excited both by the poet's judgment and imagination."

To follow a good poet in the most admired of his pieces without losing ground by the attempt, forms no slight test of the merit of a writer; and Addison is so popular, that even his name becomes nearly a bar to competition. All the stronger points admitting of poetical description had been seized by him; the features of the country, her mountains, views, groves, and fields, none of which, as he says, were "unsung," had been appropriated; the diversity of her productions, where

"Blossoms, and fruits, and flowers together rise,
And the whole year in gay confusion lies,"

had been adverted to; and her ruins, as well as her triumphs in painting and sculpture, sufficiently brought into view to take away much of the charm of originality from any who should venture to tread the same ground.

Little therefore remained for the muse of Goldsmith but the character of the people, which like their modern literature and institutions, obtained no respect from his judgment and consequently little from his pen. Their predilections and pursuits as being supposed to tend to moral degeneracy, lead to a severe remark

"And sensual bliss is all this nation knows."

And again, in allusion to their fallen political con

dition he adds, in contrast to the natural products of the country

"Man seems the only growth that dwindles here."

And carrying on the unfavourable picture, the following lines have great force and condensation

"Contrasted faults through all his manners reign,
Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain ;
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue,
And even in penance planning sins anew."

Addison dwelt little on what Goldsmith has been compelled by the pre-occupation of topics to make his principal theme. In comparing the one hundred and sixty-eight lines of the former with the sixty of the latter, they will be found as the range of the former was unlimited, to display more imagination and vivacity. In Goldsmith as his purpose was more philosophical, we find more of the depth of such an observer, equal vigour of description, more condensation of thought, and infinitely more smoothness of versification. Both unaccountably neglect to notice the chief delight of modern Italy, its music; for this in the hands of either, particularly of Goldsmith, who had a taste for it, might have been made the vehicle of some fine poetical painting and pointed remark. But his ingenuity deserves praise in furnishing a sketch after such a master, at once philosophical, spirited, and original.

While engaged in putting a finishing hand to

the poem, an anecdote connected with the writing of one of the couplets and of his amusement at the same moment, told by Sir Joshua Reynolds to a lady more than once alluded to who forms the authority for the fact, exhibits the peculiarity of his humour; it shows also that elevated sentiments are not always the offspring of abstract thought.

Either Reynolds, or a mutual friend who immediately communicated the story to him, calling at the lodgings of the Poet opened the door without ceremony, and discovered him not in meditation, or in the throes of poetic birth, but in the boyish office of teaching a favourite dog to sit upright upon its haunches, or as is commonly said, to beg. Occasionally he glanced his eye over his desk, and occasionally shook his finger at the unwilling pupil in order to make him retain his position; while on the page before him was written that couplet, with the ink of the second line still wet, from the description of Italy—

"By sports like these are all their cares beguiled,
The sports of children satisfy the child."

The sentiment seemed so appropriate to the employment, that the visitor could not refrain from giving vent to his surprise in a strain of banter, which was received with characteristic good humour, and the admission at once made that the amusement in which he had been engaged had given birth to the idea.

The interval between the period of a publication issuing from the press, and the moment when public favour towards it seems no longer doubtful, is necessarily an anxious one for an author. To Goldsmith, notwithstanding some affected indifference expressed in the dedication, it could not be an unimportant matter; it was the first production to which he had put his name, as well as the greatest adventure in which he had hitherto embarked; and the stake was to him not merely reputation, but in some measure subsistence. Dr. Johnson, who knew the anxious feelings of his friend, made an immediate effort to relieve them by a recommendatory notice which appears in the Critical Review for December 1764.

Offices of this kind proceeding from kind intentions need not necessarily be laudatory; they are often more in the nature of advertisements to announce existence than to disseminate praise, and prove frequently useful to works of admitted merit. It is not that the public cannot unassisted discover and reward such productions without a director to guide its taste, but in the multiplicity of publications, some which are good may for awhile escape observation; and it is thus that the early notice of a judicious friend may do quickly for its fame what would otherwise be a work of time. This obviously was the idea of the great critic whom it may be interesting to trace in his friendly endeavours; he says indeed little, leaving the poem to speak for itself in the quotations, which amount

It was

to a fourth part of its number of lines. evidently written in haste: the remarks are of the utmost possible brevity, and not being included in some editions of the works of its writer although enumerated by Boswell among his productions, will be found in a future volume.

The Gentleman's Magazine of the same month pronounces a favourable opinion on its merits. In January, the Monthly Review in the way of amends for previous treatment of their old associate, followed in the track of Johnson in the Critical:"For the Traveller is one of those delightful poems that allure by the beauty of their scenery, a refined elegance of sentiment, and a correspondent happiness of expression." The assertion of the author in the dedication, of not being solicitous to know what would be its reception, is condemned as affectation; and if meant in a general sense, would be so: but the words seem to imply that he cares not how it shall be received by the lovers of personal satire, poetry, and blank verse. With less reason, exception is taken by the reviewer to the expression "untravelled heart," which yet drags at each "a lengthening chain," in the opening paragraph, as involving a contradiction. The objection is more apparent than real, for by the common licence of poetry it merely conveys the idea of the heart being unchanged, however removed by distance from the object of regard.

remove

To the suffrage of the reviews and other journals, was added that of all private judges of good poetry;