Life of Goldsmith

John Forster is best remembered as writer of the biographies of the statesmen of the commonwealth, of Goldsmith, Landor, Dickens. To his own generation he was for twenty years one of the ablest of London journalists. In his later days, as a Commissioner in Lunacy, he had time to devote himself more closely to historical research. He was born at Newcastle on April 2, 1812, was turned aside from the Bar by success in newspaper work, and became editor first of the “Foreign Quarterly Review,” then of the “Daily News,” on which he succeeded Dickens, and lastly of “The Examiner.” His “Life of Goldsmith” was published in 1848, and enlarged in 1854. Forster was different from all that he looked. He seemed harsh, exacting, and stubborn. He was one of the most loyal of friends, and tender-hearted towards all good fellows, alive or dead. His picture of Goldsmith is an understanding defence of that strangely-speckled genius, written from the heart. Forster died on February 1, 1876, two years after his retirement from official life.

I.-Misery and Ill-luck

The marble in Westminster Abbey is correct in the place, but not in the time, of the birth of Oliver Goldsmith. He was born at a small old parsonage house in an almost inaccessible Irish village called Pallas, in Longford, November 10, 1728. His father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, was a Protestant clergyman with an uncertain stipend, which, with the help of some fields he farmed, averaged forty pounds a year. They who have lived, laughed, and wept with the father of the man in black in the “Citizen of the World,” the preacher of “The Deserted Village,” or the hero of “The Vicar of Wakefield,” have given laughter, love, and tears to the Rev. Charles Goldsmith.

Oliver had not completed his second year when the family moved to a respectable house and farm on the verge of the pretty little village of Lissoy, in West Meath. Here the schoolmistress who first put a book into Oliver Goldsmith’s hands confessed, “Never was so dull a boy; he seemed impenetrably stupid.”

Yet all the charms of Goldsmith’s later style are to be traced in the letters of his youth, and he began to scribble verses when he could scarcely write. At the age of eight he went to the Rev. Mr. Gilpin’s superior school of Elphin, in Roscommon, where he was considered “a stupid, heavy blockhead, little better than a fool, whom everyone made fun of.” Indeed, from his earliest youth he was made to feel an intense, uneasy consciousness of supposed defects. Later he went to school at Athlone and at Edgeworthstown, and was in every school trick, either as an actor or a victim. On leaving the school at Edgeworthstown, Oliver entered Dublin University as a sizar, “at once studying freedom and practising servitude.” Little went well with him in his student course. He had a menial position, a savage brute for a tutor, and few inclinations to the study exacted. But he was not without his consolations; he could sing a song well, and, at a new insult, could blow off excitement through his flute. The popular picture of him in these days is of a slow, hesitating, somewhat hollow voice, a low-sized, thick, robust, ungainly figure, lounging about the college courts on the wait for misery and ill-luck.

In Oliver’s second year at college his father died suddenly, and the scanty sum required for his support stopped. Squalid poverty relieved by occasional gifts was Goldsmith’s lot thenceforward. He would write street-ballads to save himself from actual starving, sell them for five shillings a-piece, and steal out of the college at night to hear them sung. It is said to have been a rare occurrence when the five shillings reached home with him. It was more likely, when he was at his utmost need, to stop with some beggar on the road who had seemed to him even more destitute than himself.

He took his degree as bachelor of arts on February 27, 1749 and returning to his mother’s house, at Ballymahon, waited till he could qualify himself for orders. This is the sunny time between two dismal periods of his life-the day occupied in the village school, the winter nights in presiding at Conway’s inn, the summer evenings strolling up the banks of the Inny to play the flute, learning French from the Irish priests, or winning a prize for throwing a sledge-hammer at the fair.

When the time came for Goldsmith to take orders, one report says he did not deem himself good enough for it, and another says that he presented himself before the Bishop of Elphin in scarlet breeches; but in truth his rejection is the only certainty.

