lover, who had appeared on
the stage, and who was said to have restored to life a man who had been
hung; this Glover, who was famous for his songs and imitations, once had
the impudence, like Theodore Hook, to introduce Goldsmith, during a
summer ramble in Hampstead, to a party where he was an entire stranger,
and to pass himself off as a friend of the host. "Our Dr. Glover," says
Goldsmith, "had a constant levee of his distressed countrymen, whose
wants, as far as he was able, he always relieved." Gordon, the fattest
man in the club, was renowned for his jovial song of "Nottingham Ale;"
and on special occasions Goldsmith himself would sing his favourite
nonsense about the little old woman who was tossed seventeen times
higher than the moon. A fat pork-butcher at the "Globe" used to offend
Goldsmith by constantly shouting out, "Come, Noll, here's my service to
you, old boy." After the success of _The Good-natured Man_, this coarse
familiarity was more than Goldsmith's vanity could bear, so one special
night he addressed the butcher with grave reproof. The stolid man,
taking no notice, replied briskly, "Thankee, Mister Noll." "Well, where
is the advantage of your reproof?" asked Glover. "In truth," said
Goldsmith, good-naturedly, "I give it up; I ought to have known before
that there is no putting a pig in the right way." Sometimes rather cruel
tricks were played on the credulous poet. One evening Goldsmith came in
clamorous for his supper, and ordered chops. Directly the supper came
in, the wags, by pre-agreement, began to sniff and swear. Some pushed
the plate away; others declared the rascal who had dared set such chops
before a gentleman should be made to swallow them himself. The waiter
was savagely rung up, and forced to eat the supper, to which he
consented with well-feigned reluctance, the poet calmly ordering a fresh
supper and a dram for the poor waiter, "who otherwise might get sick
from so nauseating a meal." Poor Goldy! kindly even at his most foolish
moments. A sadder story still connects Goldsmith with the "Globe." Ned
Purdon, a worn-out booksellers' hack and a _protege_ of Goldsmith's,
dropped down dead in Smithfield. Goldsmith wrote his epitaph as he came
from his chambers in the Temple to the "Globe." The lines are:--

"Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed,
Who long was a booksellers' hack;
He led such a miserable life in this world,
I don't think he'll wish to come back."