His associates seem to have regarded him with kindness, which, in spite of their admiration of his writings, was not unmixed with contempt.In truth, there was in his character much to love, but very little to respect.His heart was soft even to weakness: he was so generous that he quite forgot to be just: he forgave injuries so readily that he might be said to invite them; and was so liberal to beggars that he had nothing left for his tailor and his butcher.He was vain, sensual, frivolous, profuse, improvident.One vice of a darker shade was imputed to him, envy.But there is not the least reason to believe that this bad passion, though it sometimes made him wince and utter fretful exclamations, ever impelled him to injure by wicked arts the reputation of any of his rivals.The truth probably is, that he was not more envious, but merely less prudent, than his neighbours.His heart was on his lips.All those small jealousies, which are but too common among men of letters, but which a man of letters who is also a man of the world does his best to conceal, Goldsmith avowed with the simplicity of a child.
When he was envious, instead of affecting indifference, instead of damning with faint praise, instead of doing injuries slily and in the dark, he told everybody that he was envious."Do not, pray, do not talk of Johnson in such terms," he said to Boswell;"you harrow up my very soul." George Steevens and Cumberland were men far too cunning to say such a thing.They would have echoed the praises of the man whom they envied, and then have sent to the newspapers anonymous libels upon him.Both what was good and what was bad in Goldsmith's character was to his associates a perfect security that he would never commit such villany.He was neither ill natured enough, nor long headed enough, to be guilty of any malicious act which required contrivance and disguise.
