What a motley letter! How indicative
of the motley character of the writer! By the bye, the publication of a
splendid mezzotinto engraving of his likeness by Reynolds, was a great
matter of glorification to Goldsmith, especially as it appeared in such
illustrious company. As he was one day walking the streets in a state of
high elation, from having just seen it figuring in the print-shop windows,
he met a young gentleman with a newly married wife hanging on his arm, whom
he immediately recognized for Master Bishop, one of the boys he had petted
and treated with sweetmeats when a humble usher at Milner's school. The
kindly feelings of old times revived, and he accosted him with cordial
familiarity, though the youth may have found some difficulty in recognizing
in the personage, arrayed, perhaps, in garments of Tyrian dye, the dingy
pedagogue of the Milners. "Come, my boy," cried Goldsmith, as if still
speaking to a schoolboy, "Come, Sam, I am delighted to see you. I must
treat you to something--what shall it be? Will you have some apples?"
glancing at an old woman's stall; then, recollecting the print-shop window:
"Sam," said he, "have you seen my picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds? Have you
seen it, Sam? Have you got an engraving?" Bishop was caught; he
equivocated; he had not yet bought it; but he was furnishing his house, and
had fixed upon the place where it was to be hung.
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