with Mr. Jennings on one side to look like the chaplain, and a supernumerary on the other, with an old life-guardsman's sabre, to imitate the sword-bearer; and to see the tears rolling down the faces of the mob as they screamed with merriment. This was beautiful; and so was the appearance of Mrs. Tulrumble and son, as they bowed with grave dignity out of their coach-window to all the dirty faces that were laughing around them but it is not even with this that we have to do, but with the sudden stopping of the procession at another blast of the trumpet, whereat, and whereupon, a profound silence ensued, and all eyes were turned towards Mudfog Hall, in the confident anticipation of some new wonder.

666

They won't laugh now, Mr. Jennings,' said Nicholas Tulrumble. "I think not, sir,' said Mr. Jennings.

*

"At last Ned Twigger, loudly called for by the procession people, appeared before the multitude.

The crowd roared-it was not with wonder, it was not with surprise; it was most decidedly and unquestionably with laughter.

"What!' said Mr. Tulrumble, starting up in the four-wheel chaise. Laughing? If they laugh at a man in real brass armour, they'd laugh when their own fathers were dying. Why dosen't he go into his place, Mr. Jennings? What's he rolling down towards us for?-he has no business here!'

"I am afraid, sir' faltered Mr. Jennings.

"Afraid of what, sir?' said Nicholas Tulrumble, looking up into the secretary's face.

"I am afraid he's drunk, sir; replied Mr. Jennings. *

66

This was bad enough, but, as if fate and fortune had conspired against Nicholas Tulrumble, Mr. Twigger, not having been penitent for a good calendar month, took it into his head to be most especially and particularly sentimental, just when his repentance could have been most conveniently dispensed with. Immense tears were rolling down his cheeks, and he was vainly endeavouring to conceal his grief by applying to his eyes a blue cotton pocket-handkerchief with white spots-an article not strictly in keeping with a suit of armour some three hundred years old, or thereabouts. "Twigger, you villain!' said Nicholas Tulrumble, quite forgetting his dignity, go back!'

666

Never,' said Ned. I'm a miserable wretch. I'll never leave you.' "The bystanders of course received this declaration with acclamations of that's right, Ned; don't!'

"I don't intend it,' said Ned, with all the obstinacy of a very tipsy man. 'I'm very unhappy. I'm the wretched father of an unfortunate family; but I am very faithful, sir. I'll never leave you.' Having reiterated this obliging promise, Ned proceeded in broken words to harangue the crowd upon the number of years be had lived in Mudfog, the excessive respectability of his character, and other topics of the like nature. *

*

But, Mr. Jennings,' said Nicholas Tulrumble, he'll be suffocated.,' "I'm very sorry for it, sir,' replied Mr. Jennings; but nobody can get that armour off, without his own assistance. I'm quite certain of it, from the way he put it on.'

"Here Ned wept dolefully, and shook his helmeted head, in a manner

that might have touched a heart of stone; but the crowd had not hearts of stone, and they laughed heartily.

"Dear me, Mr. Jennings,' said Nicholas, turning pale at the possibility of Ned's being smothered in his antique costume.-'Dear me, Mr. Jennings, can nothing be done for him?'

Nothing at all,' replied Ned, nothing at all. Gentlemen, I'm an unhappy wretch. I'm a body, gentlemen, in a brass coffin.' At this poetical idea of his own conjuring up, Ned cried so much that the people began to get sympathetic, and to ask what Nicholas Tulrumble meant by putting a man into such a machine as that: and one individual in a hairy waistcoat like the top of a trunk, who had previously expressed his opinion that if Ned hadn't been a poor man, Nicholas wouldn't have dared to do it, hinted at the propriety of breaking the four-wheel chaise, or Nicholas's head, or both, which last compound proposition the crowd seemed to consider a very good notion.

"It was not acted upon, however, for it had hardly been broached, when Ned Twigger's wife made her appearance abruptly in the little circle before noticed, and Ned no sooner caught a glimpse of her face and form, than from the mere force of habit he set off towards his home just as fast as his legs would carry him; and that was not very quick in the present instance either, for, however ready they might have been to carry him, they couldn't get on very well under the brass armour."

