ham, to take the charge of his father's school during Dr. Milner's illness, which at length proved fatal. Through the same gentleman, he obtained, at the expiration of this engagement, a regular appointment to be physician to one of the factories in India. This was in the year 1758; and to prepare for his equipment he drew up proposals for printing his work on "The present State of Literature in Europe." It was about this time that, in a letter to his brother Henry, he attempted to dissuade him from sending his son to college, if he had " 'ambition, strong passions, and an exquisite sensibility for contempt;" he conjures him not, above all things, to let him ever touch a romance or a novel; urging that books teach very little of the world. Then, after affirming that "the greatest merit in a state of poverty would only serve to make the possessor ridiculous," he adds: -“Teach then, my dear sir, to your son, thrift and economy. Let his poor wandering uncle's example be placed before his eyes. I had learned from books to be disinterested and generous, before I was taught from experience the necessity of being prudent. I had contracted the habits and notions of a philosopher, while I was exposing myself to the insidious approaches of cunning; and often by being, even with my narrow finances, charitable to excess, I forgot the rules of justice, and placed myself in the very situation of the wretch who thanked me for my bounty."

Dr. Goldsmith gradually cooled in his desire for an East India voyage. His next engagement was as a writer in the Monthly Review, the publisher and proprietor of which, Mr. Ralph Griffiths, he met with at Dr. Milner's table. The terms offered him, were his board and lodging, and a handsome salary: and the agreement was to last for one year. In fulfilling his part of it, Goldsmith declared he usually wrote for his employer every day from nine o'clock till two: but at the end of seven or eight months, it was dis

solved by mutual consent, and our author took lodgings in Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey;—a wretched dirty room, in which there was but one chair, so that when he was honoured with a visitant, he was obliged himself to sit in the window. Here he finished his "Inquiry into the State of Literature." His next

removal was to Wine Office Court, where he wrote, as has been already mentioned, the VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. In this residence he received his first visit from Dr. Johnson, on May 31st, 1761; when he gave an invitation to him, and much other company, many of them literary men, to a supper in these lodgings. Among the company invited was Dr. Percy, afterwards Bishop of Dromore. In 1763, he took lodgings in Canonbury-House, Islington, where he was employed principally in compiling and editing publications for his patron, Newberry the bookseller. In 1764, he fixed his abode in the Temple, first in the library staircase, afterwards in the King's Bench Walk, and ultimately at No. 2, in Brick Court, where he had chambers on the first floor elegantly furnished. Thus gradually did this singularly gifted man, by the mere force of his talents, under every disadvantage of person and fortune, emerge from the obscurity of the most abject poverty, into celebrity and comparative affluence.

About 1764 was formed the celebrated literary club, of which Dr. Goldsmith was one of the first members, together with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Burke, Dr. Nugent, Sir John Hawkins, Mr. Langton, Mr. Topham Beauclerk, Mr. Chamier, and Mr. Dyer. They met and supped together every Friday evening, at the Turk's Head in Gerrard Street, Soho.

In 1768, (January 29th,) his play of the Goodnatured Man, after being declined by Garrick, was produced at Covent Garden. In the following year, at the establishment of the Royal Academy, his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds procured for him the appoint

ment of Professor of Ancient History; a mere complimentary distinction, attended with neither emolument nor trouble. His letters to his friends, written at this period, exhibit an unsophisticated simplicity of mind, and breathe the same ardent attachment to his country, and the same affection for his " poor shattered family," as ever.

In 1773, Dr. Goldsmith's second comedy, "She stoops to Conquer," made its appearance at Covent Garden. It had a surprising run, contrary to the manager's anticipations, and produced the author a clear profit of eight hundred pounds. This, we are informed, "brought down upon him a torrent of congratulatory addresses and petitions from less fortunate bards, whose indigence compelled them to solicit his bounty, and of scurrilous abuse from such as, being less reduced, only envied his success." The “London Packet," of Wednesday, March 24th, 1773, contained a letter signed Tom Tickle, which being pointed out to him by the officious kindness of a friend, Goldsmith went to the publisher, (T. Evans of Paternoster Row,) and after arguing on the malignity of this unmerited attack upon his character, applied a cane to the bookseller's shoulders. A scuffle ensued, in which the Doctor got his share of blows, till Dr. Kenrick, "a noted libeller," and the suspected author of the letter, stepped forward from the publisher's back-room, and parting the combatants, sent the Doctor, severely bruised, home in a coach. affair long employed the discussion of the newspapers; and an action was threatened for the assault; but it was at length compromised, and the poet published an address upon the subject in the DAILY Advertiser, written so much in the nervous style of Dr. Johnson, that it was at first supposed, though without foundation, to be his.

The

His last publication was his "History of animated Nature," in eight volumes, octavo, which appeared in

1774. In the spring of that year, being embarrassed in his circumstances, owing to his profusion and liberality, but still more to his pernicious attachment to gaming, he was attacked with a severe fit of the strangury. To this complaint he was subject, owing probably to his intemperate application at times, for several weeks together, without exercise, to some of his compilations; on the completion of which he used to give himself up to all the gaieties of the metropolis. His indisposition being in the present instance aggravated by mental distress, terminated in an alarming fever. Contrary to the advice of the medical gentlemen whom he called in, he had recourse to James's Fever-powder, from which he had in a similar attack received benefit. From this time the progress of the disease was as unfavourable as possible; the symptoms became daily more alarming; and on Monday, April 4th, he expired, in the fortysixth year of his age. It was at first proposed by his friends to honour him with a public funeral; but this idea was abandoned, probably from the embarrassed circumstances in which he died, and he was privately interred in the Temple burial-ground, at five o'clock in the evening of the Saturday following his departure. A marble monument was subsequently raised, by means of a subscription among his friends, which is placed between those of Gay and of the Duke of Argyle, in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey.

It is impossible to peruse the memoirs of Goldsmith, without participating, in some degree, in those mixed feelings of admiration and regret, of friendly esteem and compassion, with which he appears to have been regarded by his contemporaries,-feelings corresponding with the contrarieties that met in his character. The social and literary attractions of that man must have been considerable, who was admitted as the friend and compeer of Johnson and Burke, of Reynolds and Percy, of Garrick and Beauclerk. Yet

this same individual, from his vanity and his blunders, together with a misplaced ambition of being a wit, often made himself in conversation ridiculous. "Nothing could be more amiable," we are told, “than the general features of his mind." He was generous in the extreme, too often sacrificing prudence and justice to the impulse of his feelings, and continually becoming the dupe of imposition. But his conduct was too much at variance with any settled religious principles. Garrick describes him, in a line, as a most heterogeneous compound of qualities.

"This scholar, rake, Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet."

Dr. Johnson, who took every opportunity of eulogizing the genius, and vindicating the fame of Goldsmith, for whom he seems to have had a sincere friendship, observed on one occasion, "Dr. Goldsmith is one of the first men we have as an author, and he is a very worthy man too. He has been loose in his principles, but is coming right." This candid sentence upon his character, does credit to Johnson's feelings; it is melancholy to reflect that Goldsmith did not survive long enough to realize the hope of his friend. While his works will never fail to awaken emotions of tender delight and admiration, by the genius which adorns them, and the generous sentiments with which they abound, that example which the "poor wandering uncle" besought his brother to place before the eyes of his son, as a beacon, will continue to speak still more impressively the language of admonition and instruction. How far do the dangers of going wrong preponderate over the chances of "coming right!"