He came

that, in the year 1685, he was in some to ride through heavy rain. danger of again occupying his old quar-drenched to his lodgings on Snow Hill, ters in Bedford gaol. In that year the was seized with a violent fever, and rash and wicked enterprise of Mon- died in a few days. He was buried in mouth gave the Government a pretext Bunhill Fields; and the spot where he for prosecuting the Nonconformists; lies is still regarded by the Nonconand scarcely one eminent divine of the formists with a feeling which seems Presbyterian, Independent, or Baptist scarcely in harmony with the stern persuasion remained unmolested. Bax-spirit of their theology. Many puriter was in prison: Howe was driven into tans, to whom the respect paid by exile: Henry was arrested. Two eminent Roman Catholics to the reliques and Baptists, with whom Bunyan had been tombs of saints seemed childish or sinengaged in controversy, were in great ful, are said to have begged with their peril and distress. Danvers was in dying breath that their coffins might danger of being hanged; and Kaffin's be placed as near as possible to the grandsons were actually hanged. The office of the author of the "Pilgrim's tradition is that, during those evil days, Progress." Bunyan was forced to disguise himself The fame of Bunyan during his life, as a waggoner, and that he preached to and during the century which followed his congregation at Bedford in a smock- his death, was indeed great, but was frock, with a cart-whip in his hand. almost entirely confined to religious faBut soon a great change took place. milies of the middle and lower classes. James the Second was at open war Very seldom was he during that time with the Church, and found it neces- mentioned with respect by any writer sary to court the Dissenters. Some of of great literary eminence. Young the creatures of the government tried coupled his prose with the poetry of to secure the aid of Bunyan. They the wretched D'Urfey. In the Spiriprobably knew that he had written in tual Quixote, the adventures of Chrispraise of the indulgence of 1672, and tian are ranked with those of Jack the therefore hoped that he might be Giant-Killer and John Hickathrift. equally pleased with the indulgence of Cowper ventured to praise the great 1687. But fifteen years of thought, ob- allegorist, but did not venture to name servation, and commerce with the world him. It is a significant circumstance had made him wiser. Nor were the that, till a recent period, all the numecases exactly parallel. Charles was a rous editions of the "Pilgrim's Proprofessed Protestant: James was a pro-gress were evidently meant for the fessed Papist. The object of Charles's cottage and the servants' hall. indulgence was disguised: the object paper, the printing, the plates, were all of James's indulgence was patent. of the meanest description. In general, Bunyan was not deceived. He exhorted his hearers to prepare themselves by fasting and prayer for the danger which menaced their civil and religious liberties, and refused even to speak to the courtier who came down to remodel the corporation of Bedford, and who, as was supposed, had it in charge to offer some municipal dignity to the Bishop of the Baptists.

The

when the educated minority and the common people differ about the merit of a book, the opinion of the educated minority finally prevails. The "Pilgrim's Progress" is perhaps the only book about which, after the lapse of a hundred years, the educated minority has come over to the opinion of the common people.

The attempts which have been made Bunyan did not live to see the Revo-to improve and to imitate this book are lution. In the summer of 1688 he undertook to plead the cause of a son with an angry father, and at length prevailed on the old man not to disinherit the young one. This good work cost the benevolent intercessor his life. He had

not to be numbered. It has been done into verse: it has been done into modern English. "The Pilgrimage of Tender Conscience," the "Pilgrimage of Good Intent," "The Pilgrimage of Seek Truth," "The Pilgrimage of Theophi

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
(FEBRUARY 1856.)

the diocesan school of Elphin, became attached to the daughter of the schoolmaster, married her, took orders, and settled at a place called Pallas in the county of Longford. There he with difficulty supported his wife and children on what he could earn, partly as a curate and partly as a farmer.

