The reverend champion stood. At his control, At church, with meck and unaffected grace, With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran; E'en children follow'd with endearing wile, And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile. Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest; The Deserted Village. AN ELEGY ON THE GLORY OF HER SEX, MRS. MARY BLAIZE. Good people all, with one accord, Who never wanted a good word→→→→ The needy seldom pass'd her door, She strove the neighborhood to please At church, in silks and satins new, Her love was sought, I do aver, But now her wealth and finery fled, Her hangers-on cut short all; The doctors found, when she was dead, Let us lament, in sorrow sore, For Kent-street well may say, That had she lived a twelvemonth more,- But Goldsmith's prose is no less charming than his poetry. There are, in his essays, entitled "The Citizen of the World," an ease and gracefulness of style, a chaste humor, a rich poetical fancy, and a nice observation of men and manners, that render them truly "a mine of lively and profound thought, happy imagery, and pure English." LIFE ENDEARED BY AGE. Age, that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living. Those dangers which, in the vigor of youth, we had learned to despise, assume new terrors as we grow old. Our caution increasing as our years increase, fear becomes at last the prevailing passion of the mind; and the small remainder of life is taken up in useless efforts to keep off our end, or provide for a continued existence. Strange contradiction in our nature, and to which even the wise are liable! If I should judge of that part of life which lies before me, by that which I have already seen, the prospect is hideous. Experience tells me that my past enjoyments have brought no real felicity, and sensation assures me that those I have felt are stronger than those which are yet to come. Yet experience and sensation in vain persuade; hope, more powerful than either, dresses out the distant prospect in fancied beauty; some happiness, in long perspective, still beckons me to pursue, and, like a losing gamester, every new disappointment increases my ardor to continue the game. Whence, my friend, this increased love of life, which grows upon us with our years? whence comes it, that we thus make greater efforts to preserve our existence at a period when it becomes scarcely worth the keeping? Is it that nature, attentive to the preservation of mankind, increases our wishes to live, while she lessens our enjoyments; and, as she robs the senses of every pleasure, equips imagination in the spoil? Life would be insupportable to an old man who, loaded with infirmities, feared death no more than when in the vigor of manhood; the numberless calamities of decaying nature, and the consciousness of surviving every pleasure, would at once induce him, with his own hand, to terminate the scene of misery; but happily the contempt of death forsakes him at a time when it could be only prejudicial, and life acquires an imaginary value in proportion as its real value is no more. Our attachment to every object around us increases, in general, 1 At a dinner at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, when some unkind remark was made of Goldsmith, Johnson broke out warmly in his defence, and in the course of a spirited eulogium, said, "Is there a man, sir, now, who can pen an essay with such ease and elegance as Dr. Goldsmith " "The prose of Goldsmith is the model of perfection, and the standard of our language; to equal which the efforts of most would be vain, and to exceed it, every expectation folly."-Headley. from the length of our acquaintance with it. "I would not choose," says a French philosopher, "to see an old post pulled up with which I had been long acquainted." A mind long habituated to a certain set of objects insensibly becomes fond of seeing them; visits them from habit, and parts from them with reluctance. Hence proceeds the avarice of the old in every kind of possession; they love the world and all that it produces; they love life and all its advantages, not because it gives them pleasure, but because they have known it long. Chinvang the Chaste, ascending the throne of China, commanded that all who were unjustly detained in prison during the preceding reigns should be set free. Among the number who came to thank their deliverer on this occasion, there appeared a majestic old man, who, falling at the emperor's feet, addressed him as follows: "Great father of China, behold a wretch, now eighty-five years old, who was shut up in a dungeon at the age of twenty-two. I was imprisoned, though a stranger to crime, or without being even confronted by my accusers. I have now lived in solitude and in darkness for more than fifty years, and am grown familiar with distress. As yet, dazzled with the splendor of that sun to which you have restored me, I have been wandering the streets to find some friend that would assist, or relieve, or remember me; but my friends, my family, and relations are all dead, and I am forgotten. Permit me, then, O Chinvang, to wear out the wretched remains of life in my former prison; the walls of my dungeon are to me more pleasing than the most splendid palace; I have not long to live, and shall be unhappy except I spend the rest of my days where my youth was passed-in that prison from which you were pleased to release me." The old man's passion for confinement is similar to that we all have for life. We are habituated to the prison, we look round with discontent, are displeased with the abode, and yet the length of our captivity only increases our