A year’s engagement as a tutor followed, and from it he returned home with thirty pounds in his pocket, and was the undisputed owner of a good horse. Thus furnished and mounted he set off for Cork with a vision of going to America, but returned presently with only five shillings and a horse he had bought for one pound seventeen.

Law was the next thing thought of, and his uncle Contarine, who had married his father’s sister, came forward with fifty pounds. With this sum Oliver started for London, but gambled it all away in Dublin. In bitter shame he wrote to his uncle, confessed, and was forgiven, and the good uncle then made up a small purse to carry him to Edinburgh for the study of medicine.

No traditions remain in Edinburgh as to the character or extent of Goldsmith’s studies there, but it may be supposed that his eighteen months’ residence was, on the whole, not unprofitable. A curious document that has been discovered is a torn leaf of a tailor’s ledger radiant with “rich sky-blue satin, fine sky-blue shalloon, a superfine silver-laced small hat, rich black Genoa velvet, and superfine high claret-coloured cloth,” ordered by Mr. Oliver Goldsmith, student.

II.-Through Europe with a Flute

From Edinburgh he sailed for Leyden, but called on the way at Newcastle and saw enough of England to be able to say that “of all objects on this earth an English farmer’s daughter is the most charming.” Little is known of his pursuits at Leyden, where his principal means of support were as a teacher. After staying there nearly a year, he quitted it (1755) at the age of twenty-seven, for a travel tour through Europe, with a guinea in his pocket, one shirt on his back, and a flute in his hand.

Goldsmith started on his travels in February, 1755, and stepped ashore at Dover February 1, 1756. For his route it is necessary to consult his writings. His letters of the time have perished. In later life, Foote tells us, “he frequently used to talk, with great pleasantry, of his distresses on the Continent, such as living on the hospitalities of the friars, sleeping in barns, and picking up a kind of mendicant livelihood by the German flute.” His early memoir-writers assert with confidence that in some small portion of his travels he acted as companion to a young man of large fortune. It is certain that the rude, strange wandering life to which his nature for a time impelled him was an education picked up from personal experience and by actual collision with many varieties of men, and that it gave him on several social questions much the advantage over the more learned of his contemporaries. As he passed through Flanders, Louvain attracted him, and here, according to his first biographer, he took the degree of medical bachelor. This is likely enough. Certain it is he made some stay at Louvain, became acquainted with its professors, and informed himself of its modes of study. Some little time he also passed at Brussels. Undoubtedly he visited Antwerp, and he rested a brief space in Paris. He must have taken the lecture-rooms of Germany on his way to Switzerland. Passing into that country he saw Schaffhausen frozen. Geneva was his resting-place in Switzerland, but he visited Basle and Berne. Descending into Piedmont, he saw Milan, Verona, Mantua, and Florence, and at Padua is supposed to have stayed some six months, and, it has been asserted, received his degree. “Sir,” said Johnson to Boswell, “he disputed his passage through Europe.”

III.-Physic, Teaching, and Authorship

Landing at Dover without a farthing in his pocket, the traveller took ten days to reach London, where an uncertain story says he gained subsistence for a few months as an usher, under a feigned name. At last a chemist of the name of Jacob, at the corner of Monument Yard, engaged him. While employed among the drugs he met an old Edinburgh fellow-student, Owen Sleigh, who, “with a heart as warm as ever, shared his home and friendship.” Goldsmith now began to practise as a physician in a humble way, and through one of his patients was introduced to Richardson and appointed for a short time reader and corrector to his press in Salisbury Court. Next we find him at Peckham Academy, acting as assistant to Dr. Milner, whose son had been at Edinburgh.

Milner was a contributor to the “Monthly Review,” published by Griffiths, the bookseller, and at Milner’s table Griffiths and Goldsmith met, with the result that Goldsmith entered into an agreement to devote himself to the “Monthly Review” for a year. In fulfilment of that agreement Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths provided him with bed and board in Paternoster Row, and, at the age of nine-and-twenty, he began his work as an author by profession.

