established, that Mr. Fox's praise could not augment it, nor his censure diminish it. The periodical critics were unanimous in its praise. In 1766 appeared his exquisite novel, the Vicar of Wakefield,' which had been written two years before, and sold to Newbery, the bookseller, to discharge a pressing debt. Goldsmith's landlady had called in a sheriff's officer to enforce payment of her bill. In this extremity he sent a messenger to Jolinson, who forwarded a guinea, and followed himself shortly after. He found Goldsmith railing at the landlady over a bottle of Madeira (the guinea having been changed), and on his inquiring how money could be procured, the poor debtor produced the manuscript of his novel, which Johnson took to the bookseller and sold for £60. Yet Newbery did not venture to publish it until the 'Traveller' had rendered the name of the author popular. Goldsmith's comedy of the 'Good-natured Man' was produced in 1768, his ‘Roman History' next year, and the 'Deserted Village' in 1770. The latter was as popular as the Traveller,' and speedily ran through a number of editions. Goldsmith was now at the summit of his fame and popularity. The march had been long and toilsome, and he was often nearly fainting by the way; but his success was at length complete. His name stood among the foremost of his contemporaries: the booksellers courted him, and his works brought him in large sums. Difficulty and distress, however, still clung to him: poetry had found him poor at first, and kept him so. From heedless profusion and extravagance, chiefly in dress, and from a benevolence which knew no limit while his funds lasted, Goldsmith was scarcely ever free from debt. The gaming-table also presented irresistible attractions. He hung loosely on society, without wife or domestic tie; and his early habits and experience were ill calculated to teach him strict conscientiousness or regularity. He continued to write task-work for the booksellers, and produced (1771) a History of England' in four volumes.

In 1773 his comedy of She Stoops to Conquer' was brought out at Covent Garden Theatre with immense applause. The same year appeared his History of Greece,' in two volumes, for which he was paid £250. He had contracted to write a 'History of Animated Nature' in eight volumes, at the rate of a hundred guineas for each volume; but this work he did not live to complete, though the greater part was finished in his own attractive and easy manner. In March 1774, he was attacked by a painful complaint (strangury) caused by close study, which was succeeded by a nervous fever. Contrary to the advice of his apothecary, he persisted in the use of James's powders, a medicine to which he had often had recourse; and gradually getting worse, he expired in convulsions on the morning of the 4th of April. His last words were melancholy. Your pulse,' said his physician, is in greater disorder than it should be from the degree of tever which you have: is your mind at ease?' 'No, it is not,' was the sad reply. The death of so popular an author, at the age of forty

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six, was a shock equally to his friends and the public. The former knew his sterling worth, and loved him with all his foibles-his undisguised vanity, his national proneness to blundering, his thoughtless extravagance, his credulity, and his frequent absurdities. Under these ran a current of generous benevolence, of enlightened zeal for the happiness and improvement of mankind, and of manly independent feeling. He died £2000 in debt: Was ever poet so trusted before!' exclaimed Johnson. His remains were interred in the Temple burying-ground, and a monument erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey, next the grave of Gay, whom he somewhat resembled in character, and far surpassed in genius. The fame of Goldsmith has been constantly on the increase, and two copious lives of him have been produced-one by Prior, in 1837, and another, the 'Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith,' by John Forster, in 1848, and since enlarged. The latter is a valuable and interesting work.

The plan of the 'Traveller' is simple, yet comprehensive and philosophical. The poet represents himself as sitting among Alpine solitudes, looking down on a hundred realms. He views the whole with delight, yet sighs to think that the hoard of human bliss is so small, and he wishes to find some spot consigned to real happiness. But where is such a spot to be found? The natives of each country think their own the best. If nations are compared, the amount of happiness in each is found to be about the same; and to illustrate this position, the poet describes the state of manners and government in Italy, Switzerland, France, Holland, and England. In general correctness and beauty of expression, these sketches have never been surpassed. The politician may think that the poet ascribes too little importance to the influence of government on the happiness of mankind, seeing that in a despotic state the whole must depend on the individual character of the governor; yet in the cases cited by Goldsmith, it is difficult to resist his conclusions; while his short sententious reasoning is relieved and elevated by bursts of true poetry. There was no greater master of the art of contrast in heightening the effect of his pictures. His character of the men of England used to draw tears from Dr. Johnson.

The poem is so truly felicitous in thought and expression, that we give it entire, following the ninth edition, or the last that appeared during the lifetime of the author.

The Traveller, or Prospect of Society.

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
Or by the lazy Scheld, or wandering Po;
Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door;
Or where Campania's plain forsaken lies,
A weary waste expanding to the skies;
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee;

Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a length'ning chain.
Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend;
Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire:
Blest that abode, where want and pain repair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair:
Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crowned,
Where all the ruddy family around

Laugh at the jest or pranks that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale:
Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good.

