"It
must be much from you, 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." We do not think these stories tell to
the poet's disadvantage, even though related by Boswell.
Goldsmith, with all his modesty, could not be ignorant of his proper merit;
and must have felt annoyed at times at being undervalued and elbowed aside
by light-minded or dull men, in their blind and exclusive homage to the
literary autocrat. It was a fine reproof he gave to Boswell on one
occasion, for talking of Johnson as entitled to the honor of exclusive
superiority. "Sir, you are for making a monarchy what should be a
republic." On another occasion, when he was conversing in company with
great vivacity, and apparently to the satisfaction of those around him, an
honest Swiss, who sat near, one George Michael Moser, keeper of the Royal
Academy, perceiving Dr. Johnson rolling himself as if about to speak,
exclaimed, "Stay, stay! Toctor Shonson is going to say something." "And are
you sure, sir," replied Goldsmith, sharply, "that _you_ can comprehend
what he says?"
This clever rebuke, which gives the main zest to the anecdote, is omitted
by Boswell, who probably did not perceive the point of it.
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