His talents were sacredly devoted to the cause of virtue and humanity. No malignant satire ever came from his pen. He loved to dwell upon the beautiful vindications in Nature of the paternity of God, and expatiate upon the noblest and most universal attributes of man. • If I were to love you by rule,' he writes to his brother, 'I dare say I never could do it sincerely.' There was in his nature, an instinctive aversion to the frigid ceremonial and meaningless professions which so coldly imitate the language of feeling. Goldsmith saw enough of the world, to disrobe his mind of that scepticism born of custom which makes dotards of us all.' He did not wander among foreign nations, sit at the cottage fire-side, nor mix in the thoroughfare and gay saloon, in vain. Travel liberalized his views and demolished the barriers of local prejudice. He looked around upon his kind with the charitable judgment and interest born of on observing mind and a kindly heart-' with an infinite love, an infinite pity.' He delighted in the delineation of humble life, because he knew it to be the most unperverted. Simple pleasures warmed his fancy because he had learned their preeminent truth. Childhood with its innocent playfulness, intellectual character with its tutored wisdom, and the uncultivated but bold peasantry,' interested him alike. He could enjoy an hour's friendly chat with his fellow lodger-the watchmaker in Green Arbor Court-not less than a literary discussion with Dr. Johnson. 'I must own,' he writes, 'I should prefer the title of the ancient philosopher, viz. ; a Citizen of the World, -to that of an Englishman, a Frenchman, an European, or that of any appellation whatever.' And this title he has nobly earned, by the wide scope of his sympathies and the beautiful pictures of life and nature universally recognized and universally loved, which have spread his name over the world. Pilgrims to the supposed scene of the Deserted Village have long since carried away every vestige of the hawthorn at Lissoy, but the laurels of Goldsmith will never be garnered by the hand of time, or blighted by the frost of neglect, as long as there are minds to appreciate, or hearts to reverence the household lore of English literature. GRAY. COUNTLESS are the modifications of the poetic faculty. In some natures it is fervent and occasional; in others, calm and prevailing. In the impassioned heart it is a necessary channel for the healthy development of feeling; in the contemplative and gentle bosom it sheds a patient and soothing light, like the beams of the moon on the current of reflection. It is "an ocean to the river of his thoughts" to one man, bearing in one direction his every idea and sentiment, colouring with a gloomy shade or rosy glow his conversation and his reveries, and weaving an illusive atmosphere around every phase of his experience. To another it is a subordinate element, dependent for its activity upon rare excitement and only tinging, almost imperceptibly, the pictures of memory and hope. Burns turned to poetry as a requisite medium of expression, the natural language of his soul. Byron found in its free and glowing strains a response to the earnest pleadings of his heart. To Goldsmith it seems a mirror for the beautiful sentiments he cherished; to Moore, a graceful echo for his patriotic and convivial sympathies. Poets of this class may be said to cultivate verse because to them life has touching mysteries and earnest meanings which verse can best interpret. But there is another species of rhymers to whom poetry is rather a pleasant accident than a necessity, a quiet sentiment rather than an ardent passion, a subject of tas more than of feeling. To this order of versifiers we are often indebted for the advancement of poetry as an art. Their muse is sufficiently tranquil to be guided with great circumspection. They accordingly have the evenness of pulse and the calmness of eye which is wanted to select, compare, revise and polish. Their effusions. often exhibit a metrical ingenuity, a choice of words and a nicety of design and finish which admirably serve to refine the standard of poetic taste. Before these classic models careless habits of versification gradually disappear. Correctness comes to be regarded as an essential quality of standard verse. In a word, the man of ardent fancy and strong feelings is forced to acknowledge that art is as necessary for the success of his poem as nature. The thoughts which demand utterance must be arrayed in a form beautiful from its symmetry and true construction. The casket must be elaborately finished, or the gems it enshrines will scarcely be appreciated. And thus, by degrees, poetical diction and metre became varied in beauty and elevated in style; and the bard often exhibits as much genius in the felicitous arrangement as in the intrinsic excellence of his musings. Among the poetic artists who have furnished highly finished exemplars of English poesy, is Thomas Gray. Although but a small contributor, as regards the amount, to the jewels of the lyric crown, he is one of the most successful of those who have brought the chaste workmanship of the scholar to the service of the muse. No frenzy of youthful sentiment hurried Gray into poetry. He was always more absorbed with the creations of other minds than his own. Perhaps the strongest tendency of his nature was the liberal curiosity which made the pursuit of knowledge so dear to him that he was content to become a priest at her shrine. He turned not from the sequestered walks of college life, to plunge His youth into the excitements of a professional career. ful draughts at the "Pierian spring," instead of bracing him for immediate action in the sphere of the world, only awakened a deeper thirst; and although, to please his relatives, he became nominally a bachelor of laws, his entire life was in fact that of a devoted scholar. He studied with no purpose of immediate utility, but to satisfy that craving for large and varied knowledge which was his ruling passion. He presents one of those singular exceptions, so rarely found among men of talent iu England, by whom retirement and books are deliberately chosen in preference to politics, diplomacy, a profession or authorship. In the south of Europe, where despotism so effectually closes the avenues to distinction, it is indeed a common thing to see intellectual men devote themselves unobtrusively to the pursuit of some branch of science or literature. Many an enthusiast reaches a happy old age in chase of his favourite phantom. Questions in philology, historical researches, the study of antiquities, and various other fields of mental exercise, beguile minds that would fain, in the prime of their activity, have sought more genial and original occupation. But in England and the United States the gifted and educated man, of limited means, is soon drawn into the vortex of action, and becomes a competitor for the prizes of life. There is something in the very blood of the North which prompts her children to usefulness and honour. It requires no little resolution to stand aside and look on, when all around are in hot pursuit of wealth and fame. Cowper indeed fled from the crowd, but he was driven by a sad necessity. Gray perhaps felt his want of adaptation to general society and ordinary toil. He was quite unambitious, of a delicate constitution, and without that practical tact which insures success. There is something not altogether selfish and unworthy in the philoso |