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DOCTOR STKEAN AND THE KEY. E. MANGIff.
« of study or the effort of invention. The lightness of such works naturally
"destines them to float, away with the current of authorship ; hut some of " Mr. Mangin's publications on Manners, Travel, and Character, will be preserved, " and now form the melancholy pleasure of friends, who retrace in them the " liveliness, point, and force of his conversation.
" Marrying early, but soon left a widower, with an only daughter, worthy of
'< him, and to whom he was affectionately attached through hie; after a long "interval he married again, and has left two sons, like himself educated at " Oxford, and now in the Church.
" Eesiding for many years in Bath, writing occasionally, and associating with all
" the intelligent in that intelligent city; easy in fortune, and scarcely visited by the " common casualties of life, he rather glided through years than felt them.
" His death was like Ms life—tranquil. He walked out the day before, sat
" with his family during the evening, retired to rest with no appearance of an "increase of illness, and slept undisturbed during the night. In that sleep, " between seven and eight next morning, he expired."
It will not, I trust, be thought unbecoming, notwithstanding its
expressions complimentary to myself, to subjoin a letter on the subject of Goldsmith with which Mr. Mangin favoured me shortly after the pub- lication of this book. Its personal information and anecdote may not be unwelcome to my readers.
" BATH, Monday April 24, 1848.
" Sift, I trust you will kindly pardon my freedom in venturing to
" trouble you with this, for which the least bad apology I can offer is " the circumstance of your having kindly mentioned the writer in your " lately published delightful work The Life and Adventures of Oliver " Goldsmith.
" Your book will, beyond doubt, be generally sought for and relished;
" and indeed cannot, I should imagine, fail of a place in the collection " of every one who has a taste for genuine poetry, and discernment " sufficient to approve of your labours in behalf of Goldsmith's renown.
" Excuse my pointing out a minute oversight in the early part of
" your most interesting volume. I refer to a passage in which you " state my having addressed my inquiries to Doctor Strean' twenty- " ' live years ago.' I lament to say that more than forty years have " passed since I put my queries to the Doctor ; whose letter in reply " is, I observe, dated on the closing day of the year 1807, and was " introduced into a brief forgotten Essay on Light Reading published " in the spring of 1808.
" Upon a different occasion, I have said that when he died, Strean's
" age was almost ninety: this is probably not correct; but I remember " asking him once how old he was, and his saying that he could not « answer me exactly, but that what he recollected longest was his " mother's giving him, when in a child's dress, a black ribbon to wear |
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