fession. Besides writing for The Review, he produced a weekly pamphlet, called The Bee; An inquiry into the Present State of Learning in Europe; and contributed several Essays to The Public Ledger, in which his Citizen of the World appeared, under the title of Chinese Letters. These publications had brought him both fame and emolument, and, in 1765, at which time he resided in the Temple, he added to them by the production of his celebrated poem The Traveler. This had been written during his residence abroad, and was revised and printed at the recommendation of Dr. Johnson, his acquaintance with whom was soon followed by that of other eminent literary characters of the day. In 1766, appeared his Vicar of Wakefield, and his History of England, in a series of letters, two of his most successful performances, and which were received with immediate applause. In 1768, his comedy of The Good-natured Man, was brought out at Covent Garden, with a prologue by Dr. Johnson; but the success of it was not proportionate to its merits. In 1770, appeared his exquisite poem of The Deserted Village, for which he received £100, but could hardly be prevailed upon to accept it, until satisfied that the profits of the bookseller could afford that sum. It is, indeed, said by one of his biographers, that he went back and returned the money, observing, he had not been easy since he received it;' and left it to the bookseller to pay him according to the profits of the sale.

In 1772, was acted his celebrated comedy of She Stoops to Conquer, concerning the acceptance and success of which he appears to have been equally anxious and doubtful. His letter to Colman, about this time, does not represent his circumstances in a very favorable light: I have, as you know,' he says, 'a large sum of money to make up shortly; by accepting my play, I can readily satisfy my creditors that way; at any rate, I must look about to some certainty to be prepared. For God's sake, take the play, and let us make the best of it; and let me have the same measure, at least, which you have given as bad plays as mine.' During the first performance of the comedy, he is said to have walked all the time in St. James' Park, in great uneasiness, until, thinking it must be over, he hastened to the theatre. His ears were assailed with hisses as he entered the green-room; when he eagerly inquired of Mr. Colman the cause.-Psha! psha!' said Colman, 'don't be afraid of squibs, when we have been sitting on a barrel of gunpowder these two hours.' The fact was, that the comedy had been completely successful, and that it was the farce which had excited these sounds so terrific to Goldsmith.

In the following year, his last theatrical piece, entitled The Grumbler, a farce, altered from Sedley, was acted, for the benefit of Mr. Quick; but it was not repeated, and was never printed. His other productions are, a Roman History, a History of England, in four volumes, a Grecian History, and a History of the Earth and Animated Nature, compiled from Buffon and others. He had acquired more than a sufficiency, by his writings, for his comforts and necessaries; but his indiscriminate and improvident liberality, added to a passion for gaming, rendered his emoluments comparatively useless; and at length threw him into a state of despondency, which terminated in a nervous fever, and deprived him of life on the 4th of April, 1774. He was buried in the Temple Church, and a monument was afterwards erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey, at the expense of a literary club to which he belonged, with an inscription by Dr. Johnson. He is described

as a 'poet, natural philosopher, and historian; who left no species of writing untouched, or unadorned by his pen, whether to move laughter, or draw tears. He was a powerful master over the affections, though, at the same time, a gentle tyrant; of a genius at once sublime, lively, and equal to every subject: in expression at once noble, pure, and delicate.'

The character of Goldsmith was in the highest degree good-natured and benevolent; he was every one's friend, and any one's dupe; retaining, as he did, amid all his worldly experience, his natural simplicity and philanthropy of heart. But he was not truly estimable; for he was, with all his good qualities, improvident, dissipated, and meanly jealous of a literary rival. He was also, at times, impetuous and passionate; but corrected himself upon a moment's reflection; and it is said his servants would throw themselves in his way upon these occasions, as they were certain of being rewarded after the anger of their master had subsided. Mrs. Piozzi describes him as a poor fretful creature, eaten up with affectation and envy, and the only person she ever knew who acknowledged himself to be envious. It is known that he used his pen better than his tongue; and the same lady calls his conversation a strange mixture of absurdity and silliness. Some one who saw him for the first time in company, declared he was 'the most solemn coxcomb he had ever met with;' and the phrase of inspired idiot' is well known as applied to him. As an author he is to be considered in the character of a poet, historical compiler, novelist, essayist, and dramatist; in all of which he has been so far successful, as to leave some work in these respective departments of literature, alone sufficient to perpetuate his reputation. It is as a poet, however, that he will be chiefly esteemed; The Traveler, The Deserted Village, and The Hermit, are unrivaled in their class; and, though Dr. Aikin has placed them at the head of the minor compositions, will always retain their original popularity. His literary qualifications cannot be better described than in the words of Dr. Johnson, who calls him a man of such variety of powers, and such felicity of performance, that he always seemed to do best that which he was doing a man, who had the art of being minute, without tediousness; and general, without confusion; whose language was copious, without exuberance; exact, without constraint; and easy, without weakness.' Johnson was always ready to testify to the merits of Goldsmith; and being, one day, of a party at Sir Joshua Reynolds', where several affirmed that the author of The Traveler had neither talent nor originality, he rose with great dignity, looked them full in the face, and exclaimed, If nobody was suffered to abuse poor Goldy but those who could write as well, he would have few censors.'

