RODERICK'S ADVENTURE WITH A SHARPER IN LONDON. 307

began in this manner.-"I find by your tongues you are from Scotland, gentlemen; my grandmother by the father's side was of your country; and I am so prepossessed in its favour, that I never meet a Scotchman but my heart warms. The Scots are a very brave people. There is scarce a great family in the kingdom that cannot boast of some exploits performed by its ancestors many hundred years ago. There's your Douglases, Gordons, Campbells, Hamiltons. We have no such ancient families here in England. Then you are all very well educated. I have known a pedlar talk in Greek and Hebrew as well as if they had been his mother-tongue. And for honesty, I once had a servant, his name was Gregory MacGregor, I would have trusted him with untold gold."

This eulogium on my native country gained my affection so strongly, that I believe I could have gone to death to serve the author, and Strap's eyes swam in tears. At length, as we passed through a dark, narrow lane, we perceived a public-house, which we entered, and found a man sitting by the fire, smoking a pipe, with a pint of purl before him. Our new acquaintance asked us if ever we had drank egg-flip? to which question we answering in the negative, he assured us of a regale, and ordered a quart to be prepared, calling for pipes and tobacco at the same time. We found this composition very palatable, and drank heartily; the conversation (which was introduced by the gentleman) turning upon the snares that young inexperienced people are exposed to in this metropolis. He described a thousand cheats that are daily practised upon the ignorant and unwary, and warned us of them with so much good-nature and concern, that we blessed the opportunity which threw us in his way. After we had put the can about for some time, our new friend began to yawn, telling us he had been up all night with a sick person; and proposed we should have recourse to some diversion to keep him awake. Suppose," said he, we should take a hand at whist for pastime. But let me see, that won't do, there's only three of us; and I cannot play at any other game. The truth is, I seldom or never play, but out of complaisance, or at such a time as this, when I am in danger of falling asleep." Although I was not much inclined to gaming, I felt no aversion to pass an hour or two at cards with a friend; and, knowing that Strap understood as much of the matter as I, made no scruple of saying, "I wish we could find a fourth hand." While we were in this perplexity, the person whom we found in the house at our entrance, overhearing our discourse, took the pipe from his mouth very gravely, and accosted us thus :-"Gentlemen, my pipe is out, you see" (shaking the ashes into the fire), "and rather than you should be baulked, I don't care if I take a hand with you for a trifle; but remember I won't play for anything of consequence." We accepted his proffer with pleasure.

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The contest ended in less than an hour, to my inexpressible affliction, who lost every shilling of my own money, Strap absolutely refusing to supply me with a sixpence. The gentleman, at whose

But

request we had come in, perceiving, by my disconsolate looks, the situation of my heart, which well-nigh bursted with grief and resentment when the other stranger got up and went away with my money, began in this manner: "I am truly afflicted at your bad luck, and would willingly repair it, were it in my power. what in the name of goodness could provoke you to tempt your fate so long? it is always a maxim with gamesters, to pursue success as far as it will go, and to stop whenever fortune shifts about. You are a young man, and your passions too impetuous: you must learn to govern them better: however, there is no experience like that which is bought; you will be the better for this the longest day you have to live. As for the fellow who has got your money, I don't half like him. Did you not observe me tip you the wink to leave off in time." I answered, "No." "No," continued he; you was too eager to mind anything but the game. But, harkee," said he, in a whisper, are you satisfied of that young man's honesty? his looks are a little suspicious; but I may be mistaken; he made a great many grimaces while he stood behind you; this is a very wicked town." I told him I was very well convinced of my comrade's integrity, and that the grimaces he mentioned were doubtless owing to his anxiety at my loss. "O ho! if that be the case, I ask his pardon,-landlord, see what is to pay." The reckoning amounted to eighteenpence, which having discharged, the gentleman shook us both by the hand, and, saying he would be very glad to see us again, departed.