lus," "The Infant Pilgrim," ""The Hindoo Pilgrim, are among the many feeble copies of the great original. But the peculiar glory of Bunyan is that those who most hated his doctrines OLIVER GOLDSMITH, one of the most have tried to borrow the help of his pleasing English writers of the eighgenius. A Catholic version of his par- teenth century. He was of a Protesable may be seen with the head of the tant and Saxon family which had been Virgin in the title page. On the other long settled in Ireland, and which had, hand, those Antinomians for whom his like most other Protestant and Saxon Calvinism is not strong enough may families, been, in troubled times, harassstudy the pilgrimage of Hephzibah, ined and put in fear by the native popuwhich nothing will be found which can lation. His father, Charles Goldsmith, be construed into an admission of free studied in the reign of Queen Anne at agency and universal redemption. But the most extraordinary of all the acts of Vandalism by which a fine work of art was ever defaced was committed so late as the year 1853. It was determined to transform the " Pilgrim's Progress "into a Tractarian book. The task was not easy: for it was necessary to make the two sacraments the most At Pallas Oliver Goldsmith was born prominent objects in the allegory; and in November 1728. That spot was then, of all Christian theologians, avowed for all practical purposes, almost as reQuakers excepted, Bunyan was the one mote from the busy and splendid capital in whose system the sacraments held in which his later years were passed, as the least prominent place. However, any clearing in Upper Canada or any the Wicket Gate became a type of Bap- sheep-walk in Australasia now is. Even tism, and the House Beautiful of the at this day those enthusiasts who venEucharist. The effect of this change is ture to make a pilgrimage to the birthsuch as assuredly the ingenious person place of the poet are forced to perform who made it never contemplated. For, the latter part of their journey on foot. as not a single pilgrim passes through The hamlet lies far from any high road, the Wicket Gate in infancy, and as on a dreary plain which, in wet weather, Faithful hurries past the House Beauti- is often a lake. The lanes would break ful without stopping, the lesson, which any jaunting car to pieces; and there the fable in its altered shape teaches, is are ruts and sloughs through which the that none but adults ought to be bap-most strongly built wheels cannot be tised, and that the Eucharist may safely dragged. be neglected. Nobody would have discovered from the original "Pilgrim's Progress" that the author was not a Pædobaptist. To turn his book into a book against Pædobaptism was an achievement reserved for an AngloCatholic divine. Such blunders must necessarily be committed by every man who mutilates parts of a great work, without taking a comprehensive view of the whole.

While Oliver was still a child, his father was presented to a living worth about 2007. a year, in the county of Westmeath. The family accordingly quitted their cottage in the wilderness for a spacious house on a frequented road, near the village of Lissoy. Here the boy was taught his letters by a maid-servant, and was sent in his seventh year to a village school kept by an old quartermaster on half-pay, who professed to teach nothing but reading, writing, aud arithmetic, but who had an inexhaustible fund of stories about ghosts, banshees and fairies, about the great Rapparee chiefs, Baldearg O'Don

which had dropped from him, and which, though little noticed at the time, were supposed, a quarter of a century later, to indicate the powers which produced the "Vicar of Wakefield" and the "Deserted Village."

nell and galloping Hogan, and about the exploits of Peterborough and Stanhope, the surprise of Monjuich, and the glorious disaster of Brihuega. This man must have been of the Protestant religion; but he was of the aboriginal race, and not only spoke the Irish language, In his seventeenth year Oliver went but could pour forth unpremeditated up to Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizar. Irish verses. Oliver early became, The sizars paid nothing for food and and through life continued to be, a pas- tuition, and very little for lodging; but sionate admirer of the Irish music, and they had to perform some menial serespecially of the compositions of Caro-vices from which they have long been lan, some of the last notes of whose relieved. They swept the court: they harp he heard. It ought to be added carried up the dinner to the fellows' that Oliver, though by birth one of table, and changed the plates and the Englishry, and though connected poured out the ale of the rulers of the by numerous ties with the Established society. Goldsmith was quartered, Church, never showed the least sign not alone, in a garret, on the window of that contemptuous antipathy with of which his name, scrawled by himself, which, in his days, the ruling minority is still read with interest.* in Ireland too generally regarded the such garrets many men of less parts subject majority. So far indeed was than his have made their way to the he from sharing in the opinions and woolsack or to the episcopal bench. feelings of the caste to which he be- But Goldsmith, while he suffered all longed, that he conceived an aversion the humiliations, threw away all the to the Glorious and Immortal Memory, advantages, of his situation. He neand, even when George the Third was glected the studies of the place, stood on the throne, maintained that nothing low at the examinations, was turned but the restoration of the banished dy- down to the bottom of his class for nasty could save the country. playing the buffoon in the lecture room, was severely reprimanded for pumping on a constable, and was caned by a brutal tutor for giving a ball in the attic story of the college to some gay youths and damsels from the city.

