he saw through the trick practised upon him, and to what an admirable purpose he could turn his losses. The instant he assumed his pen, he became a wise, judicious, discerning critic and judge of men, their artifices and their schemes. He was also very impartial, because he frequently, with admirable humour, described and ridiculed himself. These letters, as descriptive of English life, are entitled to higher praise-they frequently exhibit depth of thought, knowledge and sagacity, not always displayed by a popular author. For example, his Essay on Penal Legislation might have been composed by the statesman or the jurist. The Chinese Letters were admired upon the Continent, and ran through several editions in France within a very short space of time, for they possessed an European interest.

Goldsmith was now exhibiting the breadth-the power and acuteness of his understanding. We must advert to his contributions to the periodical press of another, but not less interesting character. If we would desire to notice the amazing inconsistencies of human nature, we should, considering what we know of our author, turn to the Essay on "Justice and Generosity," which he published in "The Bee," a periodical commenced in October, 1759. I can only understand such a composition from such a man, by supposing him to have said—' I wish by an argument conclusive, to rebuke the mistaken and pernicious profuseness miscalled benevolence, of a certain credulous poet and Irishman, one Oliver Goldsmith.'-"Lysippus is a man whose greatness of soul the world admires. His generosity is such, that it prevents a demand, and saves the receiver the trouble and confusion of request. All the world are unanimous in the praise of his generosity, there is only one sort of people who complain of his conduct-Lysippus does not pay his debts. In paying his debts a man barely does his duty, and it is an

action attended with no sort of glory." Then he defines— "Justice may be defined, that virtue which impels us to give to every person what is his due. In this extended sense of the word, it comprehends the practice of every virtue which reason prescribes, or society should expect." "I shall conclude this paper," writes Goldsmith, "with the advice of one of the antients to a young man whom he saw giving away all his substance to pretended distress. 'It is possible that the person you relieve may be an honest man; and I know that you who relieve him are such; you see, then, by your generosity you only rob a man who is certainly deserving, to bestow it on one who may possibly be a rogue, and while you are unjust in rewarding a certain merit, you are doubly guilty by stripping yourself.'

I consider the paper written in "The Bee," entitled "The Augustan Age of England," a piece of criticism, as just as it is acute, the writer must have acquired an intimate acquaintance with the authors whom he so fairly, yet so skilfully dissects. The great Divines of our Church, Stillingfleet, Tillotson and Barrow, are briefly but vigourously handled; the Sketch of Bolingbroke is true to the life; and the sentence descriptive of the celebrated Lord Shaftesbury conveys a happy judgment. If the young members of this Society wish for a short, though manly disquisition on Eloquence, I exhort them to turn to the seventh paper in "The Bee," under that title, not figures nor rules pedantic and artificial he recommends, but natural feeling. "Eloquence has preceded the rules of rhetoric, as language has been formed before grammar. Nature renders men eloquent in great interests, or great passions. He that is sensibly touched sees things with a different eye from the rest of mankind. All nature to him becomes an object of comparison and metaphor, without attending to it he throws

life into all, and inspires his audience with a part of his own enthusiasm. In a word, to feel your subject thoroughly, and to speak without fear, are the only rules of eloquence, properly so called, which I can offer." I cannot for your and my own profit, forbear quoting another passage, on account of the masterly sense and deep feeling conveyed to us all. Eloquence is not in the words but in the subject, and in great concerns the more simply anything is expressed, it is generally the more sublime, for there is, properly speaking, no sublime style, the sublimity lies only in the things; and when they are not so, the language may be turgid, affected, metaphorical, but not affecting." What can be more simply expressed than the following extract from a celebrated preacher (Massillon), and yet what was ever more sublime? Speaking of the small number of the elect, he thus breaks out before his audience:-'Let us suppose that this was the last hour of us all: that the heavens were opening over our heads: that time was passed, and eternity begun: that Jesus Christ, that Man of Sorrows, in all his glory appeared on the tribunal, and that we were assembled here to receive our final decree of life or death eternal! Let me ask, and impressed with terror like you, and not separating my lot from yours, but putting myself in the same situation in which we must all one day appear before God our Judge. Let me ask if Jesus Christ should now appear to make the terrible separation of the just from the unjust, do you think the greatest number would be saved? Do you think the number of the elect would be equal to that of the sinners? Do you think if all our works were examined with justice, would he find ten just persons in this great assembly? Monsters of ingratitude, would he find one!'

The sulky grumbler, on account of imaginary grievances, should read for his cure the Essay entitled, "The Distresses

of a Common Soldier;" the style is natural, the moral excellent. To read one of those delightful compositions would be a pleasing substitute for the vapid small talk which occasionally spoils the relish the tea table should afford. Let it be remembered that Johnson asked, "Is there a man, Sir, who can pen an essay with such ease and elegance as Goldsmith." I therefore recommend those Essays to your perusal, they will entertain and improve your minds, and when you read the author's fine criticisms, his happy conceptions, his elevated thoughts, and consider his broad and sensible views of human nature, and then ask how did it happen that such a man talked at times incautiously, dressed extravagantly, and was deficient in the outward manner of polite society?— remember, the indulgence of his harmless vanity was perhaps a relief to a wearied spirit, his careless talk was his little recreation; while his thoughts were summoned up when he sat down in his lonely garret to be his intellectual companions that manly language flowed freely from his pen to suit such thoughts, that his survey of human nature was then clear and strong, the result of varied experience and close observation; that under all his trials, privations and sufferings, his pen was never dipped in gall, that benevolence, sympathy and generosity, softened and directed, but did not weaken his opinions or his decisions. In the coffee-house or in the club he may have trifled; in the lonely garret he built up an immortal fame.

We now follow Goldsmith from his garret in Green Arbour Court, to more decent lodgings, situate in Wine-office Court, Fleet-street, where he occupied two rooms for nearly two years.

"Slow rises worth by poverty deprest." He was, however, rising in the world; better paid for his drudgery by the bookseller, better known in the literary world by his talents: but although he quitted a miserable abode, he never

forgot the poor woman with whom he had lodged, and continued to relieve her poverty till his death. Amidst all his slavish task work and humiliations he was sustained by hope -hope of success, of fame, if not of fortune: hope inspired his solitary labours, and made him forget what he was, in expectation of what he would be.

"Sweet hope, kind cheat, fair fallacy, by thee

We are not where or what we be,

But what and where we would be-thus art thou

Our absent present, and our future now."

On the 31st May, 1761, Goldsmith gave a supper in his new apartments, Wine-office Court. Amongst his guests on this important occasion were Dr. Percy, afterwards Bishop of Dromore, a literary divine, who had a great and early admiration for our poet, and Dr. Johnson. This evening was an epoch in the life of Goldsmith-nothing so elevates a man in his own esteem as to feel and know that he is appreciated for his abilities and worth, by men of superior intellect, who have fought their way to fame. From that night to the hour of his death, the friendship of Johnson for Goldsmith, continued unabated.

The introduction to Johnson, was quickly followed by intimacy with Sir Joshua Reynolds-with Burke acquaintanceship ripened into steady friendship. Soon after Goldsmith was elected one of the original members of "The Club," afterwards named the Literary Club, and was admitted as the social companion of the brightest wits, and deepest scholars of the day. Who were those men, who thus attested the genius and the worth of Goldsmith? Foremost amongst them stands the figure of Dr. Samuel Johnson. I have been accustomed from childhood to look at the portraiture of the literary giant of the last century; rough in exterior, in bodily frame large and unwieldly-with rugged countenance his