grimly. "He was willing," he said, "to modify the sense of the epitaph in any manner the gentlemen pleased; but he never would consent to disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey with an English inscription." Upon this decision Mr. Croker has justly expressed himself at a loss to discover how an English inscription should disgrace an English church, or a writer whose fame is exclusively English. The following is the inscription on the white marble tablet beneath the bust: OLIVARII GOLDSMITH nullum quod tetigit non ornavit : affectuum potens, at lenis dominator; Natus Hiberniâ Forneiæ Lonfordiensis Apr. IV. MDCCLXXIV.* The following translation is from Croker's edition of Boswell's Johnson: OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH, A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, And touched nothing that he did not adorn; Whether smiles were to be moved A powerful yet gentle master; Have by this monument honoured the memory. Mr. Forster states with respect to the place of interment in the Temple, " the grave is known, though no memorial indicates it to the pilgrim or the stranger." This was correct at the time Mr. Forster wrote, in 1848. Eight years later, in 1856, Lord Macaulay wrote: "He was laid in the churchyard of the Temple; but the spot was not marked by any inscription, and is now forgotten." This statement is, in part, erroneous: the grave is in the burial-ground east of the choir, and without the building: the place is undistinguished, but a tablet erected in a recess on the south side of the choir, about 1850, commemorates the circumstance. Thus posterity for more than threescore years treated a man of genius, who, in Dr. Johnson's opinion, left no species of writing untouched, and adorned all to which he applied himself. How different the attention and honours paid to the memory of Walter Scott, scarcely cold in his coffin! a more voluminous writer, certainly, but not a superior genius to the author of the Deserted Village and the Vicar of Wakefield. This is the comparison of one of Goldsmith's most genial biographers: it may be correct as to literary distinction; but it should be remembered that Scott possessed higher claims upon the respect of mankind: the disease which proved fatal to him was superinduced by excess of mental toil for the noble purpose of paying his debts; and the certainty of its accomplishment, the consciousness that he had not shrunk from the responsibilities he had incurred, the feeling that he had deserved and retained the love and respect which waited upon him in more prosperous days, was his consolation in the dark hours of his closing life. Were such reflections the last lot of poor Goldsmith in the Temple ? At a place called Pallas, [In the parish] of Forney, [and county] of Longford, Educated at [the University of] Dublin; 4th April, 1774. CHARACTERISTICS, PERSONAL TRAITS, "As a writer," says Dr. Johnson, "he [Goldsmith] was of the most distinguished class. Whatever he composed, he did it better than any other man could. And whether we regard him as a poet, as a comic writer, or as a historian, he was one of the first writers of his time, and will ever stand in the foremost class." Goldsmith somewhat resembled in character Gay, but far surpassed him in genius. Sir Walter Scott has remarked that in Goldsmith, with gullibility of temper was mixed a hasty and eager jealousy of his own personal consequence: he unwillingly admitted that anything was done better than he himself could have performed it; and sometimes made himself ridiculous by hastily undertaking to distinguish himself upon subjects which he did not understand. But with these weaknesses, and with that of carelessness in his own affairs, terminates all that censure can say of Goldsmith. The folly of submitting to imposition may be well balanced with the universality of his benevolence; and the wit which his writings evince, more than counterbalances his defects in conversation, if these could be of consequence to the present and future generations. Scott, in referring to the blemishes in the Vicar of Wakefield, says: We have seen that it was suppressed for nearly two years, until the publication of the Traveller had fixed the author's fame. Goldsmith had, therefore, time for revisal, but he did not employ it. He had been paid for his labour, as he observed, and could have profited nothing by rendering the work ever so perfect. This, however, was false reasoning, though not unnatural in the mouth of the author who must earn daily bread by daily labour. Many works of this class the critics must apologize for, or censure particular passages in the narrative, as unfit to be perused by youth. and innocence. But the wreath of Goldsmith is unsullied; he wrote to exalt virtue and expose vice; and he accomplished his task in a manner which raises him to the highest rank among British authors. Lord Byron has this piquant note: "I have found one point where the German [Schlegel] is right-it is about the Vicar of Wakefield. Of all romances in miniature (and perhaps this is the best shape in which romance can appear), the Vicar of Wakefield is, I think, the most exquisite.' He thinks!