triumphant. The exquisite ballad of The Hermit, or the story of Edwin and Angelina, confirmed his reputation as a poet of the first order of excellence.

After this, Goldsmith was in constant demand, at remunerative prices, but his habits of easy improvidence kept him always in want, or in arrears. He was among the acknowledged celebrities of the day, mingling freely and on equal terms with the authors and artists who revolved about Dr. Johnson.

The following are Goldsmith's principal works, in addition to those already named: The Deserted Village, the most beautiful of all his poems; The Haunch of Venison, a playful piece of pleasantry, acknowledging, in graceful verse, a gift of venison; Retaliation, a goodnatured satire, in which he paid off a few of the endless jokes against himself by drawing in turn a caricature of some of his friends; The Good-Natured Man, A Comedy, which was not successful as an acting play, but was published, and brought the author £500; She Stoops to Conquer, a Comedy, which had an immediate and brilliant success on the stage, and brought the author a net profit of £800; Popular Histories of Greece, Rome, and England; and lastly, A History of Animated Nature, in 8 vols., 8vo. He wrote many other things, but these are the chief. As an historian and a writer on natural history, he made no pretence to original research. He was a mere compiler. But he had a wonderful skill in the art of composition; and taking the materials collected by others, he worked them into forms of grace and beauty. His histories became text-books, his Animated Nature had the attraction of a work of fiction.

"He died in the midst of a triumphant course. Every year that he lived would have added to his reputation. There is assuredly no symptom of decadence in the picturesque pages of his last work, The History of Animated Nature: a book which, not possessing, indeed, the character of authority only to be granted to faithful reports of personal observation, is yet unequalled for clearness of expression, and all the charms of a most graceful style. Northcote tells us that he had just begun a novel before his death; and a second Vicar of Wakefield may have been buried in the tomb of Goldsmith."- Prof. Butler.

"It [The Animated Nature] is to science what his abridgments are to history; a book which indicates no depth of research or accuracy of information, but which presents to the ordinary reader a general and interesting view of the subject, couched in the clearest and most beautiful language, and abounding with excellent reflections and illustrations. It was of this work that Johnson threw out the remark which he afterwards interwove in his friend's epitaph,- He is now writing a Natural History, and will make it as agreeable as a Persian tale."- Sir Walter Scott.

"As a dramatist, Goldsmith is amusing; and if to excite laughter be, as Johnson asserts it is, the chief end of comedy, Goldsmith attains it. His plots, however, are extravagant, and his personages are oddities rather than characters. Goldsmith's plays want the contrivance which belongs to highest art; but they have all the ingenious

accidents that are notable for stage effect. They are, in fact, deficient in that insight which pertains only to great dramatic genius. Both of them [The Good-Natured Man and She Stoops to Conquer] abound in drollery and strong touches of nature; but they do not give the author an exalted position among dramatists, and they do not promise that he could have reached it."- Henry Giles.

"It is needless to expatiate upon the qualities of a work [The Vicar of Wakefield] which has passed from country to country, and language to language, until it is now known throughout the whole reading world, and is become a household book in every land. The secret of its universal and enduring popularity is undoubtedly its truth to nature, but to nature of the most amiable kind: to nature such as Goldsmith saw it. Rogers, the Nestor of British literature, whose refined purity of taste and exquisite mental organization rendered him eminently calculated to appreciate a work of the kind, declared that of all the books which, through the fitful changes of three generations he had seen rise and fall, the charm of the Vicar of Wakefield had alone continued as at first; and could he revisit the world after an absence of many more generations, he should as surely look to find it undiminished."— Washington Irving.

"The Traveller has the most ambitious aim of Goldsmith's poetical compositions. The author, placed on a height of the Alps, muses and moralizes on the countries around him. His object, it appears, is to show the equality of happiness which consists with diversities of circumstances and situations. The poem is, therefore, mainly didactic. Description and reflection are subservient to an ethical purpose, and this purpose is never left out of sight. The descriptive passages are all vivid, but some of them are imperfect. Italy, for instance, in its prominent aspects, is boldly sketched. We are transported to the midst of its mountains, woods, and temples; we are under its sunny skies, we are embosomed in its fruits and flowers, we breathe its fragrant air, and we are charmed by its matchless landscapes; but we miss the influence of its arts, and the solemn impression of its former grandeur. We are made to survey a nation in degeneracy and decay; but we are not relieved by the glow of Raffael, or excited by the might of the Coliseum."- Henry Giles.

