unworthy pride, without condescending to anger. The Vicar did not, like many satirists, attempt to frighten men from vice by holding up to their observation hideous extremes of sin, but by creating a purer atmosphere of thought, charm. ing them to better aims, and then turning upon them with a droll smile, and saying-" What! what! could you run mad after such and such ?"

"I could not but smile to hear her talk in this lofty strain; but I was never much displeased with those harmless delusions that tend to make us more happy." "That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel," "My daughters seemed to regard their superior accomplishments with envy, and what appeared amiss was ascribed to tip-top quality breeding." "Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent, it seldom has the justice to accuse.' "The creatures I now

The real poet, as he

describe are only beggars in rhyme. braves every hardship for fame, so he is equally a coward to contempt, and none but those who are unworthy protection condescend to solicit it."

Such as the above are the gems of truth which Goldsmith sowed broadcast in the pages of his fiction, and which produce in the reader the sensation of having come where in a bracing and exhilarating air he can look from a hill-top down upon the wide country of life, where in humble labour he has to spend his days. Not that we would have it thought that we give our unreserved commendation to the much-lauded style of "The Vicar." There is often a disfiguring confusion of language, and frequently the blemish is found in the most poetical passages of the book. Tako the following beautiful allegory, "Guilt and Shame were at first companions, and in the beginning of their journey inseparably kept together. But their union was soon found to be disagreeable and inconvenient to both; Guilt gavo Shame frequent uneasiness, and Shame often betrayed the

secret conspiracies of Guilt. After long disagreement, therefore, they at length consented to part for ever. Guilt walked forward alone, to overtake Fate, that went before in the shape of an executioner; but Shame being naturally timorous, returned back to keep company with Virtue, which, in the beginning of the journey, they had left behind. Thus my children, after men have travelled through a few stages in vice, shame forsakes them, and returns back to wait upon the few virtues they have still remaining.”

Amongst the many memorable lines, and smart epigramatic sentences, which sparkle against each other in the first portion of the novel, there are several which have long been popular aphorisms, and several of which the author was spoiled by his own friends, or has since been stripped by an ungrateful and pilfering posterity. "O, sir," said the squire, "I am your most humble servant; I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too." On a memorable occasion Dr. Johnson used this pellet of wit, and it often is met with, passing current as of his fabrication.

VOL. I.

CHARLES Lamb remarked that literature was a very good staff, but would not do for a crutch; and Mr. Douglas Jerrold, putting the stamp of his genius upon an old pun, has said, "let no man be bred only to literature, for literature will not be bread to him." These epigrammatic observations contain a truth which has been acknowledged and acted upon by authors for many a generation. Even of the most famous and successful and industrious writers, only a few have been altogether supported by literature. Either they have been endowed with private fortunes, or they have applied themselves to some more certain vocation than authorship for the means of existence.

Defoe was a merchant and a place-holder; Fielding was a stipendiary magistrate; Smollett and Goldsmith both tried to get fees by the practice of medicine, and at times succeeded; Swift was a beneficed clergyman, then a dean; Richardson and Godwin were booksellers; Sterne had church preferment; Sir Walter Scott was a lawyer with private fortune, supposed worth £800 per annum, and a monied wife, long ere he earned £1000 from publishers. Wordsworth had a lucrative place, as well as comfortable private means; Charles Lamb stuck to his clerkship; and in our times several of the best and most popular writers get the greater portion of their incomes from Westminster, or the dark offices of the city. In the days of Pope, a penni. less aspirant for literary honours, either was made wealthy in a trice by getting a government sinecure, or died slowly of

starvation and hunger in Grub Street, unknown-or known only to be visited with vulgar ridicule. In this generation he neither hopes for £1200 per annum from Downing Street, nor, if he be a wise man, thinks there are many chances of his earning secure opulence by his pen, but decently attending to the humble duties of beaverism, either as a barrister or attorney, a schoolmaster or doctor, a clerk or shopkeeper, a tutor or a public lecturer, writes not for money but from love of art, and patiently bides his time, till men shall say, "You are a true poet; and we will have you for our teacher."

Robert Bage was a popular writer, and also an industrious tradesman. He was born on the 29th of February, 1728, at Darley, a village on the Derwent, near Derby, where his father was a paper maker, and, like Fielding's father, had four wives in proper succession. Robert was the offspring of the first union, and after receiving a poor education at a school at Derby, was instructed in the mystery of his father's occupation.

Bred up in the austere simplicity of Quakerism, it was perhaps natural that Robert Bage should, in manhood, have so little respect for persons, and established pomps, as to deride kings, and be to his dying day as thorough-going a republican as Holcroft or Payne. But remarkable it certainly is that a man, reared a Quaker amongst Quakers, and to the last entertaining a warm affection for that decorous and respectable sect, should have been a freethinker, and have entertained the world with a series of as immoral and flagrantly indecent novels, as the taste of the less refined of his time would bear. To add, in the minds of many, to the contradictory nature of this loose writer and infidel offspring of a Quaker, we may here remark that he was conspicuous for gentleness of manner to all of all degrees, was respected everywhere as a man of the most delicate honour, throughout life was an ever-present help to

the troubled, and in his own house was a gentle and loverlike husband, a singularly considerate master, and a most affectionate and tender father.

When he was only twenty-three years old, Robert Bage made a prudent and good match, the girl he was so happy as to win being amiable, well-looking, and endowed with good sense, and a handsome sum of money. On becoming a married man he settled at Ilford, four miles from Tamworth, where he carried on the paper factory which was conducted by him to the end of his days. As soon as he was fairly fixed in this position, he looked round for some means of intellectual amusement, and applied himself energetically to the study of the French language, and soon he was able to read with facility not only the romances and plays, but the political treatises also, which were then pouring from Paris into every part of Europe. But he did not present himself to the public as an author till long after his wedding.

In 1765, Bage and three other men (of whom Dr. Darwin was one) took, in partnership, an iron factory. The result of this enterprise was that, at the end of fourteen years, when the partners dissolved their union, Bage found himself a poorer man by as much as £1,500.

It was after this commercial reverse, that he, either to console himself, or with a desire to earn money, commenced a work of fiction. His first novel, “Mount Kenneth," was sold to Lowndes for £80, and was published in 1781. In 1784 was published "Barham Downs;" in 1787 appeared "The Fair Syrian ;" next came "James Wallace," which was followed in 1792 by "Man as he is," and in 1796, by 'Hermsprong, or, Man as he is not.”

These novels were well received, and created almost as much sensation in Germany as in England. But there is little to be said for them. They are just such productions as might be expected from a sagacious, clear-witted trades