From the humble academy kept by the old soldier Goldsmith was removed in his ninth year. He went to several grammar-schools, and acquired some knowledge of the ancient languages. His life at this time seems to have been far from happy. He had, as appears from the admirable portrait of him at Knowle, features harsh even to ugliness. The small-pox had set its mark on him with more than usual severity. His stature was small, and his limbs ill put together. Among boys little tenderness is shown to personal defects; and the ridicule excited by poor Oliver's appearance was heightened by a peculiar simplicity and a disposition to blunder which he retained to the last. He became the common butt of boys and masters, was pointed at as a fright in the play-ground, and flogged as a dunce in the school-room. When he had risen to eminence, those who had once derided him ransacked their memory for the events of his early years, and recited repartees and couplets

From

While Oliver was leading at Dublin a life divided between squalid distress and squalid dissipation, his father died, leaving a mere pittance. The youth obtained his bachelor's degree, and left the university. During some time the humble dwelling to which his widowed mother had retired was his home. He was now in his twenty-first year; it was necessary that he should do something; and his education seemed to have fitted him to do nothing but to dress himself in gaudy colours, of which he was as fond as a magpie, to take a hand at cards, to sing Irish airs, to play the flute, to angle in summer, and to tell

* The glass on which the name is written has, as we are informed by a writer in Notes and Queries (2nd S. ix. p. 91), been inclosed in a frame and deposited in the Manuscript Room

of the College Library, where it is still to be seen.

gardless of truth as to assert in print that he was present at a most interesting conversation between Voltaire and Fontenelle, and that this conversation took place at Paris. Now it is certain that Voltaire never was within a hundred leagues of Paris during the whole time which Goldsmith passed on the Continent.

ghost stories by the fire in winter. He tion is likely to be more than ordinarily tried five or six professions in turn inaccurate when he talks about his own without success. He applied for ordi- travels. Goldsmith, indeed, was so renation; but, as he applied in scarlet clothes, he was speedily turned out of the episcopal palace. He then became tutor in an opulent family, but soon quitted his situation in consequence of a dispute about play. Then he determined to emigrate to America. His relations, with much satisfaction, saw him set out for Cork on a good horse with thirty pounds in his pocket. But In 1756 the wanderer landed at Doin six weeks he came back on a miser-ver, without a shilling, without a friend, able hack, without a penny, and in- and without a calling. He had, indeed, formed his mother that the ship in if his own unsupported evidence may which he had taken his passage, hav-be trusted, obtained from the Univering got a fair wind while he was at a sity of Padua a doctor's degree; but party of pleasure, had sailed without this dignity proved utterly useless to him. Then he resolved to study the him. In England his flute was not in law. A generous kinsman advanced request: there were no convents; and fifty pounds. With this sum Gold- he was forced to have recourse to a smith went to Dublin, was enticed into series of desperate expedients. He a gaming house, and lost every shilling. turned strolling player; but his face He then thought of medicine. A small and figure were ill suited to the boards purse was made up; and in his twenty-even of the humblest theatre. He fourth year he was sent to Edinburgh. pounded drugs and ran about London At Edinburgh he passed eighteen with phials for charitable chemists. months in nominal attendance on lec- He joined a swarm of beggars, which tures, and picked up some superficial made its nest in Axe Yard. He was information about chemistry and na- for a time usher of a school, and felt tural history. Thence he went to Ley- the miseries and humiliations of this den, still pretending to study physic. situation so keenly that he thought it a He left that celebrated university, the promotion to be permitted to earn his third university at which he had re-bread as a bookseller's hack; but he sided, in his twenty-seventh year, with- soon found the new yoke more galling out a degree, with the merest smatter-than the old one, and was glad to being of medical knowledge, and with no property but his clothes and his flute. His flute, however, proved a useful friend. He rambled on foot through Flanders, France, and Switzerland, playing tunes which everywhere set the peasantry dancing, and which often procured for him a supper and a bed. He wandered as far as Italy. His musical performances, indeed, were not to the taste of the Italians; but he contrived to live on the alms which he obtained at the gates of convents. It should, however, be observed that the stories which he told about this part of his life ought to be received with great caution; for strict veracity was never one of his virtues; and a man

