by the united contributions of his friends, he was enabled to go to Edinburgh to study medicine. Poor as he was, he had a sort of vanity about money that would not suffer him to acknowledge the scantiness of his resources. One evening, when a party of the students were assembled, it was proposed that they should go to a play, when Goldsmith offered to draw lots with any one of them, to decide which of the two should pay for all. Fortunately, as he afterwards confessed, they all refused; for, said he, had any of them accepted the challenge, and I had lost, part of my wardrobe must have been pledged to raise the money! Upon leaving Leyden, he was so reduced as to be obliged to borrow money to prosecute his journey; but he had no sooner procured it than, wandering into a florist's, he saw some flowers that he knew would please his uncle, and he laid out his whole stock of money to purchase them. Being once at the gardens at White Conduit House, he met three ladies, the daughters ́of a friend, and could not resist the opportunity of asking them to take tea with him; but when the bill came to be paid, it was discovered that he had no money! A friend once asked a loan from him, and upon being told that he had not the means of obliging him, reproached him for his unkindness in refusing to do a favour which he believed it was in his power to confer. Poor Goldsmith, mortified at the ungenerous suspicion, borrowed the money, and wrapping it up in paper, placed it under the door of the lodgings of his friend, who was gone out to a party. The next day the friend called to thank him, but reproved him for his carelessness in putting the money in a place where any person passing in or out might find it. "I never thought of that,” replied the poet! Pilkington, a distressed scribe, used to practise frequent schemes upon his credulity, and once obtained a small sum from him, under the pretence that he wanted to pay the purchase-money on three white mice which were lying in the docks, and which he designed as a present to a lady of quality! One of the most ludicrous points about Goldsmith was his personal vanity. In height he was about five feet and a half, of a strong make, and with very plain features, and a heavy head: his manners were exceedingly inartificial: he laughed loudly when he was animated, and was not distinguished for that sort of refinement

which his writings would, a priori, have led the reader to expect. Yet, with very little pretension derived from figure, face, or tone, he occasionally indulged in some extravagances of dress which, taken in contrast with his simple and natural demeanour, as well as with his intervals of slovenliness, must have given him an appearance of holiday finery, that in such a man could not have been otherwise than ridiculous. When he first became known in London, he aimed at the other extreme, and dressed with remarkable negligence. Dr. Johnson, upon visiting him with Dr. Percy, was observed to have prepared his toilet with unusual care, and upon being asked the reason, he replied that he understood that Dr. Goldsmith was in the habit of attiring himself in a slovenly fashion, quoting him as an example, and that he was resolved to deprive him of such an excuse for so indefensible a custom. His love of fine clothes, when he indulged in it, was equally absurd, and he even went so far as to adopt some of the most expensive and foolish fashions of the day. One morning Sir Joshua called on him, and found him kicking a bundle violently through the room. Upon enquiry, he discovered that it contained a masquerade dress which Goldsmith had purchased, and which, having served its purpose, the poet, in repentance for having expended his money so unwisely, was thus ill-using, in the determination " to have the value out of it in exercise!" His tailor's bills are amongst the most curious documents of the kind extant; and testify with unanswerable fidelity the follies he committed in this way. One of the items we find is a "Tyrian bloom satin grain and garter blue silk breeches:" another " a blue velvet suit" and "crimson collar:" a third a "frock suit, half trimmed with gold sprig buttons ;" and a fourth a "rich straw-coloured tamboured waistcoat." It must have been a strange sight to see the author of the Vicar of Wakefield in a blue velvet suit, with a crimson collar, a straw-coloured waistcoat, and Tyrian bloom and garter blue silk breeches! Yet such were the extremities to which he carried the most amusing vanity that was ever betrayed by a man of sense; and if we may derive any inference of his general habits from the bills of one year, the variety and costliness of his suits must have nearly exhausted his whole resources. He was evidently very sensitive on this

point. When he attempted to commence practice in London as a physician, he supplied himself, in conformity to the prevailing custom, with a velvet coat; but, being unable to procure a new one, he purchased one second-hand; it is not improbable that he was deceived in the bargain, for there was a breach in the left breast which he was obliged to have repaired with a fresh piece of velvet, and which looked so much newer than the rest, that whenever he attended his patients he used to keep his hat over the spot during the whole time of the visit. This awkward position might have escaped notice once or twice, but having constant recourse to so unusual an attitude, subjected him to suspicion, until at last the secret was discovered, and he was overwhelmed by the merriment of his acquaintances. Amidst all this weakness, however, there was a vein of kindliness that won upon the affections of every body. His fondness for children made him a welcome visitor, even amongst those whose quick eyes were the first to detect the simplicity of his dress. An old woman, who is still living, recollects that when she was a child she used to go, with other children, to the house where he lodged, for the sake of the cakes and sweetmeats he was in the habit of distributing bountifully amongst the young people: and Colman relates a story of a romp, wherein Goldsmith acted the part of a conjuror, placing three hats on the floor, with a shilling under each, then crying, "Hey! presto! cockolorum!" all the shillings were found together under a particular hat, to the infinite delight of his juvenile companions.

