days, travelled by land to Leyden. These par- How often have I led thy sportive choir, Traveller. a certain vein of pensive philosophic reflection. His countryman Burke said of himself, that he had taken his ideas of liberty not too high, that they might last him through life. Goldsmith seems to have pitched his poetry in a subdued undertone, that he might luxuriate at will among those images of quiet beauty, comfort, benevolence, and simple pathos, which were most congenial to his own character, his hopes, or his experience. This popular poet was born at Pallas, a small village in the parish of Forney, county of Longford, Ireland, on the 10th of November 1728. He was the fourth of a family of seven children, and his father, the Rev. Charles Goldsmith, was a poor curate, who eked out the scanty funds which he derived from his profession, by renting and cultivating some land. The poet's father afterwards succeeded to the rectory of Kilkenny West, and removed to the house and farm of Lissoy, in his former parish. Here Goldsmith's youth was spent, and here he found the materials for his Deserted Village. Having been taught his letters by a maid-servant, Oliver was sent to the village-school, which was kept by an old soldier named Byrne, Scenes of this kind formed an appropriate school who had been a quarter-master in the wars of for the poet. He brooded with delight over these Queen Anne, and was fond of relating his adven-pictures of humble happiness, and his imagination tures. Byrne had also a large store of Irish tra- loved to invest them with the charms of poetry. ditions, fairy tales, and ghost stories, which were Goldsmith afterwards visited Germany and the eagerly listened to by his pupils, and are supposed Rhine. From Switzerland he sent the first sketch to have had some effect in giving to Goldsmith of the Traveller to his brother. The loftier that wandering unsettled disposition which marked charms of nature in these Alpine scenes seem to him through life. A severe attack of small-pox, | have had no permanent effect on the character or which left traces of its ravages on his face ever direction of his genius. He visited Florence, after, caused his removal from school. He was, Verona, Venice, and stopped at Padua some however, placed at better seminaries of education, months, where he is supposed to have taken his and in his seventeenth year was sent to Trinity medical degree. In 1756 the poet reached EngCollege, Dublin, as a sizar. The expense of his land, after one year of wandering, lonely, and in education was chiefly defrayed by his uncle, the poverty, yet buoyed up by dreams of hope and Rev. Thomas Contarine, an excellent man, son to fame. Many a hard struggle he had yet to an Italian of the Contarini family at Venice, and a encounter! He was some time assistant to a clergyman of the established church. At college chemist in a shop at the corner of Monument the poet was thoughtless and irregular. His tutor Yard on Fish Street Hill. A college-friend, Dr was a man of fierce and brutal passions, and Sleigh, enabled him to commence practice as a having struck him on one occasion before a party humble physician in Bankside, Southwark, but of friends, the poet left college, and wandered this failed; and after serving for a short time as about the country for some time in the utmost a reader and corrector of the press to Richardson poverty. His brother Henry clothed and carried the novelist, he was engaged as usher in a school him back to college, and on the 27th of February at Peckham, kept by Dr Milner. At Milner's 1749, he was admitted to the degree of B.A. table he met Griffiths the bookseller, proprietor of Goldsmith now gladly left the university, and the Monthly Review; and in April 1757, Goldreturned to Lissoy. His father was dead, but he smith agreed to leave Dr Milner's, to board and idled away two years among his relations. He lodge with Griffiths, to have a small salary, and afterwards became tutor in the family of a gentle- devote himself to the Review. Whatever he wrote man in Ireland, where he remained a year. His is said to have been tampered with by Griffiths uncle then gave him £50 to study the law in and his wife! In five months the engagement Dublin, but he lost the whole in a gaming-house. abruptly closed. For a short time he was again A second contribution was raised, and the poet at Dr Milner's as usher. In 1758 he presented next proceeded to Edinburgh, where he continued himself at Surgeons' Hall for examination as an a year and a half studying medicine. He then hospital mate, with the view of entering the army drew upon his uncle for £20, and embarked for or navy; but he had the mortification of being Bordeaux. The vessel was driven into Newcastle- rejected as unqualified. That he might appear upon-Tyne, and whilst there, Goldsmith and his before the examining surgeon suitably dressed, fellow-passengers were arrested and put into Goldsmith obtained a new suit of clothes, for prison, where the poet was kept a fortnight. It which Griffith became security. The clothes were appeared that his companions were Scotsmen in immediately to be returned when the purpose the French service, and had been in Scotland was served, or the debt was to be discharged. enlisting soldiers for the French army. Before Poor Goldsmith, having failed in his object, and he was released the ship sailed, and was wrecked probably distressed by urgent want, pawned the at the mouth of the Garonne, the whole of the clothes. The publisher threatened, and the poet