portion as they approached more finished compositions. In GOLDSMITH'S 'Hermit,' the language is always polished, and often ornamented. The best things in it are some neat turns of moral and pathetic sentiment, given with a simple conciseness that fits them for being retained in the memory. As to the story, it has little fancy or contrivance to recommend it. We have already seen that GOLDSMITH possessed humor; and, exclusively of his comedies, pieces professedly humorous form a part of his poetical remains. His imitations of Swift are happy, but they are imitations. His tale of the 'Double Transformation' may vie with those of Prior. His own natural vein of easy humor flows freely in his 'Haunch of Venison' and 'Retaliation;' the first, an admirable specimen of a very ludicrous story made out of a common incident by the help of conversation and character; the other, an original thought, in which his talent at drawing portraits, with a mixture of the serious and the comic, is most happily displayed. VERSES ON THE DEATH OF DR. GOLDSMITH. EXTRACT FROM A POEM WRITTEN BY COURTNEY MELMOTH, ESQ. ON THE DEATH OF EMINENT ENGLISH POETS. THE TEARS OF GENIUS. THE village bell tolls out the note of death, Spreads the sad tidings o'er fair Auburn's vale. And herded jocund with the harmless swains; Touch'd at the view, her pensive breast she struck, O'er the moss'd pillars of the sacred fane, The brier-bound graves shadowing with funeral gloom, 'And must my children all expire? I charge thee with my children slain ! Bard after bard obey'd thy slaughtering call, The tribute of a parting lay; |