ladies on his knee at the Mitre, to give them good advice, in which situation, if not explained, he might be taken for Falstaff; and last and noblest, his carrying the unfortunate victim of disease and dissipation on his back up through Fleet Street (an act which realizes the parable of the good Samaritan) - all these, and innumerable others, endear him to the reader, and must be remembered to his lasting honor. He had faults, but they lie buried with him. He had his prejudices and his intolerant feelings, but he suffered enough in the conflict of his own mind with them; for if no man can be happy in the free exercise of his reason, no wise man can be happy without it. His were not time-serving, heartless, hypocritical prejudices; but deep, inwoven, not to be rooted out but with life and hope, which he found from old habit necessary to his own peace of mind, and thought so to the peace of mankind. I do not hate, but love him for them. They were between himself and his conscience, and should be left to that higher tribunal

"Where they in trembling hope repose,
The bosom of his father and his God."

In a word, he has left behind him few wiser or better men.

The herd of his imitators showed what he was by their disproportionate effects. The Periodical Essayists that succeeded the Rambler are, and deserve to be, little read at present. The Adventurer, by Hawkesworth, is completely trite and vapid, aping all the faults of Johnson's style, without anything to atone for them. The sentences are often absolutely unmeaning; and one-half of each might regularly be left blank. The World and Connoisseur, which followed, are a little better; and in the last of these there is one good idea, that of a man in indifferent health who judges of every one's title to respect from their possession of this blessing, and bows to a sturdy beggar with sound. limbs and a florid complexion, while he turns his back upon a lord who is a valetudinarian.

Goldsmith's Citizen of the World, like all his works, bears the stamp of the author's mind. It does not "go about to cozen reputation without the stamp of merit." He is more observing, more original, more natural and picturesque than Johnson. His work is written on the model of the "Persian Letters," and contrives to give an abstracted and somewhat perplexing view of

things, by opposing foreign prepossessions to our own, and thus stripping objects of their customary disguises. Whether truth is elicited in this collision of contrary absurdities, I do not know; ' but I confess the process is too ambiguous and full of intricacy to be very amusing to my plain understanding. For light summer reading it is like walking in a garden full of traps and pitfalls. It necessarily gives rise to paradoxes, and there are some very bold ones in the "Essays," which would subject an author less established to no very agreeable sort of censura literaria. Thus the Chinese philosopher exclaims very unadvisedly: "The bonzes and priests of all religions keep up superstition and imposture; all reformations begin with the laity." Goldsmith, however, was stanch in his practical creed, and might bolt speculative extravagances with impunity. There is a striking difference in this respect between him and Addison, who, if he attacked authority, took care to have common sense on his side, and never hazarded anything offensive to the feelings of others, or on the strength of his own discretional opinion. There is another inconvenience in this assumption of an exotic character and tone of sentiment, that it produces an inconsistency between the knowledge which the individual has time to acquire and which the author is bound to communicate. Thus the Chinese has not been in England three days before he is acquainted with the characters of the three countries which compose this kingdom, and describes them to his friend at Canton by extracts from the newspapers of each metropolis. The nationality of Scotchmen is thus ridiculed:

Edinburgh- We are positive when we say that Sanders Macregor, lately executed for horse stealing, is not a native of Scotland, but born at Carrickfergus.

Now this is very good; but how should our Chinese philosopher find it out by instinct? Beau Tibbs, a prominent character in this little work, is the best comic sketch since the time of Addison; unrivaled in his finery, his vanity, and his poverty.

I have only to mention the names of the Lounger and the Mirror, which are ranked by the author's admirers with Sterne for sentiment, and with Addison for humor. I shall not enter into that; but I know that the story of "La Roche" is not like the story of "Le Fevre," nor one hundredth part so good. Do I say this from prejudice to the author? No; for I have read his

novels. Of "The Man of the World" I cannot think so favorably as some others, nor shall I here dwell on the picturesque and romantic beauties of "Julia de Roubigne," the early favorite of the author of "Rosamond Gray"; but of the "Man of Feeling" I would speak with grateful recollections, nor is it possible to forget the sensitive, irresolute, interesting Harley, and that lone figure of Miss Walton in it, that floats in the horizon, dim and ethereal, the daydream of her lover's youthful fancy,- better, far better, than all the realities of life!

Complete. Letter V. on "English
Literature.≫