conversation being "an empty, noisy, blundering rattle "that "when he talked, he talked nonsense, and made himself the laughing-stock of his hearers;" of which inferiority Goldsmith himself was sensible. Our critic adds:

"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 left nothing for his tailor and his butcher. He was vain, sensual, frivolous, profuse, improvident."

Envy was imputed to him; but he was probably not more envious, but merely less prudent, than his neighbours; what other men did their best to conceal, he avowed with the simplicity of a child: hence it so often happens that the man who speaks his mind" is a most disagreeable person. But Macaulay allows that Goldsmith "was neither ill-natured enough, nor long-headed enough, to be guilty of any malicious. act which required contrivance and disguise."

Lord Macaulay then denies the representation that Goldsmith was a man of genius, cruelly treated by the world, and doomed to struggle with difficulties which at last broke his heart. It is allowed that he endured sharp misery before he had achieved distinction as a poet in the Traveller, after which, "he had none but himself to blame for his distresses." He earned for the last seven years of his life 4007. a-year, equal to 8001. a-year at present. Lord Macaulay then adverts to his extravagant living, but avers that his chief expense lay in his losses at play: for "he had been from boyhood a gambler, and at once the most sanguine and the most unskilful of gamblers." The truth of this sweeping condemnation has been called in question; if it be correct, it will account for all the poet's embarrassment, and the large debt with which he left his memory charged.

Mr. Thackeray makes this touching appeal to the sympathies of his readers: "He was wild, sir," Johnson said, speaking of Goldsmith to Boswell, with his great wise benevolence and noble mercifulness of heart; "Dr. Goldsmith was wild, sir; but he is so no more. "Ah! if we pity the good and weak man who suffers undeservedly, let us deal very gently with him from whom misery extorts not only tears, but shame; let us think humbly and charitably of the human nature that suffers so sadly and falls so low. Whose turn may it be to-morrow? What weak heart, confident before

trial, may not succumb under temptation invincible? Cover the good man who has been vanquished-cover his face and pass on. . Think of him reckless, thriftless, vain if you like-but merciful, gentle, generous, full of love and pity. He passes out of our life, and goes to render his account beyond it. Think of the poor pensioners weeping at his grave; think of the noble spirits that admired and deplored him ; think of the righteous pen that wrote his epitaph; and of the wonderful and unanimous response of affection with which the world has paid back the love he gave it. His humour delighting us still; his song fresh and beautiful as when first he charmed with it; his words in all our mouths; his very weaknesses beloved and familiar-his benevolent spirit seems still to smile upon us: to do gentle kindnesses : to succour with sweet charity: to soothe, caress, and forgive: to plead with the fortunate for the unhappy and the poor.

WALPOLE AND GOLDSMITH.

Walpole almost invariably depreciates his contemporaries, and appears to grudge them a modicum of merit. Oliver Goldsmith could not expect to "escape whipping." Here is one of the amenities of Strawberry Hill: “Dr. Goldsmith told me,” (writes Walpole,) "he himself envied Shakspeare; but Goldsmith was an idiot, with once or twice a fit of parts.”

Walpole also writes to Lady Ossory, Dec. 14, 1773: "I dined and passed Saturday at Beauclerk's, with the Edgecombes, the Garricks, and Dr. Goldsmith, and was most thoroughly tired, as I knew I should be, I who hate playing off a butt. Goldsmith is a fool, the more wearing for having some sense." Garrick acted a speech in Cato with Goldsmith; that is, the latter sat in the other's lap, covered with a cloak, and while Goldsmith spoke, Garrick's arms that embraced him, made foolish actions.

A MISTAKE AT BATH.

Lord Clare and the Duke of Northumberland had houses next to each other, of similar architecture. Returning home one morning from an early walk, Goldsmith, in one of his frequent fits of absence, mistook the house, and walked up into the duke's dining-room, where he and the duchess were about to sit down to breakfast. Goldsmith, still supposing himself in the house of Lord Clare, and that they were

visitors, made them an easy salutation, being acquainted with them, and threw himself on a sofa in the lounging manner of a man perfectly at home. The duke and duchess soon perceived his mistake, and while they smiled internally, endeavoured, with the considerateness of well-bred people, to prevent any awkward embarrassment. They accordingly chattered sociably with him about matters in Bath, until, breakfast being served, they invited him to partake. The truth at once flashed upon poor heedless Goldsmith; he started up from his free-and-easy position, made a confused apology for his blunder, and would have retired, perfectly disconcerted, had not the duke and duchess treated the whole as a lucky occurrence to throw him in their way, and exacted a promise from him to dine with them.

This may be hung up as a companion-piece to Goldsmith's blunder on his first visit to Northumberland House.

