sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill."

The bookseller-a publisher-to whom Johnson refers, thrust the manuscript of the tale aside to await his convenience. He had doubts of its value, and it was three years and more before "The Vicar of Wakefield " brought its sweetness and joy to the world. It was published in 1766.

Goldsmith sought Johnson's advice again in regard to "The Traveler." The exquisite grace and finish of the poem appealed at once to the great critic. It was published in 1764. "There has not been so fine a poem since Pope's time," Johnson remarked, after its appearance. Sir Joshua suggested that the partiality of Goldsmith's friends made the poem. "Nay, sir," answered the "Cham," including even himself in the condemnation; "the partiality of his friends was always against him; it was with difficulty we could give him a hearing." "Goldsmith was a man who, whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do. He deserved a place in Westminster Abbey; and every year he lived he deserved it more."

His next work, the comedy of "The Good-natured Man," made the author richer by five hundred pounds. With this, you may think, he paid off his debts and became free. Far from it. He kept the old obligations, and made new ones by moving to commodious lodgings and furnishing them luxuriously. He kept the old beggars, and doubtless added new ones to those ever hanging on his skirts.

The new comedy won its way by laughter and applause the first night. The actors had little hope of its good fortune. Goldsmith, although supported by Johnson, Burke, and others,

was in terror. It was club night, and after the piece they went to the club to sup. "All the while," said Goldsmith afterwards, "I was suffering horrid tortures, and verily believe that if I had put a bit into my mouth it would have strangled me on the spot, I was so excessively ill; but I made more noise than usual to cover all that [it is said he sang his favorite song of “The Old Woman Tossed in a Blanket Nineteen Times as High as the Moon"], and so they never perceived my not eating, nor, I believe, at all imagined to themselves the anguish of my heart. But when all were gone except Johnson here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore that I would never write again."

Goldsmith must now undertake no end of compilation and hack work to meet his expenses. There was little chance for his genius to show its finest spirit. But from between his labored "Roman History " and "Animated Nature," we have the melodious bird song of "The Deserted Village,"

"Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn."

Goldsmith's

The poem overflows with tenderness and grace. heart, it is asserted, was again wandering to his youth. English Auburn was in truth Irish Lissoy. Paddy Byrne lives in the village schoolmaster, and the poet's own people in the rustics of the humble bowers.

But Goldsmith was too careful and painstaking in his work to be very productive. He wrote "The Haunch of Venison" and "Mrs. Mary Blaize." In 1771 he was at work on his master comedy; but it was not till March, 1773, that his friends dined with him on the first night of its appearance, to keep him in spirits. The "Cham" was in the chair. All were in mirth but poor "Goldy." His mouth, says Reynolds, was so parched "from

the agitation of his mind that he was unable to swallow a single mouthful." His friends went to the theater, but Goldsmith, to pace the park. He was found and brought to the playhouse to witness the last act of his triumphant "She Stoops to Conquer; or, The Mistakes of a Night."

The play was dedicated to Dr. Johnson in the felicitous wording that marks all Goldsmith's dedications: "By inscribing this slight performance to you I do not mean so much to compliment you as myself. It may do me some honor to inform the public that I have lived many years in intimacy with you. It may serve the interests of mankind, also, to inform them that the greatest wit may be found in a character without impairing the most unaffected piety." How could a dedication be better or simpler or sweeter?

Out of the mass of his forced writing but one more exquisite work was to come from Goldsmith's pen. And this, the legend is, came about in the following way. One day in February, 1774,

a company who knew Goldsmith, amused themselves at St. James's Coffeehouse by ridiculing his oddities and writing jocular epitaphs upon him. Garrick, the leader in the fun, began with the following:

"Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel and talked like poor Poll."

Not many

weeks after, but not until after Goldsmith's death, appeared the gentle satire which he had named "Retaliation: Including Epitaphs on the Most Distinguished Wits of the Metropolis." For Garrick's impromptu he returned:

"Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can;

An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.

As an actor, confessed without rival to shine;
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line;

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
'Twas only that when he was off he was acting."

In March a fever attacked Goldsmith. "Your pulse," said the physician, "is in greater disorder than it should be from the state of your fever; is your mind at ease?" "It is not," answered poor "Goldy." On the 4th of April he died.

When Burke heard of his death he burst into tears, and Reynolds put aside painting for the day. Johnson wrote, weeks after: "Of poor dear Dr. Goldsmith there is little to be told more than the papers have made public. He died of a fever, made, I am afraid, more violent by uneasiness of mind. His debts began to be heavy, and all his resources were exhausted. Sir Joshua is of opinion that he owed not less than two thousand pounds. Was ever poet so trusted before! " And again: "He raised money and squandered it by every artifice of acquisition and folly of expense. But let not his frailties be remembered;

he was a very great man."

His body was buried in the ground of Temple Church. Two years after, the Literary Club placed a monument to his memory in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. Johnson wrote a Latin inscription, in spite of a protest from his friends that "the memory of so eminent an English writer ought to be preserved in the language to which his works are likely to be so lasting an ornament." A part of it, translated, reads: "Of Oliver Goldsmith-a poet, naturalist, and historian, who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, and touched nothing that he did not adorn; of all the passions, whether smiles were to be moved, or

tears, a powerful yet gentle master; in genius sublime, vivid, versatile; in style elevated, clear, elegant-the love of companions, the fidelity of friends, and the veneration of readers have by this monument honored the memory."

"There are a hundred faults in this thing," wrote Goldsmith in his advertisement, or preface, of "The Vicar of Wakefield." He did not add that there were a thousand truths and beauties. The tale has not lived because of the faults the author saw, but because of these truths and these beauties. Its fidelity to life, its simplicity, its purity, its unfailing sweetness, the genuine love towards all men to which it bears evidence,—these are what has kept it for us and those who shall come after us, and made it an English classic. But more than sweetness and tenderness and humanity, its persistent faith in the prevalence of right and the punishment of wrong, its hopefulness, its common sense, the genial humor which accompanies faith, tenderness, and human love, appeal to the heart of every reader from every page.

The book is an idyl of domestic life. A quiet English home is the setting of the picture, but the human life of it belongs to the world. It might have been written in such a scene as the author describes: "A seat overshadowed by a hedge of hawthorn and honeysuckle. Here, when the weather was fine and our labor soon finished, we usually sat together, to enjoy an extensive landscape in the calm of the evening. Here, too, we drank tea, which was now become an occasional banquet; and as we had it but seldom, it diffused a new joy, the preparations for it being made with no small share of bustle and ceremony. On these occasions our two little ones always read for us." And again, beside the fireside and the home brew: "But let us have