as if these treasures had been confided to him for the public benefit, and he was accountable to posterity for their honourable employ; and a constancy equally happy and admirable I think was shown by Goldsmith, whose sweet and friendly nature bloomed kindly always in the midst of a life's storm, and rain, and bitter weather.[1] The poor fellow was never so friendless but he could befriend some one; never so pinched and wretched but he could give of his crust, and speak his word of compassion. If he had but his flute left, he could give that, and make the children happy in the dreary London court. He could give the coals in that queer coal-scuttle we read of to his poor neighbour: he could give away his blankets in college to the poor widow, and warm himself as he best might in the feathers: he could pawn his coat to save his landlord from gaol: when he was a school-usher, he spent his earnings in treats for the boys, and the good-natured schoolmaster's wife said justly that she ought to keep Mr. Goldsmith's money as well as the young gentlemen's. When he met his pupils in later life,
- ↑ "An 'inspired idiot,' Goldsmith, hangs strangely about him [Johnson]. . . . . . . Yet, on the whole, there is no evil in the 'gooseberry-fool,' but rather much good; of a finer, if of a weaker sort than Johnson's; and all the more genuine that he himself could never become conscious of it,—though unhappily never cease attempting to become so: the author of the genuine 'Vicar of Wakefield,' nill he will he, must needs fly towards such a mass of genuine manhood."— Carlyle's Essays (2nd ed.), vol. iv. p. 91.
