the last recorded words of Oliver Goldsmith. He died on the 3rd of April, 1774, in his forty-sixth year. He was laid in the churchyard of the Temple; but the spot was not marked by any inscrip- [820 tion, and is now forgotten. The coffin was followed by Burke and Reynolds. Both these great men were sincere mourners. Burke, when he heard of Goldsmith's death, had burst into a flood of tears. Reynolds had been so much moved by the news that he had flung aside his brush and palette for the day.

A short time after Goldsmith's death, a little poem appeared, which will, as [830 long as our language lasts, associate the names of his two illustrious friends with his own. It has already been mentioned that he sometimes felt keenly the sarcasm which his wild blundering talk brought

were found in company with great [870 weaknesses. But the list of poets to whose works Johnson was requested by the booksellers to furnish prefaces ended with Lyttleton, who died in 1773. The line seems to have been drawn expressly for the purpose of excluding the person whose portrait would have most fitly closed the series. Goldsmith, however, has been fortunate in his biographers. Within a few years his life has been [880 written by Mr. Prior, by Mr. Washington Irving, and by Mr. Forster. The diligence of Mr. Prior deserves great praise; the style of Mr. Washington Irving is always pleasing; but the highest place must, in justice, be assigned to the eminently interesting work of Mr. Forster.

last illness, provoked into retaliating. He wisely betook himself to his pen; and at that weapon he proved himself a match for all his assailants together. Within [840 a small compass he drew with a singularly easy and vigorous pencil the characters of nine or ten of his intimate associates. Though this little work did not receive his last touches, it must always be regarded as a masterpiece. It is impossible, however, not to wish that four or five likenesses which have no interest for posterity were wanting to that noble gallery, and that their places were supplied [850 by sketches of Johnson and Gibbon, as happy and vivid as the sketches of Burke and Garrick.

Some of Goldsmith's friends and admirers honored him with a cenotaph in Westminster Abbey. Nollekens was the sculptor; and Johnson wrote the inscription. It is much to be lamented that Johnson did not leave to posterity a more durable and a more valuable memorial [860 of his friend. A life of Goldsmith would have been an inestimable addition to the Lives of the Poets. No man appreciated Goldsmith's writings more justly than Johnson: no man was better acquainted with Goldsmith's character and habits: and no man was more competent to delineate with truth and spirit the peculiarities of a mind in which great powers

me.

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Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie.

The sky behind is brightening up anew (Home, Rose, and home, Provence and La Palie),

The rain is ending, and our journey too:

In, Rose, and in, Provence and La Palie.

Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask-Thou smilest and art still,

Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill

Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty, Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,5 Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,

must be,

Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, 35
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream,
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-
ground;

Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail and bask in the brine:
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye?
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, was it yesterday (Call yet once!) that she went away? Once she sate with you and me,

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Children dear, were we long alone? "The sea grows stormy, the little ones

Children dear, was it yesterday

We heard the sweet bells over the bay? In the caverns where we lay,

Through the surf and through the swell, The far-off sound of a silver bell?

30

say;

Come!" I said; and we rose through the

surf in the bay.

We went up the beach, by the sandy

down

Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white

walled town;

Come away, away, children; Come, children, come down! The hoarse wind blows colder; Lights shine in the town. She will start from her slumber When gusts shake the door; She will hear the winds howling, Will hear the waves roar. We shall see, while above us The waves roar and whirl, A ceiling of amber,

A pavement of pearl.

Singing: "Here came a mortal,
But faithless was she!
And alone dwell for ever
The kings of the sea."

But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow,
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starred with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanched sands a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie,
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.

We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white, sleeping town;

At the church on the hill-side:
And then come back down,
Singing: "There dwells a loved one,
But cruel is she!

She left lonely for ever

The kings of the sea."

ΙΙΟ

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