ART. III.-The Life of Oliver Goldsmith, M. B. From a variety of Original Sources. By JAMES PRIOR. Author of the "Life of Burke." 2 Vols. London: Murray.

THE person who has put together the materials that constitute the two thick volumes whose title is given above, if it was his intention to render more obscure the character of the individual whose biography he has attempted, has certainly succeeded, we should say, to the extent of his wishes; for most assuredly we have hardly ever met with a more jejune and bald affair, than the work before us, in the course of our critical career. The little accession to our knowledge of Goldsmith which Mr. Prior has given us, is overloaded and lost amidst a vast quantity of literary lumber, which has no more to do with the subject in hand than has the history of London. But with all these drawbacks, many will take up the volumes with interest, even to glean what little there is to be found in them, respecting a man whose purity of manners gained him the friendship of his contemporaries, and the intrinsic excellence and morality of whose writings have established for him a reputation as unsullied as it will be endurable.

Poets of all men seem to be doomed to suffering and misery, and Goldsmith had his full share of these evils. In the early part of his career, few, indeed, were the days in which he did not pass the morning in doubt as to whether he should have food for the

afternoon. The success which he ultimately attained, extraordinary as it was, only served to cast a very feeble sunshine on a rapidly approaching decay, and to lead him, by a flickering and uncertain light, to a premature grave. In the course of a very short period he appears to have been made acquainted with every evil in the long catalogue of human miseries, and these were felt in all their most bitter forms by him, without repining, without blemishing the native and child-like purity of his heart; not a calamity to which the literary life is subject was spared to Goldsmith. Yet was his temper never ruffled, always calm and serene, owing to his happiness and goodness of spirit.

But it is necessary that we should glance at the labours of " honest Goldy;" before doing which, we will try and give our opinion as to what constitutes the attributes of a poet, and consider in what degree they were possessed by the subject of our notice. We hold that poets are the priests of nature, endowed at birth with the pre-eminent qualities requisite for this high function. The power, too, thus bestowed on them, unlike other human possessions, is as well secured from the detractions of envy, by the pleasure which its exercise diffuses, as it is from attack by its unquestionable supremacy. The poet speaks to the heart, and ever in a voice of music, whether, like the nurse who lulls the crying infant with song, he mingles his soothing notes with the plaints of wo, or, like the spiritstirring trumpet, quicken the pulse's wildest throbs. He communes with the inmost soul of man he penetrates to the source of his feelings; he analyzes, he interprets, he anticipates, he reveals them. Yet his deep insight awakens no jealousy, for he derives it from sympathy, and he manifests it in forms of beauty.

It is an error of the half-knowledge drawn from superficial and partial appearances, to regard genius and common sense as incompatible. As much so are they as beauty is incompatible with strength, or uncomeliness of feature with gentleness of disposition. Genius is the original intensity of power in a mental faculty, whereby it performs its function with instantaneous rapidity and unerring accuracy. Examples of musical and mathematical genius, familiar to all, distinctly illustrate the difference between genius and talent. To reach its end, genius performs the same operation that common intellect does; but it darts from the beginning to the conclusion with such quickness, as to preclude itself from consciousness of progress, and to impress others-as incapable of understanding the process as itself is of following it-with the idea of supernatural power. When it shall be shown that the absence of all such intuitive capacity is attended by an extra efficiency of common sense, it will be time enough to prove that its presence has no bearing upon that quality. Cases are abundant to show the entire dependence

of each on the other, without going into a theoretical demonstration of it, were that admissible here.

If our definition of genius be correct, it will lead us to understand the nature of poetry.

Poetical genius is the intense sensibility to the beautiful. As musical genius stands to musical talent, thus stands the poet in relation to the multitude of men. Susceptibility to beauty is a quality common to mankind: the degree in which it is possessed distinguishes the poet. Crowds listen with delight to the music of Mozart, and millions rejoice over Shakspeare, through the medium of the same faculties by which these great men, possessing them in higher degrees, excelled all others.

