him; and once, at the exhibition of the Fantoccini, in London, those who sat next him observed with what dexterity a puppet was made to toss a pike, he could not bear that it should have such praise, and exclaimed with some warmth, Pshaw! I can do it better myself."

"He, I am afraid, had no settled system, of any sort, so that his conduct must not be strictly scrutinized; but his affections were social and generous, and when he had money he gave it away very liberally. His desire of imaginary consequence predominated over his attention to truth. When he began to rise into notice, he said he had a brother who was Dean of Durham; a fiction so easily detected, that it is wonderful how he should have been so inconsiderate as to hazard it.”*

Goldsmith, like many other poets, was a very bad reciter of verse, yet he had the vanity to think that his voice was harmonious, and his judgment correct. "Several years ago," says Mr. Malone, "I was in company with him and Dr. Johnson; and after dinner, the conversation happening to turn on this subject, Goldsmith maintained that a poet was more likely to pronounce verse with accuracy and spirit than other men. He was im mediately called upon to support his argument by an example; a request with which he readily complied; and he repeated the first stanza of the ballad, beginning with the words. At Upton on the Hill,' with such false emphasis, by marking the word on very strongly, that all the company agreed he had by no means established his position."†

*Boswell's Life of Jonhson.

+ Life of Dryden, page 518.

Qne

One great point in the doctor's pride, was to be liberal to his poor countrymen who applied to him in distress. The expression pride is not improper, because he did it with some degree of ostentation. One that was very artful never failed to apply to him as soon as he had published any new work, and while it was likely that the doctor would be in cash. Goldsmith, tired of his application, told him, that he should write himself; and ordered him to draw up a description of China, interspersed with political reflections, which a bookseller had applied to the doctor for, at a price he despised, but had not rejected. The idle carelessness of his temper may be collected from this, that he never gave himself the trouble to read the manuscript, but sent to the press, an account which made the Emperor of China a Mohammedan, and placed India between China and Japan. Two sheets were cancelled at the expense of Goldsmith, who kicked his newly created author down stairs.

Among his numerous pensioners, and he generally enlarged his list as he enlarged his finances, was the late unfortunate Jack Pilkington of scribbling memory, who had served the doctor so many tricks, that he despaired of getting any more money from him without coming out with a master stroke 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," says Jack, "the

"the Duchess of Marlborough, you must know has long had a strange wish for a pair of white mice; now as I knew they were sometimes to be had in the East Indies, I commissioned a friend of mine who was going thither, to get them for me, and he is just arrived with two of the most beautiful little animals in the world." After Jack had finished this account in raptures, 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, which he offered to him; but Jack was not to be beat out of his scheme; he perceived the doctor's watch hanging up in his room, and hinted that if he could spare it for a week, he could raise a few guineas on it, which he would repay with gratitude. The doctor would not be the hindrance of a man's fortune for such a trifle: he accordingly gave him the watch, which the other immediately took to the pawn-broker, and Goldsmith heard no more of his friend Jack, till a message came to inform him, that he was on his death bed, and requesting a guinea, which he readily sent to him.

Goldsmith, himself, had often suffered from a strangury, and this disorder at last increased upon him to such a degree as to produce considerable irritation of mind, and a nervous fever. Contrary to the counsel of his apothecary and

physician,

physician, he took too large a dose of James's powder, which hastened his end April 4th, 1774. His remains were interred in the Temple burial ground, and a monument was erected to his memory by the literary club, of which he was a member.

Johnson's opinion of Goldsmith was finely expressed in a conversation with Boswell. "Goldsmith," said the latter, "has acquired more fame than all the officers last war, who were not ge nerals."―Johnson: "Why, Sir, you will find ten thousand fit to do what they did, before you find one who does what Goldsmith has done. You must consider that a thing is valued according to its rarity. A pebble that paves the street is in itself more useful than the diamond upon a lady's finger."