ettiest
recollections of Goldsmith's life. She and her beautiful sister, who
married Bunbury, the graceful and humorous amateur artist of those days,
when Gilray had but just begun to try his powers, were among the kindest
and dearest of Goldsmith's many friends, cheered and pitied him, travelled
abroad with him; made him welcome at their home, and gave him many a
pleasant holiday. He bought his finest clothes to figure at their country
house at Barton--he wrote them droll verses. They loved him, laughed at
him, played him tricks and made him happy. He asked for a loan from
Garrick, and Garrick kindly supplied him, to enable him to go to
Barton--but there were to be no more holidays, and only one brief struggle
more for poor Goldsmith--a lock of his hair was taken from the coffin and
given to the Jessamy Bride. She lived quite into our time. Hazlitt saw her
an old lady, but beautiful still, in Northcote's painting-room, who told
the eager critic how proud she always was that Goldsmith had admired her.
The younger Colman has left a touching reminiscence of him (vol. i. 63,
64).

"I was only five years old," he says, "when Goldsmith took me on his knee
one evening whilst he was drinking coffee with my father, and began to
play with me, which amiable act I returned, with the ingratitude of a
peevish brat, by giving him a very smart slap on the face: it must have
been a tingler, for it left the marks of my spiteful paw on his cheek.
This infantile outrage was followed by summary justice, and I was locked
up by my indignant father in an adjoining room to undergo solitary
imprisonment in the dark. Here I began to howl and scream most abominably,
which was no bad step towards my liberation, since those who were not
inclined to pity me might be likely to set me free for the purpose of
abating a nuisance.

"At length a generous friend appeared to extricate me from jeopardy, and
that generous friend was no other than the man I had so wantonly molested
by assault and battery--it was the tender-hearted Doctor himself, with a
lighted candle in his hand, and a smile upon his countenance, which was
still partially red from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and sobbed
as he fondled and soothed, till I began to brighten. Goldsmith seized the
propitious moment of returning good humour, when he put down the candle
and began to conjure. He placed three hats, which happened to be in the
room, and a shilling under each. The shillings he