than he had known for years, in his newly-purchased house of Les Delices. He is, in a certain sort, admitted President of the European Intellectual Republic. He is, from his president's chair, laughing at his own follies; laughing heartily at the kings of his acquaintance; particularly and loudly laughing at Frederick and his 'Euvres des Poeshies.' It is the time of all others when, according to his own letters, he is resolved to have, on every occasion and in every shape, 'the society of agreeable and clever people.' Goldsmith, flute in hand, or Goldsmith, learned and poor companion to a rich young fool; Goldsmith, in whatever character, yearning to literature, and its fame, and its aweinspiring professors; would not be near Les Delices without finding easy passage to its illustrious owner. By whatever chance or design, there at any rate he seems to have been. A large party was present, and conversation turned upon the English: of whom, as he afterwards observed in a letter to the Public Ledger, Goldsmith recollected Voltaire to have remarked, that at the battle of Dettingen they exhibited prodigies of valour, but lessened their well-bought conquest by lessening the merit of those they had conquered.

In a Life of Voltaire afterwards begun, but not finished, in one of the magazines of the day, he recalled this conversation in greater detail to illustrate the general manner of the famous Frenchman. When he was warmed in 'discourse, and had got over a hesitating manner which 'sometimes he was subject to, it was rapture to hear him. 'His meagre visage seemed insensibly to gather beauty,

'every muscle in it had meaning, and his eye beamed 'with unusual brightness.' As among the persons present, though this might be open to question if anything of great strictness were involved, the names are used of the vivid and noble talker, Diderot, and of Fontenelle, then on the verge of the grave that waited for him nigh a hundred years. The last, Goldsmith says, reviled the English in everything; the first, with unequal ability, defended them; and, to the surprise of all, Voltaire long continued

the new

defence of England; strokes of the finest raillery fell thick and fast on his antagonist; and he spoke almost without intermission for three hours. 'I never was so much charmed,' he added; nor did I ever remember so 'absolute a victory as he gained in this dispute.'

A worshipper at the footstool was Goldsmith here, and Voltaire was on the throne; yet it is possible that when the great Frenchman heard in later years the name of the celebrated Englishman, he may have remembered this night at Les Delices, and the enthusiasm of his young admirer. He may have recalled, with a smile for its fervent zeal, the pale, somewhat sad face, with its two great wrinkles between the eyebrows, but redeemed from ugliness or contempt by its kind expression of simplicity, as his own was by its wonderful intellect and look of unutterable mockery. For though, when they met, Voltaire was upwards of sixty-one, and Goldsmith not twenty-seven, it happened that when the Frenchman's popularity returned, and all the fashion and intellect of Paris were again at the feet of the Philosopher of Ferney; the Johnsons Burkes, Gibbons, Wartons, Sheridans, and Reynoldses, of England, were discussing the inscription for the marble. tomb of the author of the Vicar of Wakefield.

The lecture rooms of Germany are so often referred to in his prose writings, that, as he passed to Switzerland, he must have taken them in his way. In the Polite Learning, one is painted admirably its Nego, Probo, and Distinguo, growing gradually loud till denial, approval,

:

and distinction are altogether lost; till disputants grow warm, moderator is unheard, audience take part in the debate, and the whole hall buzzes with erroneous philosophy. Passing into Switzerland, he saw Schaffhausen frozen quite across, and the water standing in columns. where the cataract had formerly fallen. His Animated Nature, in which this is noticed, contains also masterly descriptions, from his own experience, of the wonders that present themselves to the traveller over lofty mountains; and he adds that nothing can be finer or more exact than 'Mr. Pope's description of a traveller straining up the Alps.' Geneva was his resting-place in Switzerland; but he visited Basle and Berne; ate a savoury' dinner on the top of the Alps; flushed woodcocks on Mount Jura; wondered to see the sheep in the valleys, as he had read of them in the old pastoral poets, following the sound of the shepherd's pipe of reed; and, poet himself at last, sent off to his brother Henry eighty lines of verse, which were afterwards published in the Traveller.

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend;
Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire;
Blest that abode, where want and pain repair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair;
Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd,
Where all the ruddy family around

Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,

Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale;

Or press the bashful stranger to his food,

And learn the luxury of doing good.

Remembering his brother's humble kindly life, he had set in pleasant contrast before him the weak luxuriance of Italy, and the sturdy enjoyment of the rude Swiss home.

My soul, turn from them; turn we to survey
Where rougher climes a nobler race display,
Where the bleak Swiss their stormy mansion tread,
And force a churlish soil for scanty bread:
No product here the barren hills afford,
But man and steel, the soldier and his sword;
No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter lingering chills the lap of May. . .

Yet still, even here, Content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.

Though poor the peasant's hut, his feast though small,
He sees his little lot the lot of all;

Sees no contiguous palace rear its head

To shame the meanness of his humble shed...
Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breathes the keen air and carols as he goes...
At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze;
While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board:
And haply, too, some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.
Thus every good his native wilds impart,
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;
And e'en those ills that round his mansion rise
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies.
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,
Clings close and closer to the mother's breast,
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more.