Life of Oliver Goldsmith

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Contents

The Works of Irving, and American Literature contem

PORARY WITH IrVING .....

Introduction : Life of Washington Irving .

Introduction

LIFE OF WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859).

Birth.

New York, April 3, 1783.

Named for George Washington (I, i).i

Parents.

Father : William Irving, born of a long line of Scotch Covenanters. Mother : Sarah Saunders of Cornwall.

They were married in 1761 and embarked for America in 1763 (I, II).

Education.

At four years of age sent to a dame school, where, he says,

" I made little progress beyond the alphabet." Later attended Romaine's School, (See anecdotes in I, ii.) Did not have a college course, so his education stopped at sixteen.

Study of Law.

At sixteen entered a New York law office.

"His course here was marked by remarkable proficiency in belles-lettres, but very slender advancement in the dry technicalities of the practice " (I, n).

First Voyage up the Hudson.

The first author to describe the beauty of the river. Read Irving' s account of his trip (I, ii), and note its resemblance to passages in The Sketch-Book.

Earliest Publication, 1802.

Contributions to The Morning Chronicle, signed "Jonathan Oldstyle."

Predominating characteristic of these sketches was whimsical humor.

1 References in parentheses are to volumes and chapters of Pierre Irving' s Life of Irving.

vii

Vlll LIFE OF WASHINGTON IRVING.

Frontier Travels in 1803.

Important as furnishing material for future writings. See extracts from his journal at this time (I, iii).

First Journey Abroad, 1804.

Undertaken on account of his health.

Travels through France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and England. (For anecdotes and adventures, read the letters in I, iv-ix.) The interest here centres in the adventures attendant upon European travel in those days, upon the narrow escapes of Irving from romantic dangers, upon the honors paid to him by great men whom he met, and upon the style of these accounts, which are a prophecy of The Sketch-Book and The Alhambra.

Life in New York, 1 806-1814.

Foundation of the club known as " The Nine Worthies " (I, xi).

Admission to the Bar, 1806.

Publication of Salmagundi^ 1807-1808. Reprinted in London, 1811.

Romance of Irving and Mathilda Hoffman (I, xiv).

Publication of The History of New York, by " Diedrich Knickerbocker," 1809 (I, xv).

Editor of Analectic Magazine, 1813-1814.

Appointed aide-de-camp to Governor Tompkins at end of war with England, and given the title of Colonel (I, xx).

Life Abroad, 1815-1831 (ist period).

1815. In London, attending to the interests of the publishing firm of P. Irving & Co.

Preparing a second edition of the Knickerbocker History,

with designs by "Washington Allston.

Received everywhere as an American writer of rank (I, xxi-xxiii).

1817. Travels through Scotland (I, xxiv).

1818. Failure of firm of P. Irving & Co., and Irving's decision to

devote himself to literature.

1819. Publication, in New York, of The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey

Crayon (I, xxvi).

1820. The Sketch-Book published in London (I, xxvii). 1820-1821. Goes to Paris (II, i-ii).

Begins Tales of a Traveller.

Begins Bracehridge Hall.

1821. Returns to England for coronation of George IV (II, 11).

LIFE OF WASHINGTON IRVING. IX

1822. Publication of Bracehridge Hall (II, iv).

Travels in Germany and Austria, spending the winter in Dresden (II, v-viii). 1822-1824. Lives in Paris (II, ix-x).

Attempts to remodel French plays for the English stage.

Prepares a second volume of The Sketch-Book.

At vi^ork upon Tales of a Traveller.

1824. Keturns to London (II, xii).

Publishes Tales of a Traveller.

1825. Lives in Paris and Bordeaux (II, xiii).

Working on American Essays, which were never printed. 1826-1827. Goes to Spain as attach^ of the American Legation. Working on the Life of Columbus.

Sketching the Conquest of Granada (II, xiv).

1828. Publication of Life and Voyages of Columbus. Travelling through Spain.

Working on Conquest of Granada (II, xv-xvi).

