whether the Lawders (which means his cousin Jane, his early Valentine) ever make mention of him; he sends Jane his miniature; he believes "it is the most acceptable present he can offer;" he evidently, therefore, does not believe she has almost forgotten him, although he intimates that he does: in his memory she as still Jane Contarine, as he last saw her, when he accompanied her harpsichord with his flute. Absence, like death, sets a seal on the image of those we have loved; we cannot realize the inter vening changes which time may have effected.

As to the rest of Goldsmith's relatives, he abandons his legacy of fifteen pounds, to be shared among them. It is all he has to give. His heedless improvidence is eating up the pay of the booksellers in advance. With all his literary success, he has neither money nor influence; but he has empty fame, and he is ready to participate with them; he is honorary professor, without pay; his portrait is to be engraved in mezzotint, in company with those of his friends, Burke, Reynolds, Johnson, Colman, and others, and he will send prints of them to his friends over the Channel, though they may not have a house to hang them up in. What a motley letter! How indicative of the motley character of the writer! By the by, the publication of a splendid mezzotinto engraving of his likeness by Reynolds, was a great matter of glorification to Goldsmith, especially as it appeared in such illustrious company. As he was one day walking the streets in a state of high elation, from having just seen it figuring in the print-shop windows, he met a young gentleman with a newly married wife hanging on his arm, whom he immediately recog nized for Master Bishop, one of the boys he had petted and treated with sweetmeats when a humble usher at Milner's school

PORTRAITS.-JOHNSON AT THE ABBEY.

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The kindly feelings of old times revived, and he accosted him with cordial familiarity, though the youth may have found some difficulty in recognizing in the personage, arrayed, perhaps, in garments of Tyrian dye, the dingy pedagogue of the Milners. "Come, my boy," cried Goldsmith, as if still speaking to a school boy, "Come, Sam, I am delighted to see you. I must treat you o something what shall it be? Will you have some apples ?" glancing at an old woman's stall; then, recollecting the print shop window: "Sam," said he, " have you seen my picture by Sir. Joshua Reynolds? Have you seen it, Sam? Have you got an engraving?" Bishop was caught; he equivocated; he had not yet bought it; but he was furnishing his house, and had fixed upon the place where it was to be hung. Ah, Sam!" rejoined Goldsmith reproachfully, "if your picture had been published, I should not have waited an hour without having it."

After all, it was honest pride, not vanity, in Goldsmith, that was gratified at seeing his portrait deemed worthy of being perpetuated by the classic pencil of Reynolds, and “hung up in history" beside that of his revered friend, Johnson. Even the great moralist himself was not insensible to a feeling of this kind. Walking one day with Goldsmith, in Westminster Abbey, among the tombs of monarchs, warriors, and statesmen, they came to the sculptured mementos of literary worthies in poets' corner. Cast

ing his eye round upon these memorials of genius, Johnson mut

tered in a low tone to his companion,

Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.

Goldsmith treasured up the intimated hope, and shortly after

wards, as they were passing by Temple-bar, where the heads of Jacobite rebels, executed for treason, were mouldering aloft on spikes, pointed up to the grizzly mementos, and echoed the inti mation,

Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

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CHAPTER XXVIII.

Publication of the Deserted Village-notices and illustrations of it.

SEVERAL years had now elapsed since the publication of The Traveller, and much wonder was expressed that the great success of that poem had not excited the author to further poetic attempts. On being questioned at the annual dinner of the Royal Academy by the Earl of Lisburn, why he neglected the muses to compile histories and write novels, "My Lord," replied he, "by courting the muses I shall starve, but by my other labors I eat, drink, have good clothes, and can enjoy the luxuries of life.” So, also, on being asked by a poor writer what was the most profitable mode of exercising the pen, "My dear fellow," replied he, good-humoredly, "pay no regard to the draggle-tailed muses; for my part I have found productions in prose much more sought after and better paid for."

Still, however, as we have heretofore shown, he found sweet moments of dalliance to steal away from his prosaic toils, and court the muse among the green lanes and hedge-rows in the rural environs of London, and on the 26th of May, 1770, he was enabled to bring his Deserted Village before the public.

The popularity of The Traveller had prepared the way for this poem, and its sale was instantaneous and immense. The

first edition was immediately exhausted; in a few days a second was issued; in a few days more a third, and by the 16th of August the fifth edition was hurried through the press. As is the case with popular writers, he had become his own rival, and critics were inclined to give the preference to his first poem; but with the public at large we believe the Deserted Village has ever been the greatest favorite. Previous to its publication the bookseller gave him in advance a note for the price agreed upon. one hundred guineas. As the latter was returning home he met a friend to whom he mentioned the circumstance, and who apparently judging of poetry by quantity rather than quality, observed that it was a great sum for so small a poem. "In truth," said Goldsmith, “I think so too; it is much more than the honest man can afford or the piece is worth. I have not been easy since I received it." In fact, he actually returned the note to the bookseller, and left it to him to graduate the payment according to the success of the work. The bookseller, as may well be supposed, soon repaid him in full with many acknowledgments of his disinterestedness. This anecdote has been called in question, we know not on what grounds; we see nothing in it incompatible with the character of Goldsmith, who was very impulsive, and prone to acts of inconsiderate generosity.

As we do not pretend in this summary memoir to go into a criticism or analysis of any of Goldsmith's writings, we shall not dwell upon the peculiar merits of this poem; we cannot help noticing, however, how truly it is a mirror of the author's heart and of all the fond pictures of early friends and early life for ever present there. It seems to us as if the very last accounts received from home, of his "shattered family," and the desolatic hat seemed to have settled upon the haunts of his child