-he might be sure." In No. 8 of the Quarterly Review, commenting on some ridiculous comparisons instituted between Goldsmith and a then living rhymer, Sir Walter Scott expressed himself in these words: "In a subsequent poem Mr. Pratt is informed (for he probably never dreamt of it) that he inherits the lyre of Goldsmith. If this be true, the lyre is much the worse for wear; and for our parts, we should as soon take the bequest of a Jew's-harp as the reversion of so worthless an instrument. "This is the third instance we remember of living poets being complimented at the expense of poor Goldsmith. A literary journal has thought proper to extol Mr. Crabbe as far above him; and Mr. Richards (a man of genius also, we readily admit) has been said to unite 'the nervousness of Dryden with the ease of Goldsmith.' This is all very easily asserted. The native ease and grace of Goldsmith's versification have probably led to the deception; but it would be difficult to point out one among the English poets less likely to be excelled in his own style than the author of the Deserted Village. Possessing much of the compactness of Pope's versification, without the monotonous structure of his lines; rising sometimes to the swell and fulness of Dryden, without his inflations; delicate and masterly in his descriptions; graceful in one of the greatest graces of poetry, its transitions; alike successful in his sportive or grave, his playful or melancholy mood; he may long bid defiance to the numerous competitors whom the friendship or flattery of the present age is so hastily arraying against him." And again, in No. 11 of the Quarterly Review, the late Earl of Dudley found occasion to allude to Goldsmith's exquisite prose style, the perfect purity and grace of which must ever, as Judge Day observes, be considered with wonder by those acquainted with the personal tastes and habits of the "In the prose of Goldsmith," says Lord Dudley, "will be found as perfect a model as any that exists in our language of purity, facility, and grace; of clear lively narration, of the most exhilarating gaiety, of the most touching pathos; in man. short, of almost every merit that style can possess, except in those comparatively few instances in which the subject calls for a display of higher and impassioned eloquence." "In his prose," says the Quarterly Review, No. 114," and in his verse, Virginibus puerisque was always the motto of this benevolent and gentle-hearted man. His humour was without coarseness-his merriment without extravagancehis wit without spleen; and his works will ever constitute one of the most precious 'wells of English undefiled.' " "How comes it," says a recent and ingenious critic, "that in all the miry paths of life which he had trod, no speck ever sullied the robe of his modest and graceful muse? How, amidst all that love of inferior company, which never to the last forsook him, did he keep his genius so free from every touch of vulgarity ?" We answer (says Washington Irving,) that it was owing to the innate purity and goodness of his nature: there was nothing in it that assimilated to vice and vulgarity. Though his circumstances often compelled him to associate with the poor, they never could betray him into companionship with the depraved. His relish for humour and for the study of character, as we have before observed, brought him often into convivial company of a vulgar kind; but he discriminated between their vulgarity and their amusing qualities, or rather wrought from the whole those familiar pictures of life, which form the staple of his most popular writings. In Mr. Forster's summary at the close of his picturesquely eloquent Life and Adventures, it is emphatically said: "He [Goldsmith] worthily did the work that was in him to do; proved himself in his garret a gentleman of nature; left the world no ungenerous bequest; and went his unknown way. Nor have posterity been backward to acknowledge the debt which his contemporaries left them to discharge." Upon this we would remark, that to be honoured with respect after death, is but a poor recompense for being neglected while living. Mr. Forster closes with these lines: The men who to the world most good have brought, Lord Macaulay is one of the latest and least indulgent of Goldsmith's critics. He joins in the evidence as to his |