close taups'ls, and foretopmast-stays'l; wind blowing strong abeam, and a blast o' rain. About three bells morning watch the weather cleared a little, with a break to starnward. All of a suddent the look-out on the foreyard hails out," Light, ho! two lights hard on the leebow." And the captain goes aloft to overhaul them. Down he comes-Cape You-shan't right ahead, Mr Fisher," says he: "we'll never weather it under this canvas, an' carn't go about neither. Up there! shake out reefs! swig up taups'l-halyards!" says he. An' up goes the high cloth against the scud to loo'ard, till we made out the two lights from the wheel, drawin' end on, low down betwixt the swells as she pitched aloft. "Split them two lights," says he to the wheel," or we're ashore in an hour. Press her well up, my lads," says he; "loose away the mains'l there." "She'll never bear it," says the mate. "Don't know the Declaration yet, Mr Fisher, I guess," says he. "Board maintack there, ride him down with a will, men. Haul aft the sheet." Well how she pitched, an' drove right under, shippin' green seas over the weather-chains! She hove a fellow over the wheel without, "By your leave;" an' the maintack surged like a capstan-fall, every strand with a purchase on it. "It's blowing harder," says the mate. "Half an hour, and we're off," says the skipper. But sure enough, by that time we was reeling throughdown head and up again, like a Dutchman's cow-first a howl through the rigging, and then a calm in the trough, things lookin' black for the masts of her. "Ease off the maintack," sings out the skipper; "an' stand by to brail up and furl." Ticklish work it was to do as much as the first; but hand the sail we couldn't, with the captain and his passenger at the wheel to free all hands; so out in the brails we let it blow, like a fisherman's bladders, an' got up to reef taups'ls coasterfashion. As soon as the halyards was let go, cluelins an' reef-tackles chock up, the sail drove into the leerigging, jammed through the shrouds, every square a bag o' wind; ship careening right down to loo'ard; the yard like to slide us off, if it didn't shake us; an' not a hand on deck to touch a rope. We couldn't compass it nohow; an' the mate sings out to the wheel to luff a little, and shake the sail. "Furl it!" roars out the captain, giving her a weather-spoke or two; an' sartinly we did get up the head-leeches of the sail, and the gaskets passed round one yard-arm, when up slap comes the foot of it in the blast, with a noise like thunder, hammering our heads an' blindin' us till the whole was free again. Not having her jib neither, she was just broaching to with that bit of a luff, when the fo'taups'l saved her snap went the martingale-stay as it was, and she carried away her jib-boom in the first pitch. The skipper filled away in a moment, grinding the helm hard up, and singin' out to us to leave the sail, an' sheet it half home again; so off she stood, squaring yards before the wind, easing off sheets, flying over it with a roll. We couldn't take another stitch off her; an' if I ever seed a craft runnin' away with her masters, that was it. Hows'ever, the mornin' was broke, and straight down the Bay of Biscay for the two mortal watches we goes, before the stiffest nor'-easter I remenbers, without lying to. She made easier weather, the skipper al'ays said, on a drive as with a helm lashed. At night I didn't like the looks of it noway; the sea was gettin' tremendous; the wind pinned ye to the rigging; and as cowld as a man could stand, though 'twas as dry as oakum, 'cept for the spray.

"Them sticks wont stand it, cap'en," says the mate, lookin' aloft like a stargazer, an' as gloomy as the bowsprit end. "You don't know them sticks, Mr Fisher," says the skipper. "I may say I raised 'em and smoked 'em myself. They're as tough as whalebone. They'll stand it, if the cloth don't." "True enough, sir," says the mate; an' a little after, just as she rose out of a lull, away doesn't the fo'taups'l go, with such a crack, out o' the bolt-rope, clean away to loo'ard, like a puff of smoke. "Set the mainstays'l," sings out the skipper," and keep her up a bit, my lad."

