A Georgian Pageant by Frank Frankfort Moore

Author:Frank Frankfort Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Barnes & Noble
Published: 2017-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Of course, it would be as absurd to contend that Goldsmith never made a fool of himself as it would be to assume that Johnson never made a fool of himself, or that Boswell ever failed to do so. The occasions upon which he made himself ridiculous must have been numerous, but out of the many incidents which Boswell and Beattie and Cooke and the others bring forward as proofs of his stupidity there are few that will not bear to be interpreted as instances of his practice of a form of humour well known in Ireland. If his affectation of chagrin at the admiration given to the Panton Street puppets, followed by the boast, "I could do it as well myself," was not humorous, then indeed there is nothing humorous under the sun. If his object of setting the room roaring with laughter was not achieved the night when at the club he protested that the oratory of Burke was nothing—that all oratory, as a matter of fact, was only a knack—and forthwith stood upon a chair and began to stutter, all that can be said is that the famous club at Gerrard Street was more stolid than could be believed. If his strutting about the room where he and his friends were awaiting a late-comer to dinner, entreating Johnson and the rest to pay particular attention to the cut of his new peach-bloom coat, and declaring that Filby, his tailor, had told him that when any one asked him who had made the garment he was not to forget Filby's address, did not help materially to enliven the tedium of that annoying wait, all that can be said is that Thrale, as well as Boswell, must have been of the party.

If a novelist, anxious to depict a typical humorous Irishman, were to show his hero acting as Boswell says Goldsmith acted, would not every reader acknowledge that he was true to the character of a comical Irishman? If a playwriter were to put the scene on the stage, would any one in the audience fail to see that the Goldsmith of the piece was fooling? Every one in the club—Boswell best of all—was aware of the fact that Goldsmith had the keenest admiration for Burke, and that he would be the last man in the world to decry his powers. As for the peach-bloom coat, it had been the butt of much jesting on the part of his friends; the elder of the Miss Hornecks had written him a letter of pretty "chaff" about it, all of which he took in good part. He may have bought the coat originally because he liked the tint of the velvet; but assuredly when he found that it could be made the subject of a jest he did not hesitate to jest upon it himself. How many times have we not seen in Ireland a man behave in exactly the same way under similar conditions—a boisterous young huntsman who had put

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