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finished of all his poems; and there he passed the remainder of his life in ease and comfort.

SAMUEL JOHNSON, the biographer of the poets, is himself generally ranked among them; but had his claims to fame rested on no other grounds than his poems, his name would now be rarely heard of. Yet it is no mean merit to have won the commendation of Cowper, who has described him as 66 'a sage":

"Whom to have bred, may well make England proud,

Whose prose was eloquence by wisdom taught,

The graceful vehicle of virtuous thought;

Whose verse may claim-grave, masculine, and strong-
Superior praise to the mere poet's song;

Who many a noble gift from heaven possessed,
And faith at last, alone worth all the rest."

GRAY, best known to us by the popular "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard," was a native of London, and passed the greater portion of his life at Cambridge. Considering the brilliancy of his talents, and the life of leisure which he chiefly led, he has left very meagre fruits of his devotion to the muse. But what do remain are polished to a degree that becomes almost painful to true poetic taste, and present a singular contrast, in their high finish, to the known indolence which was the great fault of his character.

WILLIAM COLLINS, one of the finest lyrical poets that England has produced, died at the early age of thirty-six, before his works were duly appreciated, or his name was even known to many of his contemporaries. But the best evidence of the true genius manifested in his works is, that they have gradually risen in estimation by the sheer force of their own great merits, and his name now stands deservedly high among the poets of his age.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

BORN, 1727; DIED, 1774.

HIGH among the gifted sons of genius, stands the name of Goldsmith, the author of the "Deserted Village," of the "Vicar of Wakefield," as well as of other well-known works, still valued among our choicest specimens of staple English literature. His life presents us with a singular epitome of the adventures, misfortunes, and errors of true genius. Born the son of a poor Irish curate, his life was a constant struggle with difficulties, and exhibits an example of waywardness, generosity, improvidence, and great intellectual powers, combined with a childlike simplicity, nearly allied to imbecility, such as is without a parallel in the biographical records of poets. He was, indeed, incapable of managing his own affairs, and hence he failed in successive projects for preparing him for the medical and legal professions, and for establishing him in some degree of comfort as a literary man. After many romantic wanderings and strange vicissitudes, he at length obtained a medical degree at Padua. But all attempts at securing either a permanent medical apppointment, or such practice as a physician as would supply the means of subsistence, having failed, he betook himself to the precarious resources of a writer for the London periodicals; and thenceforward his life was that of an author in the great metropolis. He had extreme facility with his pen, and his great versatility of talents, and curious variety of information and experience, rendered his literary services of considerable value to the London publishers. Hence his pecuniary resources, though precarious, must frequently have been considerable. But

he was utterly incapable of husbanding these with any economy, or making the slightest provision for the future. When money was plentiful, he dressed with all the costly extravagance of a fine gentleman of the day; and when his resources were exhausted, he would not hesitate to part with his only coat to supply the wants of a beggar scarcely more destitute than himself. His "Vicar of Wakefield" was sold for him by Dr. Johnson, for the sum of £60, in order to relieve him from an arrest for rent by his landlady. This inimitable work was so little appreciated by its purchaser, that five years elapsed after it was written, before its publication. In the interval, he had published his beautiful poem, the "Traveller," in 1766; and this was followed by the "Hermit," the comedy of the "Good-natured Man,” and sundry other well-known works both in prose and verse; and at length, in 1770, by his most charming poetical production, "The Deserted Village." His genius and worth were now fully appreciated, while his modest simplicity was curiously shown on the occasion of parting with this exquisite and highlyfinished production of his muse. The publisher appreciating its true merits, as well as its author's acknowledged fame, sent him a hundred guineas for the copyright; but Goldsmith, with characteristic unselfishness, returned it, remarking to a friend: "It is too much, it is more than the honest bookseller can afford, or, indeed, any modern poetry is worth." The poet had, no doubt, been free from any pressing pecuniary cares at the moment; for, when troubled with such, or even pressed by calls on his benevolence, he was as little careful of others' means as of his own. The sale of his "Deserted Village," however, amply confirmed the publisher's estimate of its value, and he insisted on the generous author receiving the original

offer, which no reader will now think was too large a

sum.

It would be foolish to re-echo the sentiments, somewhat too hastily and inconsiderately urged both by biographers and poets, regarding the unjust privations inflicted on Goldsmith, by those who were bound to remunerate him for the noble productions with which he has enriched all time. Cumberland thus touchingly alludes both to his improvidence and his poverty :--

"But what availed it thee, neglected bard,

How thy verse trickled, or thy period flowed?
The loathsome vampire, poverty, through life
Insatiate clung to thee, and sucked thy blood
To the last drop. By thy sick couch I stood,
And saw death's hand was on thee; shall I say
That thou wert vain, and carelessly dispersed
The slender pittance that thy genius earned?
No: 'twere a cruel comment on thy life;

He who no harvest reaps can hoard no grain!"

It was, indeed, a sad thing that so gifted a genius should have been compelled to waste his fine talents in the production of ephemeral contributions to the press for the supply of his daily wants. Yet it must not be overlooked that the annual income derived from this source has been computed to have amounted, during the last eight years of his life, to little short of £300, and yet he died leaving a larger debt than it could have been thought possible for a poet to have contracted. Had his income amounted to thousands, it is to be feared that his reckless generosity and carelessness for all beyond the moment, would have led to nearly similar results. We must, indeed, mourn that his great powers were wasted on the production of light and superficial works, not composed for fame, but written to supply his necessities; yet it may

be questioned whether we do not owe also, in some degree, to the same harsh stimulus, the noble works on which all his fame depends, and but for which his life might have been wasted in such passing gaieties and social enjoyments as he resorted to whenever he had succeeded in replenishing his exhausted purse. Goldsmith, however, presents a character which it is impossible not to love, even while condemning its glaring defects. He retained, indeed, through life, much of the simplicity of childhood; and it is no slight commendation to add, that he embodied in his best works much of its purity. Both as a prose writer and as a poet, he has established claims to a high and enduring fame among the English writers of the eighteenth century; and his writings occupy an independent place among those of his age, deriving all the most essential and endearing characteristics which have exercised so great an influence over the popular literature of England, not from the style of his age, but from himself.

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