'I thinks I sees that passenger-fellow's face by the mizen-rigging, as he held on like death, and the barque hung over the black surge, up an' down, like looking for her shadow in the troughs, and climbing the hill for fear on it, shipping the grim seas in her waist as she came up. Blessed if he didn't show the white rag that time! an' I thou't myself as he'd done somethin' bad. The Imen said he looked like a chap would ha' been glad of the gallows; and one swore his next trick at the helm to luff up into a sea, an' lend a hand to sweep clear of him. Hows'ever, by the mornin' watch our wind was laid a bit, an' we driving as bare as we could to sou'-west, maintaups'l-yard still half down to the cap, with the sail set. The craft took it better nor ever I seed a craft do with the same sea on; but the mate said we'd run three degrees out of our course. By eight bells noon, what does the captain do but call all hands aft, to say as she'd never lie her course, he was goin' to bear up and run due south, a three months' trip for Monte Video. "I expect," says he, "to make somethin' of it thereaway, an' a sight better market. So, my lads," says he, "if you'll ship, an' no words, why I'll make it two dollars a-head warmer by the month." Every one looks at his neighbour, and grins as he walks forrud, seein' as it was no use to growl, if we'd wanted. For one, I'd ha' been ready cheer ship. "Mr Fisher," says the skipper, square away the yards, and swig up that maintaups'lyard. Down maintack, too; I see the wind's moderatin' pretty fast. Full an' by, my man," says he to the wheel; so away we cracked on her, with a starn sea running, for the Canaries.

66

'Long yarn, Bob, if I told you the rig our skipper played with the blockhead* at Monte Video, an' them lubberly Brazil cruisers. All I've got to say now is, as it's hard on eight bells, my chum an' I heerd, on gettin' back to Liverpool a couple o' year after, as how that there chase of ours from the steam-frigate warn't about the passenger at all, but a consarn of our sharp-sailin' skipper's, as only an Admiralty clerk could take the turns out on. I never knowed the rights on it; but I don't doubt he kept clear o' both the Channel and Boston for a good spell.'

'Well, mate,' said Bob, as he passed the ball for the last time, give us the other yarn in the first watch,' Whether Harry did so or not, I, belonging to the larboard watch, had no opportunity of hearing it.

HISTORY OF A SOD.

'Always examine what other men reject as worthless.'

WE may perhaps be thought jesting when we affirm that the history of a sod of grass is one of great interest; and we are content to refer to what follows for our justification, as we state our serious conviction, that the reflections to which a little clump of green turf give rise, are replete with instruction of no mean order. The sod before us, and the pen in hand, we must proceed methodically to our investigation-investigate it historically, botanically, and chemically. Observing this order, we may first inquire how the sod took origin. If we examine its structure, we shall find that it is a thick and consistent mass of roots, which, by their countless entanglements, have enclosed a quantity of the soil beneath in such a manner that it is scarcely to be separated from them. This structure enables us to remove the sod wholly from the surface of the place upon which it is found. How, then, was the foundation, so to speak, of this mass of vegetable fibres and mould laid? If our sod was cut from the stony bosom of a rock, the answer lies far back in ages gone by. A tiny lichen began the work there; and after serving its purpose in coating the naked and desolate surface with a thin layer of vegetable mould, it was at length vanquished by a stronger than itself in the form of a waving, clustering moss. The winds and tempests of years tried the courage of the moss, and many times threatened its utter destruction; but it still

*Blockade.

held firm. The lichen which preceded it had roughened the hard surface, and the clasping fibres of the moss laid hold of the smallest inequalities. The rain descended, and the winds blew; but neither conquered; for the moss flourished, and had a thriving family, which being rapidly joined by vagrant relations and friends, the rock began to look green. This was the first robe. By and by the birds of a distant region found rest on the rock, and left behind them the undigested grains of herbs plucked and devoured many miles away. Of these, some lived, some remained dead. Of the living ones, eventually only a few survived, for some were too delicately appetised to exist on the thin face of their new cradle, and became rapidly choked by those sturdy rustics who were content with a draught of rain (containing a fraction of ammonia), and with such a minute amount of alkalies as was left by the mosses and lichens in their decaying remains. A wiry vegetation was now busy in constructing the foundation of the future sod. Little rootlets, tough as cords, and pushing themselves in every direction, bound together the loose and incoherent mass of decaying tissues, sand, and degraded soil, which the previous occupants had left behind them. The rock itself suffers change. Water and carbonic acid attack it, and it slowly crumbles. The plants now formed help the work; they appropriate its ingredients; the depth of soil increases. It has also become richer; consequently a better class of plants can live thereon. Now the hardy-constitutioned wiry grass either dies of too much food, or is choked in retribution by the descendants of those which it formerly killed. The soft green blades of fragrant grasses come up, and paint the once gray and dreary landscape in the most refreshing colours. Year succeeds to year; the winter kills some; the spring awakens others; and the summer ripens the seeds of a multitude of grasses which the autumn shakes to the earth, and by its heavy rains, causes to take root in the soil. Layer after layer of roots overtops the last. All traces of the early mosses are lost in the brown humus at the bottom, so that one could scarcely form even a conjecture as to how the work began.

