however, we may presume to think perhaps less eccentric than his friends supposed it to be.

Goldsmith did not stay in Dover as he had proposed. He brought the ladies to London. Among the letters forwarded to him in Paris had been an announcement of his mother's death. Dead to any consciousness or enjoyment of life she had for some time been; blind, and otherwise infirm: hardly could the event have been unexpected by him, or by any one. Yet are there few, however early tumbled out upon the world, to whom the world has given any substitute for that earliest friend. Not less true than affecting is the saying in one of Gray's charming letters: 'I have discovered a thing very little known, which is, that 'in one's whole life one never can have any more than a 'single mother.' The story (which Northcote says Miss Reynolds told him) that would attribute to Goldsmith the silly slight of appearing in half-mourning at this time, and explaining it as for a 'distant' relation, would not be credible of any man of common sensibility; far less of him. Mr. William Filby's bills enable us to speak with greater accuracy. As in the instance of his brother's death, they contain an entry of a 'suit of mourning,' sent home on the 8th of September.

But indulgence of sorrow is the luxury of the idle. Eight days later Goldsmith was signing a fresh agreement with Davies for an Abridgment of his Roman History in a duodecimo volume; for making which, and for putting his name thereto,' Davies undertook to pay fifty guineas.

The same worthy bibliopole had published in the summer his Life of Parnell, to which I formerly referred. It was lightly and pleasantly written; and contained that pretty illustration (whereof all who have written biography know the truth as well as beauty), of the difficulty of obtaining, when fame has set its seal on any celebrated man, those personal details of his obscurer days which his contemporaries have not cared to give: the dews of the morning are 'past, and we vainly try to continue the chase by the meri'dian splendour.' It also contained remarks on the ornamented schools of poetry, in which allusions (not in the best taste) were levelled against Collins and Gray; yet remarks of which the principle was sound enough, though pushed, as good principles are apt to be, to an absurd extreme. For of styles all bristling with epithets, Voltaire himself was not less tolerant than Goldsmith; nor ever with greater zest denounced the adjective, as the substantive's greatest enemy. But merits as well as faults in the Parnell memoir Tom Davies of course tested by the sale; and with result so satisfactory that another memoir had at once been engaged for, and now occupied Goldsmith on his return. Bolingbroke was the subject selected, for its hot partyinterest of course: but it was not the writer's mode, whatever the bookseller may have wished, to turn a literary memoir into a political pamphlet; and what was written proved very harmless that way, with as little to concern Lord North as Mr. Wilkes, and of as small interest, it would seem, to the writer as to either. Doctor Goldsmith is

gone with Lord Clare into the country,' writes Davies to Granger, and I am plagued to get the proofs from him of 'his Life of Lord Bolingbroke.' However, he did get them; and the book was published in December.

Goldsmith continued with Lord Clare during the opening months of 1771. They were together at Gosfield, and at Bath; and it was in the latter city the amusing incident occurred which Bishop Percy has related, as told him by the Duchess of Northumberland. The Duke and Duchess occupied a house next door to Lord Clare's, and were surprised one day, when about to sit down to breakfast, to see Goldsmith enter the breakfast-room as from the street, and, without notice of them or the conversation they continued, fling himself unconcernedly on a sofa. After a few minutes, breakfast being meanwhile served, the Duke asked him to take a seat at the table; but, the invitation calling him back from the dream-land he had been visiting, he declared with profuse apologies that he had thought he was in his friend Lord Clare's house, and in irrecoverable confusion hastily withdrew. But not,' adds the Bishop, 'till they had good-naturedly exacted a promise that he 'would give them his company to dinner.' Of Lord Clare's friendly familiarity with the poet, the incident gives us proof; he had himself no very polished manners (he is the Squire Gawkey of the libels of the day), and might the better tolerate Goldsmith's; but that their intercourse at present was as frequent as familiar, seems to have been because Lord Clare had most need of a friend. I am

'told,' says a letter-writer of the day, that Doctor Gold

'smith now generally lives with his countryman Lord 'Clare, who has lost his only son, Colonel Nugent.' He was not without occasional mortifications, however, such as his host could not protect him from; and one of them was related by himself. In his 'diverting simplicity,' says Boswell, speaking with his own much more diverting air of patronage, Goldsmith complained one day, in a mixed company, of Lord Camden. 'I met him,' he said, 'at Lord 'Clare's house in the country; and he took no more notice ' of me than if I had been an ordinary man.' At this, according to Boswell, himself and the company laughed heartily; whereupon Johnson stood forth in defence of his friend. 'Nay, gentlemen, Doctor Goldsmith is in the right. 'A nobleman ought to have made up to such a man as Goldsmith; and I think it is much against Lord Cam'den that he neglected him.'

It was doubtless much for Lord Clare that he did not. By that simple means, he would seem to have lessened many griefs, and added to many an enjoyment. Attentions are cheaply rendered that win such sympathy as a true heart returns; and if, from the spacious avenues of Gosfield park, Lord Clare had sent an entire buck every season to his friend's humble chambers in the Temple, the single Haunch of Venison which Goldsmith sent him back would richly have repaid him. The charming verses which bear that name were written this year, and seem to have been written for Lord Clare alone; nor was it till two

years after their writer's death that they obtained a wider audience than his circle of friends. Yet, written with no higher aim than of private pleasantry, a more delightful piece of humour, or a more finished piece of style, has probably been seldom written. There is not a word to spare, every word is in its right place, the most boisterous animal spirits are controlled by the most charming good taste, and an indescribable airy elegance pervades and encircles all. Its very incidents seem of right to claim a place here, so naturally do they fall within the drama of Goldsmith's life.

Allusions in the lines fix their date to the early months of 1771; and it was probably on his return from the visit to which reference has just been made, that Lord Clare's side of venison had reached him.

Thanks, my lord, for your venison, for finer or fatter

Ne'er rang'd in a forest, or smok'd in a platter:

The haunch was a picture for painters to study,

The white was so white and the red was so ruddy.

Though my stomach was sharp, I could scarce help regretting

To spoil such a delicate picture by eating:

I had thoughts in my chamber to place it in view,

To be shown to my friends as a piece of virtù ;
As in some Irish houses, where things are so-so,
One gammon of bacon hangs up for a show;
But, for eating a rasher of what they take pride in,
They'd as soon think of eating the pan it is fried in.

But these witty fancies yield to more practical views as he contemplates the delicate luxury; and he bethinks him of the appetites most likely to do it justice.

To go on with my tale. . as I gazed on the haunch,
I thought of a friend that was trusty and staunch;