crew having perished. He embarked in a vessel replied: 'I know of no misery but a jail, to which bound for Rotterdam, and arriving there in nine my own imprudences and your letter seem to point. I have seen it inevitable these three or presented irresistible attractions. He hung loosely four weeks, and, by heavens! request it as a on society, without wife or domestic tie; and his favour as a favour that may prevent somewhat | early habits and experience were ill calculated to more fatal. I have been some years struggling teach him strict conscientiousness or regularity. with a wretched being-with all that contempt He continued to write task-work for the booksellers, and indigence brings with it-with all those and produced (1771) a History of England in four strong passions which make contempt insupport- volumes. In 1773 his comedy of She Stoops to able. What, then, has a jail that is formidable?' Conquer was brought out at Covent Garden Such was the almost hopeless condition, the deep Theatre with immense applause. The same year despair, of this imprudent but amiable author, appeared his History of Greece, in two volumes, who has added to the delight of millions, and to for which he was paid £250. He had contracted the glory of English literature. to write a History of Animated Nature in eight volumes, at the rate of a hundred guineas for each volume; but this work he did not live to complete, though the greater part was finished in his own attractive and easy manner. In March 1774, he was attacked by a painful complaint (strangury) caused by close study, which was succeeded by a nervous fever. Contrary to the advice of his apothecary, he persisted in the use of James's powders, a medicine to which he had often had recourse; and gradually getting worse, he expired in convulsions on the morning of the 4th of April. His last words were melancholy. 'Your pulse,' said his physician, 'is in greater disorder than it should be from the degree of fever which you have is your mind at ease?' 'No, it is not,' was the sad reply. The death of so popular an author, at the age of forty-six, was a shock equally to his friends and the public. The former knew his sterling worth, and loved him with all his foibles-his undisguised vanity, his national proneness to blundering, his thoughtless extravagance, his credulity, and his frequent absurdities. Under these ran a current of generous benevolence, of enlightened zeal for the happiness and improvement of mankind, and of manly independent feeling. He died £2000 in debt: 'Was ever poet so trusted before!' exclaimed Johnson. His remains were interred in the Temple burying-ground, and a monument erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey, next the grave of Gay, whom he somewhat resembled in character, and far surpassed in genius. The fame of Goldsmith has been constantly on the increase, and two copious lives of him have been produced-one by Prior, in 1837, and another, the Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith, by John Forster, in 1848, and since enlarged. The latter is a valuable and interesting work. 6 : Henceforward the life of Goldsmith was that of a man of letters. He lived solely by his pen. Besides numerous contributions to the Monthly and Critical Reviews, the Lady's Magazine, the British Magazine, &c. he published anonymously an Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe (1759), his admirable Chinese Letters (contributed to Newbery's Public Ledger, and for which he was paid a guinea each), afterwards published with the title of The Citizen of the World, a Life of Beau Nash, and a History of England (1762), in a series of letters from a nobleman to his son. The latter was highly successful, and was popularly attributed to Lord Lyttelton. In December 1764 appeared his poem of the Traveller, or Prospect of Society, the chief corner-stone of his fame, without one bad line,' as has been said; without one of Dryden's careless verses.' Charles Fox pronounced it one of the finest poems in the English language; and Dr Johnson-then numbered among Goldsmith's friends-said that the merit of the Traveller was so well established, that Mr Fox's praise could not augment it, nor his censure diminish it. The periodical critics were unanimous in its praise. In 1766 appeared his exquisite novel, the Vicar of Wakefield, which had been written two years before, and sold to Newbery, the bookseller, to discharge a pressing debt. Goldsmith's landlady had called in a sheriff's officer to enforce payment of her bill. In this extremity he sent a messenger to Johnson, who forwarded a guinea, and followed himself shortly after. He found Goldsmith railing at the landlady over a bottle of Madeira (the guinea having been changed), and on his inquiring how money could be procured, the poor debtor produced the manuscript of his novel, which Johnson took to the book- The plan of the Traveller is simple, yet comseller and sold for £60. Yet Newbery did prehensive and philosophical. The poet reprenot venture to publish it until the Traveller sents himself as sitting among Alpine solitudes, had rendered the name of the author popular. looking down on a hundred realms. He views Goldsmith's comedy of the Good-natured Man the whole with delight, yet sighs to think that was produced in 1768, his Roman History next the hoard of human bliss is so small, and he year, and the Deserted Village in 1770. The wishes to find some spot consigned to real happilatter was as popular as the Traveller, and ness. But where is such a spot