But possibly our sod has been taken from a rich meadow, lying along the sides of a deep inland-penetrating stream, thick, rank, and luxurious, with crowding blades and towering stems. This green meadow was once a quiet lake, or perhaps a part of a more tumultuous sea. From those heaven-kissing hills' which form the rough, uneven outline of the horizon, and from which the stream takes origin, centuries have washed down tons upon tons of alluvial soil. The waters of the lake grew shallow, aquatic plants fringed its edges, and assisted the process. The waters sank, the land rose. No sooner did it appear above the surface, than, as if with wings, the seeds of numberless grasses and other plants flew thither, and rapidly colonised the spot. But though the surface looked quickly green, much time must elapse before the due thickness of a sod is formed. Many a contest also will take place between sturdy docks, and noisome weeds, and the sweet-leafed grass, before the latter gains the entire supremacy; and in fact this it never absolutely succeeds in effecting without aid from man. In a few years this work, too, is completed, and the surface over which in bygone times the ripple rolled, or the billow heaved, now rejoices in a waving garment of the freshest green.

So far for the pure history of the sod; now for its botany. Those who have never taken the pains to examine the herbage of a sod, will be disposed to believe all grass to be pretty much the same, if indeed a difference be admitted at all. We believe very few are really aware of the number and beauty of the species which may be, and often are, contained within an area to which a hat would form an ample tent. Mr Curtis, well known for his various works on natural history and botany, tried a curious experiment with the assistance of a friend. Sods of grass six inches only in diameter were cut from nine different places in Hampshire and Sussex, and were selected indiscriminately from the spots whence they were removed. They were then planted in Mr Curtis's

garden, where they thrived luxuriantly. On being examined, the following interesting discovery was made: One piece of sod from Selborne Common, six inches diameter, contained fourteen different species of grass; and, singular enough, a similar sod from Ringmer Down contained an equal number. Others bore respectively nine, seven, six, and five species-none contained fewer than three. Who has not inhaled with pleasure the sweet perfume of new hay? This perfume is due to the presence of the Anthoxanthum odoratum (sweet-scented ver nal grass). Even the green leaves of this graceful grass readily impart this perfume to the fingers by which they are bruised. Another species somewhat like it in appearance is the fox-tail grass; but it is more coarse in foliage, and is destitute of the fragrant odour of the former. Another, and a more elegant species, is the wellknown, almost ubiquitous, Poa pratensis, which springs up alike on our old walls and on the fostering bosom of our fertile pastures. Every one must have admired the beautifully fine hair-like grass which clothes the surface of our dry heaths, downs, and sheep-walks-a grass upon whose velvet-like surface the foot is seldom weary of resting. This grass is called the Agrostis capillaris, in evident allusion to its character; and being admirably constituted so as to endure heat and drought, it furnishes a valuable food to the mountain-fed sheep, that would otherwise be altogether destitute at such seasons, or could feed only in the sheltered valleys of these regions. Another grass equally adapted for a peculiar situation, and almost certain to be found in our lump of sod, if it was taken from the hard bosom of a northern limestone rock, is called the blue dog's-tail grass; and for such situations as it is found in it is well adapted, from its at all times affording sheep a tolerably fair pasture. Beside these, there are probably in our sod the curious, inconstant, yet common grass called rye-grass, or Lolium perenne, of the most vigorous growth, and in rich meadows greedily consumed by cattle. Mr Curtis says that this grass appears to vary ad infinitum even in its wild state: he had seen a variety of it with double flowers, and one with awns, both of which are very uncommon. In some pastures, such as are not very moist, the stalks are sometimes viviparous towards autumn; sometimes it produces scarcely any stem, and much foliage; at others, little foliage, and an abundance of flowering stems. It is a curious fact, that if we examine this same sod, having returned it again to the earth, in the next year, or in the year following, we shall in all probability find that an entire change of species has taken place. Some that are now luxuriant will then have degenerated, and some that are now weak will then have become entirely removed from the army of green blades. Why is this? It is found that if the grasses are kept close shaven to the ground, or are fed down, to use the agricultural phrase, this deterioration is avoided; whereas it is almost sure to follow if the herb is allowed to run to seed. It is a sort of natural rotation. Changes in the soil very probably take place which are favourable to the other varieties, but detrimental, or less favourable to these; and the natural consequence is, that the healthiest wins the field.