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XIII. OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH was born at Pallas, in the county of Longford in Ireland, in 1728. His father was a country clergyman, with a large family and a slender income, and it was through the benevolence of a friend that Goldsmith enjoyed the benefit of a university education at Trinity College, Dublin. From Dublin he removed to Edinburgh to study medicine, and with the same view he afterwards repaired to Leyden, and his medical education was finally completed by a ramble over the Continent. In 1756 he came to England, and settled in London, where, after suffering great hardships from debt and poverty, and making several unsuccessful efforts to maintain himself as a teacher and as a medical practitioner, he at length devoted himself to a life of literature, which, from his extravagant and improvident habits, proved to him a life-long drudgery. In 1764 he published his famous poem the "Traveller," founded mainly on the reminiscences of his own youthful experience, and his reputation was from that moment established. His succeeding works increased his popularity, while they showed his wonderful versatility; his "Vicar of Wakefield;" his two comedies, "The Good-Natured Man," and "She Stoops to Conquer;" the "Deserted Village;" his Histories of Rome, Greece, and England, and of Animated Nature, were all received with

VANITY OF POPULAR FAME.

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public approbation, and are all, though in different ways, highly meritorious. He died in 1774 while still in his prime, and was buried amid universal regret in Westminster Abbey. As an author, the popularity of Goldsmith has suffered no diminution from time: the charms of his ever-pleasing style, his quiet, good-natured humour, and the vein of kindly sympathy with the sufferings, weaknesses, and errors of mankind, which pervades all his works, gain irresistibly the reader's affections, and disarm the indignation which he naturally feels at the too obvious tendency of many of the author's writings, to encourage in the young those habits of thoughtlessness and improvidence which proved so calamitous to Goldsmith himself.

1. VANITY OF POPULAR FAME.—(“ ESSAYS,” ESSAY VIII.)

An alehouse-keeper, near Islington, who had long lived at the sign of the "French King," upon the commencement of the last war with France, pulled down his old sign, and put up that of the Queen of Hungary. Under the influence of her red face and golden sceptre, he continued to sell ale till she was no longer the favourite of his customers; he changed her, therefore, some time ago for the King of Prussia, who may probably be changed, in turn, for the next great man that shall be set up for vulgar admiration.

Our publican in this imitates the great exactly, who deal out their figures, one after the other, to the gazing crowd. When we have sufficiently wondered at one, that is taken in, and another exhibited in its room, which seldom holds its station long, for the mob are ever pleased with variety.

I must own I have such an indifferent opinion of the vulgar, that I am ever led to suspect that merit which raises their shout; at least I am certain to find those great, and sometimes good men, who find satisfaction in such acclamations, made worse by it; and history has too frequently taught me, that the head which has grown this day giddy with the roar of the million, has the very next been fixed upon a pole.

As Alexander VI. was entering a little town in the neighbourhood of Rome, which had been just evacuated by the enemy, he perceived the townsmen busy in the market-place in pulling down from a gibbet a figure which had been designed to represent himself. There were some also knocking down a neighbouring statue of one of the Orsini family, with whom he was at war, in order to put Alexander's effigy in its place. It is possible that a man who knew less of the world would have condemned the adulation of those barefaced flatterers; but Alexander seemed pleased at their zeal, and turning to Borgia, his son, said, with a smile, "You see, my son, the small difference between a gibbet and a statue." If the great could be taught any lesson, this might serve to teach them upon how weak a foundation their glory stands, which is built upon popular applause; for, as such praise what seems like merit, they as quickly condemn what has only the appearance of guilt.

Popular glory is a perfect coquet; her lovers must toil, feel every

inquietude, indulge every caprice, and, perhaps, at last be jilted into the bargain. True glory, on the other hand, resembles a woman of sense; her admirers must play no trick, they feel no great anxiety, for they are sure, in the end, of being rewarded in proportion to their merit. When Swift used to appear in public, he generally had the mob shouting in his train. "Pox take these fools," he would say; "how much joy might all this bawling give my Lord Mayor!"

We have seen those virtues which have, while living, retired from the public eye, generally transmitted to posterity, as the truest objects of admiration and praise. Perhaps the character of the late Duke of Marlborough may one day be set up, even above that of his more talked of predecessor, since an assemblage of all the mild and amiable virtues are far superior to those vulgarly called the great ones. I must be pardoned for this short tribute to the memory of a man who, while living, would as much detest to receive anything that wore the appearance of flattery, as I should to offer it.

