he was beginning the series of lively school-books-Animated Nature, Roman History, and History of England-which were to enjoy so constant a popularity. Thus engaged, he reached the year 1770, when his poem of The Deserted Village appeared. He then went off to Paris with Mrs. Horneck and

her lovely daughter, "the Jessamy Bride." There is not much more to chronicle in the life of Goldsmith, except the charming incidents of his friendship with Johnson and Reynolds, and the production of She Stoops to Conquer in March 1773. His last poem, Retaliation, seems to have been written in February 1774, but before it could be printed the poet was gone. He suffered from a local disorder, and though being treated by a skilful physician, insisted. on taking a quack medicine, under the influence of which he sank, in his chambers at Brick Court, on the 4th of April 1774. He was buried in the churchyard of the Temple, but Johnson wrote for Westminster Abbey a celebrated and splendid epitaph. His charming poem, The Haunch of Venison, was published posthumously in 1776. Goldsmith died in debt, and his fever, it was believed, was exasperated by anxiety. "But," as Johnson said, "let not his frailties be remembered; he was a very great man." It was his nature to swing between the extremes of poverty and extravagance, and he could never have been "comfortably off." From a lad, and to the end, he had a singular passion for brilliant and expensive clothes. Goldsmith was candour itself, and could no more conceal his vanity, envy, and levity than he could his generosity, enthusiasm, and sweetness of temper. He had great simplicity, and none of those artifices by which men protect themselves from the censure of the world. When all his faults are told, he was the most lovable of men.

Olivia ill-used by the Landlady

From "

The Vicar of Wakefield." Edition 1780.

FROM "THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD."

My wife and daughters, happening to return a visit to neighbour Flamborough's, found that family had lately got their pictures drawn by a limner, who travelled the country and took likenesses for fifteen shillings a head. As this family and ours had long a sort of rivalry in point of taste, our spirit took the alarm at this stolen march upon us, and, notwithstanding all I could say, and I said much, it was resolved that we should have our pictures done too. Having therefore engaged the limner, for what could I do?-our next deliberation was to show the superiority of our taste in the attitudes. As for our neighbour's family, there were seven of them; and they were drawn with seven oranges, a thing quite out of taste, no variety in life, no composition in the world. We desired to