Let us lay the grass stem under the knife. On removing its leaves from the glistening surface of the stem, they will be found attached at their base to a joint, which they also partly embrace. What are these joints? Passing the knife through the stem, it is found that it has this striking difference from other plants: it is a hollow tube, and at each joint a sort of diaphragm or cross partition is stretched so as to divide the stem into a number of closed cylinders, each having no connection whatever with the one above or below. This is exactly the structure of a bamboo. It is on this account that a great botanist has declared that our tiny inhabitants of the sod, which we have been wont to despise and trample under foot, belong to a noble family, which, under favouring influences of sun and warmth, carry their heads near ten times higher in the hea vens than we ourselves- these are the bamboos. In his own words-the words of Nees Von Esenbeck

grasses are but dwarf bamboos.

The microscope only can reveal the true beauty and structure of the minute flowers which adorn the lowly grasses. Thus examined, they present a pleasing and interesting study. Every one must have seen the curious little spikelets of the brome, or meadow grasses; and the attentive eye will have marked here and there a yellow stamen peeping out of its unattractive flower. The microscope, or a good lens, reveals the fact, that every spikelet is made up of many flowers beautifully arranged together, as if they were the coverings of one which does not appear. Each little flower consists of a couple of tiny scales, supporting the hairs or bristles with which we are so familiar. These little scales-technically, palec-cover two other smaller scales, which appear to be the rudimentary calyx or corolla of the flower; and these, with the others, enclose and shelter the stamens and ovary. With the structure of the seed we do not think it necessary to deal. Suffice it to add, that in the counsels of a watchful Providence, it has been so ordained that that rapidity of growth which is essential to the speedy covering of the earth with her green mantle, has been both forcseen and beautifully provided for in its fabrication.

We may consider that two chemical processes meet in our sod-the one belonging to the chemistry of life, the other to that of decay and death. To take the last first. If the roots of the sod are carefully examined, it will not be difficult to separate the living from the dead; and the latter class includes the decaying and decayed. The brown, friable, pulverulent matter which is called mould, and composes a considerable portion of the underground mass of the sod, is vegetable fibre having undergone its complete decay. Chemists call it humus. It is insoluble, or nearly so, in water; it cannot, therefore, although rich in carbon, contribute any of that element directly to the thick vegetation flourishing above. Yet it was long considered that this very humus was the real and only origin of the wood of plants. As, however, plants can only receive soluble particles by their roots, and those of humus are insoluble, it is a very simple and just conclusion to arrive at, that the source of carbon in vegetation lies not for the most part in the soil. The thin air and the viewless winds will better answer the question. Is the humus of the sod, then, altogether useless? Not so. It is the reservoir of all the alkaline and mineral ingredients of the last generation of plants, and these are absolutely essential to the wellbeing, even to the existence, of vegetation. In the undisturbed greensward, allowed to lie for years by the grazier, this stock of salts amounts to a large quantity; and if the plough is now sent through it, the smiling sod torn up, broken, and crushed and sown for wheat, a crop of vast luxuriance follows. But this only lasts for a year or two, and the land returns to its former average, or possibly falls under, for reasons not to be here entered into. In the upper layers of the sod, vegetable fibre in the actual process of decay is sure to be found. It may be recognised by its crumbling character and brown colour. Possibly it consists of the slain bodies of the grasses which were felled by the last winter's frosts. Water and air are busy here; the work of destruction hastens on; the woody fibres undergo eremecausis,' to use the Liebigian phrase-that is, they are slowly, or by degrees consumed. In so doing, they are continually evolving small portions of carbonic acid gas; the fibres become more and more broken up; until at length it is not possible to distinguish them from the pulverulent humus above-mentioned. In this process all the salts and mineral constituents which entered into the composition of the original fibres are again surrendered to the soil in their turn, to enter into new relations, and to serve new purposes in the physiological economy of another generation. The carbonic acid gas eliminated in decay is not produced in vain. When the rootlets of the young grasses are feeble, while the growing stem and leaves draw much upon them, the genial rain descending dissolves this gas, and supplies it to the spongioles of the roots in a liquid form, to be then carried up into the vegetable system, and there decomposed. So far for the chemistry of death in the sod. How little do we prize the purifying in

