ordinary, their pencil then seems as heavy as a mill-stone, and they spend ten years in turning two or three periods with propriety.

"These persons are most at a loss when a banquet is almost over; the plate and the dice go round, that the number of little verses, which each is obliged to repeat, may be determined by chance. The booby, when it comes to his turn, appears quite stupid and insensible. The company divert themselves with his confusion; and sneers, winks, and whispers are circulated at his expense. As for him, he opens a pair of large heavy eyes, stares at all about him, and even offers to join in the laugh, without ever considering himself as the burthen of all their good humor.

"But it is of no importance to read much, except you be regular in reading. If it be interrupted for any considerable time, it can never be attended with proper improvement. There are some who study for one day with intense application, and repose themselves for ten days after. But wisdom is a coquet, and must be courted with unabating assiduity.

"It was a saying of the ancients, that a man never opens a book without reaping some advantage by it. I say with them, that every book can serve to make us more expert, except romances,* and these are no better than the instruments of debauchery. They are dangerous fictions, where love is the ruling passion.

"The most indecent strokes there pass for turns of wit; intrigue and criminal liberties for gallantry and politeness. As

* [A repetition of the censure passed upon such productions in one of Goldsmith's letters to his brother:-" Above all things," he says, "let your boy never touch a romance or novel; these paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and describe happiness that man never tastes. How delusive, how destructive, are those pictures of consummate bliss!-They teach the youthful mind to sigh after beauty and happiness which never existed; to despise the little good which fortune has mixed in our cup, by expecting more than she ever gave."-See Life, ch. viii.]

signations, and even villany, are put in such strong lights, as may inspire even grown men with the strongest passion; how much more, therefore, ought the youth of either sex to dread them, whose reason is so weak, and whose hearts are so susceptible of passion!

"To slip in by a back-door, or leap a wall, are accomplishments that, when handsomely set off, enchant a young heart. It is true, the plot is commonly wound up by a marriage, concluded with the consent of parents, and adjusted by every ceremony prescribed by law. But as in the body of the work there are many passages that offend good morals, overthrow laudable customs, violate the laws, and destroy the duties most essential to society, virtue is thereby exposed to the most dangerous attacks.

"But, say some, the authors of these romances have nothing in view, but to represent vice punished and virtue rewarded. Granted. But will the greater number of readers take notice of these punishments and rewards? Are not their minds carried to something else? Can it be imagined that the heart with which the author inspires the love of virtue, can overcome that crowd of thoughts which sway them to licentiousness? To be able to inculcate virtue by so leaky a vehicle, the author must be a philosopher of the first rank. But in our age, we can find but few first-rate philosophers.

"Avoid such performances where vice assumes the face of virtue seek wisdom and knowledge without ever thinking you have found them. A man is wise while he continues in the pursuit of wisdom; but when he once fancies he has found the object of his inquiry, he then becomes a fool. Learn to pursue virtue from the man that is blind, who never makes a step without first examining the ground with his staff.

"The world is like a vast sea; mankind like a vessel sailing on its tempestuous bosom. Our prudence is its sails, the

sciences serve us for oars, good or bad fortune are the favorable or contrary winds, and judgment is the rudder; without this last, the vessel is tossed by every billow, and will find shipwreck in every breeze. In a word, obscurity and indigence are the parents of vigilance and economy; vigilance and economy of riches and honor; riches and honor of pride and luxury; pride and luxury of impurity and idleness; and impurity and idleness again produce indigence and obscurity. Such are the revolutions of life." Adieu.

LETTER LXXXIV.

THE ANECDOTES OF SEVERAL POETS, WHO LIVED AND DIED IN CIRCUMSTANCES OF WRETCHEDNESS.

From Lien Chi Altangi, to Fum Hoam, &c.

