CHAPTER VII.

Goldsmith followed the direction of her eyes and saw that their object was a man in the uniform of an officer, who was chatting with Mrs. Abingdon. He was a showily handsome man, though his face bore evidence of some dissipated years, and there was an undoubted swagger in his bearing.

Meanwhile Goldsmith watched him. The man caught sight of Miss Horneck and gave a slight start, his jaw falling for an instant—only for an instant, however; then he recovered himself and made an elaborate bow to the girl across the room.

Goldsmith turned to Miss Horneck and perceived that her face had become white; she returned very coldly the man's recognition, and only after the lapse of some seconds. Goldsmith possessed naturally both delicacy of feeling and tact. He did not allow the girl to see that he had been a witness of arencontrewhich evidently was painful to her; but he spoke to her sister, who was amusing her husband by a scarcely noticeable imitation of a certain great lady known to both of them; and, professing himself woefully ignorant as to thepersonnelof the majority of the people who were present, inquired first what was the name of a gentleman wearing a star and talking to a group of apparently interested ladies, and then of the officer whom he had seen make that elaborate bow.

Mrs. Bunbury was able to tell him who was the gentleman with the star, but after glancing casually at the other man, she shook her head.

“I have never seen him before,” she said. “I don't think he can be any one in particular. The people whom we don't know are usually nobodies—until we come to know them.”

“That is quite reasonable,” said he. “It is a distinction to become your friend. It will be remembered in my favour when my efforts as Professor at the Academy are forgotten.”

His last sentence was unheard, for Mrs. Bunbury was giving all her attention to her sister, of whose face she had just caught a glimpse.

“Heavens, child!” she whispered to her, “what is the matter with you?”

“What should be the matter with me?” said Mary. “What, except—oh, this place is stifling! And the managers boasted that it would be cool and well ventilated at all times!”

“My dear girl, you'll be quite right when I take you into the air,” said Bunbury.

“No, no; I do not need to leave the rotunda; I shall be myself in a moment,” said the girl somewhat huskily and spasmodically. “For heaven's sake don't stare so, child,” she added to her sister, making a pitiful attempt to laugh.

“But, my dear——” began Mrs. Bunbury; she was interrupted by Mary.

“Nay,” she cried, “I will not have our mother alarmed, and—well, every one knows what a tongue Mrs. Thrale has. Oh, no; already the faintness has passed away. What should one fear with a doctor in one's company? Come, Dr. Goldsmith, you are a sensible person. You do not make a fuss. Lend me your arm, if you please.”

“With all pleasure in life,” cried Oliver.

He offered her his arm, and she laid her hand upon it. He could feel how greatly she was trembling.

When they had taken a few steps away Mary looked back at her sister and Bunbury and smiled reassuringly at them. Her companion saw that, immediately afterwards, her glance went in the direction of the officer who had bowed to her.

“Take me up to one of the galleries, my dear friend,” she said. “Take me somewhere—some place away from here—any place away from here.”

He brought her to an alcove off one of the galleries where only one sconce with wax candles was alight.

“Why should you tremble, my dear girl?” said he. “What is there to be afraid of? I am your friend—you know that I would die to save you from the least trouble.”

“Trouble? Who said anything about trouble?” she cried. “I am in no trouble—only for the trouble I am giving you, dear Goldsmith. And you did not come in the bloom-tinted coat after all.”

He made no reply to her spasmodic utterances. The long silence was broken only by the playing of the band, following Madame Agujari's song—the hum of voices and laughter from the well-dressed mob in the rotunda and around the galleries.

At last the girl put her hand again upon his arm, saying—

“I wonder what you think of this business, my dear friend—I wonder what you think of your Jessamy Bride.”

“I think nothing but what is good of you, my dear,” said he tenderly. “But if you can tell me of the matter that troubles you, I think I may be able to make you see that it should not be a trouble to you for a moment. Why, what can possibly have happened since we were all so merry in France together?”

“Nothing—nothing has happened—I give you my word upon it,” she said. “Oh, I feel that you are altogether right. I have no cause to be frightened—no cause to be troubled. Why, if it came to fighting, have not I a brother? Ah, I had much better say nothing more. You could not understand—psha! there is nothing to be understood, dear Dr. Goldsmith; girls are foolish creatures.”

“Is it nothing to you that we have been friends so long, dear child?” said he. “Is it not possible for you to let me have your confidence? Think if it be possible, Mary. I am not a wise man where my own affairs are concerned, but I feel that for others—for you, my dear—ah, child, don't you know that if you share a secret trouble with another its poignancy is blunted?”

