subject. Lord Byron, however, by amplifying the design, has gained a stronger hold upon the reader. Goldsmith looks down as from a height upon the countries under his eye, with the large and general views of a philosopher whose business is not with detail. Lord Byron travels more extensively and tells his travels with more of the minuteness of a tourist; he is more various and diversified, yet scarcely more vigorous, and certainly not more condensed: both are ethical; and both indulge freely in their respective political views. In Goldsmith we find not one objectionable sentiment, nothing that assaults or pains the religious or moral feelings of the reader; the same cannot be said of the author of Childe Harold. The main purpose of the former is to show that by the benevolent ordination of Providence, the sum of human happiness is in most countries, however varying in natural position, capabilities, or form of government, nearly the same; that content belongs to the mind and disposition of the individual, more than to the circumstances by which he is surrounded. Lord Byron, who had probably set out with no fixed plan in view, is willing to tell of all that interested him; not of moral characteristics only, but of manners, localities, and the associations derived from historical events; he therefore perhaps carries with him general readers more. The one is general in his philosophy, the other more local and particular. If Lord Byron be the more various and interesting, we find in Goldsmith purity of thought and that high moral feeling pervading all his writings, the want of which is so often to be lamented in those of his noble successor; while in vigour and sublimity whenever occasion requires it, he is rarely inferior.

True poets probably differ little in their conception of what should be good subjects for the exercise of their art, as Thomson, by another coincidence, appears to have thought well of the design which Goldsmith lived to execute. His opinion, contained in a letter to Bubb Doddington, written from Paris in 1730, when on the tour of Europe with Mr. Talbot, was not made known till long after the death of the Irish poet:

"Your observation I find every day juster and juster, that one may profit more abroad by seeing than by hearing; and yet there are scarce any travellers to be met with who have given a landscape of the countries through which they have travelled, that have seen, as you express it, with the Muses' eye; though that is the first thing which strikes me, and what all readers and travellers in the first place demand. It seems to me that such a poetical landscape of countries, mixed with moral observations on their countries and people, would not be an ill-judged undertaking. But then the description of the different face of nature in different countries, must be particularly marked and characteristic; the portrait painting of

nature."

So well do we find the idea thrown out in this passage fulfilled, that nothing appears in the Traveller but what is appropriate and distinct, or as the author of the Seasons says, marked and characteristic; the terms applied to one country or people cannot well be

transferred to another; and it admits of doubt which of the nations, whether Italians, Swiss, French, Dutch or English, is most happily drawn. By Dr. Johnson the latter seems to have been most prized; he was known often to repeat with a fervour of animation which brought tears into his own eyes, that noble passage, one of the most powerful and yet accurate in modern poetry, which gives so high and not undue picture of our countrymen :

"Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state
With daring aims irregularly great;
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by;
Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band;
By forms unfashion'd fresh from nature's hand,
Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imagin'd right, above controul;
While e'en the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learn to venerate himself as man."

A comparison between his description of Italy and that of Addison occurs immediately to the poetical reader; and if the same thought was suggested to himself, no tone of depreciation or jealousy appears to have been the result. The Letter from Italy" is thus fairly and judiciously characterised a few years afterwards in one of his compilations for youth, the "Beauties of English Poesy:" "Few poems have done more honour to English genius than this. There is in it a strain of political thinking that was, at that time, new in our poetry. Had the harmony of this been equal to Pope's versification, it would be incontestibly the finest poem in our language; but there is a dryness in the numbers which greatly lessens the pleasure excited both by the poet's judgment and imagination."

To follow a good poet in the most admired of his pieces without losing ground by the attempt, forms no slight test of the merit of a writer; and Addison is so popular, that even his name becomes nearly a bar to competition. All the stronger points admitting of poetical description had been seized by him; the features of the country, her mountains, views, groves, and fields, none of which, as he says, were "unsung" had been appropriated; the diversity of her productions, where

"Blossoms, and fruits, and flowers together rise,
And the whole year in gay confusion lies,"

had been adverted to; and her ruins, as well as her triumphs in painting and sculpture, sufficiently brought into views to take away much of the charm of originality from any who should venture to tread the same ground.

Little therefore remained for the muse of Goldsmith but the character of the people, which like their modern literature and institutions, obtained no respect from his judgment and consequently little from his pen. Their predilections and pursuits as being supposed to tend to moral degeneracy, lead to a severe remark

"And sensual bliss is all this nation knows."

And again, in allusion to their fallen political condition he adds, in contrast to the natural products of the country

"Man seems the only growth that dwindles here."

And carrying on the unfavorable picture, the following lines have great force and condensation

"Contrasted faults through all his manners reign,
Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain ;
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue,
And even in penance planning sins anew."

Addison dwelt little on what Goldsmith has been compelled by the pre-occupation of topics to make his principal theme. In comparing the one hundred and sixty-eight lines of the former with the sixty of the latter, they will be found as the range of the former was unlimited, to display more imagination and vivacity. In Goldsmith as his purpose was more philosophical, we find more of the depth of such an observer, equal vigour of description, more condensation of thought, and infinitely more smoothness of versification. Both unaccountably neglect to notice the chief delight of modern Italy, its music; for this in the hands of either, particularly of Goldsmith who had a taste for it, might have been made the vehicle of some fine poetical painting and pointed remark. But his ingenuity deserves praise in furnishing a sketch after such a master, at once philosophical, spirited, and original.

