solitary figure of a wandering minstrel in the foreground, and a vacant background which can be filled up with strange adventures, These, doubtless, were not wanting; and perhaps this year was the most attractive to Goldsmith himself in the retrospect, however gloomy it may have been in actual experience. It is at least certain that his desire of travel was not extinguished; for ten years after this he endeavoured, though unsuccessfully, to carry out a project of travel in the East, which he had long entertained. 1756-1765 On returning to London in 1756, Goldsmith had to begin the world anew; but the evil was, that he knew not where to begin. He was now twenty-eight years of age; he had accumulated, on the basis of at least an average scholarship, a vast amount of miscellaneous information: he had experienced much, and observed more; he was in fact a wise man theoretically. But how were all these treasures to be turned to account? Had literature been a regularly organized profession, he would have embraced it at once; as it was, he reached it by a circuitous route. He first became an usher, and what sort of situation that was in his time, he has pourtrayed in the Vicar of Wakefield. He next entered the service of a chemist, and then set up for himself as a medical practitioner in Southwark. These three changes were made in the course of one year, that of his return to England; for in the beginning of 1757, we find him undertaking the charge of a classical school at Peckham, Surrey, in the room of a dissenting minister, Dr John Milner, who was temporarily disabled by illThis gentleman appreciated Goldsmith's services; and introduced him to Mr (afterwards Dr) Griffiths, projector and proprietor of the Monthly Review, to which Goldsmith soon became a regular contributor. It was also Dr Milner who obtained for Goldsmith a professional appointment in India under the Company; but this opportunity of obtaining a fixed and adequate income was let slip, partly from Goldsmith's dislike to permanent expatriation, and partly from the difficulty of procuring the requisite outfit. He still entertained, however, the idea of turning his professional skill to account, for, in December 1758, he presented himself at Surgeons' Hall for examination as an hospital mate; he was rejected as unqualified. His professional knowledge was probably never either very exact or very extensive; at all events it could not have been so, after years of interrupted professional study. It is no wonder, therefore, and no disparagement to Goldsmith's genius that he was rejected: his application was merely an instance of his folly in practical matters, and his admission would have argued little for the Surgeons' Hall examination. ness. Goldsmith was now fairly shut up to a literary life. It was the only field open to him, and the only one in which his services were welcomed. Accordingly from this time he becomes ever more and more prolific as a writer. In 1760 he began that famous series of contribution to the Public Ledger entitled Chinese Letters,' on account of which, Newbery, the publisher, allowed him £100 per annum. They were afterwards published separately, under the title 'Letters from a Citizen of the World,' and, in the more modern language of book titles, might be called What a Chinese Philosopher thought of England and the English.' Goldsmith's literary employment was exceedingly miscellaneous, and chiefly in connection with Newbery, to be nearer whom, he removed in 1762 from London itself to Islington, where that gentleman resided. Here he remained till 1764; and, according to some, his Islington landlady, a Mrs Fleming, was the one who offered herself in marriage to Goldsmith as the only condition of his escaping the bailiffs, whose aid she had called in to enforce the payment of her bill. Prior doubts the locality assigned to this affair, and rejects the unfeminine proposal ascribed to the landlady as an exaggeration. The facts ascertained are simply these, that about the year 1764, Goldsmith, being arrested by his landlady for debt, sent for Dr Johnson, to whom he committed the manuscript of the Vicar of Wakefield; Johnson went straight to Newbery, who bought the manuscript for £60, and thus Goldsmith was relieved from his difficulties. At the close of 1764 The Traveller' was published, and Goldsmith's reputation as a poet established. It had been sketched at Geneva, and is not less instructive as the report of an experienced observer, than charming as the production of an elegant fancy. Johnson contributed to it nine lines, two of which are me morable for their profound wisdom, pensive and cheering at once:'How small, of all that human hearts endure, That part, which kings or laws can cause or cure!' The circle of Goldsmith's acquaintances and patrons was greatly extended by the publication of 'The Traveller.' Among his new patrons was the Earl of Northumberland, who, on setting out for Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, expressed himself ready to do Goldsmith a kindness. Instead of improving the opportunity for his own benefit, Goldsmith called his Lordship's attention to his brother Henry, who was still doing clerical duty on £40 a year. How unselfish say they who look on the right side of the transaction; how foolish say they who look on the wrong. 1765-1774 Goldsmith's unselfishness in turning the Earl of Northumber land's regards from himself to his brother is all the more remarkable, because his own circumstances were at this very time so straitened that, in the end of 1765, he made one effort more to establish a regular medical practice. It was the last of the kind he made,-brief and unsuccessful like all the others. Goldsmith was destined to rise in fame, not in fortune; and in the beginning of 1766 a notable accession was made to the former by the publication of the 'Vicar of Wakefield.' A few copies of The Ilermit' had been printed two years previously for the amusement of the Countess of Northumberland. The one is the sweetest ballad, and the other the most delightful tale in the English language. If Goldsmith cannot be acquitted of the charge of academica. idleness, brought against his youth, he must be wondered at, or at least admired for the literary industry of his prime. Compilation was the form which his taskwork assumed. His History of Animated Nature, extending to eight octavo volumes, was an immense undertaking; and many generations have known little of political history but what Goldsmith has taught them. His proper reputation however rests not at all on these numerous works, which were the outcome of persevering labour, but on the few which were the outpouring of spontaneous inspiration. To these belongs The Deserted Village,' which was published in 1770. His comedy of the Good-Natured Man' was brought out two years earlier, and She Stoops to Conquer' three years later, the former with but moderate, the latter with the greatest success. Goldsmith was now turned forty, and had reached the zenith at once of his reputation and of his powers. His life had for many years been divided between desk labour and conviviality neither of them regular nor always in measure; and the effect at length appeared in occasional depression of spirit, and in some permanent bodily infirmities. He had resolved upon retiring to the country, and spending only two months of the year in London; but before this purpose could be carried into effect, a fever, the combined result of local disease and mental harassment, carried him off in the forty-sixth year of his age. His remains were interred in the Temple burying-ground, and a monument erected to him in Westminster Abbey, bearing a Latin inscription from the pen of Dr Samuel Johnson, of which the following is a translation: It must be confessed that Goldsmith's life, as a man, is emi *This misstatement of Goldsmith's birth-year still remains in the inscription in Westminster Abbey. As has been stated, he was really born in the year 1728 |