way. Goldsmith's scholarship was superficial, and he took his degree at Trinity in 1749 very low down in the class, after which he returned to his home, where he spent two years.

His life, measured by the standard of the present century, would be considered a melancholy failure. In 1752 he went to Edinburgh, where he remained almost two years, studying medicine. He next spent a winter in Leyden, supporting himself by teaching English. We next find him at Padua, where he claims to have received the degree M. B., which gave him the title Dr. Goldsmith. We then find him traveling through Flanders, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy on foot, playing on his flute at night to pay for his supper, and lodging at the peasants' cottages.

When he returned to England he first acted as assistant in a chemist's shop, then attempted to follow his profession as a physician, and finally found employment with a bookseller, who proposed to give him his board and a small salary to write for the Monthly Review. He soon, however, tired of this work, and went back to his usher-life at Dr. Milner's school at Peckham. He next presented himself as a candidate for the position of surgeon's mate in the navy, dressed in a suit of clothes borrowed for the occasion. He was rejected, however, and instead of returning the clothes he pawned them.

Failing in everything else, he at last settled down to authorship as a means of livelihood. He wrote many articles for reviews and magazines, but his first marked success as an author was The Traveler, published in 1764, though his Chinese Letters had attracted considerable attention several years before.

In 1766 the Vicar of Wakefield, a novel, appeared, and in 1770 The Deserted Village, supposed to be descriptive

of the life and incidents in the village of Lissoy, where he spent his boyhood days. These three are his most famous literary works, though he compiled a Roman History, a History of England, a History of Greece, and a History of Animated Nature. He wrote also several comedies, She Stoops to Conquer being the best. While all his books, particularly his historical works, show superficial scholarship, they are still characterized by Goldsmith's admirable style.

Goldsmith was improvident, and his money was spent a great deal more rapidly than he made it. At the time. of his death, though he had an annual income of nearly two thousand pounds, he found himself heavily encumbered with ever-increasing debts. He died April 4, 1774, and was quietly buried in the Temple churchyard.

CRITICISM BY WASHINGTON IRVING.

THERE are few writers for whom the reader feels such personal kindness as for Oliver Goldsmith, for few have so eminently possessed the magic gift of identifying themselves with their writings. We read his character in every page, and grow into familiar intimacy with him as we read. The artless benevolence that beams throughout his works; the whimsical yet amiable views of human life and human nature; the unforced humor, blending so happily with good feeling and good sense, and singularly dashed at times with a pleasing melancholy; even the very nature of his mellow and flowing and softly-tinted style,-all seem to bespeak his moral as well as his intellectual qualities, and make us love the man at the same time that we admire the author.

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

NOTE-It is generally considered that the village here spoken of was the village of Lissoy, in which Goldsmith spent his childhood.

Washington Irving says that General Napier turned out all the tenants in order to add the farms to his private grounds, and that Captain Hogan afterward restored the place to its previous condition in order to correspond with Goldsmith's description. Macaulay, however, says that the village never existed elsewhere than in the imag ination of the poet, and that the prosperous village is the description of an English village, while in its desolated condition it represents an Irish village.

I.

SWEET Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,

Where health and plenty cheer'd the laboring swain,

Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid,

And parting Summer's lingering blooms delay'd;

Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,

5

Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,

How often have I loiter'd o'er thy green,

Where humble happiness endear'd each scene!

How often have I paused on every charm,

The shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm,

The never-failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topp'd the neighboring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made!

ANALYSIS.-1. Give the grammatical construction of Auburn and

village.

2. health and plenty cheer'd. What figure?

3. smiling Spring. What figure?

4. parting Summer's lingering blooms, etc. What figure?

5. Meaning and construction of bowers in this line?

What figure in the line?

7, 8. Name the modifiers of loiter'd.

9-14. Name the modifiers of have paused.

9. What words in apposition with charm? 10. Meaning of cot?

12. Meaning of decent?

13. Name modifiers of seats.

14. talking age. What figure?

10

How often have I bless'd the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labor free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree,
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old survey'd ;
And many a gambol frolick'd o'er the ground,

And sleights of art and feats of strength went round;
And still as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired;
The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
By holding out, to tire each other down;
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter titter'd round the place;
The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,

The matron's glance that would those looks reprove.
These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed;
These were thy charms,-but all these charms are fled!
Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn.

NOTES.-16. toil remitting, toil | 19. circled, went round.

ceasing.

20. survey'd, looked on.

ANALYSIS.-16. lent its turn to play. 17. Meaning of all the village train ? 21. many a gambol frolick'd. Explain. 22. Meaning of went round?

Meaning?
What figure?

23. Dispose of still. Name the object of tired. 25. What does the word simply modify?

26. holding out. Give grammatical construction. 27. Give the meaning of mistrustless and smutted.

29. Meaning of sidelong?

32. e'en toil. Dispose of e'en. (See Raub's Grammar, p. 208, note 1.)

33. Write this line in prose order.

34. are fled. Give the modern form.

35. smiling village. What figure?

36. withdraum. Explain.

Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green:
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain.
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But, choked with sedges, works its weary way.
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,

The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desert-walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries;
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all;
And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall;
And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away, thy children leave the land.
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade

(A breath can make them, as a breath has made);
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.

55

NOTES. 39. one only, one single | 45. desert, deserted.

41, 42. Explain the meaning of these lines.

43, 44. Meaning of bittern?

guest and bittern.

47. Rewrite in prose order.

Give grammatical construction of

48. o'ertops. Explain the use of the apostrophe.

51. Parse ill and ills.

52. Meaning of decay here? Rewrite the line in prose.

53–56. Explain these lines. Is may fade literal or figurative? 54. Point out the figure in the line.

55. Meaning of a bold peasantry?