the contempt of those who can fathom only the shallows of the human mind, and not the depths which lie so close alongside them. He could laugh at his own weaknesses, for his weaknesses he knew were, like Samson's locks, closely connected with his strength. Deprived of them, where would he have made that study of the human heart in which his knowledge, so far as it went was so exact? The greater passions may be studied in others, but the little failings which form so large a part of our everyday life are best studied in ourselves.

Goldsmith, then, to a mind that was gifted with a wonderful power of analysing character united a heart that in a no less wonderful degree was worthy of analysis. There have been, no doubt, equally clever artists and equally good subjects. Scarcely ever have so clever an artist and so good a subject been joined in one. In a literary point of view we might apply to him his own line, and say of him, as he said of the parish priest in his 'Deserted Village'

'Even his failings lean'd to Virtue's side.'

Though the names of the great writers of that past Georgian day' are still familiar in our mouths as household words, it is a pity that their works are not familiar in our hands as household things. 'The Vicar of Wakefield'

is read by every one, of course, or, at least, like a municipal address to the Queen, must be taken as read. We should be curious to know, however, how many editions of The Citizen of the World' have been called for in

the last thirty years. Out of every hundred people who can quote Mr. Pickwick, could we count on finding one who could quote the Man in Black? Nay, to go further, and to take, not Charles Dickens, but the second, or third, or tenth-rate authors of the present day, has 'The Citizen of the World' a twentieth of the readers that some among the popular novelists can boast of?

The literature of last century is divided from us as if by a great gulf, and though on the other side of the gulf there is a perfect paradise of intellectual delight, yet few care to face the trouble of crossing over. With the great stir in men's minds that set in on the Continent with the French Revolution, and in England with its fullest force on the close of the French war, began a literature which, even if it excites every man's interest, yet, to use Mr. Disraeli's expression, 'harasses' every man's mind. The age of optimism had passed away with the meeting of the States General--not for ever, but certainly for a long time. 'Whatever is, is not best,' was the text on which all preachers began to hold forth. The parish priest in whom Fielding and Goldsmith delighted, who

was a Christian, and not a theologian, and who neither harassed himself nor yet his people, had passed away.

Yet there are persons who, weary of endless talk on reforms and improvements, like at times to drop out of the stream of this uneasy age to seek for quiet thought among men who never so much as heard that there was a social science. A time, indeed, comes to many a reader when, in the literature of the eighteenth century, the mind finds its best repose. And among the great writers of that great age of writing not the least dear, as not the least resting, must be held that 'child of the public,' to use his own words, Oliver Goldsmith. If any of our readers desire to keep fittingly the centenary of Oliver Goldsmith, let them take down from the bookshelf the old copy of the Deserted Village' or the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' and in the noble characters they find in those charming pages will be seen what manner of man he was whose death made Reynolds lay aside his brush and Burke seek relief in tears.

APPENDIX.

THE DURATION OF JOHNSON'S RESIDENCE AT OXFORD.1

MR. FITZGERALD in his edition of Boswell's 'Johnson' has reopened a question which, though perhaps of no very great importance in itself, is yet not without its interest. Johnson, as I have already shown, was forced, through want of means, to leave the University before he had completed his residence and taken his degree. Boswell had stated that Johnson had been a member of Pembroke College for little more than three years. No doubt was thrown, so far as I know, on this statement, till Mr. Croker, after an inspection of the College books with the help of Dr. Hall, the Master of Pembroke, maintained that Boswell was altogether wrong, as Johnson had only been an actual member fourteen months. But neither Mr. Croker nor Mr. Fitzgerald has brought together all the facts that bear on this question, though each, without first carefully summing up the case, has ventured to speak with all the authority of a judge from whose decision there was no appeal. I have little confidence in my own power of arriving at a decision one way or the

1 Reprinted (with alterations) from the Saturday Review, September 12, 1874.

other, and I shall content myself with putting before my readers the statements made on each side, the difficulties which have to be overcome, and the facts which I have myself at some labour gathered together. Like Mr. Fitzgerald, I must express my obligations to Professor Chandler of Pembroke College, for the assistance he has so kindly rendered me by his searches into the musty old battel books.

Boswell's statement as to Johnson's residence is precise, and Boswell, as I need scarcely say, when he speaks of any matter positively, is very rarely proved to be wrong. He says, 'The res angusta domi prevented him from having the advantage of a complete academical education. The friend to whom he had trusted for support had deceived him. His debts in College, though not great were increasing, and his scanty remittances from Lichfield, which had all along been made with great difficulty, could be supplied no longer, his father having fallen into a state of insolvency. Compelled, therefore, by irresistible necessity, he left the College in autumn 1731, without a degree, having been a member of it little more than three years.'

Hawkins's statement, in his 'Life of Johnson,' agrees with Boswell's. He says: 'The time of his continuance at Oxford is divisible into two periods, the former whereof commenced on the 31st day of October, 1728, and determined in December 1729, when, as appears by a note in his diary in these words—“ 1729, Dec., S. J. Oxonio rediit "—he left that place, the reason whereof was a failure of pecuniary supplies from his father; but meeting with another source, the bounty, as it is supposed, of one or more of the members of the Cathedral, he returned, and made up the whole of his residence-about three years.' These two statements,