevail. After this (the General having meanwhile poured a little wine on the table, and, at Johnson's request, described with a wet finger the siege of Belgrade), a question was started of how far people who disagree in a capital point can live in friendship together. Johnson said they might. Goldsmith said they could not, as they had not the idem velle atque idem nolle, the same likings and the same aversions. Why, sir,' returned Johnson, 'you must shun the subject as to which 'you disagree. For instance, I can live very well with Burke: 'I love his knowledge, his genius, his diffusion, and afflu'ence of conversation; but I would not talk to him of the 'Rockingham party.' 'But, sir,' retorted Goldsmith, 'when 'people live together who have something as to which they 'disagree, and which they want to shun, they will be in the 'situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard: You may 'look into all the chambers but one. But we should have 'the greatest inclination to look into that chamber, to talk 'of that subject.' Johnson hereupon exclaimed loudly, 'Sir, 'I am not saying that you could live in friendship with a 'man from whom you differ as to some point; I am only 'saying that I could do it. You put me in mind of Sappho 'in Ovid.' Goldsmith had said too clever a thing, and got punished for it. So it was with Percy, very often; so with Joseph Warton; so with Dean Barnard; so with Langton; so even with Beauclerc and Reynolds. What Miss Anna Seward called 'the wit and aweless impoliteness of the stupendous creature' bore down every one before it. 'His forcible spirit ' and impetuosity of manner,' says Boswell, 'spared neither 'sex nor age. I have seen even Mrs. Thrale stunned.' Yet she never said more when she recovered, than 'Oh dear good man!' And Dean Barnard, invoking the aid of his friends against the aweless impoliteness, and submitting himself to be taught by their better accomplishments, has told us in lively verse with what good humour it was borne by Reynolds. "Dear knight of Plympton, teach me how To suffer with unclouded brow And smile serene as thine, "If I have thoughts and can't express 'em, Jones teach me modesty and Greek, Smith how to think, Burke how to speak, Soon after the dinner at Oglethorpe's, Goldsmith returned to his Edgeware lodging, and was sometime busied with the Animated Nature. No doubt it was a task he best worked at in the country: for though the general defect of the book is that it too manifestly seems a compilation (in which we are occasionally left to doubt, too, whether he believes most implicitly the credulous romance of the early naturalists and travellers, or the scientific soberness of the great Frenchman his contemporary), there are yet many passages of exquisite country observation in it; and not a few in which the grace of diction, the choice of perfect and finely finished |