While engaged in putting a finishing hand to the poem, an anecdote connected with the writing of one of the couplets and of his amusement at the same moment, told by Sir Joshua Reynolds to a lady more than once alluded to who forms the authority for the fact, exhibits the peculiarity of his humour; it shows also that elevated sentiments are not always the offspring of abstract thought.

Either Reynolds, or a mutual friend who immediately communicated the story to him, calling at the lodgings of the Poet opened the door without ceremony, and discovered him not in meditation, or in the throes of poetic birth, but in the boyish office of teaching a favourite dog to sit upright upon its haunches, or as is commonly said, to beg. Occasionally he glanced his eye over his desk, and occasionally shook his finger at the unwilling pupil in order to make him retain his position; while on the page before him was written that couplet with the ink of the second line still wet, from the description of Italy

" By sports like these are all their cares beguiled,
The sports of children satisfy the child."

The sentiment seemed so appropriate to the employment, that the visiter could not refrain from giving vent to his surprise in a strain of banter, which was received with characteristic good humour, and the admission at once made that the amusement in which he had been engaged had given birth to the idea.

The interval between the period of a publication issuing from the press, and the moment when the public favour towards it seems no longer doubtful, is necessarily an anxious one for an author. Το Goldsmith, notwithstanding some affected indifference expressed in the dedication, it could not be an unimportant matter; it was the first production to which he had put his name, as well as the greatest adventure in which he had hitherto embarked; and the stake was to him not merely reputation, but in some measure subsistence. Dr. Johnson, who knew the anxious feelings of his friend, made an immediate effort to relive them by a recommendatory notice which appears in the Critical Review for December 1764.

Offices of this kind proceeding from kind intentions need not necessarily be laudatory; they are often more in the nature of advertisements to announce existence than to disseminate praise, and prove frequently useful to works of admitted merit. It is not that the public cannot unassisted discover and reward such productions without a director to guide its taste, but in the multiplicity of publications, some which are good may for a while escape observation; and it is thus that the early notice of a judicious friend may do quickly for its fame what would otherwise be a work of time. This obviously was the idea of the great critic whom it may be interesting to trace in his friendly endeavours; he says indeed little, leaving his poem to speak for itself in the quotations, which amount to a fourth part of its number of lines. It was evidently written in haste: the remarks are of the utmost possible brevity, and not being included in some editions of the works of its writer although enumerated by Boswell among his productions, will be found in a future volume.

The Gentleman's Magazine of the same month pronounces a favourable opinion on its merits. In January, the Monthly Review in the way of amends for previous treatment of their old associate, followed in the track of Johnson in the Critical:-" For the Traveller is one of those delightful poems that allure by the beauty of their scenery, a refined elegance of sentiment, and a correspondent happiness of expression." The assertion of the author in the dedication, of not being solicitous to know what would be its reception, is condemned as affectation; and if meant in a general sense, would be so: but the words seems to imply that he cares not how it shall be received by the lovers of personal satire, poetry, and blank verse. With less reason, exception is taken by the reviewer to the expression "untravelled heart," which yet drags at each remove lengthening chain," in the opening paragraph, as involving a contradiction. The objection is more apparent than real, for by the common licence of poetry it merely conveys the idea of the heart being unchanged, however removed by distance from the object of regard.

"a

To the suffrage of the reviews and other journals, was added that of all private judges of good poetry; until at length, when the author had been removed by death beyond the reach of partiality or the flattery of friends, it was pronounced "without one bad linewithout one of Dryden's careless verses." When Sir Joshua Reynolds observed that he was glad to hear Charles Fox say it was one of the finest poems in the English Language, and Mr. Langton replied, " Surely there was no doubt of this before," Johnson's remark was "No; the merit of the Traveller is so well established, that Mr. Fox's praise cannot augment it, nor his censure diminish it." Another remark of the saine authority, in reply to an observation of Reynolds, that in giving it such a character his friends might be deemed partial, deserves notice, as furnishing a proof of the fact so obvious in Boswell, Sir John Hawkins, and others, of the writer when alive, not having justice done to his actual powers and attainments by the major part of his associates. "Nay, sir, the partiality of his friends was always against him. It was with difficulty we could give him a hearing."

The force of this remark is explained by the belief entertained by more than one of their mutual acquaintance, that to Johnson, not to the actual author, was the credit of many fine passages of the poem due. This we have long known had not the slightest foundation in truth. It is certain indeed he revised it; but who on such an occasion would not, and does not, take the advice of a judicious critic whenever it is to be procured? Such emendations are rarely of moment, and rather do credit to his caution than detract from his genius or skill. In the revisal, it is true, Johnson introduced some lines of his own as substitutes for others deemed less pointed or explicit in the position attempted to be maintained; he marked them for Boswell in 1783; they are nine in number, being the 420th,

"To stop too fearful, and too faint to go,"

and eight lines of the conclusion:

"How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which kings or laws can cause or cure.
Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,
Our own felicity we make or find;
With secret course which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy;

*

To men remote from power but rarely known,
Leave reason, faith, and conscience all our own."

These, though vigorous and expressive, simply re-state the general doctrine urged in the poem, and present no material novelty of sentiment; few of those of Goldsmith will lose by comparison; and in fact much of the beauty of the passage would be impaired, were it not for the force of the illustration introduced by the author himself in the two lines which precede the concluding couplet

"The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,

Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel."

One of which allusions, that to the "Iron Crown," occasioned some difficulty to readers, until it was recollected that in a rebellion in Hungary in 1514, headed by two brothers named Zack, George and Luke, the former, not the latter, was punished on its suppression by having his head encircled with a red-hot iron crown. The short