political teaching in favour of its sweet and tender. cadences, and its firm hold upon the ever-fresh commonplaces of human nature. Johnson thought it inferior to "The Traveller," probably because it was less didactic; we, on the contrary, prefer it, because, with less obtrusion of moral, it presents in larger measure those qualities of chastened sympathy and descriptive grace which are Goldsmith at his best. It is idle to quote passages from a work so familiar. The beautiful lines, beginning, "In all my wanderings round this world of care," and the portrait of the clergyman and schoolmaster, are too well known to need recalling. But we may fitly reproduce the final farewell to Poetry, which, judging from the numerous appeals and deprecatory comments it elicited, must have excited far more apprehension among the writer's contemporaries than such valedictory addresses usually deserve. The adieus of poets, it is to be feared, are like the last appearances of actors.

"And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid,
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade ;
Unfit in these degenerate times of shame,
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame;
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe,
That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so ;

Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!
Farewell, and Oh! where'er thy voice be tried,
On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side,
Whether where equinoctial fervours glow,
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,

Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigours of th' inclement clime;
Aid slighted truth; with thy persuasive strain
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him, that states of native strength possess'd,
Though very poor, may still be very bless'd;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky."

I

What Goldsmith was paid for "The Deserted Village" is uncertain. Glover says it was a hundred guineas, and adds that Goldsmith gave the money back to his publisher, because some one thought it was too much Whether such a story is wholly credible, may be left to the judicious reader to decide.

The last four lines are Johnson'

CHAPTER X.

MONG the friends whom Goldsmith had made at

A Reynolds's house was a pleasant family from

Devonshire, consisting of a mother, a son, and two daughters. The mother, Mrs. Hannah Horneck, the widow of a certain Captain Kane Horneck, of the Royal Engineers, had been known in her youth as the "Plymouth Beauty," and her daughters, Catherine and Mary, at this date girls of nineteen and seventeen respectively, inherited and even excelled her charms. Charles Horneck, the son, who had recently entered the Foot Guards, was a "pretty fellow" of sufficient eminence to be caricatured as a Macaroni ; but he was also an amiable and a genial companion. With these new acquaintances Goldsmith appears to have become very intimate, visiting them frequently at their house at Westminster, or meeting them at Sir Joshua's. There is a rhymed letter among his poems declining an invitation to join them at the house of Reynolds's physician, Dr. Baker, in which he refers to the young ladies by the pet names of "Little Comedy and the "Jessamy Bride," while he speaks of their brother as the "Captain in Lace," titles modelled, no doubt, on the popular shop-window prints of Matthew Darly and

the rest, and, whether conferred by Goldsmith or not, plainly, by their use, implying a considerable amount of familiarity. Indeed, the personal attractions of the Miss Hornecks seem to have exercised no small fascination over the susceptible poet, a fascination to which, in the case of the younger-for Catherine was already engaged to Bunbury the caricaturist-some of his biographers have thought it justifiable to attach a gentler name. After Catherine's marriage in August, 1771, Goldsmith was a frequent visitor at Bunbury's house at Great Barton in Suffolk, where, to this day, some relics of him, including the rhymed letter above referred to, are piously preserved. Whether he, a mature man of forty-two, did really cherish a more than cordial friendship for the beautiful "Jessamy Bride," into whose company he was so often thrown, must be left to speculation; but that a genuine regard existed on both sides can scarcely be contested, and many of the most interesting anecdotes of Goldsmith's latter days are derived from the recollections communicated to Prior by the lady, who, as Mrs. Gwyn, survived until 1840.

In July, 1770, shortly after the publication of a brief and not very elaborate "Life of Thomas Parnell," which he had prepared for Davies, to accompany a new edition of Parnell's works, Goldsmith set off to Paris on a holiday jaunt with Mrs. Horneck and her daughters. "The Professor of History," writes that fair Academician, Miss Mary Moser, to Fuseli at Rome, "is comforted by the success of his 'Deserted Village,' which is a very pretty poem, and has lately put himself under the conduct of Mrs. Horneck and her fair daughters, and is gone to France; and Dr. Johnson sips his tea, and cares not for

the vanity of the world." From Calais Goldsmith sent a letter to Reynolds, in which he gossips brightly about the passage, not, it appears, an entire success, owing to the imperfect state of his "machine to prevent sea-sickness." Then, after describing the extortionate civilities of the French porters, he winds up with what is presumably a playful memory of those trivialities of travellers which he had satirized as Lien Chi Altangi: "I cannot help mentioning another circumstance; I bought a new ribbon for my wig at Canterbury, and the barber at Calais broke it in order to gain sixpence by buying me a new one." At Lille, where the party stopped en route, occurred an incident, which, since it has been told to Goldsmith's disadvantage, shall be given here from the narrative of the "Jessamy Bride," as summarized by Prior. Having visited part of Flanders, they were proceeding to Paris by the way of Lisle; when in the vicinity of the hotel at which they put up, a part of the garrison going through some military manœuvres drew them to the windows, when the gallantry of the officers broke forth into a variety of compliments intended for the ears of the English ladies. Goldsmith seemed amused; but at length, assuming something of a severity of countenance, which was a peculiarity of his humour often displayed when most disposed to be jocular, turned off, uttering something to the effect of what is commonly stated, that elsewhere he would also have his admirers. 'This,' added my informant, 'was said in mere playfulness, and I was shocked many years afterwards to see it adduced in print as a proof of his envious disposition.'"

66

The above disposes of the versions of Northcote and