“I have never had consolation except from you,” said the girl. “But this—this—oh, my friend, by what means did you look into a woman's soul to enable you to write those lines—

'When lovely woman stoops to folly,

And finds too late. . . '?”

There was a long pause before he started up, with his hand pressed to his forehead. He looked at her strangely for a moment, and then walked slowly away from her with his head bent. Before he had taken more than a dozen steps, however, he stopped, and, after another moment of indecision, hastened back to her and offered her his hand, saying—

“I am but a man; I can think nothing of you but what is good.”

“Yes,” she said; “it is only a woman who can think everything that is evil about a woman. It is not by men that women are deceived to their own destruction, but by women.”

She sprang to her feet and laid her hand upon his arm once again.

“Let us go away,” she said. “I am sick of this place. There is no corner of it that is not penetrated by the Agujari's singing. Was there ever any singing so detestable? And they pay her fifty guineas a song! I would pay fifty guineas to get out of earshot of the best of her efforts.” Her laugh had a shrill note that caused it to sound very pitiful to the man who heard it.

He spoke no word, but led her tenderly back to where her mother was standing with Burke and her son.

“I do hope that you have not missed Agujari's last song,” said Mrs. Horneck. “We have been entranced with its melody.”

“Oh, no; I have missed no note of it—no note. Was there ever anything so delicious—so liquid-sweet? Is it not time that we went homeward, mother? I do feel a little tired, in spite of the Agujari.”

“At what an admirable period we have arrived in the world's history!” said Burke. “It is the young miss in these days who insists on her mother's keeping good hours. How wise we are all growing!”

“Mary was always a wise little person,” said Mrs. Horneck.

“Wise? Oh, let us go home!” said the girl wearily.

“Dr. Goldsmith will, I am sure, direct our coach to be called,” said her mother.

Goldsmith bowed and pressed his way to the door, where he told the janitor to call for Mrs. Horneck's coach.

He led Mary out of the rotunda, Burke having gone before with the elder lady. Goldsmith did not fail to notice the look of apprehension on the girl's face as her eyes wandered around the crowd in the porch. He could hear the little sigh of relief that she gave after her scrutiny.

The coach had drawn up at the entrance, and the little party went out into the region of flaring links and pitch-scented smoke. While Goldsmith was in the act of helping Mary Horneck up the steps, he was furtively glancing around, and before she had got into a position for seating herself by the side of her mother, he dropped her hand in so clumsy a way that several of the onlookers laughed. Then he retreated, bowing awkwardly, and, to crown his stupidity, he turned round so rapidly and unexpectedly that he ran violently full-tilt against a gentleman in uniform, who was hurrying to the side of the chariot as if to take leave of the ladies.

The crowd roared as the officer lost his footing for a moment and staggered among the loiterers in the porch, not recovering himself until the vehicle had driven away. Even then Goldsmith, with disordered wig, was barring the way to the coach, profusely apologising for his awkwardness.

“Curse you for a lout!” cried the officer.

Goldsmith put his hat on his head.

“Look you, sir!” he said. “I have offered you my humblest apologies for the accident. If you do not choose to accept them, you have but got to say as much and I am at your service. My name is Goldsmith, sir—Oliver Goldsmith—and my friend is Mr. Edmund Burke. I flatter myself that we are both as well known and of as high repute as yourself, whoever you may be.”

The onlookers in the porch laughed, those outside gave an encouraging cheer, while the chairmen and linkmen, who were nearly all Irish, shouted “Well done, your Honour! The little Doctor and Mr. Burke forever!” For both Goldsmith and Burke were as popular with the mob as they were in society.

While Goldsmith stood facing the scowling officer, an elderly gentleman, in the uniform of a general and with his breast covered with orders, stepped out from the side of the porch and shook Oliver by the hand. Then he turned to his opponent, saying—

“Dr. Goldsmith is my friend, sir. If you have any quarrel with him you can let me hear from you. I am General Oglethorpe.”

“Or if it suits you better, sir,” said another gentleman coming to Goldsmith's side, “you can send your friend to my house. My name is Lord Clare.”

“My Lord,” cried the man, bowing with a little swagger, “I have no quarrel with Dr. Goldsmith. He has no warmer admirer than myself. If in the heat of the moment I made use of any expression that one gentleman might not make use of toward another, I ask Dr. Goldsmith's pardon. I have the honour to wish your Lordship good-night.”

He bowed and made his exit.