Many anecdotes are told of his credulous simplicity, and indiscriminate benevolence. Sitting, one evening, at the tavern where he was accustomed to take his supper, he called for a mutton chop, which was no sooner placed on the table, than a gentleman near him, with whom he was intimately acquainted, showed great tokens of uneasiness, and wondered how the doctor could suffer the waiter to place such a stinking chop before him. 6 Stinking!' said Goldsmith, 'in good truth I do not smell it.' 'I never smelled anything more unpleasant in my life,' answered the gentleman; the fellow deserves a caning for bringing you meat unfit to eat.' 'In good troth,' said the poet, relying on his judgment, 'I think so too; but I will be less severe in my punishment.' He instantly called the waiter,

and insisted that he should eat the chop, as a punishment. The waiter resisted, but the doctor threatened to knock him down with his cane if he did not immediately comply. When he had eaten half the chop, the doctor gave him a glass of wine, thinking that it would make the remainder of the sen tence less painful to him. When the waiter had finished his repast, Gold smith's friend burst into a loud laugh. What ails you now?' said the poet. Indeed, my good friend,' said the other, 'I never could think that any man, whose knowledge of letters is so extensive as yours, could be so great a dupe to a stroke of humor; the chop was as fine a one as I ever saw in life.' my 'Was it?' said Dr. Goldsmith, then I will never give credit to what you say again; and so, in good truth, I think I am even with you.' Being pressed by his tailor for a debt, he appointed a day for payment, and procured the money in due time; but before the tailor came, Glover called on the doctor, and related a piteous tale of his goods being seized for rent. The thoughtless and benevolent Goldsmith immediately gave Glover all the money he possessed. When the tailor arrived, Goldsmith assured him that had he called a little earlier he should have had his money; but' added he, 'I have just parted with every penny I had in the world to a friend in distress. I should have been a cruel wretch, you know, not to have relieved him when it was in my power. In the suite of the doctor's pensioners was one Jack Pilkington, who had served the doctor so many tricks, that he despaired of getting any more money from hin, without resorting to a chef d'oeuvre once for all. He accordingly called on the doctor one morning, and running about the room in a fit of joy, told him his fortune was made. How so Jack?' says the doctor. Why,' replied Jack, 'the Duchess of Marlborough, you must know, has long had a strange penchant for a pair of white mice; now, as I knew they were sometimes found in the East Indies, I commissioned a friend of mine, who was going out there, to get them for me, and he is this morning arrived with two of the most beautiful little animals in nature.' After Jack had finished this account with a transport of joy, he lengthened his visage, by telling the doctor all was ruined, for without two guineas, to buy a cage for the mice, he could not present them. The doctor unfortunately, as he said himself, had but half-a-guinea in the world, which he offered him. But Pilkington was not to be beat out of his scheme; he perceived the doctor's watch hanging up in his room, and after premising on the indelicacy of the proposal, hinted that if he could spare that watch for a week, he could raise a few guineas on it, which he would repay him with gratitude. The doctor accordingly took down the watch, and gave it to him, which Jack immediately carried to the pawnbroker's,-raised what he could on it, and never once looked after the doctor, till he sent to borrow another half-guinea from him on his deathbed, which the other, under such circumstances, very generously sent him. One afternoon, as Colonel O'Moore and Mr. Burke were going to dine with Sir Joshua Reynolds, they observed Goldsmith (also on his way to Sir Joshua's) standing near a crowd of people, who were staring and shouting at some foreign women in the windows of one of the houses in Leicester Square. Observe Goldsmith,' said Mr. Burke to Colonel O'Moore, and mark what passes between him and me byand-by at Sir Joshua's.' They passed on, and arrived before Goldsmith, who came soon after, and Mr. Burke affected to receive him very coolly. This seemed to vex poor Goldsmith, who begged Mr. Burke would tell him

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how he had the misfortune to offend him. Burke appeared very reluctant to speak, but, after a good deal of pressing, said that he was really ashamed to keep up an intimacy with one who could be guilty of such monstrous indiscretions as Goldsmith had just exhibited in the square.' Goldsmith, with great earnestness, protested, he was unconscious of what was meant. Why,' said Burke, 'did you not exclaim, as you were looking up at those women, What stupid beasts the crowd must be for staring with such admiration at those painted Jezebels, while a man of my talents passes by unnoticed?' Goldsmith was horror-struck, and said, 'Surely, surely, my dear friend, I did not say so.' 'Nay,' replied Burke, 'If you had not said so, how should I have known it? That's true,' answered Goldsmith, with great humility: 'I am very sorry; it was very foolish : I do recollect that something of that kind passed through my mind, but 1 did not think I had uttered it. '

EDWARD GIBBON.

