OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES, [BOOK i,
1788. « of the family and name," he said, « live near Elphin, who,
^TTo. « as well as the poet, were, and are, remarkable for their
" worth, "but of no cleverness in the common affairs of the
" world." *
If cleverness in the common affairs of the world is what the
head should he always versed in, to be meditating what it
ought, poor Oliver was a grave defaulter. "We are all of us,
it is said, more or less related to chaos ; and with him, to
the last, there was much that lay unredeemed from its void.
Sturdy boys who work a" gallant way through school, and
are the picked men of their colleges, and grow up to thriving
eminence in their several callings, and found respectable
families, are seldom troubled witll this relationship till
chaos reclaims them altogether, and they die and are
forgotten. All men have their advantages, and that is
theirs. But it shows too great a pride in what they have, to
think the whole world should be under pains and penalties
to possess it too ; and to set up so many doleful lamenta-
tions over this poor, weak, confused, erratic, Goldsmith
nature. Their tone will not be taken here, the writer
having no pretension to its moral dignity. Consideration
will be had for the harsh lessons this boy so early and
bitterly encountered; it will not be forgotten that feeling,
not always rightly guided or controlled, but sometimes
in a large excess,t must almost of necessity be his who
* Mangin's Essay, 149.
t " A lad whose passions are not strong enough in youth to mislead Mra from
" that path of science which his tutors, and not hia inclination, hare chalked
" out, by four or five years' perseverance probably obtains every advantage and
^ honour his college can bestow. I forget whether the simile has been need before,
•" but I -would compare the man whose youth has been thus passed in the tranquillity
tf of dispassionate prudence, to liquors that never ferment, and consequently ooa-
" tinue always muddy. Passions may raise a commotion in the youthful breast,
" but they disturb only to refine it. However this be, mean talents w often
rewarded in colleges with an easy siibsistence." Inquiry into the Present State of