He had Many Good Qualities

Abstract

Dr Johnson said of the late Dr Goldsmith that he never knew a head so unfurnished; he gave him credit for being a clerical scholar so far as he had learnt at school, but that he knew very little of any subject he ever wrote upon; that his abilities were equal to any man’s he ever met with, but that he had no application; upon the most common subjects he was very ignorant, of which he gave many and daily proofs; he had the habit of lying to such a degree that the Club to which he belonged and the society he lived in never scrupled to tell him they wanted faith for what he advanced. He was one of the most envious of men; he could not bear to hear the praise of anyone, nay! even the beauty of a woman being praised he could not endure. Kelly having been successful in some of his publications, it greatly irritated him. After talking of him one day with great acrimony he looked at himself in the glass and said, ‘I am not so ugly as Kelly either’. Mrs Carter said [that] Goldsmith was a very vulgar man and vastly conceited. Mrs Garrick told us that Goldsmith had lived much at her house during Mr Garrick’s lifetime, that he never was happy if he did not gain the attention of the whole company to himself, that he would sometimes utter the grossest nonsense, and talk like a man that had not common sense; the laugh against him, however, was never so painful as the not being attended to in preference to anyone else.KeywordsNatural HistoryCommon SenseCommon SubjectLiterary HistoryGood AdvantageThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.