But me, not destined such delights to share,
My prime of life in wandering spent and care:
Impelled with steps unceasing, to pursue

Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view;
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies;
My fortune leads to traverse realins alone,
And find no spot of all the world my own.
Ev'n now, where Alpine solitudes ascend,
I sit me down a pensive hour to spend:
And placed on high above the storm's career,
Look downward where an hundred realms appear;
Lakes, forests, cities, plains, extending wide,
The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler pride.
When thus creation's charms around combine,
Amidst the store should thankless pride repine?
Say, should the philosophic mind disdain,

That good which makes each humbler bosom vain
Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can,

These little things are great to little man;

And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind

Exults in all the good of all mankind.

Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendour crowned,

Ye fields,' where summer spreads profusion round;

Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale;

Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale;
For me your tributary stores combine:
Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine!

As some lone miser, visiting his store,
Bends at his treasure, counts. recounts it o'er,
Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill,
Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still:
Thus to my breast alternate passions rise,

Pleased with each good that Heaven to man supplies:
Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall,
To see the hoard of human bliss so small;

And oft I wish amidst the scene to find
Some spot to real happiness consigned,

Where iny worn soul, each wandering hope at rest
May gather bliss to see my fellows blest.
But where to find that happiest spot below,
Who can direct when all pretend to know?
The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own;
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease;
The naked negro, panting at the line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,

Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country, ever is at home.
And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,
And estimate the blessings which they share,
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
An equal portion dealt to all mankind;
As different good, by art of nature given,
To different nations makes their blessings even.
Nature, a mother kind alike to all,

Still grants her bliss at labour's earnest call
With food as well the peasant is supplied
On Idra's cliffs as Arno's shelvy side;
And though the rocky crested summits frown,
These rocks, by custom, turn to beds of down,
From art more various are the blessings sent;
Wealth, commerce, honour, liberty, content.
Yet these each other's power so strong contest,
That either seems destructive of the rest.
Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails,
And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
Hence every state to one loved blessing prone,
Conforms and models life to that alone.
Each to the fav'rite happiness attends,
And spurns the plan that aims at other ends;
Till carried to excess in each domain,
This fav'rite good begets peculiar pain.

But let us try these truths with closer eyes,
And trace them through the prospect as it lies:
Here for a while my proper cares resigned,
Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind;
Like yon neglected shrub at random cast,
That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast.
Far to the right, where Apennine ascends,
Bright as the summer, Italy extends;.
Its uplands sloping, deck the mountain's side,
Woods over woods in gay theatric pride;

While oft some temple's mouldering tops between,
With venerable grandeur mark the scene.
Could nature's bounty satisfy the breast,

The sons of Italy were surely blest.

Whatever fruits in different climes were found,
That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground;
Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear,
Whose bright succession decks the varied year;
Whatever sweets salute the northern sky
With vernal lives, that blossom but to die;
These, here disporting, own the kindred soil,
Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil;
While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand,
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land.
But small the bliss that sense alone bestows,
And sensual bliss is all the nation knows.
In florid beauty groves and fields appear,
Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.
Contrasted faults through all his manners reign:
Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain 3
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue:
And even in penance planning sins anew.
All evils here contaminate the mind,
That opulence departed leaves behind;

For wealth was theirs, not far removed the date,
Wheu commerce proudly flourished through the state;
At her command the palace learned to rise,
Again the long-fallen columu sought the skies;
The canvas glowed beyond e'en nature warm,
The pregnant quarry teemed with human form.
Till, more unsteady than the southern gale,
Commerce on other shores displayed her sail;
While nougirt remained of all that riches gave,
But towns anmanned, and lords without a slave;
And late the nation found with fruitless skill,
Its former strength was but plethoric ill.

Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supplied
By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride!
From these the feeble heart and long-fallen mind
An easy compcusation seem to find.

Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp arrayed,
The pasteboard triumph and the cavalcade;
Processions formed for piety and love,

A mistress or a saint in every grove.

By sports like these are all their cares beguiled,
The sports of children satisfy the child;
Each nobler aim, repressed by long control,
Now sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul;
While low delights, succeeding fast behind,
In happier meanness occupy the mind:

As in those domes where Caesars once bore sway,
Defaced by time and tottering in decay,
There in the ruin, heedless of the dead,
The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed;
And, wondering man could want the larger pile,
Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile.

My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey
Where rougher climes a nobler race display,
Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread;

No product here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword;
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,

But winter lingering chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.

Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.

Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though small, He sees his little fot the lot of all;

Sees no contiguous palace rear its head

To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal,
To make him loathe his vegetable meal;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.
Cheerful at morn he wakes from short repose,
Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle trolls the finny deep,

Or drives his venturous ploughshare to the steep;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
And drags the struggling savage into day.

At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down, the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks that brighten at the blaze;