“Why?” said Mrs. Thrale shrilly. “Why? Why is an Irishman who has become suddenly successful like a boy who has robbed an orchard? Why, because his booty so distends his body that any one can perceive he has got in his pockets what he is not entitled to.”
She looked around for appreciation, but failed to find it. She certainly did not perceive any appreciation of her pleasantry on the face of the successful Irishman before her. He was not watching Mary now. All his attention was given to the man to whom she had been talking, and who had gone to the side of Mrs. Abington, where he remained chatting with even more animation than was usual for one to assume in the green room.
“You will join us at supper, Dr. Goldsmith?” said Mr. Thrale.
“Nay, sir!” cried Bunbury; “mine is a prior claim. Dr. Goldsmith agreed some days ago to honour my wife with his company to-night.”
“What did I say, Goldy?” cried Johnson. “Was it not that, after the presentation of the comedy, you would receive a hundred invitations?”
“Well, sir, I have only received two since my play was produced, and one of them I accepted some days ago,” said the Irishman, and Mrs. Thrale hoped she would be able to remember the bull in order to record it as conclusive evidence of Goldsmith's awkwardness of speech.
But Burke, who knew the exact nature of the Irish bull, only smiled. He laughed, however, when Goldsmith, assuming the puzzled expression of the Irishman who adds to the humour of his bull by pretending that it is involuntary, stumbled carefully in his words, simulating a man anxious to explain away a mistake that he has made. Goldsmith excelled at this form of humour but too well; hence, while the pages of every book that refers to him are crowded with his brilliant saying's, the writers quote Garrick's lines in proof—proof positive, mind—that he “talked like poor Poll.” He is the first man on record who has been condemned solely because of the exigencies of rhyme, and that, too, in the doggerel couplet of the most unscrupulous jester of the century.
Mary Horneck seems to have been the only one who understood him thoroughly. She has left her appreciation of his humour on record. The expression which she perceived upon his face immediately after he had given utterance to some delightful witticism—which the recording demons around him delighted to turn against himself—was the expression which makes itself apparent in Reynolds's portrait of him. The man who “talked like poor Poll” was the man who, even before he had done anything in literature except a few insignificant essays, was visited by Bishop Percy, though every visit entailed a climb up a rickety staircase and a seat on a rickety stool in a garret. Perhaps, however, the fastidious Percy was interested in ornithology and was ready to put himself to great inconvenience in order to hear parrot-talk.
While he was preparing to go with the Bunburys, Goldsmith noticed that the man who, after talking with Mary Horneck, had chatted with Mrs. Abington, had disappeared; and when the party whom he was accompanying to supper had left the room he remained for a few moments to make his adieux to the players. He shook hands with Mrs. Abington, saying—
“Have no fear that I shall forget my promise, madam.”