in your useful pages. I should not, therefore, have troubled you with these remarks, did I not feel that it is, under all circumstances, desirable to rectify error, even where it has reference only to such individuals as the author of the Traveller,' or the 'Deserted Village.' Those who are at all acquainted with the history of Goldsmith, know that he passed some portion of his time under Dr. Milner's roof at Peckham, near London, where he was engaged in the work of instruction under that able and excellent divine, then minister of the Presbyterian church, now Dr. Collyer's, at that place. But all his biographers, not excepting Mr. James Prior, and Mr. John Forster, who have made his life the subject of separate works, fall into the error of supposing that Goldsmith did not accept of this situation until 1756, after he had led a vagabond life on the continent, instead of six or seven years earlier; before he had acquired those desultory and dissipated habits, which clung to him throughout the remainder of his eccentric course. But the work referred to shall speak for itself : 6 "A peculiar interest attaches to the house still called · Goldsmith House,' at Peckham, from its having been formerly occupied by Dr. Milner, under whom Oliver Goldsmith officiated as usher. "All the biographers of this amusing writer are unaccountably in error with regard to this portion of his existence, and afford a striking illustration of the necessity for personal and local investigation, in addition to the labors of the library and study in enquiries of this character. The sojourn of Goldsmith under Dr. Milner's roof, as we shall presently find, took place prior to his wanderings on the Continent, and not, as has been invariably stated, subsequent to his return. "The most complete biography of this singular genius is that written by James Prior, author of the Life of Burke, and recently published in two volumes 8vo. But this, like all the others, places Goldsmith at Peckham towards the end of 1756, or the former part of 1757. As he only returned from the continent early in the first of these years, and was supposed to have set up afterwards as apothecary in a country town; to have assisted in the work of tuition at a Yorkshire school; to have served as assistant to a chemist on Fish-street-hill; and to have been, according to his own account, practising physic, and doing very well"-there is no little difficulty in hurrying him through all these vocations in time to be of any use at all to Dr. Milner, especially as this worthy man, beyond all question, died in June 1757. This error is the more unpardonable, as in relating his own adventures in the character of George, in the Vicar of Wakefield,' Goldsmith places his attempt to procure an usher's situation prior to his life on the continent, and indeed in the very outset of his career. "It is not precisely known when Goldsmith first came to Peckham, though quite certain that he was there in 1751; six years earlier than is usually supposed. The probability is that that he succeeded Mr. Robinson, Dr. Milner's former assistant, who appears to have left about the middle of the preceding year. Mr. Robinson preached occasionally for the Doctor at Peckham : his last sermon was in July, 1750, and he probably left soon afterwards. "I am enabled to authenticate the statement just made, by means of some cotemporary memoranda, furnished by a gentleman who had two sons under Goldsmith's care, in reply to my enquiries on the subject, by his grand-daughter, the niece of one, and daughter of the other of these pupils. My father,' writes this lady,' went to Dr. Milner's school on the 28th January, 1750. On the 15th April, 1751, his brother also went, and was put under Goldsmith's care, who, was very mild, and had a winning way with children, and they learnt from him without much study of books.' Two more brothers were also pupils at Dr. Milner's.' "As these data were altogether new to me, and contradicted all that I read upon the subject, I was unwilling to admit their testimony without farther enquiry, which, however, soon satisfied me that there could be no mistake. My grandfather,' says the reply, kept this short diary from which I send the dates, &c. His three first children died: then came my father, who was born 13th March, 1743-4, and my husband's father, (my uncle,) born 25th May, 1745. The first went to Dr. Milner's school on the 28th January, 1750-51: the other, the first week after Easter, 15th April, 1751. He said, 'Mr. Goldsmith was about twenty-three; a heavy, dull-looking man :' he was placed under his care. On the 4th July, 1754, my good grandfather removed from Peckham to Wokingham, taking his two sons with him, so that it is quite clear Oliver Goldsmith was at Dr. Milner's between the years 1751 and 1754. "About fifteen years ago,* a relic of great interest as associated with Goldsmith's residence at Peckham, was removed from the premises by the late occupant. This was a piece of glass, not quite seven inches long, by three wide,' inscribed with the well known lines from Thompson :: Father of light and life; thou good supreme, O teach me what is good; teach me thyself! With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure, Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss.—Winter,lines 217-22. "These lines are boldly flourished with a diamond; and the gentleman who has indulged me with a fac-simile, says of the original-' I have no reason to doubt of its being the production of Goldsmith. It was presented to me by the lady who had it taken from a window in the house at Peckham, in which Dr. Goldsmith resided, in order to preserve it from mischance-it was the current tradition that the poet had traced the lines upon it. The handwriting is sufficiently peculiar in my opinion to settle the point with those familiar with his autograph: but for my own part, I have no opportunity of making the comparison.' "There is considerable difficulty in procuring a specimen of the poet's handwriting at this early period of his life, though much curious and interesting evidence may be adduced in favor of this relic. The pug-tailed d, the long s, and the absence of stops were characteristic of his hand at an after period: the latter point, indeed, always distinguished it, for he usually wrote with great haste and carelessness. Mr. James Prior, author of the able Life of Goldsmith before mentioned, to whom a copy of the first two lines was sent, says of it, 'The fac-simile forwarded, bears certainly some resemblance to the handwriting of Goldsmith, but by no means enough to decide the point.' There is a degree of light-heartedness and flourish about it, which the * Now more than twenty. Father of light & life then good sysram? O teach me what is good tough me thy felf from folly vanity & vice From every low purfist of feed my soul [FAC-SIMILE OF INSCRIPTION ON A WINDOW AT DR. MILNER'S, SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH-] troubles of after life would greatly tend to modify. But one of the strongest arguments arises from the occurrence of the mispelt word 'supream,' in the first line: his orthography being remarkable for its inaccuracy. The words comerce, allarms, oppulence, inrich, inforce, efects, ecchoes, atractions, comodities, unactive, and undoe, are especially mentioned as instances by Prior. Another, and still more interesting proof is furnished by the partial erasure of the last line- —an erasure which, by the way, subverts the proper import of the passage, and classes even 'knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure,' with those illusions which constitute 'fading bliss.' That the sentiment thus elicited was precisely that of poor Goldsmith after the repeated buffetings to which he was subject on his return to England, appears very evident, from a letter to his brother, the Rev. H. Goldsmith, written in February, 1759, in which he gives the following directions relative to the education of his son. 'Above all things let him never touch a romance or a novel these paint beauty in colours more charming than nature, and describe happiness that man never tastes. How delusive, how destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss !'" : This extract is sufficiently exact and circumstantial to be its own witness. I have, therefore, nothing to add, but that I am, Your most obedient servant, Аистов. Enquiries and Correspondence. John ix. 2. SIR,-Will you kindly tell me the meaning of the question proposed by the disciples to Christ, as recorded in John ix. 2. Surely they did not believe in the transmigration of souls? Or may the passage be taken as an ellipsis, the full meaning being—Did this man sin, that blindness is come upon him, or his parents, that he was born blind? Your's obliged, IGNORAMUS. Our correspondent has shewn us how ingeniously the simplest text may be mystified, by suggesting the first alternative. The second conveys the true meaning of the passage, though it seems |