When Goldsmith reached his chambers in Brick Court, he found awaiting him a letter from Colman, the lessee of Covent Garden Theatre, to let him know that Woodward and Mrs. Abington had resigned their parts in his comedy which had been in rehearsal for a week, and that he, Colman, felt they were right in doing so, as the failure of the piece was so inevitable. He hoped that Dr. Goldsmith would be discreet enough to sanction its withdrawal while its withdrawal was still possible.

He read this letter—one of several which he had received from Colman during the week prophesying disaster—without impatience, and threw it aside without a further thought. He had no thought for anything save the expression that had been on the face of Mary Horneck as she had spoken his lines—

“When lovely woman stoops to folly,

And finds too late....”

“Too late——” She had not got beyond those words. Her voice had broken, as he had often believed that his beloved Olivia's voice had broken, when trying to sing her song in which a woman's despair is enshrined for all ages. Her voice had broken, though not with the stress of tears. It would not have been so full of despair if tears had been in her eyes. Where there are tears there is hope. But her voice....

What was he to believe? What was he to think regarding that sweet girl who had, since the first day he had known her, treated him as no other human being had ever treated him? The whole family of the Hornecks had shown themselves to be his best friends. They insisted on his placing himself on the most familiar footing in regard to their house, and when Little Comedy married she maintained the pleasant intimacy with him which had begun at Sir Joshua Reynolds's dinner-table. The days that he spent at the Bunburys' house at Barton were among the pleasantest of his life.

But, fond though he was of Mrs. Bun-bury, her sister Mary, his “Jessamy Bride,” drew him to her by a deeper and warmer affection. He had felt from the first hour of meeting her that she understood his nature—that in her he had at last found some one who could give him the sympathy which he sought. More than once she had proved to him that she recognised the greatness of his nature—his simplicity, his generosity, the tenderness of his heart for all things that suffered, his trustfulness, that caused him to be so frequently imposed upon, his intolerance of hypocrisy and false sentiment, though false sentiment was the note of the most successful productions of the day. Above all, he felt that she recognised his true attitude in relation to English literature. If he was compelled to work in uncongenial channels in order to earn his daily bread, he himself never forgot what he owed to English literature. How nobly he discharged this debt his “Traveller,” “The Vicar of Wakefield,” “The Deserted Village,” and “The Good Natured Man” testified at intervals. He felt that he was the truest poet, the sincerest dramatist, of the period, and he never allowed the work which he was compelled to do for the booksellers to turn him aside from his high aims.

It was because Mary Horneck proved to him daily that she understood what his aims were he regarded her as different from all the rest of the world. She did not talk to him of sympathising with him, but she understood him and sympathised with him.

As he lay back in his chair now asking himself what he should think of her, he recalled every day that he had passed in her company, from the time of their first meeting at Reynolds's house until he had accompanied her and her mother and sister on the tour through France. He remembered how, the previous year, she had stirred his heart on returning from a long visit to her native Devonshire by a clasp of the hand and a look of gratitude, as she spoke the name of the book which he had sent to her with a letter. “The Vicar of Wakefield” was the book, and she had said—

“You can never, never know what it has been to me—what it has done for me.” Her eyes had at that time been full of tears of gratitude—of affection, and the sound of her voice and the sight of her liquid eyes had overcome him. He knew there was a bond between them that would not be easily severed.

0105

But there were no tears in her eyes as she spoke the words of Olivia's song.

What was he to think of her?

One moment she had been overflowing with girlish merriment, and then, on glancing across the hall, her face had become pale and her mood had changed from one of merriment to one of despair—the despair of a bird that finds itself in the net of the fowler.

What was he to think of her?

He would not wrong her by a single thought. He thought no longer of her, but of the man whose sudden appearance before her eyes had, he felt certain, brought about her change of mood.

It was his certainty of feeling on this matter that had caused him to guard her jealously from the approach of that man, and, when he saw him going toward the coach, to prevent his further advance by the readiest means in his power. He had had no time to elaborate any scheme to keep the man away from Mary Horneck, and he had been forced to adopt the most rudimentary scheme to carry out his purpose.

Well, he reflected upon the fact that if the scheme was rudimentary it had proved extremely effective. He had kept the man apart from the girls, and he only regretted that the man had been so easily led to regard the occurrence as an accident. He would have dearly liked to run the man through some vital part.

What was that man to Mary Horneck that she should be in terror at the very sight of him? That was the question which presented itself to him, and his too vivid imagination had no difficulty in suggesting a number of answers to it, but through all he kept his word to her: he thought no ill of her. He could not entertain a thought of her that was not wholly good. He felt that her concern was on account of some one else who might be in the power of that man. He knew how generous she was—how sympathetic. He had told her some of his own troubles, and though he did so lightly, as was his custom, she had been deeply affected on hearing of them. Might it not then be that the trouble which affected her was not her own, but another's?

