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Even Garrick, who had recently befriended it, now gave it a kick, as he saw it going down hill, and sent Goldsmith a humorous prologue to help his comedy of the opposite school. Garrick and Goldsmith, however, were now on very cordial terms, to which the social meetings in the circle of the Hornecks and Bunburys may have contributed. On the 15th of March the new comedy was to be performed.
The Deserted Village had shed an additional poetic grace round the homely person of the author; he was becoming more and more acceptable in ladies' eyes, and finding himself more and more at ease in their society; at least in the society of those whom he met in the Reynolds circle, among whom he particularly affected the beautiful family of the Hornecks.
We have in a former chapter recorded his unlucky tumble into a fountain at Versailles, when attempting a feat of agility in presence of the fair Hornecks. Water was destined to be equally baneful to him on the present occasion.
He is mentioned by Goldsmith in his verses to the Miss Hornecks. Forster's Goldsmith, ii. 149. How much balloons filled people's minds at this time is shewn by such entries as the following in Windham's Diary:-'Feb 7, 1784. Did not rise till past nine; from that time till eleven, did little more than indulge in idle reveries about balloons. p. 3. 'July 20.
The poet had always been a chosen friend of the eminent painter, and Miss Reynolds, as we have shown, ever since she had heard his poem of The Traveler read aloud, had ceased to consider him ugly. The Hornecks were equally capable of forgetting his person in admiring his works.
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