MEMOIR.

THE fame of Oliver Goldsmith, while it is one of the highest in English literature, has likewise been one of the steadiest, and is certain to be one of the most lasting. Of all our standard authors, there are very few who please so many readers; and, perhaps, none who is as widely popular is at the same time so heartily appreciated by persons of refined and critical taste.

The "Vicar of Wakefield" has been read, and liked, oftener than any other novel in any European language. The "Citizen of the World," if less various and less dramatic than the essays of Addison and his friends, is inspired by warmer feeling than they, and guided by a deeper sense of human interests. "She Stoops to Conquer," overflowing with native gaiety, and seasoned by the truest humour, is one of the most pleasant comedies in existence. From "The Traveller" our poetry has received much, from "The Deserted Village" it has received still more, of imagery flowing out

of a fine and original fancy, of pathos which frequently dissolves into tenderness and sometimes swells into passion, and of expression so apt and so suggestive, that phrases and lines recur to us more readily than from any other works, except those of Shakspere and Pope. The ever-living interest of Goldsmith's imaginative pictures lies mainly in the glow of kindness, wishful rather than hopeful, by which they are brightened. The landscape stretches out in clear sunshine, from which a gentle breeze is always chasing the scattered clouds. The same amiable spirit characterizes his observation of real life the thoughts look always toward social or individual good; the satire, when keenest, is never harsh. Over everything he does, too, his spontaneous grace of manner diffuses a charm which art could never reach.

In his less prominent writings, also, there present themselves many hints towards thoughts which those greater works elaborated, and many expansions of thoughts at which those works had only hinted, and many other thoughts, and images, and sentiments, which he did not elsewhere use. Such things give an attraction and a value to his miscellaneous Essays. They occur abundantly in his Letters, few, but exceedingly interesting, and most instructive as illustrations of his disposition; and they may be dug out of those compilations, and those perishable contributions to reviews and magazines, on which, and even on toils meaner still, the man of genius was condemned to waste so many of his precious days. For the works which have made Goldsmith immortal were but the fruit of hours snatched at intervals from the hard labour forced on him for bread during seventeen weary years of professional authorship. The fact makes us inquisitive as to the events of his life, and prepares us for looking on his history and character with respectful sympathy and indulgence.

Of all those many men of letters whom we cannot but love in spite of weaknesses and errors, there is none whose character is more vexingly anomalous than Goldsmith's. He was spontaneously frank beyond the bounds of prudence, yet he often shut up his most profound emotions within an impenetrable veil of reserve, or yet oftener disguised them in a way which made loose observers do him grievous injustice. He was naturally and habitually unassuming; yet he broke out, now and then, into fits of defiant pretension. He was thoroughly unselfish, devotedly affectionate and grateful; and yet destitute of the strength of will to do what gratitude and affection dictated. He was inspired by the feelings of a gentleman, and prone towards rushing impetuously to the relief of all distress; and yet he was unable, even when he had the means, which did not come to him for long, to protect himself from degrading money-embarrassments, and equally unable to think, with a view to action, either of his own future fate, or of the mischief which his wasteful carelessness was inflicting on others. Such are among the contradictions which we gather from the best known passages of his history, and which are detected as attaching especially to his latest years. To some of them, the key is yielded by the facts of his life, taken with the evidence we have of his native tendencies. A long and sad apprenticeship to poverty and depreciation; sudden elevation into a celebrity which might have turned a more steady head; the attainment, for the last few years of his life, of a social position which was essentially a false one: these were circumstances frightfully dangerous for a man of genius, impulse, and imagination-for a man who sensitively shrank from the contemplation of external evils, and who had the power of throwing himself back on dreams when he found it hard to act. The worst of Goldsmith's aberrations, and all the little follies which

were scorned so much by his inferiors, are traceable to a disappointed desire of approbation-a desire which, felt with painful intensity, was throughout his life, in one way or another, doomed to continual and irritating frustration. The brightest side in his character, as in his works, consisted in his extraordinary and unquenchable sweetness of heart and temper: he often desponded, and sometimes despaired; but he never hated or waxed bitter.

A character like this holds out to its analysts temptations towards exaggeration on either side. The biographers of Johnson, while bent on sacrificing every one to their own idol, were not only incompetent to understand Goldsmith, but very ill informed as to his history, even for the time he was among them. These men accordingly painted him in colours supplied by avowed contempt and secret dislike. There have now been wiped off all the stains which were thus rubbed on the portrait, whether by the malignity of Hawkins, or by the envious silliness of Boswell. We are no longer in danger of judging Goldsmith harshly. But, in accordance with the usual law of reactions, the pendulum has perhaps oscillated too far in the opposite arc. Mr. Prior, in his "Life" of 1837, has collected an invaluable mass of new facts and documents, which suffice to correct mistakes innumerable. In 1848, and more fully in 1854, Mr. Forster's "Goldsmith" has digested all the attainable knowledge into a masterly biography of the poet, and has touched his character with a hand which, skilfully bringing his virtues into just prominence, errs only, if at all, by passing somewhat too softly over his faults.

For the story of a life so diversified as Goldsmith's some distribution is needed. In a hasty sketch like the present, it may be enough to arrange the events under three periods. The first of