Before he went to bed he had brought himself to take this view of the incident of the evening, and he felt much easier in his mind.

Only he felt a twinge of regret when he reflected that the fellow whose appearance had deprived Mary Horneck of an evening's pleasure had escaped with no greater inconvenience than would be the result of an ordinary shaking. His contempt for the man increased as he recalled how he had declined to prolong the quarrel. If he had been anything of a man he would have perceived that he was insulted, not by accident but design, and would have been ready to fight.

Whatever might be the nature of Mary Horneck's trouble, the killing of the man would be a step in the right direction.

It was not until his servant, John Eyles, had awakened him in the morning that he recollected receiving a letter from Colman which contained some unpleasant news. He could not at first remember the details of the news, but he was certain that on receiving it he had a definite idea that it was unpleasant. When he now read Colman's letter for the second time he found that his recollection of his first impression was not at fault. It was just his luck: no man was in the habit of writing more joyous letters or receiving more depressing than Goldsmith.

He hurried off to the theatre and found Colman in his most disagreeable mood. The actor and actress who had resigned their parts were just those to whom he was looking, Colman declared, to pull the play through. He could not, however, blame them, he frankly admitted. They were, he said, dependent for a livelihood upon their association with success on the stage, and it could not be otherwise than prejudicial to their best interests to be connected with a failure.

This was too much, even for the long suffering Goldsmith.

“Is it not somewhat premature to talk of the failure of a play that has not yet been produced, Mr. Colman?” he said.

“It might be in respect to most plays, sir,” replied Colman; “but in regard to this particular play, I don't think that one need be afraid to anticipate by a week or two the verdict of the playgoers. Two things in this world are inevitable, sir: death and the damning of your comedy.”

“I shall try to bear both with fortitude,” said Goldsmith quietly, though he was inwardly very indignant with the manager for his gratuitous predictions of failure—predictions which from the first his attitude in regard to the play had contributed to realise. “I should like to have a talk with Mrs. Abington and Woodward,” he added.

“They are in the green room,” said the manager. “I must say that I was in hope, Dr. Goldsmith, that your critical judgment of your own work would enable you to see your way to withdraw it.”

“I decline to withdraw it, sir,” said Goldsmith.

“I have been a manager now for some years,” said Colman, “and, speaking from the experience which I have gained at this theatre, I say without hesitation that I never had a piece offered to me which promised so complete a disaster as this, sir. Why, 'tis like no other comedy that was ever wrote.”

“That is a feature which I think the playgoers will not be slow to appreciate,” said Goldsmith. “Good Lord! Mr. Colman, cannot you see that what the people want nowadays is a novelty?”

“Ay, sir; but there are novelties and novelties, and this novelty of yours is not to their taste.'T is not a comedy of the pothouse that's the novelty genteel people want in these days; and mark my words, sir, the bringing on of that vulgar young boor—what's the fellow's name?—Lumpkin, in his pothouse, and the unworthy sneers against the refinement and sensibility of the period—the fellow who talks of his bear only dancing to the genteelest of tunes—all this, Dr. Goldsmith, I pledge you my word and reputation as a manager, will bring about an early fall of the curtain.”

“An early fall of the curtain?”

“Even so, sir; for the people in the house will not permit another scene beyond that of your pothouse to be set.”

“Let me tell you, Mr. Colman, that the Three Pigeons is an hostelry, not a pothouse.”

“The playgoers will damn it if it were e'en a Bishop's palace.”

“Which you think most secure against such a fate. Nay, sir, let us not apply the doctrine of predestination to a comedy. Men have gone mad through believing that they had no chance of being saved from the Pit. Pray let not us take so gloomy a view of the hereafter of our play.”

“Ofyourplay, sir, by your leave. I have no mind to accept even a share of its paternity, though I know that I cannot escape blame for having anything to do with its production.”

“If you are so anxious to decline the responsibilities of a father in respect to it, sir, I must beg that you will not feel called upon to act with the cruelty of a step-father towards it.”

Goldsmith bowed in his pleasantest manner as he left the manager's office and went to the green room.