THIS celebrated historian, the son of a gentleman who for some time represented the borough of Petersfield in parliament, was born at Putney, on the 27th of April, 1737. After having received the elements of instruction at a day school, and under a private tutor, he was, in 1746, sent to an academy at Kingston-upon-Thames; and from thence, in 1748, to Westminster, where he entered the school, and resided in a boarding-house kept by his aunt. His delicate health soon occasioned his removal from Westminster school, though he subsequently attempted to renew his attendance there, after having passed some time at Bath and Winchester, by the advice of his physicians. In his fifteenth year, he was placed under the care of the Rev. Mr. Philip Francis, the translator of Horace: and, on the 3d of April, 1752, he was matriculated as a gentleman commoner of Magdalen College, Oxford. Here, according to his own account, he spent fourteen months, the most unprofitable of his whole life,' and appears to have been conspicuous only for his dissipation and extravagance. Such a mode of passing his time he attributes less to his own inclination, than to the negligence of his tutors, whom he charges with recommending no plan of study for his use, and prescribing no exercises for his inspection. I was not,' he says, devoid of capacity or application;' and insinuates that he might have arrived at academical distinction, in the discipline of a well-constituted university, under the guidance of skillful and vigilant professors.'

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His departure from Oxford was hastened by his adoption of the catholic faith, his conversion to which he attributed to a perusal of Bossuet's Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine, and the History of the Protestant Variations. At a future period he observes: To my present feelings, it seems incredible that I should ever believe that I believed in transubstantiation. But my conqueror oppressed me with the sacramental words, "this is my body;" and dashed against each other the figurative half-meanings of the protestant sects. Every objection was resolved into omnipotence; and, after repeating, at St. Mary's, the Athanasian creed, I humbly acquiesced in the mystery of the real presence.' On his arrival in London, he introduced himself to a priest, renounced the protestant, and was admitted a member of the Romish church, in June, 1753. His father was highly indignant at his religious conversion, and sent him, in consequence, to Lausanne in

Switzerland, where he resided in the house with Mr. Pavillard, and 'spent nearly five years with pleasure and profit.' His tutor, who was a Calivnistic minister, spared no effort to convince him that he had come to an erroneous conclusion concerning the catholic doctrine; and his exertions, aided by the mature reflections of his pupil, were at length successful. The various articles of the Romish creed,' says our author, disappeared like a dream; and, after a full conviction, on Christmas day, 1754, I received the sacrament in the church of Lausanne.' During his stay in this city, he made rapid and profitable progress in his studies; and, besides opening a correspondence with the chief literati of the continent, he acquired a knowledge of French and Italian, and perfected his acquaintance with the Greek and Latin languages.

Previous to his leaving Lausanne, he formed an attachment to a Mademoiselle Curchod, the commencement and termination of which, in his own words, is too interesting to be omitted. 'I saw,' he says, 'and loved. I found her learned, without pedantry; lively in conversation; pure in sentiment; elegant in manners. She permitted me to make her two or three visits in her father's house. I passed some happy days there in the mountains of Burgundy, and her parents honorably encouraged the connexion. In a calm retirement, the gay vanity of youth no longer fluttered in her bosom. She listened to the voice of truth and passion, and I might presume to hope I had made some impression on a virtuous heart. At Crassy and Lausanne, I indulged my dream of felicity; but, on my return to England, I soon discovered that my father would not hear to this strange alliance. After a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate. I sighed as a lover; I obeyed as a son: my wound was insensibly healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new life. My cure was accelerated by a faithful report of the tranquillity and cheerfulness of the lady herself; and my love subsided into friendship and esteem. A rich banker of Paris, a citizen of Geneva, had the good fortune and good sense to discover and possess this inestimable treasure; and, in the capital of taste and luxury, she resisted the temptation of wealth, as she had sustained the hardships of indigence. The genius of her husband has exalted him to the most conspicuous station in Europe; and Mademoiselle Curchod is now the wife of M. Necker.'

In 1758, he returned to England, and took up his residence at his father's house, where he devoted himself to the gradual collection of a library, and to a strict course of reading. In 1761, he acquired some reputation on the continent, but little at home, by the publication of a small work, written in the French language, entitled, Essai sur l'Etude de la Littérature. His literary occupation received an interruption in the same year, by his entering as captain in the Hampshire militia, in which he remained till the peace of 1763. He then set out for Paris, where the reputation he had acquired by his Essai, procured him an introduction to the first literary and fashionable circles. After a stay of eleven months at Lausanne, he proceeded to Rome, where, as he sat musing amongst the ruins of the capital, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to his mind.' He returned from Italy in 1765, and again entered the militia as lieutenantcolonel commandant; but resigned the situation on the death of his father, in 1770. The interval between these periods was passed by him in a