CHAPTER XIII.
BATH COACH CONVERSATION.
After our travellers had dined, the conversation was renewed by the English gentleman’s repeating Goldsmith’s celebrated lines on Burke:
“Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing, whilst they thought of dining;
In short, ‘twas his fate, unemployed or in place, sir,
To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor.”
“What humour and wit there are in that poem of Goldsmith’s! and where is there any thing equal to his ‘Traveller?’”
Irishman.—“Yet this is the man who used to be the butt of the company for his bulls.”
Englishman.—“No, not for his bulls, but for blurting out opinions in conversation that could not stand the test of Dr. Johnson’s critical powers. But what would become of the freedom of wit and humour if every word that came out of our mouths were subject to the tax of a professed critic’s censure, or if every sentence were to undergo a logical examination? It would be well for Englishmen if they were a little more inclined, like your open-hearted countrymen, to blurt out their opinions freely.”
Scotchman,—“I cannot forgive Dr. Johnson for calling Goldsmith an inspired idiot; I confess I see no idiotism, but much inspiration, in his works.”
Irishman.—“But we must remember, that if Johnson did laugh at Goldsmith, he would let no one else laugh at him, and he was his most sincere and active friend. The world would, perhaps, never have seen the ‘Vicar of Wakefield’ if Johnson had not recommended it to a bookseller; and Goldsmith might have died in jail if the doctor had not got him a hundred pounds for it, when poor Goldsmith did not know it was worth a shilling. When we recollect this, we must forgive the doctor for calling him, in jest, an inspired idiot.”