"Not quite disconcerted by this refusal, our adventurer was resolved to apply to another, whom he knew to be the very best friend he had in the world. The gentleman whom he now addressed received his proposal with all the affability that could be expected from generous friendship. 'Let me see—you want a hundred guineas; and, pray, dear Jack, would not fifty answer?'—'If you have but fifty to spare, sir, I must be contented.'—'Fifty to spare! I do not say that, for I believe I have but twenty about me.'—'Then I must borrow the other thirty from some other friend.'—'And pray,' replied the friend, 'would it not be the best way to borrow the whole money from that other friend, and then one note will serve for all, you know? Lord, Mr. Spindle, make no ceremony with me at any time; you know I'm your friend, when you choose a bit of dinner, or so. You, Tom, see the gentleman down. You won't forget to dine with us now and then? Your very humble servant.'
"Distressed, but not discouraged at this treatment, he was at last resolved to find that assistance from love, which he could not have from friendship. Miss Jenny Dismal had a fortune in her own hands, and she had already made all the advances that her sex's modesty would permit. He made his proposal, therefore, with confidence, but soon perceived, 'No bankrupt ever found the fair one kind.' Miss Jenny and Master Billy Galoon were lately fallen deeply in love with each other, and the whole neighbourhood thought it would soon be a match.
"Every day now began to strip Jack of his former finery: his clothes flew piece by piece to the pawnbrokers'; and he seemed at length equipped in the genuine mourning of antiquity. But still he thought himself secure from starving; the numberless invitations he had received to dine, even after his losses, were yet unanswered; he was, therefore, now resolved to accept of a dinner, because he wanted one; and in this manner he actually lived among his friends a whole week without being openly affronted."
Jack Spindle and the Scrivener.
Poor Jack also tries to retrieve his fortunes by marriage, but finds that a penniless wooer has but small chance with the fair.
In the "Citizen of the World" are to be found some of the best essays of Goldsmith. It was a happy idea that of pourtraying our national peculiarities and customs in the light in which they might strike a foreigner; and the series contain, moreover, besides the inimitable "Man in Black," a portrait which would in itself be enough to make it immortal—the fussy, pleasant, consequential, little Beau Tibbs. Was there ever such a perseveringly happy man? He speaks of his own miserable poverty as if it were wealth, affects to prefer a bit of ox cheek and some "brisk beer" to ortolans and claret, and gives himself the airs of a lord while Mrs. Tibbs is laboriously seeing his second shirt through the washing tub. After all, there may be more true philosophy in the cheerfulness of little Tibbs than in the querulous grumbling of greater men on whom the keen wind of adversity blows and who shout vociferous complaints as they shiver in the keen blast. Beau Tibbs' hilarious cheerfulness is, after all, but an exaggerated phase of the equanimity of the "Man in Black."
Jack Spindle rejected by Miss Jenny Dismal.
It was a day in the poet's life to be marked with a white stone when he made the acquaintance of Johnson. The "great cham of literature," as Smollett called him, understood and appreciated Goldsmith better than did the shallow witlings who laughed at the poet's eccentricities and awkwardness, but had not the sense to discover his genius. And who, better than Goldsmith, could value and respect the great qualities that lay hidden under Johnson's brusque manners and overbearing roughness? Their acquaintance soon ripened into friendship—a friendship that was a joy and solace to Goldsmith until the day of his death. Just at this time Johnson, after many years' hard and unproductive toil had been rewarded with a well-earned pension. Thus lifted above the struggling crowd of his literary brethren, he filled a sort of dictatorial throne among them. In Goldsmith he took quite a peculiar interest, and quickly became what Washington Irving, in his "Life of Goldsmith," happily designates a kind of "growling supervisor of the poet's affairs."
Such a supervision was but too urgently needed. Increased means had not improved the poet's habits, or taught him self-denial. The pay for his literary labour was almost invariably drawn and spent before the task was completed, and already poor Goldsmith was becoming involved in that net of embarrassment from which he never extricated himself; and thus the following scene was one day enacted, which shall be told in Johnson's own words, as reported by the indefatigable Boswell:—"I received one morning," said Johnson, "a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and as it was not in his power to come to me, begged 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 passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of madeira and a glass 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 that 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 so ill."
The book thus sold for sixty pounds was the "Vicar of Wakefield," a work never surpassed for wonderful vitality of character and for beauty of colouring. The old vicar, loveable in his very weakness, and indulgent as a Christian priest should be towards the weaknesses of others—the downright honest buxom wife, whose maternal vanity at times tempts her so sorely to disobedience against the behests of her lord and master—Olivia the coquette, and Sophia the prude—Moses the honest and simple—and Burchell with his grand monosyllabic commentary of "Fudge,"—these will live so long as English Literature lasts, and be remembered with delight when the pretentious effusions of the Richardson school have vanished into the limbo of obscurity. But the outcry that has since been raised against the bookseller who only gave sixty pounds for the manuscript appears somewhat unjust. Francis Newbery gave the sum demanded by Johnson, evidently without reading the book, and on Johnson's recommendation alone. That he had no great hopes of profit from his bargain is proved by the length of time he allowed it to lie unpublished in his desk. It was not Newbery's fault that the manuscript was sent out at a pinch, to be sold for what it would bring, before it had even been read to a few discerning friends who might have given a deliberate opinion on its merits. Johnson spoke sensibly enough when he replied to the indignant protest—" A sufficient price, too, when it was sold; for then the fame of Goldsmith had not been elevated, as it afterwards was, by his 'Traveller;' and the bookseller had faint hopes of profit by his bargain. After the 'Traveller,' to be sure, it was accidentally worth more money."
The "Traveller" was now completed, and was published very shortly after the bailiff episode. It took the circle who surrounded Goldsmith completely by surprise; some of the members of the Literary Club even affected to doubt that he could have written it, and declared that the most striking passages were the work of Johnson. But Johnson himself laughed at all this, and openly and honestly proclaimed his belief in the great merits of the poem, and declared that since the death of Pope nothing equal to it had been written. The touches which describe the various shades of character in the different nations are exquisite, and can only be the result of personal observation aided by mature thought.
And now our poet resolved to try his powers in a new field—to write a comedy, the remuneration for which should pay off the debts that were fast accumulating round him. But here fresh vexation and new care awaited him. Garrick, the great actor and prosperous manager, to whom he offered the play, took upon himself