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Article ANECDOTES OF DR. GOLDSMITH. ← Page 2 of 8 →
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Anecdotes Of Dr. Goldsmith.
Sad he known what a posthumous rod t was in store , He ne ' er would have ventured to make his eyes sore , --But sav'd those dear drops for some future surprise , Perhaps to dissolve at — J A f ' / ord lo the ( Vise . " Having now conducted our author to the grave , we shall close this account with some detached anecdotes of himwhich , though we
, could not regularly weave into his history , will perhaps best elucidate his character . Though Goldsmith had justly established his fame as a good prose writer as well as poet , yet it was well known to those who lived with him , that in conversation he was much under the par of his general abilities . In writing he collected the full force of his mindand
, it bore him triumphantly through in most of his designs . But this effort spent , he seemed to relax in the reverse proportion . He expressed himself upon common subjects with a plainness bordering upon rusticity , and often in words very ill chosen . He rather cultivated ( than endeavoured to get rid of ) his brogue , and was srji very simple in his manners , and so totally free from what is
commonly called the knowledge of the world , that he would have been a constant object of Gullibility , was he not protected in a great degree by the fame and lustre of his authorship . Garriclc , who knew him well , has given us this part of his character in the following little epitaph , which he wrote one night , impromptu , at the clubj after the Doctor had finished one of his rhodomontade stories : " Here rests in this mold , the remains of dear Noll , " Who wrote like an angel , but spoke like poor Poll . "
Goldsmith was stung to the heart at the laugh which this little ! jeu d' esprit occasioned ; and this gave him the first hint of "ReJ taliation , " when the poet paid back the player in his own coin and with full interest . When Goldsmith grew into notice as an author , his levees werd every morning crowded with people of all descriptions ; some front interest ; some from friendship and a congeniality of taste ; and
others from the vanity of attaching themselves to men of fame , ; conscious that they have no sources of notoriety in themselves . Iii this group there was seldom wantingsome distressed brother-authors ; and amongst those who distinguished themselves for a constancy ^ - were , a man of the name of Pmdon , Jack Pilkih . gton the son of the celebrated Letitia Pilkington , and Dr . Paul Hiffernan ; men neither
destitute of genius nor scholarship , but , seduced by the love of indolence and pleasure , chose rather to pay the forfeit of those vices ( living by meannesses and upon charity ) than turn their talents td that account which would have ensured them some degree of fame and a certain independence . Pilkington had been a pensioner of ' 'f Retaliation , a poem of Goldsmith ' s , published after his death , whereia Kelly is mentioned , not much to the credit of his literary character ! I The title of one of Kelly ' s plays ,
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Anecdotes Of Dr. Goldsmith.
Sad he known what a posthumous rod t was in store , He ne ' er would have ventured to make his eyes sore , --But sav'd those dear drops for some future surprise , Perhaps to dissolve at — J A f ' / ord lo the ( Vise . " Having now conducted our author to the grave , we shall close this account with some detached anecdotes of himwhich , though we
, could not regularly weave into his history , will perhaps best elucidate his character . Though Goldsmith had justly established his fame as a good prose writer as well as poet , yet it was well known to those who lived with him , that in conversation he was much under the par of his general abilities . In writing he collected the full force of his mindand
, it bore him triumphantly through in most of his designs . But this effort spent , he seemed to relax in the reverse proportion . He expressed himself upon common subjects with a plainness bordering upon rusticity , and often in words very ill chosen . He rather cultivated ( than endeavoured to get rid of ) his brogue , and was srji very simple in his manners , and so totally free from what is
commonly called the knowledge of the world , that he would have been a constant object of Gullibility , was he not protected in a great degree by the fame and lustre of his authorship . Garriclc , who knew him well , has given us this part of his character in the following little epitaph , which he wrote one night , impromptu , at the clubj after the Doctor had finished one of his rhodomontade stories : " Here rests in this mold , the remains of dear Noll , " Who wrote like an angel , but spoke like poor Poll . "
Goldsmith was stung to the heart at the laugh which this little ! jeu d' esprit occasioned ; and this gave him the first hint of "ReJ taliation , " when the poet paid back the player in his own coin and with full interest . When Goldsmith grew into notice as an author , his levees werd every morning crowded with people of all descriptions ; some front interest ; some from friendship and a congeniality of taste ; and
others from the vanity of attaching themselves to men of fame , ; conscious that they have no sources of notoriety in themselves . Iii this group there was seldom wantingsome distressed brother-authors ; and amongst those who distinguished themselves for a constancy ^ - were , a man of the name of Pmdon , Jack Pilkih . gton the son of the celebrated Letitia Pilkington , and Dr . Paul Hiffernan ; men neither
destitute of genius nor scholarship , but , seduced by the love of indolence and pleasure , chose rather to pay the forfeit of those vices ( living by meannesses and upon charity ) than turn their talents td that account which would have ensured them some degree of fame and a certain independence . Pilkington had been a pensioner of ' 'f Retaliation , a poem of Goldsmith ' s , published after his death , whereia Kelly is mentioned , not much to the credit of his literary character ! I The title of one of Kelly ' s plays ,