to be found? The speedily ran through a number of editions. Gold- natives of each country think their own the best. smith was now at the summit of his fame and If nations are compared, the amount of happiness popularity. The march had been long and toil-in each is found to be about the same; and to some, and he was often nearly fainting by the way; but his success was at length complete. His name stood among the foremost of his contemporaries: the booksellers courted him, and his works brought him in large sums. Difficulty and distress, however, still clung to him: poetry had found him poor at first, and kept him so. From heedless profusion and extravagance, chiefly in dress, and from a benevolence which knew no limit while his funds lasted, Goldsmith was scarcely ever free from debt. The gaming-table also illustrate this position, the poet describes the state of manners and government in Italy, Switzerland, France, Holland, and England. In general correctness and beauty of expression, these sketches have never been surpassed. The politician may think that the poet ascribes too little importance to the influence of government on the happiness of mankind, seeing that in a despotic state the whole must depend on the individual character of the governor; yet in the cases cited by Goldsmith, it is difficult to resist his conclusions; while his short sententious reasoning is relieved and elevated by bursts of true poetry. There was no greater master of the art of contrast in heightening the effect of his pictures. His character of the men of England used to draw tears from Dr Johnson. The poem is so truly felicitous in thought and expression, that we give it entire, following the ninth edition, or the last that appeared during the lifetime of the author. The Traveller, or Prospect of Society. Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, Or by the lazy Scheld, or wandering Po; Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor Against the houseless stranger shuts the door; Or where Campania's plain forsaken lies, A weary waste expanding to the skies; Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee; Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain, And drags at each remove a length'ning chain. Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend, And round his dwelling guardian saints attend; Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire: Blest that abode, where want and pain repair, And every stranger finds a ready chair: Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crowned, Where all the ruddy family around Laugh at the jest or pranks that never fail, Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale : Or press the bashful stranger to his food, And learn the luxury of doing good. But me, not destined such delights to share, My prime of life in wandering spent and care: Impelled with steps unceasing, to pursue ; Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendour crowned, Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round; Pleased with each good that Heaven to man supplies: Where my worn soul, each wandering hope at rest, But where to find that happiest spot below, But let us try these truths with closer eyes, Could nature's bounty satisfy the breast, But small the bliss that sense alone bestows, At her command the palace learned to rise, Till, more unsteady than the southern gale, Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supplied Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp arrayed, By sports like these are all their cares beguiled, As in those domes where Caesars once bore sway, My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm, He sees his little lot the lot of all; To shame the meanness of his humble shed; Thus every good his native wilds impart, Such are the charms to barren states assigned; Whence from such lands each pleasing science flies, But not their joys alone thus coarsely flow: Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast Through life's more cultured walks, and charm the way: These, far dispersed on timorous pinions fly, To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, So blest a life these thoughtless realms display, To men of other minds my fancy flies, While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile, Thus, while around the wave-subjected soil Hence all the good from opulence that springs, Are here displayed. Their much-loved wealth imparts At gold's superior charms all freedom flies, Fired at the sound, my genius spreads her wing, While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan, Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictured Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear; Nor this the worst. As nature's ties decay, And scholars, soldiers, kings unhonoured die. Yet think not, thus when Freedom's ills I state, Thou transitory flower, alike undone By proud contempt, or favour's fostering sun, For just experience tells, in every soil, That those that think must govern those that toil; O then how blind to all that truth requires, To call it freedom when themselves are free; Tear off reserve, and bare my swelling heart; I fly from petty tyrants to the throne. Yes, brother, curse with me that baleful hour, E'en now, perhaps, as there some pilgrim strays Vain, very vain, my weary search to find The Deserted Village is limited in design, and, according to Macaulay, is incongruous in its parts. The village in its happiest days is a true English village, while in its decay it is an Irish village. |