The spirit of divinest liberty.

_Coleridge. France, An Ode._

The Elegy written in a churchyard in South Wales, is not more below
Gray's.

Of eagerness to obtain poetical distinction he had much more than Gray;
but in tact, judgment, and learning, was exceedingly his inferior. He
was altogether a man of talent, if I may be allowed to use the word
talent according to the sense it bore in our old English; for he had a
vehement _desire_ of excellence, but wanted either the depth of mind or
the industry that was necessary for producing anything that was very
excellent.

FOOTNOTES
[1] It is said, that the best likeness of Gray is to be found in the
figure of Scipio, in an engraving for the edition of Gil Blas,
printed at Amsterdam, 1735, vol. iv. p. 94.--See Mr. Mitford's Gray,
vol. i. lxxxi. A copy of this figure would be acceptable to many of
Gray's admirers.
[2] Essays on English Church Music, Mason's Works, vol. iii. p. 370.

* * * * *

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

Oliver, the second son of Charles and Anne Goldsmith, was born in
Ireland, on the 10th of November, 1728, at Pallas, in the Parish of
Forgany or Forney in the County of Longford. By a mistake made in the
note of his entrance in the college register, he is represented to have
been a native of the county of Westmeath.

His father, who had before resided at Smith-hill in the county of
Roscommon, (which has by some been erroneously said to be the birth-place
of his son, Oliver,) removed thence to Pallas, and afterwards to
his Rectory of Kilkenny West, in the county of Westmeath; and in the
latter of these parishes, at Lissoy, or Auburn, he built the house
described as the Village-Preacher's modest mansion in the Deserted
Village. His mother was daughter of the Rev. Oliver Jones, master of the
diocesan school at Elphin. Their family consisted of five sons and three
daughters.

In a letter from his elder sister, Catherine, the wife of Daniel Hodson,
Esq. inserted in the Life of Goldsmith, which an anonymous writer, whom
I suppose to have been Cowper's friend, Mr. Rose, from a passage in Mr.
Nichol's Literary Anecdotes, prefixed to his Miscellaneous Works,
wonders are told of his early predilection for the poetical art; but
those who have observed the amplification with which the sprightly
sallies of childhood are related by domestic fondness, will listen to
such narrations with some abatement of confidence. I