Turning to Goldsmith the man, what the "draggle-tail Muses" paid him we find him spending on dress and rooms and jovial magnificence, on relatives or countrymen or the unknown poor, with such freedom that he is never relieved of the necessity of drudgery. Still, sensitive, good-natured, improvident, Irish,—and a genius,—Goldsmith lived as happy a life as his disposition would allow. He had the companionship of congenial friends, the love of men like Johnson and Reynolds, the final assurance that his art was appreciated by the public. To be sure, he was never out of debt, but that was his own fault; he was never out of credit either. "Was there ever poet so trusted?" exclaimed Johnson, after this poet had got beyond reach of his creditors. His difficulties however affected him as they affect most Irishmen,—only by cataclysms. He was serene or wretched, but generally the former: he packed noctes cœnæque deûm by the dozen into his life. "There is no man," said Reynolds, "whose company is more liked." But maybe that was because his naïveté, his brogue, his absent-mindedness, and his blunders (real or apparent) made him a ready butt for ridicule, not at the hands of Reynolds or Johnson, but of Beauclerk and the rest. For though his humor was sly, and his wit inimitable, Goldsmith's conversation was queer. It seemed to go by contraries. If permitted, he would ramble along in his hesitating, inconsequential fashion, on any subject under heaven—"too eager," thought Johnson, "to get on without knowing how he should get off." But if ignored, he would sit silent and apart,—sulking, thought Boswell. In fact, both the Dictator and laird of Auchinleck were of a mind that he tried too much to shine in conversation, for which he had no temper. But "Goldy's" bons-mots—such as the "Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis" to Johnson, as they passed under the heads on Temple Bar,—make it evident that Garrick, with his "Here lies Poet Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll," and most of the members of the Literary Club, did not understand their Irishman. A timidity born of rough experience may have occasionally oppressed, a sensitiveness to ridicule or indifference may have confused him, a desire for approbation may frequently have led him to speak when silence had been golden; but that his conversation was "foolish" is the judgment of Philistines who make conversation an industry, not an amusement or an art.