hearing, respecting one whose laurels form an unfading wreath in our national chaplet of fame; our childhood's teacher; our more than household word-Oliver Goldsmith. Of course, the Rev. C. Goldsmith sent his son to school, and, equally, of course, he got him the very best master in Kilkenny or Westmeath. Never was there a tutor on earth better able to define the difference between a hobgoblin, a fairy, a banshee, a sprite, a warlock, and the other "lang nebbed things" that haunted, and still haunt, the nooks and waterfalls of his Shamrock Isle. And thus a six-year-old poet had ready access to that glorious milk upon which poets have been fed in all ages. Then as to the old gentleman's book lore "The village all declared how much he knew, And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew But such mighty subjects were not the only things that wonderful head contained. The schoolmaster was an old soldier, had served in the wars of Queen Anne, had learned how to tell a good story and very soon found that he had at least one lad who would willingly barter for a "yarn" about Flanders the glorious properties of £ s. d. from nine till twelve in the morning, and follow it up from two till four in the afternoon. These dreams, however, were soon to be broken. There were too many young Goldsmiths at the little parsonage-house for Rev. Mr. G. to attempt making "kings or priests" of them all, so he decreed that Oliver should live and die amongst Day Books,-talk about Ledgers and funds, India-House and dividends; but Nature had stamped the intended clerk a poet, in that little head and heart was the "Deserted Village," in that unmeasured soul was smiles for millions, and a loftier voice within the lad was claiming its own. So the Rev. Charles Goldsmith might decree what he pleased, calculate his son's profits of trade at cent. per cent.; but there was a book above in which all these little members were written; and as certain as an old, blind, persecuted schoolmaster's life was proof against the royalty of England until a thing called "Paradise Lost" had left his throbbing brain, so certain was it that a destiny more exalted than the Woolsack of England was waiting for that little ugly Irish lad. That Oliver was ugly in person, his greatest admirers attempt not to deny. Nor need they, for Mother Nature, when exhausting all her skill to produce a lovely human soul, may well be excused for neglecting its temporary cloak of clay. Oliver was ungraceful in person-so ungraceful indeed, that when in after years Miss Reynolds was desired to toast the ugliest man of her acquaintance, she named without hesitation Dr. Goldsmith, and it was only when her father read to her the Deserted Village that she enthusiastically exclaimed, "father, I shall never think Dr. Goldsmith ugly again." When our hero was nine years of age, a juvenile party had assembled at his uncle's to dance; a person named Cumming (may the name be ever pilloried) played the fiddle and turned the laugh upon our sensitive Oliver, called him Æsop. Oliver stopped in his hornpipe, looked the scoundrel with those clear eyes of his right in the face and said, "Our herald hath proclaimed this saying See Esop dancing and his monkey playing." This was a most fortunate affair-he was now acknowledged a wit; his mother begged hard against the balance sheets, and uncle Contarine seconding her eloquence with the shining ore, Oliver had the benefit of a Rev. Tutor, and the world of letters received a master and a slave. He could not (let the old soldiering follower of Charles Mordaunt bear witness to it) sum up the cost of 16lbs. of sugar at 10d. a lb., but he rhymed verses to all the old women around who had a goodnatured word for school-boys, and he satirised, though even in youth without rancour or bitterness, the hollow-hearted and the mean. His next step therefore, was removal from the school of "inspired" Earl of Peterborough's soldier to the care of this new tutor-the proper way to college and fame. Peterboroughism was at an end, and years of ugly unsentimental battle began. The first great blunder we have recorded of Goldsmith is an epitome of his life-a clue to his thoughtless sanguine character. On his last return from school, some good-natured friend supplied him with a horse and presented him with a guinea. Oliver, elated beyond measure, mounted the horse and resolved, like a real Irishman, to be annoyed no longer than was absolutely necessary with that awkward encumbrance, the guinea. He rode into Ardagh-enquired for the best house in the place, and was directed by a wag to the squire's mansion-literally the best house in the place. Up to the door he rode, ordered his horse to be stabled, marched into the parlour, called for supper-wine in abundance, and ended by inviting his host, hostess, and daughters to join him. To increase his happiness they agreed, for having found who their uninvited guest was, and being old acquaintances of his father, they had resolved to let the joke go on. And a jolly night it was. Oliver told rare stories, sang about an old woman tossed up in a blanket seventeen times higher than the moon, then, having drank as much wine as was good for him, intimated his wish to see a bed-room, stated his time for rising in the morning, ordered a hot cake for breakfast, and tumbled into bed like a true traveller, "monarch of all he surveyed." But when "reckoning time came" in the morning, he was about as near hanging himself as ever mortal was who did not get the rope round his neck. However, from this night's adventures, were drawn the materials for his exquisite comedy, "She stoops to Conquer." He was next entered at Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizer or poor scholar—in which capacity he had the misfortune to quarrel with his master through an inability to learn mathematics, then gained a single prize worth thirty shillings, and resolved to spend it like one who hoped very soon to gain another. He invited a company of "boys and girls" (Oliver would be shocked at the designation) to sup with him in his room at College, disturbed old Monebam amongst his right-angled triangles, for which his friends were turned out and himself, in their presence, well caned; then out of shame left College to go, heaven, and not Oliver Goldsmith, knew where. He was brought back, however, by his brother, stayed two years, took his degree of B.A., tried physic-tired of it, set off "to improve himself” abroad, found some rare tulips in Holland, remembered that his uncle Contarine admired tulips, bought a quantity of them which he despatched to Ireland, and soon found himself a stranger travels," without one farthing in his pocket. through France, argued it through Germany and Italy, and at last arrived in London Dr. Goldsmith of the University of Padua. 