And having thus scrambled together a little pocket-money, by hard contrivance, poor Goldsmith turns his back upon care and trouble, and Temple quarters, to forget for a time his desolate bachelorhood in the family circle and a Christmas fireside at Barton.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
A RETURN TO DRUDGERY—FORCED GAYETY—RETREAT TO THE COUNTRY—THE POEM OF RETALIATION—PORTRAIT OF GARRICK—OF GOLDSMITH—OF REYNOLDS—ILLNESS OF THE POET—HIS DEATH—GRIEF OF HIS FRIENDS—A LAST WORD RESPECTING THE JESSAMY BRIDE
The Barton festivities are over; Christmas, with all its home-felt revelry of the heart, has passed like a dream; the Jessamy Bride has beamed her last smile upon the poor poet, and the early part of 1774 finds him in his now dreary bachelor abode in the Temple, toiling fitfully and hopelessly at a multiplicity of tasks. His Animated Nature, so long delayed, so often interrupted, is at length announced for publication, though it has yet to receive a few finishing touches. He is preparing a third History of England, to be compressed and condensed in one volume, for the use of schools. He is revising his Inquiry into Polite Learning, for which he receives the pittance of five guineas, much needed in his present scantiness of purse; he is arranging his Survey of Experimental Philosophy, and he is translating the Comic Romance of Scarron. Such is a part of the various labors of a drudging, depressing kind, by which his head is made wrong and his heart faint. “If there is a mental drudgery,” says Sir Walter Scott, “which lowers the spirits and lacerates the nerves, like the toil of a slave, it is that which is exacted by literary composition, when the heart is not in unison with the work upon which the head is employed. Add to the unhappy author’s task sickness, sorrow, or the pressure of unfavorable circumstances, and the labor of the bondsman becomes light in comparison.” Goldsmith again makes an effort to rally his spirits by going into gay society. “Our club,” writes Beauclerc to Charlemont, on the 12th of February, “has dwindled away to nothing. Sir Joshua and Goldsmith have got into such a round of pleasures that they have no time.” This shows how little Beauclerc was the companion of the poet’s mind, or could judge of him below the surface. Reynolds, the kind participator in joyless dissipation, could have told a different story of his companion’s heart-sick gayety.
In this forced mood Goldsmith gave entertainments in his chambers in the Temple; the last of which was a dinner to Johnson, Reynolds, and others of his intimates, who partook with sorrow and reluctance of his imprudent hospitality. The first course vexed them by its needless profusion. When a second, equally extravagant, was served up, Johnson and Reynolds declined to partake of it; the rest of the company, understanding their motives, followed their example, and the dishes went from the table untasted. Goldsmith felt sensibly this silent and well-intended rebuke.
The gayeties of society, however, cannot medicine for any length of time a mind diseased. Wearied by the distractions and harassed by the expenses of a town life, which he had not the discretion to regulate, Goldsmith took the resolution, too tardily adopted, of retiring to the serene quiet and cheap and healthful pleasures of the country, and of passing only two months of the year in London. He accordingly made arrangements to sell his right in the Temple chambers, and in the month of March retired to his country quarters at Hyde, there to devote himself to toil. At this dispirited juncture, when inspiration seemed to be at an end, and the poetic fire extinguished, a spark fell on his combustible imagination and set it in a blaze.
He belonged to a temporary association of men of talent, some of them members of the Literary Club, who dined together occasionally at the St. James’ Coffee-house. At these dinners, as usual, he was one of the last to arrive. On one occasion, when he was more dilatory than usual, a whim seized the company to write epitaphs on him, as “The late Dr. Goldsmith,” and several were thrown off in a playful vein, hitting off his peculiarities. The only one extant was written by Garrick, and has been preserved, very probably, by its pungency:
“Here lies poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor poll.”