1829. Publication of Conquest of Granada (II, xx). Resides part of the year in the Alhambra (II, xxiv). Appointed Secretary of Legation to London (II, xxiii). Arrives in London in October.

1830. Year spent in London.

• Receives King's Medal from the Royal Academy. Degree of LL.D. conferred by Oxford (II, xxv).

1831. Resigns secretaryship of Legation to London to devote him-

self more closely to literature (II, xxvi).

Life in New York, 1832-1842.

1832. Returns to New York after an absence of seventeen years. Publication of The Alhambra or TJie Spanish Sketch-Book

(HI, I). 1832-1833. Journeys through the Western and Southern States

(III, II). 1835. Publication of Tour on the Prairies (III, iii). Purchase of Sunnyside.

Publication of Astoria (III, iv).

1837. Publication of Adventures of Captain Bonneville (III, v). Visit of Louis Napoleon at Sunnyside.

Declines mayoralty of New York City.

Declines appointment to the Cabinet of Van Buren.

1838. Begins a history of Mexico, but surrenders the theme to

Prescott (III, vi).

X LIFE OF WASHINGTON IRVING.

1839. Regular contributor to the Knickerbocker Magazine.

1840. Publishes biographical sketch of Goldsmith for Harper's

Library (III, vii).

Life Abroad, 1842-1846 (2d period).

1842. Appointed Minister to Spain through the influence of

Daniel Webster. Accompanied by Alexander Hamilton

as Secretary of the Legation (III, ix).

Reception at Court of St. James (III, x).

Established in Madrid in July. (See letter describing his

reception by the Queen of Spain, in III, xi.) Working on Life of Washington.

1843. See letters (in III, xiii-xv), giving delightful sketches of his

life in Madrid, of the royal family, and of the insurrections and the dangers.

Excursion to Versailles and Paris for health (III, xvi).

" My heart yearns for home; and as I have now probably turned the last corner in life, and my remaining years are growing scanty in number, I begrudge every one that I am obliged to pass separated from my cottage and my kindred."

1844. See letters (in III, xvii-xix), describing the political excite-

ments in Madrid, in which Irving played an important

part.

Temporary leave of absence on account of health, and

excursion to Paris and London.

Returns to Paris and visits King Louis Philippe. (Read

letters in III, xx.)

1845. Returns to Madrid. (Read routine of life here, in letters

dated March 27, 1845, and August 9, 1845 ; III, xxi.) Goes to Paris and resigns his ministry to Madrid.

1846. Visits London on diplomatic business. Returns to Madrid to await successor.

Fond leave-taking of the Queen of Spain (III, xxii). Sails from London for New York in September.

" The evening of life is fast drawing upon me ; still I hope to get back among my friends while yet there is a little sunshine left."

Last Years at Sunnyside.

1847-1848. Beautifying his home at Sunnyside (IV, i).

"The little old-fashioned stone mansion, all made up of gable ends, and as full of angles and corners as an old cocked hat."

LIFE OF WASHINGTON IRVING. xi

Revising liis works for the publication of a complete edition.

1849. Publication of Life of Goldsmith (IV, iii). Publication of Mahomet and his Successors, Vol I.

1850. Publication of Mahomet and his Successors, Vol, II.

" If I only had ten years more of life ! I never felt more able to write! I might not conceive as I did in earlier days, when I had more romance of feeling, but I could execute with more rapidity and freedom."

1853. Excursion to Washington (IV, vii). Meets Thackeray by chance on the train.

"I was at the President's levee. ... I met with many interesting people there ; but I had no chance of enjoying conversation with any of them, . . . for I had to shake hands with man, woman, and child. From the levee I was hurried away to a ball, . . . where the system of handshaking began again and I retreated and came home."

Celebration of seventieth birthday (IV, viii).

" I used to think that a man of seventy must have survived everything worth living for ; that with him the silver cord must be loosed, the wheel broken at the cistern; that all desire must fail and the grasshopper become a burden. Yet here I find myself, unconscious of the withering influence of age, still strong and active, my sensibilities alive^ and my social affections in full vigor.

