only keeps close; sends out his little emissaries to be hearty in his praise; and straight, whether statesman or author, he is set down in the list of fame, continuing to be praised while it is fashionable to praise, or while he prudently keeps his minuteness concealed from the public.

I have visited many countries, and have been in cities without number, yet never did I enter a town which could not produce ten or twelve of those little great men, all fancying themselves known to the rest of the world, and complimenting each other upon their extensive reputation. It is amusing enough when two of these domestic prodigies of learning mount the stage of ceremony, and give and take praise from each other. I have been present when a German doctor, for having pronounced a panegyric upon a certain monk, was thought the most ingenious man in the world, till the monk soon after divided this reputation by returning the compliment; by which means they both marched off with universal applause.

The same degree of undeserved adulation that attends our great man while living, often also follows him to the tomb. It frequently happens that one of his little admirers sits down big with the important subject, and is delivered of the history of his life and writings. This may probably be called the revolutions of a life between the fireside and the easy-chair. In this we learn the year in which he was born, at what an early age he gave symptoms of uncommon genius and application, together with some of his smart sayings, collected by his aunt and mother, while yet but a boy. The next book introduces him to the university, where we are informed of his amazing progress in learning, his excellent skill in darning stockings, and his new invention for papering books to save the covers. He next makes his appearance

Now

in the republic of letters, and publishes his folio. the colossus is reared; his works are eagerly bought up by all the purchasers of scarce. books. The learned societies invite him to become a member; he disputes against some foreigner with a long Latin name, conquers in the controversy, is complimented by several authors of gravity and importance, is excessively fond of eggsauce with his pig, becomes president of a literary club, and dies in the meridian of his glory. Happy they who thus have some little faithful attendant, who never forsakes them, but prepares to wrangle and to praise against every opposer; at once ready to increase their pride while living, and their character when dead. For you and I, my friend, who have no humble admirer thus to attend us; we, who neither are, nor never will be, great men, and who do not much care whether we are great men or no; at least let us strive to be honest men, and to have common sense.-Adieu.

(From The Traveller.)

[Seating himself where Alpine solitudes ascend,' the Traveller (Goldsmith himself) passes in review the countries he looks down upon. First Italy, next Switzerland, then France.]

To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
I turn; and France displays her bright domain.
Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please,
How often have I led thy sportive choir,

With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire !

240

Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew ;
And haply, though my harsh touch, faltering still,
But mocked all tune, and marred the dancer's skill;
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power,
And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour.
Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days

Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,
Has frisked beneath the burden of threescore.

245

250

So blest a life these thoughtless realms display; 255
Thus idly busy rolls their world away :

Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
For honour forms the social temper here.
Honour, that praise which real merit gains,
Or even imaginary worth obtains,

Here passes current; paid from hand to hand,
It shifts in splendid traffic round the land:
From courts to camps, to cottages it strays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise.

260

They please, are pleased; they give to get esteem;
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.
But while this softer art their bliss supplies,

265

It gives their follies also room to rise;

For praise too dearly loved, or warmly sought,
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought,
And the weak soul, within itself unblest,

270

Leans for all pleasure on another's breast.

Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art,

Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
Here vanity assumes her pert grimace,

275

And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace;

Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer,
To boast one splendid banquet once a year;
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws,
Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause.

NOTES.

243-54. Cf. The Vicar of Wakefield, chap. xx., where Goldsmith puts his

280

own experience into the mouth of the vicar's son, George: 'I had

some knowledge of music with a
tolerable voice, and now turned
what was once my amusement into
a present means of subsistence. I
passed among the harmless peasants
of Flanders, and among such of the
French as were poor enough to be
very merry; for I ever found them
sprightly in proportion to their
wants. Whenever I approached a
peasant's house towards nightfall,
I played one of my merry tunes;
and that procured me not only a
lodging but subsistence for the next
day.'

243. Choir, band of dancers; as Gr.
choros, Lat. chorus. Cf. Lytton,
Pausanias, the Spartan, Bk. III.,
chap. iv. Tell the leader of that
dancing choir to come hither.'
253. Gestic lore, knowledge of how to
dance. 'Lore,' knowledge. Cf.
Orm., 14, page 19, and see notes

(322), page 22. 'Gestic,' connected
with gesture, carriage, bearing
(Lat. gestum, to carry); whence the
special application.

256. Idly busy. An example of what
is called oxymoron (a pointedly
foolish saying), an expression that
takes point from its being apparently
self-contradictory while really con-
taining an important fact. Cf.
Spenser's 'luckless lucky maid
(page 103, stanza 19), 'a pious
fraud,' 'laborious trifling.' Frequent
in the classics : 'strenua inertia'
(strenuous inaction), 'festīna lente"
(hasten slowly), &c.

258. Honour. Here outward distinction
merely.

ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH.

(From The Traveller.)

[After the French, the poet speaks of the Dutch, whom he contrasts unfavourably, and unjustly, with their Belgic sires of old' and with 'the sons of Britain now.']

Fired at the sound, my genius spreads her wing,
And flies where Britain courts the western spring;
Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride,
And brighter streams than famed Hydaspes glide.

320

There all around the gentlest breezes stray;
There gentle music melts on every spray;
Creation's mildest charms are there combined,
Extremes are only in the master's mind!

Stern o'er each bosom Reason holds her state,
With daring aims irregularly great;

325

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,

I see the lords of humankind pass by;

Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band,

By forms unfashioned, fresh from nature's hand,

330

Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,

True to imagined right, above control,

While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan,
And learns to venerate himself as man.

NOTES.

317. Her. Why 'her?'
319. Lawns, (green) fields, generally.
-Arcadian. Vergil (see Eclogues)
made Arcadia the home of supreme
pastoral happiness. Cf. Sidney's
Arcadia (see page 81).

320. Famed Hydaspes. Mod. Jelum,
one of the rivers of the Punjab,
tributary to the Indus. Horace
(Odes, I., xxii. 7-8) calls it 'fabu-

losus,' from the marvellous accounts of wild beasts, monsters, &c., inhabiting that region generally. Cf. Mandeville, Voiage and Travaile, chap. xv.: 'In that flome (river, the Indus) men find eels of 30 foot long and more.'

321-3. Poetic license, surely.

327. Port. Lat. porto (bear, carry). Cf. note (148), page 106.

Saturday, Oct. 23, 1773: 'We talked of Goldsmith's Traveller, of which Dr Johnson spoke highly; and, while I was helping him on with his great-coat, he repeated from it the character of the British nation; which he did with such energy that the tear started into his eye' (Boswell).

SAMUEL JOHNSON.-1709-1784.

SAMUEL JOHNSON was the son of a bookseller in Lichfield. After an intermittent attendance at various local schools, he went, at nineteen, to Pembroke College, Oxford. Here he remained about three years, and then, from poverty, left without a degree. Several years of drudgery here and there followed, till in 1736 he married Mrs Porter of Birmingham, a widow, with whose help he established a boarding-school near Lichfield. This venture failing, Johnson betook himself to London to live by his pen. A quarter of a century later (1762), he received a government pension of £300 a year.

Johnson's first ten years in London were largely devoted to miscellaneous work for Edmund Cave, the publisher of the Gentleman's Magazine; in particular, he wrote from memory or short notes reports of the debates in parliament. London (1738) and The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) are poems in imitation of satires of Juvenal. The famous English Dictionary, begun in 1747, was completed in 1755. Meantime the Rambler, a periodical on the plan of the Tatler, Spectator, &c., had been appearing twice a week in 1750-2; all the papers, except only five, being from Johnson's own pen. He wrote also some papers for the Adventurer (1753) and the Literary Maga