"All the characteristics of the first poem [The Traveller] seem to me developed in the second; with as chaste simplicity, with as choice selectness of natural expression, in verse of as musical cadence, but with yet greater earnestness of purpose, and a far more human interest. Within the circle of its claims and pretensions, a more entirely satisfactory delightful poem than the Deserted Village was probably never written. It lingers in the memory where once it has entered; and such is the softening influence (on the heart even more than the understanding) of the mild, tender, yet clear light which makes its images so distinct and lovely, that there are few who have not wished to rate it higher than poetry of yet higher genius.”— John Forster.

Gray.

Thomas Gray, 1716-1771, gained for himself the very highest renown as a lyrical poet by his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.

Career. Gray was born in London, and educated at Cambridge. He began the study of law, but conceiving a dislike for it accepted an invitation of Horace Walpole to accompany him on a tour upon the continent. After an absence of two years, Gray returned to England,

and at the age of twenty-five took his degree of Bachelor of Civil Law. He also settled in Cambridge, where he remained, with occasional intervals, to the end of his life. In 1757, on the death of Cibber, the post of Poet-Laureate was offered to Gray, but he declined it. In 1769 he received the appointment of Professor of Modern History, and he began the preparation of a course of lectures on the subject, but did not live to carry the project into effect.

Character and Standing.—Gray was distinguished for the accuracy of his classical scholarship, and for his varied learning, and he formed many magnificent projects of works that never saw the light. His chief excellence is as a lyric writer, and in this line he stands among the first. The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is one of the poems of all time, and is just as sure of immortality as anything written by Horace or by Pindar. One familiar and remarkable tribute to the merit of this poem is the great number of translations of it which have been made into the various languages of Europe, ancient and modern. It has been translated into Hebrew, the words and phrases being taken, as far as possible, from the classical idioms of the Old Testament; into Greek, 7 different versions; into Latin, 12 versions; into Italian, 12 versions; into French, 15 versions; into German, 6 versions; into Portuguese.

His Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College is only second to the Elegy in popuJarity. His other lyrical pieces are the following: Ode on Spring; Hymn to Adversity; Ode to Vicissitude; The Progress of Poesy, a Pindaric Ode; The Bard, a Pindaric Ode. The Pindaric Odes have less of the elements of popularity than any of his poems. An amusing evidence of the popularity of his best poem is proved in what happened at the sale of the original manuscript, in 1845. "The original manuscript of Gray's Elegy was lately sold at auction in London. There was really 'a scene' in the auction-room. Imagine a stranger entering in the midst of a sale of some rusty-looking old books. The auctioneer produces two small half-sheets of paper, written over, torn, and mutilated. He calls it a most interesting article,' and apologizes for its condition. Pickering bids ten pounds! Rodd, Foss, Thorpe, Bohn, Holloway, and some few amateurs quietly remark, twelve, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, and so on, till there is a pause at sixty-three pounds! The hammer strikes. 'Hold!' says Mr. Foss. 'It is mine,' says the amateur. No, I bid sixty-five in time.' 'Seventy-five,' says Mr. Foss; and fives are repeated again, until the two bits of paper are knocked down, amidst a general cheer, to Payne & Foss, for one hundred pounds sterling! On these bits of paper are written the first drafts of the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, by Thomas Gray, including five verses which were omitted in the publication, and with the poet's interlinear corrections and alterations, - certainly an 'interesting article;' several persons supposed it would call for a ten-pound note, perhaps even twenty. A single volume, with W. Shakespeare' in the fly-leaf, produced, sixty years ago, a hundred guineas; but probably, with that exception, no mere autograph, and no single sheet of paper, ever produced the sum of five hundred dollars.”

Mason.

Then I bid seventy.'

WILLIAM MASON, 1725-1797, was a minor poet of the last century, whose name is indissolubly associated with that of his friend Gray.

Mason wrote two Dramas on the model of the Greek, Elfrida, and Caractacus; The English Garden, a Poem in Four Books: A number of Odes and Anthems; Essays on

English Church Music; and A Memoir of Thomas Gray. His Works have been printed in 4 vols., 8vo. His dramas show much fancy and a fine classical taste, but are entirely unsuited for representation. His greatest success was in his lyrical pieces.