" Strange that a harp of a thousand strings Should keep in tune so long! "

Working on Life of Washington.

Excursion to Baltimore to examine the Washington relics and papers kept there. (See amusing account of his reception at the Irving House in New York ; IV, xix.) 1855. Publication of WolferVs Boost (IV, xi).

Publication of Life of Washington, Vol. I. 1856-1859. Continual struggle against breaking health.

" I do not fear death, but I would like to go down with all sail set."

(See IV, xiii-xviii, which give more of Irving's real self than all the rest of the biography.) Publication of Life of Washington, Vols. II- V. Extract from a letter from the historian Prescott to Irving, upon the publication of Vol. IV : —

Sii LIFE OF WASHINGTON IRVING.

"Hitherto we have only seen him [Washington] as a sort of marble Colossus, full of moral greatness, but without the touch of humanity that would give him interest. You have known how to give the marble flesh color, that brings it to the resemblance of life. No one — at least, I am sure no American — could read the last volume without finding pretty often a blur upon the page."

Death.

November 28, 1859, at Sunnyside (IV, xviii).

Extract from the tribute of George William Curtis : —

'* On the day of his burial, unable to reach Tarry town in time for the funeral, I came down the shore of the river he loved. As we darted and wound along, the Catskills were draped in sober gray mist, not hiding them, but wreathing and folding and lingering, as if the hills were heavy with sympathetic, but not unrelieved, gloom. Yet far away toward the south, the bank on which his home lay, was Sunnyside still, for the sky was cloudless and soft with serene sunshine. I could not but remember his last words to me, more than a year ago, when his book was finished, and his health was failing : ' I am getting ready to go ; I am shutting up my doors and windows.' And I could not but feel that they were all open now, and bright with the light of eternal morning."

lEVING'S PREFACE TO LIFE OF GOLDSMITH.

In the course of a revised edition of my works I have come to a biographical sketch of Goldsmith, published several years since. It was written hastily, as introductory to a selection from his writings ; and, though the facts contained in it were collected from various sources, I was chiefly indebted for them to the voluminous work of Mr. James Prior, who had collected and collated the most minute particulars of the poet's history with unwearied research and scrupulous fidelity; but had rendered them, as I thought, in a form too cumbrous and overlaid with details and disquisitions, and matters uninteresting to the general reader.

When I was about of late to revise my biographical sketch, preparatory to republication, a volume was put into my hands, recently given to the public by Mr. John Forster, of the Inner Temple, who, likewise availing himself of the labors of the indefatigable Prior, and of a few new lights since evolved, has produced a biography of the poet, executed with a spirit, a feeling, a grace, and an eloquence, that leave nothing to be desired. Indeed it would have been presumption in me to undertake the subject after it had been thus felicitously treated, did I not stand committed by my previous sketch. That sketch now appeared too meagre and insufficient to satisfy public demand ; yet it had to take its place in the revised series of my works unless something more satisfactory could be substituted. Under these cir-

2 IRVING' S PREFACE TO LIFE OF GOLDSMITH.

cumstances I have again taken up the subject, and gone into it with more fulness than formerly, omitting none of the facts which I considered illustrative of the life and character of the poet, and giving them in as graphic a style as I could command. Still, the hurried manner in which I have had to do this amidst the pressure of other claims on my attention, and with the press dogging at my heels, has prevented me from giving some parts of the subject the thorough handling I could have wished. Those who would like to see it treated still more at large, with the addition of critical disquisitions and the advantage of collateral facts, would do well to refer themselves to Mr. Prior's circumstantial volumes, or to the elegant and discursive pages of Mr. Forster.

For my own part, I can only regret my shortcomings in what to me is a labor of love; for it is a tribute of gratitude to the memory of an author whose writings were the delight of my childhood, and have been a source of enjoyment to me throughout life ; and to whom, of all others, I may address the beautiful apostrophe of Dante to Virgil, —

W. I.

SUNNYSIDE, Aug. 1, 1849.

