was the nomination of him in 1769 by the Royal Academy to the position of honorary professor of history. It must not be supposed, however, that Dr. Goldsmith, for all his recognition, ceased that picturesque existence which colored so quaintly his youthful career. He still kept up a speaking acquaintance with his old friend, poverty. He was still fond of gay garments, and he might often be seen, caparisoned in his bloomcolored coat, bag-wig, and sword, strutting about the Temple Gardens. He still, too, blundered as if by instinct into odd experiences, and was as always the butt of his friends. There was sometimes a touch of malice in the sallies of Garrick, who had some cause, perhaps, and of Boswell, who was after all Boswell, but the rest were always in good fun. One joke played on him by Burke illustrates especially his naïve simplicity. Burke, having passed him staring at some ladies in the square, accused him, when they met at Sir Joshua's, of exclaiming that the crowd must be "stupid beasts" to stare so at those "painted Jezebels," while a man of his parts went unnoticed. Goldsmith denied having said it, but upon Burke's replying, "If you had not said so, how should I have known it?" he answered feebly: "I am very sorry it was very foolish; I do recollect that something of the kind passed through my mind, but I did not think I had uttered it." "Sir, he was a fool," said one who had known him, to the poet Rogers. "If you gave him back a bad shilling, he'd say, Why, it's as good a shilling as ever was born. You know he ought to have said coined. Coined, sir, never entered his head. He was a fool, sir." But he held his own with his pen and in the Retaliation, called forth by one of Garrick's thrusts, he met his playful friends on their own ground.

It is perhaps of a piece with Goldsmith's character in general, yet rather remarkable for one of his tenderness, that he never became seriously attached to any lady. Miss Reynolds, it is true, ceased to consider him ugly when she had heard the Traveller read aloud. There were, moreover, two sisters, Catharine and Mary Horneck, nicknamed "Little Comedy" and the "Jessamy Bride," of whom Goldsmith was very fond. "Little Comedy" was soon married to a Mr. Bunbury, so it was on the "Jessamy Bride" that Goldsmith showered most of his awkward attention. This affection may have inspired, Irving thinks, the vast addition of gay silken things at this time to the poet's wardrobe. His friends rallied him much about the "Jessamy Bride," and she on her part treasured a lock of hair that was taken after his death a touching tribute to the gentle, loving man whose blunders and ugly features helped him into the affections of men and shut him out almost wholly from the love of women.

While yet in middle life, however, Goldsmith came to an untimely death. His health failed rapidly, extravagances had renewed his debts, and an attempt at prescribing for himself only precipitated the fever from which he never recovered. On April 4, 1774, he died rather suddenly, in his forty-seventh year. "Sir Joshua is of opinion," wrote Johnson to Boswell, "that he [Goldsmith] owed not less than two thousand pounds. Was ever poet so trusted before?" "Poor Goldy" was greatly mourned. Sir Joshua, who was much affected, "did not touch the pencil for that day, a circumstance most extraordinary for him who passed no day without a line." A large body of men distinguished in letters and politics followed him to his grave, which stands alone

in the Court of the Middle Temple. It is significant of his lifelong inability to attain and maintain a position in the innermost circles of respect that he thus lies alone with no comment but his name in Temple Court, while Johnson and Garrick, who achieved such overwhelming honor in their lifetime, lie side by side in Westminster Abbey. There is a touch of pathos in the man even after his death.

"Goldsmith," says Coleridge, "did everything happily," and in so saying really explains the charm of the man. When we know the simplicity and generosity of his life, his gentleness and his awkwardness—in short, the pathos and the humor of him, then we shall not only grow to love the village preacher in the Deserted Village and Dr. Primrose, unsophisticated, foolish, and loving, in the Vicar of Wakefield, and the incomparably amusing scenes of She Stoops to Conquer, but, far more than this, we shall be privileged to join that great host of his readers who have unaffectedly laughed and wept with him. No person, once he is understood, has so contagious a spirit as Goldsmith. He is probably the most picturesque and certainly the most lovable figure among English writers.

EDMUND BURKE

No great English writer has been more closely connected with politics than Burke. He was much less an adroit politician than an able writer, yet now, when the smaller men who passed him in pursuit of office are forgotten, he is remembered not only for his impressive style, but also for his broad political wisdom. "There was a catholicity about his gaze," says Mr. Augustine Birrell." He knew how the whole world lived.”

Next to Burke's great store of knowledge, his most striking characteristic is his fervor. In Parliament he was called "the Irish Adventurer;" once, in his indignation at a navy scandal, he threw "the fine gilt book of estimates" at the Treasurer of the Navy; another time Fox and Sheridan had to hold him by the coat-tails; when he was aroused, he burst into a torrent of invective." He was so violent, so overbearing, so arrogant, so intractable," said Lord Lansdowne, "that to have got on with him in a cabinet would have been utterly and absolutely impossible." It is easy to see why such a man, an Irishman untamed to the last, consistently a supporter of the minority, should have been kept out of high office. The remarkable thing is that, almost single-handed, he could hold the field so long.

Edmund Burke was born in Dublin on January 12, 1729 (N. S.). His father, Richard Burke, a solicitor in good standing, was a Protestant; his mother, of the family of Nagle, was a Roman Catholic. Young Burke's early education was chiefly at the school of a Quaker,

Abraham Shackleton, at Ballitore. From here in 1743 Burke went up to Trinity College, Dublin, where he took his degree of B. A. in 1748. He was not conspicuous as a good student, but he knew his Latin well, showed plenty of ability, and spent much time in reading. In 1750 he decided to study law and was entered at the Middle Temple, London. He never took seriously to the work, however, and when he gave it up soon after, his angry father withdrew the allowance of £100. Yet during these years of desultory study Burke acquired that wide and exhaustive knowledge which was his best equipment. He "understands everything," W. G. Hamilton said later," but gaming and music." Mr. Birrell draws a good picture of this time of preparation. Burke, he says, "was fond of roaming about the country, during, it is to be hoped, vacation-time only, and is to be found writing the most cheerful letters to his friends in Ireland (all of whom are persuaded that he is going some day to be somebody, though sorely puzzled to surmise what thing or when, so pleasantly does he take life), from all sorts of out-of-the-way country places, where he lodges with quaint old landladies who wonder maternally why he never gets drunk, and generally mistake him for an author until he pays his bill."

Help from home failing, Burke took to his pen. In 1756 he published his Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and the Beautiful, a heavy treatise begun when he was nineteen ; and his Vindication of Natural Society, a satirical imitation of Bolingbroke, which called much attention to the young author. As a result his father was pleased to send him £100. Three years later (1759) Burke un