o is ordinarily inaccurate in narra

come an usher again. He obtained a medical appointment in the service of the East India Company; but the appointment was speedily revoked. Why it was revoked we are not told. The subject was one on which he never liked to talk. It is probable that he was incompetent to perform the duties of the place. Then he presented himself at Surgeons' Hall for examination, as mate to a naval hospital. Even to so humble a post he was found unequal. By this time the schoolmaster whom he had served for a morsel of food and the third part of a bed was no more. Nothing remained but to return to the lowest drudgery of literature. Goldsmith took a garret in a miserable court, to which he had to climb from the brink of

Fleet Ditch by a dizzy ladder of flag- | he had seen than some grotesque incistones called Breakneck Steps. The dents and characters which had hapcourt and the ascent have long dis-pened to strike his fancy. But, though appeared; but old Londoners will re-his mind was very scantily stored with member both.* Here, at thirty, the materials, he used what materials he unlucky adventurer sat down to toil had in such a way as to produce a wonlike a galley slave. derful effect. There have been many In the succeeding six years he sent greater writers; but perhaps no writer to the press some things which have was ever more uniformly agreeable. survived and many which have perished. His style was always pure and easy, He produced articles for reviews, ma- and, on proper occasions, pointed and gazines, and newspapers; children's energetic. His narratives were always books which, bound in gilt paper and amusing, his descriptions always picadorned with hideous woodcuts, ap-turesque, his humour rich and joyous, peared in the window of the once far-yet not without an occasional tinge of famed shop at the corner of Saint amiable sadness. About everything Paul's Churchyard; "An Inquiry into that he wrote, serious or sportive, there the State of Polite Learning in Europe," was a certain natural grace and decowhich, though of little or no value, is rum, hardly to be expected from a still reprinted among his works; a man a great part of whose life had been "Life of Beau Nash," which is not passed among thieves and beggars, reprinted, though it well deserves to street-walkers and merry andrews, in be so;t a superficial and incorrect, those squalid dens which are the rebut very readable, "History of Eng-proach of great capitals.

known, the circle of his acquaintance widened. He was introduced to Johnson, who was then considered as the first of living English writers; to Reynolds, the first of English painters; and to Burke, who had not yet entered parliament, but had distinguished himself greatly by his writings and by the eloquence of his conversation. With these eminent men Goldsmith became intimate. In 1763 he was one of the nine original members of that celebrated fraternity which has sometimes been called the Literary Club, but which has always disclaimed that epithet, and still glories in the simple name of The Club.

land," in a series of letters purporting As his name gradually became to be addressed by a nobleman to his son; and some very lively and amusing "Sketches of London Society," in a series of letters purporting to be addressed by a Chinese traveller to his friends. All these works were anonymous; but some of them were well known to be Goldsmith's; and he gradually rose in the estimation of the booksellers for whom he drudged. He was, indeed, emphatically a popular writer. For accurate research or grave disquisition he was not well qualified by nature or by education. He knew nothing accurately: his reading had been desultory; nor had he meditated deeply on what he had read. He had seen much of the world; but he had noticed and retained little more of what

A gentleman, who states that he has known the neighbourhood for thirty years, corrects this account, and informs the present publisher that the Breakneck Steps, thirtytwo in number, divided into two flights, are

still in existence, and that, according to tradition, Goldsmith's house was not on the steps, but was the first house at the head of the court, on the left hand, going from the Old Bailey. See Notes and Queries (2nd S. ix. 280). + Mr. Black has pointed out that this is inaccurate: the life of Nash has been twice reprinted; once in Mr. Prior's edition (vol. iii. p. 249), and once in Mr. Cunningham's edition (vol. iv. p. 35).

By this time Goldsmith had quitted his miserable dwelling at the top of Breakneck Steps, and had taken chambers in the more civilized region of the Inns of Court. But he was still often reduced to pitiable shifts. Towards the close of 1764 his rent was so long in arrear that his landlady one morning called in the help of a sheriff's officer. The debtor, in great perplexity, despatched a messenger to Johnson; and Johnson, always friendly, though often surly, sent back the messenger with a guinea, and promised to follow