CONTENTS OF LIFE OF GOLDSMITH.

Chapter I. Page

Birth and Parentage. — Characteristics of the Goldsmith Race. — Poetical Birthplace. — Goblin House. — Scenes of Boyhood. — Lissoy. — Picture of a Country Parson. — Goldsmith's Schoolmistress. — Byrne, the Village Schoolmaster. — Goldsmith's Hornpipe and Epigram. — Uncle Contarine. — School Studies and School Sports. — Mistakes of a Night . . 9

CHAPTER 11.

Improvident Marriages in the Goldsmith Family. — Goldsmith at the University. — Situation of a Sizer. — Tyranny of Wilder, the Tutor. — Pecuniary Straits. — Street-ballads. — College Riot. — Gallows Walsh. — College Prize. -^ A Dance interrupted 19

Chapter III

Goldsmith rejected by the Bishop. — Second Sally to see the World. — Takes Passage for America. — Ship sails w^ithout him. — Return on Fiddle-back. — A Hospitable Friend. — The Counsellor 30

Chapter IV

Sallies forth as a Law Student. — Stumbles at the Outset. — Cousin Jane and the Valentine. — A Family Oracle. — Sallies forth as a Student of Medicine. — Hocus-pocus of a Boardinghouse. — Transformations of a Leg of Mutton. —The Mock Ghost. — Sketches of Scotland. — Trials of Toadyism. — A Poet's Purse for a Continental Tour 36

Chapter V

The Agreeable Fellow-passengers. — Risks from Friends picked up by the Wayside. — Sketches of Hull and the Dutch. — Shifts while a Poor Student at Leyden. — The Tulip-speculation. — The Provident Flute. — Sojourn at Paris. — Sketch of Voltaire. — Travelling Shifts of a Philosophic Vagabond . 45

CHAPTER VL

Landing in England. — Shifts of a Man without Money. — The Pestle and Mortar. — Theatricals in a Barn. — Launch upon

4 CONTENTS OF LIFE OF GOLBSMFTH.

PAGE

London. — A City Night-scene. — Struggles with Penury. — Miseries of a Tutor. — A Doctor in the Suburb. — Poor Practice and Second-hand Finery. — A Tragedy in Embryo.

— Project of the Written Mountains . . . . .54

Chapter VII

Life of a Pedagogue. — Kindness to Schoolboys. — Pertness in Return. — Expensive Charities. — The Griffiths and the Monthly Bevieio. — Toils of a Literary Hack. — Rupture with the Griffiths 59

CHAPTER VIIL

Newbery, of Picture-book Memory. — How to keep up Appearances. — Miseries of Authorship. — A Poor Relation. — Letter to Hodson 63

Chapter IX

Hackney Authorship. — Thoughts of Literary Suicide. — Return to Peckham. — Oriental Projects. — Literary Enterprise to raise Eunds. — Letter to Edward Wells ; to Robert Bryanton. — Death of Uncle Contarine. — Letter to Cousin Jane . 68

Chapter X

Oriental Appointment ; and Disappointment. — Examination at the College of Surgeons. — How to procure a Suit of Clothes.

— Fresh Disappointment. — A Tale of Distress. — The Suit of Clothes in Pawn. — Punishment for doing an Act of Charity. — Gayeties of Green- Arbor Court. — Letter to his Brother. — Life of Voltaire. — Scroggins, an Attempt at Mock-heroic Poetry 75

CHAPTER XL

Publication of The Inquiry. — Attacked by Griffiths' Beview. — Kenrick, the Literary Ishmaelite. — Periodical Literature. — Goldsmith's Essays. — Garrick as a Manager. — Smollett and his Schemes. — Change of Lodgings. — The Robin Hood Club 87

Chapter XII

New Lodgings. — Visits of Ceremony, — Hangers-on. — Pilkington and the White Mouse. — Introduction to Dr. Johnson.

