Chapter XXIV: Appendix: A

PORTRAITS OF GOLDSMITH.

PORTRAITS of Goldsmith are not numerous; and the best known
are those of Reynolds and H. W. Bunbury. That by Sir Joshua was painted in
1766–70, and exhibited in the Royal Academy (No. 151) from April 24th to
May 28th in the latter year. It represents the poet in a plain white
collar, furred mantle open at the neck, and holding a book in his right
hand. Its general characteristics are given at p. xxviii of the
‘Introduction.’ It was scraped in mezzotint in 1770 by Reynolds’s Italian
pupil, Giuseppe, or Joseph Marchi; and it is dated 1st December.*
Bunbury’s portrait first appeared, after Goldsmith’s death, as a
frontispiece to the _Haunch of Venison_; and it was etched in
facsimile by James Bretherton. The plate is dated May 24, 1776. In his
loyal but despotic _Life of Goldsmith_ (Bk. iv, ch. 6), Mr.
John Forster reproduces these portraits side by side; in order, he
professes, to show ‘the distinction between truth and a caricature of it.’
Bunbury, it may be, was primarily a caricaturist, and possibly looked at
most things from a more or less grotesque point of view; but this sketch—it
should be observed—was meant for a likeness, and we have the express
testimony of one who, if she was Bunbury’s sister-in-law, was also
Goldsmith’s friend, that it rendered Goldsmith accurately. It ‘gives the
head with admirable fidelity’—says the ‘Jessamy Bride’ (afterwards
Mrs. Gwyn)—‘as he actually lived among us; nothing can exceed its
truth’ (Prior’s _Life_, 1837, ii. 380). In other words, it
delineates Goldsmith as his contemporaries saw him, with bulbous
forehead, indecisive chin, and long protruding upper lip,—awkward,
insignificant, ill at ease,—restlessly burning ‘to get in and
shine.’ It enables us moreover to understand how people who knew nothing
of his better and more lovable qualities, could speak of him as an
‘inspired idiot,’ as ‘silly Dr. Goldsmith,’ as ‘talking like poor Poll.’
It is, in short, his external, objective presentment. The picture by Sir
Joshua, on the contrary, is almost wholly subjective. Draped judiciously
in a popular studio costume, which is not that of the sitter’s day, it
reveals to us the author of _The Deserted Village_ as Reynolds
conceived him to be at his best, serious, dignified, introspective, with
his physical defects partly extenuated by art, partly over-mastered by his
intellectual power. To quote the ‘Jessamy Bride’ once more—it is ‘a
fine poetical head for the admiration of posterity, but as it is divested
of his wig and with the shirt collar open, it was not the man as seen in
daily life’ (_Ib_. ii. 380). Had Goldsmith lived in our era of
photography, photography would doubtless have given us something which
would have been neither the one nor the other, but more like Bunbury than
Reynolds. Yet we may be grateful for both. For Bunbury’s sketch and
Reynolds’s portrait are alike indispensable to the true comprehension of
Goldsmith’s curiously dual personality.**

* This was the print to which Goldsmith referred in a well-known
anecdote. Speaking to his old Peckham pupil, Samuel Bishop, whom, after
many years, he met accidentally in London, he asked him eagerly whether he
had got an engraving of the new portrait, and finding he had not, ‘said
with some emotion, “if your picture had been published, I should not have
suffered an hour to elapse without procuring it.”’ But he was speedily
‘appeased by apologies.’ (Prior’s _Life_, 1837, i. 219–20.)

** There is in existence another undated etching by Bretherton after
Bunbury on a larger scale, which comes much nearer to Reynolds; and it is
of course possible, though not in our opinion probable, that Mrs. Gwyn may
have referred to this. But Forster selected the other for his comparison;
it is prefixed to the _Haunch of Venison_; it is certainly the
better known; and (as we believe) cannot ever have been intended for a
caricature.

The portrait by Reynolds, above referred to, was painted for the Thrale Gallery at Streatham, on the dispersion of which, in May, 1816, it was bought for the Duke of Bedford for £133 7s. It is now at Woburn Abbey (Cat. No. 254). At Knole, Lord Sackville possesses another version (Cat. No. 239), which was purchased in 1773 by the Countess Delawarr, and was shown at South Kensington in 1867. Here the dress is a black coat and a brown mantle with fur. The present owner exhibited it at the Guelph Exhibition of 1891. A third version, now in the Irish National Gallery, once belonged to Goldsmith himself, and then to his brother-in-law, Daniel Hodson. Finally there is a copy, by a pupil of Reynolds, in the National Portrait Gallery, to which it was bequeathed in 1890 by Dr. Leifchild, having formerly been the property of Caleb Whitefoord. Caleb Whitefoord also had an ‘admirable miniature’ by Reynolds, which belongs to the Rev. Benjamin Whitefoord, Hon. Canon of Salisbury (_Whitefoord Papers_, 1898, p. xxvii). A small circular print, based upon Reynolds, and etched by James Basire, figures on the title-page of _Retaliation_. Some of the plates are dated April 18, 1774.* The National Portrait Gallery has also a silhouette, attributed to Ozias Humphry, R.A., which was presented in 1883 by Sir Theodore Martin, K.C.B. Then there is the portrait by Hogarth shown at South Kensington in 1867 by the late Mr. Studley Martin of Liverpool. It depicts the poet writing at a round table in a black cap, claret-coloured coat and ruffles. Of this there is a wood-cut in the later editions of Forster’s _ Life_ (Bk. iii, ch. 14). The same exhibition of 1867 contained a portrait of Goldsmith in a brown coat and red waistcoat, ‘as a young man.’ It was said to be extremely like him in face, and was attributed to Gainsborough. In Evans’s edition of the _Poetical and Dramatic Works_ is another portrait engraved by Cook, said, on some copies, to be ‘from an original drawing’; and there is in the Print Room at the British Museum yet another portrait still, engraved by William Ridley ‘from a painting in the possession of the Rev. Mr. Williams,’ no doubt Goldsmith’s friend, the Rev. David Williams, founder of the Royal Literary Fund. One of these last may have been the work to which the poet refers in a letter to his brother Maurice in January, 1770. ‘I have sent my cousin Jenny [Jane Contarine] a miniature picture of myself . . . The face you well know, is ugly enough, but it is finely painted’ (_Misc. Works_, 1801, p. 88).

* There is also a sketch by Reynolds (?) at the British Museum.

SILHOUETTE OF GOLDSMITH

(Ozias Humphry)

In front of Dublin University is a bronze statue of Goldsmith by J. H.
Foley, R.A., erected in 1864.** Of this there is a good engraving by
G. Stodart. On the memorial in Westminster Abbey erected in 1776 is a
medallion by Joseph Nollekens.

** Goldsmith’s traditional ill-luck pursued him after death. During
some public procession in front of Trinity College, a number of
undergraduates climbed on the statue, with the result that the thin metal
of the poet’s head was flattened or crushed in, requiring for its
readjustment very skilful restorative treatment. The Editor is indebted
for this item of information to the kindness of Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, who
was present at the subsequent operation.