“Ah, sir, am I not sufficiently humiliated by the reflection that my friendly relations with the man whom I revere more than any living human being are irretrievably ruptured? You will not add to the poignancy of that reflection by asking me to write down an account of our quarrel in order to perpetuate so deplorable an incident?”
“Sir, I perceive that you are as yet ignorant of the duties of the true biographer. You seem to think that a biographer has a right to pick and choose the incidents with which he has to deal—that he may, if he please, omit the mention of any occurrence that may tend to show his hero or his hero's friends in an unfavourable light. Sir, I tell you frankly that your notions of biography are as erroneous as they are mischievous. Mr. Boswell, I am a more conscientious man, and so, sir, I insist on your writing down while they are still fresh in your mind the very words that passed between you and Dr. Johnson on this matter, and you will also furnish me with a list of the persons—if you have not sufficient paper at your lodgings for the purpose, you can order a ream at the stationer's at the corner—to whom you gave an account of the humiliation of Dr. Johnson by the clergyman who claimed relationship with me, but who was an impostor. Come, Mr. Boswell, be a man, sir; do not seek to avoid so obvious a duty.”
Boswell looked at him, but, as usual, failed to detect the least gleam of a smile on his face.
He rose from the table and walked out of the coffee house without a word.
“Thank heaven I have got rid of that Peeping Tom,” muttered Goldsmith. “If I had acted otherwise in regard to him I should not have been out of hearing of his rasping tongue until midnight.”
(The very next morning a letter from Boswell was brought to him. It told him that he had sought Johnson the previous evening, and had obtained his forgiveness. “You were right, sir,” the letter concluded. “Dr. Johnson has still further impressed me with a sense of his generosity.”)
But as soon as Boswell had been got rid of Goldsmith hastened to the playhouse in order to consult with the lady who—through long practice—was, he believed, the most ably qualified of her sex to give him advice as to the best way of getting the better of a scoundrel. It was only when he was entering the green room that he recollected he had not yet made up his mind as to the exact limitations he should put upon his confidence with Mrs. Abington.
The beautiful actress was standing in one of those picturesque attitudes which she loved to assume, at one end of the long room. The second act only of “She Stoops to Conquer” had been reached, and as she did not appear in the comedy, she had no need to begin dressing for the next piece. She wore a favourite dress of hers—one which had taken the town by storm a few months before, and which had been imitated by every lady of quality who had more respect for fashion than for herself. It was a negligently flowing gown of some soft but heavy fabric, very low and loose about the neck and shoulders.
“Ha, my little hero,” cried the lady when Goldsmith approached and made his bow, first to a group of players who stood near the door, and then to Mrs. Abington. “Ha, my little hero, whom have you been drubbing last? Oh, lud! to think of your beating a critic! Your courage sets us all a-dying of envy. How we should love to pommel some of our critics! There was a rumour last night that the man had died, Dr. Goldsmith.”
“The fellow would not pay such a tribute to my powers, depend on't, madam,” said Goldsmith.