— Davies and his Bookshop. — Pretty Mrs. Davies. — Foote

and his Projects. — Criticism of the Cudgel .... 93

Chapter XIII

Oriental Projects. — Literary Jobs. — The Cherokee Chiefs. — Merry Islington and the White Conduit House. — Letters

CONTENTS OF LIFE OF GOLDSMITH.

on the History of England. — James Boswell. — Dinner of Davies. — Anecdotes of Johnson and Goldsmitli ... 98

Chapter XIV

Hogartli a Visitor at Islington ; his Character. — Street Studies.

— Sympathies between Authors and Painters. — Sir Joshua Reynolds ; his Character ; his Dinners. — The Literary Club ; its Members. — Johnson's Revels with Lanky and Beau. — Goldsmith at the Club 105

Chapter XV

Johnson a Monitor to Goldsmith ; finds hira in Distress with his Landlady ; relieved by the Vicar of Wakefield. — The Oratorio. — Poem of The Traveller'. — The Poet and his Dog. — Success of the Poem. — Astonishment at the Club. — Observations on the Poem 113

Chapter XVI

New Lodgings. — Johnson's Compliment. — A Titled Patron. — The Poet at Northumberland House. — His Independence of the Great. — The Countess of Northumberland. — Edioin and Angelina. — Gosfield and Lord Clare. — Publication of Essays. — Evils of a Rising Reputation. — Hangers-on. — Job-writing. — Goody Two-Shoes. — A Medical Campaign.

— Mrs. Sidebotham 118

• CHAPTER XVn.

Publication of the Vicar of Wakefield; Opinions concerning it: of Dr. Johnson ; of JRogers the Poet ; of Goethe ; its Merits ; Exquisite Extract. — Attack by Kenrick. — Reply, — Book-building. — Project of a Comedy 125

Chapter XXV

Dinner at Bickerstaff's. — Hiffernan and his Impecuniosity. — Kenrick's Epigram. — Johnson's Consolation. — Goldsmith's Toilet. — The Bloom-colored Coat. — New Acquaintances ; the Hornecks. — A Touch of Poetry aixl Passion. — The Jessamy Bride . 161

Chapter XXVI

Goldsmith in the Temple. — Judge Day and Grattan. — Labor and Dissipation. — Publication of the Roman History. — Opinions of it. — History of Animated Nature. — Temp'e Rookery. — Anecdotes of a Spider 167

Chapter XXVII

Honors at the Royal Academy. — Letter to his Brother Maurice.

— Eamily Fortunes. — Jane Contarine and the Miniature. — Portraits and Engravings. — School Associations. — Johnson

and Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey 174

CHAPTER XXVIIL

Publication of the Deserted Village; Notices and Illustrations

of it 178

CONTENTS OF LIFE OF GOLDSMITH.

Chapter XXIX. Page

The Poet among the Ladies ; Description of his Person and Manners. — Expedition to Paris witli tlie Horneck Family. — ■ The Traveller of Twenty and the Traveller of Forty. — Hickey, the Special Attorney. — An Unlucky Exploit . . 184

Chapter XXXIV

Mr. Joseph Cradock. — An Author's Confidings. — An Amanuensis. — Life at Edge ware. — Goldsmith Conjuring. — George Colman. — The Fantoccini 207

""^ CHAPTER XXXV.

Broken Health. — Dissipation and Debts. — The Irish Widow.

— Practical Jokes. — Scrub. — A Misquoted Pun. — Malagrida. — Goldsmith proved to be a Fool. — Distressed Balladsingers. — The Poet at Ranelagh 215

CHAPTER XXXVL

Invitation to Christmas. — The Spring-velvet Coat. — The Haymaking Wig. — The Mischances of Loo. — The Fair Culprit.

— A Dance with the Jessamy Bride 223

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Theatrical Delays. — Negotiations with Colman. — Letter to Garrick. — Croaking of the Manager. — Naming of the Play. —

8 CONTENTS OF LIFE OF GOLDSMITH.

PAGE

She Stoops to Conquer. — Foote's Primitive Puppet-show, Piety on Fattens. — First Performance of the Comedy. — Agitation of the Author. — Success. — Colman squibbed out of Town 227

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

A Newspaper Attack. — The Evans Affray. — Johnson's Comment 236

CHAPTER XXXIX.