fluence of our green fields! How little value the myriads of minute laboratories in the greensward, which, busy all the day long, drink up the detrimental carbonic acid gas of our empoisoned air, and pour out in return, volume for volume, invisible fountains of purest oxygen! Such, humble as they are, is their high vocation, so far as it directly relates to man. That fatal gas which he and his manufactures, and his humbler relatives in the zoological scheme-animals, birds, and the almost invisible insect-alike combine to produce, the cheerful sward feeds upon, gladly appropriates, makes into wood, turns into leaves and stems, and, more useful still, converts into health-sustaining food for man and beast. During the shades of night the grass lands, in common with the rest of vegetation, evolve carbonic acid; but it has been satisfactorily demonstrated that the preponderance is incomparably in favour of the oxygen evolution during the day. We have spoken of the tender blades which crown our sod as forming food. The chemical analysis effected by Sir H. Davy shows that the following principles in the grasses are those by the possession of which it is adapted for this end. Their remarkable simplicity will not fail to be observed: mucilage, sugar, bitter extractive matter, a substance analogous to albumen, and various saline ingredients. Let this suffice for the history of a sod. The desire has been to exhibit, however imperfectly, the rich and varied amount of interest and instruction which may be made to flow out of the contemplation of one of the commonest objects in nature.

ADVENTURES OF AN AUTHOR OF THE
LAST CENTURY.

AUTHORSHIP is not so ancient a profession in this country as it is usually considered. Before the beginning of the last century there were hardly any mere authors-that is, persons who lived by literature as a trade. Writers did something else as well as write, if it was only to fetch and carry for their patrons; and except in a few rare instances, books were made in the pauses of the real business of the world, or else manufactured to the order of those who could afford to say, with a later flatterer of the muses, 'We keeps a poet.' An author was part of the train of the aristocracy: he could do nothing without patronage, for the reading public' was not yet fairly born; and the consequence was a general servility and toadyism-an acknowledgment of inferiority-which influenced the destinies of literary men long after the cause had ceased to exist.

But patronage was not an evil in itself-it was an indispensable step in the progress of literature. Patrons enabled authors to write, and in some measure compelled the public to read; and as the taste for letters spread more widely, they themselves, having fulfilled their mission, retired gradually before the new power they had invoked. Although patrons, however, cannot coexist with a reading public, the habit of servility survived their withdrawal; and even in our own day, there have been seen specimens of the dedicational fulsomeness which was fashionable at the time when the dedication made the fortune of the book. Such, however, are rare exceptions; and generally speaking, authors, placed as they are on a more equitable and prosperous footing, exhibit in their manner the badge of their independence.

And this occurred occasionally, too, in an earlier day than ours-even in that transition period when patrons when authors hardly knew which way to look, behind were only retiring, and the public only advancing, and or before. The notice,' wrote Johnson to Lord Chesterfield, which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind: but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it;

till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received; or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.' Not long before this, the high-hearted author had been arrested for L.5, 18s.; and not long after, he was obliged to give up, as too expensive, his lodgings in Gough Square, where he had but a single chair for the accommodation of his visitors, balancing himself in the meanwhile on another with three legs and one arm.

