He laughed so heartily that Colonel Gwyn could not refrain from joining in, though his laughter was a good deal less hearty than that of any of the others who had enjoyed Garrick's whimsical fun.
When the men were left alone at the table, there was some little embarrassment owing to the deficiency of glass, for Sir Joshua, who was hospitable to a fault, keeping an open house and dining his friends every evening, could never be persuaded to replace the glass which chanced to be broken. Garrick made an excuse of the shortness of port-glasses at his end of the table to move up beside Goldsmith, whom he cheered by telling him that he had already given a lesson to Woodward regarding the speaking of the prologue which he, Garrick, had written for the comedy. He said he believed Woodward would repeat the lines very effectively. When Goldsmith mentioned that Colman declined to have a single scene painted for the production, both Sir Joshua and Garrick were indignant.
“You would have done well to leave the piece in my hands, Noll,” said the latter, alluding to the circumstance of Goldsmith's having sent the play to him on Colman's first refusal to produce it.
“Ah, Davy, my friend,” Goldsmith replied, “I feel more at my ease in reflecting that in another week I shall know the worst—or the best. If the play had remained with you I should feel like a condemned criminal for the next year or two.”
In the drawing-room that evening Garrick and Goldsmith got up the entertainment, which was possibly the most diverting one ever seen in a room.
Goldsmith sat on Garrick's knees with a table-cloth drawn over his head and body, leaving his arms only exposed. Garrick then began reciting long sentimental soliloquies from certain plays, which Goldsmith was supposed to illustrate by his gestures. The form of the entertainment has survived, and sometimes by chance it becomes humourous. But with Garrick repeating the lines and thrilling his audience by his marvellous change of expression as no audience has since been thrilled, and with Goldsmith burlesquing with inappropriately extravagant and wholly amusing gestures the passionate deliverances, it can easily be believed that Sir Joshua's guests were convulsed.
After some time of this division of labour, the position of the two playmates was reversed. It was Garrick who sat on Goldsmith's knees and did the gesticulating, while the poet attempted to deliver his lines after the manner of the player. The effect was even more ludicrous than that of the previous combination; and then, in the middle of an affecting passage from Addison's “Cato,” Goldsmith began to sing the song which he had been compelled to omit from the part of Miss Hardcastle, owing to Mrs. Bulkley's not being a singer. Of course Garrick's gestures during the delivery of the song were marvellously ingenious, and an additional element of attraction was introduced by Dr. Burney, who hastily seated himself at the pianoforte and interwove a medley accompaniment, introducing all the airs then popular, but without prejudice to the harmonies of the accompaniment.
Reynolds stood by the side of his friend, Miss Kauffman, and when this marvellous fooling had come to an end, except for the extra diversion caused by Garrick's declining to leave Goldsmith's knees—he begged the lady to favour the company with an Italian song which she was accustomed to sing to the accompaniment of a guitar. But Miss Angelica shook her head.
“Pray add your entreaties to mine, Miss Horneck,” said Sir Joshua to the Jessamy Bride. “Entreat our Angel of Art to give us the pleasure of hearing her sing.”
Miss Horneck rose, and made an elaborate curtsey before the smiling Angelica.