The twelve months’ agreement was not carried out. At the end of five months Goldsmith left the “Monthly Review.” During that period he had reviewed Professor Mallet’s translations of Scandinavian poetry and mythology; Home’s tragedy of “Douglas,” Burke’s “Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful,” Smollett’s “Complete History of England,” and Gray’s “Odes.” Though he was no longer “a not unuseful assistant” to Griffiths, he kept up an irregular business association with that literary slave-driver. He also became a contributor to Newbery’s “Literary Magazine.” At last, in despair, he turned again from the miseries of Grub Street to Dr. Milner’s school-room at Peckham, and, after another brief period of teaching, Dr. Milner secured for him the promise of an appointment as medical officer to one of the East India Company’s factories on the coast of Coromandel. Partly to utilise his travel experiences in a more formal manner than had yet been possible, and partly to provide funds for his equipment for foreign service, he now wrote his “Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe,” and, leaving Dr. Milner’s, became a contributor to Hamilton’s “Critical Review,” a rival to Griffiths’s “Monthly.” In these days he lived in a garret in Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey, with a single chair in the room, and a window seat for himself if a visitor occupied the chair. For some unknown reason the Coromandel appointment was withdrawn, and failure in an examination as a hospital-mate left no hope except in literature.

The turning-point of Goldsmith’s life was reached when Griffiths became security for a new suit of clothes in which that unfortunate hospital-mate examination might be attended. On Griffiths finding that the new suit had been pawned to free the poet’s landlady from the bailiffs, he abused him as a sharper and a villain, and threatened to proceed against him by law as a criminal. This attack forced from Goldsmith the rejoinder, “Sir, I know of no misery but a jail to which my own imprudences and your letter seem to point. I have seen it inevitable these three or four weeks, and, by heavens! regard it as a favour, as a favour that may prevent somewhat more fatal. I tell you again and again I am now neither able nor willing to pay you a farthing, but I will be punctual to any appointment you or the tailor shall make; thus far at least I do not act the sharper, since, unable to pay my debts one way, I would willingly give some security another. No, sir; had I been a sharper, had I been possessed of less good nature and native generosity, I might surely now have been in better circumstances. My reflections are filled with repentance for my imprudence, but not with any remorse for being a villain.”

The result of this correspondence was that Goldsmith contracted to write for Griffiths a “Life of Voltaire”; the payment being twenty pounds, with the price of the clothes to be deducted from the sum.

In the autumn of 1759 Goldsmith commenced, for bookseller Wilkie, of St. Paul’s Churchyard, the weekly writing of “The Bee,” a threepenny magazine of essays. It ended with its eighth number, for the public would not buy it. At the same time he was writing for Mr. Pottinger’s “Busybody,” and Mr. Wilkie’s “Lady’s Magazine.” “The Bee,” though unsuccessful, brought Goldsmith useful friends-Smollett and Garrick, and Mr. Newbery, the publisher-and with the New Year (1760) he was working with Smollett on “The British Magazine,” and, immediately afterwards, on Newbery’s “Public Ledger,” a daily newspaper, for which he wrote two articles a week at a guinea for each article. Among the articles were the series that still divert and instruct us-“The Citizen of the World.” This was the title given when the “Letters from a Chinese Philosopher in London to his Friend in the East” were republished by Newbery, at the end of the year. Goldsmith now began to know his own value as a writer.

IV.-Social and Literary Success

His widening reputation brought him into association and friendship with Johnson, to whom he was introduced by Dr. Percy, the collector of the “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.” Goldsmith gave a supper in honour of his visitor, and when Percy called on Johnson to accompany him to their host’s lodgings, to his great astonishment he found Johnson in a new suit of clothes, with a new wig, nicely powdered, perfectly dissimilar from his usual appearance. On being asked the cause of this transformation Johnson replied, “Why, sir, I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness and decency by quoting my practice; and I am desirous this night to show him a better example.”

