n Black here mentioned is one of the notable features of this
series of papers. The mysterious person whose acquaintance the
Chinaman made in Westminster Abbey, and who concealed such a wonderful
goodness of heart under a rough and forbidding exterior, is a charming
character indeed; and it is impossible to praise too highly the vein
of subtle sarcasm in which he preaches worldly wisdom. But to assume
that any part of his history which he disclosed to the Chinaman was a
piece of autobiographical writing on the part of Goldsmith, is a very
hazardous thing. A writer of fiction must necessarily use such
materials as have come within his own experience; and Goldsmith's
experience--or his use of those materials--was extremely limited:
witness how often a pet fancy, like his remembrance of _Johnny
Armstrong's Last Good Night_, is repeated. "That of these simple
elements," writes Professor Masson, in his _Memoir of Goldsmith_,
prefixed to an edition of his works, "he made so many charming
combinations, really differing from each other, and all, though
suggested by fact, yet hung so sweetly in an ideal air, proved what an
artist he was, and was better than much that is commonly called
invention. In short, if there is a sameness of effect in Goldsmith's
writings, it is because they consist of poetry and truth, humour and
pathos, from his own life, and the supply from such a life as his was
not inexhaustible."

The question of invention is easily disposed of. Any child can invent
a world transcending human experience by the simple combination of
ideas which are in themselves incongruous--a world in which the horses
have each five feet, in which the grass is blue and the sky green, in
which seas are balanced on the peaks of mountains. The result is
unbelievable and worthless. But the writer of imaginative literature
uses his own experiences and the experiences of others, so that his
combination of ideas in themselves compatible shall appear so natural
and believable that the reader--although these incidents and
characters never did actually exist--is as much interested in them as
if they had existed. The mischief of it is that the reader sometimes
thinks himself very clever, and, recognising a little bit of the story
as having happened to the author, jumps to the conclusion that such
and such a passage is necessarily autobiographical. Hence it is that
Goldsmith has been hastily identified with the Philosophic Vagabond in
the _Vic