66 on his Fluted his way It has been well said that London is a great human wilderness, such an one as John the Baptist never dreamt of, and where a man at first entering, without a well filled purse, is less likely to find a friend than in the sandy deserts of Africa; but it is also a place where merit, endowed with patience, will always turn uppermost some day or other, and where worth, once recognised, may proudly rank with the titled peer. So Goldsmith found it. Long and bravely did he battle for bread, deep and hopefully did he pant for fame, but at last the friend of Johnson, Reynolds, and Burke-the poet, historian, essayist and novelist, and in each as original (where they professed originality) as they were beautiful and profoundcould no longer be denied his proper position; his worth was acknowledged, his future was fame. Now, there are some pseudophilanthropists, grave, surly, and sanctimonious, who hold every wish for fame to be unjustifiable, as springing from vanity and several other evil propensities which they explain by texts. Well, Oliver was not one of these gentlemen. He desired to place his name on the immortal roll of genius, wrought for it as miser plods for paltry dross, earned it as heroes earn their cypress wreath, and deserved it—aye, deserved it—as a minstrel prophet, for a minstrel's God. So when unthinking philanthropists condemn this darling object of earth's greatest souls, let them remember that nobody supposes mere word-venders capable of such unholy thoughts. They were made to die; let them. But the immortal sons of genius shall cluster within a nation's temple, and inherit, generation after generation, a nation's meed of love. But mere fame could never satisfy the wants of Goldsmith,— friendship even was too cold. Years of loneliness glided away; unuttered burning thoughts were stifled with the lettered page, and that noble heart began beating faintly for a kinder home. The eye that had so long twinkled with amusement for others, began to have a sickly glare; the rough sympathy of Johnson had lost its charm ; Burke and philosophy were powerless now; his thoughts were all anchored with a family at Barton-his heart was there with the Jessemy Bride. Yet nobody seemed to know it; rough men never dreamt of it; the Boswells could never have understood it; publishers would have laughed at it; and newsmongers would have paragraphed it in freezing type as "pleasing gossip" or "table talk," to wile away those God-sent moments which wealth alone can afford to lose. Nor until a lady approached, begging them to unscrew his coffin that she might bear away one sad memorial of a very dear friend, did they discover that the one thing wanting at the bedside of Oliver Gold smith was the well loved form of Mary Horneck. And when critics draw near this sacred period let them approach with muffled tread and silent respect those now entwining names, for an holy union in that world above has knit them in one indissoluble knot, and he who recounts the deeds of Oliver Goldsmith will speak a tale without a meaning, if he weave not with it in tangled thread the closely nestling name of this Mary of Barton, the Jessemy Bride. The best proof of Oliver's greatness, is the very fact that so few believed him to be great. His language was so simple that it seemed only a well-known theme repeated, whereas it was often a string touched which had never sent a note before, an idea broached which hearts could feel, but which tongues or pens had not till now expressed. Men said his thoughts came hap-hazard. That was not it. He wrote great thoughts simply without believing them to be great. What electrified the club was commonplace to the producer, for how can a man look upon those things as great which cluster around him day by day, and constitute him the owner of an only too rich mine? He dashed off his beautiful thoughts as carelessly as he threw away their price in "cash;" and astonished friends said, "surely these never left the brain of that bashful, stammering Irishman, whom the Johnsonian Club has styled "Poor Poll." He could scarcely speak a coherent sentence in polite company, but amongst the harvest shearers he danced like a wild fellow; and if the Jessemy Bride had been present and stooped to conquer, she had gained the most unselfish thing on earth, in the heart of Oliver Goldsmith. As a poet he dealt not with those fierce burning words, and grand supernal imagery, which distinguish and almost individualise, the muse of Lord Byron. Nor did he attempt those subtle depths of feeling—perhaps too intellectual feeling, which belong so peculiarly to our noble Shelley; but a graceful, rural, simplicity of diction, an English healthiness of sentiment, will in the minds of many fully atone for the want of the one, and more than compensate for the absence of the other. He had none of that stern, unwavering rigidity of purpose, which characterised his friend Johnson from his cradle to his grave; but a tender conscience, always on the side of virtue and humanity, seeking excuses for the faults of others, and forgiving even to a failing with his bitterest foes, has made the name of Goldsmith a jewel in the crown of religion for every age. His virtue was that of the "Deserted Village;" his religion may be |