Every memorial, however slight, of such a man is full of abiding interest. Some of the places where he lived in London are yet to be seen nearly as they were in his life-time. His lodgings in Wine-office court and in the Temple are still preserved with little alterations; but the house in which he lived, in Green-Arbour Court, where the first interview took place between him and Dr. Johnson at a supper given by the poet, has been long since pulled down. It lay between the Fleet Market and the Old Bailey, at the summit of a perilous ascent known by the name of Break-neck Stairs. A few tall, narrow houses hung on the top of that dingy hill, up which the pedestrian was compelled to strain by a passage so choked with houses on either hand, that it was literally buried

in eternal shadows. The range of houses that formed what was called Green-Arbour Court, scaled the brow of the dangerous. and abrupt acclivity; and there, surrounded by a dense population, in one of the most obscure and repulsive quarters of the city, the poet prosecuted his tasks, and received the visits of some of the most distinguished men of his day. He was fond of inviting his friends to supper, and sometimes ventured upon a dinner party, which generally terminated, when Goldsmith was in high spirits and had his own way, in roystering festivity, or a game of sports. At one of those entertainments, as the company were about to break up, there happened some delay concerning the carriages, when Goldsmith, taking advantage of the interval, proposed a dance, which was agreed to by the guests, and every body present joined in the mirth, until “ the house was turned out of the windows." His love of mirth, his Irish light-heartedness, never abandoned him.

If we are to credit Boswell-who, with all his gossip, has a very stiff way of recording conversation-the intercourse between Goldsmith and his contemporaries must have been carried on in a tone of formality that was irreconcileable with that freedom and cordiality which the imagination would fain attach to such reunions. We suspect, however, that the solemn pomp of Boswell's dialogues-their sententious regularity-their didactic manner

and ceremonious turns, originated with Boswell himself, who was deficient in the skill to give them the necessary air of truth and frankness. It is very unlikely that Johnson and Goldsmith, and Reynolds, and the rest, were constantly in the habit of addressing each other with a grave “Sir!” although it is not improbable that when the lexicographer had anything very fine to say, he might have solicited attention to it in that dogmatic fashion. The frequency of these frigid interpolations, is very remarkable in Boswell's work; and it is even still more remarkable that the same mode of commemorating the sayings of other men of genius-particularly in the case of Dr. Parr-has since been adopted with traditional fidelity. The practice is not only absurd, but injurious to the dramatic interests and vraisemblance of such personal records. An instance or two will sufficiently expose the false and forced character of these memorable trifles. Thus

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Johnson, speaking of Kenrick, who acted to Goldsmith a similar part to that which Dennis acted to Pope, escaping, however, a similar chastisement, is made to say, Sir, he is a man who has succeeded in making himself public, without making himself known." It seems to have been thought advisable to give effect to the antithesis, at any expense of propriety in the tone of the expression. Again, speaking of Goldsmith, Johnson is stated to have said, 66 Sir, who can pen an essay with such ease and elegance as Goldsmith?" Setting aside the poor and commonplace employment of the word pen, which, of a verity, never fell from the lips of the grandiloquent Johnson, what is there in this observation to require or justify so serious an appeal to the interlocutor? When Boswell asked Johnson why he slept without a nightcap, the Doctor replied, “ Sir, posterity shall go down to the grave ignorant of the reason why I do not wear a nightcap!" It was 66 Sir" upon every occasion, great and small. In allusion to Goldsmith's projected visit to the East, Johnson observed, Sir, he would bring home a grinding barrow which we see every day in the streets, and think that he had furnished a wonderful discovery." George Steevens, alluding to Boswell's censures of Goldsmith, remarked, “ Why, sir, it is not unusual for a man who has much genius to be censured by one who has none.' Even Goldsmith himself the simplest wit amongst them-is drawn into this manner of address by his biographers, and is reported to have complimented a sculptor in these words, “Sir, you live by the dead, and the dead live by you." Such matters are, singly, unimportant; but they help, nevertheless, to give a certain artificial colouring to the conversations that considerably reduces their probability, and leaves an erroneous impression upon the mind. The objection to them is not, perhaps, that they are actually false reports, but that they surround the persons concerned with a false atmosphere of ceremony.