/ Boswell in Holy-week.l — Dinner at Oglethorpe's. — Dinner at /. PaoU's. — The Policy of Truth. — Goldsmith affects Independence of Royalty. — Paoli's Compliment. — Johnson's Eulogium on the Fiddle. — Question about Suicide. — Boswell's Subserviency 240

CHAPTER XL.

Changes in the Literary Club. — Johnson's Objection to Garrick.

— Election of Boswell 248

CHAPTER XLL

Dinner at Dilly's. — Conversations on Natural History. — Intermeddling of Boswell. — Dispute about Toleration. — Johnson's Rebuff to Goldsmith ; his Apology. — Man-worship. — Doctors Major and Minor. — A Farewell Visit . . . 251

CHAPTER XLIL

Project of a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences. — Disappointment.

— Negligent Authorship. — Application for a Pension. — Beattie's Essay on Truth. — Public Adulation. — A High-minded Rebuke 256

CHAPTER XLIII.

Toil without Hope. — The Poet in the Green-room ; in the Flowergarden ; at Vauxhall ; Dissipation without Gayety. — Cradock in Town ; Friendly Sympathy ; a Parting Scene ; an Invitation to Pleasure . 260

CHAPTER XLIV.

A Return to Drudgery ; Forced Gayety ; Retreat to the Country ; the Poem of Betaliation. — Portrait of Garrick ; of Goldsmith ; of Reynolds. — Illness of the Poet ; his Death ; Grief of his Friends. — A Last Word respecting the Jessamy Bride 265

CHAPTER XLV.

The Funeral. — The Monument. — The Epitaph. — Concluding

Reflections 273

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

-OOjOjCK)-

Chapter I

There are few writers for whom the reader feels such personal kindness as for Oliver Goldsmith, for few have so eminently possessed the magic gift of identifying themselves with their writings. We read liis character in every page, and grow into familiar intimacy with him as we read. The artless benevolence that beams throughout his works ; the whimsical, yet amiable views of human life and human nature ; the unforced humor, blending so happily with good feeling and good sense, and singularly dashed at times with a pleasing melancholy ; even the very nature of his mellow, and flowing, and softly-tinted style, — all seem to bespeak his moral as well as his intellectual qualities, and make us love the man at the same time that we admire the author. While the productions of writers of loftier pretension and more sounding names are suftered to moulder on our shelves, those of Goldsmith are cherished and laid in our bosoms. We do not quote them with ostentation, but they mingle with our minds, sweeten our tempers, and harmonize our thoughts ; they put us in good-humor with ourselves and with the world, and in so doing they make us happier and better men.

An acquaintance with the private biography of Goldsmith lets us into the secret of his gifted pages. We there discover them to be little more than transcripts of his own heart and picturings of his fortunes. There he shows himself the same kind, artless, good-humored, excursive, sensible, whimsical, intelligent being that he appears in his writings. Scarcely an adventure or character is given in his works that may not be traced to his o^v^n parti-colored story. Many of his most ludicrous scenes and ridiculous incidents have been drawn from his own blunders and mischances, and he seems really to have been buffeted into almost every maxim imparted by him for the instruction of his reader.

Oliver Goldsmith was born on the 10th of November, 1728, at the hamlet of Pallas, or Pallasmore, county of Longford, in Ireland. He sprang from a respectable, but by no means a thrifty stock. Some families seem to inherit kindliness and incompetency, and to hand down virtue and poverty from generation to generation. Such was the case with the Goldsmiths. " They were always," according to their own accounts, "a strange family; they rarely acted like other people ; their hearts were in the right place, but their heads seemed to be doing anything but what they ought." " They were remarkable," says another statement, " for their worth, but of no cleverness in the ways of the world." Oliver Goldsmith will be found faithfully to inherit the virtues and weaknesses of his race.