The attitude of Colman in regard to the comedy was quite in keeping with the traditions of the stage of the eighteenth century, nor was it so contrary to the traditions of the nineteenth century. Colman, like the rest of his profession—not even excepting Garrick—possessed only a small amount of knowledge as to what playgoers desired to have presented to them. Whatever successes he achieved were certainly not due to his own acumen. He had no idea that audiences had grown tired of stilted blank verse tragedies and comedies constructed on the most conventional lines, with plentiful allusions to heathen deities, but a plentiful lack of human nature. Such plays had succeeded in his hands previously, and he could see no reason why he should substitute for them anything more natural. He had no idea that playgoers were ready to hail with pleasure a comedy founded upon scenes of everyday life, not upon the spurious sentimentality of an artificial age.

He had produced “The Good Natured Man” some years before, and had made money by the transaction. But the shrieks of the shallow critics who had condemned the introduction of the low-life personages into that play were still ringing in his ears; so, when he found that the leading characteristics of these personages were not only introduced but actually intensified in the new comedy, which the author had named provisionally “The Mistakes of a Night,” he at first declined to have anything to do with it. But, fortunately, Goldsmith had influential friends—friends who, like Dr. Johnson and Bishop Percy, had recognised his genius when he was living in a garret and before he had written anything beyond a few desultory essays—and they brought all their influence to bear upon the Covent Garden manager. He accepted the comedy, but laid it aside for several months, and only grudgingly, at last, consented to put it in rehearsal.

Daily, when Goldsmith attended the rehearsals, the manager did his best to depreciate the piece, shaking his head over some scenes, shrugging his shoulders over others, and asking the author if he actually meant to allow certain portions of the dialogue to be spoken as he had written them.

This attitude would have discouraged a man less certain of his position than Goldsmith. It did not discourage him, however, but its effect was soon perceptible upon the members of the company. They rehearsed in a half-hearted way, and accepted Goldsmith's suggestions with demur.

At the end of a week Gentleman Smith, who had been cast for Young Marlow, threw up the part, and Colman inquired of Goldsmith if he was serious in his intention to continue rehearsing the piece. In a moment Goldsmith assured him that he meant to perform his part of the contract with the manager, and that he would tolerate no backing out of that same contract by the manager. At his friend Shuter's suggestion, the part was handed over to Lee Lewes.

After this, it might at least have been expected that Colman would make the best of what he believed to be a bad matter, and give the play every chance of success. On the contrary, however, he was stupid even for the manager of a theatre, and was at the pains to decry the play upon every possible occasion. Having predicted failure for it, he seemed determined to do his best to cause his prophecies to be realized. At rehearsal he provoked Goldsmith almost beyond endurance by his sneers, and actually encouraged the members of his own company in their frivolous complaints regarding their dialogue. He spoke the truth to Goldsmith when he said he was not surprised that Woodward and Mrs. Abington had thrown up their parts: he would have been greatly surprised if they had continued rehearsing.

When the unfortunate author now entered the green room, the buzz of conversation which had been audible outside ceased in an instant. He knew that he had formed the subject of the conversation, and he could not doubt what was its nature. For a moment he was tempted to turn round and go back to Colman in order to tell him that he would withdraw the play. The temptation lasted but a moment, however: the spirit of determination which had carried him through many difficulties—that spirit which Reynolds appreciated and had embodied in his portrait—came to his aid. He walked boldly into the green room and shook hands with both Woodward and Mrs. Abington.

“I am greatly mortified at the news which I have just had from Mr. Colman,” he said; “but I am sure that you have not taken this serious step without due consideration, so I need say no more about it. Mr. Colman will be unable to attend this rehearsal, but he is under an agreement with me to produce my comedy within a certain period, and he will therefore sanction any step I may take on his behalf. Mr. Quick will, I hope, honour me by reading the part of Tony Lumpkin and Mrs. Bulk-ley that of Miss Hardcastle, so that there need be no delay in the rehearsal.”

The members of the company were somewhat startled by the tone adopted by the man who had previously been anything but fluent in his speech, and who had submitted with patience to the sneers of the manager. They now began to perceive something of the character of the man whose life had been a fierce struggle with adversity, but who even in his wretched garret knew what was due to himself and to his art, and did not hesitate to kick downstairs the emissary from the government that offered him employment as a libeller.

“Sir,” cried the impulsive Mrs. Bulkley, putting out her hand to him—“Sir, you are not only a genius, you are a man as well, and it will not be my fault if this comedy of yours does not turn out a success. You have been badly treated, Dr. Goldsmith, and you have borne your ill-treatment nobly. For myself, sir, I say that I shall be proud to appear in your piece.”

