essays for the British Magazine, which was then publishing by that gentleman. It seems that he also engaged as an assistant in the Critical Review. The first work, however, worthy of the reputation our author has since acquired is the Citizen of the World, which appeared about this time in the Public Ledger, under the title of Chinese Letters.

In 1762 he was enabled to emerge from his mean abode in the Old Bailey to the genteeler air of the Temple; where he took chambers, and lived in a more creditable manner. His connexions now became very numerous; but it was only three years after (in 1765) that his genius displayed itself in its full vigour, by the

publication of his Traveller, a poem began in Switzerland, and which was followed by his Vicar of Wakefield and History of England. His Deserted Village was first printed in 1769, the same year that the Honorary Professorship of History in the Royal Academy was conferred upon him. An anecdote is told respecting the publication of this poem, which sets our author's character in so amiable, and at the same time in so true a light, that we cannot refrain from repeating it. His bookseller having given him a note of one hundred guineas for the copy, Goldsmith, it is said, mentioned the circumstance a few hours after to one of his friends, who observed that it was a very great sum for so short a

performance. "In truth," replied

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; I will therefore go back and return him his note." This, it seems, he actually did, leaving it to the bookseller to pay him according to the profits arising from the sale, which turned out very considerable.

The universal esteem in which our author's poems are held, and the reiterated pleasure they give in the perusal, are unequivocal tests of their merit. His two principal pieces, the Traveller and the Deserted Village, are truly original productions; but the former has more peculiarity,

abounds more in thought, and in the expression of moral and philosophical ideas; whereas the Deserted Village possesses more imagery, more variety, more pathos, and is consequently more interesting. In the latter poem he strongly inveighs against the progress of luxury: but, like most of the moralists who have written upon that subject, he confounds the effect with the cause. Luxury in itself is far from being pernicious, since it tends to lessen the effects of the unequal distribution of wealth, which is the true, but inevitable evil resulting from the progress of trade and civilization.

Goldsmith's poetry is no less characterized by its energy than by its. simplicity: hence it affords numerous

b

His purpose

passages which dwell on the memory. is to represent manners and characters as they really exist; not to body forth things unknown. He impresses strongly on the heart moral and political sentiments, whilst he fills the imagination with a variety of pleasing or affecting objects selected from the stores of nature. If this be not the highest department of poetry, it is the most universally agreeable. To receive delight from the sublime conceptions of Milton, the allegories of Spenser, the learning of Gray, or the fancy of Collins, we must possess some sparks of the genius which animated them, or our minds must have been prepared by a particular course of study. La Motte