I know not how to turn so trite a subject out of the beaten road of commonplace, except by illustrating it, rather by the assistance of my memory than judgment; and instead of making reflections, by telling a story.

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A Chinese, who had long studied the works of Confucius, who knew the characters of fourteen thousand words, and could read a great part of every book that came in his way, once took it into his head to travel into Europe, and observe the customs of a people whom he thought not very much inferior even to his own countrymen, in the art of refining upon every pleasure. Upon his arrival at Amsterdam, his passion for letters naturally led him to a bookseller's shop, and, as he could speak a little Dutch, he civilly asked the bookseller for the works of the immortal Xixofou. The bookseller assured him he had never heard the book mentioned before. "What! have you never heard of that immortal poet?" returned the other, much surprised; "that light of the eyes, that favourite of kings, that rose of perfection! I suppose you know nothing of the immortal Fipsihihe, second cousin to the moon?" Nothing at all, indeed, sir," returned the other. "Alas!" cries our traveller, "to what purpose, then, has one of these fasted to death, and the other offered himself up as a sacrifice to the Tartar enemy, to gain a renown which has never travelled beyond the precincts of China?" There is scarce a village in Europe, and not one university, that is not thus furnished with its little great men. The head of a petty corporation who opposes the designs of a prince who would tyrannically force his subjects to save their best clothes for Sunday; the puny pedant who finds one undiscovered property in the polype, or describes an unheeded process in the skeleton of a mole, and whose mind, like his microscope, perceives nature only in detail; the rhymer who makes smooth verses, and paints to our admiration when he should only speak to our hearts,-all equally fancy themselves walking forward to immortality, and desire the

ON THE INCREASED LOVE OF LIFE WITH AGE.

311 crowd behind them to look on. The crowd takes them at their word. Patriot, philosopher, and poet are shouted in their train. "Where was there ever so much merit seen? No times so important as our own. Ages yet unborn shall gaze with wonder and applause!" To such music the important pigmy moves forward, bustling and swelling, and aptly compared to a puddle in a storm.

I have lived to see generals who once had crowds hallooing after them wherever they went; who were bepraised by newspapers and magazines, those echoes of the voice of the vulgar, and yet they have long sunk into merited obscurity, with scarce even an epitaph left to flatter. A few years ago the herring-fishery employed all Grub Street; it was the topic in every coffee-house, and the burthen of every ballad. We were to drag up oceans of gold from the bottom of the sea; we were to supply all Europe with herrings upon our own terms. At present we hear no more of all this. We have fished up very little gold that I can learn; nor do we furnish the world with herrings, as was expected. Let us wait but a few years longer, and we shall find all our expectations an herring- ' fishery.

2. ON THE INCREASED LOVE OF LIFE WITH AGE.—(“ ESSAYS,”

ESSAY XIV.)

Age, that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living. Those dangers which, in the vigour of youth, we had learned to despise, assume new terrors as we grow old. Our caution increasing as our years increase, fear becomes at last the prevailing passion of the mind; and the small remainder of life is taken up in useless efforts to keep off our end or provide for a continued existence. Strange contradiction in our nature, and to which even the wise are liable! If I should judge of that part of life which lies before me by that which I have already seen, the prospect is hideous. Experience tells me that my past enjoyments have brought no real felicity, and sensation assures me that those I have felt are stronger than those which are yet to come. Yet experience and sensation in vain persuade; hope, more powerful than either, dresses out the distant prospect in fancied beauty. Some happiness, in long perspective, still beckons me to pursue, and, like a losing gamester, every new disappointment increases my ardour to continue the game. Whence, then, is this increased love of life which grows upon us with our years? Whence comes it that we thus make greater efforts to preserve our existence at a period when it becomes scarce worth the keeping? Is it that nature, attentive to the preservation of mankind, increases our wishes to live while she lessens our enjoyments, and, as she robs the senses of every pleasure, equips imagination in the spoil? Life would be insupportable to an old man who, loaded with infirmities, feared death no more than when in the vigour of manhood. The numberless calamities of decaying nature, and the consciousness of surviving every pleasure, would at once induce