fondness for the cell. The trees we have planted, the houses we have built, or the posterity we have begotten, all serve to bind us closer to earth, and imbitter our parting. Life sues the young like a new acquaintance; the companion, as yet unexhausted, is at once instructive and amusing; its company pleases, yet for all this it is but little regarded. To us, who are declined in years, life appears like an old friend; its jests have been anticipated in former conversation; it has no new story to make us smile, no new improvement with which to surprise, yet still we love it; destitute of every enjoyment, still we love it; husband the wasting treasure with increased frugality, and feel all the poignancy of anguish in the fatal separation.. Sir Philip Mordaunt was young, beautiful, sincere, brave,—an Englishman. He had a complete fortune of his own, and the love 66 of the king, his master, which was equivalent to riches. Life opened all her treasures before him, and promised a long succession of future happiness. He came, tasted of the entertainment, but was disgusted even in the beginning. He professed an aversion to living, was tired of walking round the same circle; had tried every enjoyment, and found them all grow weaker at every repetition. If life be in youth so displeasing," cried he to himself, "what will it appear when age comes on? if it be at present indifferent, sure it will then be execrable." This thought imbittered every reflection; till at last, with all the serenity of perverted reason, he ended the debate with a pistol! Had this selfdeluded man been apprized that existence grows more desirable to us the longer we exist, he would then have faced old age without shrinking; he would have boldly dared to live, and served that society by his future assiduity which he basely injured by his desertion. Citizen of the World, Letter LXXIII. A CITY NIGHT-PIECE. The clock has just struck two; the expiring taper rises and sinks in the socket; the watchman forgets the hour in slumber; the laborious and the happy are at rest; and nothing wakes but meditation, guilt, revelry, and despair. The drunkard once more fills the destroying bowl; the robber walks his midnight round; and the suicide lifts his guilty arm against his own sacred person. Let me no longer waste the night over the page of antiquity, or the sallies of contemporary genius, but pursue the solitary walk, where vanity, ever-changing, but a few hours past, walked before me-where she kept up the pageant, and now, like a froward child, seems hushed with her own importunities. What a gloom hangs all around! The dying lamp feebly emits a yellow gleam: no sound is heard but of the chiming clock or the distant watch-dog: all the bustle of human pride is forgotten. An hour like this may well display the emptiness of human vanity. There will come a time when this temporary solitude may be made continual, and the city itself, like its inhabitants, fade away, and leave a desert in its room. What cities, as great as this, have once triumphed in existence, had their victories as great, joy as just and as unbounded, and, with short-sighted presumption, promised themselves immortality! Posterity can hardly trace the situation of some; the sorrowful traveller wanders over the awful ruins of others; and, as he beholds, he learns wisdom, and feels the transience of every sublunary possession. Here, he cries, stood their citadel, now grown over with weeds; there their senate-house, but now the haunt of every noxious reptile. Temples and theatres stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of ruin. They are fallen, for luxury and avarice first made them feeble. The rewards of state were conferred on amusing, and not on useful members of society. Their riches and opulence invited the invaders, who, though at first repulsed, returned again, conquered by perseverance, and at last swept the defendants into undistinguished destruction. How few appear in those streets, which, but some few hours ago, were crowded! And those who appear now no longer wear their daily mask, nor attempt to hide their lewdness or their misery. But who are those who make the streets their couch, and find a short repose from wretchedness at the doors of the opulent? These are strangers, wanderers, and orphans, whose circumstances are too humble to expect redress, and whose distresses are too great even for pity. Their wretchedness excites rather horror than pity. Some are without the covering even of rags, and others emaciated with disease. The world has disclaimed them: society turns its back upon their distress, and has given them up to nakedness and hunger. These poor shivering females have once seen happier days, and been flattered into beauty.1 Why, why was I born a man, and yet see the sufferings of wretches I cannot relieve? Poor houseless creatures! the world will give you reproaches, but will not give you relief. The slightest misfortunes of the great, the most imaginary uneasiness of the rich, are aggravated with all the power of eloquence, and held up to engage our attention and sympathetic sorrow. The poor weep unheeded, persecuted by every subordinate species of tyranny; and every law which gives others security becomes an enemy to them. Why was this heart of mine formed with so much sensibility? or why was not my fortune adapted to its impulse? Tenderness without a capacity of relieving, only makes the man who feels it more wretched than the object which sues for assistance. Citizen of the World, Letter CXVII. 1 This idea is repeated in the "Deserted Village:"— "Ah! turn thine eyes, Where the poor, houseless, shivering female lies. |