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It is worthy of observation that the life of Goldsmith was entirely free from any of those embarrassments which sometimes arise to authors from the influence of love, and to which the world has been so largely indebted for some of the most exquisite productions of genius. His progress never seems to have been distracted by any wayward thoughts of that kind; and, with the

exception of a single circumstance which occurred to him in Dublin, and which was not of a nature calculated for permanency, it does not appear that the repose of his feelings was ever disturbed by the other sex, from which much of his inspiration was evidently drawn. His sympathies were, probably, too much diffused over his species to admit of intense concentration on a single object: nor was he constituted of such elements as were likely to retain very deeply any impres sions he might receive. The natural vivacity of his character resisted the entrance of durable passion, and his complete exorcise of self rendered him incapable of nurturing a feeling which would have absorbed his mind upon the pursuit of his own happiness. This solution is not, perhaps, altogether satisfactory: but it is difficult otherwise to explain such an anomaly in the history of one who must have penetrated the confessional of the heart, and witnessed in their secret depths the springs of the tenderest emotions. If there be any condition of existence that is likely, in its own action, to generate a yearning for that companionship of the affections which general society cannot yield, it is the condi tion of the author. His loneliness and abstraction—his want of kind hands and watchful eyes the melancholy that spreads over him, at times, like a cloud falling on his spirit-the solitude, which he cannot help filling with those images of love and beauty that grow out of his own thoughts, and that form a part of the world in which his imagination dwells. - must constantly remind him of the desolation from which there is but one relief. His books will not wholly satisfy the cravings of his mind: he cannot always content himself with the pleasures of literature, which, to be truly felt, must be enjoyed in common with some kindred intellect: the flattery of the world dies upon his ears, and leaves nothing but an uneasy flutter behind: he lacks somebody to repeat it to, for whose sake he will be prouder of it than for his own: society occupies, but does not engross, even a partial "session of his thoughts:" and he returns home from its glitter, its agitation, and its revelry, more than ever out of humour with his destiny, and longing despairingly for repose. But Goldsmith was never oppressed by such reflections. His club preserved him in the best temper with the world; and wherever

he went he carried with him such domestic feelings, that he found no difficulty in creating a home for himself which, whatever might be its discomforts and deficiencies, answered all the demands of his own easy and contented disposition.

Of all the English writers there is not one who will bear comparison with Goldsmith for natural sentiments, and elegance of diction. The felicitous simplicity of his language has always been regarded as a model of purity. His taste was unexceptionable and his style may be recommended as the best study within the whole range of our literature. Johnson, we are aware, recommends Addison to the attention of people who are anxious to attain a correct and chaste manner; but there can be no hesitation at this distance of time in dissenting from an opinion which was delivered while Goldsmith was yet living, and before he had established his reputation. In some respects there was a striking similarity between Goldsmith and Franklin: the same good sense, just views, and perspicuity of expression distinguished them both; but in humour, in critical penetration, and in refinement, Goldsmith was infinitely his superior. A resemblance, too, may be found in Rousseau, some of whose writings are in the last degree eloquent, simple, and polished. But the hand of the cunning artist, notwithstanding all his genius, frequently appears, and even his fluency betrays the toil by which it was produced. It is well known that Rousseau composed with great pain and difficulty, although language seems to have flowed in rich streams from his pen; while Johnson, whose essays are so extravagantly elaborated, worked with the utmost rapidity. Goldsmith, who combined the highest excellencies, rarely blotted his manuscripts, and was seldom known to make any alterations. His style seems to have been

early formed, and to have caused him no trouble afterwards. His familiar letters, written to his friends during his youth, exhibit evidences of the same clear spirit, and inartificial modes of description, that have conferred immortality upon his works. One important illustration of the way to literary fame is furnished by his labours— that those who write for perpetuity, and who touch the kernel of truth, draw from their own experience of life, and not from the reflections of the world in books. His productions are crowded with such numerous instances of this fact, that it is unnecessary to sustain the assertion by examples. There is hardly a striking passage in his comedies, or his tales, that is not founded upon some events that occurred to himself, or within his own knowledge; and even in his Animated Nature, with the pages of Buffon spread out before him, he frequently refers to observations he had made upon natural phenomena during his boyhood. The Adventures of Tony Lumpkin and Mrs. Hardcastle had their origin in an escapade of his early years -the whole story of George Primrose, and of the Strolling Player, even to the minute incidents of the flute, the drudgeries of the usher, and Bishop Jewell's Staff, were derived from circumstances that occurred to himself: but we might pursue the enumeration through an hundred places that must be as familiar to the reader as "household words." It is pleasurable to find that such a writer has been again brought before the public by the indefatigable exertions of so industrious a biographer as Mr. Prior; for although the world needed no hint to recur to this "well of English undefiled," the discovery and restoration of many occasional papers not hitherto known to be his, will give an increased zest to the imperishable popularity of his name.

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