His father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, with hereditary improvidence, married when very young and very poor, and starved along for several years on a small country curacy and the assistance of his wife's friends. His whole income, eked out by the produce of some fields which he farmed, and of some occasional duties performed for his wife's uncle, the rector of an adjoining parish, did not exceed forty pounds.

" And passing rich with forty pounds a year."

He inhabited an old, half rustic mansion, that stood on a rising ground in a rough, lonely part of the country, overlooking a low tract occasionally flooded by the river Inny. In this house Goldsmith was born, and it was a birthplace worthy of a poet ; for, by all accounts, it was haunted ground. A tradition handed down among the neighboring peasantry states that, in after-years, the house, remaining for some time untenanted, went to decay, the roof fell in, and it became so lonely and forlorn as to be a resort for the " good people " or fairies, who in Ireland are supposed to

HIS FATHEB. 11

delight in old, crazy, deserted mansions for their midnight revels. All attempts to repair it were in vain ; the fairies battled stoutly to maintain possession. A huge misshapen hobgoblin used to bestride the house every evening with an immense pair of jackboots, which, in his efforts at hard riding, he would thrust through the roof, kicking to pieces all the work of the preceding day. The house was therefore left to its fate, and went to ruin.

Such is the popular tradition about Goldsmith's birthplace. About two years after his birth a change came over the circumstances of his father. By the death of his wife's uncle he succeeded to the rectory of Kilkenny West ; and, abandoning the old goblin mansion, he removed to Lissoy, in the county of Westmeath, where he occupied a farm of seventy acres, situated on the skirts of that pretty little village.

This was the scene of Goldsmith's boyhood, the little world whence he drew many of those pictures, rural and domestic, whimsical and touching, which abound throughout his works, and which appeal so eloquently both to the fancy and the heart. Lissoy is confidently cited as the original of his "Auburn" in the Deserted Village; his father's establishment, a mixture of farm and parsonage, furnished hints, it is said, for the rural economy of the " Vicar of Wakefield " ; and his father himself, with his learned simplicity, his guileless wisdom, his amiable piety, and utter ignorance of the world, has been exquisitely portrayed in the worthy Dr. Primrose. Let us pause for a moment, and draw from Goldsmith's writings one or two of those pictures which, under feigned names, represent his father and his family, and the happy fireside of his childish days.

"My father," says the "Man in Black," who, in some respects, is a counterpart of Goldsmith himself, — "my father, the younger son of a good family, was possessed of a small living in the church. His education was above his fortune, and his generosity greater than his education. Poor as he was, he had his flatterers poorer than himself : for every dinner he gave them, they returned him an equivalent in praise ; and this was all he wanted. The same ambition that actuates a monarch at the head of his army, influenced my father at the head of his table ; he told the story of the ivy-tree, and that was laughed at ; he repeated the jest of the two scholars and one pair of breeches, and the company laughed at that ; but the story of Taffy in the sedanchair was sure to set the table in a roar. Thus his pleasure increased in proportion to the pleasure he gave ; he loved all the world, and he fancied all the world loved him.

" As his fortune was but small, he lived up to the very extent of it : he had no intention of leaving his children money, for that was dross ; he resolved they should have learning, for learning, he used to observe, was better than silver or gold. For this purpose he undertook to instruct us himself, and took as much care to form our morals as to improve our understanding. We were told that universal benevolence was what first cemented society : we were taught to consider all the wants of mankind as our own ; to regard the human face divine with affection and esteem ; he wound us up to be mere machines of pity, and rendered us incapable of withstanding the slightest impulse made either by real or fictitious distress. In a word, we were perfectly instructed in the art of giving away thousands before we were taught the necessary qualifications of getting a farthing."

In the Deserted Village we have another picture of his father and his father's fireside : —

" His house was known to all the vagrant train, He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain ; The long-remembered beggar was his guest, Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast ; The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud, Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd ; The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay.

Sat by his fire, and talked the night away ; Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won. Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow. And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; Careless their merits or their faults to scan. His pity gave ere charity began."