A word on the fine arts, before proceeding further in our attempt to obtain a clear idea of the poet. They might be called the poetical arts, for their essence is beauty-in it they have their being, and according to their power to awaken the susceptibility to the beautiful are they prized. Without a high degree of this susceptibility in himself, the architect sinks to the master builder-the musician is little more than the performer on a hand organ. Even in the secondary branch of painting and sculpture-the copying of the living countenance-this quality must assist at the artist's labour; and a portrait, that has not an ideal heightening, is a failure as a work of art. Herein it is, that the artist is different from, and is raised above the artisan. He works with the same materials, and he needs the same knowledge of their relations and uses; but he combines them for a different end, and, lifting himself above physical appliances, appeals to feelings, the gratification of which is as much a want of human nature as that of its daily desires, and in the ministering to which he does service equally with the worker with rougher tools, though the results of his efforts be not of a utility so obvious and tangible. In him the poetical is superadded to the mechanical.

The range of the artist is limited by the gross nature of the materials and instruments with which he works: and thus, his place is below that of the poet. He can but embody a point in the sweep of passion; he illustrates a moment, while the poet develops a life : he presents but a single scene, or, at most, a succession of scenes; or when, as in music, he attempts a drama, it is but as an accompaniment, more like the rhythm of a poem than a poem itself, and comparatively equally evanescent. The poet for his instrument has language-the messenger and mirror of the mind-the body to the soul of thought, flexible and obedient to its infinite modes-the faithful shadow that ever follows light-the universal symbol among men. But, to body forth clearly with this powerful instrument, he must-besides his poetical superiority, that is, his intenser susceptibility to beauty-perceive more vividly and feel more acutely than

common men. Then will his mind spontaneously pour out its materials, whether, according to original constitution, these be collected from external nature, or from the workings of passion, or from meditation; and each production will be distinguished from the most vigorous of the prosaic mind, by the halo of beauty which surrounds poetry. The pleasure derived from rural occupations and scenes is universal; and yet there has been but one Thomson, to reproduce the impressions made by them in a picture as faithful as it is lovely. Thousands of travellers pass over the field of Waterloo, along the Rhine, through Switzerland into Italy, reaping a rich enjoyment from the various attractions of these regions; but Childe Harold is, and ever will be, a unique work. The story of Macbeth lay among the traditions of Scotland, an unheeded instance of common guilt, till Shakspeare lifted it up, as the God of nature lifts up the common vapour of the earth to forge his thunderbolts.

The poet, then, must know much; through observation, and study he must be rich in knowledge, and be skilled in the use of it by action. He must feel strongly; and, through experience of the joys and afflictions of life, have learned the depths of the human heart. To think without having acted, is but to dream. Merely to look at the workings of passion, is barren observation; the shock from the battery must be felt as well as its coruscations be seen, in order to learn the force of electricity-the heart must meet other hearts through the medium of acts flowing from its own warmth, before the spark of knowledge and truth can be struck forth. In short, to give life and substance to his poetry, the poet must be and do as other men: the man is the basis of the poet. Who has so peered into and illumined reality, even to the deepest valleys thereof, and even to the smallest worm in them, as the twin stars of poetry, Homer and Shakspeare? As plastic art ever works in the school of nature, so have the richest poets ever been the most devoted and industrious children, labouring to hand over to other children the picture of mother Nature with new traits of likeness. The poets of the ancients were men of business, and warriors, before they were singers; and especially must the great Epic poets of all times have lustily worked at the helm on the ocean of life, before they took in their hands the pencil which traces the vessel's course. Thus Camoens, Dante, Milton-and only Klopstock is an exception, but more for the rule than against it. How were not Shakspeare, and, still more, Cervantes, thoroughly penetrated and ploughed and furrowed by life, before in them the seed of their poetic Flora sprouted forth and grew up! The poetic school in which Goethe took his first lessons was made up, according to his autobiography, of mechanics' shops, painters' studies, coronation halls, and of all busy fair-holding Frankfort.

We find in Goldsmith's character and life most of the requisites