the hidden charm that gave and gives for ever this
appealing influence. It may be touching simplicity. It may have been
his sacrifice and deep devotion, or that kindly affectionateness which
is itself sublime. It might be that pretty gift, the joyousness of
innocence. It is radiant to remember Goldsmith's love of life, and its
pleasures and adventures. He loved the town. He loved the country. He
loved the rich. He loved the poor, the crude, the cultured, the pious,
and the base. He was a philanthropist. It kept him poor. He was, in
all his struggles, ever a patron of literature. No striving aspirant
pleaded for his munificence in vain. If his old friends in Ireland
came to London, he housed, fed, and clothed them. No beggar in the
street could pass without recognition. It was all one to this pure
benevolence whether the gift was rendered in gold or copper. The
beggar who sought a penny could, no doubt, find room for a guinea, if
need be, just as easily in some poor pocket hidden in his deserved
rags and tatters. Goldsmith taught that great lesson that, after all,
the undeserving most deserve compassion. So completely is Goldsmith
bound up in his works, that as you fondly press the cherished volume
of all that he gave that was best, the heart of the man beats with
yours, and in an immortal friendship his life and hope and spirit are
your own. His many and most varied intimacies reveal a genius for
companionability, whilst his higher and deeper unions show equally his
force in friendship, that great grace which few attain.

Everyone became swiftly fond of him and he as fond of everyone. Unlike
Socrates and Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith loved the fields and the
countryside. He roamed and rambled everywhere. Hardly a county seemed
to him quite unknown, from Surrey to Yorkshire. He wandered West: Bath
lives hallowed through his visits to the place. With the bright and
beautiful Misses Horneck and their widowed mother he went again to
France, doubtless often laughingly recalling his earlier travels and
their troubles, telling much and hiding more, with the very poverty of
the past now proving the rich treasures of the present. All hardships
were melted to deep delights in merry reminiscence, Oliver Goldsmith,
loving the Horneck girls much as Horace Walpole cherished in his heart
the beautiful Misses Berry, had nicknames for these daughters of his
gentle hostess, the elder being Little Comedy, and the younger the
Jessamy Bride. If ev