Artemas Ward told me once how a camp-meeting he attended in the West broke up to go outside and see a dog-fight.

Can't you and I pretend to quarrel?
A personal assault by you on me will wake these people up and discombobulate Goldsmith.

Say the word--only don't hit too hard." "I'm with you," said Wellington.

Whereupon, with a great show of heat, he roared out, "You?
Never! I'm more afraid of a boy with a bean-snapper that I ever was of you!" and followed up his remark by pulling Bonaparte's camp-chair from under him, and letting the conqueror of Austerlitz fall to the floor with a thud which I have since heard described as dull and sickening.
The effect was instantaneous.

Compared to a personal encounter between the two great figures of Waterloo, a reading from his own works by Goldsmith seemed lacking in the elements essential to the holding of an audience.