GOLDSMITH AND GARRICK.

In his Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning, Goldsmith had given offence to David Garrick, against whom a clamour had been raised for exercising a despotism over the stage, and bringing forward nothing but old plays, to the exclusion of original productions. Walpole joined in this charge. "Garrick," said he, "is treating the town as it deserves and likes to be treated, with scenes, fireworks, and his own writings." Goldsmith, who was extremely fond of the theatre, and felt the evils of this system, inveighed in his treatise against the wrongs experienced by authors at the hands of managers. "Our poet's performance," said he, "must undergo a process truly chemical before it is presented to the public. It must be tried in the manager's fire; strained through a licenser, suffer from repeated corrections, till it may be a mere caput mortuum when it arrives before the public." But a passage which perhaps touched more sensibly than all the rest on the sensibilities of Garrick, was the following:

"I have no particular spleen against the fellow who sweeps the stage with the besom, or the hero who brushes it with his train. It were a matter of indifference to me, whether our heroines are in keeping, or our candle-snuffers burn their fingers, did not such make a great part of public care and polite conversation. Our actors assume all that state off the

stage which they do on it; to use an expression borrowed from the green-room, every one is up in his part. I am sorry to say it, they seem to forget their real characters."

These strictures were taken by Garrick to himself, and when Goldsmith applied to him for his vote for the vacant Secretaryship of the Society of Arts, the manager replied he could hardly expect his friendly exertions after the unprovoked attack he had made upon his management. Goldsmith disclaimed personalities; but he failed to get the appointment, and ever considered Garrick his enemy. He expunged the passages objected to by the manager, when the Inquiry was reprinted; but, though the author and actor became intimate in after years, this false step at the outset of their intercourse was never forgotten.

GOLDSMITH AND REYNOLDS.

A congenial intimacy was contracted by Goldsmith with Mr. (afterwards Sir Joshua) Reynolds. The latter was now about forty years of age, a few years older than the poet. They were men of kindred genius, excelling in corresponding quali ties of their several arts, for style in writing is what colour is in painting; both are innate endowments, and equally magical in their effects. Reynolds soon understood and appreciated the merits of Goldsmith, and a sincere and lasting friendship ensued between them.

At Reynolds's house in Leicester-square, Goldsmith mingled in a higher range of company than he had been accustomed to. Here gathered men of talents of all kinds, and the increasing affluence of Reynolds's circumstances enabled him to give fuli indulgence to his hospitable disposition. Poor Goldsmith had not yet, like Dr. Johnson, acquired reputation enough to atone for his external defects, and his want of the air of good society. Miss Reynolds used to inveigh against his personal appearance, which gave her the idea, she said, of a low mechanic, a journeyman tailor. One evening, at a large supper party, being called upon to give as a toast the ugliest man she knew, she gave Dr. Goldsmith, upon which a lady who sat opposite, and whom she had never met before, shook hands with her across the table, and hoped to become better acquainted."

GOLDSMITH AND COLMAN THE YOUNGER.

"I was only five years old," says George Colman the younger, "when Goldsmith, one evening whilst drinking coffee with my father, took me on his knee and began to play with me, which amiable act I returned with a very smart slap in the face; it must have been a tingler, for I left the marks of my little spiteful paw upon his cheek. This infantile outrage was followed by summary justice, and I was locked up by my father in an adjoining room, to undergo solitary imprisonment. in the dark. Here I began to howl and scream most abominably. At length, a friend appeared to extricate me from jeopardy; it was the good-natured Doctor himself, with a lighted candle in his hand, and a smile upon his countenance, which was still partially red from the effects of my petulance. I sulked and sobbed, and he fondled and soothed until I began to brighten. He seized the propitious moment, placed three hats upon the carpet, and a shilling under each; the shillings, he told me, were England, France, and Spain. 'Hey, presto, cockolorum,' cried the Doctor, and lo! on uncovering the shillings, they were all found congregated under one. From that time, whenever the Doctor came to visit my father,

I plucked his gown to share the good man's smile;'

a game of romps constantly ensued, and we were always cordial friends and merry playfellows."

OLIVER AND THE BALLAD-SINGER.

Mr. Prior relates that Goldsmith, when at a dinner-party, rose abruptly from the table, and running out into the street, gave all he had to a ballad-singer. Some of the company observed and remarked on his lavish bountifulness. "Oh," said he, "you were all saying she sang sweetly-but you did not perceive the misery of her notes."

"HUNG UP IN HISTORY."

Walking one day with Goldsmith, in Westminster Abbey, among the tombs of monarchs, warriors, and statesmen, Johnson came to the sculptured mementoes of literary worthies