I fancy the character of a poet is in every country the same: fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future; his conversation that of a man of sense, his actions those of a fool; of fortitude able to stand unmoved at the bursting of an earthquake, yet of sensibility to be affected by the breaking of a tea-cup-such is his character, which considered in every light, is the very opposite of that which leads to riches.*

The poets of the west are as remarkable for their indigence as their genius, and yet among their numerous hospitals designed to relieve the poor, I have heard of but one erected for the benefit of decayed authors. This was founded by Pope Urban the Eighth, and called the retreat of the incurables, intimating, that it was equally impossible to reclaim the patients, who sued for reception, from poverty or from poetry. To be sincere, were I to send you

[ A sketch drawn, no doubt, from Goldsmith's own character, and cer tainly with strong points of resemblance.]

an account of the lives of the western poets, either ancient or modern, I fancy you would think me employed in collecting materials for a history of human wretchedness.

Homer is the first poet and beggar of note among the ancients: he was blind, and sang his ballads about the streets; but it is observed, that his mouth was more frequently filled with verses than with bread. Plautus the comic poet was better off; he had two trades, he was a poet for his diversion, and helped to turn a mill in order to gain a livelihood.* Terence was a slave,† and Boethius died in gaol.‡

Among the Italians, Paulo Borghese, almost as good a poet as Tasso, knew fourteen different trades, and yet died because he could get employment in none.§ Tasso himself, who had the most amiable character of all poets, has often been obliged to borrow a crown from some friend, in order to pay for a month's subsistence; he has left us a pretty sonnet, addressed to his cat, in which he begs the light of her eyes to write by, being too poor

* [According to Varro, he composed three of his plays during this drudgery.] [He was manumitted on account of his genius, and enjoyed the friendship of Scipio and Lælius.]

[Boethius was born at Rome in 455, and beheaded in prison at Pavia, in 526, by order of Theodore, king of the Goths. His work, De Consolatione Philosophiæ,' written during his imprisonment, was translated into Anglo-Saxon by Alfred the Great. Dr. Johnson advised Miss Carter to undertake a version of it. How well he himself could have executed the task we may judge from the following specimen which he has given in the Rambler:

"O qui perpetuâ mundum ratione gubernas," &c.
"O THOU whose power o'er moving worlds presides,
Whose voice created, and whose wisdom guides,
On darkling man in pure effulgence shine,
And cheer the clouded mind with light divine.
'Tis thine alone to calm the pious breast
With silent confidence and holy rest;

From thee, great God! we spring, to thee we tend,
Path, motive, guide, original, and end!"

See Boswell, vol. i. p. 154.]

[He was born at Lucca, and died at Rome in 1626.]

to afford himself a candle.* But Bentivoglio, poor Bentivoglio! chiefly demands our pity. His comedies will last with the Italian language he dissipated a noble fortune in acts of charity and benevolence; but, falling into misery in his old age, was refused to be admitted into a hospital which he himself had erected.

In Spain, it is said, the great Cervantes died of hunger; and it is certain, that the famous Camoëns ended his days in a hospital.†

If we turn to France, we shall there find even stronger instances of the ingratitude of the public. Vaugelas, one of the politest writers, and one of the honestest men of his time, was surnamed the Owl, from his being obliged to keep within all day, and venture out only by night, through fear of his creditors. last will is very remarkable. After having bequeathed all his worldly substance to the discharging his debts, he goes on thus: "but as there still may remain some creditors unpaid, even after all that I have shall have been disposed of, in such a case, it is my last will, that my body should be sold to the surgeons to the best advantage, and that the purchase should go to the discharging those debts which I owe to society; so that if I could not, while living, at least when dead, I may be useful.”‡

Cassandre was one of the greatest genuises of his time, yet all his merit could not procure him a bare subsistence. Being by degrees driven into a hatred of all mankind, from the little pity he found amongst them, he even ventured at last ungratefully to im

["Non avendo candele per inscrivere i suoi versi."]

+["Camoëns, whose best years had been devoted to the service of his country, and who had taught her literary fame to rival the proudest efforts of Italy itself, was compelled to wander through the streets, a wretched dependent on casual contribution, and died in an alms-house in 1579"-Strangford.]

[Vaugelas was born at Chambéry in 1585, and died at Paris in 1650, aged sixty-five years; thirty of which he devoted to his translation of Quintus Curtius.-Biog. Univ.]