the opening of the year, with a pamphlet on the False Alarm, as he called the excitement on Wilkes's expulsion, in which he did not spare the opposition; and which, written in two nights at Thrale's, continued to attract attention. Boswell tells us that when Townshend made the attack, Burke, though of Townshend's party, stood warmly forth in defence of his friend; but the recent publication of the Debates corrects this curious error. Burke spoke after Townshend, and complained of the infamous private libels of the Town and Country Magazine against members of the opposition, but did not refer to Townshend's attack: he left the vindication of Johnson to their common friend Fitzherbert, who rose with an emphatic eulogy at the close of the debate, and called him ' a pattern of morality.' In truth Burke had this year committed himself too fiercely to the stormy side of

opposition, to be able to stretch his hand across even to his old friend Johnson. His friend had cast himself with the enemies of freedom, and was left to fare with them. His unsparing vehemence in the House of Commons contrasted with his calm philosophic severity in the press. He was charged with want of common candour, and denounced the sickly habit. Virtues are not to be sacrificed to candour.' He was reproached for his following of certain leaders, and made the reproach his glory. 'I will cling 'to them, adhere to them, follow them in and out, wash the very feet they stand on: wash their feet and be subservient,

'not from interest but from principle.' Those leaders were

still the Rockinghams, but not so isolated as of old. There were yet dissensions between the rival parties of opposition, but not such as withheld them from concentrating, for this one while at least, hate and bitterness on the government. The Grenvilles had too great a grudge against the Bedfords too freely to indulge at its expense their grudge against the Rockinghams; Chatham had suffered too bitterly for his own mistake, to continue his feud with either; and the Rockinghams themselves, content with Burke's masterly Observations defending them against Grenville's finance, had waived their dislike of Wilkes, and backed even faction in the City and Temple in the Lords. The excitement was unexampled. Desertion on either side was denounced as the worst of crimes. Language unheard till now, was launched from both houses at the government. Lord Shelburne dared the premier to find a wretch so base and mean-spirited,' as to take the seals Lord Camden had flung down. In evil hour, poor Charles Yorke (Lord Rockingham's attorney-general, and sensitive as he was accomplished) accepted the challenge; and then, maddened by his own reproaches, perished within two days, his patent of peerage lying incomplete before him. Chatham rose in the Lords to a height of daring which even he had never reached, and (resolving to be a scarecrow of violence to 'the gentle warblers of the grove, the moderate whigs and temperate statesmen') prayed that rather than any compromise should now be made, or the people should vail their representative rights to their governors, either the question

might be brought to practical issue, or Discord prevail for Ever! Grafton sank beneath the storm, even bodily disabled for his office by the attacks of Junius; and his place was filled by Lord North. But Junius gathered strength, the stronger his opponent; and his terrors increased as preparation was made to cope with them. His libels conquered the law. Language which Burke told the house he had read with chilled blood, juries sent away unconvicted. In vain were printers hunted down, and small booksellers, and even humble milkmen. In vain did the whole French court with their gaudy coaches and jack boots,' go out to hunt the little hare. The Great Boar of the Forest, as Burke called the libeller, still, and always, broke through the toils; and sorry was the sport of following after vermin. North could not visit the palace, without seeing the Letter to the King posted up against the wall; the Chief Justice could not enter his court, without seeing the Letter to Lord Mansfield impudently facing him. There was no safety in sending poor milkmen to prison. There was no protection. The thrust was mortal; but a a rapier and a ruffle alone were visible, in the dark alley from which it came.

The more peaceful current of life meanwhile flowed on, and had its graces and enjoyments; not the least of them from Goldsmith's hand. This day at 12,' said the Public Advertiser of the 26th of May, 'will be published, 'price two shillings, The Deserted Village, a Poem. By 'Doctor Goldsmith. Printed for W. Griffin, at Garrick's

'Head in Catherine Street, Strand.' Its success was instant and decisive. A second edition was called for on the seventh of June, a third on the fourteenth, a fourth (carefully revised) on the twenty-eighth, and on the sixteenth of August a fifth edition appeared. Even Goldsmith's enemies in the press were silent, and nothing interrupted the praise which greeted him on all sides. One tribute he did not hear, and was never conscious of; yet from truer heart or finer genius he had none, and none that should have given him greater pride. Gray was passing the summer at Malvern (the last summer of his life), with his friend Nicholls, when the poem came out; and he desired Nicholls to read it aloud to him. He listened to it with fixed attention from the beginning to the end, and then exclaimed That man is a poet.'

The judgment has since been affirmed by hundreds of thousands of readers, and any adverse appeal is little likely now to be lodged against it. Within the circle of its claims and pretensions, a more entirely satisfactory and delightful poem than the Deserted Village was probably never written. It lingers in the memory where once it has entered and such is the softening influence (on the heart even more than the understanding) of the mild, tender, yet clear light which makes its images so distinct and lovely, that there are few who have not wished to rate it higher than poetry of yet higher genius. What true and 'pretty pastoral images,' exclaimed Burke, years after the poet's death, 'has Goldsmith in his Deserted Village!

'They beat all: Pope, and Phillips, and Spenser too, in 'my opinion.' But opinions that seem exaggerated may in truth be often reconciled to very sober sense; and where any extraordinary popularity has existed, good reason is generally to be shown for it. Of the many clever and indeed wonderful writings that from age to age are poured forth into the world, what is it that puts upon the few the stamp of immortality, and makes them seem indestructible as nature? What is it but their wise rejection of everything superfluous? Being grave histories, or natural stories, of everything that is not history or nature? being poems, of everything that is not poetry, however much it may resemble it; and especially of that prodigal accumulation of thoughts and images, which, till properly sifted and selected, is as the unhewn to the chiselled marble? What is it, in short, but that unity, completeness, polish, and perfectness in every part, which Goldsmith attained? Thus his pictures may be small; may be far from historical pieces, amazing or confounding us; may be even, if severest criticism will have it so, mere happy tableaux de genre hanging up against our walls but their colours are exquisite and unfading; they have that familiar sweetness of household expression which wins them welcome alike where the rich inhabit, and in huts where poor men lie; and there, improving and gladdening all, they are likely to hang for ever.

:

Johnson, though he had taken equal interest in the progress of this second poem, contributing to the manuscript the four lines which stand last, yet thought it inferior to the