Among the authors of this trying period, although it was fertile in enduring names, none is regarded with more interest at the present day than Oliver Goldsmith. He may be said to be the very opposite of Johnson, not only in character, but even in style and yet the men were friends; for the inspired idiot' and the great Cham of literature' were connected by a fine thread of humanity, over which the antagonisms of manner and position had no power. 'Oliver Goldsmith,' says John Forster,* *must be held to have succeeded in nothing that the world would have had him succeed in. He was intended for a clergyman, and was rejected when he applied for orders; he practised as a physician, and never made what would have paid for a degree. The world did not ask him to write, but he wrote, and paid the penalty. His existence was a continued privation. The days were few in which he had resources for the night, or dared to look forward to the morrow. There was not any miserable want in the long and sordid catalogue, which in its turn and in all its bitterness he did not feel. The experience of those to whom he makes affecting reference in his "Animated Nature "-" people who die really of hunger, in common language, of a broken heart"-was his own. And when he succeeded at the last, success was but a feeble sunshine on a rapidly-approaching decay, which was to lead him, by its flickering and uncertain light, to an early grave.'

This is from the preface to a volume which we wish to recommend warmly to our readers, and but little the less warmly that we think Mr Forster does not discriminate nicely enough between the character of the author and that of the man, and that he thus suffers himself to be led occasionally into some injustice to the persons with whom his hero came in contact. But a generous enthusiasm of this kind is by no means characteristic of the time, and we are not sure that the world does not gain more by the feeling than it loses in the fact. At any rate, a biography of Goldsmith could not have been worthily written by a cold heart or a tranquil brain; and of all the men we know, the best adapted for painting the lifelong struggles of this outcast child of nature and fortune is John Forster.

The life of Goldsmith has hitherto been but little known in its details, for it required a congenial mind to search out and recognise its materials, and fill up the spaces vacant of authentic record from the hinted facts and unconscious recollections of the subject himself. The narrative, however, is well worth some trouble, not only as conveying the personal history of a man of genius, but as serving to illustrate in a most interesting manner the important literary period we have described as that transition state between private and public patronage, which led to the establishment of authorship in this country as a distinct and now crowded profession. We shall take some pains, therefore, to follow Mr Forster in his narration; and we only regret that the space to which we are restricted will preclude our doing this so often as we could wish in his own language-a language always energetic, and not seldom elegant. Öliver Goldsmith, born in 1728, was the son of a vil

The Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith. A Biography in Four Books. By John Forster of the Inner Temple, Barrister. Author of the Lives of Statesmen of the Commonwealth.' London: Bradbury and Evans. 1848.

lage clergyman in Ireland. He was an ungainly boy: short, plain, awkward, heavy, yet of an affectionate and cheerful disposition. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizer—in other words, a menial; but after his father's death, he was only able to maintain even this miserable position by writing street ballads for his support, at the rate of five shillings each. At night, he used to steal out of the college to hear them sung. Happy night!' says his biographer, worth all the dreary days! Hidden by some dusky wall, or creeping within darkling shadows of the ill-lighted streets, watched and waited this poor neglected sizer for the only effort of his life which had not wholly failed. Few and dull, perhaps, the beggar's audience at first; more thronging, eager, and delighted when he shouted the newly-gotten ware. Cracked enough his ballad-singing tones, I daresay; but harsh, discordant, loud, or low, the sweetest music that this earth affords fell with them on the ear of Goldsmith. Gentle faces pleased, old men stopping by the way, young lads venturing a purchase with their last remaining farthing; why, here was a world in little, with its fame at the sizer's feet! "The greater world will be listening one day," perhaps he muttered, as he turned with a lighter heart to his dull home.'