Johnson was perhaps the first literary man of the times who estimated Goldsmith according to his true merits as a writer and thinker, and he was repaid by an affectionate devotion that was never worn out during the later years when the Dictator was too ready to make a butt of the unready Irishman. Goldsmith now joined the group of literary friends who gathered frequently at the shop of Tom Davies, the bookseller, where Johnson and Boswell first met, and he was one of the famous Literary Club which grew out of these meetings.

“Sir,” said Johnson to Boswell, at one of their first meetings, “Goldsmith is one of the first men we have as an author.”

This was said at a time when all Goldsmith’s best works had yet to be written. He was still working for the booksellers, and in 1763, issued anonymously a “History of England in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son.” To various noblemen credit for this popular work was given, including Lord Chesterfield. Growing success was only an excuse for growing extravagance, and in 1764 Goldsmith was placed temporarily under arrest for debt, probably by his landlady, Mrs. Fleming, with whom he had been living at Islington under an arrangement made by Newbery. His withdrawal from the town had given him opportunities for congenial labour on “The Traveller” and “The Vicar of Wakefield,” and when Johnson appeared, in answer to his urgent summons, it was the manuscript of “The Vicar” that he carried off, and sold for sixty pounds, to relieve immediate anxieties.

Still, it was “The Traveller” that was first published (December 19, 1764). Johnson pronounced it a poem to which it would not be easy to find anything equal since the death of Pope. The predominant impression of “The Traveller” is of its naturalness and facility. The serene graces of its style, and the mellow flow of its verse, take us captive before we feel the enchantment of its lovely images of various life reflected from its calm, still depths of philosophic contemplation. A fourth edition was issued by August, and a ninth appeared in the year when the poet died. The price paid for it by Newbery was, apparently, twenty guineas.

It was in the spring of 1766, fifteen months after it had been acquired by Newbery, that “The Vicar of Wakefield” was published. No book upon record has obtained a wider popularity, and none is more likely to endure. It is our first pure example of the simple, domestic novel. As a refuge from the compiling of books was this book undertaken. Simple to baldness are the materials used, but Goldsmith threw into the midst of them his own nature, his actual experience, the suffering, discipline, and sweet emotion of his chequered life, and so made them a lesson and a delight to all men. The book silently forced its way. No noise was made about it, no trumpets were blown for it, but admiration gathered steadily around it, and by August a third edition had been reached.

V.-Poet, Dramatist, and Spendthrift

Goldsmith had long been a constant frequenter of the theatres, and one of the most sagacious critics of the actors of his day; and it was natural that, having succeeded as an essayist, a poet, and a novelist, he should try his fortune with the drama. In 1767 a comedy was in Garrick’s hands, wherein, following the method of Farquhar, he attempted by the help of nature, humour, and character, to invoke the spirit of laughter, happy, unrestrained, and cordial. After long, and not very friendly, temporising by the great actor, Goldsmith withdrew the play from Drury Lane and committed it to Colman at Covent Garden; but it was not till January 29, 1768, that “The Good-Natur’d Man” was acted. It proved a reasonably fair success. Johnson, who wrote the prologue, went to see the comedy rehearsed, and showed unwavering kindness to his friend at this trying time.

While the play was under discussion and preparation, Goldsmith was engaged in writing for Tom Davies an easy, popular, “History of Rome,” in the style of his anonymous “Letters from a Nobleman to His Son,” proceeding with it at leisure in his cottage at Edgeware. The success of “The Good-Natured Man,” though far from equal to its claims of character, wit, and humour, very sensibly affected its author’s ways of life. It put L500 in his pocket, which he at once proceeded to squander on fine chambers in the Temple, and new suits of gay clothing followed in quick succession.

During the next year, 1769, the “Roman History” was published, and the first month’s sale established its success so firmly that Goldsmith received an offer of L500 for a “History of England,” in four volumes, to be “written and compiled in two years.” At the same time he was under agreement for his “Natural History,” or, as it was finally termed, his “History of Animated Nature.”