MATTHEW GREEN, 1697-1737, is a poet of some celebrity, whose poems are usually printed with those of Parnell, Collins, Gray, and others. He was an officer in the London Custom-House, and was noted for his wit. He wrote The Grotto, The Spleen, and some other pieces.

REV. JOHN DYER, 1700-1758, began the study of law, abandoned the profession for the life of an itinerant artist, and afterwards took orders and entered the church. He had a literary turn, and wrote several poems which are worthy of note: Grongar Hill; The Ruins of Rome; The Fleece, a poem in four books, etc. Grongar Hill is considered the best. "It is not indeed very accurately written; but the scenes which it displays are so pleasing, the images which they raise are so welcome to the mind, and the reflections of the writer so consonant to the general sense or experience of mankind, that when it is once read it will be read again."- Dr. Johnson.

Collins.

William Collins, 1720-1756, is one of the greatest of English lyric poets. What he has written is not much in amount, but that little is of the highest order of excellence. Some of his odes are thought to come as near absolute perfection as anything ever written.

Collins's life was a sad one. His Odes, when first published, were received with cold neglect, and the publisher lost heavily by the operation. Receiving afterwards a legacy from an uncle, Collins repaid the publisher for the money lost in the transaction, and then threw the remaining copies of his book into the fire. Finding his mind unsteady, he travelled in France, for the purpose of diversion. On coming back to England, he retired to an asylum for the insane, and thence to the house of his sister, where he died at the early age of thirty-six. He published some Persian Eclogues, but the only works by which he is now known are his Odes. These are among the best English classics. The Ode on the Passions will doubtless live as long as the language itself in which the poem is written.

"Though utterly neglected on their first appearance, the Odes of Collins, in the course of one generation, without any adventitious aid to bring them into notice, were acknowledged to be the best of their kind in the language. Silently and imperceptibly they had risen by their own buoyancy; and their power was felt by every reader who had any poetic feeling."- Southey.

Shenstone.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE, 1714-1763, is favorably known by his poem, The Schoolmistress, written in the Spenserian measure.

Shenstone studied for a number of years at Oxford without taking a degree. The last twenty years of his life were devoted to laying out and improving his estate, The Leasowes, in Shropshire. Shenstone belongs to the minor poets of England. Had he been forced to exertion, he might have produced something more worthy of his powers, but he seems to have frittered away his days as a literary idler. The only one of his poems generally read and admired is The Schoolmistress, pronounced by Hazlitt "a perfect piece of writing." The Pastoral Ballad and Jemmy Dawson are also good.

Akenside.

MARK AKENSIDE, M. D., 1721–1770, had considerable eminence in his day as a medical practitioner and a writer on medical science. But his chief distinction was won by a poem on The Pleasures of the Imagination, first published in 1744.

This one production has given to Akenside a permanent and honorable place in the gallery of British poets. The work shows learning and genius, though not of the highest order, and is obviously wanting in naturalness. "The sweetness which we miss in Akenside is that which should arise from the direct representation of life and its warm realities and affections. We seem to pass, in his poems, through a gallery of pictured abstractions, rather than of pictured things."- Campbell. His Odes and other writings have passed into merited oblivion.

Churchill.

CHARLES CHURCHILL, 1731-1764, was in his day a poet of great celebrity.

Career. Through the mistaken advice of his father, Churchill entered the clerical profession; but finding its duties distasteful, he abandoned it, and became openly immoral and profligate. He had great talents, and his writings show marks of genius, but not enough to account for the extraordinary favor with which they were received. Much of this temporary success was no doubt due to the fact that his poems for the most part were bitterly personal. He was the intimate friend of the notorious demagogue, John Wilkes, and mixed up politics and scandal among the ingredients of the cup which he offered to the public.

Works. The Rosciad, his earliest publication, was a satire upon the performers at Drury Lane and Covent Garden, and met with instant success. Being severely taken to task for it by the critics, he turned upon his reviewers, as Byron did at a later day, and wrote his Apology. The Prophecy of Famine, a Scots Pastoral, was written at the suggestion of Wilkes, and was a bitter invective against the Scottish nation. Hogarth, who disliked Churchill, caricatured him in his usual style, by painting him as a bear dressed up canonically, with ruffles at his paws, and holding a pot of porter. Churchill took his revenge in a fierce and sweeping Epistle to Hogarth. He published a volume of his Sermons, to which he prefixed a satirical dedication to Warburton, addressing that dignitary as "Doctor, Dean, Bishop, Gloster, My Lord."