"when people live together who have something as to which they "disagree, and which they want to shun, they will be in the "situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard; You may look "into all the chambers but one. But we should have the greatest "inclination to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject." Johnson hereupon with a loud voice shouted out, "Sir, I am "not saying that you could live in friendship with a man from "whom you differ as to some point; I am only saying that I could "do it. You put me in mind of Sappho in Ovid."

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Goldsmith had said too clever a thing, and got punished for it. So it was with Percy, very often; so with Joseph Warton; so with Dean Barnard; so with Langton; so even with Beauclerc and Reynolds. What Miss Anna Seward called "the wit and "aweless impoliteness of the stupendous creature" bore down every one before it. His forcible spirit and impetuosity of manner, says Boswell, may be said to spare neither sex nor age. I "have seen even Mrs. Thrale stunned." Yet, if we may believe Miss Reynolds, she never said more when she recovered, than Oh dear good man! And Dean Barnard, invoking the aid of his friends against the aweless impoliteness, and submitting himself to be taught by their better accomplishments, has told us in lively verse with what good humour it was borne by Reynolds.

Dear knight of Plympton, teach me how
To suffer with unclouded brow

And smile serene as thine,

The jest uncouth and truth severe ;
Like thee to turn my deafest ear,

And calmly drink my wine.

Soon after the dinner at Oglethorpe's, Goldsmith returned to his Edgeware lodging, and was sometime busied with the Animated Nature. It was a task he best worked at in the country, with nature wide-spread around him for though a severe criticism may point it out as the defect of the book, that, taken as a whole, it has too many of the characteristics of a mere compilation, into which he appears disposed, as we have seen, to admit as freely the credulous romance of the early naturalists and travellers, as the scientific soberness of the great Frenchman his contemporary whose labours were still unfinished while he wrote,-there are yet, as I

have lately said, with many evidences of very careful study of the best of the scanty authorities then extant, also many original passages of exquisite country observation in it; and not a few in which the grace of diction, the choice of perfect and finely finished imagery, the charm with which a poet's fancy is seen playing round the graver truths of science, and an elegant clearness and beauty in the tone of reflection, may compare with his best original compositions, in poetry or prose. He did not live to see its reception from his contemporaries; but when Tom Davies, who was in the way of hearing all kinds of opinions about it from the best authorities, characterises it as one of the pleasantest and most instructive books in the language, not only useful to young minds but entertaining to those who understand the subject, which the writer certainly did not, there is little doubt that he reflects pretty nearly what Johnson thought and said. He appears to be repeating Johnson too, when he adds that “everything of Goldsmith seems "to bear the magical touch of an enchanter: no man took less "pains, and yet produced so powerful an effect: the great beauty "of his composition consists in a clear, copious, and expressive "style." All this is true to a certain extent; but it is also very certain that it is not by "not taking pains" such a style can be ever mastered. The pains has been taken at some time or other, the reader may be sure, and the skill to conceal it is the secret of that exquisite ease. The contrast between the appearance of his manuscript in prose and in poetry has been already remarked in a previous page; but though of course there would always be a distinction in this respect in every writer, we must not suppose that the amount of correction or interlineation can be invariably taken to express the presence or absence of care and labour. The safer inference will be that in proportion as a subject has dwelt in the mind, and been thoroughly arranged and well digested there, it will flow forth clearly at last.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.

He tells us in the preface to the Animated Nature, most characteristically, that his first intention was to have given a sort of popular translation and comment on Pliny, but that the appearance of M. Buffon's great work induced him to depart from that design; "being convinced by his manner, that the best imitation "of the ancients was to write from our own feelings, and to imitate "nature." And for proof that he honestly did this, it might be enough to refer to the many personal characteristics and experiences I have been able to draw from the book, having lately, with singular and unexpected pleasure, read the whole of it with

that view. There are bits of natural painting in it as true as anything in the Traveller or Deserted Village. You perceive at once that he is as sincerely describing what he has actually seen and felt, as when, in either of those charming poems, he lets you hear the sweet confusion of " village murmurs " in the country air, or shows you the beauty that the poet and lover of nature may see in even the flat low coasts of Holland, in "the yellow"blossom'd vale, the willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail." Many such passages have incidentally enriched these pages; and in others of more serious tone, such as the opening chapter on birds of the sparrow kind, or that walk by the sea shore in which his thoughts turn so unaffectedly to Him who is "the essence of sublimity," or where the change of the grub to the butterfly is accepted for " a "strong proof that, while this little animal is raised to its greatest "height, we are as yet, in this world, only candidates for per66 fection,"-may be observed another delightful feature of the book, in its unobtrusive manner of blending religious aspiration with natural description.

Nor is there any section of it more entirely pleasing, in this personal view, than the whole treatment of the ornithological division of its subject. With manifest delight the theme inspires its writer, as he begins to talk of the "beautiful and loquacious race of "animals that embellish our forests, amuse our walks, and exclude "solitude from our most shady retirements. . No part of nature is "destitute of inhabitants. The woods, the waters, the depths of "the earth, have their respective tenants; while the yielding air, "and those tracts of seeming space where man never can ascend, 66 are also passed through by multitudes of the most beautiful beings "of the creation. . . The return of spring is the beginning of pleasure. Those vital spirits which seemed locked up during the winter, "then begin to expand; vegetables and insects supply abundance "of food; and the bird having more than a sufficiency for its own "subsistence, is impelled to transfuse life as well as to maintain

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it.