These years of heavy work were among the happiest of Goldsmith’s life, for he had made the acquaintance of the Misses Horneck, girls of nineteen and seventeen. The elder, Catherine, or “Little Comedy,” was already engaged; the younger, Mary, who had the loving nickname of the “Jessamy Bride,” exercised over him a strong fascination. Their social as well as personal charms are uniformly spoken of by all. Mary, who did not marry till after Goldsmith’s death, lived long enough to be admired by Hazlitt, to whom she talked of the poet with affection unabated by age, till he “could almost fancy the shade of Goldsmith in the room, looking round with complacency.”

It was during these years of busy bookmaking, too, that the poet was perfecting his “Deserted Village.” On May 26, 1770, it appeared, published at two shillings. Its success was instant and decisive. By August 16, a fifth edition had appeared. When Gray heard the poem read, he exclaimed, “This man is a poet!” The judgment has since been affirmed by hundreds of thousands of readers, and any adverse appeal is little likely now to be lodged against it. Within the circle of its claims and pretensions, a more entirely satisfactory and delightful poem than “The Deserted Village” was probably never written. It lingers in the memory where once it has entered; and such is the softening influence on the heart of the mild, tender, yet clear light which makes its images so distinct and lovely, that there are few who have not wished to rate it higher than poetry of yet higher genius. Goldsmith looked into his heart and wrote.

The poet had now attained social distinction, and we find him passing from town to country with titled friends, and visiting, in somewhat failing health, fashionable resorts, such as Bath. His home remained in the Temple. His worldly affairs continued a source of constant embarrassment, however, and when, in 1772, he had placed the manuscript of “She Stoops to Conquer” in the hands of Colman, not only his own entreaties but the interference of Johnson were used to hasten its production in order to relieve his anxieties. Colman was convinced the comedy would be unsuccessful. It was first acted on March 15, 1773, and, “quite the reverse to everybody’s expectation,” it was received with the utmost applause.

At this time Goldsmith was sadly in arrears with work he had promised to the booksellers; disputes were pending, and his circumstances were verging on positive distress. The necessity of completing his “Animated Nature”-for which all the money had been received and spent-hung like a mill-stone upon him. His advances had been considerable on other works not yet begun. In what leisure he could get from these tasks he was working at a “Grecian History” to procure means to meet his daily liabilities.

It occurred to friends at this time to agitate the question of a pension for him, on the ground of “distinction in the literary world, and the prospect of approaching distress,” but as he had never been a political partisan, the application was met by a firm refusal. Out of the worries of this darkening period, with ill-health adding to his cares, the genius of the poet flashed forth once more in his personal poem, “Retaliation.” At a club dinner at St. James’s coffee-house, the proposition was made that each member present should write an epitaph on Goldsmith, and Garrick started with:

Here is Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll.

Later, Goldsmith retaliated with epitaphs on his circle of club friends. His list of discriminating pictures was not complete when he died. Indeed, the picture of Reynolds breaks off with a half line.

On March 25, 1774, the poet was too ill to attend the club gathering-how ill, his friends failed to realise. On the morning of April 4, he died from weakness following fever. “Is your mind at ease?” asked his doctor. “No, it is not,” was the melancholy answer, and his last recorded words. His debts amounted to not less than two thousand pounds. “Was ever poet so trusted!” exclaimed Johnson.

His remains were committed to their final resting-place in the burial ground of the Temple Church, and the staircase of his chambers is said to have been filled with mourners the reverse of domestic-women without a home, without domesticity of any kind, with no friend but him they had come to weep for, outcasts of that great, solitary, wicked city, to whom he had never forgotten to be kind and charitable.

Johnson spoke his epitaph in an emphatic sentence: “He had raised money, and squandered it, by every artifice of acquisition and folly of expense; but let not his frailties be remembered-he was a very great man.”