“Madam,” said Goldsmith, “you overwhelm me with your kindness. As for ill-treatment, I have nothing to complain of so far as the ladies and gentlemen of the company are concerned, and any one who ventures to assert that I bear ill-will toward Mr. Woodward and Mrs. Abington I shall regard as having put an affront upon me. Before a fortnight has passed I know that they will be overcome by chagrin at their rejection of the opportunity that was offered them of being associated with the success of this play, for it will be a success, in spite of the untoward circumstances incidental to its birth.”

He bowed several times around the company, and he did it so awkwardly that he immediately gained the sympathy and good-will of all the actors: they reflected how much better they could do it, and that, of course, caused them to feel well disposed towards Goldsmith.

“You mean to give the comedy another name, sir, I think,” said Shuter, who was cast for the part of Old Hardcastle.

“You may be sure that a name will be forthcoming,” said Goldsmith. “Lord, sir, I am too good a Christian not to know that if an accident was to happen to my bantling before it is christened it would be damned to a certainty.”

The rehearsal this day was the most promising that had yet taken place. Col-man did not put in an appearance, consequently the disheartening influence of his presence was not felt. The broadly comical scenes were acted with some spirit, and though it was quite apparent to Goldsmith that none of the company believed that the play would be a success, yet the members did not work, as they had worked hitherto, on the assumption that its failure was inevitable.

On the whole, he left the theatre with a lighter heart than he had had since the first rehearsal. It was not until he returned to his chambers to dress for the evening that he recollected he had not yet arrived at a wholly satisfactory solution of the question which had kept him awake during the greater part of the night.

The words that Mary Horneck had spoken and the look there was in her eyes at the same moment had yet to be explained.

He seated himself at his desk with his hand to his head, his elbow resting on a sheet of paper placed ready for his pen. After half-an-hour's thought his hand went mechanically to his tray of pens. Picking one up with a sigh, he began to write.

Verse after verse appeared upon the paper—the love-song of a man who feels that love is shut out from his life for evermore, but whose only consolation in life is love.

After an hour's fluent writing he laid down the pen and once again rested his head on his hand. He had not the courage to read what he had written. His desk was full of such verses, written with unaffected sincerity when every one around him was engaged in composing verses which were regarded worthy of admiration only in proportion as they were artificial.

He wondered, as he sat there, what would be the result of his sending to Mary Horneck one of those poems which his heart had sung to her. Would she be shocked at his presumption in venturing to love her? Would his delightful relations with her and her family be changed when it became known that he had not been satisfied with the friendship which he had enjoyed for some years, but had hoped for a response to his deeper feeling?

His heart sank as he asked himself the question.

“How is it that I seem ridiculous as a lover even to myself?” he muttered. “Why has God laid upon me the curse of being a poet? A poet is the chronicler of the loves of others, but it is thought madness should he himself look for the consolation of love. It is the irony of life that the man who is most capable of deep feeling should be forced to live in loneliness. How the world would pity a great painter who was struck blind—a great orator struck dumb! But the poet shut out from love receives no pity—no pity on earth—no pity in heaven.”

He bowed his head down to his hands, and remained in that attitude for an hour. Then he suddenly sprang to his feet. He caught up the paper which he had just covered with verses, and was in the act of tearing it. He did not tear the sheet quite across, however; it fell from his hand to the desk and lay there, a slight current of air from a window making the torn edge rise and fall as though it lay upon the beating heart of a woman whose lover was beside her—that was what the quivering motion suggested to the poet who watched it.

“And I would have torn it in pieces and made a ruin of it!” he said. “Alas! alas! for the poor torn, fluttering heart!”

He dressed himself and went out, but to none of his accustomed haunts, where he would have been certain to meet with some of the distinguished men who were rejoiced to be regarded as his friends. In his mood he knew that friendship could afford him no solace.

He knew that to offer a man friendship when love is in his heart is like giving a loaf of bread to one who is dying of thirst.

For the next two days Goldsmith was fully occupied making such changes in his play as were suggested to him in the course of the rehearsals. The alterations were not radical, but he felt that they would be improvements, and his judgment was rarely at fault. Moreover, he was quick to perceive in what direction the strong points and the weak points of the various members of the company lay, and he had no hesitation in altering the dialogue so as to give them a better chance of displaying their gifts. But not a line of what Colman called the “pot-house scene” would he change, not a word of the scene where the farm servants are being trained to wait at table would he allow to be omitted.

