OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK n.

1759. frame exhausted by unremitting and ill-rewarded drudgery,
iElIl. Goldsmith was indebted to the forbearance of creditors for a
peaceful burial. Bis not, then, in the early death of learned
Sale, driven mad with those fruitless schemes of a society
for encouragement of learning, which he carried, it may be
hoped, to a kinder world than this; it is not from the grave
of Edward Moore, with melancholy playfulness anticipating,
in his last unsuccessful project, the very day on which his
death would fall; it is not even at the shrieks of poor
distracted Collins, heard through the melancholy cathedral-
cloister where he had played in childhood : but it is in this
life, adventures, and death of Oliver Goldsmith, that the
mournful and instructive moral speaks its warning to us now.
I know of none more deeply impressive, or of wider import
and significance. "When Collins saw the hopes of his youth
in the cold light of the world's indifference, with a mixed
impulse of despair and revenge he collected the unsold
edition of his hapless Odes and Eclogues, and with a savage
delight beheld them slowly consume, as, in his own room, he
made a bonfire of them. "When Goldsmith was visited with
a like weakness, something of a like result foreboded; but
the better part was forced upon him in his own despite, and
in the present most affecting picture of his patience the
hectic agony of Collins is but an idle frenzy. Steadily
gazing on the evil destinies of men-of-letters, he no longer
desires to avoid his own; conscious of the power of the
booksellers, he condemns and denounces it; without direct
hope, save of some small public favour, he protests against
cruelties for which the public are responsible. The protest
will accompany us through the remainder of his life : and be
remembered as well in its lightest passages, as in those
where any greatness of suffering will now be less apparente