CHAP, iv.j ESCAPE PEEVENTED.

time must have seemed, even the Old Bailey has not often 1753.
been witness to; yet, far from Warning that worthy Mt.so
court of examiners, should we not rather feel that much
praise is due to them ? That they really did their duty in
rejecting the short, thick, dull, ungainly, over-anxious, over-
dressed, simple looking Irishman who presented himself that
memorable day, can hardly, I think, be doubted; but uncon-
sciously they also did a great deal more. They found him not
qualified to be a surgeon's mate, and left him qualified to
heal the wounds and abridge the sufferings of all the world.
They found him querulous with adversity, given up to
irresolute fears, too much blinded with failures and sorrows
to see the divine uses to which they tended still; and from
all this, their sternly just and awful decision drove him
resolutely back. While the door of the surgeons' hall was
shut upon him that day, the gate of the beautiful mountain
was slowly opening. Much of the valley of the shadow he
had still indeed to pass; but every outlet save the one was
closed upon him, it was idle any longer to strike or struggle
against the visions which sprang up in his desolate path,
and as he so passed steadily if not cheerily on, he saw them
fade and become impalpable before him. Steadily, then, if
not cheerily, for some months more ! " Sir," said Johnson,
" the man who has vigour may walk to the East just as
" well as to the West, if he happens to turn his head that
" way."* So, honour to the court of examiners, I say,
for that, whether he would or would nota they turned back
his head to the East! The hopes and promise of the world
have a perpetual springtime there; and Goldsmith was
hereafter to enjoy them, briefly for himself, but for the world
eternally.

* Boswell's Life, iv. 24.er 1758. f Ibid, 519.r different were the feelings with which he nowteps in. the middle of winter."