the London Packet, in which he was not only personally abused as well as his pieces, but the name of Miss Horneck most unwarrantably introduced: the allusion to his " grotesque" person, to his studious attempts to adorn it; and, above all, to his being an unsuccessful admirer of the lovely H-k (the Jessamy Bride), struck rudely upon the most sensitive part of his highly sensitive nature. He was in a high state of excitement and indignation, and accompanied by his friend, who is said to have been a Captain Higgins of the Marines, he repaired to Paternoster-row, to the shop of Evans, the publisher, whom he supposed to be the editor of the paper. Evans was summoned by his shopman from an adjoining room; Goldsmith announced his name. "I have called," added he, "in consequence of a scurrilous attack made upon me, and an unwarrantable liberty taken with the name of a young lady. As for myself, I care little; but her name must not be sported with."

Evans professed utter ignorance of the matter, and said he would speak to the editor. He stooped to examine a file of the paper, in search of the offensive article; whereupon Goldsmith's friend gave him a signal and the cane was vigorously applied to the back of the stooping publisher. The latter rallied in an instant, and, being a stout, high-blooded Welshman, returned the blows with interest. A lamp hanging overhead was broken, and sent down a shower of oil upon the combatants; but the battle raged with unceasing fury. The shopman ran off for a constable; but Dr. Kenrick, who happened to be in the adjacent room, sallied forth, interfered between the combatants, and put an end to the affray. He conducted Goldsmith to a coach, in battered and tattered plight, and accompanied him home, soothing him with much mock commiseration, though he was generally suspected, and on good grounds, to be the author of the libel.

Evans immediately instituted a suit against Goldsmith for an assault, but was ultimately prevailed upon to compromise the matter, the poet contributing fifty pounds to the Welsh charity. He subsequently published a vindication of his conduct, which Dr. Johnson condemned as "a foolish thing well done," adding that Goldsmith's success had probably led him to think everything that concerned him must be of importance to the public.

DR. JOHNSON AND GOLDSMITH DISPUTE.

There was a dinner at the Dillys', the booksellers, in the Poultry, at which Boswell met Goldsmith and Johnson, with several other literary characters. The conversation turned upon the natural history of birds, on which the poet, from his recent studies, his habits of observation, and his natural tastes, must have talked with instruction and feeling; but Boswell has only reported a casual remark or two of Goldsmith. One was on the migration of swallows, which he pronounced partial: "the stronger ones," said he, "migrate, the others do not."

Johnson denied to the brute creation the faculty of reason. "Birds," said he, "build by instinct; they never improve; they build their first nest as well as any one they ever build." "Yet we see," observed Goldsmith, "if you take away a bird's nest with the eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest and lay again." "Sir," replied Johnson, "that is because at first she has full time, and makes her nest deliberately. In the case you mention, she is pressed to lay, and must, therefore, make her nest quickly, and consequently it will be slight." "The nidification of birds," said Goldsmith, "is what is least known in natural history, though one of the most curious things in it."

While conversation was going on in this placid, agreeable, and instructive manner, the eternal meddler and busy-body, Boswell, must intrude to put it in a brawl. The Dillys were dissenters; two of their guests were dissenting clergymen ; another, Mr. Toplady, was a clergyman of the established church. Johnson himself was a zealous uncompromising churchman. Goldsmith mingled a little in the dispute, and with some advantage, but was cut short by flat contradictions when most in the right. He sat for a short time silent, but impatient, under such overbearing dogmatism, though Boswell, with his usual misinterpretation, attributes his restless agitation to a wish to get in and shine. "Finding himself excluded," continues Boswell, "he had taken his hat to go away, but remained for a time with it in his hand, like a gamester, who, at the end of a long night, lingers for a little while to see if he can have a favourable opportunity to finish with success." Once he was beginning to speak, when he was overpowered by the loud voice of

Johnson, who was at the opposite end of the table, and did not perceive his attempt; whereupon he threw down, as it were, his hat and his argument, and darting an angry glance at Johnson, exclaimed in a bitter tone, " Take it."

Just then one of the disputants was beginning to speak, when Johnson uttered some sound, as if about to interrupt him, Goldsmith, according to Boswell, seized the opportunity to vent his own envy and spleen, under pretext of supporting another person. "Sir," said he, to Johnson, "the gentleman has heard you patiently for an hour; pray allow us now to hear him." It was a reproof in Johnson's own style, and he may have felt that he merited it; but he was not accustomed to be reproved. 66 Sir," said he, sternly, "I was not interrupting the gentleman; I was only giving him a signal of my attention. Sir, you are impertinent." Goldsmith made no reply, but after some time went away, having another engagement.

That evening, as Boswell was on the way with Johnson and Langton to the Club, he seized the occasion to make some disparaging remarks on Goldsmith, which he thought would just then be acceptable to Johnson. "It was a pity," he said, "that Goldsmith would, on every occasion, endeavour to shine, by which he so often exposed himself." Langton contrasted him with Addison, who, content with the fame of his writings, acknowledged himself unfit for conversation; and, on being taxed by a lady with silence in company, replied, "Madam, I have but ninepence in ready money, but I can draw for a thousand pounds." To this Boswell rejoined, that Goldsmith had a great deal of gold in his cabinet, but was always taking out his purse. Yes, sir," chuckled Johnson, "and that so often an empty purse.'