Colman declined to appear upon the stage during the rehearsals. He seems to have spent all his spare time walking from coffee house to coffee house talking about the play, its vulgarity, and the certainty of the fate that was in store for it. It would have been impossible, had he not adopted this remarkable course, for the people of the town to become aware, as they certainly did, what were his ideas regarding the comedy. When it was produced with extraordinary success, the papers held the manager up to ridicule daily for his false predictions, and every day a new set of lampoons came from the coffee-house wits on the same subject.

But though the members of the company rehearsed the play loyally, some of them were doubtful about the scene at the Three Pigeons, and did not hesitate to express their fears to Goldsmith. They wondered if he might not see his way to substitute for that scene one which could not possibly be thought offensive by any section of playgoers. Was it not a pity, one of them asked him, to run a chance of failure when it might be so easily avoided?

To all of these remonstrances he had but one answer: the play must stand or fall by the scenes which were regarded as ungenteel. He had written it, he said, for the sake of expressing his convictions through the medium of these particular scenes, and he was content to accept the verdict of the playgoers on the point in question. Why he had brought on those scenes so early in the play was that the playgoers might know not to expect a sentimental piece, but one that was meant to introduce a natural school of comedy, with no pretence to be anything but a copy of the manners of the day, with no fine writing in the dialogue, but only the broadest and heartiest fun.

“If the scenes are ungenteel,” said he, “it is because nature is made up of ungenteel things. Your modern gentleman is, to my mind, much less interesting than your ungenteel person; and I believe that Tony Lumpkin when admirably represented, as he will be by Mr. Quick, will be a greater favourite with all who come to the playhouse than the finest gentleman who ever uttered an artificial sentiment to fall exquisitely on the ear of a boarding-school miss. So, by my faith! I'll not interfere with his romping.”

He was fluent and decisive on this point, as he was on every other point on which he had made up his mind. He only stammered and stuttered when he did not know what he was about to say, and this frequently arose from his over-sensitiveness in regard to the feelings of others—a disability which could never be laid to the charge of Dr. Johnson, who was, in consequence, delightfully fluent.

On the evening of the third rehearsal of the play with the amended cast, he went to Reynolds's house in Leicester Square to dine. He knew that the Horneck family would be there, and he looked forward with some degree of apprehension to his meeting with Mary. He felt that she might think he looked for some explanation of her strange words spoken when he was by her side at the Pantheon. But he wanted no explanation from her. The words still lay as a burden upon his heart, but he felt that it would pain her to attempt an explanation of them, and he was quite content that matters should remain as they were. Whatever the words might have meant, it was impossible that they could mean anything that might cause him to think of her with less reverence and affection.

He arrived early at Reynolds's house, but it did not take him long to find out that he was not the first arrival. From the large drawingroom there came to his ears the sound of laughter—such laughter as caused him to remark to the servant—

“I perceive that Mr. Garrick is already in the house, Ralph.”

“Mr. Garrick has been here with the young ladies for the past half-hour, sir,” replied Ralph.

“I shouldn't wonder if, on inquiry, it were found that he has been entertaining them,” said Goldsmith.

Ralph, who knew perfectly well what was the exact form that the entertainment assumed, busied himself hanging up the visitor's hat.

The fact was that, for the previous quarter of an hour, Garrick had been keeping Mary Horneck and her sister, and even Miss Reynolds, in fits of laughter by his burlesque account of Goldsmith's interview with an amanuensis who had been recommended to him with a view of saving him much manual labour. Goldsmith had told him the story originally, and the imagination of Garrick was quite equal to the duty of supplying all the details necessary for the burlesque. He pretended to be the amanuensis entering the room in which Goldsmith was supposed to be seated working laboriously at his “Animated Nature.”

“Good morning, sir, good morning,” he cried, pretending to take off his gloves and shake the dust off them with the most perfect self-possession, previous to laying them in his hat on a chair. “Now mind you don't sit there, Dr. Goldsmith,” he continued, raising a warning finger. A little motion of his body, and the pert amanuensis, with his mincing ways, was transformed into the awkward Goldsmith, shy and self-conscious in the presence of a stranger, hastening with clumsy politeness to get him a chair, and, of course, dragging forward the very one on which the man had placed his hat. “Now, now, now, what are you about?”—once more Garrick was the amanuensis. “Did not I warn you to be careful about that chair, sir? Eh? I only told you not to sit in it? Sir, that excuse is a mere quibble—a mere quibble. This must not occur again, or I shall be forced to dismiss you, and where will you be then, my good sir? Now to business, Doctor; but first you will tell your man to make me a cup of chocolate—with milk, sir—plenty of milk, and two lumps of sugar—plantation sugar, sir; I flatter myself that I am a patriot—none of your foreign manufactures for me. And now that I think on't, your laundress would do well to wash and iron my ruffles for me; and mind you tell her to be careful of the one with the tear in it”—this shouted half-way out of the door through which he had shown Goldsmith hurrying with the ruffles and the order for the chocolate. Then came the monologue of the amanuensis strolling about the room, passing his sneering remarks at the furniture—opening a letter which had just come by post, and reading itsotto voce. It was supposed to be from Filby, the tailor, and to state that the field-marshal's uniform in which Dr. Goldsmith meant to appear at the next masked ball at the Haymarket would be ready in a few days, and to inquire if Dr. Goldsmith had made up his mind as to the exact orders which he meant to wear, ending with a compliment upon Dr. Goldsmith's good taste and discrimination in choosing a costume which was so well adapted to his physique, and a humble suggestion that it should be worn upon the occasion of the first performance of the new comedy, when the writer hoped no objection would be raised to the hanging of a board in front of the author's box with “Made by Filby” printed on it.