Those warblings, which had been hushed during the colder 66 seasons, now begin to animate the fields; every grove and bush "resounds with the challenge of anger, or the call of allurement." Who does not believe the reluctance with which Goldsmith describes himself quitting that "most beautiful part of creation. These "splendid inhabitants of air possess all those qualities that can soothe "the heart and cheer the fancy. The brightest colours, the roundest 66 forms, the most active manners, and the sweetest music. In "sending the imagination in pursuit of these, in following them to "the chirping grove, the screaming precipice, or the glassy deep, "the mind naturally lost the sense of its own situation, and, "attentive to their little sports, almost forgot the TASK of describing

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"them. Innocently to amuse the imagination in this dream "of life is wisdom. . every rank and state of mankind may find "something to imitate in those delightful songsters, and we may "not only employ the time, but mend our lives by the contem"plation." The reader will not fail to mark a certain subdued sadness in this passage, and to give all the significance to that word TASK, which it is manifest Goldsmith intended by printing it in capitals. Infinitely might such extracts, fresh as the summer fields and sunshine, be prolonged; and let me not omit to add that this intense love for all living creatures is but another form of his worship of nature. Nothing inspires his indignation so strongly as any cruelty practised against them. His remarks in this section of his book, on artificial moulting, on the manner of training hawks, on the sadness of caged birds; simply express the spirit which rouses him always against every form of cruelty or pain. There is a touching passage on that "humble useful creature," the ass, which might have been written by my uncle Toby himself. And who may resist the quaint kindly humour with which he celebrates another domestic creature equally serviceable and equally despised? Winding up a laughable statement of the absurdities of the gander with the sly remark that "it is pro"bable there is not a more respectable animal on earth-to a goose," he thus continues of the latter: "I feel my obligations to this "animal every word I write; for, however deficient a man's head may be, his pen is nimble enough upon every occasion: it is "happy indeed for us, that it requires no great effort to put it in "motion." Very touching, too, is the anecdote he relates of the she-fox and her cub, which "happened while I was writing this "history," and to which he again refers in another passage. And exactly the same humane feeling it is which elicits his disapproval of all efforts, however ingenious or laborious, to bring animals "under the trammels of human education. It may," he admits of the animal so taught, "be an admirable object for "human curiosity, but is very little advanced by all its learning "in the road to its own felicity." Nor is his pity and sympathy less strongly moved for poor little human children subjected prematurely to an intellectual torture, for which their faculties are equally unprepared. "I have seen many a little philosophical "martyr whom I wished, but was unable to relieve."

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Were it but for the humanity and beauty of such passages alone, then, this Animated Nature must surely always be considered as on the whole a surprising specimen of task-work, and a most happy piece of imitation of nature; allowance being made for the circumstances in which its drudgery was undergone, and which the course his necessities now obliged him to take did not tend to relieve.

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"I have taxed my scanty circumstances in procuring books which are on the subject of all others the most expensive," was a touching confession he did not scruple to make in the preface he did not live to see prefixed to the work. Pressed and hunted in other ways already by such "scanty circumstances," he now induced Griffin to advance him what remained to be paid upon the copyright; acknowledged the receipt and executed the assignment in June; and had then received and paid away the whole eight hundred guineas, while upwards of a third of his labour remained still unperformed.

Nor was this all. He had involved himself in an undertaking to Newbery, to supply another tale like the Vicar of Wakefield; some years had elapsed since the unredeemed promise was made; and a portion of a tale submitted to the publisher had lately been returned with intimation of disapproval. It appears to have been a narrative version of the plot of the Good-natured Man, and on that ground objected to. So much was long remembered by Miss Mary Horneck, to whom, and to her sister, Goldsmith afterwards read such chapters as he had written; and it may be worth stating in connection with this fact, which Hazlitt heard from Mrs. Gwyn herself in Northcote's painting room, that Southey notices in his Omniana a fraud he supposes to have been practised on Goldsmith's reputation in France, by the announcement, in a list of books at the end of a volume published in the year of his death, of a translation from the English entitled "Histoire de Francois Wills, ou le Triomphe de la Bienfaisance, par l'auteur du Ministre de "Wakefield." It is suggested that this may have been the incomplete chapters left by Goldsmith, thought unworthy of publication here, concluded by some inferior hand, and sold to the French market; but the account I have received of the utter commonplace of the English original, quite excludes the possibility of Goldsmith's having had anything whatever to do with it.

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Another labour that occupied Goldsmith in the Edgeware cottage was the abridgment of his Roman History; and this was probably the time when he tried unsuccessfully to lighten his various toil by means of extraneous assistance. Exceptions may of course be stated to every rule, but it will be found, I think, that writers of the best style are generally the least able to find any relief in dictating to others. "When Doctor Goldsmith," says the kindly biographer of the good Jonas Hanway, "to relieve "himself from the labour of writing, engaged an amanuensis, he "found himself incapable of dictation; and after eyeing each "other some time, unable to proceed, the Doctor put a guinea “in his hand, and sent him away but it was not so with “Mr. Hanway; he could compose faster than any person could