OLIVER tutor, a teacher. GOLDSMITH. dunned, teased to pay. discounting, taking before due. mortgaging, pawning, pledging. philosopher, a lover of wisdom, insidious, stealthy, secret. OLIVER GOLDSMITH, one of the best of English writers, was a reckless and improvident man. He was learned and clever, and earned money readily, but never enough to cover his extravagant expenditure. The first money he earned as a tutor-it was all he had he spent in buying a horse. Even when he began to earn money freely, he was still in debt. He gave away with one hand what he earned with the other. He was dunned for his milk-score, arrested for rent, threatened by lawyers, but never learnt the wisdom of economy. In the same month in which the second edition of his Vicar of Wakefield" was published, his bill of fifteen guineas, drawn on * Newbery, was returned dishonoured. When he was figuring at *Boswell's dinner in Old Bond Street in the "ratteen suit lined with satin, and bloom-coloured silk breeches," the clothes belonged to his tailor, and remained unpaid till his death. Prosperity increased his difficulties rather than diminished them; the more money he had, the more thoughtless and lavish was his expenditure. He could refuse no indulgence either to himself or to others. He would borrow a guinea and give it to a beggar. He would give the clothes off his back, and the blankets off his bed. He could refuse nobody. To meet his thoughtless expenditure, he raised money by promising to write books which he never began. He was perpetually discounting tomorrow, and mortgaging an estate already overburthened. Thus, he died, as he had begun, poor, embarrassed, and in debt. At his death he owed. over two thousand pounds. "Was ever poet," says Johnson, "so trusted before?" Yet Goldsmith, in his thoughtful moments, knew the right path, though he had not the courage to pursue it. In a letter to his brother Henry respecting the career of his son, Goldsmith wrote: "Teach my dear sir, to your son, thrift and economy. Let' his poor wandering uncle's example be placed before his eyes. I had learned from books to be disinterested and generous before I was taught from experience the necessity of being prudent. I had contracted the habits and notions of a philosopher, while I was exposing myself to the insidious approaches of cunning; and often by being, even with my narrow finances, charitable to excess, I forgot the rules of justice, and placed myself in the very situation of the wretch who thanked me for my bounty." Thus the lives of great men may serve as warnings to others as well as examples. "Vicar of Wakefield." A beau tiful tale of the life and adventures of a good clergyman's family, written and invented by Goldsmith. Newbery. A publisher who used to live in St. Paul's Churchyard, London. Boswell. The great friend of Dr. Johnson, who wrote his life, and admired him so greatly as to take notes of his sayings during his intercourse with him. DR. JOHNSON. gruff and bluff, rough and hard. whining, crying and pining. scars, marks of wounds. barrister, a lawyer who wears a wig, and manages cases in petty, small, trifling. [court. DR. JOHNSON, the friend of Goldsmith, the writer of the great English Dictionary which bears his name, was a very poor man, and a very brave one. He never knew what wealth was. His mind was always greater than his fortune; and it is the mind that makes the man rich or poor, happy or miserable. Johnson's gruff and bluff exterior covered a manly and noble nature. He had early known poverty and debt, and wished himself clear of both. When at college his feet appeared through his shoes, but he was too poor to buy new ones. His head was full of learning, but his pockets were empty. He bedded and boarded for fourpence-halfpenny a day and when too poor to pay for a bed, he wandered with his friend Savage whole nights in the streets. He struggled on manfully, never whining at his lot, but trying to make the best of it. These early sorrows and struggles of Johnson left their scars upon his nature; but they also enlarged and enriched his experience, as well as widened his range of human sympathy. Even when in his greatest distress he had room in his heart for others whose necessities were greater than his own; and he was never wanting in his help to those who needed it, or were poorer than himself. From his sad experience, no one could speak with greater authority on the subject of debt than Johnson. Do not accustom yourself," he wrote to Boswell," to consider debt only an inconvenience you will find it a calamity. Let it be your first care not to be in any man's debt. Whatever you have, spend less. Frugality is not only the basis of quiet, but of beneficence." To Simpson, the barrister, he wrote-"Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon, of loud noise, but little danger. You must, therefore, be enabled to discharge petty debts, that you may have leisure, with security, to struggle with the rest." "Sir," said he to Boswell, "get as much peace of mind as you can, and keep within your income, and you won't go far wrong." In the "Life of Johnson," by this same friend Boswell, it is related that he said, "A man might live in a garret at eighteen-pence a week; few people would inquire where he lodged; and if they did, it was easy to say, 'Sir, I am to be found at such a place.' By spending threepence in a coffee-house, he might be for some hours every day in very good company; he might dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, and do without supper. On cleanshirt day he might go abroad and visit his friends." Such were the experiences of a man who, though sorely tempted and surrounded by others who yielded to the temptation, never got into debt, and maintained his own self-respect and the respect of his friends. "Know when to spend, and when to spare, And when to buy, and thou shalt ne'er be bare." ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. sensual, belonging to the senses, then. deluded, deceived, led astray. cloy, to disgust, to over satisfy. English poet, was the son of a poor tailor at Hornington, in Suffolk, and was himself a shoemaker. He was born in 1776, and died in 1823. His father died when he was but a year old, leaving his poor widow with six children to battle with the world. The only school education Robert ever received, in addition to what his mother gave him, was three or four months' writing in a school at Ixworth, in Suffolk. It was whilst following the humble occupation of a shoemaker that Bloomfield composed his beautiful poem, called the "Farmer's Boy," in which the scenes of rustic labour are so truthfully described. He thus portrays the moral suggested by a consideration of pastoral pursuits :— "The farmer's life displays in every part, A moral lesson to the sensual heart, His team's rich store through many a wintry night." |