He tried for a scholarship, but only succeeded in obtaining an exhibition-worth thirty shillings; and so elated was this wild Irish boy at the unaccustomed success, that he invited some of his companions to a dancing party at his rooms. The festivities were concluded by his tutor bursting in and knocking down the entertainer. Oliver, overwhelmed with the disgrace, ran away from college, but was brought back by his brother. When his college days were gone by, he became a private tutor for a time, but quarrelled with the family, and set off for Cork with L.30 in his pocket, a good horse, and some vague plans about going to Ame. rica. He returned home very soon, minus the money, and mounted on a Rosinante, for which he had given L.1, 15s. Law was his next speculation. He started for London to keep his terms, with L.50 advanced by his uncle; but he was intercepted by his ill-luck at Dublin, where he lost the whole at play. Medicine was then tried, and he actually spent eighteen months in Edinburgh as a student; but having become security for a comrade, he left the country, hunted by bailiffs, and proceeded to finish his studies at Leyden. Here he read, taught, borrowed, and gamed for a year, and then determined to pursue his travels farther. A friend lent him wherewith; but Oliver's ill-luck still pursued him. Chancing to see some rare and expensive flowers which his worthy uncle in Ireland had a passion for, he bought the roots without hesitation, and sent them off as a gift, leaving Leyden the next day with a flute, a guinea, and his last shirt on his back.

A sketch of his travels is supposed to be given in the history of the philosophic vagabond in the Vicar of Wakefield.' 'I had some knowledge of music,' says the vagabond, with a tolerable voice; I now turned what was once my amusement into a present means of subsist ence. 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 most merry tunes, and that procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence for the next day. I once or twice attempted to play for people of fashion, but they always thought my performance odious, and never rewarded me even with a trifle.' In other words,' says Mr Forster, he begged;' but this is not the Irish interpretation. We once knew a professor of music in London who made it no secret that, when times were bad, he drew his hat over his brow, and took his flute out into the streets. This young Irishman would have scorned to beg, and he never even borrowed without blushing! My skill in music,' continues the vagabond, could avail me nothing in Italy, where every peasant was a better

musician than I; but by this time I had acquired another talent which answered my purpose as well, and this was a skill in disputation. In all the foreign universities and convents there are, upon certain days, philosophical theses maintained against every adventitious disputant; for which, if the champion opposes with any dexterity, he can claim a gratuity in money, a dinner, and a bed for one night. In this manner, then, I fought my way towards England; walked along from city to city; examined mankind more nearly; and if I may so express it, saw both sides of the picture.' In due time he reached his destination, and in the middle of February 1757, he was wandering without friend or acquaintance, without the knowledge or comfort of even one kind face, in the lonely, terrible London streets.'

This was the point to which he had been gravitating from infancy. London was his destiny; and what were his qualifications to meet it? What armour did he bring with him to the struggle? How was he to bespeak the sympathy, and enlist the good-will, of his fellow-wanderers in those cold, stony, interminable thoroughfares of mankind? How was he to elude the crafty, to oppose the bold, to flatter wealth, to propitiate power? In fine, what were his means of drawing subsistence from the wants, or whims, or weaknesses, or wickedness of men? Plain even to ugliness, insignificant in his figure, vulgar in his look and manner, his speech deformed by a provincial brogue, poorly clothed, without a shilling, without a friend, without a care, a fear, or a reflection, what was he to do in London? Steal, starve, or write. In vain he tried to live by his former employments. In vain he spread plasters for the poor, and taught dunces as the despised and ridiculed usher of a school. His fate found him in spite of all; and the philosophic vagabond, pursuing a routine which remains the usual curriculum of literature to this day, became a drudge of the London periodicals.