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By the time Johnson arrived at the Club, however, his angry feelings had subsided, and his native generosity and sense of justice had got the uppermost. He found Goldsmith in company with Burke, Garrick, and other members, but sitting silent and apart, "brooding," as Boswell says, over the reprimand he had received." Johnson's good heart yearned towards him; and knowing his placable nature, "I'll make Goldsmith forgive me," whispered he; then, with a loud voice, "Dr. Goldsmith," said he, "something passed to-day where you and I dined-I ask your pardon." The ire of the poet was extinguished in an instant, and his grateful affection for the magnanimous, though sometimes overbearing

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moralist rushed to his heart. "It must be much from sir," said he, "that I take ill!" 'And so," adds Boswell, "the difference was over, and they were on as easy terms as ever, and Goldsmith rattled away as usual."

At another meeting, Johnson spoke disparagingly of the learning of a Mr. Harris, of Salisbury, and doubted his being a good Grecian.* "He is what is much better," cried Goldsmith, with prompt goodnature, "he is a worthy, humane man." "Nay, sir," rejoined the logical Johnson, "that is not to the purpose of our argument; that will prove that he can play upon the fiddle as well as Giardini, as that he is an eminent Grecian." Goldsmith found he had got into a scrape, and seized upon Giardini to help him out of it. "The greatest musical performers," said he, dexterously turning the conversation, "have but small emoluments; Giardini, I am told, does not get above seven hundred a year." "That is indeed but little for a man to get," observed Johnson, "who does best that which so many endeavour to do. There is nothing, I think, in which the power of art is shown so much as in playing on the fiddle."

THE HORNECKS.-"THE JESSAMY BRIDE."

Goldsmith had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a most agreeable family from Devonshire, which he met at the house of his friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds. It consisted of Mrs. Horneck, widow of Captain Kane Horneck; two daughters, seventeen and nineteen years of age; and an only son Charles, the Captain in Lace, as his sisters called him, he having lately entered the Guards. The daughters were described as uncommonly beautiful, intelligent, sprightly, and agreeable. Catherine, the eldest, went among her friends by the name of Little Comedy: she was engaged to William Henry Bunbury, second son of a Suffolk baronet. The hand and heart of her sister Mary were yet unengaged, although

* James Harris, the celebrated philologist, best known by his Hermes, or a Philosophical Inquiry concerning Language and Universal Grammar, a work which Lowth characterized as one of the most beautiful pieces of analysis which had appeared since the days of Aristotle. For fourteen years he did little else than study the Greek and Latin authors with the greatest diligence. Goldsmith's estimate of his private charac ter was well founded; it was excellent, and his son's admiration for him proves that his moral nature was so perfect as to secure the respect of those who had the best possible opportunity of judging it.

she bore the byname among her friends of the Jessamy Bride. This family were prepared, by their intimacy with Reynolds, to appreciate the merits of Goldsmith: they were delighted with his guileless simplicity, his buoyant goodnature, and innate benevolence, and an enduring intimacy soon sprang up between them. For once poor Goldsmith had met with lovely women, to whom his ugly features were not repulsive. A proof of the easy and playful terms on which he was with them, remains in a whimsical epistle in verse, of which the following was the occasion. A dinner was to be given to their family, by a Dr. Baker, a friend of their mother's, at which Reynolds and Angelica Kauffmann were to be present. The young ladies were eager to have Goldsmith of the party, and their intimacy with Dr. Baker allowing them to take the liberty, they wrote a joint invitation to the poet at the last moment. It came too late, and drew from him the following reply; on the top of which was scrawled, "This is a poem! This is a copy of verses!"

"Your mandate I got,
You may all go to pot;
Had your senses been right,
You'd have sent before night-
So tell Horneck and Nesbitt,
And Baker and his bit,
And Kauffmann beside,
And the Jessamy Bride,
With the rest of the crew,
The Reynoldses too,

Little Comedy's face,

And the Captain in Lace-
Tell each other to rue
Your Devonshire crew,
For sending so late
To one of my state.
But 'tis Reynolds's way
From wisdom to stray,
And Angelica's whim
To befrolic like him:

But alas! your good worships, how could they be wiser,
When both have been spoil'd in to-day's Advertiser !” *

It has been intimated that the intimacy of poor Goldsmith with the Miss Hornecks, which began in so sprightly a vein, gradually assumed something of a more tender nature, and

*The following lines had appeared in that day's Advertiser, on the portrait of Sir Joshua, by Angelica Kauffmann :

"While fair Angelica, with matchless grace,

Paints Conway's burly form and Stanhope's face;
Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay,
We praise, admire, and gaze our souls away.
But when the likeness she hath done for thee,
O Reynolds with astonishment we see,
Forced to submit, with all our pride, we own
Such strength, such harmony, excelled by none,
And thou art rivalled by thyself alone."