[544] Beauclerk wrote to Lord Charlemont on Nov. 20, 1773:-'Goldsmith
the other day put a paragraph into the newspapers in praise of Lord
Mayor Townshend. [Shelburne supported Townshend in opposition to Wilkes
in the election of the Lord Mayor. Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, ii. 287.]
The same night we happened to sit next to Lord Shelburne at Drury Lane.
I mentioned the circumstance of the paragraph to him; he said to
Goldsmith that he hoped that he had mentioned nothing about Malagrida in
it. "Do you know," answered Goldsmith, "that I never could conceive the
reason why they call you Malagrida, _for_ Malagrida was a very good sort
of man." You see plainly what he meant to say, but that happy turn of
expression is peculiar to himself. Mr. Walpole says that this story is a
picture of Goldsmith's whole life.' _Life of Charlemont_, i. 344.
[545] Most likely Reynolds, who introduced Crabbe to Johnson. Crabbe's
_Works_, ed. 1834, ii. 11.
[546]
'I paint the cot,
As truth will paint it, and as Bards will not.
Nor you, ye Poor, of lettered scorn complain,
To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain;
O'ercome by labour, and bowed down by time,
Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme?
Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread,
By winding myrtles round your ruined shed?
Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower,
Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?'
_The Village_, book i.
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