The time was unpropitious. Burke, a few years before this date, unable to comprehend the transition period in which it was his fortune to live, made it a subject of complaint to his Irish friends that genius, the rathe primrose which forsaken dies,' received no encouragement from the nobility, but was left to the capricious patronage of the public. Fielding was recently dead, poor and disappointed; Collins was about to follow, with the addition of madness to his lot; Smollett was engaged in that struggle for bread which was to terminate in a foreign grave; Johnson had just emerged from a sponging-house, to be fed by the booksellers with a single guinea at a time, because he would not work if he had two in his pocket. Richardson alone was successful; but then he was a printer as well as an author, and that made all the difference in the world. Goldsmith was in his twenty-ninth year when he became an author by profession. He was employed upon the Monthly Review' in writing articles which he never acknowledged, as they were all tampered with by the proprietor Griffiths or his wife.' He had a small regular salary, with board and lodging; but in five months quarrelled with his employers, being accused by them of idleness, and retorting an accusation of insolence on the part of the man, and a denial of ordinary comforts on that of the woman. The accusation of idleness he met by stating that he worked from nine o'clock till two, and on special days still longer. He now took lodgings in a garret near Salisbury Square, and crept on for some time in obscurity, till his seclusion was suddenly invaded by his youngest brother Charles, who, fancying from the long silence of Oliver that he was getting on famously in the world, had made his way up to London to share in his good fortune. All in good time, my dear boy,' cried Oliver joyfully, to check the bitterness of despair. All in good time: I shall be richer by and by. Besides, you see, I am not in positive want. Addison, let me tell you, wrote his poem of the Campaign in a garret in the Haymarket, three storeys

high; and you see I am not come to that yet, for I have only got to the second storey.' He made Charles sit and answer questions about his Irish friends: but at this point the light is again withdrawn, and for some two months there is greater darkness than before. He tried the ushership again; but came back --of course, poor moth!-to the candle whose devouring flame he was destined to feed; and by and by, in a letter to a friend, he mentions that he is in a garret, writing for bread, and expecting to be dunned for a milk score.' After this, thinking in desperation that he might possibly obtain an appointment if he could pass the examination at Surgeons' Hall for an hospital mate, it became an important problem how to obtain a suit of decent clothes. This he solved by writing four articles for the Monthly Review,' on condition of Griffiths becoming security to the tailor; and thus handsomely equipped, he presented himself at the Hall, and was found-not qualified. In four days after this, the clothes were sent to the pawnbroker, to discharge a debt due at his lodgings, his landlord having fallen into distress still more dire than his own; and before a week had passed, being in actual starvation, he placed the four books he had reviewed in the hands of an acquaintance as security for a trifling loan. Then instantly followed the demand for the books, and the price of the suit of clothes; and on learning the truth, Griffiths applied to the miserable author the names of sharper and villain.'

6

For this Griffiths, notwithstanding, he wrote subsequently a life of Voltaire, intended to be prefixed to a translation of the 'Henriade.' He received L.20 for the service, from which he deducted the price of the suit of clothes; and on being visited soon after by Percy, the well-known collector of the 'Reliques,' he was found busy with another work, the Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning in Europe.' 'He was writing the Inquiry,' says the future Bishop of Dromore, in a miserable dirty-looking room, in which there was but one chair; and when, from civility, he resigned it to me, he was himself obliged to sit on the window. While we were conversing together, some one gently tapped at the door, and being desired to come in, a poor ragged little girl, of a very becoming demeanour, entered the room, and dropping a curtsey, said, "My mamma sends her compliments, and begs the favour of you to lend her a chamberpot full of coals."'

The book was at length published. 'Manifest throughout,' says Mr Forster, 'is one overruling feeling under various forms-the conviction that, in bad critics and sordid booksellers, learning has to contend with her most pernicious enemies.' The work made its way; and with the Bee,' and his contributions to other periodicals, he seemed to be getting on a little better. One chair and a window seat, however, were still the accommodations of his room; and on a particular occasion, an employer was known to call upon him, and after a noisy altercation, sit three hours till his literary arrears were made up upon the spot. We next find him uniting with Smollett in the British Magazine,' and afterwards contributing to the Public Ledger' a series of essays, reprinted in 1760 by Mr Newberry, with the well-known title of the Citizen of the World.' He now took more respectable lodgings, made the acquaintance-to ripen into the friendship-of Johnson, and wrote various small matters with industry and perseverance.

·

Goldsmith now made his appearance in society, and was accustomed to frequent the parlour of Davies the bookseller, the resort of many literary men. A frequent visitor was Goldsmith; his thick, short, clumsy figure, and his awkward, though genial manners, oddly contrasting with Dr Percy's precise, reserved, and stately. The high-bred and courtly Beauclerc might deign to saunter in. Often would be seen there the broad fat face of Foote, with wicked humour flashing from the eye; and sometimes the mild long face of Bennet Langton, filled with humanity and gentleness.