Since then I have been in and out of London many times. I have been amused here and bored here; but give me back my old fool's paradise and I shall care for naught else.
One may doubt which holds him closest, the London of History or the London of Fiction, or that London which is a mingling of both, and may be called simply the London of Literature, in which Oliver Goldsmith carouses with Tom Jones, and Harry Fielding discusses philosophy with the Vicar of Wakefield, where Nicholas Nickleby makes so bold as to present himself to Mr. William Makepeace Thackeray and to ask his intercession in favor of a poor artist, the son of a hairdresser of the name of Turner in Maiden Lane, and even where "Boz," as he passes through Longacre, is tripped up by the Artful Dodger, and would perchance fall upon the siding if not caught in the friendly arms of Sir Richard Steele on his way to pay a call upon the once famous beauty, the Lady Beatrix Esmond.
But yesterday I strolled into Mitre Court, and threading my way through the labyrinth of those dingy old law chambers known as the Middle and Inner Temple, found myself in the little graveyard of the Temple Church and by the side of the grave of Oliver Goldsmith. Though less than a stone's throw from Fleet Street and the Strand, the place is quiet enough, only a faint hum of wheels penetrating the cool precincts and gloomy walls. There, beneath three oblong slabs, put together like an outer stone coffin, lies the most richly endowed of all the vagabonds, with the simple but sufficient legend:
"Here lies Oliver Goldsmith,
"Born Nov. 10th, 1728. Died April 4th, 1774."
to tell a story which for all its vagrancy and folly, is somewhat dear to loving hearts. He died leaving many debts and a few friends. He lived a lucky-go-devil, who could squander in a night of debauch more than he could earn in a month of labor. Yet he gave us the good Primrose and The Deserted Village and The Traveler, and many a care-dispelling screed beside.
The Frenchman would say "his destiny." The less fanciful Briton, "his temperament." Poor Noll! He seemed to know himself fairly well in spite of his dissipations and his vanity, and he sleeps sound enough now, perhaps as soundly as the rest of those who in life held him in a rather equivocal admiration and affectionate contempt. There are a few other tombs—an effigy or two—round about, the weird old Chapel of the Templars, shut in by great walls from the streets beyond, to keep them solemn company. For Goldsmith, at least, there seems a fitness; for his life, and such labor as he did, eddied round these sad precincts. Nigh at hand was the Mitre tavern, across the way the Cock, and down the street the Cheshire Cheese. Without the Vandal has been busy enough, within all remains as it was the day they buried him. Perhaps he was not a desirable visiting acquaintance. I dare say he was rather a trying familiar friend. Pen-craft and purse-making are often wide apart. The charm of authorship ends in most cases upon the printed page. The man carries his sentiment in a globule of ink and it evaporates by exposure to the atmosphere of the world of action. The song of Dickens died by its own fireside. Kipling, for all his word-painting, is hardly a miracle of grace. Why should one wish to have known Goldsmith, or grudge him his place by the side of the great old Doctor, and Burke, and Reynolds, and Garrick? He lived his own life, and, though it was not very clean and wholly unprosperous, perhaps he enjoyed it. He left us some rich fruitage dangling over a wall, which may well conceal all else. Of the dead, no ill! Their faults to the past. The rest to Eternity!
Gradually, but surely, a new London is showing itself above the debris of the old. Miles of roundabout are reduced by short cuts. Thoroughfares are ruthlessly cut through sacred precincts and landmarks obliterated to make room for imposing edifices and widened streets. In the end, London will be rebuilt to rival Paris in the splendor, without the uniformity of its architecture. The grime will, of course, attach itself in time to the modern city as it did in the ancient, so that the London that is to be will grow old to the coming generations as the London that was grew old to the generations that went before.
"To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
Creeps on this petty pace from day to day,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death."
Ever and ever the old times, the dear old times! Were they really any better than these? I don't think so—we only fancy them so. They had their displacements. It was then, as now, "eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow ye die," life the same old walking shadow, the same old play, or, lagging superfluous, or laughing his hour upon the stage and seen no more, the same old
"... tale told by an idiot,
Full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."