nding pity for a race--and not for one place alone, but for a
whole land, lain desolate.

Whatever may be the ultimate verdict upon Goldsmith's greatest poem,
one thing is as significant as it is certain. These poetic yearnings
were long in his heart ere he gave them utterance. A wayward, careless
lad, heedless of all responsibility, he seems purposeless and
perplexing to the last degree, yet the profoundest meditations of his
life moved his soul. The very spell of poetry was upon him. This
Divine revealing may have accounted for that outward want of
earnestness of the character, and the career that troubled others if
it did not trouble him. The hold upon the inward and the hidden spirit
absorbed and stagnated the outward movements and the conventional
plans of common existence. It is right to be implicitly imbued with
the honour due to honour, and that tribute which must in every issue
be humbly paid to elemental guiding and essential greatness. Amid the
inconsequent and eccentric variations of evolving genius, the Uncle
Contarine possessed inexhaustible patience. If he had very possibly
not a complete confidence in his wayward nephew, he had an affection
for the lad, and a devotion to his welfare that nothing could
diminish.

This good old man often thought of the poor widow and her boy. He saw
that the provision for a grown lad, ripening into manhood, with no
visible means of independent subsistence, and no ostensible desire for
any conceivable occupation, was a burden too great for the fondest of
mothers to bear when she was very poor. Contarine had been deeply
moved when Oliver came home again that last time thoroughly ashamed
and broken-hearted. This contrition touched the very depths of all the
old man's sympathy. He must have been a man of few words--so few that
he had none to spare for reproaches. He saw to the full the
embarrassments of the situation, and came once more swiftly to the
rescue. His manner was at all times persuasive rather than peremptory.
His plans were practical and immediate. Sudden action stayed the
possibility of growing bitterness. Forthwith Goldsmith was despatched
to Edinburgh to qualify for the medical profession. He was twenty-four
years of age. Although he loved his family dearly, and cherished the
land of his birth with all its pathos and its poetry, he never saw
Ireland again, nor the kinsmen and kinswomen to whom, in his heart, he
lived his days mid fault and failure, sorrow and