it either. "Was there ever poet so trusted?" exclaimed Johnson,
after this poet had got beyond reach of his creditors. His difficulties
however affected him as they affect most Irishmen,--only by cataclysms.
He was serene or wretched, but generally the former: he packed _noctes
coenaeque deum_ by the dozen into his life. "There is no man," said
Reynolds, "whose company is more liked." But maybe that was because his
naivete, his brogue, his absent-mindedness, and his blunders (real or
apparent) made him a ready butt for ridicule, not at the hands of
Reynolds or Johnson, but of Beauclerk and the rest. For though his humor
was sly, and his wit inimitable, Goldsmith's conversation was queer. It
seemed to go by contraries. If permitted, he would ramble along in his
hesitating, inconsequential fashion, on any subject under heaven--"too
eager," thought Johnson, "to get on without knowing how he should get
off." But if ignored, he would sit silent and apart,--sulking, thought
Boswell. In fact, both the Dictator and laird of Auchinleck were of a
mind that he tried too much to shine in conversation, for which he had
no temper. But "Goldy's" _bons-mots_--such as the "Forsitan et nostrum
nomen miscebitur _istis_" to Johnson, as they passed under the heads on
Temple Bar,--make it evident that Garrick, with his

"Here lies Poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll,"

and most of the members of the Literary Club, did not understand their
Irishman. A timidity born of rough experience may have occasionally
oppressed, a sensitiveness to ridicule or indifference may have confused
him, a desire for approbation may frequently have led him to speak when
silence had been golden; but that his conversation was "foolish" is the
judgment of Philistines who make conversation an industry, not an
amusement or an art.

Boswell himself recounts more witty sayings than incomprehensible. And
the "incomprehensible" are so only to Boswells and Hawkinses, who can
hardly be expected to appreciate a humor, the vein of which is a mockery
of their own solemn stupidity. Probably Goldsmith did say unconsidered
things; he liked to think aloud in company, to "rattle on" for
diversion. Keenly alive to the riches of language, he was the more
likely to feel the embarrassment of impromptu selection; and while he
was too much of a genius to keep count of every pearl, he was too
considerate of his fellows to cast