not knowing. He would not keep his knowledge to himself." And, on another occasion, he observes: "Goldsmith, rather than not talk, will talk of what he knows himself to be ignorant, which can only end in exposing him. If in company with two founders, he would fall a-talking on the method of making cannon, though both of them would soon see that he did not know what metal a cannon is made of." And again: "Goldsmith should not be forever attempting to shine in conversation; he has not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails. Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of chance; a man may be beat at times by one who has not the tenth part of his wit. Now Goldsmith, putting himself against another, is like a man laying a hundred to one, who cannot spare the hundred. It is not worth a man's while. A man should not lay a hundred to one unless he can easily spare it, though he has a hundred chances for him; he can get but a guinea, and he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this state. When he contends, if he gets the better, it is a very little addition to a man of his literary reputation; if he does not get the better, he is miserably vexed." Johnson was not aware how much he was himself to blame in producing this vexation. "Goldsmith," said Miss Reynolds, "always appeared to be overawed by Johnson, particularly when in company with people of any consequence; always as if impressed with fear of disgrace; and indeed well he might. I have been wit FABLE OF THE LITTLE FISHES. 221 ness to many mortifications he has suffered in Dr. Johnson's company." It may not have been disgrace that he feared, but rudeness. The great lexicographer, spoiled by the homage of society, was still more prone than himself to lose temper when the argument went against him. He could not brook appearing to be worsted, but would attempt to bear down his adversary by the rolling thunder of his periods, and, when that failed, would become downright insulting. Boswell called it "having recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry"; but Goldsmith designated it much more happily. "There is no arguing with Johnson," said he, “for, when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the but-end of it." * In several of the intellectual collisions recorded by Boswell as triumphs of Dr. Johnson, it really appears to us that Goldsmith had the best both of the wit and the argument, and especially of the courtesy and good nature. On one occasion he certainly gave Johnson a capital reproof as to his own colloquial peculiarities. Talking of fables, Goldsmith observed that the animals introduced in them seldom talked in character. "For instance," said he, "the fable of the little fishes, who saw * The following is given by Boswell, as an instance of robust sophistry:-"Once, when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus-'My dear Boswell, let's have no more of this; you'll make nothing of it; I'd rather hear you whistle a Scotch tune." " birds fly over their heads, and, envying them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The skill consists in making them talk like little fishes." Just then observing that Dr. Johnson was shaking his sides and laughing, he immediately added, "Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for, if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales." But though Goldsmith suffered frequent mortifications in society from the overbearing, and sometimes harsh, conduct of Johnson, he always did justice to his benevolence. When royal pensions were granted to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Shebbeare, a punster remarked, that the king had pensioned a she-bear and a he-bear; to which Goldsmith replied, "Johnson, to be sure, has a roughness in his manner, but no man alive has a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear but the skin." Goldsmith, in conversation, shone most when he least thought of shining; when he gave up all effort to appear wise and learned, or to cope with the oracular sententiousness of Johnson, and gave way to his natural impulses. Even Boswell could perceive his merits on these occasions. "For my part," said he, condescendingly, "I like very well to hear honest Goldsmith talk away carelessly;" and many a much wiser man than Boswell delighted in those outpourings of a fertile fancy and a generous heart. In his happy moods, Goldsmith had an artless simplicity and buoyant good-humor, that led BUOYANT GOOD HUMOR. 223 to a thousand amusing blunders and whimsical confessions, much to the entertainment of his intimates; yet in his most thoughtless garrulity there was occasionally the gleam of the gold and the flash of the diamond. CHAPTER XIX. SOCIAL RESORTS. THE SHILLING WHIST-CLUB. A PRACTICAL JOKE. THE HOUGH Goldsmith's pride and ambition led him to mingle occasionally with high society, and to engage in the colloquial conflicts of the learned circle, in both of which he was ill at ease and conscious of being undervalued, yet he had some social resorts in which he indemnified himself for their restraints by indulging his humor without control. One of them was a shilling whist-club, which held its meetings at the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, a place rendered classic, we are told, by a club held there in old times, to which "rare Ben Jonson" had furnished the rules. The company was of a familiar, unceremonious kind, delighting in that very questionable wit which consists in playing off practical jokes upon each other. Of one of these Goldsmith was made the butt. Coming to the club one night in a hackney-coach, he gave the coachman by mistake a guinea instead of a shilling, which he set down at a dead loss, for there was no likelihood, he said, that a fellow of this class would have the honesty to |