Garrick's reading of the imaginary letter, stumbling over certain words—giving an odd turn and a ludicrous misreading to a phrase here and there, and finally his turning over the letter and mumbling a postscript alluding to the length of time that had passed since the writer had received a payment on account, could not have been surpassed. The effect of the comedy upon the people in the room was immeasurably heightened by the entrance of Goldsmith in the flesh, when Garrick, as the amanuensis, immediately walked to him gravely with the scrap of paper which had done duty as the letter, in his hand, asking him if what was written there in black and white about the field-marshal's uniform was correct, and if he meant to agree to Filby's request to wear it on the first night of the comedy.

Goldsmith perceived that Garrick was giving an example of the impromptu entertainment in which he delighted, and at once entered into the spirit of the scene, saying-“Why, yes, sir; I have come to the conclusion that more credit should be given to a man who has brought to a successful issue a campaign against the prejudices and stupidities of the manager of a playhouse than to the generalissimo of an army in the field, so why should not I wear a field-marshal's uniform, sir?”

The laugh was against Garrick, which pleased him greatly, for he knew that Goldsmith would feel that he was sharing in the entertainment, and would not regard it as a burlesque upon himself personally. In an instant, however, the actor had ceased to be the supercilious amanuensis, and became David Garrick, crying—

“Nay, sir, you are out of the play altogether. You are presuming to reply to the amanuensis, which, I need scarcely tell a gentleman of your experience, is a preposterous idea, and out of all consistency with nature.”

Goldsmith had shaken hands with all his friends, and being quite elated at the success of his reply to the brilliant Garrick, did not mind much what might follow.

At what did actually follow Goldsmith laughed as heartily as any one in the room.

“Come, sir,” said the amanuensis, “we have no time to waste over empty civilities. We have our 'Animated Nature' to proceed with; we cannot keep the world waiting any longer; it matters not about the booksellers, 'tis the world we think of. What is this?”—picking up an imaginary paper—“'The derivation of the name of the elephant has taxed the ingeniousness of many able writers, but there can be no doubt in the mind of any one who has seen that noble creature, as I have, in its native woods, careering nimbly from branch to branch of the largest trees in search of the butterflies, which form its sole food, that the name elephant is but a corruption of elegant, the movements of the animal being as singularly graceful as its shape is in accordance with all accepted ideas of symmetry.' Sir, this is mighty fine, but your style lacks animation. A writer on 'Animated Nature' should be himself both animated and natural, as one who translates Buffon should himself be a buffoon.”

In this strain of nonsense Garrick went on for the next ten minutes, leading up to a simulated dispute between Goldsmith and his amanuensis as to whether a dog lived on land or water. The dispute waxed warmer and warmer, until at last blows were exchanged and the amanuensis kicked Goldsmith through the door and down the stairs. The bumping of the imaginary man from step to step was heard in the drawing-room, and then the amanuensis entered, smiling and rubbing his hands as he remarked—

“The impertinent fellow! To presume to dictate to his amanuensis! Lord! what's the world coming to when a common literary man presumes to dictate to his amanuensis?”

Such buffoonery was what Garrick loved. At Dr. Burney's new house, around the corner in St. Martin's street, he used to keep the household in roars of laughter—as one delightful member of the household has recorded—over his burlesque auctions of books, and his imitations of Dr. Johnson.

“And all this,” said Goldsmith, “came out of the paltry story which I told him of how I hired an amanuensis, but found myself dumb the moment he sat down to work, so that, after making a number of excuses which I knew he saw through, I found it to my advantage to give the man a guinea and send him away.”

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